Omi Sushi

One has no idea how difficult it could be to find a Japanese sushi restaurant to be open on a Monday, especially when the Monday happens to be a holiday.  Most Japanese restaurant tend to close on Monday after being open all weekend however when there is a national holiday that falls on the same Monday, it makes it doubly hard for one to find a sushi restaurant to be open on that day.  It took us a little while, making a half dozen calls all around the city, but we finally found one that was open in east Scarborough in Omi Japanese Restaurant. 

This restaurant is tucked in some a small plaza located roughly in the corner of Lawrence Avenue East and Kingston Road.  The place is a little embedded so if one drives too fast, you will sure to miss the restaurant. 

We decided to do the take out from the restaurant as there were many hungry friends of ours waiting back home for some delicious sushi and sashimi.  We chose this place because they not offered only sushi and sashimi but they also offered Udon noodles and a variety of tempuras. We placed our order ahead of time over the phone and were told that it would take about half an hour for them to prepare for the food.  As we were waiting inside the restaurant, we noticed that the restaurant was only about one quarters full and that there wasn’t really a whole lot of Japanese décor inside the place.  They did though display a rather large quantity of alcohol and beers behind the cashier.  We went with two medium sushi and sashimi platters, some tempuras and a couple of beef Udon noodles.  We also tried ordering some glass noodles however they were not available on that day. The medium platter contained about 53 pieces and cost about $40.00.

Sushi and Sashimi Platter

The first thing one would notice when they looked at the platter was that all the pieces were rather large.  This could be good or bad, as the bigger pieces actually made the platter look small because of a lack of variety.  There weren’t really any specialty fishes in the tray as it looked like it was mostly butterfish and salmon.  The rolls too looked big with a combination of California and salmon rolls dotting the tray.  Some egg rolls and surf clam rounded out most of the contents of the tray.  The fish itself was decent, as it seemed to be rather fresh and not one that had been kept in a freezer for long periods of time.  The sushi rolls were okay at best and didn’t really have a wow factor to it.  The rolls seemed slightly dry as if the rice had been sitting in the cooker for a little while. 

On the other end, the Udon noodles tasted pretty good.  The unfortunate part was that the proportions in this case were rather small.  They had used a medium size container to hold the soup and a medium size container to hold all the Udon.  We ordered a seafood Udon that day and the seafood contained included surf clams, mussels and shrimp.  However, there weren’t that many pieces of seafood inside the noodles container which was quickly gobbled up by my hungry friends. 

The Vegatable Tempura was equally disappointing in that there were only about 4 or 5 pieces in the small container.  There was the yam and cucumber but that was pretty much it.  For the amount of money one pays and for the amount of food one gets, this certainly was a little disappointing.  The tempura taste wise however was not bad and remained fairly crunchy despite the trip back home.  It was just too bad that there were so few pieces in the container. 

Overall, it might have been average at best for take out.  It’s probably true that one would probably get better bang for their buck if they were to eat in and do their all you can eat special which was $19.99 per person.  For the 2 medium size platters plus two Seafood Udon noodles and a Vegetable Tempura, the total came out to about $130.00.  The problem was that after the sushi, a large pizza was needed to make sure the stomachs were full.  An increase in quantity would have been great and may have made their customers happier.  Overall I give it a 2.75 out of 5. 

Omi Sushi

4352 Kingston Rd, Toronto, ON
647-748-4352