Story Sushi (Japanese)

Story Sushi (formerly known as Hockey Sushi) is at 1102 Centre Street in Thornhill, a municipality bordering Toronto on the north, midway between Dufferin and Bathurst streets. Story Sushi is recognizable from the outside as it occupies a rather cute stand-alone building that looks like a little house; it has a pleasant cozy interior and was quite busy with most tables occupied by groups. Seating is all booths including two-person mini-booths. iPad menus are used. Pop is $1.25 in cans (not AYCD.) Green tea is free/included and was good. Soy sauce is already on table in "low-sodium" green-lid containers but was still a bit salty; I asked and that was apparently the only type of soy sauce present.

Miso soup had excellent flavor and savour and it clumped well, but was a touch diluted (which unfortunately became a theme)... toward the bottom it became tastier confirming the dilution. Green salad was nothing but large pieces of lettuce and dressing, and the dressing was not bad but also bit thin. Curried beef was excellent, with a sauce like savoury curry gravy, and I loved it. Chicken nuggets were very good with a sauce which turned out to be plain old ketchup. Gyoza was very good and hot and spring rolls were excellent, both had the same dipping sauce. Deep fried tofu was good, but again the sauce was a bit dilute... watch out as it can be very hot as well as the thickness traps heat inside. Chicken and pork cutlets AKA katsu were excellent, with a very good sauce and not at all oily. Salmon nigiri was excellent, with good rice texture and very fresh.


Crab (almost certainly surimi) sushi was not the freshest, although not off, but at least a day out of peak, and crab tempura's surimi was no fresher. Shrimp tempura was excellent, light, flaky and not oily. However, continuing the theme, the tempura sauce was still a bit thin and too sweet. Tamago maki was good. Spicy salmon sushi maki was very good, delicious and with good spicing. Hockey Sushi actually has beef teriyaki on the lunch menu, and it was quite good. Avocado cucumber rolls' avocado was too fresh as it was not completely ripe yet. Cold tofu sauce's really didn't taste like anything (was it dilute as well?) but wasn't too bad.

For dessert green tea ice cream tasted slightly freezer-burned; slightly crumbly which confirmed it. Red bean and strawberry ice creams were very fresh. Shot glass desserts mango pudding was good but slightly muted, chocolate pudding was good, and strawberry pudding was good but also slightly muted in flavor. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to try the entire teppanyaki sections of the menu, black pepper beef and other items that I would have liked to due to time (and fullness) constraints! Story Sushi has quite a large menu selection. Although there were several shortcomings, most items were good to excellent and the weekday $14.99 price for lunch is very good especially with the beef entrees, so it was a good value and a nice place for a casual lunch with friends or co-workers, and (with the exception of the "crab") I did enjoy my lunch there.

Rating: 7-7.5/10