Le Cafe Michi

I have to say Thank You to my bf for continuously being my food adventure partner. Although from time to time he kinda complains about me always want to try new places, he was there with me anyway. Friday night was a classic example. Originally, I was thinking about going to Moxie’s Classic Grill, the one located at Fairview Mall. I’ve always wondered if Moxie’s is any good since every time I walked by it was always packed. So, Friday night, finally I have made up my mind, plucked up my courage and walked into this place. 1 minute after. The fire alarm was activated and everyone had to evacuate. LOL. God, I think it must be my fate – I was not supposed to go there.

I know you all know what’s gonna happen next.

Yea, where should we go instead? We were thinking of a lot of the places, including the Dave & Buster since they just went there the night before and found the Honey-Mustard Spinach Salad very good. BUT… that’s kinda far, and he just went there 24 hrs ago. So, we drove on Sheppard… and suddenly I saw the neon light “SUSHI OPEN” outside Le Cafe Michi. Here we go!

I have to say the parking there was quite cramped, but if you go to the back, you can still find some spots. The restaurant was not a big one. At around 8:00 p.m., it was full house. As you can see… there is a room at the back. It is actually a sushi bar that can hold up to 10 persons. (I think they can sing Karaoke there too! coz I heard someone singing from inside.) Since I had nothing to do when I was waiting for the table, I kinda checked out the customers there. The customers inside the room were some westerners and Japanese people, and the customers outside in the main dining area… were mainly Chinese – Cantonese (possibly HKese), Taiwanese (from the language they use) and CBCs. The waitresses there were Japanese. The capacity is about 30 people.

On the side, you will see a lot of cakes (it’s a cafe afterall) and sake. Unfortunately, by the time we had cake, the green tea cake was all gone!

This is the entrance… So you get a feeling of how the restaurant looks like.

Finally, we were seated after about 40 minutes of wait!!! Looking at the fridge, I saw some canned peach drinks. Therefore, I ordered the “Peach Juice” and my bf ordered a coke. There was 2 seconds of hesitant when I told the waitress that I would like to get that peach juice… then after a few sip of the peach juice… I understood why she had that hesitation… hahaha that was actually a peach sour… alcoholic drink! I was all red by the time I finished my drink.

After looking at the menu – which is not a very large one… they have about 10 set dinners (sushi type), 6-8 set dinners (donburi type) and some other à la carte items. Here’re what we ordered for the night:

Green salad that comes with the dinner… very good although the portion was quite small. There was special aroma from the veggie.

Tekka Roll – our first main dish – the portion was larger than expected. It was good. The wasabi was very strong! Argh… my tears came out! But I like that.

Tekka Roll close-up

Gyudon – had a spoon and it was pretty good.

Miso soup – above average.

Uni (sea urchin) & Ikura (salmon roe) on rice. Nice and fresh. Haven’t had Uni for a long time!

Close-up – Look at it! It’s so beautiful!!!

Premium Sushi Set – the size of the nigiri was much bigger than expected! I was getting full after 3 pieces! This time, I believe shiso (a kind of mint) was added to the Tekka roll as you can see from the close-up. However, I’m not really fond of this taste. Overall the sashimi was quite fresh.

Premium Sushi Set – Close-up
(I like this picture – oh no… I’m getting obsessed with food porn!!!)

Salmon Skin Roll – taste very good! although a bit different than what we expected.

Salmon Skin Roll – Close-up YUUMMM

Finally, the set dinner came with piece of cake. The regular price of the cake is about $5.50 – $5.95/piece. The dinner dessert portion… I guess is about half of the regular size, which is just good enough because we were very full after 2 set dinner and 2 maki! This is the Orange chocolate mousse cake

Tiramisu… Overall, I found the cake there so-so.

Green tea – didn’t know we had to pay for it… but oh well… here it comes!

Final Bill… The overall experience was not bad. The food was good overall, except the cakes. The portion was good. Price range for a set dinner is about $20-30 (sushi) or $ 15-18 (don). The service could be improved. When we first went to the restaurant, the waitress just told us to go to the back without telling us the expected waiting time, nor greeting us properly. No one ever got back to us when we were waiting in the alley. Maybe it’s just that they already got a lot of customers thus paid less attention to customer service. I think it’s still worth trying; try to go there a bit earlier in order to avoid the wait.

FYI: Le Cafe Michi
1802 Pharmacy Avenue Scarborough, ON.
Tel: 416-490-9688
Open Tuesday to Saturday 11:30 am to 9:30 pm, Sunday 11:30 am to 8 pm.
Closed Monday. L.L.B.O.