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| - Here is the deal: beggars can't be choosers. There is no other complex in the Toronto area like j-Town where you get Japanese grocery, sushi, ramen, izakaya, dollar store goods, clothes and videos. So we are lucky to have this place with its Japanese ownership... so no Korean-owned 'sushi' or Chinese 'Japanese grocery store' here.
There are notable omissions here, like an actual sushi restaurant or actual ramen (not the frozen package kind which they serve here), but those aside I have been coming here for years and will continue to do so.
Now with that said, the restaurants leave a lot to be desired. Perhaps even Japanese being away from Japan makes them lose their way or a lack of competition makes them lazy, but Café Green Tea's Japanese Yooshoku (western style Japanese food) and noodles, etc. that area standard cafeteria/restaurant fare in Japan. They have soba, curry, breaded pork, chicken and omelette rice.
The food is good and cooked with Japanese recipes, but it is not done well to be honest. The curry is too watery and lacks much of the ingredients. The katsudon (pork cutlets on rice) clearly lacks enough dashi (Japanese stock base). The taste is weak because of it and the broth at the bottom of the bowl is too light, which is a telltale sign. One can find issues like that with most of their meals.
A wooden menu on the side wall in Japanese (with translation on the side) proclaims they also have oden. Yumm oden!
All meals are deliberately under $10 and could use a bigger portion. All the ingredients are fetched from next door which is the owner's supermarket.
Finally, they are open and closed noon to seven. It would be nicer if they stayed open later.
The service and time to ready the meal varies and the premises could really need a coat of paint and some new furniture. Get with it.
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