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| - My girlfriend and I came as part of another food adventure borne of late night instagram surfing. Sho Izakaya is a small Japanese fusion shop way out in Parkdale. Decor is clean and simple, with basket weave light fixtures, vibrant street-style murals. My impression is that they are pretty understaffed/still working out the kinks as a relatively fresh restaurant. Our eager-to-please and apologetic server doubled as kitchen support and was extremely friendly---I hope they find someone to be dedicated front of house. We were informed that there were two menus; one regular base menu and one rotating special menu. I started things off with a bottle of Hitachino Nest Beer pale ale.
Based on the grams as well as upon recommendation, we decided to get salmon pressed sushi, some skewers, rock on crispy, mini seafood pizza, and beef maki roll.
The salmon pressed sushi was my favourite. In contrast to the mayo-jalapeno-torched-to-medium-rare variant ubiquitous across GTA izakayas, the version here is only superficially torched (just enough for a light ripple of char), with much of it still fresh and raw and dressed with a citrusy yuzu mustard, tobiko, and microgreens. I daresay I enjoyed it more than those of Kinka's or JaBistro's but maybe I was just craving a change.
Of the skewers, the beef and the lamb were good, but largely unremarkable. The lychee bacon on the other hand was amazing. Sweet, savoury, smoky, chewy, juicy---delicious. This is a must order.
Rock on crispy is a slate of six pieces of fried rice ball, salmon and tuna tartare with aromatics, saucy fried rock shrimp, tobiko. Visually appealing, complex on paper, overbuilt in execution. I found many of the flavours lost in between the two deep fried components---texturally, too much of the same. It's an interesting twist on arancini but ultimately, it could use some re-balancing.
The mini seafood pizza was quite interesting! I'm not sure how exactly it fits within the genre of the menu but it is most certainly fusion. They leverage the flakiness of the scallion pancake (???) in place of the crust and top off with tomato sauce, cheese, shrimp, and some freshly chopped peppers and scallions. Maybe a touch expensive for the portion size but quite yummy.
The beef maki roll was nowhere to be found on any menu and I literally ordered off showing the instagram image to the server, to which he replied, "O.K. I get that for you". Essentially a mushroom and avocado maki topped with torched thinly sliced beef and microgreens and sauce. We also greatly enjoyed this and it was a nice change from having fish. My girlfriend especially so, as I turned for maybe a minute to shoot the other plates and her "share" of the roll was no more.
Sho Izakaya shows great promise as another interpretation of Japanese fusion/izakaya. I hope to see more drink options (perhaps a cocktail menu) and more of the chef's interesting out-of-the-box creations. Recommended.
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