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| - Chef Jackie does great stuff with his sushi. I love the way he prepares his sushi rice and the plethora of ingredients he uses like marlin, firefly squid, and gizzard shad.
The kind waitress explained to me that there were four main course menus to choose from -- Ume ($80), Yuri ($130), Sakura ($160), and Kiku ($250). I went with the Sakura, which came with multiple appetizers like refreshing sashimi and aji tataki before the sushi, I also ordered from their excellent beer menu and got one of their Hitachino Nest Amber Ale beers. Excellent!
The service staff always served with a smile and my tea was consistently refilled throughout the evening without me having to ask. I will say that this is definitely a slower dining experience since I was there for around 2 hours. But when you go to an omakase restaurant like this I actually think that this is a feature and not a mark against the restaurant. After all, we spend so much of our usual days being busy and rushed for everything -- good food is an opportunity to relax this requirement we've placed on our lives and to let it go and enjoy the flow.
Highlights of the meal included intensely flavourful Kohada (Gizzard Shad), meaty Kuruma Ebi (Shrimp) from Argentina, and smoked toro (tuna belly) which brought to mind smoky bacon or ham before letting loose elegant fatty flavour.
Reservations are definitely required and this is not a restaurant most people would go to every week. But if you have taste for marvellous sushi and you need a place to celebrate a special occasion, this is definitely it.
I love all sushi, but there is something about the intimate experience of omakase at the counter that gets me every time. I would say that Zen is my favourite restaurant in all of Canada, but Shoushin is quickly catching up. Looking forward to going back many times in the future to see how Chef Jackie further develops his menu!
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