Tidbits

Sleepover at Ikea - Maybe this is the only way to get to the $1 early enough…
A ramen bath - Japanese spa with special baths resembling instant noodles. I wanna play!
Old age homes for dogs - 1) Old dogs don’t like to be abandoned at strange places. 2) Playing with young puppies will probably cause the older dogs to die faster due to exhaustion.
A remote-controlled pigeon - Oh the poor thing…
An article on a brilliant method of teaching grade schoolers about bats and rabies. I smell a lawsuit.
Will trade beer for Crumpler bags. Tempted by the beanbag and messenger bags…

Food Review: Japango

April 05, 2007, 3:24 am

Japango
122 Elizabeth Street
Toronto , ON
(416) 599-5557

Remember back in January, I had that weekend of eating and walking? Pony for Winterlicious for lunch, followed by Japango for dinner, the fruitless search for Crepes a Go Go, and finally the crappy coffee at Far Coast? That first time we did not get an opportunity to check out the Chef’s Omakase meal, so I decided to go back last Saturday.

The Chef’s Omakase is basically a 7 course meal consisting of whatever the Chef felt like making that day. For $70, it is not cheap, but the meal is often raved about in reviews. I am sad to report that what you get does vary from day to day.

One tip though, is perhaps going as early as possible, such as for a 5:30 or 6pm dinner. Our meal lasted almost 3 hours, even though the reservation was for 7:30, MaggieTime(TM) means me, Mike and Gary only arrived like quarter to, and we didn’t really get around to ordering until 8. So I got the impression we only got whatever the chef could throw together with what remained at the end of the night.

For example, one of the dishes was a square of tofu in broth with bamboo. I’m sorry, but tofu does not cost $10. I was also disappointed with the salad, as some of the lettuce was starting to brown.

The oyster appetizer was awesome though, especially what was in the little glass vial. The snails were different, as we had to use the toothpick to actually pull the meat out of the shell. Childhood memories of my pet snails prevented me from enjoying them too much.

There was a sashimi dish and a sushi dish. They had a good collection of tasty and exotic morsels, very fresh. I was especially fond of this fish that was the cousin of yellowtail tuna, hamachi. Kamachi, I think it’s called, or something like that. AND it also included fresh wasabi. When I first saw it on the plate, I thought it was some crab leg or something. Apparently you just grind it like ginger.