The spouse was having a night out with the girls, so when some friends called up and asked if we wanted to do something, I volunteered myself. They suggested sushi at this place they’d been to before, so naturally, I said “sure.” They picked me up, as it was threatening to become a rainy night, and we drove away. Just east of Jane on the north side of Bloor, we tromped into Yumi.

A glance though the menu revealed nothing too surprising aside from the fact that they serve the big cans of Asahi, and not Sapporo, instead of the other way around as it is in most places. Anyhow, we ordered a couple of beers (tea for the driver) and a pile of stuff to eat.

Everything came quickly and at the same time. The gyoza (pork dumplings) we got for an appetizer were better than in most places — nice crispy outside, not too oily, and rich, flavourful innards. We also had vegetable tempura, which was of the standard quality you can get in every sushi place. It’s not really something one can either improve on very much or screw up very easily, unless there’s old oil in the fryer, of course, but this stuff tasted fine.

One of my friends ordered edamame, which is a dish I’d never had before. It’s basically soybean pods, lightly steamed and heavily salted. To eat them, you just put them in your mouth and suck out the beans, simultaneously getting a good load of salt from the outside of the pod. I was told not to eat the pod skn as it would cause some unnamed digestive difficulties, and I trusted this advice. These little beans can be quite addictive, I found.

The sushi we ordered all came on one of those little wooden boats. The spicy tuna roll was a treat, though it wasn’t really overly spicy. But that’s what wasabe’s for, I guess. The salmon skin roll was tasty and perfectly cooked, though there was about as much meat on it as you normally get in Toronto sushi joints, which is to say not an impressive amount.

The “house roll” is a simple shrimp tempura roll with a luminescent “special sauce” that tastes somewhat mayonnaisey, but is not bad at all. They also have a fancier version with avocado and some other stuff. The most entertaining roll of the evening, though, was this ginormous roll with crab and an outer layer of bright salmon. We all attempted to eat this with mixed results. The first method employed was to only bite off half of the roll, which I would guess to have been at least three inches in diameter. This method, as most people who have attempted to eat half a bite of sushi could tell you, was less than successful, with large chunks of crab and rice crumbling off and splashing into the avocado-coloured soy sauce below.

I was the only one to forego politeness and attempt the full whole-thing-in-your-mouth method, which I’m sure looked very pretty, but accomplished the task. Of course, the roll occupied my mouth for some time, thus I was out of the conversation, which I believe at that point was centered on old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The roll was pretty good, though I would have preferred more salmon and less fake crab. Or maybe they just make it so that they can watch people try to eat it; I don’t know.

At any rate, by the time we’d gotten done with all that, plus a standard avocado roll, we were stuffed silly, but still ate the strawberries and melon chunks that were brought to us at the meal’s end. We left thoroughly satisfied.