Bonus: Sushi Inn (1.5 km)

So tonight I was wandering around trying to figure out what to have for dinner, when I simultaneously realized two things: 1) I haven't had sushi in forever, and 2) I was only a couple blocks away from Sushi Inn. If I'd kept going with the Sushipalooza thing, Sushi Inn would've come in around Week 39 or so.

Sushi Inn is located on Cumberland in the heart of Yorkville. It's oddly separated into two levels that don't seem to be connected to each other at all, as if there just happen to be two restaurants with the same name located one above the other. Not sure what's up with that. I arbitrarily went into the upstairs one.

Feeling slightly adventurous, I decided to get an appetizer that wasn't Mixed Tempura or Gyoza. Instead I got this lovely Ika Sugatayaki (grilled squid). It managed to avoid the rubbery fate that befalls too many squid dishes, and the ginger sauce was quite nice.

Then, as usual, I picked some rolls off the Special Maki menu, starting with the "house special" Sushi Inn Roll. Made with eel, avocado, and salmon skin, I found it to be worthy of its headliner status. Definitely my favourite out of the dishes I ordered.

They also offered 3 variations on the Dragon Roll; I went with the salmon-topped version. The avocado was a little on the soft side, and the presentation was, shall we say, somewhat odd. But it was quite tasty. Not as good as the Sushi Inn roll, but enjoyable nevertheless. The Kani Salad Roll was visually quite appealing, but the flavour was a little underwhelming. Probably because it was wrapped in cucumber. Should've seen that coming.

There we go, one more sushi place down! At this rate, I will have been to every sushi place within a 2km radius of my house by 2019!

Bonus: Simon Sushi (2.0 km)

Hey, long time no sushi!

I'm not sure when or if I would've gotten as far as Simon Sushi on Spadina for Sushipalooza proper, but it's not so far away. Definitely one of the 100 closest sushi places to my house.

I built my meal at Simon Sushi by selecting a few of their alarmingly cheap maki rolls. The "Yonge Roll" featured tempura shrimp and pickled daikon radish or whatever that yellow stuff is. The "U of T Roll" had eel and avocado and cream cheese. What's that you say? Sounds weird? It was.

My favourite of the rolls was the promisingly named "Tropical Delight". I don't even remember what was inside, but it had mango on top. You can't go wrong with mango on top.

So yeah, Simon Sushi: pretty decent quality sushi at crappy sushi prices, which equals a bona fide bargain!

Does this writeup seem a little half-assed, after all these months of silence? So sue me. I'm tired. Goodnight!

Bonus: Sushi Queen Izakaya (1.0 km)

If you've been following Sushipalooza since last year (why??), you may recall the sad tale of Mochizuki, which went out of business just before I got around to visiting it. Well something new has finally opened up in it's space. Is it a coffee shop? A haberdashery? A Kinkos? Heavens no, it's another sushi place!

Well actually a sushi place / izakaya, because izakayas are the hot food trend of summer 2010. Sushi Queen Izakaya an offshoot of the popular (I think) Sushi Queen on Queen St., but with some extra izakaya-y stuff on the menu. Also some additional wacky maki rolls. I love wacky maki!

But first I got started with some wakame seaweed salad which much like any other wakame salad I've had (i.e. good). Then from the izakaya menu, a bacon enoki roll, which is exactly what it sounds like, assuming it sounds like enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon and grilled. And also assuming it sounds tasty. Which it was.

As it happens, Sushi Queen Izakaya is right up the street from the ill-fated Tatami Sushibar (still closed by the way, and still scattered with remnants of lunches left by fleeing diners), and they've really stepped in to fill the void in over-the-top presentation. Complete with a glowing bowl of sprouts in the middle of my plate of Paris Rolls. The rolls themselves were pretty good too; like inside-out spicy tuna and salmon rolls topped with lobster salad.

But personally I preferred the Hawaiian Roll, which incidentally contained neither ham nor pineapple. Instead it was tempura shrimp, crab stick, cucumber and tobiko in a rice paper wrapping. Oh and mango I think. Was there mango? I forget. Well it was good either way. (Ed.: No mango, but salmon. Good thing I take pictures to refresh my memory!)

