tuna – Michael Eats

Quick Bites: Tatin Bakehouse, Mi’Hito Sushi Laboratory, Breakfast ING

Published on January 11, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Custard tart from Tatin Bakehouse

I figured Tatin Bakehouse was probably worth checking out after reading about their Michelin connection in Toronto Life, and yeah, it’s a delightfully unique little bakery. I tried the custard tart, which is impeccably made, with ultra-rich custard, a delicate brûléed top, a tasty layer of chewy black rice, and a perfect crust. But between its slight salty kick and ultra-restrained sweetness, it’s right on the line between sweet and savoury, and barely feels like a dessert. To be fair, I had just blown out my palate somewhat with a garlicky shawarma wrap, so it’s possible that this was my fault, but I appreciated this more than I enjoyed it.

I actually checked out the bakery a second time a few weeks later and tried the chocolate croissant, and I will admit that it left me wondering if I gave the bakery too much credit on my first visit; it looked good, but it was dry, had almost no buttery flavour, and had such a stingy amount of chocolate that you could barely taste it.

Sushi burrito from Mi’Hito Sushi Laboratory

I’m sorry, Mi’Hito Sushi Laboratory, but your flagship product should not exist. Sushi should not be a burrito. To be fair, the stuff they serve here is less of a burrito and more of an oversized, uncut maki roll. And it was totally fine — eating it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. I ordered the Rising Sun burrito (“tuna, lettuce, cabbage, avocado, tempura crunch, tobiko, carrot, crab meat, green onions, and spicy mayonnaise dressing”) and it was tasty enough. There was a decent amount of good quality tuna, and the other fillings were solid. But it’s so fat that you can never really get a satisfying bite; sometimes you get mostly tuna, and other times, mostly plain veggies. That’s not to mention the nori, which was oddly difficult to bite into. It was all basically enjoyable enough, but I would have much rather just been eating normal sushi.

Malaysian Sandwiches at Breakfast ING

I tried a couple of sandwiches at Breakfast ING, a small Malaysian restaurant inside a bubble tea joint: the house special (“pork loin marinated with house special recipe, fried egg, cabbage, and peanut butter”) and Malaysian street style (“4oz ground beef with a taste of M’sian spice, tomato, fried egg, lettuce and sweet & spicy sauce”). Neither sandwich particularly blew me away (the third slice of bread feels superfluous in both, and only serves to dry out the sandwich), but they were both pretty tasty. The fact that they were nine bucks each for a couple of reasonably hefty sandwiches certainly doesn’t hurt.

Tasty Conveyor Belt Sushi at Tora

Published on October 5, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3401 Dufferin Street, North York (inside Yorkdale Mall)
Website: https://www.aburitora.com/

Tora is a conveyor belt sushi place, which is mostly a gimmick, but a fun one. They have a million of these in Japan, but they have yet to take off in Toronto for some reason.

(There’s been a few over the years, but I believe this is the only one that’s currently open.)

I should note that there isn’t any pre-made sushi going around on the belt that you can pick up — there’s a tablet at every table, and you order on the touchscreen. A few minutes later (it’s very quick), the sushi zips along on the conveyor belt and stops at your table.

The sushi itself isn’t going to blow anyone’s mind, but it’s all solid. Everything I tried was pretty decent, with the exception of the tuna nigiri, which was a bit fishy.

One of the specialties here is aburi sushi, which is a style of sushi that’s torched on top; a card on the table noted that the aburi ebi oshi, which features shrimp and a mayonnaisey sauce, is one of their most popular dishes. And yeah, that was probably the highlight of the bunch, with a decent smoky flavour from the torch and a nice zippiness from the mayo.

Tasty Hand Rolls at Hello Nori

Published on December 29, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 648 King Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.hellonori.com/

Hello Nori specializes in hand rolls — basically loosely constructed , uncut maki rolls –that they make in front of you and serve immediately. You wouldn’t think that would make that much of a difference, but the fact that the nori is still crispy when they give it to you is actually quite delightful.

It kind of reminds me of the onigiri they serve at variety stores in Japan, where the nori is wrapped on both sides to prevent contact with the rice until you eat it. Crispy nori and fluffy sushi rice turns out to be a great combo.

You can either order the rolls on their own (most of them are between six and nine dollars) or as a combo. I went with the four roll combo, which costs $23 and comes with negitoro (minced tuna and green onion), ora king salmon, snow crab, and spicy shrimp.

The negitoro was a bit oniony for me (raw onions are for jerks), but otherwise these were all thoroughly enjoyable. The rice was underseasoned, but then they do have soy sauce right in front of you at the bar; I think the expectation is that you’ll be dipping the rolls.

The salmon — which features big chunks of tasty fish — was probably my favourite of the bunch, but I liked them all.

I was worried four rolls might not be enough, but it was actually a pretty decent portion, at least for lunch.

Delicious Sandwiches at Mattachioni

Published on May 23, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1617 Dupont Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.mattachioni.com/mattachioni-west

I previously tried the mortadella sandwich at Mattachioni and found it to be thoroughly delicious. Well, clearly this place knows their way around a tasty sandwich, because I just tried a couple more and they were both extremely tasty.

First up is the porchetta, which is as simple as it gets — it’s just a whole bunch of sliced porchetta on toasted sourdough. If the porchetta itself weren’t so good, this might have been too simple, but the tender, herby, and intensely flavourful pork shines brightly enough to not need any accompaniments.

The bread is great too, though it might have been a bit too aggressively toasted; I don’t think bread that good needs that level of crunchifying, not to mention the fact that it was so toasty that it was difficult to eat without wrecking the inside of your mouth.

I also tried the S. Marcobruno: “Tuna in olive oil, Egg, Tomato, Arugula, Radicchio,
Pickled red onion, Lemon.” I liked both sandwiches, but I think this one was the superior of the two, with a great balance between the meatiness from the tuna and richness from the egg, punched up with some delightfully zippy flavours. The bread was untoasted, and the quality level of the sourdough here is so high that I think that’s the way to go.

Solid Poke Bowls at Pokeworks

Published on December 5, 2023December 7, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 197 North Queen Street, Etobicoke
Website: https://pokeworks.ca/

Pokeworks is an American poke chain that’s just starting their Canadian expansion (with 50 locations to come, apparently).

If you’ve been to a poke place before, then you know the deal: they’ve got the usual assortment of raw tuna and salmon (along with cooked chicken and tofu) that you can get with various toppings and sauces, served on rice, noodles, or salad (or some combination of the two).

You can either create your own bowl or go with one of their “Signature Works.” I went with the latter, and got the Umami Ahi (“Ahi tuna, cucumber, sweet onion, shredded nori, edamame, umami shoyu sauce, surimi salad, pickled ginger, green onion, sesame seeds, garlic crisps”).

It didn’t exactly blow me away, but it’s a solid bowl of poke. In particular, the chunks of tuna are fresh, sizable, and generous. The flavours are a bit too muted and the rice was overcooked (it was mushy in spots), but everything else was quite tasty.

I don’t think it’s going to rock anyone’s world, but if you’re in the area and you’re looking for a tasty, relatively healthy meal, you could definitely do worse.