My husband must love it when I decide to blog about a restaurant. Just as the food arrives I say wait, don’t touch anything – I need to take a picture!
By the end of the meal he usually gets the hang of waiting before taking the the first bite, but it’s pretty funny to slap away his hand when the food arrives.
A couple weeks ago we found ourselves at Kasa Moto in Yorkville. It’s part of the Chase Hospitality Group which includes a couple other favourites of mine – Colette Grand Café, The Chase, and Little Fin (which I haven’t made it to yet).
The menu at Kasa Moto is described as contemporary Japanese cuisine, and the restaurant itself is beautiful – and huge! It has large rooftop patio, and there are many different seating areas inside.
We started with the Smoked Salmon ($14) with smoked cream cheese, salmon caviar & yuzu butter. We were given quite an explanation of the bread used in this dish (it looked like a piece of black bread, and the cream cheese was inside), but I am not sure I can give the explanation justice. The bread was brittle but tasted surprisingly good considering it was black which was throwing me off a bit! It was an interesting start to dinner.
We also started with the Lobster Tempura with wasabi sour cream, sansho salt & sesame chimichurri. Hands down one of my favourite dishes in the city. I LOVE lobster. You can practically put lobster on anything and I would be a happy girl, but this dish was in its own league. The Lobster Tempura is listed as market price on the menu, and for us it ended up being $55. A very pricy appetizer, but I have to say it was totally worth it. There were three sauces to choose from, and all were absolutely delicious. I’m getting hungry just writing about it!
Next up we tried Kamameshi ($18) which was a rice dish with wild mushrooms, burdock root, yam cake & truffle soy butter. The photo for this one is not very clear since it was prepared at our table and I couldn’t very well ask the server to pause and pose so I could take a photo (although I am sure he would have loved that as much as my husband does).
This rice dish was like a risotto, and it seemed very rich because of the truffle soy butter. It stayed warm at our table so we could eat it with our maki sushi to come. I really liked it, but it was very filling because it was so rich.
Finally we finished the meal with Kasa Moto’s version of a California Roll ($12). The crab in these California rolls was unbelievable. This was not imitation crab, this was real flaked snow crab, and it was an incredibly fresh roll.
We saved no room for dessert, although we wish we did because I am sure it would have been as spectacular as our dinner. Kasa Moto offered some of the best Japanese food I have had, paired with excellent service.
They had a varied wine list (with one of my favourite Riesling’s from Cave Springs!), and they offered valet parking or there was an easy to use nearby parking garage within steps.
Kasa Moto is located at 115 Yorkville Ave in Toronto, and for more information you can visit their website at www.KasaMoto.ca.
