Hibiki Japanese Cuisine — Restaurant in Markham

This is by a good margin, the best Japanese restaurant in the area, and I'd argue best in the city at this price point. They don't win points for being authentic Japanese, which a place like Aoyama would beat them out, but given my food standards, this place should sit high on anyone interested in a bit of Japanese fusion. They win points for food quality, variety of dishes, decor, presentation, willingness to try other dishes, and generally, the service is quite good too. But, kudos to the managers, you'll almost always see them - two brothers - both look quite young, who have always been very gracious hosts and fantastic ambassadors of their restaurant. My apologies to you both, I forget your names.

My wife have probably been here nearly a dozen times, and we will continue to support them. What won us over initially was one of their specialty dishes - not in the menu, but on their printed out specials sheet. It's a sampling of several seared sushi - one in particular, foie gras, which for two people who don't seek that dish, it was fantastic! Every bite was worth the cost. Mind you, we don't get it every time, but we've had it a few times, and it's been consistently good.

The beef sashimi there is quite good - they select good quality cuts of meat, so you can't really complain. The shrimp tempura they do is second to none - they use nice fat, juicy shrimp, and usually when it's a part of a bento box I buy, I rarely crave another.

They do excellent beef, salmon and chicken teriyaki. I usually get these with a bento box, and have never been disappointed by the quality or portion size.

The other winner for me, which put this place on top was their miso black cod. It's a very rich fish, and the way they do it, you don't need a lot to have with your meal - as it should be. I actually find I could use more rice by the end of the meal. I usually get this as a part of their bento, and on a few occasions of having it now, have never been disappointed.

My wife's also tried a few of their desserts, and all of them have been pretty good. I think the worst one (IMO) was one I tried recently, which was a red bean ice cream sandwich that consisted of two green tea white chocolate chip cookies? I think the flavouring of this dessert was not bad, but the execution was poor. The cookies crumbled apart, which made it difficult to hold as an ice cream sandwich. Either put more ice cream (uniform slab) so that the cookies sit parallel to each other or, better still, make your own cookies, and have them softer/chewier so that they can bend to the ice cream scoop you've put between them. This way, when you mash the two cookie halves together, the cookies don't crumble and fall apart.

Enoki beef, probably some of the best I've tried - excellent sauce, well cooked, stuffed. Sashimi, good selection, never had a bad piece here. Just about everything we've had robatayaki style (e.g. scallops) has been excellent. They don't skimp with the scallops, typically using larger ones. They also do a baked scalloped with roe and a creamy sauce which is delicious! Plus, something about the roe they use, or the fact that they're cooked, but they have a really interesting texture too. My wife and I love rich, French cuisine, and this baked scallop dish would definitely fit the bill there.

Until I try a place that provides better quality food, I will continue to argue that these guys are probably the best Japanese (style) restaurant. With a fair amount of confidence, I can say try something different on their menu, you'll probably find its delicious! We've been pleasantly surprised and impressed with this gem...

Unfortunately, today was my first and last experience time at this restaurant. I would not recommend this place.

At first, it was seemed promising. The host (potential owner?) held the door for us as we came in, we were seated promptly, tea given, etc.

We had a question of whether or not we could swap out an item for another - instead of raw sushi if we could have a cooked option and/or a California roll. However, we were told we would be charged 4.50 for items that are a lot cheaper for them to provide. However, I understand restaurants don't have substitutions and it's within their rights to charge whatever they want.

After this, I don't know if it was a mere coincidence and/or if they were unhappy with our surprise and unwillingness to pay the upcharge for the substitution but the service just derailed.

We came with a two year older who had spilled a little soup on the table and noticed that the servers noticed. We had hoped this would be an opportunity to provide us with more napkins so we could help clean up our mess. Instead, two servers noticed this, watched and rolled their eyes and walked away. We waved them down but ended up using our remaining napkins to clean as much as we possibly could.

After I took a bite of chicken and noticed a long black hair and I am WELL AWARE that as a female my hair comes out and can get into food. Both of us have blonde and brown hair while this hair was jet black and I made sure of it. Regardless, even if there was a hair we understand this happens sometimes. I was uneasy and we called over the individual who greeted us at the door. I explained, 'oh there was a hair in this' and was hoping for them to remove the dish (I had lost my appetite) and/or said something but the gentleman just stood there staring at it and repeatedly saying 'oh' and that point I was over it. I repeatedly said, "i'm just letting you know.. it's fine" but did not get any apology, no offer for something else, just a whole lot of nothing. He picked up the HAIR and walked away and then it seemed as though no one really wanted to help us and were laughing on occasion.

The food was decent but not good. The Japanese Curry is similar to a boxed curry I can make but the katsu was nice and crispy. The Teriyaki Chicken was a little dry and hardly any sauce.

I would have been okay with the food had our service experience been better but rather not return to a place where you're laughed at, have eye rolls at you and be ignored and dismissed.

Do better, it wasn't...

Our family is a long-time customer there. My 9yo son especially loved the tempura there, and we usually spent around $25-$35 per person; ordered their really expensive lobster set meal twice before. We even spent many anniversaries or birthday celebrations there. Their foods are good quality, quite pricey for sure; recently increased the price even further. At the end of the meals, they always gave each of a mini pudding dessert and we enjoyed it.

In our latest visit, since they recently increased the prices even further, we decided to order one less dish (still 1 per person, just didn't order something to share). At the end of dinner, we asked the waitress to serve the desserts. She sent a senior server over to give us the bill and machine to pay. We were a bit shocked as we didn't expected that.

The server said we didn't spend enough to qualify for the desserts. Our bill was $100+ already for 4 peoples. I am not sure how much we needed to spend, and there was never a guideline written out. For us as long time customers, we always expect this at the end of the meals as a nice gesture. Honestly, how much is the dessert gonna cost the restaurant? It should be noted again that they recently increased the prices, the server also admitted that this just happened. We understand all restaurants have increased prices for obvious reasons and we understand. However, this is not the reason to lower the service quality; not to mention their service quality was never really good to begin with.

Aside from this very bad experience, it was always their food that brought us back again and again. Again, their service was never good. Even with masks on, you can see their "black faces" based on their eye contact and the way they respond to inquires (like adding tea, getting bowl, etc.). They are just "doing their job", but there is no heart to it.

Even though their food deserves 4-star, but the entire experience was bad and completely ruined our desire to go back there again. It takes very long to build, but it doesn't take long to ruin it. Restaurants like this that nickle and dime (probably on the staff salary; hence black face), don't even deserve another chance. The way this was handled was very bad and really de-service and ruined their...