Ninki Sushi

Ninki Sushi
12 Adelaide St. W

Yep, it’s been nearly 2 weeks since I posted a review. After 4 months of constant sushi eating it was time to take a small break. One cannot subsist on raw seafood and rice alone! It’s getting a little silly in a very entertaining way. whenever any of my friends feel like having sushi, the first person they call is me. I have a very hard time turning down dinner out with friends, so my “off the blog” intake has been creeping up lately.

This week I decided to take my mother out with Laura and I for our usual Thursday sushi lunch. It’s getting harder and harder to find places close enough to work for me, but luckily my mom works right at Adelaide and Yonge, and there’s a place I tried to check out almost 2 months ago right at that intersection. So off we all went to Ninki Sushi.

I can’t remember how I first heard about this place, and I’m thinking it was just a google search. We arrived at 1pm, a little later in the lunch hour as I figured that the place would be packed at noon. How right I was as we still had to wait a few minutes for a table. The service was a tad slow, taking our order took a little longer than I would have liked, but with the volume of people in the place it’s perfectly understandable.

Now, my mother has only ever had California rolls. So this was just as much a proper introduction for her as it was a review of the establishment. But I want to take a moment to defend the poor maligned California roll. The sushi snob will turn his or her nose up at the most common of all North American maki. This is totally the wrong attitude. California rolls are a gateway drug. Through them people who would normally balk at the idea of eating raw fish will give sushi a try. This isn’t about keeping it all to ourselves people, this is about trying to get people to try new things! So with all of this in mind, my ordering for the both of us was definitely “pedestrian” but I knew that a few basic selections would win her over to the raw side of the force.

So first up was to give the California Roll ($4.95) a go. If nothing else met her palate, at least she wouldn’t go hungry. Also up was Salmon Pizza ($7.95) and Spicy Tuna ($6.95). Laura had a “select your own” vegetarian combo of any two rolls for $8.95. The interesting part was that you had a list of something like 8 choices of vegetable and they would make monomaki from your selection.

My suspicions are right. Get ‘em hooked on California rolls and they’ll try anything. Unfortunately, that meant that the other sushi started disappearing quicker than I would have liked! The Spicy Tuna was of the sort with the Nori on the outside, a nice slab of tuna on the inside and spicy mayo drizzled on top. I enjoy the “traditional” maki style every so often as I’ve found that I really like the fishy taste of it. Strange that the strongest “fish” flavour in sushi usually comes from the Nori. The Salmon Pizza was almost a nerve wracking decision to make. I’ve had very good, very odd, and very bad Pizza. Would my Moms first encounter be with a good variety? It was! Though the rice patty could have been a tad crispier, there was no cheese(!), and it wasn’t drowned in mayo. Best part was, she loved both of the selections.

Ladies and gentlemen, not only have we discovered that Ninki sushi is a pretty darn good place to eat with very reasonable prices, but we have another convert!