You know, I'm not entirely sure why I didn't visit Tokyo Kitchen last summer during Sushipalooza proper. It was sitting right there, across the street from Masa on Charles St. Surely I couldn't have overlooked it while scouring the neighbourhood for sushi joints, and even if I did, I have a chat record of my friend telling me about it in the middle of the summer.
So I can only assume that I must have disqualified it for not primarily being a sushi restaurant. Which it's not; they do serve sushi, but it's buried at the back of the menu, behind pages of noodles, teriyakis, and Japanese curries. I probably could've made a case for including it, and certainly could've used it as an "extra"... but I didn't. And of course I have no recollection of any of this.
But enough about my failing brain. Let's talk about Tokyo Kitchen. Unfortunately, I forget the names of most of the dishes I ordered. Failing brain, you know. Whatever this is called, it's a deep-fried skewer of pork belly. It was OK I guess.
Still with the appetizers, and still deep-fried: little nuggets of chicken breast in a light batter that the menu claimed was soya sauce flavoured. Not pictured: my dining companion's seaweed salad -- not the usual wakame, but something featuring noodles and seaweed in a thick and rather sticky sauce. Much more appetizing than that sounds, I promise.
All right then, on to the main course. I had a beef curry with potato croquettes. The curry was much milder than, say, an Indian curry, but quite yummy. The croquettes weren't bad either. Nice crispy coating and all, though basically just mashed potato inside, a little bland on its own. Good thing I had all that delicious curry to eat with it.
Aw, how did I not get a picture of dessert? It was pretty nice: ice cream and fruit and little cubes of some sort of gelatin stuff. Must've slipped my mind. Sigh.
As I think I demonstrated over the course of Sushipalooza, Yonge St. has a whole lot of cheap sushi restaurants. What it doesn't have so much of is actual Japanese food. If you're looking to move beyond the maki, perhaps you should give Tokyo Kitchen a try. It's hardly hiding at all!
(Someone was complaining recently that I never put restaurant addresses in my posts. That's because I'm too lazy to make a note of them. But Tokyo Kitchen is on Charles just east of Yonge, on the ground floor of the TPA garage.)
