Food of All Nations

Toko – Surry Hills August 18, 2008

Our first write-up is of Toko, specifically their Surry Hills branch.  Toko is Japanese restaurant and a self described “izakaya”, which we can tell you straight up is rather misleading.  The key thing about izakayas is that they are about drinking first eating second, it’s not to say that the food is bad, it’s just that it isn’t the most important thing about eating there.

So without further ado here’s our take on it:

The Experience

It wasn’t immediately obvious where the place was as we were going along Crown Street.  Signage is pretty minimal and the interior is fairly dark.  We got in without a hassle as there were only two of us…

and we were fairly early…

and it was Monday.

We were seated at the sushi bar and started poring over the menus (wine and food).  Unfortunately they’d neglected to provide us with a cocktail menu which is what we were really looking to drink.

A waiter did come and ask us if we were ready to order after a couple of minutes but we were still trying to work out what to drink.  It was then a bit of a struggle to get any waiter’s attention again, a trend which continued for the rest of our visit.

The cocktails arrived pretty snappily and were quite good, main lot of food we ordered came out in a consistent flow so we weren’t out of anything to eat until we finished the last of the three dishes we ordered.

We decided to stay for another dish and round of cocktails, this time the dish took a bit longer to come out so we sat and sipped on our cocktails.  Funny thing was that as we were watching the chef preparing our dish we were talking about how good the food was at other places we’d been to.

Restaurant owners take note, if your customers are talking and thinking about how good the food is at other places more than the food where they’re eating now, you’re not doing a good job.

So I finished the night there full but a bit disappointed and longing for a bit more than what we actually got.

General Observations

There were a few big problems that we noticed with Toko:

1. The place is too big for the number of wait-staff they had on
2. There were only two sushi chefs for the whole restaurant (there were 40-50 people in)
3. Following from (2) when there is high demand the sushi chefs have to rush which has an impact on the quality of the sushi and has a big impact on presentation.  When you’re eating higher end sushi presentation is an essential part of it
4. Very poor signage, we found the place by the actual number of the address rather than the name

Final Assessment

Service: Poor, difficult to attract the attention of wait staff and the delay in our later dish was a bit long for a single sushi roll

Food:

• BBQ Quail: Cooked just right and most of the bones, bar the wings and legs, had been removed making for easy eating
• Soft Shell Crab: The crab itself was fairly bland but the Wasabi Mayonaise was interesting.
• Inside Out Eel Roll: Average, nothing more to say.
• Salmon Skin Roll: Bland and the presentation was choppy because the sushi chef was rushed

Cocktails:

Each of the cocktails we had were fresh and full of flavour.  Good quality and probably the best thing about the place

Price:

Dishes range from $8-$28, most stuff is around the $12-$18.  Cocktails were $15-$20.

Over all:

Toko has some great cocktails but it can’t build on this.  The service was poor and its dishes uninspiring for a restaurant in its price range.  For top quality sushi and cocktails go to Sushi E or for cheaper, reliable Sushi head up to Cleveland Street to Emon.  We’ll have reviews for both of these up in the near future.

Till next time.

– Shaun and Ai Wei