Review: Very good udon noodle. Something for a change (from all the Ramen stores in Toronto)

It's a nice restaurant, located near the Yorkville neighbourhood. There is a green P-parking very close by (around 2 minutes walk) from the restaurant with plenty of parking. It is also located near the St. Clair station, so getting there is convenient. 

Atmosphere of the restaurant was good for couple, friends, family. Service was pretty good and efficient too. 

Some of the food are quite outstanding:
Grilled clams - a must try, with very fresh clams and the sauce was prepared perfectly with a salt and citrus balance. 
Curry beef udon - the curry was rich and tasted like the ones we had in Japan. It was very hot when it was served, so be careful. 
Cold udon - you can tell the udon has its own texture they cannot find in grocery store frozen udon. (the pork on the side was very good too)

Some of the food are on a pricier side:
Sashimi - a 5 pieces (~3-4 oz portion) costs around $10
Grilled ox tongue - with around 6 pieces of ox tongue slices, it was almost $20. Very pricey. 

The buttered oyster was too oily I find.

Overall it is a positive experience. It is on a higher price scale.

More photos from Jasper trip

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Edmonton / Calgary / Banff / Jasper / Icefield trip

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Review: Hapa Izakaya, Toronto. A fusion type of Izakaya, some hit and some miss

Visited May 2013

Atmosphere: 4/5

Service: 4/5

Food / Taste: 4/5

Portion size: 3.5/5

Take reservation (via phone and on open table). Street parking, Green P nearby, or back street near little Italy. 

Would I recommend friends to go / go again? Yes!! especially for their mochi ice cream

Izakaya in Toronto are very fusion based. If you are looking for traditional Japanese Izakaya, then we have not yet encountered one in Toronto. (We have been in Tokyo and Izakaya there is nothing like the one in Toronto). 

Regardless, the restaurant is located in little Italy. The atmosphere is great, especially in a nice summer day, there is an option for sitting outside too. If you are an early bird dinner eater, tapas are half priced before 5pm.

Selection of beer is fair. They carried some Japanese beer, such as Asahi. Price is average. 

Service is somewhat slow, maybe we went on a busy night. 

We enjoyed some of the food, and some are somehow missed the mark. 

We enjoyed the scallop tartar, Bibimbap (Korean style stone bowl rice), the grilled fish neck, Aburi saba, and the homemade / handmade green tea ice cream mochi. Those are surprisingly delicious. There were the wow factors for each of these dishes. I love dessert so much and having a homemade / handmade green tea ice cream mochi was very satisfied. The Japanese restaurant usually provides the store bought ready-to-serve ones, which does not have the gluey/chewy texture to the mochi. The one at Hapa was worth to try. 

The rest of the food was ok. The buttered lobster was a bit on the pricier side. The pork belly was as dry as bacon (without the crisp), but the Yuzu (grapefruit) sauce was good tho'. The shrimp salad was above average, portion size was pretty big too. 

Overall it was a positive experience. 

Review: Salt (Wine Bar in Toronto) - Small portion, big price tag, average taste

Visited March 2013Atmosphere: 4/5Service: 4/5Food / Taste: 3/5Portion size: 1/5Take reservation preferred. Street parking you have to pay. Would I recommend friends to go / go again? Likely NOT.
(is it me or it is the value of restaurants located on Ossington, the portions are tiny)

Great thing about this restaurant, the atmosphere is good. However, our group of friends only ordered a bottle of wine, and we felt as if we were rushed out the door a bit. 

Service is fairly good, only concern we had was the food came either twice or missed an item. It was a bit chaotic at the kitchen I assumed. 

The food: taste is average. Even though it is the Salt restaurant, some of the food is lack of seasonings. We ordered the (1) foie gras, it was a 1" thick by 1"x 2" size of foie gras THAT'S IT!; (2) Prosciutto. Total of 5 thinly slices. (3) Salmon tartar - we like this taste better than the beef tartar; (4) beef tartar, average beef tartar; (5) pull pork taco - if you are a big fan of pull pork and taco, sure you can order, otherwise, not surprising; (6) pasta dish - the sauce needs a little more seasoning, we like the "al dente" texture; (7) seared scallop 4 pieces per serving; (8) grilled calamari - the pureed at the bottom is a little mismatch with the grilled calamari; (9) risotto - I made a bitter mushroom risotto than this restaurant, sadly! All of these dishes costs more than $15. Our group of friend (6 adults and 1 child), ordered some of these food with 2 portions and still not felt satisfied. (ended up to have ramen noodle nearby). Don't get me wrong, I had tapas before, and the portion wasn't as awfully small as served here. 

We ended up paying more than $350 in total and still needed to fill our tummy with noodle elsewhere.

My advice: do not go if you are extremely hungry and don't share the food because it is not enough for even 2 people.
Great thing about this restaurant, the atmosphere is good. However, our group of friends only ordered a bottle of wine, and we felt as if we were rushed out the door a bit. 
Service is fairly good, only concern we had was the food came either twice or missed an item. It was a bit chaotic at the kitchen I assumed. 

