{"id":3862,"date":"2016-08-27T18:24:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-27T22:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/?p=3862"},"modified":"2018-01-17T16:52:16","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T21:52:16","slug":"sushi-gen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/sushi-gen\/","title":{"rendered":"Sushi-Gen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sushi<\/a>1502 Yonge Street
\n<\/strong>Toronto, Ontario<\/strong><\/p>\n

by David Fujino<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m in the neighbourhood \u2014 and I crave Japanese \u2014 I have lunch at Sushi-Gen<\/em>;\u00a0otherwise, I might have a foot-long tuna sub sandwich at the Subway next door.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m in the Yonge and St. Clair part of Toronto today because my chiropractor, Dr. Salima Manji,\u00a0has her office on Yonge, just north of St. Clair, and I\u2019ve come for my bi-monthly \u2018wellness\u2019\u00a0adjustment \u2014 but right after my adjustment, I frequently ask myself, What\u2019s for lunch?<\/p>\n

Japanese food was topmost in my mind so I crossed over to the west side of Yonge Street and\u00a0entered Sushi-Gen<\/em>. I ordered a classic standby, salmon teriyaki \u2014 basic, tasty and nutritious, and\u00a0as I feasted on the freshness of the pan-fried and evenly brown salt-crusted salmon (shioyaki\u00a0<\/em>style) \u2014 it looked so good \u2014 <\/em>I also savoured the cool mound of bean sprout and white cabbage\u00a0shreds it sat upon. I dipped salmon chunks into the sweet-and-sourish brown teriyaki sauce and\u00a0scooped, via chopsticks, steamed white rice into my mouth so that everything tasted complete\u00a0and I felt contented in this world of enjoyable flavours and textures. And all the while, I quietly\u00a0slurped white miso shiru<\/em> and alternately sipped green tea \u2014 served hot <\/em>in the Chinese fashion,\u00a0but that\u2019s o.k. Tea ultimately cools down. It\u2019s just that I\u2019m spoiled by the calming \u2018lukewarm\u2019\u00a0temperature of the fresh and flavourful green sencha<\/em> served in Japanese\u2013run Japanese\u00a0restaurants.<\/p>\n

But for now, Sushi-Gen<\/em> is on my mind, and I\u2019ve decided to spend a modest amount for a decent\u00a0Japanese lunch. The food\u2019s priced in the middle bracket, and it\u2019s consistently well prepared, well\u00a0presented, and dependable. Sushi-Gen<\/em> is a Toronto mainstream Japanese restaurant \u2014 Chinese-\u00a0owned and operated \u2014 and it offers a full menu of Japanese food and beverages.<\/p>\n

On previous visits to Sushi-Gen,<\/em> I\u2019ve enjoyed their udon and shrimp tempura, as well as their\u00a0bento boxes which contain, in addition to the sushi and takuwan <\/em>on the menu, Chinese spring\u00a0rolls. It\u2019s in the bento boxes of such Japanese restaurants that the so-called multicultural and\u00a0fusionist tendencies in Toronto exist. For example, if there\u2019s a deep-fried spring roll in the bento\u00a0box, the owner\u2019s likely Chinese, and so on. The vast majority of Japanese restaurants in Toronto\u00a0are run by Chinese and Korean owners and this is how (without itemizing the very few Japanese-\u00a0run Japanese restaurants that operate in Toronto) we can have a mainstream Japanese\/Asian\u00a0menu such as Sushi-Gen<\/em>\u2019s, <\/em>which establishes, as far as I\u2019m concerned, a quality Japanese food\u00a0identity in Toronto. Quality means a restaurant whose menu and reputation are built around more\u00a0than all-you-can-eat sushi.<\/p>\n

Sushi-gen<\/em> has two or three rotating servers dressed in black and white. Most chain restaurants\u00a0and classy diners operate the same way. These days, the person who takes your order is usually\u00a0not the same person who brings your order. (I still find that a little odd and puzzling. I still prefer\u00a0the same waiter taking and serving an order. It\u2019s a highly personal thing.) Come to think of it,\u00a0Sushi-gen <\/em>has trained all their servers to also take orders, serve the food, and settle up the\u00a0customer\u2019s bill, so I really can\u2019t complain about lack of service.<\/p>\n

A further point: Sushi-gen<\/em> has, so far, resisted including Chinese chopsticks with their Japanese\u00a0o-chawan<\/em>. At the risk of sounding like a nut case, this strikes me as a major mistake on a\u00a0restaurant\u2019s part. I recently recovered from the visual shock of seeing Chinese dark green\u00a0chopsticks perched on top of a medium dark green tea cup that was brought to my table. The\u00a0scale was all wrong; things didn\u2019t look right together; it seemed almost devil-may-care. I won\u2019t\u00a0state the name of the establishment, but I now anticipate seeing more Japanese vessels containing\u00a0Japanese food replaced by Chinese vessels containing Japanese food in certain restaurants in\u00a0Toronto. They\u2019ll probably even discontinue the disposable Japanese chopsticks that are presently\u00a0used and randomly replace them with quasi-lacquered Chinese chopsticks as part of their shall-\u00a0we-call-it ongoing participation in the Battle of the Chopsticks.<\/p>\n

Of course, certain questions immediately arise: What<\/em> do they think Japanese food is? Do they\u00a0like it? Don\u2019t they feel presentation and eye appeal is important, especially when serving\u00a0Japanese food? Why not<\/em> provide Japanese chopsticks? Isn\u2019t the o<\/em>–chawan<\/em> part of the food\u2019s\u00a0identity? What about the chopsticks?<\/p>\n

My question: if it\u2019s the food that matters, then why sell it as Japanese food (served in Chinese\u00a0vessels with Chinese chopsticks provided?) The 64 dollar question. If this is the future, I\u2019m\u00a0frankly already unhappy.<\/p>\n

But, so far at Sushi-<\/em>gen, there\u2019s none of the above happening. The quality and presentation remain\u00a0consistent and the multi-tasking servers are quick and business-like. It\u2019s an ideal place for an\u00a0informal business lunch or dinner where, somehow, the inevitable wear and tear of wall booths\u00a0isn\u2019t evident and the plasticized menus and food photographs still look fresh and new and\u00a0organized. Also, the large and dark wood floor-to-ceiling mirrors open up the restaurant space\u00a0and give it that crisp and tidy look. I\u2019ve noticed that a lot of office workers, friends, newbies, and\u00a0Forest Hill folks love to gather here \u2014 and the prices aren\u2019t outrageous.<\/p>\n

Sushi-Gen, <\/em>1502 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario, Telephone: 416 921-3388<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1502 Yonge Street Toronto, Ontario by David Fujino When I\u2019m in the neighbourhood \u2014 and I crave Japanese \u2014 I have lunch at Sushi-Gen;\u00a0otherwise, I might have a foot-long tuna sub sandwich at the Subway next door. I\u2019m in the Yonge and St. Clair part of Toronto today because my chiropractor, Dr. Salima Manji,\u00a0has her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}