Hay Sushi - Spring Garden — Restaurant in Toronto

My gf took me here for my bday last year. I realized I left my review on Yelp but forgot to leave one on Google.

First off, there's no designated parking lot so you either park nearby using a Green P parking meter/app or on a side street somewhere and then walk over. The resto is very close to the yonge and sheppard intersection.

It was busy when we arrived on a sunday night but not packed out the wazoo or anything. The waitress told us that their busiest days were usually friday and saturday nights.

We ordered up chicken karaage, nori steak tacos, bluefin tuna (chutoro) sushi, creamy miso wafu pasta, pressed sushi, a signature roll and shared a highball cocktail (it's massive lol).

The quality of the food was overall spectacular. I feel like them being a tapas bar, you expect pricey food so the question was, does the quality match the price? And the answer is YES! you definitely get great quality food.

The steak in the nori tacos was cooked perfectly (medium rare and so juicy), the scallop on the roll was SOOOO FRESH. The seasoning that the resto uses for the sushi rice is quite aggressive (very vinegary which I like).

The creamy miso pasta had a ton of umami in it. They also didn't slap the lazy $25 price tag on it like most italian places so we appreciated that (I'm guessing the current price has already factored in inflation). It was priced at ~ $18. Very fair imo.

We wanted otoro sushi (fatty bluefin tuna) but they ran out! (sad face) so we opted for chutoro (medium fatty tuna) sushi instead. It still melted in the mouth so that was awesome.

We ordered a slice of cheesecake to round out the meal. It was HUGE lol. Was really full after that cheesecake.

Service was great. Our waitress kept checking in on us and asking how the meal was going. English was not her first language clearly but she was really friendly and attentive.

I would not hesitate to come back for a special...

Hay Sushi is a gem with amazing dishes - I've tried several dishes from both the regular (more East Asian cuisine) and late night Tapas menu* (more western/white). The general vibe is cozy with limited seating and it gets easily packed for dinner especially on popular weekday nights (Friday, weekend) so I highly recommend making reservations ahead of time. If you do a walk in when it's busy you have the option of adding your name to a waitlist, they call when your table is ready.

Everything tasted great and were well portioned for sharing from the - reg menu: sushi rolls (a must try), sushi tacos (very satisfying), creamy Miso pasta (I'm not even big on creamy pastas but loved the taste), donburi (beef option had steak pieces cooked well); & tapas menu: mussel spaghetti (fun spicy kick), brussel sprouts (well seasoned, crispy tops), salmon salad (cooked perfectly, great dressing). The only thing that didn't impress me was the blueberry cheesecake (the one & only dessert option) - it's western style, not too sweet and well portioned for sharing (which I appreciate) BUT you can't really taste the blueberry (which is scarcely placed on top) and the chocolate drizzle finish doesn't really pair well with the cake imo. If they modify it, for instance, to have a sharper blueberry glaze/white chocolate drizzle with lemon touches it would be much tastier.

While I do love the menu more dessert options would be wonderful! Also while the servers are friendly when it's busy I find that they aren't that attentive to check on tables and can forget serving basics (water, top offs) & requests. BUT overall great value food & I will definitely be coming here regularly with my friends :)

*NOTE: The Late Night Tapas menu starts at 9pm with food being served after 9:30pm - as the kitchen switches over to the late menu the sushi bar closes which means you CANNOT order from the regular...

I’ve been to Hay sushi numerous times and I also recommended to many of my friends. However, I will never go there again because of my recent experience. Last time when I ordered, we had to wait for 45 min+ after the confirmed pick up time. I was quite upset about it but thought of giving them another chance and didn’t leave any negative review last time. But today, the experience was very unpleasant and extremely disappointing. I pre-ordered one Sushi tray and one Sashimi tray a few days before Mother’s day. I came to pick up at 6pm (the time they confirmed it will be ready) and the order wasn’t ready until 6:20pm. I saw they took a box from a brown bag and combined it with another box then wrapped them together. I found it a bit odd so I double checked my order with them when they handed me the order. They reassured that the order was correct. So I trusted them and drove home and prepared the rest of my dinner. When everything’s ready, I opened the 2 boxes and found out both are sushi tray! My mom was disappointed and I called the restaurant right away but they put the line directly to voicemail. I immediately sent a message via IG and someone assisted me at that point. Long story short, they called back and asked Uber to deliver the missing sashimi tray to us. Luckily I am just 15 min away from the restaurant, so it took about 45 min in total to get the whole thing resolved. One thing I want to note is that they actually asked me to send the sushi box back to them. I wonder why?? I really hope they won’t reuse the sushi box!! or maybe they just wanted to pay the Uber driver to send the box back to them to throw it away. After all these trouble, they didn’t offer anything to compensate for the inconvenience. I don’t feel they value customers at all. And the fact that they asked for the sushi box...