triple S is the best (Sushi-Sake-Sablefish)
Food:
Zaru soba - cold buckwheat noodles served with a sweet soy sauce, a quail egg and green onion garnish. Tasty, refreshing and healthy. At first, I thought you were supposed to crack the quail egg on top of the noodles (I swear I saw that somewhere on a blog), but later the waitress explained that the quail egg was actually supposed to be cracked into the sauce, mixed with the green onions (and wasabi, if you wish) and then you dip the noodles in.
Chicken Tsukune - Two skewers of beautifully grilled, marinated mince chicken meat (meatball texture) but flattened (see photo). These were delicious - served hot and the flavours were bang-on (with strong teriyaki flavours)
Spicy Tuna & Spicy Chopped Roll - Fresh fish, good proportion of rice to ingredients - typical and satisfying!
** Grilled Black Cod ** - This was basically the impetus of our visit to Aki: the grilled sablefish/black cod. At $11 a piece, not only is it a steal but is probably the best valued sablefish in the city! Thanks to this wonderfuly recommendation by a fellow friend/d.c of mine, we ordered a sablefish each, lol! It was delicate, flaky, flavourful, moist, perfectly grilled, and hot. The portion size was also very reasonable. It was served with a slice of lemon and grated radish. My d.c had also requested for these sweet asian pickles that were great accompaniments to the cod!
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Service:
Super friendly and genuinely warm
Value:
Standard prices at a Japanese restaurant though the $11 grilled black cod ups it up a few notches on the value factor!
Ambience:
Quite bustling on a Thursday night with predominant Japanese customers! It's also like sitting in a huge wooden house, with wooden booths, with an open sushi/robata bar...
Overall: 8/10
Yay: Authentic, Japanese owned and operated, warm service, popular for robata (charcoal grilled items), black cod...great lunch specials!
Nay: Downtown - parking, also a little hidden perhaps (on Thurlow right next to the McDonalds, located downstairs where Samba Brazillian Steakhouse is)
**Interesting fact: They have been in operation for 47 years and counting...!
