While I do love expertly crafted sushi, made piece-by-piece and eaten at the optimal temperature, these meals are reserved for special occasions. Generally, I’ll limit my sushi and sashimi intake to “fancier” establishments - perhaps I’m being overly cautious, but low prices and raw seafood seem like a bad combination. Yet, I can still get my fill of cooked items at reasonable prices. The newest find is Aka-Oni Izakaya, a restaurant that offers an array of affordable lunch bento boxes amongst other dishes.
Standard
items arrive with each bento meal:
- Scalding miso soup that contains so much miso paste that it stays emulsified. A lone clam can be found at the bottom, surprisingly not overdone.
- Simple green salad dressed with a tasty soy, lemon, and ginger dressing.
- A daily appetizer, which in our case were two deep-fried gyozas. They’re of average quality but at least hot and freshly made.
- A bowl of rice, even adorned with a bit of seaweed salt for extra flavour.
- And for dessert, pieces of cut-up fruit (with the bento) and a scoop of black sesame or green tea ice cream (served afterwards).
Rarely are you able to find surf-and-turf for under $20. Aka-Oni’s take bento ($18) meets the challenge with a wee tempura lobster tail and small steak. While the lobster is frozen, you can still taste some of the lobster’s sweetness … it helps when the chef shows restraint with the batter. It’d be even better if it were cooked less.
Surprisingly,
the Angus steak arrived pink-in-the-middle medium despite being cut so thinly.
Simply grilled, it tasted like beef and was tender.
A
generous portion of the saba shioyaki arrives
in the matsu bento ($16), but does
require a generous squeeze of lemon and grated radish to mask the light fishy
essence (not abnormal with mackerel). Moreover, I thoroughly enjoyed the enoki
stuffed beef rolls. Some may find it a tad salty, but the flavours were perfect
at complimenting all the neutral crunchy mushrooms.
There
aren’t bento boxes during dinner, but there is a set meal for those who like
crab and sashimi. Not feeling too hungry, we stuck with some sharable dishes
that spanned their entire menu. With two pages of kushiyaki skewers, we opted for the Negima chicken thigh ($2.25)
and Matsusaka pork jowl ($6.99); both cooked well remaining tender,
incorporated enough of the sweet and savoury glaze, and had the requisite
charbroil flavour. Just don’t expect very large skewers, each containing four
to five small bites at most.
For
something more substantial, the grilled squid with unagi sauce ($9.99) is a
better option, especially since it also uses the same glaze and has a smoky
grilled flavour. With plenty of pieces to go around, the squid is of course chewier
than meat but great for munching on with drinks.
I liked
the freshly fried tempura prawn that’s used in the dynamite roll ($7.50), nice and
crispy and still warm. Aka-Oni does a good version of the popular maki, wrapped in thin layer of rice and
seaweed with the customary avocado, tobiko,
cucumber, and spicy mayo.
We finished
with a bowl of Hakata black garlic ramen ($11.99) selecting the thicker noodles
to hold up against the stronger soup. While I would have liked the noodles to
be cooked a touch less, the broth was thick and filled with flavours without relying
solely on salt. While not overly large, the restaurant didn’t skimp on the
toppings, including a thick slice of pork belly chashu, half an onsen egg, corn, bamboo shoot, thinly sliced black
fungus, fish cake, and seaweed. It could rival a bowl served at
traditional ramen restaurants downtown.
While you’ll
never dream of Aka-Oni’s dishes (a nod to Jiro), they’re well prepared and decent quality for
the low price. Besides, it’s one of the few places where the dishes arrived
looking like the menu’s picture, if not better. Thanks to Aka-Oni, I can eat
well while saving up for meticulously made sushi.
How To Find Them
Location: Toronto, Canada
Address: 633 Silver Star Blvd
Address: 633 Silver Star Blvd
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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System
- Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
- 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
- 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
- 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
- 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
- 10 - absolute perfection!
Is That It? I Want More!
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