Sunday 22 September 2013

Tako Sushi

Update: Restaurant has closed.
September 22, 2013
We came back for the Lobster Teppanyaki Feast


Teppanyaki is a lot of fun to watch - they cook almost everything in front of you. The best is when they put on a show and set onions on fire! The chef who cooked our meal didn't do anything exciting, but we saw some flaming onions on the other teppanyaki table.


Marinated Shark Fin and Jellyfish Salad
The jellyfish was really good and it was a pretty simple salad - what you see is what you get.

Sushi and Sashimi Boat
The green dragon roll was mediocre with really mushy avocado on top. I liked the variety of sushi, especially the seared sushi like the mantis shrimp sushi (aka pissing shrimp), squid sushi and unagi (eel sushi).

Tuna & Salmon Tataki Roll in Yuzu sauce
Interesting combination...the tuna was raw, but the salmon was cooked and they were both wrapped around a bunch of lettuce. Weird.

Lobster Teppanyaki
A whole lobster for four people - cooked in butter. Yum!
 
Scallop, Strip Loin and Lobster
Everything was cooked well, but I found that the soy sauce taste was a little overwhelming for the strip loin and scallop.

Clam in Mixed Mushroom Miso Soup
I wouldn't have known this was miso soup because it tasted like a seafood broth with mushrooms.

Teppanyaki Vegetables
Shrimp & Chicken Stuffed Mushroom
Very interesting...not that great - I probably would have liked something to balance out the strong mushroom taste instead of stuffing it with two kinds of meat.

Teppanyaki Vegetables and Beansprouts
I love grilled zucchini and red peppers - delicious and not too much soy sauce.
I'm not a fan of beansprouts though...I would have liked more vegetables and less sprouts.

Beef Fried Rice
I can't believe the cook used butter to fry the rice. The fried rice smelt and tasted strongly of butter. It's weird to have butter in Asian cooking because it's so heavy and just doesn't fit well with Asian dishes. Awful.

Mango dessert
Condensed milk and mango pudding...I can't seem to get away from this dessert. I'm not really a fan of puddings, but this was the pudding of the day. 

Overall: Teppanyaki is a pretty good experience, but Tako Sushi didn't put on the nice teppanyaki show I was expecting. The food was decently priced and good (for the most part). I think the lunch teppanyaki deals are better than the Lobster meal deal though. 



June 22, 2013

Luxury Lunch Beef Bento
BBQ beef short ribs. daily appetizer, 3pc California rolls, 3 pc Cucumber rolls, steamed rice and dessert 
The BBQ beef short ribs were delicious! Very tender and packed with flavour, but there wasn't enough sauce to soak the complementary rice. Tako Sushi isn't really known for its rolls and so I wasn't expecting much from the rolls - they weren't tightly packed or particularly tasty. The salad was good with a nice vinegar based dressing and I liked that the miso soup had tofu, green onions and seaweed. 


Top: Luxury Lunch Beef Bento (with Teriyaki strip loin steak)
Bottom: Luxury Lunch Seafood Bento (with Teriyaki Salmon)
All bentos come with miso soup, salad, some simple rolls and fruit as a dessert - it's quite a large lunch portion. The strip loin steak had a lot of sauce and was great when paired with the white rice. The salmon was nicely marinated and tasty as well. 

Overall:  Tako Sushi is good value for money for a Japanese restaurant. The take-out is cheap, fast and the food is okay. I'd probably skip the sushi and go for the bento boxes. If you do takeout and pay cash, you get an extra 15% off your meal. They also have some seasonal specials and teppanyaki meals, but I heard the service at the restaurant is horrible.

May 18, 2013
  Tako Sushi is a cheap and popular Japanese restaurant in the Don Mills area.

Take out promotional menu
Dinner in Bento
3 Cucumber Rolls, Japanese Spring Roll, Tako style Tempura Shrimp and Vegetable, Teriyaki Filet of Chicken and Japanese Steamed rice in bento
The best part of Tako sushi is that you never have to worry about portion sizes; there's always enough to go around. The sweet teriyaki chicken was flavourful and abundant. The cucumber rolls and spring roll were decent, but th Tako style tempura shrimp were just deep-fried panko crusted shrimp - a bit of a disappointment.


Thursday 5 September 2013

Future Bakery & Cafe

A popular U of T hangout spot in the Annex. They serve all-day breakfast, pierogis and cake!
Most of their cakes are from Bakery Street, but they have a few others from different Toronto brands like LaRocca and Dufflet
Clockwise from top left: Lemon cupcake from Dufflet, Caramel Crunch from LaRocca, Raspberry Blast from Baker Street
The cupcake was days old - the icing was super hard and the cake was rock-solid. It wasn't edible at all. 
The caramel crunch cake was good though with fluffy layers of cream and caramel between two layers of crunchy meringue - Yum!
The raspberry blast was good as it blended two of my favourite cake flavours: chocolate and raspberry. 

Overall: The selection was pretty good, but the cake slices were pricey!