Sushi Queen Izakaya doesn't have the same fun atmosphere of the perpetually-packed Guu (which moved into Sushi Plaza's old digs a few months ago), but it does have some pretty decent food. And if you hustle, it's 20% off until the end of July, or something like that.

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.

Bonus: Tatimi Sushibar (0.9 km)

More than anything, this is a story about the oblivious haze in which I live most of my life.

Yesterday I was walking down Yonge St., and I was surprised to see a new sushi restaurant which I'd never noticed before. Now this kind of thing happens fairly frequently in Toronto, where sushi restaurants spring up with astonishing regularity, but I've walked past that intersection numerous times in the past few weeks -- including the night before -- and had never noticed any new sushi restaurant, or even a "coming soon" sign. It was as if it had materialized literally overnight. Hell, maybe it did.

The sushi place in question is Tatami Sushibar which, like Sushi Shop, is apparently an import from Montreal. Which I guess explains that "The Chaud" on my bill. "What Chaud," I thought. "I didn't order any Chauds."

What I did order was a Wonton Miso Soup, which was pretty good and gets extra points for the little chunks of shitake mushrooms floating in it. Also some Katsu Tofu, because it's been like 3 weeks since I last had deep-fried tofu.

Tatami's selection of maki and nigiri isn't super extensive, but they have enough interesting things to choose from. I got a Dragon Ball roll, with tempura shrimp and crab stick, as well as a smoked salmon filled Vancouver Roll served with a side of cream cheese mayo for dipping. Oh yeah, and some unagi nigiri. Am I too predictable?

Now I've seen quite a bit of sushi over the past 9 months or so. Some of it has been crammed onto a big platter, some of it has been elegantly plated, but this... this has got to take the cake as the most over-the-top fancy presentation in all of Sushipalooza. Just look at that! All those little sticks holding up the sour cherries and whatnot were made out of fried noodles or something similar and technically edible. I picked them all out before it even occurred to me to use them to eat the sushi like popsicles. Now that would've been the classy thing to do!

And finally, we come to the semi-traditional sushi dessert of fried banana drizzled with honey. I think I might have preferred it drizzled with chocolate, but whatever, honey's good too.

So that's Tatami: King and Spadina style on a Yonge and Carlton budget! Or something like that. Hey, you can use that slogan guys, free of charge!

And yes, I know, I still haven't gone to Japango. I'll get to it...

Bonus: Etsu (1.8 km)

Hey everybody, long time no see! I know I half-promised to go to Japango at some point, and I tried to go tonight... but it turns out you can't just wander in there on a Saturday night without a reservation and expect to get a table. In all my 30-odd Sushipalooza outings, I never once needed a reservation. Of course I usually went on weeknights, and often to places with more tables and less of a reputation than Japango. Oh well, I guess I'll have to go some other time.

In the meantime, Japango's loss was Etsu's gain. Etsu is a relatively recent addition to Baldwin Village's already rather vast selection of Japanese restaurants. Departing Japango, we had to pass no fewer than 8 other sushi joints to get to Etsu, but all things considered I'm glad we did.

There were 3 people in our party, and we decided to keep things simple and order the "Dinner for 3", which was basically all the stuff you'd get in a standard bento box, multiplied by 3. But instead of crummy "green salad", it comes with wakame seaweed salad, so we're off to a good start.

After the salad came some fairly standard miso soup and tempura vegetables and shrimp. After that was the sushi course, consisting of assorted nigiri and California rolls. They were pretty good California rolls.

The "main course" of teriyaki chicken came served on a sizzling iron platter. I'm a real sucker for anything served on a sizzling iron platter. Beats a plastic bento box any day.

OK, we didn't quite keep it simple; in addition to our set-course dinner we got a fried tofu appetizer (because tofo just wants to be deep fried) and a Black Dragon roll, because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten any BBQ eel with my dinner.

After our dessert we had a pot of "Blooming Tea", a clear tea of aloe, honey, and rose buds served in a transparent glass pot. It was bloomin' fantastic. Very sweet, with a nice floral fragrance. A good way to settle your stomach after overstuffing it with sushi.

So yeah, we didn't get to go to Japango like we planned, but it all worked out pretty well in the end. The waitress (after mentioning they'd only been open 3 months) asked us to tell our friends if we liked the place. So, hey friends: we liked Etsu!

