Kyoto Japanese Cuisine

Kyoto Japanese Cuisine is located at 3883 Rutherford Rd. in Woodbridge, the municipality n. of Toronto’s west end, near Weston Rd. Kyoto has a modern monotone basic interior. Disposable chopsticks are used unfortunately, but we brought our own as always. $1.85 ACYD pop is available (Pepsi family.) Ordering is old-school onto small paper templates. Soy at table was strong, rich and only slightly salty. Ginger was not dyed pink.

Miso soup Mishy described as perfect. It was indeed very good, rich, not dilute and savoury with much umami. Green salad had a good ginger dressing and we both enjoyed it.

Shrimp and yam tempura were both light, flaky and not too oily and we both loved them; the sauce was also very good. Beef teriyaki was delicious and the sauce certainly helped that, and it wasn't a bad cut of beef as well, in cubes; to be honest, any beef teriyaki on the lunch menu is welcome, but this was better than expected... we ordered seconds. This time, I was the one suggesting the "rubbery" adjective for the chicken teriyaki to Mishy and she agreed, even though I still don't know what it means. However, we both loved the sauce and it was quite tasty. Beef gyoza were excellent, and again this was helped by the sauce which was delicious. Chicken yakitori was very good and again we enjoyed the sauce. Hibachi chicken was fantastic, smoky and flavourful and we both loved it.

Crab surimi nigiri was much better than it looked, it appeared to be a bit dried out, but was quite tasty and also fresh enough. Butterfish aka escolar nigiri was fresh and very good. Red snapper AKA tilapia had a slight fishy odor but was fresh enough. Salmon nigiri was delicious and very fresh. California roll was very good and with fresh ingredients well-balanced. Crabmeat salad was probably surimi, but is on the sushi column even though has no rice, and was larger than expected; it was still quite good and Mishy helped when I explained that surimi is actually whitefish and not crab. Tamago/egg nigiri like crab appeared dried out, yet was not.

Deep fried scallop, also most likely surimi, was quite good even though there was a hint of sesame oil in the sauce but not enough to throw it off. Spring roll was a bit oily but still quite good although Mishy did not care for the sauce, but I liked it. And kudos to Kyoto for finally getting the udon soup right and not overloading the customer with a huge bowl of it; it's the same size as the miso soup bowl. Chicken udon had an interesting flavor and was delicious.

For dessert, we both loved the chocolate ice cream, which Mishy said was gorgeous. mango was excellent and fresh with that bright strong mango flavour so many don't have.  Weekend lunch was $25.99. This is a below-average price these days, as was the accompanying AYCD pop, and for an above-average lunch with several very good to excellent items and nothing that wasn’t enjoyable. We’d both happily return!

Rating: 9 – 9.5 / 10