Grayson and I stumbled upon Tairyou ichiba while we were going for a walk along Kingsway. And I’m sure we weren’t the only ones who got drawn in by the giant wooden doors Tairyou ichiba has on the exterior.
Spicy salmon sashimi
To start I decided to get the spicy salmon sashimi with seaweed. The dish was not what I expected at all and I wish that there was more to it than what was presented in front of me because this was definitely NOT a $6.95 dish in my books. I regretted it immediately and wished I would of gone for regular salmon sashimi instead.
Ume shiso roll
Next I got the MEGA tilapia nigiri because I never had tilapia in this form before. I thought that it was pretty good for what it was but I don’t think I’ll be having tilapia in this form anytime soon because I think the fish is a little too lean and it was difficult to eat it in a somewhat pleasant looking way. Heh. Good thing Grayson is used to me being clumsy…;) Next up I decided to try the ume shiso roll because I rarely ever see ume on menus. The ume was really prominent and well, sour Japanese plums are going to be sour! So, if you’re not a fan of sour things, it’s not the roll for you but if you are, I’d definitely recommend it.
Chicken katsu roll
Grayson decided to get a salmon roll, uni nigiri, saba nigiri and a chicken katsu roll (I think). He said that they were all pretty standard rolls and was quite inpressed with the quality of the seafood on both the nigiris. There was a shiso leaf (Japaense mint leaf) under the slice of saba and diced ginger on top as well. He said that it brought out the flavor of the saba.
Mega nigiri
I didn’t mention this earlier but they have numerous nigiris to choose from. Most of them are between $1.00 – 2.50 so we decided to get a few to try. They also offer MEGA versions of each nigiri which are double the price of the regular version.
I didn’t think that it was worth the extra money because the amount of rice you get is the same as the original. The two of us agreed that we were underwhelmed when it was presented in front of us. We were anticipating something with more “WOW factor.”After having our own meals, we were still a little hungry so we decided to get a few more nigiris. There’s the MEGA tuna nigiri, takowasabi nigiri, negitoro nigiri and masago nigiri.
I’m not sure if we’ll be back to Tairyou ichiba any time soon because there are much cheaper places for a Japanese meal in this area but it’s not a bad place to go if you’re into trying lots of types of nigiris! The service is a bit slow if it gets busy though but I think that things like that happen with all restaurants so no big deal there.
Plus we were also being a little antsy to get out of there because we were about to be late to watch Guardians and we haven’t arrived early for a movie in waaayyy too long so we wanted to be on time. Except…even though we were JUST on time for the movie…there were no spots because well, it’s a popular movie…heh
Read all about my newest visit to Tairyou ichiba here!