Special: Golden Maki, Newmarket ON (52 km)

I'm clearly out of practice with this whole sushi-blogging thing, because I forgot a key part of the process at Newmarket's Golden Maki; I didn't get a picture of the outside of the place for the header. Oops. And it's so new I can't even steal a picture from Google Streetview. Oh well. It looks like a sushi restaurant in a suburban strip plaza.

At least I remembered to take pictures of the food. Like this "teriyaki maki" thing... at least I think that's what it was called. That's what it should've been called, anyway. It was enoki mushrooms wrapped in grilled beef. Sound good? It was.

Appetizers dispensed with, we dug in to our maki course. The Rainbow Roll was pretty good, but the real hit of the meal was the "Golden" roll. It's beyond me why more places don't serve rolls with mango. It was mangotastic. My dining companions very nearly came to blows over the last piece.

But we're not done with the maki yet. Next up was the Vegetarian Dragon roll. What a silly name, everybody knows dragons are princessavores. Name notwithstanding, it was a pretty nice roll, especially if you like tempura yam. And who doesn't?

But to heck with dinner, I only judge a sushi place by the quality of their desserts. And get a load of this deep-fried mango ice cream! Yeah, that's right, more mango. You wanna fight about it?

Newmarket isn't quite as thick with sushi joints as downtown Toronto, but between Solo Sushi Ya and now Golden Maki, you should be able to find something worth eating up there. So quit complaining.

Special: Sushi Train, Winnipeg MB (2,130 km)

This week's regular installment of Sushipalooza is going to be delayed by a few days, as I am on vacation in beautiful Manitoba. But to ensure I remain in top sushi-eating form, I took time out from my trip to pay a visit to Winnipeg's Sushi Train. I believe there are several locations; the one we went to was in The Forks market area downtown.

Coincidentally, Sushi Train shares a name with a now-defunct establishment back in my home neighbourhood. Toronto's Sushi Train had a conveyor belt running around the room carrying plates of sushi, but Winnipeg's Sushi Train takes the gimmick quite literally, running an actual O-scale train around the sushi bar. They actually weren't running it when we came in, but after my adorable nephew asked nicely, they used it to deliver our order. The kids were delighted.

Being a gimmicky sushi joint in a tourist neighbourhood, I expected Sushi Train to be outrageously expensive, but it was actually surprisingly affordable. Dirt cheap, even. Most of the menu items fall under the $5 mark. Fine dining this ain't.

Cheap and dubiously authentic or not, it was all pretty good. With a party of kids and inadventurous eaters, we steered away from the toro sashimi and stuck with the types of maki that cause sushi purists to protest, "That's not sushi!". Shaddup, sushi purists. Some of us like Teriyaki Chicken rolls. In fact, we liked it so much somebody snapped up part of it before I could get a picture of it.

In the end, a good time was had by all, for the princely sum of about 10 bucks a head. Certainly the most entertaining Sushipalooza outing so far. Choo choo!