CLOSED - Tatami Sushi (Japanese)

Updated 2023-Mar.-17: Unfortunately, Tatami Sushi appears to be permanently closed; it's listed as such in Google Maps and its phone # is NIS.

Tatami Sushi is located in the Eglinton Town Centre plaza in Toronto's Scarborough borough at Eglinton Ave. w. of Warden Ave. It's quite close to Imperial Buffet which is in the same mall. Mishy and I actually went to Imperial first, but they said to they were completely booked and we had planned on checking out Tatami Sushi sometime so figured this was the chance.

Tatami is a contemporary, somewhat more upscale place; there was rock music playing (the entire Pink Floyd album "Dark Side of the Moon" stood out) and has modern decor. Most of the patrons were young and it was loudish with many conversations ongoing. Surprisingly they use disposable chopsticks, but I bring my own. iPad menus are used (smaller iPad minis which I have not seen before) but strangely desserts need to be ordered on paper even though they are in the iPad menus... I don't get it. Soy sauce was fresh and not at all salty. Sadly they also charge $1 for green tea (never seen it anything but free before) but this is somewhat offset by $1.50 AYCD canned pop.

Starting with the usual appetizers, the green salad was excellent with a very tasty dressing. Mishy described the seaweed/wakame salad as "perfect" Miso soup was good with a nice flavour but was just a touch weak and needing a bit more dashi. Hot and soup was good and very rich but had an odd caramel flavour I could not identify. Beef udon soup was excellent and savoury, made with shredded beef (which seems to infuse more of the flavour into the soup... it was among the best I have had.)

Teriyaki beef was also that same shredded beef and was quite tasty. Pork cutlet was good and I liked the sauce. Spicy salmon sushi was excellent. Salmon sushi was very fresh and tasty but too loose and the rice kept falling apart. Mishy did not care for the chicken teriyaki, stating that the sauce resembled beef gravy, but I enjoyed it and thought it excellent and savoury. Shrimp tempura was almost light and flaky but had a bit of oil. But the black pepper beef was practically worth the entire visit, it was so delicious and savoury with strong notes of garlic. It was like a fine steak, and I had two-and-a-half helpings of it.

For dessert, mango and vanilla ice creams were excellent, very fresh with no freezer burn, and the mixed fruit jellies were also very good (I especially liked the lime.) Unfortunately the remainder of the desserts (tiramisu, pudding. etc.) were confined to the dinner menu. I enjoyed all of the food at Tatami especially black pepper beef, plus the establishment itself,, but it is quite expensive for lunch at $17.99 and the $1 tea and tiny dessert menu do not justify that price which I think should be a dollar or two less. The service is very fast. All in all I would recommend Tatami though albeit somewhat milder than usual with these caveats and we might return to try some more of the items I missed the first time.

Rating 7.5/10