Li-Ao Sushi

This is the greatest sushi place in the universe, please don’t go, I want there to be room for me always.
The service is awesome.
Love feZ

Excellent food, exemplary service!

We go often and the service is always good and so is the food. We have never had a bad experience.

Excellent quality, staff, décor, variety. I will be back.

So friendly and respectful. Very well made and the owner is so nice!
FOOD:well made and you can see them make it!
Definitely coming back soon

I ordered today and they forgot to give Ginger or wasabi in my sushi! Sucks. Don’t like carelessness.

The food was amazing. The service was great. The waiter was really friendly. I will be definitely going back.

Great sushi & great service. We get takeout here and they tell us exactly when our food will be ready. We’ve never once had to wait and the staff here are always so friendly. They’re very attentive to any special dietary restrictions & the sushi tastes fantastic! I also find their prices to be extremely reasonable. It’s definitely worth the drive out!

AMAZING sushi! The staff are ALWAYS very welcoming and give us free fried dumplings cause we go there so often! Love this place, best sushi I’ve ever had!

We needed to grab lunch before heading out for a group hike. I stumbled upon Li-​Ao Sushi, which had some good reviews and ratings so we decided to check them out on a late Saturday afternoon. The restaurant is located deep south (Bridlewood neighbourhood) in a random strip mall area but they make up for it with the sweetest staff and dirt cheap prices. Seriously, dirt cheap.
We were starved from not eating anything so we went to town on ordering. Li-​Ao have a couple monthly specials (see chalkboard) while the rest of the menu is pretty standard Japanese fare.
What I don’t get is how the front page lets you check off what you want but the back doesn’t. So odd… easily fixable but I doubt it’ll be changed. The staff are friendly, attentive and go above and beyond to please you (think that kind, endearing Japanese quality).
— 3x Green tea ($ 1.50 each) — standard fare.
— Deep fried tuna gyozas — not many restaurants give you free appetizers to start your meal but Li-​Ao do! They dropped these off while we were perusing the menu. Crispy fried outside, tasty inside. Good way to start our meal off!
— Negi toro roll (#49) ($ 2.95) and spicy salmon roll (#45) ($ 2.75) — belly tuna chopped with green onion for the negi toro roll. Salmon, cucumber and spicy sauce for the spicy salmon roll. Simple but good.
— Avocado roll (#52) ($ 2.95), salmon roll (#54) ($ 2.95) and tuna roll (#55) ($ 2.95) — 6 pieces of avocado/​sesame seeds, salmon and tuna. These were standard maki rolls. Nothing special but these were cheeeeeeeeeap. At least my sis can eat these without all the fancy drizzled sauces on top.
— Sunomono salad (#82) ($ 3.95) — a traditional Japanese vinegar salad with noodles. I think this is the first time I’ve had this. The octopus was fresh and the noodles were soaked in a sweet, soup style broth.
— Seaweed salad (#84) ($ 4.95) — seaweed salad is always a winner in my books. Chewy, crunchy texture with each mouthful. I could eat this all the time.
— Tempura yam (#90) ($ 4.25) — crisp yam, battered and fried. The tempura was light, not greasy and pretty reasonable for the price.
— Tataki (#111) ($ 8.95) — briefly seared beef, sliced thinly and seasoned with ginger. We forgot to order this originally so we flagged our waitress down and had it near the end of our meal. Light, thinly sliced, tender beef with a sweet ponzu sauce. Good stuff.
— Assorted sashimi (#113) ($ 18.95) — 15 pieces of sashimi. You get six types of sashimi (salmon, tuna, scallops, tako, red snapper and red tuna) and egg (think they threw these in as extras). $ 18.95 for 15 pieces of sashimi is a GOOD deal. Everything tasted fresh and for the price, you can’t really complain (too much). However, the salmon and tuna were cut quite thickly. If you’re into quantity, you’ll be a happy camper. My favourite were the scallops and tako.
— Salmon mango roll (#63) ($ 9.95) — tempura shrimp, mayo, avocado, salmon and mango. Pretty standard fare roll wise.
— King salmon crunch roll ($ 12.95) — this was one of their May special rolls. We tried ordering another of their specials (black cod) but they were already out of it so we went with the king salmon roll instead.
The waitress that served us was a real gem. She gave our whole group each a pack of Pocky at the end of our meal (I think she said they usually only give them out to girls). If you want a cheap place to grab sushi, check out Li-​Ao Sushi!

Probably one of the best, if not the best sushi place in Calgary. My colleagues and I regularly come to Li-​ao to have our monthly meetings over Sushi. The Sashimi has always been fresh, sushi always good. Chicken Katsu is also good. I haven’t had anything that was un-​palatable. Service is excellent and value is unbeatable.
The only thing i don’t really like is their bubble tea. That, however, is not a problem since I always get their hot tea.
If my girlfriend or I are craving sushi, Li-​ao is our go-​to destination. You won’t get any better value for your money when it comes to sushi.

Sushi. Simplified. Good, friendly service. I was surprised that this popular and highly-​rated place appeared so normal. No fancy decorations or fishtanks. Just good, fresh, affordable sushi, etc. And good service.
The rolls were tasty and well-​executed, the cones were new to me but a nice handheld twist.
The black sesame mochi was really good so save room.
It was not something trying to be what it is not. If you want fancy, go elsewhere. If you want food in a friendly atmosphere… And a lot of it for reasonable prices, go here!

