Restaurants
Dozo Sushi and Sake Bar
Dozo is a fairly standard Japanese restaurant with an emphasis on drinks. It's located in the restaurant-heavy area of Hwy 7 and Commerce Valley and East Beaver Creek in Markham. Aesthetically the restaurant offers a nice enough experience but the food leaves a little to be desired.
The menu is bound in an actual book filled with colourful photographs of nearly everything they serve. It's written in English and Japanese but lacks descriptions of what the dishes are even when they're not pictured. As I peruse the menu, I see that Dozo serves a lot of the same sorts of things that most mid-range Japanese restaurants do, but with a much wider range of drinks as half the menu is devoted to beverages like fruit slushes and sake.
Between the two of us, my friend and I share four different dishes which sets us back around $35 plus tax and tip.
The Fried Shrimp with Noodle ($9) promises to be a unique alternative to tempura. The shrimp comes wrapped with very thin crispy noodles that have a nice little crunch to them, but really just taste deep-fried.
Next come the Takoyaki (octopus balls - $6 - top photo). Like most Takoyaki in TO, they're filled with more batter than octopus and are a bit too much on the gooey side. The outside is crispy, but overall too greasy to recommend.
We also order the House Roll ($7) which is filled with salmon, fish roe, and mayonnaise wrapped in thin slices of cucumber. It's light and refreshing but lacks flavour.
The Dozo Makimono ($10) is covered with various types of fish and filled with asparagus,
cucumber, avocado, fish roe and fake crab meat. The fish taste bland - probably not as fresh as it could be - and even the rice seemed a little subpar. Normally sushi rice has a subtle sweet and vinegary taste to it. But this one was too dry and the pieces fell apart easily.
A seemingly cool and sleek space, Dozo's decor has kitschy touches and a pink and purple colour scheme that make the space feel more relaxed. There are black and white images of goldfish on the walls of the booths, bright pink lighting, and various silver ornaments that seem in no way connected to one another except that they adhere to the colour scheme.
The decor itself seems like a metaphor for the dining experience - visually interesting at first glance but ultimately disjointed with too many shorts cuts and cheap finishes.
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I don't think New York Magazine reports on restaurants in New Jersey, why does blogTO post this? It really contradicts the point of an urban lifestyle publication...
On topic; we passed by here a dozen times while going to Go For Tea, it always struck me as a place no worth trying.
You should come warm my backside up with all your hot air.
takoyaki, well, this item suppose to have more batter than tako (octopus), and it's suppose to be gooey on the inside.
(not that they did a good job by deep fried some store bought frozen takoyaki)
House roll, as you can see the cucumber is as thick as the salmon, you really expect it to have an explosion of flavors?
If fish was not fresh, it would be fishy. Fresh fish would taste rather sweet.
So blandness I think, came from the ice water from the frozen fish. White fish is not suitable for freezing, especially if you want to eat raw.
Tako-yaki is traditionally fried on a pan with very little oil, but the photo looks like they were deep-fried. It's like a deep-fried omlette, because it's faster to cook (yikes).
If fish was not fresh, it would be fishy. Fresh fish would taste rather sweet.
So blandness I think, came from the ice water from the frozen fish. White fish is not suitable for freezing, especially if you want to eat raw.
Tako-yaki is traditionally fried on a pan with very little oil, but the photo looks like they were deep-fried. It's like a deep-fried omlette, because it's faster to cook (yikes).
we are not NYC and no one is trying to be.
maybe you should do a restaurant in shitby next since even less people want to drive there
After the Japan's radioactive pollution to their seafood, they still have price hike on many Items.
One of the menus didn't have the price hike stickers at all because of that, I made a mistake ordering my food.:cry:
The waiter denied to admit and appologize because he can't find "the menu"
The customer next to us found the "bad menu"
The supervisor ignored our complaint and request that waiter to serve another customer....ignoring us...Their attitude were very very poor and didn't appologize.
The current price on most of their items are unreasonable for this kind of customer service. Don't ever try the Umi...yuck!
I'll never go again! :mad: