Bento Nouveau

Bento Nouveau is a Japanese, fast-​food style restaurant. It is located on the first floor of the Rideau Centre in the food court area. Bento Nouveau offers take out style food without waiter service.
In terms of the menu, Bento Nouveau offers a wide selection of options when compared to other mall sushi restaurants; they have sushi, salads, udon, soba, gyoza, teriyaki, and Japanese style wraps. Please note that Bento Nouveau does not have EVERY roll combo or salad ready for take out. If you want something they do not have prepared, the staff are always willing to make it. Most meals take 5 to 10 minutes to prepare.
Despite the large menu at Bento Nouveau, they do not offer lots of choices if you are vegetarian or vegan; yes they do have the typical veg sushi options like cucumber, avocado and vegetarian rolls. They also offer vegetarian rice wraps and vegetarian udon or soba soups. It would be nice if they had more vegetarian combo options, however you can build your own combo with the employees when they’re not too busy. Also, if you are vegetarian or vegan, please double check to make sure the miso soup does not contain fish. Most fast-​food style sushi restaurants don’t use fish bouillon for their miso to cut costs. However, I distinctively remember tasting fish broth in the miso at BN.
Now obviously it’s unfair to compare mall sushi to something you’d order at a sit down restaurant; in order for the meals to be prepared quickly, most ingredients are prepped before hand. This allows quick meal assembly but does sacrifice some of the freshness.
None the less, do not let this dissuade you from eating at Bento Nouveau; I have never had a bad meal at BN. I eat here at least once a month. The fish is as fresh as fast food sushi can be. This means that the fish arrives frozen and is thawed as needed. The soba is flavourful, as is the teriyaki. BN uses proper sushi rice, which is always fresh and well seasoned. For around 10 $, you can get an excellent and healthy meal, which is more than most of the other restaurants in the Rideau Centre food court offer.

Bento Nouveau is the little fast-​food sushi bar in the food court of the Rideau Centre. It actually has a big sign that says «SUSHI», and «Bento Nouveau» in small print below it, so people may not even know what it’s actually called.
Most people will head to ByWard Market to check out one of many sushi bars, but if you’re in the mood for sushi and already at the mall, and if you’re short on time or just too lazy to walk to the Market, Bento Nouveau is not a bad choice. Their sushi is made fresh daily, and you have the option of ordering to be made, or pick up one of their pre-​made containers in the fridge. They have many different types of sushi and rolls. They have your standard bean curd, California rolls, cooked shrimp, tuna, salmon, spicy salmon, roe, and imitation crab meat. There are different varieties, and some are made with brown or white rice, seaweed wrap or rice paper, and there are vegetarian options as well, all for reasonable prices. The service is also pretty fast and they’re all very sweet and accommodating.
They also have soup, salads, sandwiches, and rice and noodle dishes, though people either don’t know this, or simply choose to eat at the other Asian restaurants in the food court, like Made in Japan for the teriyaki grill, Manchu Wok, or Thai Express.