Inatei Japanese Cuisine

I was meeting up with a high school friend, we planned to go to Fav Cafe but for some reason it was closed so we came here instead. This restaurant was opened a long time ago. I came here once during grand opening and thought the food was alright. I cant believe after so long, I come back and the prices have madly increased. Clearly there was no turning back, but in my mind I just kept thinking I hope they improved the quality of their fish too.

My friend and I shared a Sushi dinner. I swear their menu is so confusing. They have "sushi dinner" listed in their menu 3 times with 3 different prices without stating what the difference is. We assumed the higher the price means the more variety of fish? My friend and I just gave up and just picked one. (16.99)

8 sushi and 6 maki. I appreciated how none of the sushi were duplicated. The fish was fresh, pretty good. The maki they served, 3 were spicy salmon and the other 3 were spicy tuna.

Spider Roll. ($8)

It was nicely placed. 5 pieces. The typical spider roll, tasted good.

On top we both ordered a Crab Chawamushi. ($4) Funny how this appetizer came last though...

Basically steamed egg with ginger bits, mushroom, and crab meat. It was alright. Nothing special in my opinion.

They gave us dessert. I suppose it was free? Lychee pudding I believe it was.

In my opinion it tasted kinda funny for some reason...A bit soury? For some reason I felt like there was Soho in it or something LOL but my friend said I was crazy. But yes, there is no alcohol in this dessert.

Food: Good.
Service: Good.
Price: Too expensive - Good is good but the price doesn't make it worth it. My friend told me they kept increasing the price every few months, which is when she stopped coming.
Atmosphere:
Overall: If I wanted sushi I wouldn't come here. I'm not sure if I'm just being picky, but I dont think this meal was worth it. The quality of the fish was good, but still not worth the price. I rather spend the same amount at Shinobu - the fish is more fresh. Or at least it just felt better. I just wasnt fascinated by my meal and considering we didnt order much, it was just expensive. I saw some things on the menu that I would have wanted to try but the price just wasnt promising.

Inatei Japanese Cuisine
9021 Leslie Street, Richmond Hill

Momofuku

My bro and i headed downtown wanting to go for Sansotei ramen. After we parked, we got to the door and it said "closed sundays". What a bummer, so we went to momofuku instead.

We walked in and it was around 1130? Not busy yet, there were still empty tables. But the hostess decides to seat us at the 2 leftover seats next to a huge group of asian family. I would understand sharing tables when the place is busy, but why would they sit us next to a family like that. I saw some others didnt need to share tables. That instance already ruined a bit of my mood and perception of the place.

We tried the pork buns. If you ask me this seems more like a fusion dish, not really a japanese traditional thing.

Oh, one funny thing. When we sat down a waitress came over and told us they are featuring a special Hong Kong style ramen. Couldn't exactly hear what the ingredients were but i still found that a bit strange. Just gave me a feeling the place wasn't that Japanese authentic. Anyhow, it tasted good. The sauce under the cucumber was the sauce you add when you have peking duck lol.

Me and my bro both ordered the momofuku ramen. He's been there before and said theres nothing special with the other ramens. It was around $13 for a bowl of ramen.....

I suppose they did give a good variety and portion of sides. Came with pork belly & shoulder, fish cake, egg. Maybe because it's ran by korean so they decided to add kimchi in it? I found that kinda odd.The egg was really good. I love ramen eggs when the orange yolk is liquidy. 

On the side my bro wanted to try their spicy chicken wings. ($12)

I guess he thought the wings would be a small dish? But turned out there were so many. It was pretty good though, marinated and cooked well.

Food: Pretty Good.
Service: For some reason I just didnt have a good feel for the service. The hostess was not friendly taking us to our table, or when she took our order. Another male waiter was just stupid. We ordered 2 of the same ramen, and sharing the bun and wings. As he was giving us our food he asks to take away our plates and gaves us spare bowls instead. I dont get it. Did he think we were going to share the ramen instead of the bun and wings? I was surprised none of the waiters/waitresses were japanese or asian.

Price: Expensive - a bit overpriced imo
Atmosphere: I think the design of their place is really nice. Apparently each level serves different types of food. The ground floor is the ramen.
Overall: Maybe it was just me, but i didn't enjoy my visit here. I mean the food was tasty but a bit overpriced. I would prefer going to Sansotei - the ramen is better and less expensive. I'm not gonna lie the service did piss me off a bit, especially the hostess.

