I finally had the chance to go to JaBistro, deemed one of the best sushi restaurants in Toronto. I’d been following them on Twitter since their inception and their photos were always so beautiful. Their sushi was just as much as delight to look at as it was to eat!
I wanted to try a little bit of everything so I had the Sashimi Sampler. It is a mixture of chef’s choice sashimi. I added Toro (fat tuna belly) which was not a guaranteed item on the sampler. The sampler had scallop, salmon, octopus, makarel, fried fish bone, fish eggs, and more. Everything was fresh and melted in my mouth. The fish bones were crunchy and salty to add variation in the palate.
I also ordered the Aburicious set of blowtorched sushi. It contained 2 salmon, 2 makerel, 2 tiger prawn and 2 Jabistro roll sushi pieces. Blowtorched sushi seriously will change your life. The best ones were the salmon and tiger prawn as they just melded in your mouth in perfect harmony. It had a lovely butteriness in a way that makes you forget that it’s rice at the bottom. At other sushi places the rice is always hard to get through after a while but I probably could’ve eaten 10,000 pieces of blowtorched sushi and not realized it.
My friends also ordered the Sea Bream Collar and Pork Belly which were also very tasty (I stole some bites).
Throughout the meal I sipped a Shiso Smash which was a mixture of bourbon, simple syrup, lemon and shiso (a type of Asian spice). It was kind of a play on alcoholic lemonade.
The three of us split two desserts afterwards. The first was the Matcha Parfait which was matcha spongecake, mascarpone cream, matcha chocolate sauce. I’m not always a fan of green tea flavoured things but this was very good! There were also berries and crunchy corn flakes which added a nice touch of texture
The other item was the Genmai Pudding which was a brown rice pudding, coconut milk, nigori (unfiltered) sake, maple syrup, cranberries, pumpkin seeds and almonds. It was like a rice pudding with an interesting crunch provided by the almonds.
My bill ended up being quite pricey, but my friends told me that the first time people go, they always go a bit overboard. It was totally worth it though and one of the best meals I have eaten in a while! In a matter of fact, I had to write this blog post right away. I think I will be craving blow torched sushi until the next time I set foot in these doors.
