Matsuda Japanese Cuisine is located at 1300 Don Mills Road, South of York Mills. I recently reviewed another Matsuda location at Steeles near Markham Road in Scarborough. Matsuda has a dark elegant interior which Mishy described as stunning, with nice music and ambiance.We have been to this location several times before; it has completely redone its interior and had several name changes over the years. Like the other location it is a bit echoic so louder than average. Chopsticks are reusables. As with the Scarborough location it uses very well-designed iPad menus. Tea is left in carafe at at table. Soy sauce was a bit salty, but fresh and otherwise good. AYCD pop is $2.50.
Green salad has two choices of dressing (Thousand Islands or sesame peanut), which is most appreciated as I try to avoid Thousand Islands. Mishy loved the wakame salad, a perfect balance of sweet and savory. Miso soup was among the best either of us have ever had, just gorgeous savour. Shrimp tempura had light, flaky and flavorful batter. Salmon teriyaki maki roll was good.
Beef skewers were excellent and not dried out as they were at the Scarborough location. Chicken teriyaki we both adored: smokey, tender and not rubbery at all. Spring rolls were good with the included mustard dipping sauce. Sirloin steak cubes described by Mishy as insanely good and were even better than the Scarborough location; just awesomely tender especially dipped in a bit of soy sauce to bring out the savour.
Mixed vegetable fried rice Mishy said was missing smokey flavor and kind of boring, but I didn't mind it. Avocado cucumber rolls are small but very good. Cold tofu with Matsuda Meat Miso was delicious, a nice unique offering. Sesame peanut salad is spinach and the dressing was very good, and definitely makes it. Beef udon soup appears to have chicken stock base but it worked and was quite tasty. Tabiko and potato salad with egg and bacon was also at the Scarborough location is and is unique and tasty. Service was very fast and accurate even though it got very full of diners. Pumpkin tempura had very tasty pumpkin and the dipping sauce was excellent. Yam tempura also was good and was not too oily. Matsuda Golden Shrimp was excellent as it was at the Scarborough location. Red snapper sushi was quite good; rice not too sweet. Spicy salmon sushi was also very good.
For dessert, blueberry mousse as at the Scarborough location was excellent with tiny berries. Tiramisu was very good. Taro mousse was excellent, and fruit jelly also excellent although no piece of fruit was included. Mishy did an "OMG" at the strawberry mousse said it was the best. The rest was "okay" to Mishy although she called the mango yogurt "yucky" but I don't agree with either. Chocolate fudge mousse was a bit mildly flavored (or subtly.) Chocolate mousse was very good. Mango pudding was also a little either bland or subtle; take your pick. Lychee yogurt was delicious and unique to Matsudo; an excellent find. I am surprised that is not at more places. Mango and vanilla ice creams were fresh and excellent.
We had a wonderful lunch at Matsuda. The atmosphere just made the food all the better. While it is clear that the management is trying to ensure consistency among Matsuda's two locations, I thought that this one was somewhat better on several items and worse on none. At the same lunchtime price ($19.99 weekdays, $20.99 weekends) it was thus also the better value. We are both planning to return on our summer bike rides on the Don Valley trail system.Rating: 8.5/10