Momofuku

190 University Avenue, (downtown Toronto)

Butter Avenue

Every review I've seen online or heard through a friend liked their experience, so I had to come myself to believe it. My friend and I wanted to try their high tea here but we never ended up making reservations so we just paid a walk-in visit. Considering I had my hopes high and was really excited to come, they definitely didn't let me down.

Because we waited in line for quite a long time, the manager said he'd give us each a macaron for free! So generous. ($2.50 per macaron)

The left is "White chocolate strawberry", and to the right is "matcha chestnut"(this flavour was a weekend special). I normally don't like macarons, but I gotta admit the macarons here are amazing. Crispy yet chewy. I really liked the white chocolate strawberry. I didnt take a picture of the inside, but there's actually a small piece of strawberry jam mixed with the white chocolate coating in between. I expected it to be really sweet considering it's white chocolate but to my surprise, it was quite acceptable.
They have a large variety of macaron flavours. They have a cup of mini macarons with a variety of flavours, good for taste testing. ($7.50)

I decided to try a cake. I dont remember the exact name but it was a dark chocolate mousse cake. ($7.50)

It wasn't that sweet since it was 60% dark chocolate. I liked the bottom piece of the cake, it was similar to the "crunch chocolate bar". It had those crunchy pops in chocolate. One good thing was the cake didn't feel very heavy or filling. Not bad, but not the cake that I originally wanted to order, they sold out of the other mousse cake i was hoping to try.

I ordered their Iced salted caramel latte ($4.95)

I've actually never tried this drink anywhere else, but it sounded cool so I gave it a try. I couldn't taste any caramel in the drink, but you can clearly see the caramel that's added. Strange eh? The drink tasted good, kinda reminded me of a cappuccino, but would I pay that much for it....not so sure.

My friend ordered this. I really don't remember the name of it.

I believe the 2 macarons' was raspberry flavour with pistachio cream tart. The pistachio cream was really really good. It didn't taste heavy or creamy at all, but really smooth. I definitely recommend trying this. Not to mention their macarons are a must try.

*Note: they are closed on Mondays.

Food: Very declicious, amazing macarons.
Service: Amazing service
Price: Expensive. However, macarons are all normally priced $2.50 in bakery/cake shops. So I would say their macarons are standard priced.
Atmosphere: They place is very small but pulls off a fancy yet delicate feel. There are approximately only 5 tables? I would recommend making reservations or else it might be hard to get a spot when its busy on weekends.
Overall: I really enjoyed it and definitely will be coming back. When i come back, I will be ordering macarons or their macarons on a tart. You can't leave this place without trying their macarons.
They have 2 options for high tea, the light set ($30 per person) or the deluxe set ($45 person). For both sets you get the standard plate with the selection of tarts and cakes. The only difference of the 2 is a different selection of tea choices and the light set only comes with 1 macaron, whereas the deluxe set has 3 macarons.  Yes, I will be coming back to try this.

Butter Avenue
3467 Yonge Street, Toronto

藍海餐廳 (Blue Ocean Cafe)

I remember the very first time I came here was when it was grand opening, and I thought the food was bad. Until more than one person told me it was good, I decided to give it a second chance. To my surprise, their food is actually pretty good.

My dad ordered 海南雞飯 (Hai Nan chicken rice).

The chicken was pretty tender and had the "hainanese" taste. The rice wasn't too oily. This dish is comparable to Phoenix' Hai Nan chicken rice.

I ordered the 海鮮意大利幼面條配龍蝦汁 (Seafood linguine in lobster sauce). I believe it was $15 including soup and drink.

It was the Chef's recommendation. I really really liked it. The sauce was really good, creamy but also having a lobster taste to it. They put in a lot of seafood in too so it didn't feel like a rip off. Surprisingly a wide variety too; imitation crab meat, squid, shrimp, clams). I highly recommend trying this dish.

避風唐海鮮伊麵.

I know it doesn't look that appealing, but it tasted good. It's the first time I had noodles in this type of sauce, a bit spicy, which is how it's supposed to be. However, I did find it kinda strange how it was mixed in seafood and minced pork, as the 2 don't really tend to go along.

My bro ordered this. I don't remember what it was called though. It's some sausage/ham/bacon spaghetti in Japanese tomato sauce. The sauce leaned more towards being sweet than sour so my bro didn't really like it. I did though.

