Review: Natural Sushi

Sukiyaki hot pot... just make sure you ask for the original broth

The best part about Natural Sushi are their lunch specials. But this review is about dinner as you can see by the really red lighting of the photos. Much like Okinomi House around the corner, Natural Sushi has also adopted the Japanese red lanterns to adorn their decor. I can’t say I’m a fan of the red lighting.

"den kaku" aka eggplant

Natural has been known as one of the best places to get cheap sushi, but it’s definitely not bad sushi. Tonight, we ordered a Tepanyaki with teriyaki chicken and their beef sukiyaki hotpot. The hot pot has become a favorite of ours but since we haven’t been to Natural in almost a year, we were shocked to find out that our sukiyaki hot pot broth tasted bland and salty like the broth from an udon soup.

We asked the waitress about this and she said that due to many complaints about the sukiyaki being too “sweet”, they modified it and started using the udon brother instead. She said next time to let them know that you want the original brother and they’ll take care of it. Fortunately, after a bit of persuasion, she agreed to get us a bowl of sukiyaki with just the original broth in which we transplanted the noodles, beef, and veggies from the not-so-good broth to the good one. So keep this in mind if you’re going there for the sukiyaki.

Tepanyaki with Teriyaki Chicken

The tepanyaki was pretty good and the chicken was of high quality. The plate came out of the kitchen with a nice loud sizzling sound which lasted a good 3 minutes while sitting on my table – beware of the grease splatters! It comes sitting on a bed of sprouts with some broccoli on the side.

If you’re in the Bloor and Yonge area and are looking for a cheap and decent sushi place to eat, then be sure to head to Natural Sushi. Out of the handful of sushi restaurants in that area, Natural may not be the best, but it’s a great value for your dollar.

Review: Just Thai

Just Thai is just ok. I don’t eat Thai food that often and haven’t actually consumed any of it in months, but I’m pretty sure when you order something that says in the menu that it’s supposed to taste like peanuts, it should taste like peanuts, not pineapples.

Maybe I’m starting this review on a bad note because the food wasn’t overall that bad albeit a little pricey. We started by ordering the appetizer sampler which is a mix of some of the appetizers offered on the menu. Satay shrimp (which I asked to replace with chicken due to my allergy), cold rolls, mango salad, crispy beef rolls, and fried calamari. The mango salad was excellent with a sprinkling of crushed peanuts all over it. The fried calamari, chicken, and the beef rolls were okay too but were made even better with the dipping sauces you get with it. Unfortunately, I felt the cold rolls contained a bit too much lettuce. As you can see in the photo, nearly 85% of the roll was lettuce. I’d rather them remove half of the lettuce and give a smaller roll.

The appetizer sampler

We ordered the Island Chicken (with Mango Chicken being our first choice but we felt since the appetizer sampler came with mango salad that we’d be all mangoed out) and were looking forward to it’s “peanut flavour”. Unfortunately, it came tasting more like pineapples than peanuts. In fact there were no peanuts on it at all. Mind you, it wasn’t awful tasting, it just wasn’t what we were expecting.

The Island Chicken... which tasted more like pineapple than peanuts

It seems like if you’re interested in trying Thai food then I’d say your best bet would be to head over to Yonge street and check out the Friendly Thai. But if you’re looking for good service (the waiters were quick and quite friendly) and decent food that could be Thai with a few alterations, then go ahead and check out Just Thai. The food isn’t bad, but it just isn’t what I was expecting.

Review: Ed’s Real Scoop

Ed's Real Scoop

The Beach and ice cream go hand in hand like gentrification and a Starbucks. For years, I used to head to Baskin Robbins or Lick’s to get my ice cream fix in the beaches even if it meant eating rock hard freezer burnt stuff. But ever since I’ve discovered Ed’s Real Scoop with it’s excellent hand made ice cream, I haven’t looked back and now realize it’s worth the walk all the way to the other end of Queen street east just to get one of Ed’s really good scoops.

Ed’s is a taste of nostalgia from the old time ice cream parlours right down to the smell of waffle cones being made in the corner by Ed himself. The great thing about Ed’s is if you go everyday, besides having me become envious, you would never find the exact same selection of flavours. Infact on most days you’ll almost always find a new flavour there, and they’re also open to new flavour suggestions.

Roasted Marshmellow

On this warm summer afternoon, after spending a whole 8 minutes trying to decide on which flavour I wanted (I did narrow it down to 5), I ended up going with the roasted marshmellow flavour for the purposes of writing on site. Why? Because if you’ve ever read my post over at Urban Pill, you’d know that I am in absolute love with the roasted marshmellow flavor from Greg’s Ice Cream in the annex. This gave me a bit of something to draw a bit of a comparison. Though Greg’s marshmellow ice cream will always be my favorite, Ed’s version was pretty darn good on it’s own. Though it did indeed taste like melted marshmellows, it lacked the smokiness of Greg’s version. But what it did have that Greg’s doesn’t is a nice swirl of caramel mixed in.

Although Ed’s beaches shop is a bit further away from the hustle and bustle of the Woodbine section of Queen street, it is definitely worth the 5 minute streetcar ride down to the end of the tracks to get a lick or two. There is another one right in the heart of Leslieville also on Queen street between Carlaw and Logan so if the other one is a wee bit out of the way, then hopefully the Leslieville one will be easier to get to.

Review: Tulip

The Tulip: Since 1929

I first went to the Tulip back in 1996 and it was great back then. Thankfully, not much has changed aside from moving two doors down about a decade ago. The Tulip Steakhouse sits on the edge of Leslieville bordering the Beach area (also known as “the Beaches” if you’ve lived there before the name change years ago). I do have to confess though that even though the Tulip is known for it’s excellent yet low cost steaks, I have never tried one before even though I used to go there almost weekly when I was younger. Even to this day, I would still much prefer a cheeseburger over their renown steaks.

Their burger patties are hand made and have bits of onion and other lovely things inside of it that give it such great flavour. The buns they use are always nice and big but are never bigger than the patty. The best part about the buns is that they grill them a bit giving the insides a bit of a crunch factor. It comes with a slice of tomato and a thick slice of onion. Always and always will. The coleslaw that comes with the burger is great too. It’s none of that frozen kind that most other greasy spoons serve, it’s actually quite nice and usually pretty fresh. Now the home fries… mmm home fries. I always get random cravings for Tulip’s homefries because they are some of the best around town. They’re nice and soft in the middle and always crunchy on the outside. Plus, I love all the crunchy small bits that come with it too. Their homefries have changed a bit since I first went there, as they used to be grilled with onion bits but they’ve since removed them.

Their breakfast is also a great plate of awesomeness. For just under $5 (yep you heard me, $5 smackeroos!) you get all that in the photo. Home fries, toast, sausage (or peameal bacon or regular bacon), and eggs. The breakfast is great because it’s cheap for a lot of food and served all day except for the pancakes which are only served until 4:00pm.

The Tulip is one of my personal top favorite restaurants in the city and it’s always nice to have a place that I can go to which has all the comfort food I’ve grown to love. Though the service has somewhat gone downhill over the years, the food is still excellent and they always give you a huge amount for a low price. And if you’re not too full from the main course, you need to try some of their famous chocolate cake or coconut cream pie. Make sure if you do go that you choose the homefries over the french fries. I can’t stress enough how good they are.