Ginza Sushi and Thai (Pan-Asian)

Ginza Sushi and Thai is located at 7330 Yonge St. in Thornhill, the municipality bordering Toronto's north centre. It's about a kilometer north of Steeles so is transit accessible from Toronto without having to pay extra if you don't mind the walk. Ginza has a bright, nice interior with booths-for-two, normal-sized booths, half-booth tables and normal tables. The music was nostalgic as it was 1970s disco and older hits. Pop is $1.75 per can, not AYCD. Soy, all green-lid masquerading as low-sodium, was somewhat salty but still fresh and good. I use less on the sushi anyway (as is supposed to be done… just a quick dip of the bottom.) Ginger is not dyed pink. Unfortunately disposable chopsticks are used, but I brought my own. Ordering is done old-school from paper templates; the boxes printed on the templates are too small to legibly fit printed numbers so I just wrote through the lines. Weekday lunch is $15.95, sashimi can be included for $5 extra, which of course I did.

Miso soup was fantastic, savoury, rich, well-balanced and practically perfect. Green salad was very good with good house orange ginger dressing. Salmon sashimi was excellent, thick and fresh. Beef teriyaki (happily included) in thin strips was good in a nice sauce. Shrimp tempura looked like it would be oily, but it wasn't and was instead light, flaky and tasty with an excellent rich dipping sauce with plenty of flavour. Green curry chicken was very good and rather hot as well. Beef skewers were excellent, large chunks of lean beef. Chicken skewers were a bit dry but otherwise good. Pork cutlet aka tonkatsu was good to very good, with nice sauce and tasty breading. Chicken teriyaki was good in thick strips with a tangy sauce.

Red snapper sashimi was excellent, fresh with a bright flavour. White tuna sashimi was similarly good and fresh. Ginza indicated they use a special rice that is more nutritious than regular white rice; it is shinier than usual rice as it retains its hull. White tuna, red snapper and surimi crab nigiri were good. I didn't like the Philadelphia roll; it seemed to be made with tuna or something that wasn't salmon, and it was dry and didn't work for me. Chicken wonton soup was good, broth was thin but it worked and I enjoyed and happily finished it. Salmon tataki sashimi is torched, and was very good, mild sauce and not overdone.

Onto desserts, deep-fried cheesecake wasn't good as its sounds, rather doughy, but not bad. Fried banana not heavily breaded and could taste the banana.

I did have one service issue: I was served all my desserts with a ten-minute gap between the last entree, so I asked that anything left unserved be canceled and was told it would be. Ten more minutes later into my dessert mango beef arrived... great. I indicated that I had cancelled this and was confirmed it was, but was merely admonished to not waste food by the now rather surly middle-aged waitress who then sauntered off. I stared at it for a while, but when you stare into mango beef it stares right back into you. So it eventually I found room for it. but of course my appetite and palate were no longer objective. The beef tasted slightly off but the rest was good.

Returning to dessert, mango and chocolate ice creams looked freezer-burned (ice crystals) but happily they didn't taste that way. Vanilla and green tea were also good, and without the crystals. Sesame balls were not as desserty aka sweet as expected but were still nice with the filling.

Other than the "service issue" with the unwanted mango beef, I had an excellent lunch at Ginza. With the sashimi extra, it's like a dinner menu for $20.95 which is superlative; although there were some near-misses, most items were good to excellent for a good price.

Rating: 8-8.5/10