Zen Japanese Restaurant
2803 Eglinton Ave., East
Scarborough, ON
416-265-7111
Food also available for take-out
About $90 for two

Sigh. Finding great Japanese food in Toronto seems to involve a whole lot of sacrifice these days. Last time we drove to the neglected industrial wasteland of Etobicoke, which seemed a bizarre choice for a first rate Japanese restaurant. This time, your intrepid reviewing crew journeyed all the way to Scarborough for their dinner, and My God, it was A Long Way Out.

Anyway, on the heartfelt recommendation of Fumiko Shiba (who is always right on these issues), as well as the good opinion of our editor and our former consul general, we drove for A Long Way. Past Many Strip Malls, to the Land of the Auto Detailer and the Big Box Hardware Emporium, to find Seiichi Kashiwabaras small restaurant, Zen.

The dcor of Zen restaurant is conventional but comfortable. The two booths opposite the counter are cosy for gazing into the eyes of a significant other (Good plan! We approve!), but otherwise, you wont find anything very thrilling about the look of the place. We, of course, sat at our usual perch for this kind of restaurant: the sushi counter.

Naturally the reason to come here is for the sushi. The chef and owner, Seiichi Kashiwabara, was formerly the sushi chef at Masa and is generally accepted to be in the same league as Kaji and Hiro. Among the sushi and sashimi we tasted, we were particularly taken with the tai sushi (red snapper) with, instead of soy sauce on the side, a bit of Okinawa sea salt and a small squeeze of lemon on top. Oh yum. After munching our way through that, we asked to try the salt separately, and yes there is a very distinct difference. (MB - I have been accused of being a rice snob but now you can also accuse me of being a salt snob. Adrienne already was. I have been converted). Kashiwabara-san wont tell us where he got the salt though. Thats a secret.

Moving on to the main dishes, we definitely recommend the Gindara saikyou yaki (black cod with miso). We think it may be a close sibling of the dish with which Nobu made his fortune in New York. (Big fortune. Great dish.) On the night we visited the special was a fried fish presented in chunks, with all of its bones carefully excised and also fried -- we had that as well. It was a strikingly handsome presentation, by WHY do we always end up being encouraged to feast on fish bones when we go out to eat with Fumiko? It is MOST odd. This time, Fumiko got the head and (eek!) Adrienne and Margaret were made to eat the body and tail, bones and all! Adrienne was reprimanded for not eating the entire spine. How uncivilized! (Yes, ok, it tasted really quite good, but it was also spiky-looking and I frighten easily. AY)

Finally, save room for dessert, if you can. Kashiwabaras wife, Kazuko, makes a very tasty mandarin pie.

The last thing we would like to mention before rating is the price of our dinner. Perhaps because of the location, perhaps because some of the ingredients were less exotic, Zen was MUCH less expensive than Kaji. We love Kaji but, being honest folk and unwilling to embezzle from our friends, family and employers, we hesitate to go except for VERY special occasions. Zen is not inexpensive, but it IS affordable. As we like it immensely and want to go back soon, we think this is VERY good news.

Overall, we think Zen is a terrific little restaurant. Again, we take away points for location (very far, somewhat inelegant), but add back for pricing, which we think is very kind indeed.

Three sushi rating


P.S. Is anyone going to Okinawa? We want to place an order for salt!