Sushi Gen is located at 1502 Yonge Street in central midtown Toronto, just north of St. Clair Avenue and thus very accessible via the St. Clair subway station. It has the same interior as when I was last there long ago. Mishy and I went for a weekend lunch which is $19.99. Unfortunately disposable chopsticks are used (as well as plastic spoons for the desserts.) Low-sodium soy sauce is available on request (or requests… I had to ask for it three times!) which is good as the regular soy sauce is salty and low-sodium soy was noticeably better. Green tea is available and free of charge, but it was unfortunately served in a plastic cup which is not good as BPA and other chemicals are released into it; plastic should not be used for hot beverages.
Green salad had nice wasabi dressing, but it had a strange fresh paint odour. Mishy said the seaweed wakame salad needed more bite, aka flavour. Miso soup was okay but we both agreed it was boring, and Mishy even said it was "lacking umami", which it was. (I have taught her well!) Beef teriyaki was good shaved beef and a nice portion size rather than minuscule, but Mishy said the sauce was too sweet; I agree but was appreciative they had it on the menu at all. Spicy tofu soup was different and had a reminiscent broth of hot Campbell's vegetable; perhaps it is traditional but I highly doubt it and it didn't work for me. Beware the portion sizes of some items. for example chicken teriyaki and rice. I liked the chicken teriyaki sauce, but the chicken itself had the skin on which some may not like. Mishy also liked the sauce but dug out her still-incomprehensible "rubbery" adjective for the chicken.
Spicy salmon maki Mishy loved, but she noted it was cut too large to be bite-sized. Shrimp tempura was good, flaky, light and had good dipping sauce. Mushroom tempura was good. Spring rolls were okay, but appeared to have been cooked from frozen, and the sauce was Wing's take-out in an included plastic packet, definitely not made on-premises. Teppanyaki vegetables were also okay, but didn't have much flavor at all. Chicken katsu was good and had a nice sauce. Spring salmon sushi was good. Crispy salmon sushi had large chunks of fresh salmon. Spicy salmon sushi was good. However the avocado/cucumber roll's avocado was squishy and starting to go off.
Mango, green tea, vanilla and strawberry (not on menu) ice creams are the only desserts and were the best part of the meal. Mishy loved the creamy green tea ice cream. Nothing in the meal was excellent, standout or terrible. Service was also not very good; as well as having to ask for low-sodium soy sauce three times, the second-last waitress gave me the stink-eye when I asked for ice cream, then sauntered off; happily the other waitress was much nicer. (There are similar complaints in the Yelp reviews; one waitress seems to be dragging their customer service down.) I remember Sushi Gen as being much better many years ago (although that may be due to it being good for its day compared to others, but all the AYCEs in Toronto have scaled up considerably since then.) These days, "meh" sums it up well, but the price was not "meh" at $19.99 for lunch, and other places several dollars less are equivalently good. I conclude that Sushi Gen is not a good value and I will not return (of course unless there are significant improvements.)Rating: 5.5-6/10
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The earlier review:
Sushi Gen is centrally located at 1502 Yonge Street (Yonge just a block north of St. Clair Avenue)Sushi Gen has wonderful staff, always smiling, including the manager who doesn't mind helping out and greeting his customers asking them how they enjoyed their meal. This is a nice touch.
The miso soup is cooked to perfection and chicken teriyaki, salmon teriyaki and salmon sushi is awesome. Like most Japanese buffets, you won't find sashimi on the menu for lunch. They also have unlimited ice cream with a variety of flavours! Although lunch is slightly higher in price, it's worth it!
Overall rating 8/10
