Koi Sushi (Japanese)

Koi Sushi is located at 660 Atherley in Orillia, about 130km n. of Toronto. Mishy and I got there by taking the GO Train to the end of the line at Barrie's Allandale Waterfront, and then biking north to Orillia along the Oro-Medonte rail trail... does this qualify as transit-accessible? The traffic along Atherley is very heavy but there is an unmarked bike trail on the north side in case anyone else tries this! Pop is canned, non-AYCD @ $2.50 which is excessive, but at least they have Coke Zero. Koi Sushi has a plain contemporary interior. Reusable chopsticks are used, happily. Ordering is old-school onto a paper list. Soy at table was both sour and salty, so much though Mishy and I both commented on it. I asked for another dispenser of it and it was little or no improvement.

Miso soup was rich, savory and delicious, not dilute at all. Mishy said the salad was amazing, and it was quite good. Age tofu was not amazing, but instead dried out and with almost no flavour. Wonton soup was excellent in a sukiyaki broth with shiitake mushrooms and was the high point of the meal.

Yakitori chicken skewers were good, as was sweet and sour, and General Tao chicken which was deliciously spicy. Beef and chicken teriyaki were smaller-portioned and drier then usual but still okay. Curry chicken was a breaded chicken cutlet with curry sauce and was very tasty. Breaded scallops and chicken nuggets were both alright with their sauce though it was very sweet. Lemon chicken has the lemon sauce on the side.

Salmon, butterfish aka escolar, red snapper aka tilapia and surf clam nigiri were all fresh and good although not exemplary. Spicy salmon sushi was good. Shrimp tempura was good as was the sauce. Unfortunately we found that the soy sauce as noted above was terrible and detracted from rather than enhancing their flavour, and didn’t work well with the wasabi and ginger.

For dessert, ginger ice cream (my favorite) was very good and fresh. Mango was also very good. Green tea was good and like the others not freezer-burned. Weekend lunch is $22.99. There were a couple of excellent offerings (both soups), offset by some poor ones such as the dried-out tofu and the terrible soy sauce. The remainder was passably to very good. For the offerings and area and coupled with the expensive non-AYCD beverages, the price is a couple of dollars too high but not excessive.

Rating: 7 - 7.5 / 10