Victoria doesn't look big, but it packs a huge bite. Anyone who has been here longer than a month would agree with that. And to some extent, sushi has even genuinely improved in Toronto proper over the last many years, enough that it's easier now than ever before to tell a completely forgettable conveyor belt platter experience from something you might talk about again after you've eaten it.
The problem is that, well, none of the sushi restaurants really look that different on the outside. Well, not going to be lured into anything more than what the menu has always been. Only by peering through the glass from the street can you tell whether the fish came off a truck this morning or has been imprisoned in a fridge since Tuesday.
Start with the rice
Most choose sushi based on what kind of fish they eat, and for the untrained eye, that is all there is. Sushi chefs flip the script. The rice is the foundation. Nothing else matters if you get this wrong.
The rice has to be warm, not cold. A bit on the vinegary side but not in a scary way. It has ample cohesion to hold it all together, yet isn't a brick wall. It is lightly sweet and buttery on the palate, then disappears with a nice clean finish, not clinging to you.
Assuming the rice is properly cooked, you'll likely be somewhere you'd like to have a meal for some time.
The fish question
Fresh fish has a clean smell and a clean taste. Nothing about it unpleasantly announces itself. It tastes like what it is at its best rather than like something that needs the soy sauce and wasabi to make it edible.
There is absolutely no excuse for a sushi restaurant here to be serving fish that is not genuinely fresh. The restaurants that take advantage of their location, that have relationships with suppliers and let what comes in that day influence what goes on the menu, are doing something that restaurants in landlocked cities genuinely cannot.
What the menu tells you
A menu trying to serve forty different things is a menu where nobody is thinking hard about any of them. The best places tend to be focused. They know what they do well, and they do it rather than trying to cover every possible preference.
Pay attention to the daily specials. That is almost always where the kitchen is most engaged.
At Fudo Victoria sushi restaurants, Victoria diners come back because what they found here was genuinely worth coming back to.
Just go and see for yourself.
The best way to know if a sushi restaurant in Victoria is worth your time is to sit down and order something simple. The quality shows up immediately when there is nothing complicated hiding it.
This article's author is Thomas William. For additional information regarding sushi restaurants victoria please continue browsing our website at:fudovictoria.com.
