Now the restaurant is small with a couple tables in a relatively square room. From the room you have a view of the bar and the kitchen behind it where you will find the all Japanese staff. On the wall to the left of the entrance is a giant chalk board; listing the grilled morsels offered and even what apparently are most popular at the moment. I went during lunch with my girlfriend so the place was not as bustling, if you really wanted to enjoy the environment I suggest going late night with a bunch of your friends so you can knock back some sake or Japanese beer with grilled meats... mmmmm meat on a stick.
Now that I have eluded that I am a sucker for meat on wooden skewers lets introduce the appetizers. We ordered three sets of skewers, chicken cartilage, chicken wings and my personal favourite chicken meatballs. I have been to Japan multiple times as a kid (lucky I know) and during one of my trips we went to a Japanese Yakitori restaurant. Yakitori is Japanese for chicken skewers and one of their staple dishes was chicken meat balls. Their meatballs would come in a plethora of different flavours and sauces and you could have a field day trying each of the different ones (which I did). You may be thinking, "how many goddamn ways can you put chicken on a stick?" But when you consider that the Japanese use almost every part of the chicken (innards,offal,skin and all!) you can find almost all of poultry anatomy on a flame grilled skewer (my mistake, coal grilled).
Back to the dish at hand.
Pictured above are the wings and the meatballs, obviously I was too damn hungry to show you the cartilage, my apologies.Overall the skewers were grilled well, the cartilage had a seasoning salt that really accented well the smoky grilled taste. The meatballs could have been more juicy but they still had good flavour, the sauce could have been more thick though. The chicken wings on the other hand were very succulent and had a nice char, could have used a tiny bit more seasoning but definitely good. Six for the cartilage and meatball and a six and half for the wings.
On to the main course!
Pictured above is what I ordered: Gyu-don accompanied with salad and miso soup. Gyu-don is beef and onions simmered in a sweet broth. Kind of resembling ginger pork. The beef and onion is then put over a bowl of rice hence the don part. First taste of the dish I noticed that it was sort tough. The beef was over cooked for my taste. My girlfriend referred to it as beef jerky (in a good way!) it had good flavour overall, soft sweet onions accompanying the beef, but did feel a bit one dimensional. I feel like the sauce was a bit watery and the rice was already very soft which made it a bit soggy. Overall I would give it a five it was decent but not that good.
Pictured above is grilled miso cod with rice and of course the complimentary soup and salad. Now my girlfriend ordered the fish because she loves fish, and I must say that she had the better dish that day. The cod was grilled nicely, crispy skin and succulent flaky meat. The miso glaze definitely lent itself well to the grilling process and the overall flavour of the dish. My one quarrel was that the dish was very oily, but cod is a fatty fish and its fine more omega-3. I give this a seven out of ten.
Overall Izakaya Ju was decent. The grilled foods were good so they definitely live up to their namesake. The gyu-don was a little disappointing but I blame that more on me ordering a non signature dish. I feel Izakaya would definitely give me a better showing at night with a bunch of drinks and just grilled meats instead of actual set lunches. Overall I would go again and would recommend to friends.
Score overview:
Chicken cartilage skewer - 6/10
Chicken meatball skewer - 6/10
Chicken wing skewer - 6.5/10
Gyu-don - 5/10
Miso glazed cod - 7/10
Recommended.
Izakaya Ju is located in J-town in Markham, Ontario. 3-3160 Steeles Ave. East L3R4G9
For more information on the restaurant check our their website here: Izakaya Ju
All photos taken by Christian Lin and Vivian Lam
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