A friend and I were meeting for tea on Main Street recently and Toshi Sushi seemed the obvious choice for food beforehand, since you really can’t go wrong with sushi in this city and it’s been on my radar for a while. Toshi’s is one of those joints that is noth tantalizing and repellant with their long lineups outside, because you can never really know (without waiting in the lineup) if it’s from reputation or hype. For months every time I drove by I would make a note of the time and the size of the line to see if it was significantly different, and other than coming home in the small hours, it was not. So I polled around to see what the consensus was. Surprisingly, it was not overwhelmingly favorable.
Surely a place that popular had to be fantastic, no? My interest was instantly piqued and I finally got to see what all the hype was about.
When I arrived at 6:30 on a Tuesday night there was already a crowd outside and I wrote my name a considerable ways down the list. No matter, my dining companion showed up soon after and we had a lovely chat about all things under the sun. At some point a hostess told us we could be seated immediately if we would share a table. Not particularly wanting to cram in, we chose to wait a bit longer and when almost an hour had passed, we were finally shown to our table.
The menu wasn’t big on specialty items, but they did have all of the standards and judging what was showing up on the tables around us, it looked delicious and fresh.
We shared the edamame then I ordered the Chirashi Don ($14.75) which included mackeral, tako, hamago, tuna, salmon, rice, daikon, the biggest wad of ginger I’ve ever seen, ikura, tobiko and I also ordered 1 piece of Uni on the side. Susie had the Assorted Sashimi ($15.75) dish comprised of tako, salmon, toro, tuna, and something else and we both tucked in heartily after nearly fainting away in the waiting area.
Sometimes a little of a wait can contribute to a restaurant’s sucess. You start to anticipate the meal, you’re smelling and seeing the food coming out of the kitchen and having spent a portion of your precious time waiting to eat, you’re more inclined to like the food that arrives because you want it to be worth your while. It’s a fine line to walk though and too long of a wait will have the opposite effect. Patrons will be hungry and cranky and bitter at been made to wait.
I didn’t hear anyone around me complaining about having had to wait so long, but it was definitely past the point of acceptable (my standards, anyways) by the time we were able to start eating and that ruined the experience somewhat. The sushi was very fresh and tasty, but I barely paused to consider it as I tried desperately to fill the gaping hole in my stomach.
If this was in Prince George or even Langley, I could see the desperation for decent fish, but this is Vancouver! Without the wait, I would put Toshi into my roster of favorite sushi places regularly frequented, but with those kinds of lines, I just don’t have the time. There are 147 Sushi restaurants listed on dinehere.ca for Vancouver city, and I will tell you that some of them are at least as good as Toshi’s with little to no wait. Shiro and Honjin come to mind, and I’m sure there are others. In the meantime, I’m going to keep monitoring the crowd outside and hope for a time when it’s even slightly shorter.
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Toshi Sushi
181 E 16th, Vancouver
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Just like Moderne Burger (from what I experienced) and Vij’s (from what I’ve heard), you pretty much have to go right when it opens, or don’t bother going at all. Toshi’s is my fiance’s favourite Japanese place going.
yeah, that sounds like excellent advice. I’ll try it again sometime.
There are much better Japanese places than Toshis. Toshis does offer a good value but I would rather pay more and head to Ajisai or Yujis.
Ajisai rules for sashimi and sushi.
I’ve been disappointed by the food both times I’ve been to Toshi’s.
I think Vancouver actually has a lot of mediocre sushi. There are good places, but they generally cost a bit more (Ajisai, Okada, Yoshi, Octopus Garden). My “secret” good value place is Aoki.
I’m going to have to try Honjin – thanks!
if you go again, get the “box sushi”. it’s not on the menu, but people order it all the time. it’s the main reason to go there.
jason – by that, do you mean a combo dinner box, or do you mean pressed sushi (looks like nigiri sushi, but fairly rectangular… I think it’s called sushi battera at other places)?
i have been interested in going to this place for a long time too because of the great word of mouth and the constant line up. i finally got in recently and actually arrived *before* the restaurant opened (there was already a line up of ten people!)
the quality was great but the line up is just not worth it. anything over 45 minutes is too much in this city.
Degan, I fully agree with you on Toshi. When I reviewed, I was like “huh? what do people like about this place?”
Glad to see we’re as of one mind!
Don’t get me wrong, Raul, I liked it, I just didn’t like waiting in line for that long.
Where do you like do go for sushi?
Just cruising your blog and thought I’d see what you though of one of my favourite places to eat in Vancouver. For what it’s worth, I’ve been eating regularly at Toshi’s for a few years and have only once waited an hour for a table (if you go at opening or 30-45 mins after opening when the first cycle of diners is clearing out, it can make for a much shorter wait)… I guess I just get lucky. If you ever go back to give it another go, you have to try the “Box Sushi”… it’s not on the menu but probably one of my favourite pieces of sushi I’ve had in the city.