Finding a Japanese restaurant in Toronto isn't too difficult however we wanted a place where we could choose either from an a la carte or from a buffet style menu. Scanning the many Japanese restaurants in North York, we were able to find a slightly newer Japanese restaurant in Kiku Japanese Cuisine. Inside this restaurant one could choose either from their a la carte menu or from their buffet selection. My friend and I got in around 7 pm on a weeknight. We sat down and noticed that the restaurant was half filled. Scanning the occupied tables, we were able to take notice that most of the people had ordered from the buffet menu rather than a la carte. My friend and I did a quick calculation and felt that if we had totaled up all the foods that we were going to order, that it was going to exceed the total price for one adult who was going to order from the buffet menu. The price for one adult on that evening was $22.99. As well, we would be severely limited in trying all the different kinds of foods that this restaurant has to offer.
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| Cold Tofu |
We went with a large variety of sushis and sashimis as well as some spare ribs, miso soup and salads for the evening. What we tried to do as well was order some of their slighter variations of some of the more common Japanese foods such as their Asian Chicken Salad, Cold Tofu and Mackerel Sashimi. What I found was the cold tofu literally tasted like cold tofu with soya sauce added to it and their Asian Chicken Salad was really just their regular appetizer salad with chicken chunks. The dish that seemed to impress me the most was their simple salmon, albacore tuna and mackerel sashimi. These fish were all very fresh and had a good taste to them.
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| Salmon, Tuna and Mackerel Sashimi |
What I found a little peculiar was that some of their sushi and hand roll dishes were a little thick and dry or that some just felt a little too saucy. It was hard to really describe what it was that just didn't click with us. We both believe that it could have been the rice. What we found was the rice was particularly dry and it made the whole sushi and hand roll a little bit more difficult to consume. Either that or some of the rolls just had way too much tempura bits added on top of it. Whatever the case, it gave the overall sushi and hand roll a particular dryness to it and that was evident whether it was the Red Dragon Roll, Golden Dragon Roll or Spicy Salmon Hand Rolls. As well, Golden Dragon Roll appeared to have too much mayonnaise or too much ingredients to it while the Spicy Salmon Hand Roll had too little mayonnaise to it.
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| Spicy Salmon Hand Rolls |
What was more disappointing was there signature Sushi Kiku Roll which was really eel sushi rolls. There was an interesting aroma emanating from it so much so that my colleague could not even stomach it. The "taste" was okay although the interesting aroma was actually coming from these flakes that they had sprinkled on top of the rolls. I'm not too sure what the flakes were but if I had to describe the overall sushi, it almost tasted like coffee sushi. It was definitely interesting but somewhat wasted as out of the 11 pieces that were present, both my colleague and I could only finish two of them. The dessert menu contained mostly ice creams which to me was somewhat insignificant.
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| Golden Dragon Roll (left), Assorted Sashimi (bottom) |
The most disappointing part of the whole evening had to have been the water. I know the water!! A couple of times the waitress had the hot and coldness of the drinks mixed up. On the final occasion, the glass of water that was served to us was loaded with the smell of chlorine. Oddly enough they were mopping the floor near the end of the evening and the smell of the chlorine emulating from the floor was just as strong as the smell coming from our glasses. No it was not from the floor as one could actually sip the hot water from our glasses and taste the chlorine as if was taken right from a swimming pool. We actually had to get the manager to change our water but even after that, the smell of chlorine was still emulating from the glass.
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| Sushi Kiku Roll |
Overall I really can't make heads or tails of this place. The sashimi was pretty good but the sushi was a little suspect. Some of their variation dishes had no wow factor to it and some of their special rolls were not too special at all. And the water, whoa. In the end, both my colleague and I both knew that we have tasted better before and this place was probably just average at best. Overall I would give this place a 2.75 out of 5.
Kiku Japanese Cuisine
808 York Mills Rd #18, Toronto, ON M3B 1X8
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