Spring Sushi (Japanese)

Spring Sushi is (still) located in Toronto’s core at 10 Dundas St. E., at the 4th floor of The Tenor, the mall at the NE corner of Yonge and Dundas, directly at Dundas (now TMU - Toronto Metropolitan University) subway station. We last reviewed it a dozen years ago, so it's overdue for a revisit! We went for weekend lunch which was $30.99 for the Premium menu, which is available any day, but the only available weekend lunch option. There is also a weekday-only Classic menu for $21.99 which I imagine was introduced to compete with the similarly priced Kyoto House menu just a few blocks to the west.

Spring Sushi has a quite large and now even more open interior, and it can be noisy when it is full. Ordering is onto iPad menus. Unfortunately disposable chopsticks are used, so we brought our own as usual. Soy at table was rather salty, but fresh and flavourful with plenty of savour. Ginger is dyed pink. Pop is $3.50 fountain AYCD or $2 canned; but unfortunately the fountain was only Pepsi products, and the canned had no Coke Zero so I just went with tea which is also $2, but unfortunately like the last place we were at, even though I asked first the waiter didn't know that it was a plastic tea bag, so I had to send it back but they do have paper ones available... remember when green tea was included? Thankfully it was this time, as it came up as a “promo” since I had returned it.

Miso soup was fantastic, rich and savoury with plenty of umami savour and not watered down. House salad had Thousand Islands dressing, but it was still good and at least the salad was very fresh, though it had a huge tomato slice on it which I'm not into, but that's a personal preference. As to be expected from a place called “Spring”, the spring rolls were excellent, also just about the best I've had in a while, clearly made on premises with a flavourful filling which would indicate that they have not been frozen.

Gyoza were similarly excellent. Mishy wasn't big on the cheese wontons for some reason, but I didn't mind them at all, and they certainly had plenty of flavourful cheese. Deep fried scallops aka surimi were very good and I enjoyed the sauce. Agedashi tofu had a fantastic smoky sauce with a smokiness exactly like that of lapsang souchong tea; both Mishy and I noticed and enjoyed it because of this. Shrimp tempura were very good especially with the sauce.

BBQ beef rib AKA short ribs were excellent and marinated well according to Mishy, with a slight sweetness, and were delicious. Similarly good was the sirloin steak in the same sauce. Mishy tried a chicken skewer when she usually doesn't and loved it; I did too as if it was moist and delicious and not  dried out. Teppanyaki steak with garlic was one of the best beef dishes we've had in a long time... it was not only a very tasty cut of cubed beef, but very well-seasoned in garlic and absolutely delicious. Mishy said that the teriyaki steak was amazing.

We noted that the sushi rice in most of the offerings tended to fall apart, although it was very good-tasting. The hako salmon sushi aka oshizushi or pressed sushi was delicious. Salmon rose was very good, but also suffered from falling apart easily. Salmon, honestly-labelled escolar, red tuna and surf clam nigiri were all excellent and fresh.

For dessert, Spring Sushi has gone the way of so many other places and now only offers small Chapman's cups of chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream, limit one per customer unless paying $2.50 more. (I digress: What is with Chapman’s being the standard these days at so many places... Is it just because the Premier supports them? They are about the least flavourful ice cream available with barely enough to be noticeable, no actual strawberry pieces, etc. At least it was fresh.) As well, all of the cakes are $7 each including the creme brûlée, and while I can understand that for premium cheesecake large slices, everywhere else I've been the creme brûlée is included, but it was also $7. We both like the fried banana as it came with a delicious strawberry sauce with another nice flavour, possibly citrus. Custard bun with chocolate sauce was excellent and well-balanced. Sesame ball neither one of us really cared for although it's not much different from other places. Service was excellent and very fast especially to remove used plates. The food was excellent with many standout items; the only disappointment was the  desserts which are weighted less considering that some places don’t offer them (although compensate for this.)

Rating: 9 - 9.5 / 10 - 0.5 value adjustment = 8.5 - 9 / 10

Our original review:

Spring Sushi is located in the heart of Toronto's core: at the northeast corner of Yonge and Dundas on the 4th floor of the new premises there.

Spring's decor is bright but elegant, and although it is loud, is so in a good and lively way. It's a very positive environment, and is staffed almost exclusively by young people, who seem to work very well
together as the service was excellent. We went on New Years' Eve which had to be one of their busiest nights of the year, as without a reservation my wife and I *Mishy* had to wait 45 minutes. However, it was worth the wait.

When we were eventually seated it was at a "booth for two" which was a first for any of the ACYEs we have visited (and more should have them to be sure) and our "menu" consisted of an iPad in a protective case... another first, so I was already impressed even before the food arrived. Not only does the iPad menu have photographs of all the menu items, but computerizing the menu also ensures that every item that we ordered arrived (this, of course, can be a mixed blessing if you tend
to overdo it as we do!)

We started with soup and salad. Unfortunately, we were off to a "meh" start. The salad dressing was a little too much like Thousand Islands rather than being more Japanese (ie wasabi/soy/ginger) in character.

The miso soup was merely average. I decided to try seafood miso to compare and it was excellent; happily there was no more "meh" for the rest of the meal.

Butter mushrooms were perfect with a wonderful savour; ended up reordering them. Chicken teriyaki was perfect with a delicious sauce, and not "rubbery" which Mishy counts as an immediate fail. Teppanyaki garlic steak had a similarly perfect savour and was also worth a reorder, as was the sirloin steak (we're not usually red meat eaters, but make an exception for our reviews...)

As would be expect from the name of the premises, the spring rolls were among the best I have had with tart sauce that was a perfect complement to them. Shrimp tempura was excellent with a flaky batter.

Mishy thought they had a bit of a fishy taste but I didn't think so.  The deep fried shrimp has nice mustard mayo sauce. Spring Sushi also has Thai dishes; I tried the satay and the curry chicken and enjoyed both of them.

Finally for dessert we enjoyed fried bananas, with strawberry dipping sauce and ice cream. I found there were not enough flavours of ice cream but what was there was fresh and good. One bonus of Spring Sushi is that soft drinks' refills are free (and Coke Zero that we both prefer is on tap.)

I enjoyed Spring Sushi very much. I can't give it a perfect rating because of the minor shortcomings and the price is also high ($23.99) and of course this has to be a factor. but we both enjoyed it very
much, especially the fresh and elegant ambiance and the high-tech menus; we'll definitely be returning for special dinners out!

Rating: 9-9.5/10.

Pics courtesy of Mishy