Nami, Take, Mikado vs Zen?

[hippotatomus]

Thinking about making the trek out to Zen this weekend, but does anyone know how it compares to Nami, Take, and Mikado? I've tried Le Michi and Aoyama already and like Zen more. The prices look quite reasonable and if it's possible any of those 3 are just as good then I could save myself the drive and just go to any one of those. It seems like Take is a division of Nami, so maybe their quality is about the same?

Btw, I went to Zen to try their lunch special 9 pieces for $16 and it really wasn't anything special.. so I guess their Omakase is the only way to go at Zen. (for anyone thinking about going to Zen and trying their lunch special)

[eller]

I've been to Take and Mikado recently and for the food, I'd select Mikado over Take, however the decor at Mikado is a bit dated.

[theel]

It doesn't sound like you folks are very high on aoyama. They got great reviews when they first opened, have things changed. I was thinking of making a visit soon. I also need to make a trek to Zen but I am way up North. I was never a huge fan of Nami. though.

[tjr]

Aoyama is just okay; stick with sashimi there and it's fine.

[skylineR33]

Aoyama is getting worst. Their maki roll is pre-made as you can see the seaweed has absorb all the water from the rice. Cafe Michi is a better choice in that area. I was so disappointed ...

[tjr]

Yuck.

[theel]

OK. Cafe Michi and Zen on the list. I have been aching to try Zen for a year now so I'm going to have to bite the bullet and make the trip. Maybe for the SO's bday. Solo in Newmarket is so much closer for me, and Jyo is a character.

[Googs]

Zen is superior to Nami and Take in terms of quality and of the latter two Take is better than Nami. As far as atmosphere and service, well, Nami certainly takes that over any other choice. Never been to Mikado (wow, how did I miss one?) so don't know about that.

[hippotatomus]

Yeah I haven't heard about Mikado too! My friend just told me about it yesterday. It looks promising so maybe I'll go there instead.

[pinstripeprincess]

be warned that their parking lot only has three spaces and is down a tight alley... i attempted to go once but was thwarted by filled spots and having to slowly back out through the small alley. park on the street!

[Googs]

Yes, psp, but how was the food?

[pinstripeprincess]

the frustrating of parking turned me away and for some reason i haven't made it back yet. i'm tempted to make more of a go at it though with tjr saying that it is better than aoyama... it's certainly closer than aoyama or zen!

[hippotatomus]

When we went the parking lot was empty.. probably 'cause we couldnt' wait to have dinner and went at 5:30pm :p.. but when leaving the parking lot was almost full and it was pretty hard getting out even because the space was soo narrow..

[tjr]

Mikado is good, but I like Zen more. I prefer Mikado to Aoyama as well. Nami isn't good, but Googs is right in regards to service and atmosphere. Take is kind of middle of the road.

[hippotatomus]

So I guess I can just skip Nami / Take... Looking forward to trying Mikado.. but since it seems Zen is still better I'm going to go there instead this weekend and maybe next week for Mikado.

[hippotatomus]

So I decided to go with Mikado actually. We went and ordered the omakase (50 pp). Definitely does not hold a candle to Zen.. but it was okay. Not amazing.

It started with a little appetizer that I think everyone gets... A small plate of fish cake and some carrot shreddings/sesame/and something else. The fish cake was pretty good since it actually tasted like fish and wasn't the kind you get from a supermarket.

Next we were brought a bowl of fish soup. It had a pretty big piece of white fish. I would have enjoyed it had it not been for the many bones in the fish. I don't find picking out bones enjoyable... Our 2nd plate appetizer was eggplants in a sweet sauce. It was pretty yummy, normally SO doesn't enjoy eggplants but he also thought it was quite good. Then came our plate of sushi. 9 pieces each of sushi with a 3-piece spicy tuna roll. The 9 sushi were salmon, sea urchin, eel, toro, king crab, tuna, tai, hamachi and some clam I think. Selection was not as interesting as Zen. The toro was okay I guess... but the sea urchin was plain bad. It was the reason why I thought I didn't like sea urchin before... While we were eating the plate of sushi, the waitress also brought us some agedashi tofu.

The decor was actually pretty cute and cozy... I like it more than Zen's decor. In the back they have four tables where you have to climb in. When you first come into the restaurant you are also greeted by all the chefs, there was the one at the sushi bar and the two others in the kitchen which you can see into right when you enter the restaurant. Overall, the atmosphere was really cute, they even had cute little slippers for you to wear!!! (if not a bit gross).... One were a pair of pink pig slippers :P....

Anyway... so after she brought our sushi and we counted 12 pieces and not the 15 pieces they told us when we called them on the phone.. SO then asked her if there were anymore coming and when she said no, we then told her we were told when we called earlier that there were 15 pieces in the omakase. She then went to check with the chef or other waitress and later brought us an extra 3 pieces each of an eel and something roll..

The meal ended them with them bringing us TWO grilled fish heads each... an aji head and a hamachi head. .Actually, I think it was the fish neck but they also included the head.. so it was this gigantic plate of fish head (please note there were 4 in total) The aji was pretty good.... but I didn't leave the restaurant feeling like I just ate sushi because the grilled fish was so overpowering..

All in all it was okay.. but not amazing. The fish wasn't as flavourful and freshtasting as Zen. I probably won't go again.....

[tjr]

Yep, a pretty standard experience. I haven't been in a while. How is the shari there? As to the heads, there are three big schools of thought on how flavour progression is supposed to work: from the lightest to the heaviest, the heaviest to the lightest, and light and heavy alternating. It is likely that you got the heads at the very end because the chef espouses this philosophy.

I thought you would have just gone to Zen! If you're close enough to Zen, there's no reason to go anywhere else for sushi (except maybe Kaji).

[hippotatomus]

Sorry. What is shari? :P

Thanks for the info about the heads too, now I know. I wanted to go to Zen.. but SO convinced me in saying we could always go to Zen another time since we hadn't tried this place yet. It definitely was a lot closer, however, about 1/3 of the distance. If tonight had worked out it would have been fantastic...

I'm still saving up to go to Kaji.... one more year til graduation and then comes about 40 years of income...

[tjr]

Shari is sushi rice/sushi meshi. Also, in case you're wondering, Kaji can do a truncated omakase on nights where they aren't busy (and therefore willing to take people in and make money), try in the middle of the week and call ahead and check it out.