TAKI Japanese Cuisine — Restaurant in Richmond Hill

Heard a lot of rave reviews about this place so decided to join my friend for their $95 dinner special just before the end of the tax break!

Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted by the hostess and led to our seats at the counter. I noticed there were 2 areas - one for sushi counter and the other had booths which I believed was the sukiyaki section. I am not sure but we had no coat check available unlike other omakase places so we kept our heavy coat on the back of our seats the whole time which were not the most comfy thing.

The appetizers of the $95 set were very generous in amount and relatively nicely done. The box set was served first and had 4 smaller dishes - octopus slices with a vinaigrette, marinated scallops, ankimo/monkfish liver, and ika/squid with this salt/seasoning. Both the scallops and monkfish liver were delicious and nicely seasoned but I did find the octopus to be quite chewy, and both the octopus and squid resembled almost AYCE quality. Next, we were served a clear fish broth w/ sea bass which was very flavorful and we quite enjoyed it. This was followed by a generous dish of salmon carpaccio (5 slices!) and the taste was fairly decent too, like other carpaccio out there and not acidic. To complete the appetizers, we were served a steamed egg topped with mushrooms and gingko nut. Although very smooth in texture and came out piping hot, I personally found the steamed egg to be very bland and lacking flavors and was definitely the worst dish of the night.

Next was the nigiri course of the set. We were served akami/leaned tuna, hirame/fluke topped with a piece of its fin, ika/squid topped with pickled plum, hotate/scallop with sake salt, torched o-toro/tuna belly with wasabi stem, uni/sea urchin w/caviar, and 2 pieces i forgot the name of. I can see and admired that the head chef tried to incorporate different ingredients and flavors to bring out the fish's taste but in this aspect, I believed it was pretty hit or miss. Some garnishes used were rather overpowering and I personally did not find it complimenting the fish at all. For example, the pickled plum was way too sour and not only was that not pleasant, but I cannot taste the ika at all. Same happened with the wasabi stem piece and it was too spicy (despite me asking for extra wasabi all the time) and also really salty. I did thoroughly enjoyed the scallop which was delicious, although I always preferred if hotate is left untorched rather than having a little sear on top. The rice was decently seasoned and of the right temperature, and all fish/ingredients were fresh especially the Uni which was creamy and sweet. Given how tasty it was, we ordered the $30 uni toro cup add-on but I personally did not find it of good value as the cup was VERY small and basically bite-sized. For whatever reason, I assumed it was going to come with some rice but it was only negitoro topped with very little uni, and I found that the negitoro to be quite salty and did not fair as nicely as it typically would with sea urchin. However, I did enjoy the negitoro handroll which I believed was better when served with rice to offset the saltiness. The chef then served us a piece of tamago/egg with a piece of eel nestled inside which was tasted okay, and we finished off the course with a nice matcha pudding topped with some brown sugar syrup which was delicious and not too sweet.

All in all, I did find the experience at Taki to be decent given the fair price point of $95 pp. I did find the whole experience to be very rushed and I am not sure if it was because it was the last few days of the tax-free break and reservations were stacked, but we finished this entire course in under an hour. Once the nigiri was served, we were struggling to capture pics and enjoying the piece as the next piece was incoming lol. Other lower-tier omakase were often a bit slower in pace which allowed diners to enjoy the full experience while capturing in pics/vid. I would definitely want to try again and see if my experience remained the same, especially given how...

I went there with my friends for sukiyaki on March 8. The food was ok and service in the beginning was great. However, when it came to payment, I noticed they double charged me. The first time the machine kept loading loading and they took the machine away and said failed me thinking it did fail. I understand sometimes the reception is bad so they processed the payment again. I am sure everyone knows double charge at a restaurant like this is not $20. So I was charge $140 2 times . I confronted the server named Helen and showed her my bank account that they took the money twice. She refused to refund me the double charge. She told me to wait and if they did charge me twice she would refund me and told me to wait until Monday. She took my number, of course no follow up. It was the weekend so I waited until Monday March 11 to see if my bank transaction showed a reverse. The bank told me that the restaurant did not charge me once, they charged you twice. They have to give me a refund. I called Helen again on the Monday, she argued with me and said she charged me once , going around in circles and refused to give me a refund even though my bank confirmed me they did not. I said I can send proof and she told me to send to their restaurant email. She said she will follow up with the bank and debit machine company and get back to me. It has been 4 days and no reply in any form. They just let it be. What kind of business is this? So unprofessional with this type of price point , you would expect more professionalism. Helen just keep wasting my time and bring me around in circles. I demand my money back. Here is the proof of the double charge. Manger and the owner of this restaurant should contact me. I need an explanation. They cannot just take money from...

Booked Omakase dinner for two for Sunday 5:30pm time slot, did this the night before online. Love how easy it is to book our table (the online booking will ask you if you want Omakase or sukiyaki reservation)

Food: Since we’re celebrating my fiancé’s birthday, we decided to indulge a little and chose to order the pricier Omakase set - Matsu Uni Toro Cup Course $210 per person, it’s a good, healthy amount of tasty food that will leave you satisfied.

Service: Excellent - all the servers we met greeted us with warm smiles & great service. Chef Takinami was friendly and would describe to us the food being served & had some small talks about the ingredients / sauces being used - which made the experience very enjoyable. Servers were really attentive, speed of food & drinks being served & refill was very prompt / frequent - our cups of tea was never less than half way full.

Atmosphere: Expect spacious, very clean, and nice Japanese styled interior. The tables & seats are very nice size and comfortable. The staffs were dressed in traditional Japanese clothing, making the experience more unique.

Bonus: I would like to say THANK YOU again to chef Takinami, manager lady, and all the server members - for the extra (surprise) slice of cake you guys specially got for my fiancé after hearing that we’re celebrating his birthday (I did not special request / expected any of this when making a reservation), the extra touch of having everyone sing happy birthday song together, made our experience very...