With a name like that and being just off Yonge Street it had disappointment written all over it. Once I stepped in, however, I had a better feeling: Small – holding maybe 25 people tops – and not grubby at all, with staff in traditional dress.

We opted for the sushi pizza, a sushi appetizer and a few rolls. The rolls selected were spicy tuna, unagi with avocado, and one of the specialty rolls (The Wow! Sushi roll, I believe, but that was later changed to another of the specialty rolls after the chef informed us that our first choice was very similar to another roll we ordered).

I pretty much always don’t touch the soup at sushi places, but this one I did indeed partake in. I was pleasantly surprised. I think it was the presentation that won me over. Had to try it. Yes, the fact that it was complimentary was nice.

Every item brought to our table throughout the night was explained to us in detail, complete with a bow and a ‘thank you’. I instantly got the feeling that they really did care that we were there and they were almost honoured that people were eating at their establishment. This was unprecedented among all of our sushi reviews. I’ve never experienced that. Frankly, I was blown away. It showed not only that they really cared about the food, but they also really cared about their customers.

The sushi appetizer was some of the best sushi I’ve ever had. I started to regret not ordering more of it.

Ah right “Japango” — I forgot the name. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the Japango to be honest. Not horrible, but I wasn’t raving either. The Spicy Tuna was decent but I though the spice was too overbearing on the taste (have had better). The Unagi roll was nice – no complaints on that one.

Yes, the sushi pizza was fairly on par with others we have had. The differing presentation was a nice touch though. I’m surprised we’ve never seen it served that way before.

… An extra 0.5! Yeah, the complimentary dessert was nice. I believe you mentioned at the table that the table next to us also got complimentary dessert but something different. I guess you could say that’s yet another personal touch. I didn’t really care for the fig tempura but that’s fine.
There was discussion via another table about a case on the wall where they keep the chop sticks of “regulars”. That’s wild! Not sure how “regular” you have to be but yet another way ‘Wow! Sushi’ are differentiating themselves.

Wooooooooow… Agreed on most points. The service was the finest we’ve ever experienced (although I wasn’t a fan of having to ask for the bill after a decent wait): The passion for the food was second to none – explaining every dish in detail when presenting it to the table; expressing gratitude to the customer in the delivery of every dish and when order taking… The nigiri appetizer was fantastic. I didn’t find the maki over and above other places, however. That is my one negative – they could have been better. Despite that, ‘Wow! Sushi’ should be on everyone’s list: 8.5/10.

I thought it had a very unique and hip interior — pleasantly surprised — We’re not eating sushi on Yonge anymore! We took a seat and then the waiting began…

Hehe… Sooo, she finally came around for our drink order. They have a couple Japanese beers in a can, in case anyone is wondering. Sapporo was ordered. Even that took a while to arrive. By this time only one other group was in the restaurant—a couple.

More traditional indeed… and that’s usually a good sign. The wait for food wasn’t that bad from what I recall. We were partially entertained by the chef blow torching up someone’s meal.

Turned out that was our Scallop Pizza! It came out first. This is when we realized realized we didn’t read the menu close enough. Instead of the ‘typical’ sushi pizza this was two small pieces or ‘coins’ as the menu put it (“Omi’s signature scallop sushi using blowtorch to perfectly sear scallops on panko crusted rice coins). Ah!… Anyway, I’d say save your $8.95 and skip it. Not worth the price in my books.

Fully agree on the Spicy Tuna Rolls — not up to par of most other sushi places. Skip that one. The Avocado Unagi *are* a good pick, however. I would easily order that roll again. Last was the ‘Omi Sushi’: a mixed plate of nigiri and rolls – or, as the menu states “Selection of ‘today’s catch’ sushi”. It was decent.

Heh – so true. I believe that wraps it up. I thought the eating environment of Omi Sushi was a really nice change from the standard sushi places. It’s quite a nice restaurant to sit in – and works well for the Cabbagetown crowd. Too bad the service was quite shoddy. Seven out of ten.

