With their highly sought after reservation and near perfect ratings, I was so excited to finally get my hands on the 'best sushi in toronto'. Unfortunately, Yasu couldn't claim that title for me.
We were seated at the small brightly lit sushi bar with only around 10 seats in total. They start serving the whole place at the same time so don't be late. The environment was pretty quiet with everyone's eyes hanging on the 3 sushi chefs every elegant move.
The plum wine we ordered was a delicious start to the highly rated $80 omasake experience which I thought is a reasonable price point. I am a fan of the simplicity and enjoyed watching the chefs delicately create the sushi pieces like works of art. Our chef, although very polite, spoke so softly that half the time we couldn't hear the details of what we having. I did not know I ate cod testicles until after the fact.. It was a pleasant surprise.
There were for sure some delicious pieces such as the toro, monkfish liver and sweet tamago and I think it's very easy to appreciate the authenticity of the experience. Overall though, I felt the fish lacked their distinct sweet freshness and the rice missed the mark on the vinegary acidity. Wait time between each sushi was also sporadic that I got hungry in between. An interesting experience but I was far from being blown away.
Was seriously hoping for a 'Jiro dreams of sushi' moment but it seems like a ticket to Tokyo is still the best bet.