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| - BOTTOM LINE: Chef Tsuyoshi Yoshinaga (of Kaji Sushi) elevates the Toronto izakaya scene to more than just bar food. The dishes are more intricately prepared but comes at a small premium.
I'm a fan of the Vancouver location and wanted to see how this place stacked up. We sat by the bar and unexpectedly recognized chef Yoshinaga as the sous chef from Kaji (he's the one with the ridiculously big smile...and the stylin' undercut and permed faux-hawk!)! We knew we were in for a treat and he didn't disappoint! The place is also bigger than most of the other izakayas in town, so hopefully there won't be ridiculous lines.
Kingyo is an izakaya in a loose sense but their dishes seem catered towards more high end offerings - the quality and presentation is clear from each of the dishes we ordered, undoubtedly inspired by Kaji.
The highlight of the night was easily the ABURI TORO & AVOCADO 2TONE BATTERA with its flame seared tuna boxed on top of layers of rice and avocado. It tasted amazing! The TAKO WASABI came with a lot of pieces of nori and had a good kick to it. I'd probably avoid the STONE BOWL MUSHROOM TOFU because it was rather plain (4 deep fried tofu with some sauce and enoki mushrooms) for $8. We ordered the staple FAMOUS "O-SHO RESTAURANT" KARAAGE WITH MAGIC POWDER - these deep friend chicken balls were ginormous and sublime! And finally, we ordered their PORK TANTAN RAMEN for $11, which had thicker and springy-er noodles (like the Chinese "dam dam" noodles) than the ramen shops around town, delicious spicy broth, but they skimped on the pork. We paired our dishes with BROWN TEA, which is excellent for sharing because they'll keep refilling your french press with hot water, and their FRESH GINGER HIGH BALL cocktail from their homemade ginger ale - tasty and sweet, but I couldn't taste the booze.
Their menu is huge and having had a front row seat of the preparation, it would appear that each dish, from those involving oysters, sashimi to even vegan dishes looked quite impressive. I'm definitely looking to coming back for more!
PS - As an aside...finally, a menu that is NOT in PDF format! I encourage all resto websites to recognize the post-Y2K world we live in.
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