Please excuse the blur. (I'm not gonna lie my camera skills suck lately)

Food: Pretty good.
Service: Alright
Price: Fair, their dishes range $8-16 on average. They do have cheaper dishes such as their breakfast meals or the more typical HK food selections.
Atmosphere: For some reason, I noticed majority of the customers that come here are a younger crowd than a family style (mid 20s-30s).
Overall: I like this place and I do recommend it. In general, they do have a wide variety of food selections - Taiwanese/Japanese/Malaysian/Western. This restaurant's style is quite similar to Phoneix, however I personally feel that their HK dishes' aren't their selling point.

藍海餐廳
8392 Kennedy Road, Unit A6 

Loui's Kouzina

My friends and I randomly decided to go for Greek food, something different i guess. Of the many times I've been to this plaza, I actually never even noticed this restaurant's existence. I actually looked forward to my visit after seeing the good reviews and likes on urbanspoon.

They have a few platters, which is good for sharing and trying a variety of foods. I personally wanted to order one, but my friends all wanted to order separately. I suppose I'll try next time.
For starters they serve garlic bread using hot dog bun bread. lol Isn't that a cheap option.

When I was looking at the menu, I was pretty confused. They had "gyro on a pita or bun for $5.45 in the sandwiches section", but also "gyro plate served with grilled pita for $8.95 in the appetizer section". Is it just me, or both options sound like they serve the same thing? I tried asking the waitress but I have no idea what she said. I think she thought i was referring to the gyro small plate. Anyhow, so I just let that pass and went with ordering the gyro small plate ($10.95). But my Gyro plate didn`t come with a pita, which i was kinda disappointed. I would have ordered one of the other 2 in terms of price and food preference.

For those who don`t know, gyro is a mix of beef and lamb thinly sliced. It was pretty good. I would have preferred having it in a pita though. But most importantly, the humus was good and went well with the meat. The salad was a typical greek salad with a strong sour-y vinegar greek dressing taste to it. I did not like the potatoes at all. I thought the potatoes would have been grilled or roasted (it does say roasted, but this wasn`t the kind of roasted I had in mind). The potatoes were skinless, very soft, and dunked into some I don`t know what or how to describe sauce. I personally don`t like soft potatoes to begin with, and with the sauce just made me dislike it.

One of my friend ordered the chicken soulaki small plate. ($10.95)

Look at the size of the chicken. If you ask me, I don`t think the chicken is a reasonable size. I mean, just look at the sides. The sides are almost quadruple the size. My friend said the chicken was good, juicy and not dry. However, the piece my friend gave me was quite miniature to actually taste it, but based on that small piece, I thought it was a bit dry.
Note: For large plates, only the sides (potatoes, fries, rice, etc.) are bigger in portion, you still get the same amount of meat. So don't be expecting more meat if you order a large plate.

I didn't take a picture, but my other friend ordered the lamb shanks ($15.95). I tried a small piece and damn, the lamb is good! The meat was really tender, not dry at all. It is literally fall off the bone lamb meat. I would actually recommend trying the lamb!

Food: Pretty Good
Service: When we got there, the waitress kept asking us if we were ready to order even after telling her many times we are still waiting on some people to arrive. I don`t understand why she was rushing us the whole time. Even when we were finished our meal, she was rushing to give us our bill. It wasn`t even packed. If you ask me, I don`t like the service at all. One, considering she couldn`t even explain or make an effort to explain to me about the gyro pita, Second, annoying us to order food.
Price: Average. In my opinion, I don't think the plates are worth it. Being that I dont eat much of the carbs.
Atmosphere: Nothing special.
Overall: I'm not gonna lie, the food is pretty good. But then again, I don't eat greek food enough to be the best judge. I would pay another visit to try their other foods on the menu though. I want to try their Moussaka (layers of potato, ground beef, zucchini and eggplant topped with bechamel sauce) - sounds like a Greek style lasagna to me. One cool thing I witness was some kind of cheese  that they were serving another table. I believe it was a grilled piece of cheese? They lit it on fire and had to say a word in greek language while burning it or else the cheese wont taste good or something. I found that pretty interesting.

Loui's Kouzina
9255 Woodbine Avenue (in the TNT plaza at Woodbine & 16th Avenue)