I love Judy. When it comes to bloggers, she, Mitzie Mee, and Fathima (Table for Fie Dubai) definitely top the list of bloggers who I admire and trust. It’s also always a pleasure to meet them, so when I was invited to a tasting at Toshi, I asked Judy to join me and she was kind enough to give me the pleasure of her ever enjoyable company 🙂

So Toshi has a theme night every day of the week and last night (Sunday) was Sushi and Tepenyaki night. I keep telling myself to cut down on tastings but I find myself falling back into the wormhole of not wanting to leave a single (restaurant) stone unturned. I mean don’t get me wrong, but prior to this invitation I had never even heard of Toshi. And that’s how I ended up an a small elevator tonight, only to find myself at a spa, which pointed me in the direction of a gym that I had to pass by to get to a pool, where the lifeguard then guided me to a door that opened into the adjacent tower and hence Toshi. I would later discover on my way down that I ended up in all the wrong places because the Zomato map led me to the back entrance of the hotel instead of the front.

Toshi is a tidy little restaurant on the 18th floor, with dim but decent lighting and soft music. Don’t expect any fancy water, these guys are keeping it real with some still Al Ain, but we did get a chilled coconut water and caramel drink that I absolutely loved. I couldn’t taste the caramel at all, which is a good thing, as coconut water is perfect in it’s own form as far as I’m concerned. There were several other fresh juices and mocktails to choose from too.

You have a decent sized buffet offering an array of salads fried starters, soup, sushi, maki and sashimi. There was also some Shu Mai (Har Gao would have made me much happier since there was only one kind of dim sum). We helped ourselves to some Miso soup, prawn and vegetable tempuras, and fried breaded fish. Of the three, the tempuras were the best. Even though they were cold, they were crispy and unlike most cold fried things, I didn’t get a mouthful of oil as I bit into them.

Since we went for a tasting, the management obliged us by preparing a gorgeous tasting platter of sushi, sashimi and maki. The variety was colossal.  Now, here’s what peeved me: the prawns were not cleaned properly. I saw some black peeking out at me, and when I dissected the sushi to make sure, it was most certainly prawn guts. This happened not once, but twice, and that was enough to make me lose my appetite as far as the sushi was concerned. The Tuna sashimi was not the best I’ve had either, and the sushi rice had a tad too much vinegar it in. I loved the Tuna Tatiki though.

My favorite part of the meal was the made-to-order Teppanyaki. You have a set menu to choose from, but we left it up to them to surprise us, and we received some steamed rice, Chicken Katsu (I LOVED this, even though I’m normally not a fan of fried chicken), and Mixed Seafood Teppanyaki. This had squid, Hammour, Tuna, and prawns, and was abso-friggin-loutely delicious. If I had had the room, I would have requested two more orders of this.

Dessert was, sadly mostly average and nothing truly stood out. Although there was a large variety, nothing made my eyes roll back.

 

Insider tip: if you’ve got an Entertainer book/app, then these theme nights are on monthly offer and are good for a weeknight meal when you’re feeling lazy, want a decent-ish meal on a budget in a quiet, sophiticated ambiance. At AED 190 per head, throw in an Entertainer voucher and you’ve got yourself a good deal, really.

Thank you for having me, Toshi, and for your warm hospitality.

You can call on 04 4299999 and find out what the theme night of the day is.