Dinner at Ki

Ki Modern Japanese + Bar

Fish and seafood appeared to be the theme of my weekend because we ended up making reservations at Ki after our visit to the aquarium. Ki is a modern Japanese restaurant located inside Brookfield Place (181 Bay St) and this was my second time dining at the long-time Bay St. resident.

Believe it or not, my first experience at Ki was actually over eight years ago for a family function. As a seventeen year old, I remember that my opinion of Ki was not wholly positive. At the time, I was expecting traditional Japanese food prepared in the traditional way and, instead, I was served a lot of unconventional dishes. I was not impressed.

Now that I am twenty-five years old and have a more open mind with respect to food, I was eager to try Ki for the second time. Moreover, I was interested to see what had stayed and what had changed on their menu. We walked in at around 7:00PM for our dinner reservation and were quickly seated in a dining room similar to the one we had eaten in many years ago. I was soon handed the menu and was glad to see that the tossed edamame was still a mainstay in their sides section. As for everything else on the menu, they were all foreign to me.

I had eaten a pizza earlier that day so I wanted to keep dinner light and ordered two things: I ordered the edamame for the appetizer and the kiwi tuna (bigeye tuna, mango, cucumber, spicy tomato salsa, and kyoto miso) for the main from a rather formal server who seemed to be hard of smiling. That was fine with me as long as it meant that dinner would still be amazing and that it would come on time.

The rest of the family also ordered an assortment of starters and mains, including tofu & eggplant, sake (atlantic salmon), unagi (freshwater eel), ki beef maki (teriyaki-glazed Canadian AAA striploin, sweet potato tempura, and asparagus), and jumbo black tiger shrimp tempura. I had not tried any of the dishes mentioned above with the exception of the edamame. Therefore, I was excited for the dinner service to come.

Noms

Thankfully, dinner did not take long to arrive. I tried the edamame first and I was glad that its taste had not changed over the years. I tried the kiwi tuna after that and was slightly perplexed by the consistency of the rice. It was, for lack of a better word, stickier than any of the makis I had ever had in the past. Moreover, I felt as if each piece threatened to burst at any time during my efforts to detach them from my glass plate. The rice conundrum notwithstanding, the kiwi tuna was quite refreshing. However, it did not taste as well as my sister's ki beef maki. It was to die for! The tofu & eggplant were also really delicious and, although I did not get to try the tempura myself, I heard that it was crunchy and tasty as well.

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Waiting for sushi

Ki - eight years later: My opinion of Ki has certainly changed the second time around. While I would not suggest Ki to any diner for the price and for the distant servers, I would recommend it for the location, the speed of service, and, more importantly, the food. Ki really delivers on its promise of modern Japanese cuisine. Moreover, its atmosphere truly caters to the busy financial district crowd. I can only imagine what eating at Ki would be like for a weekday lunch but I can certainly see it being crowded with happy (and well-dressed) diners.