Images of cheery smiling cartoon characters flash through my mind when I heard the name KOKO Share Bar. Bubble-eyed creatures that blink with earnest and flash big smiles as they proclaim the importance of love and sharing, almost like a trippy Care Bear. In reality, KOKO is set up like many traditional izakayas with sparse wooden tables and black chairs, each table divided by a tall pane of plastic in the new COVID era. Not one anime character anywhere… I couldn’t decide if I should be relieved or disappointed.

And in a very unlike me manner, we also didn’t share at the Share Bar. It didn’t stop me from ordering the salmon aburi sushi ($20) to start, the rice adorned with thick cuts of salmon topped with lime aioli. At KOKO, there was just enough of the mayo to take on a hint of smokiness and to add a splash of creaminess without making the sushi greasy. I would have liked some stronger finishing ingredients to create more interest – like the customary jalapeno slice, a dab of chopped olives, or even a sprinkling of green onions. The aburi was good but lacked pizazz.

Based on my friend’s recommendation (and plenty of other reviewers), I had to try KOKO’s roasted miso black cod ($36). It’s a solid dish but with a few changes could be even better: including some of the miso sauce on the side for those who want a more flavourful fish or to pour over the steamed rice, removing some of the cod’s bones to make it easier to cut into (even the large shards were left behind), and roasting the skin longer so that it becomes crispier.

Still, I appreciated the decent sized piece of black cod, which was fresh and flaky and there was a nice variety of vegetables included to create a balanced and healthy meal. If only there was more seasoning on the vegetables that seemed to be merely steamed.

For an izakaya, KOKO sure plays it safe with their flavours. What a shame, no Japanese anime characters, and no bold ingredients.

Is it snobby of me to have a negative view about ghost kitchens? I’m not against their operating model – it’s smart to get rid of the expenses of managing a dining room and walk-in service to focus just on preparing meals.  Yet, I can’t help but feel that this separation from the customer also allows them to hire untrained chefs to churn out subpar food like an assembly line.

In retrospect, it’s an unfounded view. When I went to write this post and looked up the address of Torch Pressed Sushi, I found the image of a bubble tea shop as the front. That’s when I realized, Torch Pressed Sushi, a place our household already ordered from a few times was a ghost kitchen!

Their tasting box is our go-to order holding 8 pieces of aburi sushi, two maki rolls (lobster salad and tuna), a healthy handful of edamame, and seaweed salad. 

What arrives with the aburi can vary but you’ll always find a piece of their spicy salmon that incorporates not only a jalapeno slice but also spicy sauce and black pepper to really create a punch. It’s so loved by my husband that we generally get an extra order of two pieces ($4.45) to add to the meal.

A couple of my other favourite bites is the zesty shrimp that contains a hint of lemon, which nicely balances the rich mayo base of everything else. The marinated saba is a stronger tasting fish and is usually slightly thicker than the rest so it’s a piece where you can really taste the protein and not just the rice and sauces. Overall, Torch’s seafood is sliced thinner than some other places so if you like a meaty bite, it could be a disappointment. Yet, the thinner fish is also reflected in their lower price point and there’s enough of it to add to the taste.

Ingeniously, their hand rolls arrive with the nori separated from the rice by a plastic wrapper, a great way to save them for lunch the next day – something that always happens in our household as we tend to over order. The toro or tuna belly roll is bland and doesn’t include much of the green onion or tobiko that’s described on the menu. So, you’ll want to rely on the limited soy sauce (how do they give such a small package for so much food?) to use on this item. Or if you happen to order an appetizer that has the spicy mayo given, then save some to jazz up the toro. 

The lobster roll is much better as it’s tossed in a tangy mayo that provides some flavour. You can’t really decern the lobster from any other seafood, but of the two maki this is the clear favourite.

We’ve generally ordered from Torch through Uber where they offer a complimentary seafood basket ($5.99) deal. The crispy tempura battered seafood trio consists of squid tentacles (fairly tasty), shrimp (overly battered so you can’t really taste the shrimp), and aji or Japanese mackerel (very good and the best piece of the bunch). A great add-on, if only for the chipotle mayo that can be used on the toro roll.

Maybe minds can be changed. Ghost kitchens aren’t as unfriendly as I used to think. From now on, I’ll think of them as being Casper, the Casper that feeds me sushi.

Sushi isn’t really known to be comfort food - in fact, it’s what I turn to when I’m needing a ‘lighter meal’. Still, there is one type of sushi that I would consider to be comfort food and that’s when it’s prepared aburi-style: rice topped with protein and a generous layer of mayonnaise that is blasted with a blowtorch so that the mayo seeps into the protein. Usually, it’s finished off with one or two ingredients to give it that final flavour and garnish.