The food: taste is average. Even though it is the Salt restaurant, some of the food is lack of seasonings. We ordered the (1) foie gras, it was a 1" thick by 1"x 2" size of foie gras THAT'S IT!; (2) Prosciutto. Total of 5 thinly slices. (3) Salmon tartar - we like this taste better than the beef tartar; (4) beef tartar, average beef tartar; (5) pull pork taco - if you are a big fan of pull pork and taco, sure you can order, otherwise, not surprising; (6) pasta dish - the sauce needs a little more seasoning, we like the "al dente" texture; (7) seared scallop 4 pieces per serving; (8) grilled calamari - the pureed at the bottom is a little mismatch with the grilled calamari; (9) risotto - I made a better mushroom risotto than this restaurant, sadly! All of these dishes costs more than $15. Our group of friend (6 adults and 1 child), ordered some of these food with 2 portions and still not felt satisfied. (ended up to have ramen noodle nearby). Don't get me wrong, I had tapas before, and the portion wasn't as awfully small as served here. 

We ended up paying more than $350 in total and still needed to fill our tummy with noodle elsewhere.

My advice: do not go if you are extremely hungry and don't share the food because it is not enough for even 2 people.
Service is fairly good, only concern we had was the food came either twice or missed an item. It was a bit chaotic at the kitchen I assumed. 
The food: taste is average. Even though it is the Salt restaurant, some of the food is lack of seasonings. We ordered the (1) foie gras, it was a 1" thick by 1"x 2" size of foie gras THAT'S IT!; (2) Prosciutto. Total of 5 thinly slices. (3) Salmon tartar - we like this taste better than the beef tartar; (4) beef tartar, average beef tartar; (5) pull pork taco - if you are a big fan of pull pork and taco, sure you can order, otherwise, not surprising; (6) pasta dish - the sauce needs a little more seasoning, we like the "al dente" texture; (7) seared scallop 4 pieces per serving; (8) grilled calamari - the pureed at the bottom is a little mismatch with the grilled calamari; (9) risotto - I made a bitter mushroom risotto than this restaurant, sadly! All of these dishes costs more than $15. Our group of friend (6 adults and 1 child), ordered some of these food with 2 portions and still not felt satisfied. (ended up to have ramen noodle nearby). Don't get me wrong, I had tapas before, and the portion wasn't as awfully small as served here. 

We ended up paying more than $350 in total and still needed to fill our tummy with noodle elsewhere.

My advice: do not go if you are extremely hungry and don't share the food because it is not enough for even 2 people.
The food: taste is average. Even though it is the Salt restaurant, some of the food is lack of seasonings. We ordered the (1) foie gras, it was a 1" thick by 1"x 2" size of foie gras THAT'S IT!; (2) Prosciutto. Total of 5 thinly slices. (3) Salmon tartar - we like this taste better than the beef tartar; (4) beef tartar, average beef tartar; (5) pull pork taco - if you are a big fan of pull pork and taco, sure you can order, otherwise, not surprising; (6) pasta dish - the sauce needs a little more seasoning, we like the "al dente" texture; (7) seared scallop 4 pieces per serving; (8) grilled calamari - the pureed at the bottom is a little mismatch with the grilled calamari; (9) risotto - I made a bitter mushroom risotto than this restaurant, sadly! All of these dishes costs more than $15. Our group of friend (6 adults and 1 child), ordered some of these food with 2 portions and still not felt satisfied. (ended up to have ramen noodle nearby). Don't get me wrong, I had tapas before, and the portion wasn't as awfully small as served here. 
We ended up paying more than $350 in total and still needed to fill our tummy with noodle elsewhere.

My advice: do not go if you are extremely hungry and don't share the food because it is not enough for even 2 people.
We ended up paying more than $350 in total and still needed to fill our tummy with noodle elsewhere.
My advice: do not go if you are extremely hungry and don't share the food because it is not enough for even 2 people.
My advice: do not go if you are extremely hungry and don't share the food because it is not enough for even 2 people.
First of all, the wine selection is not bad at all. You may be able to get something unique there. Price-wise, it's average high. 

Review of Yours Truly (Toronto, near Ossington Ave) Food was above average, definitely too pricey

Visited Jan 2013

Atmosphere: 5/5

Service: 4/5

Food / Taste: 3.5/5

Portion size: 1/5

Take reservation only. Street parking you have to pay. 

Would I recommend friends to go / go again? Likely NOT.

We went in Jan (2013) for our anniversary celebration. The atmosphere of the place was great for romantic dinner. It's too bad it's not a custom to have valet parking here at Toronto. We had to find a parking spot on the street and walked against the wind to get there. 

We chose the 4 courses tasting menu ($55 per person + tax + gratuity) and we also ordered a lobster noodle on top (almost $30 with around 1/2 cup serving). Portion size was small comparing to other tasting menu at other restaurants. The afford of attempting to create unique taste was there. We found the dishes are very Asian inspired, which you can have much bigger portion with fragment of the cost it is charging. My husband liked the "saba fish dish", which reminded me what I could get at a Japanese restaurant. I liked the egg dish, which had a very complex taste combination and texture combination. Duck breast was very much like Peking duck, except it only came with ONE piece, and you can get a plateful with 20+ pieces at a Chinese restaurant (for $12.99). Chocolate dessert was good, buttermilk dessert....good try but missed it. Total of the meal came up to around $160 CND, then PLUS TAX and PLUS GRATUITY. 

We cannot justify to eat there again when we had something much better out there.

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