For months now, I've been trying to drag one of my friends along on a Sushipalooza trip. Every week she'd say, "Naw, that place sounds boring. Wake me up when you get to Ichiriki". And here we are! So of course we both came down with swine flu* at the beginning of the week. Well, no matter, I can put Sushipalooza off until Thursday. It's not like anybody's reading this thing anyway.
We started off with the special-of-the-day appetizer: steamed B.C. clams in a sake broth. They were clamtastic. We also had some shrimp-stuffed mushrooms... similar in concept to something I had at Natural Sushi a few weeks back, but a rather more artful execution. Thinner pieces of mushroom, fluffier shrimp cake, and a light tempura batter.
Appetizers dispensed with, I moved on to my sushi course. I can rarely pass up an unagi-based roll, and Ichiriki's unagi and cucumber roll was better than many. Full of eely goodness! The "dynamite roll" was a fair bit lighter on the fillings than some other versions of seen, but it was very nice nevertheless (and of course I didn't go away hungry). Finally, as I promised (or at least mused) last week, I decided to try Ichiriki's futomaki, to see how it stacked up to Mt. Fuji's. Answer: less colourful, but no less tasty. The tamago (in place of... I forget, maybe the carrot or something?) was a nice touch.
My friend opted to skip the sushi altogether and go for a big bowl of udon. It looked fantastic, topped with seaweed, egg, and tempura shrimp. I'm definitely adding it to my list of "things to eat on a cold day this winter". It cost nearly twice as much as a bowl of ramen from Kenzo, but it would make a great treat once in a while.
Ichiriki is decidedly more upscale than many of it's Yonge St. sushi brethren... must be the Yorkville influence. Anyway, it was definitely worth the wait!
(* - Or else a mild cold. Who can tell these days?)
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