SubscribeDINNER June 12, 2009
Recently, I was forced to admit that I had, at some point, become a sushi snob. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it happened but I have to believe it is linked to my latest trip to Japan. Before that, I had already started going exclusively to two restaurants in Montreal (Tri Express and Jun I) and then, after the trip which included a great deal of great sushi, I just lost my desire to eat sushi altogether. It had probably been a good six months since I had eaten sushi, which would have been a bit of a mind boggling statistic a couple years back.
When it comes to most cuisines, I’m a bit of a traditionalist. I believe in the primacy of ingredients and I think the best cooks are the ones who make the ordinary extraordinary. Anybody can impress with foie gras or filet mignon. Show me a chef who can knock your socks off with carrots and I’ll show you someone who can really cook. To me, that’s the appeal of sushi. All you have are your ingredients and your degree of mastery of a few basic techniques and those things make the difference between the sublime and the ridiculous.
What I hate about North American sushi is that there is generally very little refinement. The accent isn’t on serving the freshest most perfectly assembled nigiri but in seeing what you can stick in a roll that will appeal to people who eat their gourmet meals at Pizza Hut. When people tell me they’ve tried a new place and that it has “great sushi” I just interpret it as “lots of mayo in the maki”. It’s probably only a matter of time before an enterprising restaurateur puts a deep fried poutine roll on the menu (that should increase traffic from the South Shore).
Of course, I’m being a little harsh. There are people who do North American sushi well (in Montreal, most notably Tri Du of Tri Express) but like with most fusion cuisine, it’s probably generous to say these people account for 10% of the population with the other nine-tenths being utterly forgettable. So it was with these biases that I showed up at Mikado on a recent evening. Mikado is a four-restaurant chain in which the level of quality purportedly varies (I have only eaten at two locations being an infrequent visitor to Ste-Julie). The Laurier restaurant is the darling of the lot and I broke my two-restaurants-rotation to give Mikado a try based on the solid reviews (including one from one of the locals in Bora Bora) the Laurier location has been getting for the past year or so.
One of the great joys of the sushi experience is the interaction with the chef. While most Montrealers are not in on this little secret, it means that its pretty easy for two to slide in at the bar at Jun I. On this night, we sit at the bar but Mikado isn’t the type of place where you actually interact with the sushi chef. A waitress attends to us while chefs putters around on a not-so-neat counter fixing dishes for various tables. I skim through the menu and focus on the nigiri: pretty boring; tuna, salmon, shrimp..oh wait smoked salmon. How about sea bass? Snapper? Mackerel? Kampachi? Anything but the three or four fish that North American don’t think are gross? The waitress reappears and announces that tonight they have toro. Hello!
We order the toro in a tartare and on nigiri. The tartare is nice: a thick deep-fried chip onto which a mix of toro, scallion, marinated enoki and king oyster mushroom topped with masago has been scooped. This toro has the right amount of fat to balance out the flavours. My only minor complaint is that the chip tasted like it had been fried a while ago. I suspect this is the type of dish on which Mikado made its reputation: Japanese ingredients with a western interpretation. This one is really well done.
Next comes agedashi tofu. A good dish with which to test a Japanese restaurant because it is common, traditional, relatively straightforward very ingredient driven and includes dashi (which, much like stock, can tell you a lot about a restaurant). Not a home run for me. The tofu is not particularly silken and looks like it has been fried tempura style, instead of with a simple cornstarch coating. This imparts a greasy flavour to the broth which, in any event, is simple (bland even) and in which too much bonito has been drowned. Meh.
Next comes the sushi. The dubiously named “Happy Roll” features “tuna dynamite” (i.e. leftover tuna scraps mixed with mayo and chili), grilled eel, cucumber, perilla and avocado. I am generally not very interested in maki rolls but JJ-san loves them. I like this one (damn you–North American palate), which is well constructed and in which the mayo and heat do not predominate. Aside from the aforementioned toro, the rest of our sushi includes avocado rolls (a Californian invention I quite like), grilled eel nigiri and an interesting nigiri that combines tempura shrimp with perilla leaves. I find the sushi rice is quality: firm but forgiving and not too sticky. The nigiri themselves are well formed and not too tight or dense. As for the tane, all were tasty but the fact most were cooked did not give much insight into freshness. The tempura shrimp with perilla was particularly good. On the nigiri, the toro was fresh enough, but not remarkably so and in fact had already lost a lot of its texture (which is why it was probably more enjoyable in tartare form). In retrospect, I wish I would have had more fish nigiri, but the prospect of choosing between farmed salmon and cuttlefish did not appeal.
On the beverages front, Mikado has a good selection of sake, including a lot of half bottles (which is important to those of us who usually end up drinking the bottle alone). I thought the list relatively impressive but, in all fairness, am a bit of a sake neophyte.
It was a good meal, but not a great one. So how does Mikado rate in the grand scheme of Montreal sushi? Definitely better than the average but not on par with Jun I. The selection, the American-style service and too many so-so dishes mean it doesn’t make the cut. Mikado might very well be one of the best sushi joints in Montreal, but that isn’t enough to get on the two-restaurant-rotation. But I have other reasons to like Mikado. That meal really re-awakened my desire for sushi. A trip to Jun I cannot be far in the offing.
Mikado Laurier
399 Laurier W.
514.279.4809
Agh! I know what you mean about fusion cuisines! I *hate* people who say “I LOVE sushi, it’s my favourite!” and you go out with them and all they order are the big makis
mikado often has uni, which many other places rarely have, which is why we keep going. it’s pretty much all we order there…talk about stuff the white people don’t like!
I didn’t think uni was all that rare in Montreal sushi restaurants but have to admit I have not been on the lookout for it. I believe Jun I usually carries it as well. I tend to enjoy it more as part of a composed dish than in sushi restaurants.
http://www.gayot.com/restaurants/sushi-yasuda-new-york-ny-10017_1ny001217.html
For real sushi – the best restaurant I ever eat is Yasuda in NY- by far the closest to high end ‘in Japan’ restaurant quality.
Worth the trip twice a year.
I go to NY just to eat there.
Sit at the Bar and let the chef decide
You will taste everything.