We met up at 5:30 on a Tuesday night. The place was literally empty when I walked in. I was warmly greeted and shown a table immediately. Tea and menus were quickly received and I started checking out the menu as I waited for my fellow reviewer. On each table is a sign stating that Deal Of The Day coupon holders get a ‘Special’ (their wording) menu, so I had a hunch the regular menu I was perusing was about to get ‘exchanged’…

Hmmm… Ok let’s put that aside for a second and talk about the food first. We ordered the Spicy Tuna, Spicy Scallop, Sushi Xtra, and Fire Dragon rolls – and a large Sapporo!

Yes… No real complaints here regarding the Spicy Tuna roll. It wasn’t amazing, but decent. The Spicy Scallop roll I really was not impressed with. I wouldn’t order that one again. Sakura on Adelaide still has the Best Spicy Scallop roll in my books.

I liked the Sushi Xtra Roll – no real complaints from me.

The final roll was the Fire Dragon Roll that was actually recommended multiple times by Foursquare users. It’s shrimp tempura and avocado topped with white fish and baked. It definitely was unique—had a smokey taste to it – for lack of a better description. I wasn’t a huge fan but it wasn’t horrible or anything. The smokiness doesn’t seem proper for sushi, in my books.

Ah!… I forgot about the sushi pizza above… Indeed that was our final dish. No real complaints here — it was pretty standard and not much else.

That covers the food — now back to the ‘Deal Menu’ we were handed once they realized we were using a group-buy coupon. First thought was the ‘Deal Menu’ had prices that were cranked up — essentially eliminating the ‘deal’.

We snagged a delivery/take-out menu on the way out the door (which matches the menu on their web site):

» Sushi Xtra Roll is listed @ $8.95 — we paid $10.50
» Fire Dragon Roll is listed @ $8.99 — we paid $10.95
» Salmon Sushi Pizza is listed @ $6.95 — we paid $9.50
» Spicy Tuna Roll is listed @ $4.75 — we paid $7.50
» Spicy Scallop Roll is listed @ $5.25 — we paid $7.50

The above is around an $11 difference. Our coupon saved us $15 (so, um, I guess is really saved us $4). It seems that Sushi Xtra is extra shady in their marketing practices!

I’ll trump your 1/10 and give it a 0/10… Don’t give Sushi Xtra your money. There’s plenty of other sushi places in Toronto.

Indeed…We were hungry for some sushi and SushiToronto.ca was starving for content!
As mentioned, the restaurant has hardly any outdoor light. It opens up to a wider space as you enter. The decor is comfortable but definitely not high end. We were greeted almost immediately as we took our seats. This was at around 6:30 on a Sunday night with the restaurant being almost half full.

We have to mention that the menus were done in comic sans font! So, all you design nerds may not be impressed by that…

The dishes came out quite quickly. I believe the Spicy Scallop and Spicy Tuna were out first. I can’t complain about either. Have we had better? For sure – but these were decent I thought.

Very true…It was nothing special at all, despite what the Foursquare tips tell you. It seems they didn’t try at all to make this a unique dish.

We took a bit of a chance on the Mexican roll, as we’d never seen that on the menu anywhere else before. It was interesting but I doubt I’d order it again. I thought the dragon roll was worse than most places. Not awful but not great. Sushi Kai seems to be very uninspiring. Everything is ‘ok’ or a bit better.

Annnnnd…Nothing! No ‘dessert’. And no real end to the meal, actually. We just sort of waited there for a bit and eventually waved for our bill.

Sushi Kai you may go to if you live in the Eglinton/Mount Pleasant ‘hood, but I advise it’s not worth the trip from afar. Nothing particularly poor – just nothing really great. Service was good. Food: average. Nice enough place. 7/10.

