Black Bear Japanese Fusion — Restaurant in Markham

I sure had a significant different experience than "Anthony Lee" who gave the restaurant a five star review!

Let's review the food since it is why the boyfriend and I are essentially at the restaurant.

Sukiyaki Beef "Rice Burger" with a side of salad - $14 The dish arrived in the condition in the first picture. The "rice patty" arrived cracked, there was no way I could've picked it up and eat the whole thing like a burger. It is a money catch.

The rice shaped like a patty but certainly did not hold up like an actual bun. My experience with "rice patty" like Japan's Mos Burger would have had been lightly brushed with soy sauce to give it some flavour with a crispy outside.

The filling - sukiyaki beef tastes fine, beef wasn't too dry or old.

Pathetic Sukiyaki Beef "Rice Burger".

Japanese Fusion Fries - side fries upgrade $5 You must be kidding me. I regret not taking a picture before sending the dish back to the kitchen. When the fries arrived along with the burger, it looked like as if they have simply blanched the fries and served it. Last time I checked (and ate), fries were crispy unless it's meant to be in soggy shape but at least with a golden yellow colour. The boyfriend and I took a bite of the fries and I asked the waitress to send it back to the kitchen.

The second time the fries came back out, it was slightly better, but not much different to be honest.

We kept the fries this time but when we started eating the dressing on top of the fries, we realized the "Japanese Fusion Fries" had regular mayo on it, not the Japanese mayo. Odd.

It had nori (seaweed) on top, that's fine. But in the menu it also described that it has roe on top. So...... when it arrived and as seen in the picture, it certainly has a dollop of the roe, but not enough to have more than five fries with it. I would consider the roe as a garnish and not a topping.

Since it was an upgrade to the side fries that came with the soft shell crab burger, the owner made up the cost on the spot when we asked - $5 more. When the fries on it's own costs $7 on the menu. No problem, since I don't want to order extra food. But boy, if I were to order a fries there ever again (highly unlikely) it better only cost me $2.

Sad "Japanese Fusion" "Fries".

NOTE: Maybe they should go to "Hollywood" or "Blue Ocean" and see how real fries look and taste.

Soft Shell Crab Burger with side fries - $14 We better not have food poisoning tonight.

I don't know where to begin describe the burger.... I guess I'll start with the shock I had when the boyfriend took a bite into the burger. Clear running crab juice dripping out of the burger.

Yes.

Clear running crab juice. I don't think I've eaten a "fried" soft shell crab where I would bite into it and have running crab juice.

Then we peeled back the bun and discovered the dead corpse of a soft shell crab that looked so sad. Sad is how I describe the display of the soft shell crab because it must've been a painful death in the hand of the so call "chef" that's in the kitchen. (Boyfriend said it must've been a kid in the kitchen playing 'chef' slapping together horrible tasting food).

The soft shell crab had no taste, it was not seasoned, it was not crispy, it also looked very unappetizing.

The topping of the burger includes avocado, tomato, and lettuce, and ketchup. Not sure how I feel eating a runny soft shell crab with those toppings.

The "chef" should go to his/her average mall sushi stall and try their soft shell sushi roll, I don't believe it'll have clear running crab juice come out when he/she takes a bite.

Again, we better not have food poisoning tonight.

I promised the boyfriend I will be on good behaviour and not say anything unless the waitress asks how our food was . And the waitress did not ask. You'd think they'd ask for feedback since it's their "Grand Opening". But since she didn't ask and I never got the chance to give them feedback in person, thus resulting in this very long post.

Good...

Black Bear Japanese Fusion was opened in March 2017 and specializes in Japanese fusion cuisine. It is definitely one of the hidden gems in Markham. The restaurant is located in a small plaza near Highway 7 and Kennedy, right beside Service Ontario.

Owner Berry used to run an Italian restaurant in Hong Kong. He specializes in using Japanese ingredients and seafood in making Western dishes.

The restaurant has a causal atmosphere with basic wood tables. Murals on the wall are cute with different animals such as hippos, dog, but surprising no bear despite the restaurant’s name.

Black Bear always changes their menu with daily special and lunch menus. That way you can always come back and taste something new.

For appetizer, we tasted the Baguette with sea urchin. This is the first time we had sea urchin on bread as they are usually served with sushi for Japanese meals. The bread absorbed the urchins taste and overall they mixed together surprising well.

Another appetizer is Baguette with unagi (sea eel). The sweet and flavorful unagi sauce is soaked inside the bread, making the bread very tasteful.

We also tasted the pancake which is more of a Korean fusion. The sauce is very spicy and tasted wonderfully with the pancake.

For mains, we tasted their famous rice burger. We had rice burger before back in Mos Burger in Japan, but we must say the rice burger we had in Black Bear tasted even better than the Japanese counterpart. One of the problems with rice burger is that since they are made of rice, they would usually fall apart easily. But Black Bear’s rice burger did not have this problem as the rice buns were packed together very densely. It was so tight that we had to use knife and apply force when we try to split the burger for sharing. The rice buns were grilled and thus is little bit crispy on the top. The burger comes with a large piece of unagi that is grilled perfectly. The unagi sauce soaked into the rice buns made a heavenly combo. There were also fries that come with the burger.

The other main dish we had was the soft shell crab spicy Meitako Spaghetti in cream sauce. The soft shell crab was fried and was very chewy and the sauce was also very tasty with rich carbonara flavor and bacon bits.

For dessert, we had the matcha penna cotta. This dish just looks amazing with beautifully decorated plating. The 2 pieces of matcha penna cotta is sided with red bean and lotus pastes and whip cream.

The other dessert we had was the strawberry souffle. It was cutely made with strawberry Pocky on top.

Overall we enjoyed Black Bear Japanese Fusion very much and would definitely come back when we want to eat Japanese food but don’t want the traditional sushi or...

My husband and I decided to try out Black Bear for dinner tonight as we both love Japanese food and interesting dinner environments. As we walked in, we were barely greeted by the hostess and they pointed us to a table, instead of being seated properly. Menus were dropped on the table and she walked off to the back of the restaurant. We looked through the menu and decided very quickly what we wanted, but it took nearly 10 minutes to place our orders as it seemed like nobody wanted to come to our table. My husband then asked for a green tea, and was given a lukewarm cup of water with a Lipton tea bag in it. We seek out quality and authentic Japanese restaurants and to be given a cup of tea this poor was disappointing and a sign of the quality of the meal ahead.

The food eventually arrived after a long while and was also lukewarm and soggy. The fries in the Curry Fries were honestly the highlight of the meal, and yet the food still tasted off somehow. Both our meals (Pork Katsu Omurice and Chicken Katsu on the rice bun) were basic and felt like any sort of deep fried meat, and the rice bun was nearly impossible to eat, both practically and in texture. It felt and tasted like burnt plastic. My husband's meal was plain and soggy, with watery curry sauce all over the plate, a very bland piece of pork and some white rice.

There was nothing remarkable about any part of the meal, including the glasses of what tasted like tap water. We went into this meal with an open mind, and left the restaurant feeling upset and dissatisfied.

Throughout the entire meal, the wait staff seemed like they wanted to avoid us, barely attending to any tables in the whole place, and stood in the back staring at us. We are both polite, well dressed and quiet so there was no reason for them to treat us so poorly.

At the end of the meal, we again waited for quite some time to get the check and were barely thanked for our visit. This meal was nearly $50 and for that money we could have found a much better restaurant, with better food for more reasonable prices. All in all this was a very poor experience and we will not...