2018-03-16

CLOSED - Hokkaido Sushi (Japanese)


Update 2021-Aug.-28: Unfortunately Hokkaido Sushi is no more; Google Maps and Yelp both show it as Permanently Closed, and its phone # is out of service. We we afraid that this would happen with the LRT construction in the area blocking easy access to the premises.

Hokkaido Sushi is located at 245 Eglinton Avenue East. It's a longish walk from Yonge's Eglinton station so I'd recommend busing it if the weather isn't good. We went for the $21.99 weekday dinner. Hokkaido is a smaller and quiet place. Unfortunately chopsticks are disposable. Orders are old school paper templates. Low sodium (in appearance) soy sauce is at tables, but it was rather salty and only moderately fresh. Ginger is green, not dyed pink. Beware the soy sauce holders which are unstable and tip over easily. Free WiFi is available.

Wasabi ginger green salad dressing was quite good, although the salad was a little plainer. Miso soup flavor was all right but there was not enough of it; it was a little watery. Mishy liked the seaweed wakame salad. I noticed that the portion sizes are a bit larger at Hokkaido, so beware large orders.

Spicy salmon sashimi is quite spicy, but I unfortunately did not like the sauce. Spicy salmon sushi was better than the spicy sashimi. Salmon sushi were good. Sashimi was also quite good. Beef teriyaki was excellent and I loved the tangy sauce. Chicken teriyaki was similarly good. Sweet and sour chicken was breaded; the sauce was good. Bacon asparagus is, well, bacon... can't go wrong there. Chicken skewers were moist, savory, and very well spiced, but the beef skewers were a little dried out. Mushroom skewers were excellent. Beef sashimi was delicious and good quality large portions of meat; most places' portions are tiny. Avocado cucumber roll was quite good. Chicken fried rice was excellent and had a nice smoky flavor. Beef yaki was delicious and had an interesting flavor. Shrimp tempura was light, flaky and had a good sauce, but it was a little too sweet for my taste.  Black pepper beef was awesome pepper and garlic steak in excellently large chunks; it was so nice that they had this. Chicken cutlet was a bit too crunchy.

Chocolate ice cream was a bit stale, but vanilla, mango and green tea ice creams were all fresh and good. Mishy adored the deep fried (chocolate) ice cream. Service was very fast even with only one waiter; plates were removed immediately, although the first waiter went off shift and then the second barely spoke English and gave the wrong order sheet (lunch.) Sadly there were only two other diners other than a few takeout due to the horrid construction in the area for the Eglinton LRT. Sadly this project seems to be hurting many areas businesses as there is nowhere to park and the noise is never-ending. I hope Hokkaido is able to make it through this phase.

We had quite a good dinner at Hokkaido. There were a couple of shortcomings to be sure, but much more that was very good. The dinner price is just about the best available in gentrified Toronto now, so it was good value, an important factor in our ratings. Looking forward to returning!

Rating: 8/10

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