Sushi Kaji

The Place:

Extremely simple decor, with minimal decorations. However, very clean and neat.

Space is precious, just like many fine Japanese establishments. Sushi bar is the prime area to be at as you can observe Master Kaji at work, but make reservations early, as it only fits twelve patrons at one sitting.

Service is friendly, although waitresses' broken English makes it tough to understand what you're eating if the menu is missing.

The Food:

Menu - Takumi ($120)

Tomato stuffed sweet shrimp with Japanese tomato sauce

I didn't taste much of the shrimp, but nevertheless this cold dish was very refreshing with the jelly mixed in w/ the ingredients inside the tomato.



Grilled Japanese pepper stuffed shrimp cake

The shrimp cake balanced out the strong pepper taste and for someone who's usually not a big fan of peppers, I actually enjoyed this dish.




Cold shabu-shabu salad with sesame dressing

The name confused me. When I think "shabu-shabu", I think of a hotpot and then when I think "salad", I expect some type of leafy vegetable related dish. This was basically a beef roll, which wasn't really anything out of the ordinary, so I would say from looking at the name of the dish on the menu, it's quite misleading.


Sashimi

The sashimi was very fresh and better than most of the sushi establishments opened by Chinese people around the city. The shrimp heads were still moving when the plate arrived - which was then taken away to be fried.

Simmered bracken rolled with tofu-puff

This was an interesting dish. The vegetable added some flavour to the normally bland tofu and the sauce (which had a slight sweetness to it) added to the flavour.



Roasted duck & chrysanthemum salad

The duck was very tender (unlike many restaurants that tend to be on the dry side) and the chrysanthemum was a nice garnish for it.




Grilled black cod with yuzu sauce

The Cod was to die for... and it came with a side of lotus w/ shrimp paste with a mint leaf. Very delicate and intricate preparation was made for the lotus side, as it was thinly sliced into half, to sandwich the shrimp paste. The lotus was then grilled until crisp; the mint complimented the shrimp and lotus extremely well.


Sushi & soup (soba noodles w/ green onions and wasabi in broth)
(Sushi served (in order): Toro, Lobster, Scallop, Unagi, Toro w/ croquette & ikura, King Crab, and Mini unagi sushi)



We were warned by the waitresses not to have the scallop and unagi sushi with soy sauce. We soon discovered why as it was noted the scallop sushi was drizzled with a slight touch of olive oil, with salt and pepper - what an unique fusion of the east & west!




Dessert

Mint with the pampelmousse dessert is required!





Other must-note items:

Kaji makes his own soy sauce and wasabi. Very distinct soy sauce with a slight sweet taste. Wasabi is made with finely chopped raddish - in fact, once it is placed in the soy sauce (which is a no-no for the avid Japanese diner), you can see the wasabi break off into very tiny raddish pieces, unlike the powdered alternative. Yet, the hot, burning effect is just as strong, if not even more than the powdered wasabi.

They serve two types of tea - green tea during the meal, and a black tea right before desserts.

Our two-cents & opinion

Jenn: 4/5 for creativity and variety of the dishes; 3/5 for the price and the amount of food - I was still a bit hungry afterwards.

Holly: 3.5/5 definitely tops Hashimoto, although extremely on the pricey range.

Wanna try it out for yourself?

Sushi Kaji
860 The Queensway
Etobicoke, ON
M8Y 1K8
416.252.2166