Dinner at Tsuki Izakaya

Tsuki Izakaya.

I went to dinner with Gabe, Justin and Brenda on Saturday. We went to Tsuki Izakaya on the west side of Yonge near North York City Centre. Though, that's not where Gabe and I first ended up.

Gabe had contacted me earlier and said that Brenda wanted to eat at 5:00 p.m. a Japanese restaurant on Willowdale Avenue. I said, I know that place. It's called Inakaya. We deliver hot towels there. But, I don't believe they open until 5:30 p.m. Did you want to ask Brenda about that?

Well, we didn't ask her. We just showed up at the restaurant and, of course, only the staff was there. I told them we were waiting to meet a friend here and asked if it was okay if we just sat at an empty table.

Well, it turns out that we were at the wrong restaurant. Of course. Brenda and Justin were waiting at the right restaurant which was open at 5:00 p.m. I told the guys at the restaurant we were at the wrong place and we, embarrassingly, walked out.

The right restaurant was a nice place. It was lit dimly and had cool music playing. Brenda ordered all the dishes for us. She's a pro at that.

We had Maguro Tataki - Lightly seared tuna sashimi with ponzu, $14; Spicy Sashimi Salad - Sashimi mori with hot sauce on salad, $12; Nori Age - Batterd seaweed deep fried, $4; Okonomi Yaki - Okonomi Yaki topped with vegetable and katsuo, $9; Tako Yaki - Puffed octopus ball served with tonkatsu sauce, $7; Buttered Squid - Squid grilled with butter and soy sauce, $9; Unagi Kaba Yaki - Grilled Eel, $17; Tempura - Shrimp and vegetable tempura, $9; and Calamari - Deep fried squid, $9.

Now I'm not much of a squid person. So, neither of the squid dishes appealed to me much. The deep fried squid was too chewy as far as I was concerned as well.  I wasn't much of a fan of the deep fried, battered seaweed either. But, other than that the rest of the dishes were quite good.

Along with a bottle of beer each (and after tax and tip) we ended up paying $38 a piece. It was nice trying some authentic Japanese cuisine again. But, for a little bit less, I'd rather go to Echo Sushi for their AYCE dinner.