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| - Super disappointing!! Once again, my hopes for a good local sushi joint have been dashed. Shio is currently in soft opening, and offering a free tapas dish to entice new customers. We had the Yam Poutine, Crispy Tofu Cubes, Maki Trio, and Blowtorched Sushi Five. We assumed that we would start with these and them order more later. No such luck. The Yam Poutine was fine - not as good as the Squash Poutine at Oddseoul, but serviceable. The Crispy Tofu Cubes were cooked nicely - crispy but still soft - they could have used more sauce, but otherwise no complaints. The next dish to arrive was the Maki Trio. It looked beautiful, but on first bite, there was a major problem - the sushi rice was COLD. Really cold, like refrigerated cold? In fact, the whole roll was super cold, uniformly, like perhaps the rolls were pre-made and refrigerated. This is seriously not ok - not to be a total sushi snob, but sushi that's fridge cold is not good. Actually, I'm totally fine with being a sushi snob - sushi rice should never be this cold. It's a step down from even grocery store sushi, colder and less palatable. It's like leftover sushi that you are remembering to eat 2 days later. I called our server over, explained the issue with the cold rice, and she said that sushi rice was supposed to be cold. Uh, no. I googled and showed her a quote from Jiro - sushi rice is supposed to be fresh and 30 minutes out of the rice cooker - body temperature. Warm but not hot, warm but not cold. All of which to be better suited to show off the flavour of the fish - cold sushi rice is an assault on the palate, and distracting. We sent the Maki Trio back. The Blowtorched Sushi Five arrived, and the fish was very good - the blowtorch effect really brings out the flavour of the fish. But again, the rice was fridge cold. So sad. Service - well, the server offered zero suggestions on the menu and told me sushi rice was supposed to be fridge cold, soooo.... no, just no. Also, there were only two servers and a cook present - at 8pm on a Saturday, during your soft open, no owner or manager present? They took the Maki off the bill but no one came to talk to us about it. This does not bode well for this business. Lastly, the dining room is just odd - it's not a comfortable space, and like the sushi rice, it's FREEZING cold. We kept our coats over our shoulders as we ate. Decoration is kind of odd, the lighting is very low and "romantic", but then there is house music playing? The ambiance could use some work for sure. I hope that Shio will improve with time, but I doubt it. Best of luck.
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