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| - A Japanese restaurant in a sketchy Scarborough strip mall right next to a "massage" parlour and a stones through from a strip club, "Why would you go there?" one might think. Well you should come here because just like the massage parlour next door, Zen will make sure you get a happy ending.
I recently came here for lunch on a weekday with a fellow yelper. The place is quite cozy consisting of a few tables, a sushi bar, and a couple of booths. The place was rather full for lunch with people likely taking advantage of their many lunch specials. Their lunch menu is about 2 pages of specials ranging from sashimi to your basic chicken teriyaki. On this day I opted for the assorted sushi and sashimi lunch special (I don't remember the exact price but it was around $16).
My lunch special came with a few pieces of sashimi, sushi and a couple pieces of maki, plus a small bowl of miso soup. The miso soup was quite nice, not too salty it was a good start to lunch. My lunch arrived shortly after my soup and it was very nicely presented. The sashimi was immaculate and very fresh. My favourite of the sashimi was the salmon belly which was a little fatty and practically melted in my mouth, the red tuna was a close second. The Sushi pieces were also very fresh, I enjoyed trying a single piece of a few varieties of fish rather than your standard salmon and tuna only. The only disappointing part of the meal was the maki rolls which were just ok. The rolls included were very simple, small pieces that I could probably get at any sushi restaurant around.
The service was excellent; our waitress constantly checked up on us and was always asking if we wanted more tea. Overall Zen is one of the better Japanese restaurants that I have been to, I will definitely be back for more lunch specials but I don't know if I want to be walking around this area at night so I might opt to skip dinner here.
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