CARMENHUNGRY: Sushi World

04.18.11

What? Sushi World for cheap lunch

Where? 281 College st (SW corner of Spadina & College – 510 streetcar from Spadina takes 3 mins)

Price? $5.99 (for lunch special, PS UofT students get 10% off for dinner service!)

The skinny: There are dozens of food joints in Chinatown and among them at least ten sushi restaurants. The big sign caught my eye and triggered some memory of having read a positive review about Sushi World so after a quick eyeball of the lunch specials I entered the restaurant.

Although it was lunch time, there weren’t a lot of customers. However, over the course of the meal, a few people came in to pick-up their orders so all’s not as it seems.

I sat right by the window in order to get shots of the entire restaurant (small but not surprising for a restaurant in such a convenient location)

The restaurant seems to be kept really clean, but that should be expected right? haha

green tea & miso soup

While having an insanely hard time choosing a special, a server gave me some green tea and miso soup. Nothing special. Was looking forward to some HOT tea but it was lukewarm.

I decided to get C3 since it had a little more variety. “California Roll & 3pcs Tuna Roll & 3pcs Salmon Roll. A couple later the server came with a small bowl of salad. Very typical fare at “sushi restaurants” here. Before I had the chance to finish it off, she had returned with my order. Quick! That’s nice because I was slightly starving.

Here's the salad: rather runny dressing.

blurry photo of ONE side of the lunch special

In addition to the overall freshness of ingredients is pivotal (the last thing you want is to be downing bad slimy salmon sashimi), little things can be indicative of a restaurant’s standards. I was sketched out by the pickled ginger. I only tried a small piece.

TIP ABOUT MENUS!

A huge one is the menu; lengthy menus demand a lot of ingredients and prep to be done and turnover takes long. Restaurants with shorter and more concentrated menus tend to have fresher ingredients on-hand = easier to maintain quality.

You can find good res pics of their menus here ---->

Old pickled ginger: The relatively dark/deep striations are not a good sign. Neither is the lack of malleability of the slices.

But without the super old pickled ginger, the rolls were not that bad. The tuna was actually quite fresh! (a pleasant, and quickly welcomed surprise! :D). The avocado in the California roll was creamy and just ripe enough. Nice.

Overall, it was a satisfying lunch with just a couple of eek/oh no moments haha