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| - After putting up with years of friends raving about how Guuud Guu is, I finally got around to going to one... the SakaBar on Bloor though, not their more popular/well-known/much-hyped Church Street Izakaya.
The presence of Guu in Toronto I think has set the tone for the way many of the newer other Japanese restaurants in town set their atmosphere, because you walk in you are greeted with !!@$?&%^%!!!!! (Don Don Izakaya will even beat a drum), and you order something and it's like !!!#@?&^$^!!!!!. When you leave it is like $^%$#^&?!!!!! You'll still get that famous memorable rowdy and happy treatment even though you walk in and it is less than an hour before close.
The front part of the SakaBar looks like a true traditional Japanese style dining experience, where you take off your shoes to enter the dining room ('toilet slippers' are provided if you need to head downstairs--and I will add that their washrooms are very well-stocked with toiletries). And you are sitting on the floor... except the sitting-on-the-floor part is an illusion, as your legs goes into a hidden trench and the table isn't lowered.
Food is served tapas style, in small tapas portions, and is meant to be shared with others like a real Japanese izakaya. Food comes very quickly, and is guuud--I enjoyed the salmon tataki (large sashimi chunks), as well as the ikapiri (calamari coated in spicy ketchup, and it was savoury like barbecue sauce). The drinks were more guuud, and I highly recommend the sake mojito, which is made with sake and a refreshing pouring of Ramune, the marble-poppin' Japanese soda. !!&??#*$!!!
That being said, each food item ranges from $3-4 to $10-ish, you will order multiple times, and the bill does add up quickly. #%#*?@&!!! I think we figured out about $40 of our hefty total can be attributed to one person: me. Try try all you want, but don't come in with an empty stomach.
I really really really wanted to like Guu, but going here when it is close to closing (they close around 23:00 for crying out loud) on a weekday, and there are not a lot of fellow diners, it was actually much, much quieter than I expected. The staff, though helpful, were not so attentive, mainly because they were in closing duties mode by the time we made our first orders. But eh, no lineups. &#@!@!!!?
{TTC: around the corner from Bathurst subway station. If only boarding a streetcar was as exciting as entering Guu...}
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