the beets go out: sushi on bloor, part I

Time: 6pmish on fri evening
Place: sushi on bloor, upstairs
The Scene: busy with lots of friday nite dates & lots of PDAs

The order: vegetarian bento box (includes endless refills of green tea, miso soup, 6 veg sushi rolls- cucumber + avocado, and choice of green tea, mango or red bean ice cream)

The cost: $9, tax and tip included

Rating: 3 beets (out of 5)

The assessment: what can I say, this is my most frequent order at sushi on bloor. what else can give you so much bang for your buck?

I start off with a pretty decent bowl of miso soup. Hard to go wrong with that! Then, once I've actually ordered my vegetarian bento, out come 6 sushi rolls, 3 each of avocado and cucumber. I think these are their stock sushi rolls, so they probably aren't 'fine dining', but for the novice, they're all right. The bento box (main course of the meal) is next. It includes salad with a great dressing (though I'm not a huge fan of iceberg lettuce), several pieces of crispy, deep fried tempura (I got zucchini, eggplant, sweet potato, squash, and maybe something else), some really yummy fried mushrooms, soft tofu fried in tempura batter, and plain rice. Knowing that I won't be able to finish the whole box, I work on the tempura and salad first, allow sharmalade and lintil to eat some of the 'shrooms, and pack up the rest for late nite snacking purposes.

Throughout the meal, we're given free refills of green tea, which keep us nice and toasty warm.

We're lucky to be offered some complementary ice cream (in my experience, this doesn't always happen). Although the temptation is hard to resist, I forego green tea for red bean ice cream, just for a change. I find that the particular sweetness of red bean is too much for me,so I give lintil the honours of finishing it off.

All in all, a very full and complete meal. Like I said, great bang for the buck!