Japango — Restaurant in Toronto

The food at Japango is fantastic but the manager is extremely rude, discriminatory, greedy, and arrogant. I was in Toronto for the day with my family from the UK and was hoping to take them here. I had been there before and enjoyed it. It was 7:40pm on a Monday evening when I called asking if it would be possible to reserve a table for 8 people and they said that there should be a table available by 9:00pm, but that we should arrive by 8:45pm, and that for a party of our size, all people have to be eating and there would be one bill. I said that both of these will be fine. We arrived early, let them know we had arrived, and waited patiently outside until we were called in at 8:45pm to be seated. When we were seated, they took our orders and then said that the minimum order should be $280. I explained that this was not stated to me in the reservation phone call. The manager said that he was informing us now, and blamed a staticky phone connection for me not understanding this. I could hear everything clearly in the phone call where I placed the reservation. I have never had a problem with static on my phone. The staff member who placed the reservation did not mention this $280 condition at all. As a customer, my perception of the situation is that once they saw that we had two children in our group (a six year old and a four year old - neither need highchairs) they decided they did not want to serve us and made up this minimum order figure on the spot. My reason for suspecting this is that the large party platter itself serves 6-7 people and costs only $110. Also, the individual items on the menu are not so expensive themselves as to merit a $280 bill split among 8 people. Only the individual deluxe dinners listed on the menu would make up the $35 per person that their arbitrary minimum would comprise of, and that is more food than I know I could eat on my own. There is nothing about this $280 minimum on the Japango website either, again further confirming my suspicions that this number was arbitrary and an underhanded means of letting us know they did not want to serve us. I asked what would happen if we did not order $280 worth of food, and the manager replied that he would not be able to seat us. We found our treatment by the manager offensive and left the restaurant, spending $190 around the corner for a delicious meal at Yutaka (who were very polite and accommodating). Honestly, I would feel satisfied if Japango simply apologized in a reply to this review and stopped treating groups with children this way. A number of poor reviews of this place reflect our own experience of arbitrary refusal to seat or serve groups with children and arbitrary rudeness to customers, so this obviously has not just happened to my family. It would have been less a waste of our time if the $280 minimum was actually on the website (again, it is probably not there because I suspect the manager just made it up on the spot) or communicated to us on the phone. Either fix your website or treat your customers better. The only way I think we could have done better was to tell them that 2 of the 8 customers were children, but I did not think it would be a problem with a party of 6 adults ordering food on a Monday night. I am filing a consumer complaint about Japango's customer service with the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services in addition to...

Food: 7/10 -- Value: 7/10 -- Service: 7/10 -- Ambiance/Décor: 7/10

Okay, so this is one of those untouchable mystical sushi restaurants of Toronto, so maybe expectations played into this a little. Everyone kept saying the sashimi was great, but that wasn't the case with our order. The sashimi was...average? Dare I say I couldn't tell the difference between Japango's sashimi and any other Japanese all-you-can-eat restaurant? Comparing the two, what set Japango apart was their superior presentation.

-- Japango Roll ($13) - It looked really ordinary, but this was my favourite part of the meal. It looks really ordinary with a torched salmon top and avocado and scallop (?) inside, but it was delicious. This roll, along with the uni sashimi, came to our table literally less than a minute after we ordered it. It was shockingly fast.

-- Spider Roll ($11) - This was also delicious. The two rolls were the clear standouts of the dinner. Much smaller than the spider rolls I've had at other restaurants and a very different taste; more delicate, refined, less batter.

-- Uni Sashimi ($9 for three pieces) - I finally experienced the "melt in your mouth" sensation people attribute to uni. And without the fart-like aftertaste too!

-- Sushi and Sashimi Moriwase Platter ($50) - This was really underwhelming. With only 18 pieces, it was so expensive, but a good portion of these had a fishy or kinda-fishy taste to it. The presentation was really nice, but it didn't really taste very special.

-- Sushi Deluxe ($30) - 12 pieces with a bonus Dynamite Roll. At this point, we were ordering more food because we weren't full and we also wanted to give their highly-spoken-of sushi another chance. Because the value of the Dynamite Roll is $9, that means the 12 pieces of sushi were $21, which would be relatively reasonable for Japango. However, food is about taste first and this, just like the Moriwase Platter, was fine, but not exciting or exceptional.

I don't like how cramped the restaurant is. It's uncomfortably small, like you're banging into everything trying to squeeze into your spot. I honestly don't know how this place operates in the winter because every time someone came in, it brought all the cold night air into the restaurant and blew directly on my back. Fortunately, it wasn't that cold that day, but I'm genuinely curious how anyone would be able to eat comfortably here in the winter.

The service is really quick. You don't get more tea unless you ask for it and because there's only one waiter and he's trying to be as efficient as possible, he can come across as unintentionally rude, like walking away in the middle of your order because he's trying to give another table their order. Just something to keep in mind so that you don't take it personally if it happens to you.

The bill ended up being $50/person and my friends said they'd rather spend the $50...

What a surprise! Sashimi lunch was beautiful, and fresh. I loved the taste of the slightly seared pieces. The rice that accompanied the sashimi tastes good as well, sticking together slightly but is not mushy.

The price is higher than some others in the area, but quality fish is worth it. They have lunch specials (not cheap lol) and service was fast.

Their lunch bentos seem a little underwhelming (very meh selection of fish), but that deluxe bento looks legit.

On a more recent visit I had their chirashi bowl (sashimi + rice in a bowl). At $19 it's steep but actually really worth it. Similar to the sashimi lunch, you get a lot of fish, the variety is great and tastes amazing. The rice was sweet and perfectly made. Even the salad which is usually forgettable was savoured.

Their lunch specials are filling enough to leave you room for dessert but not wanting more. A pokebowl nearby is probably around $12 but I think I'd prefer this (when I feel like the splurge). Each bite is just that much more enjoyable here, you don't want to gulp it all down at once.

The only bad thing is that they are SUPER FAST about getting you to order, bringing the food, and bill (I get it, they're a small place!) - as in as soon as that last bite is finished, your table's getting cleared with ruthless efficiency! However, they will basically ignore you for the entire duration of the meal, not ask if your food's okay, not bring you extra napkins, or tea unless you ask and then remind them after a while.

OVERALL I recommend this place though because the food is simply SO GOOD, if you love sushi/sashimi this place is it!!! They also offer take-out which I think I will try at some point as those rolls look legit, and they're on apps like RITUAL if you like to order ahead. If you are a group of 5 or more I wouldn't bother during the lunch rush - even with a reservation I often times have to wait outside (yes, outside) for a little bit. It's normal but reading some older reviews it seems some people are very...