Wakoya Sushi - Flavourful Japanse/Korean

Spring is amongst us! And with spring comes warm weather, blue skies and the promise of summer. For me, this spring brings about a sense of responsibility, as I transition myself from the ranks of junior resident to that of a senior. With that leaving less time to dine out, I have to find and made a more concerted effort to blogging. One lonely afternoon, after finishing a pile of work, I grabbed a fellow resident for a quick and hearty meal at Wakoya Sushi.

Wakoya Sushi is located in the heart of Osborne Village on the corner of Wardlaw and Osborne. The nicely decorated restaurant has a modern sheen and tasteful Japanese decorations. Large lanterns adorn the entranceway while smiling wait-staff direct you to the table of choice.

While Wakoya calls itself a fusion restaurant, it truly features both Japanese and Korean cuisine. I have to laugh when these restaurants exist, as I find they offer mediocre food that does neither cuisine justice; rather I wish they stick with their base home cuisine (the owners are Korean by the way). Nevertheless the menu features a whopping number of dishes from the two respective countries. The usual suspects are found here with a nice combination of Korean fried foods and stews; the Japanese portion features a venerable mix of sushi, Nijiri, sashimi and rolls.

The Blue Ocean is an atypical roll that utilizes a cucumber as the sushi wrapper. Inside it holds a luscious combination of salmon, avocado, crab, shrimp and roe. The large list of ingredients might scare one off, but it truly works here as the nice combination of fish and seafood all lend a good textural contrast to one another. Holding it all together is a tasty spicy wasabi mayo that adds the needed saltiness and spiciness. At the end of the day though, the cucumber exterior did a poor job in holding everything together and added nothing to the dish, other than a sense of uniqueness.

Never missing an opportunity to try Korean food, we the classic Hot Stone Bibim Bap. The large stone bowl features Kimchi rice in the bottom filled with a laundry list of cooked and marinated vegetables and topped with a fresh egg. Mixing everything together with the supplied Korean hot sauce delivers a wonderful combination of sweet, salty and savoury. Nothing special about Wakoya's version here, it was as it should be.

Gochujang Jijjae was the closest they came to having pork bone soup. The stew consists of pork, cucumber, tofu and pork in a red pepper beef based broth. The bowl came beautiful presented with big pieces of vegetables and pork in a bubbling hot broth but unfortunately the soup was runny and thin, missing the luxuriousness usually found in such stews. And although the components of the stew were nicely cooked, they lacked any additional flavour.

With all of their Korean dishes, Wakoya delivers Banchans: Marinated Radish, Bean Sprouts, Marinated Lotus Root. A nice addition is the lotus roots which had a delicate crunch in a tasty sour marinate.

Altogether Wakoya delivered serviceable flavourful Korean and Japanese cuisine. While their rolls and soups were not up to par with the best in the city, there is enough here to satisfy most people in the mood for sushi or Korean.