The latest addition from the people behind Guu is Yakitori Kintori, located on the second floor of the Bloor St Kinton Ramen, Kintori specializes in charcoal grilled skewers (kushi), epecially chicken (yakitori). All different parts of the chicken are served and it’s a great example of head to tail cooking.

Atmosphere: The BF and I stopped by with a friend on Sunday, right at 5pm when they opened and was lucky enough to get seats in front of the grill. I would highly recommend making reservations as there are only about 30 seats and there’s bound to be a line. The barstools are similar to the those at Kinton with a place for your bag and a coat rack is set up for jackets. The pace of the meal was slower than ramen, but still not one to linger over. I felt like Kintori’s a great spot to grab dinner at the end of a long day or before starting your night.

Service: Climbing the stairs to the second floor, we were greeted by the servers in Kinton as well as Kintori. The hostess was a super cute, friendly Japanese girl and I couldn’t understand a word she said. I felt bad but none of us could decipher her accent. Once we were seated, our server came to take our order, help explain the menu, made recommendations and was efficient and friendly. Since we sat at the grill, we saw our order getting prepped and cooked. It does take a while for the skewers to be ready, so ordering a few appetizers while you’re waiting is a good idea.

Food: My favourite way to order skewers is to start with one of everything and then double up on favourites. Each skewer usually has 3-5 pieces of meat/vegetable so depending on your group 1-2 orders of of each skewer lets everyone have a bite. Kintori’s menu maps out each cut of the chicken that is orderable. Next to some items, there’s an T/S icon indicating that you can choose between salt or tare sauce (a sweeter, thicker soy sauce) for seasoning. There is also a small selection of pork, beef and vegetable skewers along with a whole other page of tapas dishes. If the selection is overwhelming, there is a chef’s selection of 5 or 7 skewers that offers a nice variety from the menu.

We ordered a good bulk of the menu items. There are still a few items I’d like to try (neck, heart, oyster and liver) but of what we ordered, I’ve organized them into 3 groups. Overall, the chicken was really tender, I found the beef a touch dry and the pork was crispy. The okra and stuffed jalapeno were amazing and a nice break from all the meat.

1. Skewers you won’t want to share:
Aigamo (Duck Breast – Daily Special), Lamb (Daily Special), Buta Bara (Pork Belly), Okra, Jalapeno Nikuzume (Stuffed Jalapeno), Sasami with mentai mayo (Tenderloin), Cheese Tsukune (Stuffed Chicken Meatball), Eringi (Oyster Mushroom)

2. Interesting unique skewers, nice to try
Sunagimo (Gizzard), Tsukune (Chicken Meatball), Momo (Thigh), Kawa (Skin), Bonjiri (Tail), Tomato, Ton Toro (Pork Cheek), Negi Shio Gyu (Beef)

3. Skewers that could be skipped
Mekyabetsu (Brussel Sprouts), Hiza Nankotsu (Cartilage)

We ordered a Tako Wasabi while we waited for our skewers to arrive. The wasabi that day had a real kick and really cleared up the sinuses. From the Rice and Noodle section, we also tried the Yakionigiri, grilled rice ball filled with seaweed. This would be the only disappointing dish of the night. It was a lot of rice and not that much flavour.

The surprise dish of the night was the Kitsune Udon. Udon noodles are wrapped in a deep fried tofu skin and served with dashi broth. The noodles were a perfect texture, the dashi was flavourful and the skin added a nice saltiness. I was also impressed with how much udon there was. It was a great dish.

I washed everything down with a glass of Kintori White Sangria. The drink was a little light on actual fruit pieces but tasted like summer.

Zakkushi is another new Toronto restaurant with origins from the West coast specializing in yakitori (different meats/veggies skewers grilled on a Japanese Charcoal).  We rounded up a group of people to visit, thus maximizing the number of dishes that could be sampled.

Atmosphere: Inside the restaurant, it felt very much like eating at a food stall or market in Japan. There were many large booths, and the energy and volume was high. Servers rushed around and the smell of fresh grilled meat wafted through the dining area. With the help of their high ceilings, the room wasn’t smoky at all. It was a great mood for beer and loud conversations.

Service: Food arrived quickly. With the high number of menu items, the server punches in the order and hangs a print out next to each table. We were able to easily keep track of what dishes we’d tried and what was still to come. Everything felt efficient and we were always able to flag down someone as required.

Food: We ordered a lot of food, plus two pitchers of beer (split between six people) and a $60 bottle of sake (split between three people). So although our bill came up to ~$60/person the meal was well worth the cost and a great price.

For appetizers, we tried the appetizer sampler of takowasabi, marinated cucumbers and goma-ae (spinach with sesame sauce) and a full order of shiokara (marinated squid with special sauce). All of the dishes were pretty standard except for the shiokara which split our table in like or strongly dislike. I enjoyed the dish, but it is very salty and very fishy, so beware.

As each skewer arrived, it was disassembled to allow everyone to have a bite. Since we pretty much ordered every type of skewer, I’ll just highlight my favourite ones of the night. The p-toro (crunchy and juicy pork) and kawa (chicken skin) are must tries, both were grilled to a crisp and juicy. I also really liked the chicken gizzard, which was tender and a great chewy texture. None of the beef or vegetable yakitori really stood out for me in terms of flavour. I would start with ordering the Zakkushi set, which comes with 5 types of skewers covering each meat group.

On top of skewers, we also tried the takoyaki, daikon salad, ankimo (monkfish liver), beef tataki, chicken karage,  grilled mackerel, marinated mackerel and nama harumaki (salad roll). The daikon salad was great, very refreshing. The thin slices of daikon were paired with a savoury dressing. We also liked the ankimo and salad roll enough to order seconds. These were both cold dishes, and again very refreshing in contrast to all the grilled meat. The ankimo was a surprise hit at the table, with a spreadable texture and not overly fishy taste. The grilled mackerel was slightly disappointing being under seasoned, while the marinated mackerel had a great acidity and firmness. The chicken karaage was very tender and juicy on the inside with a good crispy batter shell.

Then there was still room for dessert. We ordered three of the four available options to split at the table. The kinako mochi ice cream (vanilla ice cream with mochi and maple syrup), dorayaki matcha ice cream (green tea ice cream with red bean in a Japanese pancake) and kuro goma ice cream (homemade black sesame ice cream). All of the desserts were amazing, sweet but not over the top, rich and creamy. My favourite was the black sesame followed closely by the vanilla mochi.

Phew, I did say we ordered a lot of food! I had a great time at Zakkushi, the variety and breadth of the menu with so many dishes being outstanding will have me coming back for sure.