This evening, Myron, Chipa & Company, and I went to Japanese Village for our end of term feast. For those who are unfamiliar with this feast, this is a feast that is held at the end of each academic term. The agreement is that we spare no expense, so cost is not an issue and we splurge. In either case, I have been to Japanese Village before, but not to their sushi bar, so this is a new experience. Normally we're there for lunch, and sushi isn't available.
Anyway, I called to make reservations for the sushi bar, but I found out that they don't accept reservations, and it's first come first serve. When we got there, we understood why. The room where they serve sushi is tucked away at the back of the restaurant, and it's really small. They only had three or four tables there, and the sushi bar itself can probably seat twelve people.
The Experience
Usually when I'm at a new restaurant, I'll order combination plates which provides a little sample of everything, so that I get a feel for what the restaurant can do. I went with the sushi and tempura combination dinner which was $19. It came with sunomono salad, miso soup, 6 pieces of the chef's choice sushi, assorted tempura (deep fried vegetables and shrimp in a Japanese batter), and orange sherbert. I went with this one because it samples both raw and cooked foods that the restaurant offers. Myron went with the sushi and sashimi combination dinner which was $26. It came with sunomono salad, miso soup, 6 pieces of the chef's choice sushi, assorted sashimi (raw seafood cut very thin, and served decoratively), and orange sherbert. Chipa & Company ordered individual items from the sushi menu. They had tuna tataki, a spider roll (deep fried soft shell crab), and a few other rolls.
The meal started with a delicious deep-fried onion cake (at least I think it was onion) served with a little teriyaki sauce. This nice little treat is used to cleanse your pallet. The next course was the sunomono salad. It was a little different from other Japanese restaurants. It had a strange smokey flavour; usually sunomono salad is sour, lemony, and refreshing. The next course I got was the tempura, which is kind of strange because usually they serve cooked items last. The tempura was excellent, very crispy, and fairly light in oil.
The next course that came was the sushi course. The chef's choice sushi included: salmon, snapper, tuna, egg, shrimp, and scallop. Out of all of this, the snapper is always my favourite kind of sushi. It has a nice texture to it, and it gives you some bite. Salmon on the other hand kind of melts in your mouth like butter. I'll have to admit that raw scallop is not something I typically care for, but the scallop sushi was not bad. Still, I'd rather have my scallops wrapped in bacon and cooked. The disappointment was of course the egg sushi. Egg is what you serve to noobies to Japanese cuisine. Why this was part of the chef's "choice" sushi is beyond me.
Myron had the same sushi course. However, his sashimi course never came because they forgot to make it, so he was waiting there without food for half the night. When it did finally come, it was a fairly small platter, so very disappointing there, especially if he's paying $26 for his meal.
The last thing to come was the miso soup which was wierd because usually you start your meal with the soup.
Continue reading "Japanese Village"
