The Best of blogTO’s Best of Toronto
Hello Ozzies, and welcome to the first installment of this year’s Jurisfoodence! I am most humbled to be your host for this journey, where we will be diving into blogTO’s “Best of Toronto” feature and hopefully uncovering some culinary gems that may prove useful to the three people whose procrastination has led them to venture this many pages back in the Obiter.
Methodology: Since tastes are diverse and Osgoode is conveniently located in the middle of nowhere, my goal is to cover as large a range of places in terms of cuisine, price point and location (although these lists are infamous for favouring certain neighbourhoods—I’m looking at you, West Side—over others). Generally, reviews will focus on the #1 ranked restaurant, but if it seems ridiculously overpriced, or if I’ve eaten there before, or if I’m sick of eating on Ossington, I might go slightly down the list (very scientific, I know). Restaurants will be rated on quality of food, service, and value, leading to a possible best overall score of 5 out of 5 Dean Sossins.
Disclaimer: I have a degree in culinary management and worked as a chef before coming to Osgoode. My partner in crime has said this makes me picky when it comes to eating out; I prefer to call myself discerning. I hope to share some tips, tricks and insights I learned in my past career, but just a warning that my standards may be slightly higher than those of the man on the Clapham omnibus. I will try to point out when I’m being unreasonable.
And with that, we get to our first list: The Best Cheap Sushi in Toronto
Sushi on Bloor (ranked #1)
Location: 525 Bloor Street West
Atmosphere: Bright and utilitarian
Ah, the mythical beast I have been searching for since I moved to Toronto in 2002: good, cheap sushi. There is plenty of excellent high-end sushi in this city (if you really want to treat yourself and have ever seen the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, I highly recommend Yasu on Harbord), but when I just want some nice quality rolls to shove in my mouth as fast as possible, I am usually disappointed.
Sushi on Bloor has been a mainstay for University of Toronto students and Annex residents for well over a dozen years. Even though there are a number of sushi places on that stretch, you can expect there to be a wait here at any given time. The line-up was four deep when we arrived at 8:30 on a Thursday night, so we were happy to be seated in about ten minutes. The interior itself definitely places function over form, and the vibe is less “first date jitters” and more “let’s pause this Netflix marathon and grab some food.” This pleases me as I prefer to consume cheap sushi in sweatpants. I will note though that the tables are decently spaced out, which was a plus, since I’ve found that restaurants like this are often quite cramped.
Upon seating we were immediately given two cups of tea and two miso soups. Even though almost anything you order in a similar restaurant will come with miso soup, I was really impressed by this! It is a nice gesture and helps if you’ve been waiting. The soup itself was above average and had more miso flavour than the typical tofu water you sometimes get. We also ordered drinks at around this time (LLBO-wise, the restaurant has a small selection of wine and beer), and to my partner’s extreme delight, the beer mugs came frosted.
The menu is very large. This often bugs me because I’ve found—at least in fine dining—that the size of the menu can tell me a lot about the quality of the food. Bigger is never better. That logic doesn’t work perfectly for all types of establishments though, and doesn’t really concern me here since you’ve also got to cater to what people are expecting. Rolls are priced between $3.95 and $9.95, but we opted to get the Dinner for Two, because it was SO CHEAP: $41.25 for seaweed salad, shrimp and yam tempura, ikayaki (grilled squid), two rolls (salmon dragon and grilled tiger shrimp), six pieces of nigiri sushi, and six pieces of sashimi.
The seaweed salad— topped with tobiko, and very generously portioned—came out first. It tasted like seaweed salads should taste—the typical neon green variety that comes pre-marinated and frozen in bags. There really shouldn’t be much difference in quality from restaurant to restaurant, unless they are using old product. Not that I’m knocking the stuff, I am borderline obsessed with it. Next came the shrimp and yam tempura, nicely breaded and importantly, not too greasy.
Up until this point I was riding high, thinking I might have found the one. Unfortunately, the meal went a bit south with the next course. I don’t expect great service at a cheap restaurant where the goal is to get people in and out as quickly as possible, but our server brought out the tempura, ikayaki, and sushi all at once, leaving us to scramble with plates in hand to find a place for everything. We didn’t see her again for the rest of the meal. To make things worse, the ikayaki was clearly steamed and not grilled (part of my chef fussiness: I have zero tolerance for menu lies). Even so, it could have been saved if the accompanying ginger sauce was less bland.
I was willing to overlook the ikayaki misstep though, because I was there for the sushi. And the sushi was….well, it was pretty solid. It’s been a bit difficult for me to judge sushi since Yasu, which has permanently ruined me, but this was better than the typical experience I have at the Yonge and Eglinton joints I frequent. Everything tasted pretty fresh, the rice held together well and the rolls did not skimp on fish. In fact, my main complaint is the dragon roll had too much salmon on top, overwhelming everything else. However, the tuna, salmon and shrimp nigiri all had a better proportion of rice to fish. The grilled tiger shrimp roll was not something I would normally order, but the combination of shrimp, green beans and teriyaki sauce was pleasantly delicate and added a nice balance to the rest of the salmon-heavy meal.
We waited a long time for the host to come around and realize we were finished. On the bright side, there was complimentary ice cream! A choice of mango, green tea or red bean. These little touches—the miso soup to start, the ice cream to finish—made this place stand out from other cheap sushi places, despite the non-existent service we received in the second half of our meal. And the value is incredible: just over twenty bucks for more food than I could eat. Overall, one of the better cheap sushi places I have been to in Toronto, but not good enough to end my quest.
Cost (for one, excluding drinks): $20.63 + tip + tax
SERVICE: 2/5 Dean Sossins
FOOD: 3.5/5 Dean Sossins
VALUE: 5/5 Dean Sossins
OVERALL: 3.5/5 Dean Sossins
