Restaurants
Wasabi Japanese Cuisine
Wasabi Japanese Cuisine opened at Keele and Bloor a couple of years ago and has been flying under the radar ever since. Walking in, I find a bustling eatery that combines tacky and classy, eat-in and take-out. The decor is as green as its namesake; Beethoven symphonies play in the background. The simple signage and mini-plaza location scream "take-out", but the inside is busy with diners. Just one server looks after us all, struggling to meet the lunchtime rush.
Ready for their all-you-can-eat (AYCE) challenge, I had saved my stomach for this one-meal day. For $16.99 (or $15.99 cash) on weekends, and $1 less during the week, AYCE lunch at Wasabi is a lot pricier than most places in Toronto and includes a massive 120-item selection of salads, tempura, appetizers, noodles, sushi, sashimi, maki, hand rolls and even several desserts. Salmon dominates the sushi and sashimi options; tuna, uni and hamachi sashimi are available only at additional charge.
I start with a tofu salad, which has a lovely ginger dressing drizzled over fresh lettuce and raw blocks of tofu. Simple, but satisfying. The dressing didn't seem excessive until I reached the salad's bottom third, and realized that all the vegetable remains were drowning in a near centimetre of surplus liquid.
Next comes the vegetable tempura, or so I expect; I receive shrimp tempura instead. Luckily for my server, this dish is excellent, with light, flaky, flavourful batter covering the large shrimps. It is just as tempura should be.
My two gyoza dumplings (top photo) look beautiful, but are disappointingly lukewarm; the second one is maybe even cold. Not what I want in a dumpling. And so, I move onto the maki.
I order the Red Dragon roll, my favourite maki. I've seen thicker salmon strips on other Red Dragons; these leave the rolls somewhat scantily clad. The salmon itself is delicious - the buttery type that I'm perpetually seeking out after eating the freshest varieties in Kyoto. The disappointment of these Red Dragon rolls lay in the spicy mayo, which overpowers the delicious combination of salmon, avocado, cucumber and tempura.
To close the meal (I can tell I won't last until dessert), I order two large hand rolls, one avocado, one unagi. These, along with the shrimp tempura, are my favourites of the meal. The unagi is delicately saucy, freshly cooked, soft and sweet. No mistakes here.
Bustling when I arrived, the lunch hour has passed, and I am the last to leave. My total bill (in cash): $18.07, including unlimited genmaicha tea. Overall a satisfying visit, Wasabi has some credible hits, and some real misses. While the AYCE menu selection is large, it's not original, nor all successful, and it's evident that quantity, not quality, reigns. It's not easy being green, but perhaps with some pointed focus on what it does best, Wasabi can become a notable member of Toronto's AYCE sushi club.
Writing and photos by Jenna Lianne.
Hours:
Tuesday to Friday, 12pm to 3pm, 5pm to 10:30pm
Saturday: 12pm to 10:30pm
Sunday: 1pm to 10pm
Closed Mondays
AYCE prices:
Weekdays, Monday to Thursday--
Lunch: $14.99 cash, $15.99 credit/debit
Dinner: $18.99 cash, $19.99 credit/debit
Weekend, Friday to Sunday--
Lunch: $15.99 cash, $16.99 credit/debit
Dinner: $20.99 cash, $21.99 credit/debit
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2010/04/01/consumer-fish-marketplace.html
although, sushi was decent.
And as Jay mentioned, throw in the price of drinks and you end up paying way more in the end than if you're just ordering a dinner combo off the menu.
But seriously, do you really need all that food at once? A simple meal of soup, salad and like 8 maki rolls is actually quite enough for one sitting. And there's still room in the budget for a nice hot bottle of sake.
Forget AYCE, there may be 2 or 3 restaurants in all of Toronto whose unagi isn't from frozen packages.