Sushipalooza Summer Wrap-up (Sort Of)

Wow, can you believe Labour Day has come and gone already? As I'm sure my faithful readers will recall, the original plan for Sushipalooza was to start on Victoria Day with the closest sushi restaurant to my house, then visit the next-closest place each week of the summer and see how far away from home I was on Labour Day. Well, with this week's visit to Asahi on Church, we can finally reveal the answer that we've technically known all along!

(*Cue fanfare*) Ladies and gentlemen, the final results of the Great Sushipalooza Experiment of 2009 are as follows: After 17 weeks of visiting progressively-further sushi restaurants, the maximum distance I have had to walk from my home is...

0.8 kilometres!

That's right, 17 sushi joints within a scant 800 metre walking distance... for you people who prefer wacky old-timey measurements, that's about half a mile, or like 160 rods or something.

Other facts not worth noting:

• The Summer of Sushipalooza began and ended with the only two places located on Church St (so far) -- Omi in Week 1 and Asahi in Week 17.
• Speaking of things Omi and Asahi uniquely have in common: they both share names with other nearby restaurants; there is another Omi and another Asahi on Carlton St (over 0.8 km away, so I never made it to either).
• There are still many other sushi restaurants within the bounds of what can reasonably be referred to as "my neighbourhood".

This last point troubles me. I really wanted an excuse to go to some of those places. And once I get into a nice little rut, I like to stay in it. So I am pleased to make the following big surprise announcement... (*cue fanfare again*) Sushipalooza '09 is going into overtime!

Yup, I'm just going to keep right on visiting local sushi restaurants (still in increasing order of distance, naturally), until I reach some yet-to-be-determined radius, or until I succumb to mercury poisoning, whichever comes first.

How long can I keep this up? How many sushi places can there possibly be within a reasonable walking distance? There's only one way to find out... onward to sushi!

Week 17: Asahi on Church (0.8 km)

Hello everybody, and welcome to an extra-super-special edition of Sushipalooza!

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that Labour Day marks the official culmination of Sushipalooza '09... but more on that later. To mark this momentous occasion, I teamed up with Todd from Toronto Sushi!, who has also been spending his summer running around town visiting and reviewing sushi restaurants. With some 40 restaurants and counting, scattered all over the city, his approach to the task is obviously more comprehensive but less O.C.D. than my own.

So let's get to it! I know of at least two places named Asahi Sushi; this one is on Church St just south of Bloor, in a converted house with a lovely little front patio, perfect for a Labour Day sushi dinner. (As you are no doubt aware, eating indoors on Labour Day is prohibited by law).

Somehow, with all the not-so-authentic sushi I've eaten this summer, I still hadn't tried a "sushi pizza", which seems to be a staple on most menus. Time to right this wrong! It was pretty good... salmon, tobiko, and cucumber in mayo on a "crust" of crispy fried rice. And mercifully, no cheese.

The first thing that caught my eye on the menu was the "Fuitopia roll", maki containing some unspecified mixed fruits. Weird! I like weird, so I ordered it. Alas, they were out of some key ingredient (pineapples? lychees? plums?), so I had to do a last-minute substitution of Caterpillar roll. Built around BBQ eel, it was declared a hit by my sister (and Sushipalooza co-inventor), so I guess it worked out OK in the end.

Sadly, my picture of the Caterpillar roll didn't turn out because my camera stinks. But here's the Red Dragon roll, which also tasted as good as it looked. Maybe even better, because you can't see the tempura shrimp in this picture.

Of course man can not live by special maki alone, so we also got a couple orders of... slightly more normal maki. Actually, I guess bulgogi maki's not very normal. It was tasty, but a little on the dry side.

As for how Todd and his sister enjoyed their meals, you'll have to read his review to find out!

So that's it! Summer's over, and so is Sushipalooza '09! (Or is it? Hint: no.) So what were the final results? What conclusions did we reach? What important life lessons did we learn? And where do we go from here? Stay tuned for all the exciting answers in the Sushipalooza Summer Wrap-up!

