Zakkushi on Carlton — Restaurant in Toronto

2024 October 4.5★ Nasu Maki $4 Grilled eggplant with sliced pork. Tender and juicy. Would recommend. Shime Saba $10 A vinegarette mackerel. A bit fishy taste. An acquired taste. Good to kick start your meal. Sashimi Hamachi(6pcs) $17.50 Never anything wrong with fresh fish. Wagyu Beef Tataki $19.50 Slices of beef. Not super thin. Meaty. Zakkushi Set $19.80 A sampler of grilled goodness. Kyoho Sour $10.50 Would recommend. Cheap in terms of drinks here given the 1.5oz alcohol content. Buta Tongue (T) $3.50 Pork tongue, thin and chewy. Mochi maki $4 Chewy and stretchy. A good texture. Duck Breast $6 A bit drier in taste. Gyu-Tongue $4 Beef tongue. Thin and chewy again. Sunagimo Ponzu $5 Cut off sides of the Chicken gizzard pieces. Not bad. Crunchy. Great food overall.

August 2021. 4.5★ When you're missing out from a bit of Japan, this brings memories. The atmosphere of the restaurant is a nice homey feel. Staff are attentive and nice. With covid restrictions, each area is sectioned off at the patio. Inside, each area is cubed off.

The food is amazing. Juicy and tender pieces of meat. All cooked off a charcoal grill. They import their charcoal from Japan too.

Per their website as of writing: With our handmade décor inside, we try our best to show Japanese Izakaya atmosphere. Our signature dish is the charcoal grill skewers, and we have a variety of them over 30 different kinds, including meats, seafood, and vegetables. By using real Japanese charcoal, we prepare each skewer with our pride. Other than Yakitori skewers, we have a variety of menu from a small dish to some main dishes. During the summer season, our patio is open to enjoy the sun!! (May to October)

Some of the items are pretty unique in the sense you'd typically wouldn't consume... Like chicken hearts, but they do an amazing job. It's perfectly tender. Drinks are decently priced. Only downside is the cost. At about $3 to $6 per skewer, it can quickly rack up in costs. Your looking at about $50 per person on average for you to be full. Desert was ok, but wasn't amazing. If I had to choose again, I mighty have just ordered more meat instead. Though the hojicha pudding was decent. Overall, Certainly not cheap, but well worth...

Good food, mediocre service and hectic experience. 接客は悪いから、料理が美味しくてもおすすめしない。Will not be going back.

Service was not great. Our server (I believe his name was Keita?) basically forgot abt us for a solid 20 mins with no water or anything. It was also comedically hard to grab his attention. And when he finally noticed, he told us to wait a sec and went somewhere else. We were gonna order more food but ended up not ordering just because he never came back.We then decided to just get the bill so we can finally leave but that’s when we realized that our server had completely disappeared 🤡 nowhere to be seen. We thought maybe he had an emergency but turns out he was just chatting with another server all dilly dally. Waved over a different server and they were actually professional and efficient. Even though our original server was very unprofessional and basically wasted our time, we still tipped 10% 😒

There was also this table across from us that was obnoxiously loud the whole night. I get that it’s an izakaya but one of the older guys of the group would start yelling at the top of his lungs (just random screams, no words or meaning) which would lead the entire restaurant to silence, even overpowering the loud music. Everyone would stop what they’re doing to look over but it wouldn’t matter bc he obviously didn’t care or even liked the negative attention. Wasn’t a great experience getting ear raped while trying to enjoy food or a conversation. Staff didn’t bother doing anything either when normally that kind of obnoxious drunken behaviour would’ve let to whoever causing the ruckus being kicked out. It’s just a bad look for everyone involved.

Food was pretty good! We ordered a few skewers, the beef tataki (would recommend if u decide to go) and the udon and weren’t disappointed! I really liked the mochi and cheese skewer.

Other positives: many street parking available near the restaurant and literally right next to a bus stop.

With that said, because the experience was kind of ruined via the poor service, I don’t think I’ll be coming back. It’s also not the best yakitori...

We were a group of 11 who left the place right after being seated with uncomfortable service.

One friend had her own water in her own tumbler to take some medications. But the server came rushing and asked her that they dont allow outside drinks. We told her it’s only water and she needs to take her medicines and we even showed her medicines. But the server repeated that they dont allow outside drinks and asked her to take the pills OUTSIDE. Lol?????? Our friend told her it wont take more than a minute to take the pills but the server kept insisting her to leave the restaurant and come back. This sounded so ridiculous.

Also when we called them to book the table they never mentioned about the 20% gratitude but when we arrived at the resto they suddenly said they mentioned it to us on the phone. ?? Im not deaf. Anyway we all understood the gratitude but with such attitude with 0 understanding for even taking medication with a drink inside the restaurant is not allowed and it has to happen “outside”? Unbelievable and ridiculous.

We gradually felt super irritated and uncomfortable. What really upset us more was that the server took our friends’ tumblers. She could have asked us to put it away or something but she just took them away from us and kept them behind their cashier lollllll never seen a restaurant where they take away your own belongings and force you to go outside and drink your whatever water/pills that is. We all felt like never coming back here again so all agreed to leave.

There are many many other bars and restaurants on the same street and on every block in dt. There was no need for spending our hard earned money for places like this. We went to another restaurant that’s 3 min away...