Most people visit Shunoko for the $100 omakase and may skip their a la carte menu. Admittedly, it’s not extensive, comprised of appetizers and nigiri by the piece with a few handrolls and maki for good measure. Yet, it’s a great option for those who want a quick and/or lighter meal.

The butter on fire roll ($19) would elicit a fire emoji. While it has a delicate and tender consistency, the little pops of crunch and flavour changes gives the maki interest. While it sounds weird, the hint of bacon and nuttiness from sesame gives the typical shrimp, avocado, and cucumber combination an unexpected flavour. The torched salmon was also done well, using a bit of aburi sauce for creaminess but not saturating the sushi.

Similar to the above is the can’t go wrong ($20), which substitutes torched scallop for the salmon. The protein gives off a lighter and slighter sweeter finish.

If you’re in the mood for a unique roll, the coconut spicy tuna ($18) elicits bursts of crunchiness without being deep fried or containing tempura bits. Rather the spicy tuna and avocado maki is rolled in popped rice balls and topped with toasted coconut shavings to give add a lot of crispy textures. It’s a surprising first bite that gradually grows on you.  

For those wanting protein, get a hand roll. The spicy tuna ($12) was stuffed with six slices of tuna, lettuce, and just a small amount of rice. Its spiciness sneaks up on you… the first bite was heavy on the maple soy sauce reduction, but then when the defence system goes down the following filled out the spicy mayo. One of the best hand rolls I’ve had in a while.

While you can order nigiri by the piece, we preferred the nigiri 10 ($70 and $71 from my experiences) that consists of ten pieces of sushi, tamago, and miso soup. It also made ordering easier and was a great option as it already included many of our favourites.

I won’t detail the taste of every piece (for that refer to the omakase experience), but will point out the highlights:

• Even though it looked plain, the layer of thin sea salt on the red seabream really woke up the fish and started us off to a great tasting.
• Of course, I love the decadence of a fatty tuna, but find the simplicity of amberjack and striped jack so crucial to give a meal balance and a lovely neutral meatiness.
• Shunoko continued to impress with the clean tasting horse mackerel. As was the case with the bit of grated turnip topping the bonito that helped mellow the otherwise strong-tasting fish.
• If you’re hesitant to have raw scallop due to a potential gummy consistency, at Shunoko it’s fresh and flavoured with lemon and truffle oil. 

The tamago recipe changes sometimes with a citrus undertone or on another visit with a spike of ginger, which acts as a refreshing end to the meal. It also has a more delicate consistency, the omelette made with so many thin layers giving the piece an airiness.

Having visited Shunoko three times for dinner, all have been great experiences, and I can taste the tinkering with the sauces and garnishes applied on their nigiri.

The only slip to date was when they ran out of cava (how do you start dinner service without bubbly?), my drink of choice with sushi. An interesting pairing is their French cider, which is mellow in sweetness and has a tasty funk to it that goes well with fish. I’ll forgive the slight disappointment as the reasonably priced quality sushi is what I’m visiting for anyways. 

If you could get any vanity license plate for your car, what would it say? The owner of Sushi Bar would use “Dr Sushi” as indicated by the plates hung on the wall, it’s a whimsical touch I hadn’t noticed in the past, along with pictures of family and friends that provide a glimpse into their private lives.

The wall is also where they post their specials including black cod sushi and lobster maki. The black cod sushi ($10 for 2 pieces) is an interesting take on the fish, the nigiri torched tableside so the fish’s fat begins to melt forming slight layers in the cod. Being a denser fish, it does need a fair amount of flavour and while the sweet soy was a start, it needed something else for interest. After the experience, I’m still on the fence of whether a nigiri is the best use of this prized fish.

My preference is still for the baked miso marinated black cod ($15) where the fish is hot and flaky and infused with a slightly sweet umami flavour. The palm-sized portion is just enough for sharing amongst two people.

Sushi Bar’s other a-la-carte nigiri is just as good with large pieces of barbeque eel on the unagi and a thick slice of ruby red tuna on the maguro (both $7 for 2 pieces).

Displaying the lobster on top of the lobster roll ($18) was a great idea as it becomes the first thing you taste, and diners can see the full tail in its glory. However, it was already overcooked and blowtorching it at the table made it even more dry and chewy. Ideally, they should undercook it to begin, and the torching will help heat and finish off the doneness at the table. It’s a dish with promise and the thin cucumber lantern a great idea for a beautiful garnish.