Week 16: Sushi Tower (0.7 km)

Sushi Tower is the newest of the numerous sushi joints on the Yonge St. strip. If you have a weird feeling I said that about someplace else before, you're right... back in June Takumi was the new kid on the block; Sushi Tower popped up after that, making it the first place to open during the Summer of Sushipalooza.

Sushi Tower is located near Yonge and Gerrard, in what used to be home to KC Wings & Ribs. I didn't go very often (nor did anybody else I guess), but I liked that place. I have 15 closer places to go for sushi, but I don't know of another restaurant around here that serves crispy deep-fried wings in Thai Sweet Chili sauce. Oh well.

Sushi Tower knows what I like; their menu boasts a healthy assortment of "special maki". So I picked myself out a few, starting with a cucumber-wrapped "Kani Salad" roll. It was like a more bite-sized version of a roll I had at Sushi Garden a few weeks back.

Next up was a Mango Roll, with Mango and BBQ eel. Brilliant! More maki should have mango in it. And I always enjoy BBQ eel. Put them together and you've got yourself one fine little roll. No, I don't think it's a weird combo, what are you talking about?

I also got a perennial favourite of mine: the spider roll. The last spider roll I had was a bit of a letdown, but this one fared better. Finally, I tried a Yam Tempura and Avocado roll, which contained exactly that. It was a little bland (not surprisingly I guess), but that's what wasabi is for.

Oh, and I had some Shitake Tempura too. It's like a Japanese version of breaded mushroom caps! Mmm. There's no picture of them, because I was too busy eating them.

Well I'll try not to take out my bitterness at the loss of KC Wings on Sushi Tower. They are a worthy addition to the Yonge St. sushi lineup. Hey, I wonder if they'd start carrying wings if enough people asked?

Week 15: Toko Bistro (0.7 km)

Toko is one of the places I've kind of been looking forward to all summer... not so much for the food as for the novelty. They have a feature that makes them relatively unique amongst Toronto's myriad sushi joints: a conveyor belt that carries little plates of sushi around the restaurant. When you see something you like trundling past your table you just snap it up; the plates are colour-coded by price so the waitress can tally up your bill.

Almost as soon as we sat down, I spotted some tempura shrimp maki going by. Yoink! I also helped myself to an assortment of other maki and appetizers. It was hit and miss, but mostly OK.

Of course you can also order items off the menu; I got a fairly standard miso soup and a tempura appetizer, plus a "New York" roll with fake crab on the inside and shrimp and tobiko on the outside. Not sure what's so New York about that, but it was good.

Like a bull to a red cape (or something), my dining companion was drawn to this lovely red-topped maki on a red plate. He pronounced it to be well worth the $2.50. My other friend decided to try sea urchin roe nigiri... I can't tell you what he said it tasted like, because this is a family blog.*

The biggest beef with our visit to Toko was -- now how can I put this gently -- the service sucked out loud. I mean our waitress was nice enough and all, what little we saw of her, but there simply weren't enough of her. The kitchen was slow too; my partners in crime ordered meals off the menu and they took forever... though not quite as long as their glasses of water, which our harried waitress forgot like 4 times. Oh, and they charged my companion $7.50 for his icky sea urchin thing, even though it was on a $2.50 plate.

Oh well. Maybe it was just an off night for them or something. I ate there before (granted it was like 2 years ago) and don't recall any complaints with the service. And this guy -- perhaps the only man in Toronto to dine in more sushi joints than myself this summer -- didn't mention anything about waiting 45 minutes for a glass of water. So I'll be willing to give them another shot.

(* I should point out that this was an assessment of sea urchin roe in general, not Toko's particular offering. Well, presumably.)

Week 14: Tokyo Sushi (0.7 km)

Here's all you need to know about Tokyo Sushi: they have an autographed photo of Jean-Luc Picard on the wall. If it's good enough for the indisputably awesomest Starfleet captain, it's good enough for me!

Tokyo Sushi is somewhat off the beaten track, hiding down at the Bay St. end of St. Joseph St. Like Solo Sushi Bekkan, I didn't even know it existed until I went looking for it.

Unless my menu was missing a page or something, they didn't seem to have any "bento box" combinations. Well that's fine, all the more excuse to experiment with random maki! My favourite of the bunch was the "Saturday Roll", featuring shrimp and tempura bits.

