Omi Sushi

Even if the food is the most amazing food but your service is poor - it colours the entire restaurant experience which is what happened at OMI. I was there with my friends Catherine, newly home from her honeymoon in French Polynesia and Jackie who was on a deadline and needed to get back to work so we were looking for a light catch up; an easy japanese dinner.



We should have taken waiting 10 minutes to sit down even though there were lots of empty tables as a sign.
We should have walked out when our neighbors at the next table complained that if we were hungry- we should eat somewhere else and then come back here as they had been there for over 2 hours and waited for an hour for their first dish to come.
We should've left when we waited another 10 minutes to get our menus and only 2 out of the 3 table settings were set.
And still we should've taken the hint when we asked the server about the sashimi and he replied in his broken english that he was serving frozen tuna today!!! Are you kidding me!?
Regardless of this, while the frustration of the night brewed inside me, we were settled enough to stay at the restaurant.
I was also curious about John Lee, the executive chef who is Korean Canadian but established a career as a reknown sushi chef in Toronto with his creativity in is food. And we were not disappointed as the food we ordered was very good and the only bright light coming from the restaurant.
There were several dishes we tried including many tuna dishes - we had the tuna in garlic confit which was good, tuna prepared 3 ways - sashimi, nigiri and with the garlic confit which was good but hard to share as only 2 pieces came with the sushi and sashimi. The Age Tofu was done very well- lightly battered tofu in miso dressing with different spices like chives or spices on top- this was very yummy. We had the poached scallops which were charred with a blowtorch on tiny sushi pizzas- this was also difficult to share since there were 2 of them and 3 of us. Their beef enoki rolls had green peppers inside them which was an unexpected crunch and pared very well with the beef. Our favourite rolls were the avocado and tempura roll - we ordered 2 of them and we also tried their soft shell crab rolls - a bit fishy and their spicy tuna rolls - which were good.
We tried a hot dish which was their spicy chicken- it was marinated in that hot red sauce "seracha" which is typically used in Vietnamese pho so it had a good kick to it but wasn't as hot as the name of the dish implied.

Anyway the food was good and our stomachs were very satisfied after the meal but taking the advice from another patron - don't come if you're hungry!

Omi Sushi- 243 Carlton (Parliament and Carlton)
**1/2 stars