Zenku Japanese To Go — Restaurant in Toronto

Craving sushi for dinner and found this take out spot. The restaurant looks nice and smells like it has good sushi, so I decided to try a few things.

The Maki platter B seems to feature a different selection of rolls over time, but I had California roll, yam tempura roll, spicy salmon roll, salmon avocado roll, mad crab roll, double shrimp roll and dynamite roll. The first 4 rolls are common among sushi restaurants so I will not be reviewing those here. The rice is pretty well done, neither too sweet or sour.

My favourite is the mad crab roll is a shrimp tempura roll with shredded imitation crab and spicy mayo on top. The sauce does not overpower the rest of the components. The shredded crab adds sweetness to the otherwise simply crunchy roll.

Double shrimp is a close second, with two shrimp tempura in the middle and 1 cooked shrimp with torched mayo on top. This is such an excellent idea to add more shrimp flavour into the maki.

Not on the menu online, is the zenku udon, a simple dashi broth udon with fish cake and deep fried tofu pocket. This is not simply a udon, but a warm flavourful delight that you can't easily find around town. I highly recommend ordering that to eat with sushi.

Lastly, the highlight of the meal is their spicy salmon yubu tart. It is a recently popularized way of enjoying a rice ball adjacent product. The spicy salmon is enhanced by small bits of onion and green onion mixed together. The sweet tofu skin exterior rounds out the general flavour of the rice ball, such that soy sauce or wasabi are not necessary.

I am very surprised by the quality of the food and can't wait to be back to try bento, donburi and tempura when I'm in the neighborhood. This is an excellent take out sushi restaurant that I would highly...

Legacies are delicate things. Learnings and lives passed from one generation to another, like slicing a sliver of sashimi, require the utmost humility and respect with just the right amount of moxy and hunger to carry what once was into what will be.

Zenku has been passed on to the next generation: a son taking on his father's knives, children now running their parents' business. Zenku has always had quality sushi and sashimi, an extensive menu, and reasonable prices. It has now reopened, and is figuring out how to honour the past while reinventing itself for the future. And if it's new offerings - like the rich scallop yubu tart and the wonderfully smoky corn ribs - are any indication, it is in good hands. I'm definitely looking forward to more visits here!

Previous Review:

Small sushi takeout spot along Pape that's run by a lovely couple. Don't let its size fool you though as it has a huge menu with all the sushi, sashimi, maki, bento, and combos you can think of.

Pretty good taste, pretty good value, great for a quick sushi run. Definitely pass by if you need to quickly serve your...

Just wonderful. A great surprise. I was happy to see a sushi restaurant open in a neighbourhood where dining can be very hit and miss. I was expecting the sort of mediocre sushi you get from take-out places on the Danforth. Not at all. This sushi was out of this world. We got a medium sushi tray, gyoza and eight Mortimer Signature maki rolls. Everything was fantastic. The sushi was fresh with a generous portion of fish (not the razor-thin portions you get from the Danforth places), the sashimi was perfect, the gyoza had just the right amount of crispiness (nothing worse than soggy or overdone gyoza) and the Mortimer maki rolls were a real stand-out. There was so much left over we had a great sushi brunch the next morning. There’s a high-end sushi place just across the Leaside Bridge. Zenku Sushi is just as good, if not better. Wow—so great to have sushi of this amazing caliber in the...