Starting every meal is a bowl of rice crackers that arrives with drinks, a pre-pandemic tradition that I’m glad has been kept, providing something to snack on as we peruse the menu. A new addition is an amuse bouche of seafood, squid, and seaweed salads, enough for a bite each to enjoy while the rest of the meal arrives.

As the temperature drops, the complimentary starter is sometimes a rich hot bowl of miso soup with cubes of tofu and seaweed flakes. A welcomed respite after a cool walk to the restaurant.

With a variety of maki available, the black dragon ($17) was an interesting take on the fancier dynamite roll. In this case, sweet-glazed barbeque eel, tempura bits, fish roe, and green onion wrapped around the shrimp tempura. It’s a colourful creation offering a variety of textures and flavours and it’s ideal that the pieces aren’t overly large so that they are enjoyed in one bite.

The red dragon ($17) is just as good, substituting the barbeque eel for salmon instead. If you’re in the mood for shrimp tempura ($8 for 3 pieces), I’d recommend having it in maki-form as the fried shrimp by itself is underwhelming, the batter too thick and the temperature tepid at best.

Upsold to the tuna tartare roll ($10), we should have stuck with the tried-and-true spicy tuna ($8). In the tartare, the tuna too pulverized and the filling including dreaded tempura bits that causes the roll to become gummy. It also needs more heat to be considered spicy tuna.

Despite their name, Sushi Bar also makes a variety of non-sushi dishes. You get a hefty portion of hamachi kama ($19) with the full portion, a meaty cut of the fish’s jaw. A thicker cut, there were parts of the fish that could have been done a touch less but being a bone-in piece, it can be hard to gauge. Nevertheless, the skin was crispy and the fish hot and delicious. Served with a radish ponzu soy sauce, a bit more salt sprinkled onto the fish would help it pop.

Since our past visits, my husband and I noticed an improvement at Sushi Bar: the maki seemingly contains less rice and are cut to the perfect bite-sized pieces and more emphasis is placed on plating the izakaya-type dishes.

There’s also a host of regulars, stopping by the open kitchen to speak to everyone before departing the restaurant. This creates a cozy neighbourhood-feel to Sushi Bar that matches the photos adorning the walls. As Mr. Rogers sang, “A beautiful day for a neighbour. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?”

Overall mark - 7 out of 10

When you head to Rollian Sushi, stick with menu items that are in their name - maki rolls - as the chicken karaage ($10) was probably the worst rendition I’ve ever tasted: there was absolutely no seasoning (the chicken not marinated and the batter tasteless); and it was so soft that it tasted more like a chicken beignet that karaage. It wasn’t until a second reheating in the toaster oven that enough of the oil escaped to create the crispiness you’d expect from the dish.

Their aburi maguro ($7 for two pieces) were literally pieces of tuna blowtorched for a few seconds - there’s no kewpie mayonnaise or much of a garnish. To be fair, my husband noted he preferred the tuna plain, but the dry papery texture of the fish was a turnoff for me. To make matters worse, we had also ordered the aburi salmon, but what arrived were three plain salmon sushi. While I appreciate Rollian trying to make up for it by giving us an extra piece, it’s not the same. Moreover, since their aburi sushi is simply blowtorching fish and then sprinkling on Old Bay seasoning and scallions, how difficult would it have been to just do the same with the salmon?

The meal improved once we tucked into the maki. Their kalbi roll ($12) is an interesting idea and incorporates a lovely combination of flavours – finally something that has seasoning! The chewy grilled short ribs aren’t necessarily the easiest thing to bite through without causing the rice, avocado, cucumber and masago to fall apart. These are best enjoyed in one massive stuff-in-your-face bite.

Given the deep-fried shrimp in the dynamite roll ($11.50) was slightly warm, it leads me to believe these are made fresh. It’s traditionally prepared, combined with California roll ingredients (avocado, cucumber, imitation crab, and masago). This would have been even better without all the tempura bits mixed with the fish roe on top, which made it too mushy and took away from the shrimp’s flavours.

In retrospect, we should have skipped the dynamite roll as the spicy trio ($27) already includes a “spicy” dynamite roll that didn’t have a lick of heat. The spicy salmon and tuna also lacked chili flavour, and the filling was the pulverized fish with lots of tempura bits combination that I detest. Furthermore, the bowl of miso soup that comes with the spicy trio set was also missing.

The bright side of the meal was their rice was fresh and flattened to a nice thinness. Plus, everything looks beautiful with pops of colours and uniformly cut ingredients. Alas, if only there was the taste to match the pretty presentation. I’ll be rolling on from Rollian Sushi.