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| - The disclosure here is that I had dinner on the third day they were open for business.
I had dinner at ex-sous chef from Zen, Chef Jackie Lin's restaurant on Wednesday night as my birthday dinner. I've been anticipating the open of his restaurant for a long time ever since he left Zen Restaurant in pursuit to open his new establishment.
Located at Yonge and Lawrence, it's in a swanky area. You can find street parking right at Yonge or if you want to save a couple bucks, drive into the residential areas and you can park for free.
Inside decor is beautiful. They've used special wood and the details are minimalistic and clean. Very bright open space. About fourteen seats at the sushi bar. Ten seats in a semi private area and about three tables for 2 that I recall.
Onto the food. The appetizer in the Omakase B was a cooked fish and it was way over cooked. I did mention it and Chef Jackie was accommodating so I appreciated that detail. Again, it was only the restaurants third day for business so the kitchen staff is not all there yet.
The sashimi part of the course was average. Unfortunately I didn't think it was anything special which my boyfriend and I thought was a major disappointment. They use fresh real wasabi.
Miso soup with clams was great. Way better than the miso soup served at zen, that is for sure.
Onto the sushi. This was what I was really looking forward to. It's 11 pieces and there's a lot of emphasis on tuna. Five different ways that sushi is delivered and truly spectacular cuts. He uses premium fish and his cuts are generous. Way thicker than the other higher end Japanese restaurants in the city. The incredibly disappointing part of the evening was the rice. In a truly outstanding omakase experience, the sushi rice is just as important as the fish, if not more important. Jackie was trained in Tokyo and his style of rice was less vinegar and less sweet. He focuses on salt. I'm unsure if the city of Toronto is ready for Tokyo style sushi. It's personally not for me but my boyfriend thought it was alright.
Towards the later part of the opening, they ran out of rice. So clearly they are still in their early days of operation and these kinks will be figured out soon.
Beyond the rice however, the tuna, medium tuna, otoro, and torched toro were memorable. The uni from Boston was fantastic. Jackie has the best sea eel in Toronto.
We had a piece of Saba mackerel with kelp on top. This wasn't part of the omakase experience so you'll have to order a la carte. Get this.
The tomago was a little sweeter than Zen. It wasn't better or worse than Zen. Just a little sweeter. I love tomago and enjoyed it here thoroughly. Order the tomago as sashimi without the rice. This is the only way to enjoy this : )
For desserts, we had the red bean curd with matcha. This was okay. For an additional four dollars, on top of the omakase price, we were also able to order the black sesame pastry dessert (I forget the name). I was a little confused as to why I had to pay extra for the dessert, but I didn't care too much. The dessert was good but not mind blowing.
Service was good. The servers were attentive and always made sure I had tea in my cup. Really enjoyed this detail so kudos to them.
I was sitting at the end of the sushi bar near the sink so I didn't have much of a conversation with the chef which I was looking forward to. Kind of get shafted so if you make a reservation, specifically request to be in the middle so you can enjoy all the action.
Again, this restaurant review is based on its third day of operations. I believe it has the potential to be 4.5-5.0 but right now, I have to stick to my 4.0 rating. The rice was my biggest peeve of the day - rice didn't have enough seasoning. The best part about this place was the cut of the fish on the sushi. Super thick and fresh.
Zen is still my favourite restaurant. But time will tell... Best of luck to Chef Jackie.
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