Ouchi prepares it a bit at a time by rubbing a gnarled-looking piece of the root on a sharkskin grater).

There will be grouper from South Carolina, sweet and buttery with a minor wasabi backnote (the wasabi is fresh, of course Mr. It might start with an ivory slice of Japanese amberjack, its texture almost apple-crisp, its flavour clean, brushed lightly with nikiri (sweetened soy sauce), and set on gently roasty-tasting rice. All but two pieces come served over just-warm rice. The décor is suitably minimalist for a place with such laser-focus: There is little more here than an L-shaped counter, 10 comfortable stools and an open glass icebox where the fish is kept.Īt Yasu, there is only one menu option: for $80, you get 20-odd pieces of pristine sushi, cut right there in front of you.

Yasu, as the room is called, is bright and modern, wide glass out to Harbord's stream of summer bicyclists. What we didn't have was a sushi counter that did nothing but top-quality sushi: that served only just-warm, vinegar-seasoned rice draped with superlative fish, made to order right in front of you and served a single bite at a time.Įarly this May, an Osaka-raised chef named Yasuhisa Ouchi quietly opened just such a spot on Harbord Street. There are big-box-sized rooms where the sushi comes in wooden boats, as well as pressed-sushi purveyors, hybrid sushi-ya-izakayas, an arriviste new Vancouver-style spot where the fish is great (but what they do with it isn't), and a place where they seem to think that deep-fried sushi pizza is an extremely good idea.īut until this past spring, what the city didn't have was the sort of sushi restaurant that you might have seen in the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. We've seen new pan-Asian spots where they'll wrap your futomaki rolls in Thai black rice, new all-you-can-eat joints ( caveat you've-got-to-be-crazy), a 'sustainable' sushi counter, vegetarian sushi businesses, aburi-style specialists where nearly everything comes blowtorched, and restaurants where you pluck your sushi from a conveyor belt and hope it's on its first time around. Amid the rush of new sushi restaurants into the city these past few years, there's always been a conspicuous absence.

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