Today, @Kerry Beal and I headed out to North York in search of a Japanese dollar store, Oomomo. Since it was on the way past Goûter, member @Alleguede‘s lovely Patisserie, and since we knew it was his birthday today, we stopped in with our best wishes. I left with one of his incredible kouign amanns. Sorry, I should have taken a photograph but where it is now would belong in a medical text, not here.
We found the Japanese dollar store and I have posted about it and its own newly created topic.
But after out wander through this Crystal Palace-sized emporium we were surely ready for some sustenance.
Within a three minute walk of the store, Memories of Japan , called out as having possibilities. It might better have been named Faded Memories of Japan since in certain ways it was hardly reminiscent of Japan. And yet we enjoyed our food.
The first clue that perhaps we were not in the most capableof hands was noted by Kerry. Our server, though pleasant enough, found it challenging when we didn’t order by number as it were. I don’t know about you but number 10 and number 19 don’t sound nearly as appetizing as Beef Sashimi and Mixed Tempura. Ultimately ordering by number seemed likely to be the most efficient way to make sure that our order was transmitted to the kitchen correctly. I am sure there is a perfectly valid reason for the numbering of dishes on the menu, I just think the staff should also know the dishes by name. But that’s just being ornery I guess.
Once again we decided to share a few appetizers.
Tea for Kerry, as usual. Sake for me.
Beef sashimi. And this is where you know that their memories of Japan are rather badly faded. The beef was tender and its accompanying sauce tasty but the beef rests on a bed of thickly sliced onion. In the dimly lit restaurant, I thought it was a bed of iceberg lettuce. Not until I took rather a generous portion did I discover it was onion. I am quite a fan of onion but I do think it should’ve been finely chopped and treated so that some of the sulphurous notes were muted.
Mixed tempura in the foreground and pork tonkatsu in the rear.
The fried calamari was very tender but again the presentation is very un-Japanese.
All in all it was a pleasant lunch and we did get to do some people watching.
