Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Ematei: Best Japanese Food Ever

Yesterday, my friend Liana unexpectedly took me out for dinner and I suggested that we go to Ematei because I heard so many good things about it and it's been around forever.

I was all set to love this place and I did. We were both starving, so we ordered a feast including gyoza, crab and cucumber sunomono, and a mess o' sushi.

You can't really go wrong with gyoza. My mom makes it with ground pork and tonnes of vegetables like garlic chives and Chinese cabbage, and she pan-fries it before finishing it off with steam. Like most places, Ematei's gyoza is mostly meat and they deep fry it, but even so it was yummy.

The sunomono had such an interesting presentation. I was expecting a mixed crab and cucumber salad, but instead it came as a kind of salad maki sushi with ginger, shiso, and crab wrapped with a long, paper-thin slices of cucumber. It was beautiful and delicious, bathed in a light vinegar dressing.

The sushi was fantastic. The first piece I had was the tamago (egg) and I couldn't believe how light, fluffy, and eggy it was. All of the fish was exceptionally fresh including the roe, which was mild and only faintly salty. We actually ordered a bit more than we could handle (a first for me with sushi) and we had to sadly leave a few pieces behind. I love love loved this place and it has catapulted into my favourite Japanese restaurant in the city.

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