MIKU TORONTO

When planning my weekend in Vancouver this October, I specifically left out restaurants that had migrated to Toronto for two reasons. One I was only there for 3 days and wanted to try food I couldn’t in Toronto. Two, I didn’t want to be disappointed if Toronto’s version of a restaurant didn’t measure up. This caused Miku to be excluded from my itinerary despite excellent reviews. Back in Toronto, when Miku opened their doors, I was eager to get a table and hoped that nothing had been lost on the way from West coast to The Six.

Atmosphere: Miku was a large restaurant, on a scale similar to Luma or Jump. Located at Bay and Queens Quay, the upscale restaurant was modern and trendy with a clean monochromatic colour scheme. Bar seats lined the partially open kitchen, fresh seafood was displayed on ice and a private dining area was set up behind glass walls. Even on a Wednesday night, the restaurant was packed.

Service: With only a month of service under their belt, Miku has some wrinkles to iron out before they’re streamlined. Once we were seated, our server came by to introduce herself and left us to examine the menu. We placed our drink and food orders, and waited. There may have been a queue at the bar but it took close to 15 minutes to get two cocktails and a beer. Our server was friendly and apologetic about the wait. After the initial snafu, our food dishes did arrive at a good pace and each plate was served with a description. I feel like Miku has the potential to offer great hospitality, all the pieces are there, some more fine-tuning is required.

Food: Miku is best known for their aburi style (blow torched) sushi. With this in mind, we stuck to ordering rolls and nigiri, rather than sashimi. As an appetizer, we ordered the Smokey Soy Grilled Octopus. The tender octopus was served with crispy chicken skin, sea salt crusted baby potatoes, wasabi chimichurri and aioli. A delicious plate that was elegant and lovely.

For rolls, we tried the Miku and Soft Shell Crab Fritter rolls. Immediately, The Hubby deemed the Miku rolle life-changing. Each piece was creamy, had a complex charred flavour from the blowtorch and pops of umami from the tobiko. This was a very good roll, and the highlight of the evening. In comparison, the Soft Shell Crab Fritter roll fell short on taste but was more artfully plated, with fanned out pieces on a brush stroke of squid ink. Extra pieces of crab were filled in a pool of chilli aioli. The roll was filled with soft shell crab, salmon and scallop, but only the fried crab was prominent.

Next was pressed Saba and Salmon sushi, finished aburi style to add a smokey, seared flavour. In term of aburi style sushi, this was the best I’ve had in Toronto from the high quality raw fish, to the perfect texture of the sushi rice. Sometimes, with the execution of pressed sushi, the sushi rice gets packed too tight and becomes mushy. Miku’s was excellent.

The last dish we ordered was the Miku Signature Sushi Selection plate, which included 6 pieces of nigiri, 2 pieces from their specialty roll selection and 2 pieces from their pressed sushi choices. Included in the nigiri was sweet shrimp, tuna, yellow tail and wagyu. I was a little disappointed that scallop and uni were both excluded. One feature I really liked about Miku’s menu were the platter options that allowed diners to get a taste of a wide variety of fish. Each piece of nigiri featured fresh, sweet, sashimi brushed with sauce.

Dessert split 3 ways was Green Tea Opera cake. The layers of matcha buttercream, chocolate ganache and hazelnut wafer were delicious, rich in flavour and airy in texture with a crunch in between.

With Miku, I flip flopped between a 4.0 and 5.0 rating. Afterall, the sushi was top notch and there were some standout rolls, however I didn’t fall in love with the restaurant. Perhaps over-time and after tasting more of the menu, Miku will get bumped up to 5.0. Based solely on this one meal, I think Miku is one of the best Japanese restaurants in the city, but not quite the best.