I also got a "Sunshine Roll", with salmon and asparagus. Not an entirely successful combination, I thought. The "Rainbow Roll", topped with various kinds of fish, fared better. I rounded things off with a couple pieces of tamago (scrambled egg) nigiri.

Tokyo Sushi also offers about the most reasonably priced wakame seaweed salad I've seen... and it was good too. Nice big pieces of dark, crunchy seaweed, garnished with some cute little cucumber slices.

So lay in a course for Tokyo Sushi, warp 3.5. Engage!

(Yeah, I know. Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Week 13: Sushi Hana (0.6 km)

Well this place has a bit of a complex history. I last visited it about 16 months ago, when it went by the name "Soban" and had a distinctly Korean focus (but with a fair bit of Japanese / sushi on the menu, as I recall). I'm not sure how long it had been open at that point, but it looked fairly new. A few months later, it was reinvented (seemingly overnight) as Witches Table; basically the same food in a ridiculous occult-chic setting. Less than a year later, the owners apparently decided the sure path to success was to dive headlong into the already saturated Yonge St. sushi market, and Sushi Hana was born.

Like last week's nearby Sushi & BBQ, Sushi Hana is a Korean-Japanese hybrid. However Sushi Hana is a little more stylish, the dishes a little fancier, and the prices a little higher.

In keeping with the Korean restaurant tradition (I guess), they brought a couple complimentary appetizers: a tiny bowl of noodles in broth, and a tasty little pastry thing the waitress described as "Korean pizza".

Once again, I went for a bento box anchored by a Korean meat dish, this time Kalbi BBQ ribs, along with veggie and shrimp tempura, gyoza, and some California rolls. I asked the waitress if it came with miso soup and she said no but she'd bring me some anyway, which was nice. My free miso soup was smallish but one of the better miso soups I've had recently. I think the ribs could've stood to be a little less well done, but I guess if I wanted them rare I should've asked for them that way.

Delving into the maki menu, I found the Miami Roll, consisting of crab stick and cucumber topped with unagi (eel) and avocado. I like all those things, so I liked the Miami Roll.

Somehow, the waitress misheard my order of a small Sapporo as "small hot sake". I decided to let it slide, on the grounds that I've always kinda wanted to try hot sake. As an added bonus, it turned out to be cheaper than the beer. But I'll tell you this: small or not, that was more freaking 140-proof rice wine than this lightweight needs in one sitting. I am drunk, man.

I'm not sure what this place is doing wrong, but I had the room entirely to myself until about 10 minutes before I left, when a couple finally wandered in. Hopefully it was just an unusually slow Monday night; otherwise I fear yet another rebranding is in the cards for Soban / Witches Table / Sushi Hana. Might I suggest cook-at-your-table Korean BBQ? That way they'd only be the 5th such place on the strip, instead of 13th-and-counting.

Week 12: Sushi & BBQ (0.5 km)

All right, I gotta keep this brief, cause I have some kitchen cabinets to paint. Long story. Well, not that long: I'm painting my kitchen cabinets. There.

Sushi & BBQ is on Yonge near Wellesley, mere steps from last week's non-entry, Tokyo Grill. And like Tokyo Grill, they accept cash only. WTF? Is this block like some sort of black hole for credit and debit card service? Anyway.

If there's one thing I like more than sushi, it's BBQ. The name Sushi & BBQ evokes a place where you can get smoked baby back ribs with a side of tempura shrimp roll. The reality is slightly less awesome but still pretty nice: a kind of Korean / Japanese "fusion". They have Korean dishes (like bibimbap), Japanese dishes (like udon), and hybrid dishes (like a bulgogi bento box).

Unfortunately, the lighting in there made my camera very unhappy, and the only picture I got was this poor blurry thing. You can sort of see part of my BBQ Bento Box and my Spider Roll. It looks awful enough in thumbnail size, you don't want to see it large.

The bento box came with Korean BBQ beef, and some glass noodles (nice)... but no miso soup. When's the last time you saw a bento box with no miso soup? No tempura either... well, what can you expect for 8 bucks I guess?

Anyhoo, I gotta get back to work. See you next week!