[frege64]

I know that I must have just had bad luck, but I've never had decent sushi in SF that I didn't pay an arm and a leg for. Same with Seattle- Umi is fantastic, but I dropped $58 for myself there, with nothing but water to drink.

We aren't far from the ocean at all- it takes just as much time to transport tuna here as it does to get to Vancouver. Most of what you order in Van is from the exact same supply chain as here. And I'm going to say it: I don't find your typical sushi place in Calgary one bit worse than your typical place in Vancouver. The difference is price. Sushi places in Calgary often do huge business (and this is why the scene here has improved by at least 1000% since I moved here 10 years ago!), but we have nowhere near the market and volume they do in Van. Almost no city does.

So for your average sushi places I don't see Calgary as even a tiny bit weak- take somebody from Ottawa or Toronto to any of the places I list and see their astonishment considering the absolute crap they pass off as sushi in those cities (and Montreal, Halifax, etc). Where Van excels is that their BEST places blow everything else in NA out of the water (well maybe there are exceptions in California), and that they have this huge range of OTHER Japanese cuisines, like ramen shops and takoyaki vendors and of course Japadog. We may never get there, but please, don't keep on with this "quality is brutal" nonsense. You can do so, so much worse than Calgary.