My kids love this place so I love this place. The staff are friendly and quick, great with kids.
The food. Oh the food is so good! My kids love the Miso Soup, they had 2 bowls in one sitting. The dumplings are unlike any I’ve tried, so crispy and the sauce is delicious and tangy. We ordered the Maki combo plate. We got 1 salmon, 1 tuna and 2 California rolls. They were fresh and tasted great. My son thought the California rolls has to much mayo on the crab. But I thought they were great. We also had an order of Prawn tempura — Crispy on the outside and plump prawn on the inside. Yum!
Thank you for being so close to home, we will be back again!

Passed by the neighbourhood, very hungry and checked the review saying it’s good, so my husband and I decided to try.
It’s a very typical Chines sushi, not Japanese. Lack of plating and not elegant.
But the price was reasonable, food was um… just okay.
The waiter was nice, and the place gives ladies /​kids a box of Pocky just like what the other Japanese restaurants do.
But the day I was there, the floor was sticky and bugs & flies were everywhere, and there was a bug actually landed on our sushi when we were eating!!! Gross!

Really great sushi for the value! Not to mention the service was impeccable. I’ve never met a more friendly and happy, smiling server before. She greeted us and took us promptly to our table. We were given complimentary dumplings to start and our sushi and sashimi platter was really fresh and tasty. Thick generous portions, fresh fish. The smoked salmon sushi was unusual but awesome. End of the meal, we got a pack of pockys which was a really nice touch. Overall highly recommended! Four stars for food, +1 from the service.
Good value, tasty, fresh fish, amazing service. Bam! Five star performance, bravo.

Do you love overeating? Then Li-​Ao is for you! I don’t think I’ve ever had an item I didn’t enjoy, and my eyes & imagination are always bigger than my stomach.
Li-​Ao is the real deal for sushi in Calgary.
It seems to me that as most sushi places meet with success, their portion sizes, especially when it comes to sashimi, start to reduce — I am looking directly at you Globefish.
Henry and the team at Li-​Ao are fantastic. They are always looking to find new and interesting things to create, and their food is very consistent (I’ve been there 30+ times).

Wow… this place is legit! If it were somewhere closer to civilization then I’m sure it would be jammed ²⁴⁄₇.
First off, when I walked into the place and every single employee shouts something in Japanese to you… totally reminded me of every restaurant I went to in Japan. Then when I noticed that no one really speaks great English then I knew this place was gonna be good.
Huge portions of fish served nigiri or sashimi and it was sooooo fresh… and cheap! I like how there is a variety of tuna to choose from and a variety of different cuts aswell. The sake was actually a brand I recognize and was nice a smooth.
All in all it was a hit… not the absolute best sushi I’ve ever had, but definitely a sweet score for the price. If I can find an excuse to be in that neighborhood then I’ll definitely be stopping in again!

Super tasty sushi! The service was fast, attentive and friendly.
The portions were huge too. The prices were reasonable especially for what we got and the waitstaff treated us like they really wanted us to be there. I honestly can’t wait to go back!

I was sent a menu in the mail for Li-​Ao Sushi and decided after giving it a good look that I should try this place, I am so happy I did!
For starters, could the staff get any friendlier here? I was quite impressed once we walked through the door with everyone (even the sushi chefs) greeted us.
We sat down and were brought water promptly and shortly after that we were brought a complimentary side dish. (How nice!) We ordered: Gyoza, Garden Roll, Unagi roll, Philadelphia roll, Spicy tuna roll, Mango roll and the Rainbow roll.
Oh. My. Goodness. These were seriously the best rolls I have ever tasted. Very fresh, just the right amount of rice and the presentation was lovely. The Gyoza was very tasty as well.
At the end of the meal they give out a box of pocky sticks instead of mints which I thought was a really nice touch — also the price was amazing…
Li-​Ao, you got a new regular!

Nice restaurant inside, the owner/​manager told us that they recently renovated and is now twice the size it use to be.
We ordered the udon noodle soup, which came with two shrimp, two broccoli and one piece of yam tempura. The udon was good, and the tempura which accompanied it was also good. The sushi we ordered, was unagi, tamago, and spicy California. The sushi was good as well. I also ordered the mango shrimp, and chicken yakitori. The mango shrimp were good, but I have to say the yakitori chicken was a little disappointing. The teriyaki sauce wasn’t quite sweet enough, and the chicken slices on the skewers were very small. I’m use to the chicken pieces being a lot larger.
They did start you off with a deep fried gyoza appetizer, which they said if the reception was good they would put it on the menu.
I also ordered a side dish of plain rice. When it came out, it was accompanied by a small dish of «magic sauce». The magic sauce is similar to the sesame sauce you would get at Japanese Village. At the end of your meal everyone gets a box of Pokey’s as well. If you see some similarity here, it’s because the owner/​manager use to work at Kinjo’s on Macleod Trail. He later told us he worked with Peter Kinjo for about a year.
In conclusion, I don’t really know if I will come back to eat here. I’m not a total sushi guy, and the hot food selection is rather small. I also have to say that after eating the cold to lukewarm pieces of yakitori chicken I was kind of turned off.
Would I recommend this place? Maybe if you live in the area, you might find it worthwhile otherwise stick to something you know is good. Tried and true, you never go wrong.