Sushi Shop

Sushi Shop
3 Carlton St.

A few weeks ago when I was out taking in the sights, sounds, and displays of Pride weekend, I noticed a sushi place just off Yonge on Carlton. It caught my eye because it was all polished stone, glass, and shiny metal. What can I say? Every time I see a place like this I can hear Homer Simpson in my mind saying “Ooh! Shiny!” It looked nice, so a couple of weeks later I rounded up the Polish brigade and we headed out. I should point out that Mark managed to make a face in both of the group photos I took. He’s a man after my own heart. Christine re-joins us after hitting SushiD with me a few weeks back. Also with us were Mark’s wife Lydia and sister Agnes.

I arrived first and took the time to check out the menu, and make a note of the address for the Google Map. While trying to locate the address on the menu I noticed that Sushi Shop is owned by Tiki Ming, purveyors of fine food court Chinese.  This was noted with amusement as I often hit the bottom of the barrel and had Tiki Ming when working for RBC a while back.

Sushi Shop is obviously an attempt at starting a Sushi Chain, and they might actually be able to pull it off. I’m not sure exactly why we *need* a chain with the 80 gazillion places to get sushi, but then I’m not a businessman so what do I know? The logos and branding were quite well done though, with the company name appearing everywhere. On the bottled water and on the packet of soy sauce.

But enough about the logo, what was the food like? Before I can get to that I have to explain the system. This is the first thing that needs work here. There is a process to ordering your food. You have to circle your choices on the menu, then present the menu to the cash and pay. Then (theoretically) the food is brought to you. There are some good ideas here. Nearly any roll can be had with brown rice for no additional cost. Usually brown rice is an extra 1$ or so. The cheapskate in all of us (ok, me especially) likes the fast-food concept with no tipping.

The prices were pretty darn reasonable too. Hardly any of the rolls were above $9. You also had 3 choices of “maki”. Monomaki, “regular” maki, and “Sumomaki”. Good luck defending that last trademark guys. I had the Kamikazi Tuna ($6.95) and the Vancouver Roll at $5.25. The Kamikaze Tuna was from the Sumomaki section of the menu and was quite large. Large enough that it didn’t fit into the dish of soy sauce. It was pretty darn good though, the apparent difference between this and spicy tuna is crab stick and tempura added. There was a fairly generous amount of tuna in there too. I keep my eyes open and look for cheaping out with excessive amounts of crab stick. Not here. What there was was just the right balance of spicy and , well, tuna.It should also be noted that with the generous ingredients, it was rolled very well without any piece falling apart.

The Vancouver roll was from the “regular” maki section. It was a little on the small size, but for $5 you really can’t complain. The one complaint that I will make, is that the fish and cream cheese were in opposite proportions to what they should have been. More fish than cheese please. Still, with the exception of the middle of the roll where the cream cheese was thickest, the Salmon, Avocado, and Cheese were in a pretty good balance. Again, rolled very well. Not what you’d necessarily expect from a fast food place.

There are bugs in the system though. Firstly, the service was slow. Once we had placed our order, it took a good 25-30 minutes for the food to arrive. The restaurant wasn’t nearly busy enough to justify this. Second, even with our selections written down, mistakes were made. They tried to bring me spicy tuna instead of Kamikaze. Christine’s rolls were supposed to be made with Brown rice, and they came white. I sent mine back, but after waiting as long as we did, Christine just ate hers.

All in all, once they simplify the system a bit and speed up the service, this place will be well worth visiting. Not fine dining by any means, but a place to pop in on your lunch break and grab something to eat at your desk. Certainly a step above a cheese burger or greasy Cantonese. We’ll see if locations spring up all over, or if they just disappear…