I went to Maison du Japon with a co-worker. We went for the all you can eat lunch buffet ($11.99). The inside of Maison du Japon is nothing really to write home about. Tables are fairly crowded together and the feeling of chaos is abound. Simply order off the menu and they will deliver it to your table. Service was fairly attentive at the beginning but once our order started showing up at the table, bit by bit, we finally realized that we weren’t going to receive half of what we ordered. Our waitress basically disappeared and thus we had to flag down another server who then took our order for the missing items. Upon that, we did finally receive everything. Anything you wanted beyond that you had to flag down someone to get it for you.

As for the food itself, the non-sushi items were ‘ok’: teriyaki beef, spare ribs, etc. The maki, however, was awful. We ordered the Spicy Salmon roll and a tempura/avocado/cucumber (from what I recall) roll. Both were tasteless. The Sushi Pizza was a bit of a joke compared to most places. All in all the food was not good at all. You could say it was ‘all you can eat’ so it’s not going to be great. True, however something half decent would be nice.






Between the horrendous service and poor quality food, Maison du Japon in Markham earns a big 2 out of 10 from this half of the Sushi Toronto team.

Hehe… I didn’t catch all that when it happened. A good start, indeed! Service was quick — we got our drinks lined up and started filling out the form with our order. Of note, the form has a section in big bold block letters stating “PLEASE DO NOT ORDER EXCESSIVE FOOD – Unconsumed portions will be charged at regular price. Thank you.” In case you didn’t see the big bolded letters, they also had someone swipe a yellow highlighter on that part also. In a word, classy. Speaking of excessive ordering: For nigiri, salmon and unagi. For rolls, we went a bit crazy: spicy tuna, spicy salmon, two dynamite rolls, spider roll, rainbow roll, red dragon and I’m sure a couple others… Simply put, it was a lot. There was also some tempura ordered and a few other items…

Hehe… So, we started sampling the dishes – I started with the spicy tuna roll (usually will always be good) – and everything was really bland. The nigiri was decent, but the rolls were not good at all… I’d try another dish in hopes it was just ‘that one’ before that wasn’t good… No such like. It was almost across the board blandness…. Prince Sushi wasn’t looking like a good call at this point…

Hehe… Indeed we were having trouble finishing up a few dishes. It turned into a bit of negotiating at the end — ‘You take two and I’ll take two’. The unagi roll we had in the final order was decent, I thought. The sushi pizza was nothing special, but edible.


The non-sushi items were ‘ok’ — can’t complain too much there. Free ice cream was included. I sprang for the green tea flavour. You would think they could get ice cream right but that wasn’t the case: It was basically frozen chunks of green tea ice cream. Seems about right.



The cost is $21 per adult for the All You Can Eat here at Prince Sushi. Twenty-one dollars you’ll want to take elsewhere and spend. The service was quick but the sushi definitely sub par. We finished off the evening with one piece of roll that I honestly couldn’t stomach so it sat there on my plate. Everything else was consumed. Prince Sushi
gets a big 3/10 from me, and never a return.

We met at 5:30 on a Tuesday evening and Ematei was fairly empty – but business picked up as the night progressed. I was greeted warmly by the sushi chefs upon entering.

Yes, you pretty much have to be looking for it — or you may never know it’s there. Despite the many Japanese dishes on the menu, we decided to stick to sushi. Sushi Toronto is all about sushi, after all!

Maybe the Sushi Toronto team should start doing consulting for sushi establishments. That’s right, contact us to have us help you out! My fellow reviewer just gave you a (free!) tip: Class up the menus! Save the paper menus for the student pubs. Ok, back to the review. Oh, you mentioned the seaweed appetizer — Not a fan! I didn’t even finish mine. As for the meal, we ordered up two rolls and a sushi plate. We went with the standard Spicy Tuna roll and then another roll that is definitely an Ema-only roll. It was comprised of (yeah, we don’t remember – but it was different than the norm). The sushi plate was a full assortment of nagiri, with a couple rolls added in.

Agreed. The spicy tuna rolls were pretty boring and spicy to the point where they didn’t taste like anything — only an overload of spice. I love spicy but they weren’t tasty at all. The specialty roll was decent but a total mess to eat. So, as long as you’re Ok with eating it in pieces then it’s worth a try. The sushi plate wasn’t anything great at all… Not horrible – but not great either.

