Hana Don Japanese Cuisine & Bar — Restaurant in Markham

I've eaten at many Japanese restaurants and izakaya, both in Toronto and Vancouver, in NYC, in LA and in San Francisco (and I'm not even counting in Tokyo, Singapore and HK). I can't resonate the comments left by previous reviewers - this place is not worth the price and hype.

First off, I am disappointed their sashimi chefs speak Mandarin. This alone is not authentic.

Service though is great - attentive and approachable. For this I gave them an extra star.

The sashimi platter we ordered - premium omakase 20 pieces for $78 is not worth the price for its quality. Sure, their sashimi is more fresh than AYCE restaurants and run-of-the-mill Japanese restaurants, but for this price, I expect the quality of Yasu, Minami or JaBistro. But this restaurant is not. It's owned by Chinese management, and while I have nothing against this, the prices it charges including the cut of the fish and presentation, does not justify it.

(Actually, I've posted a photo of this premium omakase sashimi - I just counted the pieces and unless they are including the two shrimp heads which they offered to fry for us at the end of the meal, there were 18 pieces in total - not 20. You be the judge and count if for some reason I don't know how).

Unfortunately as we already ate lobster very recently, we opted to not try their CASH ONLY offer $88 for lobster sashimi, udon soup and others in a combination combo. It looked appealing from another table.

The rolls we ordered were drenched in mayo - either on top or in between the rice layers of the aburi sushi.

For 4 rolls and the sashimi, with a reasonable tip (and their wait staff worked hard, so I am not about to penalize them over the quality of the food and the way they run their restaurant to be high end when their food really isn't) and tax, it was over $200. Again, I understand good sashimi comes at a premium, but this restaurant didn't make that cut.

I do think they are nice to offer complimentary miso soup. It was more miso powder in water, minimum seaweed and mushroom, and not a piece of tofu in any of our 4 soups combined.

I will not return. More hype than not, and also they must think that people who eat here only stay in the suburbs, can't compare, don't know any better and can't drive to downtown to have good sashimi and sushi.

Edited:

I apologize to the owners as I recounted and it does look like they provided to our table 20 pieces of sashimi. Thank you for checking your own and for clarifying.

However, both my mother and I had the diarrhea the next day; we are unsure if it is due to the sashimi, or the amount of mayo.

When a diner goes to a new restaurant at the recommendation of friends and a YouTube influencer, there is a certain degree of expectation which may be unfair to the restaurant because we all have better and not as good days. Overall, we were just disappointed the experience wasn't what we had hoped for as we were so excited to...

Hana Don sells a huge variety of sushi by the piece, including katsuo a.k.a. bonito or skipjack tuna ($4 per piece), which isn’t a popular item elsewhere. There’s something about the meaty textured fish with the light smoke ring that makes for an interesting bite. At Hana Don it was a little fishier tasting than pieces I’ve had previously, but it also didn’t arrive with a glaze brushed onto the fish - the slightly sweet and salty barrier that balances the bonito flavours. They did try to temper the stronger fish with chopped scallions, it was nonetheless a decent bite to start off the meal.

What you’ll find missing from this post is a review of donburi, the focus of Hana Don’s menu. Sadly, it’s not a dish I enjoy. Don’t worry, these are described and reviewed ad nauseum on Yelp and Google so think of this post as helping you decide what other dishes to add on. The grilled black cod with sakiyo sauce ($16) was delicious – the flesh moist and flaky and the skin perfectly crisped. The thicker pieces helped to create a meaty tender portion and I liked that it was cut in two to make it easier to share. The sake miso sauce was nice and light without that blast of sweetness that can sometimes make it taste like you’re eating black cod with honey. Finishing the dish was a tube of pickled ginger, that I almost mistook as a straw, and was great for cleansing the palette.

If you’re hungry, go for the beef sukiyaki ($45) a huge pot filled with beef, mushrooms (meaty fresh shiitake, prince oyster mushrooms, and enoki), vegetables (bok choy, napa cabbage, and alfalfa sprouts), grilled tofu, and noodles. While the beef looks really marbled, once it’s cooked through it tastes lean and a bit tough so it’s best to eat the slices quickly. You round out the pot by cracking raw eggs into the sukiyaki broth and blending to create a slightly sweet egg drop soup. In retrospect, this was way too much food for two of us, so we left with full bellies and a doggy bag. They tried to warn us, but it’s such a good addition for a cold winter’s night.

We might have been able to finish everything if we skipped the momo aburi oshizushi ($18) as there were a lot of pieces and each a fair size. Sandwiched between the sticky rice was a creamy tube of avocado and it’s all topped with salmon and a reserved portion of kewpie, which I preferred as when there’s too much mayo the rice becomes oily and heavy. An ingenious addition was the finely chopped cucumber and mango salsa garnish adding a lovely crunch and freshness to something that could...

We’re a group of 5 and we ordered 7 dishes: 2 Chopped Toro Don 1 Premium Hana Don 1 Uni Don 1 Gyu Don 1 Lobster Don 1 Wagyu Katsu Set The inside is clean, modern, and cozy. A waiter took our body temperature before taking us to our table. Staffs are so helpful, kind and friendly. The portion are mostly bigger than we expected. All are served with sushi rice, really nice presentation - Instagrammable! Chopped Toro Don is fatty tuna. It’s so tasty, one of us ended up order one more bowl at the end. Perfect portion for one person. 👌🏻 Premium Hana Don: Shrimp, salmon, tuna, abalone, uni, octopus and more types of sashimi that I don’t know the name but they are so fresh and tasty. The bowl is so big and so nice to eat. Uni Don: Either BC Uni for $38 or Japanese Uni for $68. We’re pretty broke so we had the BC uni. 🤣 It’s really good still. I’m curious how better the Japanese one can be when the BC is already really delicious. We had a lot of uni, and some gold flakes. *even fancier Gyu Don: a bowl of rice and stir-fried beef. Flavourful thin cut of beef with cheese and seaweed on top. It’s a bowl full too. Nothing to complain about. 👌🏻 Lobster Don: THE BEST OF THE WHOLE MEAL IS HERE. It’s a huge bowl, lobster with grilled cheese on top and cheesy sauce rice. There’s a lot of cheese but it’s not “cloyingly” cheesy. Wagyu Set: A piece of deep-fried wagyu beef, cut into 8 small pieces. Served with 2 types of sauce, matcha salt (i guess), cabbage salad, rice, sesame seeds, and coleslaw (i also guess). A small charcoal grill for you to grill it yourself before eating it. The idea is pretty cool but it’s quite too much work. The grill is a bit unnecessary for me. I think they can skip that 😂. The beef is so soft and flavourful. 💯 Overall: Highly recommend! Really worth it. You can see the effort of the chefs trying to make it look nice and tasty. Love how each dish is so simple but has its own signature tastiness. May try more kinds of don and...