(p.s. - Be sure to check out the bathrooms!)

Post-Holiday Leftovers

Sushipalooza may have officially wrapped up at the end of 2009, but that doesn't mean I'm out of sushi places. Heck, if it was summer I might've kept it going to a 2km radius, but that's a little far to walk in this miserable winter weather.

Below are what would've (theoretically, maybe) been the next Sushipalooza visits, if only I had more gumption.

Sushi Shop - Bloor & Church (1.0 km)

Hey, when did this happen? I went to the Yonge and Carlton location of Sushi Shop some months ago, and I've been watching for their second location to open, but obviously I'm too lazy to check every week. It looks like Sushi Shop II should've made the final cut and pushed Aji Sai to the grand finale spot. Oops!

Japango (1.4 km)

I hear good things about this place, so I kind of regret cutting things off right before I got to it. Not to spoil the surprise, but I may end up checking it out as a "bonus" trip soon.

Aka Sushi (1.4 km)

Well, I guess I wouldn't have made it to Aka Sushi anyway... I believe they closed up shop sometime in October or November.

Sushi-Q - Eaton Centre (1.4 km)

The Sushi-Q location in Toronto Life Square may be MIA, but across the street in the Eaton Centre they're still going strong. In my university days I used to occasionally go here for their end-of-day half price specials (though these days it's like 20% off or something similarly lame).

Sushi & Bento (1.5 km)

Right up the street from Kyoto House, this is another one that I totally would've gone to if the year was just a few weeks longer.

Yuki Sushi (1.5 km)

No sooner had Aka Sushi curled up its toes and died when Yuki Sushi popped up a block away (in the former Wimpy's Diner location at Dundas and University) to take its place.

Yamato (1.5 km)

Wait, is a Japanese Steak House anything like a sushi restaurant? Maybe this place would've been disqualified... I hope not, because it was personally recommended by a friend of mine.

Sushi Inn (1.5 km)

It's in Yorkville, so I'm sure that means lots of big Hollywood stars have sent their errand boys in there to pick something up. Of course we already know that Patrick Stewart prefers Tokyo Sushi.

Shogun (1.5 km)

I've been here before... they're right across from the Cumberland theatre, and you can get sukiyaki cooked on a hot plate at your table. Or is it shabu-shabu?

Sushi Baldwin (1.6 km)

The dense knot of restaurants at the east end of Baldwin includes perhaps the highest per-storefront density of sushi places in town, starting with Sushi Baldwin.

Kuni Sushi Ya (1.7 km)

A little further along Baldwin, Kuni Sushi Ya offers what I'm sure is a lovely little patio when it's not minus effing sixteen outside.

Kon-Nichi-Wa (1.7 km)

This place was closed on the Saturday afternoon I walked by, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that's not permanent. No menu posted outside, so I'm not sure if they're a "sushi" restaurant per se.

Etsu (1.8 km)

Man, going over this list is making me a little wistful for all the places I'll be missing out on. Maybe I'll check a few of them out anyway. Who's gonna stop me? You??

Fujiyama (1.8 km)

I think this is the only sushi restaurant on the Baldwin strip I have been to. I had a bowl of seafood tempura udon. The tempura was soggy, because it was floating in a bowl of soup. Duh.

Gallery Sushi (1.8 km)

If you can't find enough sushi restaurants on Baldwin, there's another mini-node around the corner at Dundas and McCaul, including Gallery Sushi in the Village by the Grange.

Just up the mall from Gallery Sushi are two Japanese-but-not-necessarily-sushi restaurants: Sakura in the food court, and diner-style Manpuku.

Sushi & BBQ (1.8 km)

Right across the street from Village by the Grange; I have no idea if this place is any relation to the Sushi & BBQ on Yonge St. Probably, though.

And that's as far out as I bothered to look. If you're counting (and I am), that's nearly 50 sushi restaurants within less than 2km of my house. Which is a lot of sushi! That was kind of the point of this whole enterprise, right? Wait, what was the point again?

Sushipalooza '09: The Year in Review

Well as you may have noticed, this week's entry marked the (second) official end to Sushipalooza '09. It seemed as good a time as any to end it, being the end of the year and all. As the weather got colder and the walks got longer, it started to feel like I was reaching the limit of what I could reasonably call "local" sushi places. I probably could've dragged it out for a few more weeks, but then I wouldn't have been able to end things at the end of the year in an all-you-can-eat joint with my family. Better to go out with a bang than a whimper, I always say!