Yeah, this place was a bust, unfortunately. The decor of the restaurant wasn’t much to write home (errr, blog) about either. Not awful, but nothing special. The appetizer salad was quite good — care to comment on the soup? Service was friendly and quick — I can’t complain there at all.

Agreed… I’ll join you with a 5/10.

I didn’t know this stretch of Harbord that well but in the walk west from Spadina there were a number of nice little restaurants. Akai Sushi is somewhat similar in that it’s pretty tiny – holding maybe no more than 20 people.

Yes, it’s a nice atmosphere. I ordered a Corona, and we had a look at the menu. As per usual, we went with the sushi pizza. Also, the Spicy Tuna roll, Green Dragon roll and the Akai Special roll (the Akai Special roll being a whopping $18.95!).

This must be the most unique set of toppings we’ve experienced so far – in terms of a sushi pizza… And I must say: tasty! I recall scooping every last bit of it.

It was… Both were quite good. No complaints here. I’m finally getting used to the fact that Green Dragon rolls will always fall apart (or so it seems)… as was the case at Akai.

Yeah, true… We didn’t need two dishes w/ that same in house ‘sauce’… I think that may have dampened my enthusiasm for this roll. It was decent, but not worth the $19 price tag, in my books.

So, we’re done with the dishes we ordered and out comes a dish of seared sashimi, compliments of the chef. First off, that was a nice gesture – and a nice surprise. Second, it was fantastic!

Hehe… MUST be the avatars! The dessert was a few steps above the normal dessert, too. The total food bill was around $48, before tax. I thoroughly enjoyed eating at Akai Sushi. I liked the cozy environment, the great service and, of course, the quality sushi. I also liked how they did things different from the typical Toronto sushi place. Although not necessary, a quality free dessert and the fantastic seared salmon tops it off. The Akai Special roll was priced out of line but that’s really my only issue with this meal. I definitely recommend Akai Sushi: 9/10.

I found out about District (“Modern Japanese Bistro”) via Groupon. Yes, they had District as their deal of the day, and, after researching online I jumped at it. I really love this section of Queen Street East, stretching from Broadview out until Carlaw or so. There are a lot of nice little neighourhood places to grab a bite or a pint (or both!).

We (myself and my friend — our special guest reviewer, making her review debut here on Sushi Toronto) made reservations online via Open Table but it seemed they weren’t required that evening. Inside at District sits maybe 20-25 people (I’m guessing here) but there’s also a patio out back. Upon arrival we were greeted immediately and shown a seat and provided menus. For whatever reason there was a bit of a lag in actually taking our order, which was odd as it wasn’t that busy. Regardless, they had two beers on tap (Sapporo and Sleeman Original Draught) which I especially loved. They came in matching glasses, and nice and cold!

True, the place is a nice, cozy neighbourhood (yet somewhat trendy) beer/dinner spot and definitely does not scream ‘sushi’, but, to be honest, I love this combination. On to the food: We ordered the Ebi Ebi roll (shrimp, avocado, cucumber topped with shrimp and spicy mayo @ $12), Spicy roll (salmon, tuna, cucumber, avocado, tobiko, spicy mayo @ $9), Spider roll (softshell crab, cucumber, kani, avocado, tobiko @ $14) and some sashimi (don’t recall which one) – to accompany our respective pints.

This, my dear readers, is the insight you get when you have a female guest reviewer. The regular Sushi Toronto review duo can’t pull that off.

The rolls (and the sashimi) were really really nice. I was impressed. My only real beef was that the Spider roll pieces were so massive they were pretty much impossible to eat without taking them apart. Not exactly delicate sushi eating.

Yes, the food was fantastic, minus the size of the Spider roll… and I really like a nice beer on tap to go with it. Add in the cozy environment, and District is a winner in my books. I’ll definitely be back — and without a coupon! I’ll gladly pay full price for this sushi dining experience. Service was a bit slow, but it wasn’t that bad. Nine out of ten.