Comfort sushi is what you’ll find at Project Fish. Their oshi aburi served as a single order or part of a platter. At first glance, I wouldn’t have thought jalapenos would pair nicely with salmon, but in the salmon oshi ($14) it adds a bit of crunch and peppery bite that cuts through the otherwise rich fatty salmon. I could have done without the cracked black pepper, which adds a gritty hard texture and would suggest sumac, a spice that’s zesty but could melt into the background, as an alternative.

The small platter ($38) is a great option if you like variety.  There’s three pieces of the salmon oshi and that evening also included:

• Saba oshi - cured mackerel simply adorned with miso aioli. It’s decent, but some pickled or fresh green scallion would have brought it to another level.
• Basil shrimp oshi – while you can’t really taste the herb amongst the all the other ingredients, I did like the chopped black olives that complimented the sweet shrimp with a salty finish.
• More aburi shrimp arrives in an unpressed form. Although it looks really like the oshi, Project Fish adds truffle oil into the mayo to create a decadent bite.
• All the rich flavours are balanced off with simple salmon nigri, a spicy cooked fish roll that has quite the powerful kick of heat, and pieces of lightly sweetened tamago that could even double as dessert.

With 23 pieces of sushi and a small container of edamame, the small platter could almost feed two if you are not too hungry - add on another roll, appetizer, or oshi if you’d like a more fulsome meal. Plus, I love that fact that it comes in an environmentally friendly paper box instead of all that plastic that needs to be thrown away.

The Neo Tokyo roll ($18) tempted my husband but wasn’t a hit for me. I’m not sure why they added ‘Tokyo’ to the name … with the sweet and slightly spicy gochujang sauce slathered over it, I would have thought ‘Neo Seoul’ roll would have worked better. Or perhaps even ‘Neo Dallas’ roll as it seemed borne from an eclectic diverse neighbourhood from the American south: there’s the Korean gochujang sauce but also a spicy jalapeño relish, and possibly even habanero mixed with the tobiko so that you get a spicy kick.

There was just too much of surimi or fake crab meat salad and not enough other ingredients to round out the maki. The tempura bits should have added crunch but were soggy with all the condiments and I couldn’t taste any of the cucumber that was mentioned on the menu. Overall, it was just too saucy and soft for my taste.

Oh well, sometimes you can’t win them all. Luckily with our overzealous ordering there was so much food that I didn’t need the Neo Tokyo roll to leave me fully comforted and satisfied.  

After having mediocre sushi in the spring and not seeing many better options on Uber, I bit the bullet and went to Shinobu for takeout. A delicious gem in the Yonge Lawrence neighbourhood, it’s a restaurant my husband and I frequented bi-monthly, pre-COVID. We agreed to suppress our expectations - takeout wouldn’t be the same as dining in the small intimate establishment – but we were craving fresh fish and expertly prepared sushi, only Shinobu would satisfy.   

To get the stuffed lotus root ($9.50) or not? These deep-fried pieces of earthy lotus root sandwiching a savoury pork paste are heavenly straight from the fryer. But would they be nearly as good after sitting in a box for 15 minutes? While the crunchiness was stunted, the texture was still there, and the starter was just as juicy as having at the restaurant. So much so, that I forgot to take a picture before we dove in… you’ll just have to trust me on this one.

Similarly, the tempura in the double shrimp cannon roll ($13.50) held up very well and the lettuce didn’t wilt terribly while sitting covered. The maki still delivered that lovely bomb of flavours and textures (is that why it’s called a cannon roll?), no regular dynamite roll can compare.

A safe choice is the spicy tuna roll ($8.50), which resembles what we’d have at the restaurant. And unlike our previous delivery experience from Kibo Sushi House, there wasn’t a crumb of tempura batter. At Shinobu, their spicy tuna roll actually incorporates fish… what a novel thought.

The one dish that wasn’t as impressive was the pressed salmon sushi ($17.50). The kewpie and jalapeno paste (?) topping the fish was just too much; perhaps it really sinks into the salmon on the ride home. Luckily, it’s an easy problem to solve – we remove half of it – and we continued our merry way.

Having a hankering for fresh fish but not wanting sashimi, we ordered the seafood donburi ($24). It was exactly what we needed incorporating so many different slices of fish, octopus, eel, two thick pieces of tamago (egg omelette) and even a spoon of spicy salmon.  If you need a variety, donburi bowls are the way to go! Why did it take me so long to try one of these?

If anyone ever finds a good sushi place that delivers to the North York/Midtown area let me know. Until then, I’ll have to be my own driver and will continue to head back to Shinobu for our sushi fix.