Sushi Sugar

Sushi Sugar
813 St Clair Ave West

(Update: Due to “Astroturfing” and generally rude and obscene comments, all comments on this post have been disabled. You’re welcome to disagree with me, but keep it clean and rational.)

Before I get into anything, I must apologize. This week was supposed to be “A sushi place a day” from Monday through Friday. Wouldn’t you know it? I got a nice summer cold. So the past few days have been spent hacking my lungs out like I still smoked. You know, I really don’t miss that. But I’m feeling better now, and it’s time to get back on that horse.

Part of the whole idea behind this site is to go to random restaurants. By random I mean looking at the google map and deciding “there’s a blank spot right about here. I wonder whats there?” Well, there are a couple of sushi spots to visit on St. Clair Ave west. I decided that I’d get off the subway and just start walking west and see what I ran into. The first place, whose name escapes me at the moment, is only open from 4:30 to 10pm during the week, so no lunch there for me. About another block down though was Sushi Sugar.

I’m beginning to wonder about the way in which these restaurants are named. I think they’re literally just grabbing a word at random and tossing sushi either before or after it. Todays random word is Sugar.

Unfortunately, this part of St Clair West is a little hard to get to right now with the streetcar right of way being built. But the intrepid sushi eater will easily be able to scale the moat and get to the restaurant. Inside it’s very well decorated, and each booth is sectioned off from the next with room dividers. Very cozy. The chopsticks are plastic, and while some might have a little more difficulty with them, plastic being harder to grip for the neophyte, it’s a step in the right direction environmental wise. We don’t need to throw away so much wood after using it once people!

I hate to admit it, but I’m going to have to strafe the food and service a bit though. First up is the Spicy Tuna Blossom at $9.95. This is basically a california roll with spicy tuna on top. The spicy tuna mixture was quite good. Lots of fresh tuna with just the right amount of “spice” and crunch. The underlying california roll was pretty disappointing though. Not really all that much to it. Anemic portions of everything right down to the crab stick. Speaking of crab stick, I also had Kani Maki for $4.95. Now here’s where I get ticked off. The pictures don’t really show scale well, but there is maybe 1 full length of crab stick in the roll. Using crab stick is on the cheap side, but using that little is pretty much inexcusable. The saddest part of all was that quite frankly the rice was sub par. Overcooked and tasting too much of rice vinegar. Not nearly as bad as Asakusa, say, but the flavour of the rice is not supposed to overpower the taste of the ingredients.

Finally, the service left a little to be desired. I give the guy credit though, he was trying. He was just inexperienced. At first I was only brought the lunch menu, which had next to nothing on it. My ordering came off the regular menu. Then when it came time to pay, we went through a song and dance where I had to get up and punch in the PIN for my credit card. After which I still added a tip and signed the slip, so what was the point of having the customer get up? Just swipe it.

For lunch this might be your only bet in the area, but if you have even a bit of time to travel, there are plenty of better values within a 10 minute drive.