Week 24: Ichiriki (1.0 km)

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?)

Week 23: Mt. Fuji (0.9 km)

This week's Sushipalooza sees me returning to somewhere I haven't been in about 5 years: Mt. Fuji Japanese Restaurant at Gerrard and Bay. I haven't been avoiding it or anything, just, you know... there's a lot of restaurants in this town.

Due to previous TV-related commitments, I took my meal to go. Unfortunately, by the time I got all the way home, got all my food tastefully arranged on proper plates, and spent 10 minutes photographing it, the tempura appetizer had gone a little limp. But the sunomono salad stood up just fine with nice crisp seaweed and tasty bits of fake crab. A little light on the seafood, but not half bad for $3.50.

Mt. Fuji doesn't have quite the selection of oddball maki that I've seen in some places, but I did find a few interesting things, like a flavourful Teriyaki Beef roll. The Tempura Shrimp roll was pretty good too.

But my favourite of the rolls was the Futomaki, packed with colourful crispy veggies and of course the ubiquitous fake crab. It was mighty tasty. I should try Futomaki more often! Though maybe they're not all this good.

It's kinda too bad I couldn't stick around and eat in, because Mt. Fuji is a cute little place, staffed by a cute little couple. But what was I supposed to do, miss Big Bang Theory? I think not.

Week 22: Avocado Salad + Sushi (0.9 km)

I noticed something interesting today while walking over to Avocado Salad + Sushi at Bay and Charles: a surprising number of restaurants are closed on Thanksgiving Monday. Luckily, Avocado wasn't one of them, because I didn't really have a Plan B for dinner.

As the name suggests, Avocado Salad + Sushi offers a number of interesting salad options in addition to sushi. I tried the "Deluxe" salad, featuring grilled chicken, walnuts, and shitake mushrooms. They called it a "small", but it would've made a pretty adequate lunch on its own.

But I didn't stop at the salad. I also got some unagi (grilled eel) maki, and a "crunchy mushroom" roll: shitake mushrooms topped with tempura bits. It was quite nice; the texture of the tempura bits was a good balance for the tasty but mushroomy mushrooms.

The grand finale of my meal was the signature "Avocado Special Maki". It contained crab stick, avocado, cucumber, asparagus, and mushroom, wrapped in what appeared to be pink rice paper, and topped with a delightfully crunchy mix of tempura bits and spicy salmon. It made for quite an elaborate presentation, and all in all I think it was one of the better house special rolls I've seen lately.

Avocado's menu featured something I don't believe I've seen on any of my previous 21 Sushipalooza visits, or for that matter at any other sushi place I can remember: a "create your own maki" option. Is the Avocado Special Maki not interesting for you? Well then just pick out your own combination of fillings, toppings, and sauces! Salmon, cucumber, tobiko, and spicy mayo? No problem! Shrimp, asparagus, pumpkin, cheddar cheese, and chili sauce? You're the boss! Next time I go, I'll have to experiment a little!

Week 21: Michi (0.9 km)

Michi is pretty easy to miss. Located on Bond St., on the edge of the Ryerson campus, it's tucked away in a basement, at the end of a long hall behind a copy shop. Casually decked out in mismatched Ikea furnishings, it doubles as a coffee shop and snack bar.

But I'm not here for coffee, I'm here for sushi. From their modest menu, I pick out a bento box. It comes with a nice green salad, some so-so chicken teriyaki, California rolls, 3 pieces of assorted sushi, and "tempura" shrimp which, while quite tasty, bore a somewhat suspicious resemblance to the frozen breaded shrimp they sell at Loblaws. I'm no expert, but I think the sushi itself may have spent some time in a freezer recently too. But being no expert, I don't much care. It was fine.

As is my habit, I rounded out my meal with a "special" maki roll. They have several on the menu, but without descriptions of their contents. I picked one with an enticing picture and an intriguing name: the Grand Canyon. It turned out to contain tempura shrimp (presumably the same stuff that was in the bento, but I'm not sure), avocado, and fake crab, topped with what appeared to be cream cheese, tempura bits, and that sauce that makes spicy tuna rolls spicy. I thought it was pretty good on the whole, although the cream cheese was a bit weird.

I hope Michi has better luck serving the Ryerson community than Sushi Plaza did. Perhaps it's crawling with students at lunch time, but on this particular evening I had the place to myself. If I was going to school there, I'd probably visit Michi for lunch on a fairly regular basis. It may not be anything to write home about, but it's good, it's cheap, and you can eat your lunch while you have your friend's textbook photocopied next door. Perfect!

Extra: Okonomi House (0.9 km)

Why is it all my "bonus" posts end up being clumped together? Curse you, cruel fate!

Moving on...

Okonomi House is not even remotely a sushi restaurant. I mean, at least Tokyo Grill had California Rolls on the menu. But there's not a scrap of sushi to be found at Okonomi House. So why'd am I wasting your time with this post? Good question.

Okonomi House specializes in okonomiyaki, which is sometimes referred to as "Japanese pizza", because I guess it's sort of pizza-like. It involves a potato pancake topped with sauce and usually some kind of meat or whatever. I decided to go for broke and get the "seafood deluxe", which came with shrimp, scallops, fake crab, and calamari. Clearly this was the way to go; my last okonomiyaki seemed woefully under-topped, but this one did not suffer that problem.

And with that, I'm outta here. Short post, I know, but I really want to get out to Nuit Blanche... I mean it's already 10:30 for crying out loud, what am I doing farting around the house? Seeya!

Extra: Sushi Train (0.9 km)

Ah, poor Sushi Train. You didn't last long enough to make it in to Sushipalooza. In fact, this place has been closed for about a year now. When it was still around, it was a conveyor belt place, not unlike Toko. (No relation to Winnipeg's Sushi Train.)

I went to Sushi Train once. I made the mistake of grabbing everything tasty-looking that trundled past me, as if it was an all-you-can-eat place. At the end of the meal, I had a stack of plates up to my eyeballs. The bill for two of us came in at just over $100. Oops.

I'm not sure what's in here now... I thought they turned it in to a Korean Grill House, but now that I look at the picture I see KGH is next door. Well I shall have to take a look at that and report back. I know you're all on the edge of your seats.

(UPDATE: The answer is... a shoe store.)