Blow Fish
As a favour, we were invited to take dinner at a Toronto eaterie known for its lesser-cooked fish of Japanese preparation. We are talking, of course, of sushi.
We started with the restaurant's signature dish, the ebi shooter. This is a large hand-roll (in Vietnamese rice paper) that includes a giant prawn, spears of mango, lettuce, avocado, cucumber tempura bits, and "kewpie", a spicy mayonnaise sauce. The shooter is delicious (as it must be, at $13 per), but our waitress forgot the soy sauce, so ours were slightly dry -- the essential balance of the combination, though, was most pleasing.
Following were a selection of nigiri sushi, all exceedingly perfect in size, shape, composition, flavour, and freshness. It is not always easy to find perfect nigiri, and here Chef Pan surpasses himself consistently.
Following were some tempura, the first failure of the evening. They were perhaps undercooked, with little colour and disappointingly soggy batter. A battered and yet soggy shrimp is a sad shrimp indeed.
Other highlights? The Fall Miso Salad, a beautiful combination of vegetables and a light, tasty dressing. The lobster dumplings, rich and soft. Other problems? The duck dumplings, which were over-fried, dry, and greasy.
In all, we would not have minded paying for this repast. If we had been paying, though, we might have minded the small fryer-related lapses a little more. But Blowfish remains uppermost in our minds as a sushi bar in Toronto.
We started with the restaurant's signature dish, the ebi shooter. This is a large hand-roll (in Vietnamese rice paper) that includes a giant prawn, spears of mango, lettuce, avocado, cucumber tempura bits, and "kewpie", a spicy mayonnaise sauce. The shooter is delicious (as it must be, at $13 per), but our waitress forgot the soy sauce, so ours were slightly dry -- the essential balance of the combination, though, was most pleasing.
Following were a selection of nigiri sushi, all exceedingly perfect in size, shape, composition, flavour, and freshness. It is not always easy to find perfect nigiri, and here Chef Pan surpasses himself consistently.
Following were some tempura, the first failure of the evening. They were perhaps undercooked, with little colour and disappointingly soggy batter. A battered and yet soggy shrimp is a sad shrimp indeed.
Other highlights? The Fall Miso Salad, a beautiful combination of vegetables and a light, tasty dressing. The lobster dumplings, rich and soft. Other problems? The duck dumplings, which were over-fried, dry, and greasy.
In all, we would not have minded paying for this repast. If we had been paying, though, we might have minded the small fryer-related lapses a little more. But Blowfish remains uppermost in our minds as a sushi bar in Toronto.
posted by the Droll Bastard at 1:40 a.m.
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