So what have we learned? Lots! Though very little of it is of any use:

• Total sushi restaurants visited: 33 (not counting out-of-town extra places).
• Furthest distance traveled: 1.4 km (actually, 1.37).
• Total spent: $896 (!... and I didn't even pay for a couple that people genorously treated me to).
• Best meal: Omi on Carlton.
• Worst meal: Mariko.
• Blowfish-related food poisonings: 0.

Well, that's that. More or less. I'm sure I'll still eat sushi from time to time, and when I do, probably I'll be unable to resist the urge to photograph it and blog about it. So there's that to look forward to.

Thanks for joining me on this fantastic quest, imaginary readers! It's been a slice! Happy New Year!

Week 33: Kyoto House (1.4 km)

Well, this is it: the Grand Finale of Sushipalooza! Yes, 2009 is drawing to a close, and with it we bid adieu to Sushipalooza '09. Stay tuned for a wrap-up post in a couple days, but right now let's get to our final Sushipalooza destination: Kyoto House at Dundas and Elizabeth.

This being a special occasion and all, I dragged every family member who lives within a 1000 km radius along with me to sample Kyoto House's all-you-can-eat menu. Of course I promptly lost track of what we ordered and what was what, so the following pictures and descriptions will be even more useless than usual:

I haphazardly ticked off most of the things on the order form and handed it in, and we were soon presented with a large platter containing at least 6 different types of maki, and as many varieties of nigiri. Some of the maki got mixed reviews, but everybody found something they liked and all the rolls found somebody who liked them, so it's all good. For an all-you-can-eat place, the rice-to-fish ratio was pretty decent.

That giant platter wasn't big enough to contain our entire first round: the overflow included a Tempura Shrimp Roll and a Spider Roll, along with various fried and grilled items (teriyaki chicken, beef ribs, tempura yam...)

Somehow though, we found room for a second round, anchored by a Rainbow Roll and supplemented unagi nigiri, crab-and-avocado rolls, tempura calamari rings, and Lord knows what else. I was starting to slip into a food coma by this point.

Oddly, while some AYCE sushi places seem to "forget" to bring you one or two of your more expensive items, the only things Kyoto House forgot were the cheapest things on the menu. We ordered bowls of steamed rice -- surely the cheapest and easiest item of all -- on two separate occasions, and they never did show up. Weird. Well, whatever. There was unanimous agreement that Kyoto House was far better than that crummy Mariko around the corner on Yonge St. All in all, it was a fitting and satisfying conclusion to the Great Sushipalooza Experiment.

The End! (Sort of).

Week 32: Aji Sai (1.3 km)

Yay, another all-you-can-eat sushi place! Boo, all my friends and/or family are either busy with the holidays or sick of joining me on sushi junkets! So once again, I had to go it alone.

The problem with solo AYCE sushi is that with fewer mouths to share the rolls, it's hard to get a decent variety. So my strategy was to skip the silly salads and appetizers and cram as much maki into my gullet as humanly possible. The menu didn't have any pictures or descriptions, so I did the only sensible thing: picked the rolls with the most interesting names.

Turns out the "Cowboy Roll" contains grilled beef. Makes sense. The optimistically named "Excellent Roll" was filled with tempura shrimp and avocado, and topped with slices of whitefish and spicy mayo. I guess it was pretty excellent.

As eponymous house-special rolls go, the "Aji Sai Roll" with crab stick and tempura bits isn't very elaborate, but it was pretty good nevertheless. And for some reason I can never resist the tamago (egg) nigiri.

I still had room for one more charmingly-named roll, so I went with the "Rock 'n' Roll": a salmon and snapper maki dipped in tempura batter and deep-fried. Similar in concept to the Fried Smoked Salmon Roll at Sushi Club, but with a much cooler name.

For dessert I ordered a fried banana with mango ice cream, which I promptly dug into, completely forgetting to take a picture. Oh well. It looked like a fried banana with mango ice cream. It tasted like a fried banana with mango ice cream.

Well, Merry Sushimas everybody! Peace out!