| rev:text
| - People like to compare Zen and Shoushin, as these are the two main places for high end sushi on the north side of Toronto (Zen just south of 14th and Woodbine, Shoushin just south of Lawrence and Yonge).
Zen is in a very odd place - a small strip plaza next to a Mandarin (funny cause Mandarin is an absolutely horrible place for food) and beside Akiba Kissa. Though the plaza is tiny and easy to pass by, the restaurant is very easy to see from the road if you're looking - the big wooden slats and big "Zen" sign was easily visible when I drove by this morning.
Always sit at the sushi bar for the best experience. Always always. Today our sushi chef was Cho-san and he was great. He spoke Mandarin and English which was interesting to me - it does make Zen more accessible I suppose to the many mainlanders in Markham. Even so, he definitely knew his stuff when we asked him many questions as I'm fairly new to omakase and high-end sushi. I may not be as well-versed as others here, but I think everything he made was delicious and made with care and detail... on par with Shoushin I think. Which makes sense given that Jackie Lin at Shoushin was trained here at Zen.
We had the omakase sushi for $80 which includes 13 pieces of sushi and a handroll. In my opinion... more palatable than the $130 that Shoushin has for their their most basic omakase option. It used to be $85 but it has jumped in price, though it does include a couple extra appetizers and dessert (not worth the +$50 for me though).
In order we had:
Hamachi (Yellowtail), Hirame (Fluke), Ocean trout, Scallop, Kanpachi (Amberjack) which was my personal favorite of the night, Tai (sea bream), Ebi (sweet shrimp), Uni (sea urchin), maguro (lean tuna), chutoro (middle ground), otoro (fatty tuna), aji (horse mackerel), unagi (eel), and a tuna belly handroll with onions.
Each piece of sushi has wasabi though you can ask for it without. I saw a review that said there was too much wasabi but I didn't experience this - if anything, I thought it was a perfect balance and my wasabi tolerance is very low. Certain pieces were garnished with a yuzu zest that brought out the sweetness of the fish, or sea salt, or lime juice. It was all delicious and watching the chefs make it was a great experience.
The unagi was an experience - the best I've had, soft and flavorful. The otoro was oddly not very fatty, which I kind of like actually - over time I've come not to like incredibly buttery rich foods like foie gras, lindor chocolates, and otoro falls in that category so it was okay for me. But it was not as fatty as other places if that's what you're looking for. The tuna belly handroll was also delicious and the seaweed they use for their uni and the handroll was so crisp and fresh and delicious.
For dessert we had a matcha ice cream ($8) and shiratama sundae (?)($11.50) The matcha ice cream was my favorite - so fragrant and so refreshing. The shiratama sundae came with a soy milk ice cream which was quite unique and red bean paste and soft, pillowy shiratama. Also delicious. Though this costs extra, these desserts were better than Shoushin's.
If I had to I would pick Zen over Shoushin for the atmosphere that they've created. Not that Shoushin isn't good - it's great, but I found Zen to be more my style. At Shoushin the atmosphere is more serious and very quiet and the decor is beautiful - the ambiance is actually more zen-like than Zen. The service there is great but in a different way - very formal, almost stiff but not unfriendly. Great service, but I'm not used to people pulling out chairs for me.
Zen was very different. Service was also great but in a different way - more hands off and it felt more natural to me. Even the smiles that they gave me felt more natural. It's certainly louder than Shoushin, but that's because they encourage talking and they are definitely more interactive I found with the customers than at Shoushin. Perhaps you can say at Shoushin the focus is on the food. Even though Cho-san was our sushi chef, Chef Seiichi was also very friendly and took the time to talk to us even though he wasn't serving us and even when he was serving another group as well (who he also talked to). They fielded my questions about different fishes, pulling out trays of fish to show me what they looked like and describing where they came from and showing us which part of the fish the sushi came from on a smartphone. I think they were excited that I was excited to learn.
I felt much more relaxed at Zen, oddly enough, than at Shoushin where I felt like I couldn't even cough or sneeze and felt like I was always being watched by a waiter/waitress who was always present. I left really happy with the experience and even as we left, Chef Seiichi thanked us for coming and the group he was with even turned and smiled at us when we thanked the chef for a delicious dinner. This is the kind of atmosphere they've built at Zen and because of that, Zen is my pick over Shoushin.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)