Sushi Bar Zipang

Sushi Bar Zipang

Location: Bridgeland, right by all the italian spots

Craving good sushi, we headed down to Sushi Bar Zipang after hearing good things about it. It's in a small professional building, and you'd drive right by if you didn't know it was there. We entered a dark but very nice environment, and were greeted right away by the waitresses there, as well as what appeared to be the owner.


Looking over the menu, nothing really jumped out, other than seeing that there were a few more dinner combos suited to people less inclined for sushi, like teriyaki steak with rice, salad, and miso soup. Sometimes that spells bad things, but we took our chances anyways.

We were craving noodles so we went with a small selection of sushi as well as a chicken udon and a specialty soba dish. If you don't know what either of those is, either you need to eat out more, or I'm eating out too much. Just kidding. Soba is a black/grey buckwheat noodle, traditionally served cold, but it can also be served warm - while udon is a wheat noodle, very thick, somewhat like a chinese shanghai style noodle, usually served in a broth.

The sushi was some of the better pieces we found in terms of freshness, and the noodles were excellent. The chicken was not dried out like so many other lesser sushi house udon bowls I've had. I found I was less of a fan of soba, if hot - definitely go for soba on a hot summer day, and make sure you order it cold. I'd definitely go back for just the udon. It's also rare that you find the entire staff actually japanese, vs chinese, in a sushi place in Calgary these days.

All in all, decent, prices were pretty normal for sushi, and surprisingly good in the italian neighbourhood of Calgary.

Taste: 8.5/10 - mmmm.... udon.

Ambiance: 8/10 - nice ambiance, it's definitely a popular spot after work.

Plating/Presentation: 7/10 - pretty standard sushi plating, didn't see anything that wowed me.

Prices: $10 - 15 for noodle dishes, don't really remember the rest of it.