Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Jabistro tasting menu

Jabistro is one of the newer Japanese restaurants in town. It is one of the hype restaurants and it seemed like a lot of people like it. But is it worth the hype? I don't think so. I've had one of the worst experiences at this restaurant.

We went there to celebrate my friend's birthday and we ordered their fisherman's choice tasting menu. It's their once a month special tasting menu that's only available once a month on the last Sunday. And I have to say this is one of the worst tasting menus ever. This is not what I consider an authentic Japanese tasting menu. The fisherman's menu was $400 for 6, if you have extra people, it'll be $75 per extra person.

Menu of the day. We didn't choose wine pairing as we prefer ordering our own drinks. 

Lobster and toro sashimi. It tasted good but I don't like my sashimi being salted. I prefer having control over the amount of soy sauce I use. I wasn't given any soy sauce at all. 

A piece of over fried black cod. It was over fried and some parts of the fish tasted burnt. 

Roasted duck breast tasted alright

marinated tako salad. This tasted fine but was nothing special.


This isn't something I expect to find at a Japanese restaurant especially given the price tag. We've been given a whole fish and we had to serve ourselves. The boston lettuce even came with the root just to show its freshness. The fish didn't taste special at all. There were scales stuck to the fish. And this is not the kind of fish where you can actually eat the scales. To me this is worse than having fish at home. At least for the fish I eat at home, my family ensures there is no scale on the fish. 


Lobster sandwich with mussels and there weren't even enough mussels per person. for the lobster sandwich, this tastes like a lobsters sandwich you get from McDonald's from the PEI. Again we have to serve ourselves and distribute the food among ourselves.  

Sushi that came in a huge platter. The way they put it does look nice but there wasn't enough sushi. We each had 4 pieces of sushi and for some pieces of sushi, the fish wasn't big enough to cover the rice. 
We were given two pieces of smoked fish sushi and two pieces or traditional sushi. For the traditional sushi, the fish was seasoned with salt. That is not how I prefer my sushi, I prefer adding soy sauce and wasabi to my sushi. The chef's skill wasn't that good as some pieces were falling apart. Given the chef's skill wasn't that good, the sushi should be served on your individual plates not in a platter. I did not order a sushi boat. 

Dessert was awful, we bought our own cake and the strawberry cake on the side was what they served. They made their cake in house but it tastes like regular pastries you get from those average Chinese bakeries. The cake was dry and tasteless. We didn't have to serve ourselves because we brought own cake and they had to serve us our cake. They wouldn't give us a knife for us to cut the cake. They knew it was an ice cream cake and by the time they finished cutting up the cake and started serving us, it was another 10 minutes and my ice cream cake started to melt. After the meal we still felt hungry. It wasn't so bad because of our own cake. 

Overall this is not a restaurant I would go back and I would not suggest my friends to try this place.  When we made the reservations they knew it was for a birthday gathering and they said they would do something special and in the end we did get something special which was a terrible meal that we had to serve ourselves. We arrived early while the birthday girl came a little bit late, they actually asked us to start our meals before the birthday girl arrives. I've never been asked to start my meal before the whole party arrives. Never at any other restaurants and starting the meal before all your friends arrive is just rude. We were charged 18% for gratuity when we were basically serving ourselves for the entire night. The waitress only came by to pour you two cups of sake and bring you the food from the kitchen. 

Given the meal wasn't cheap at all and with the food served, it's not worth it's price tag at all. For the same price, you're better off to try the omakase at Kaji Sushi which is the best omakase in Toronto and it's an authentic Japanese restaurant and run by Japanese. 

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