A few people here have recommended Affinity Fish in the past few years and some of our friends have also. We also really like their idea of focusing mainly on sustainably harvested Ontario freshwater fish. So we finally got around to signing up for their omakase sushi menu (plus a sake pairing) and had an excellent time.
For those who haven’t been, it is a fish store by day (and offers a few things for lunch). Seating is along a single counter, allowing you a great view of the prep, including grating fresh wasabi with stingray skin. However it might be difficult to have a conversation with a group, unless you snag the L-shaped end. Staff are quite happy to explain more about the preparation of the dishes and also to go into more detail about the different species of fish and where they are caught.
Sake 1: Homare Karahashi (Hyogo) - fragrant with banana and lychee.
Maitake Chawanmushi - delicate egg custard, fresh pickerel cheeks, mushroom kuzu dashi sauce, and homegrown microgreens - lots of umami.
Sake 2: Tenmei Junmai (Fukushima) - more savoury, with orange peel.
Hassun - a skewer of grilled and meaty Nova Scotia swordfish and pickled shishito, with house shaved katsuobushi bonito flakes; another skewer of lavender-cured duck, wrapped around marinated spring onion, with ginger and kuro shichimi - both very tasty, although the lavender was a bit hard to detect.
Sake 3: Tengumai Yamahai (Ishikawa) - richer flavour, chocolate and shiitake, nutty.
White miso corn soup over grilled baby corn cobs, topped with fried ginger and chili threads - soothing and comforting.
At this point, we switched into the sushi and were provided a small plate, with gari and pickled carrot. We were encouraged to eat with our hands and were provided with a small finger towel to cleanse between selections. The rice had a nice balance of sour and sweet, with hints of complexity. The texture of the grains was great, but the rice didn’t quite hang together at times (they offered to remake mine when it did).
Sake 4: Tedorigawa U (Ishikawa) - citrus and a bit of pear.
Freshwater drum from Southampton - mild, slightly sweet, crunchy texture - really good, especially for a fish that most anglers consider “junk”.
Cisco bozushi - salted, lightly pickled, and torched lake herring, with pickled thinly-sliced kombu on top and chive and sesame mixed into the rice - delicious, with several umami-ish elements.
Konbujime spot prawn - sweet prawns in a kombu marinade, with a shrimp paste.
Swordfish Chu Toro - fatty belly, accented with fresh ginger.
Wild Atlantic salmon zuke - caught in Lake Huron, with salted plum and bonito paste - the richness nicely balanced with the acid of the plum.
Sake 5: Masumi Shiro (Nagano) - some nice apple notes.
Albacore Warakunsei - from Haida Gwai, smoked over wheat straw, with grated daikon radish and ponzu - exceptional; we paid extra to have a bonus round.
Sujiko Gunkan - pink salmon roe inside the egg sac, from Lake Huron, marinated in red miso for 4 days - pleasantly fishy, miso overtones.
Sake 6: Nanbu Bijin Ginjo (Iwate) - some tropical fruit notes.
Ling Kimo - burbot (freshwater ling cod) liver and kampyo sauce (cooking reduction from a gourd) - creamy, with extra umami from the sauce.
Sablefish Misozuke Temaki with sansho powder - buttery fish.
We ordered the supplemental Swordfish Toro ($15) with smoked daikon pickles, sesame, and chives; this was also worth ordering an encore.
We also ordered an extra drum and cisco, for which they rewarded us by slicing up the rest of the albacore and sending it home with us.
Atsuyaki Tamago - the egg was made with smoked whitefish instead of dashi and came with sansho compressed pear and chestnut poached in sugar for three days - all fairly light and not particularly sweet.
All in all, a wonderful experience. They gave us a snack to take home - red miso caramel pumpkin seeds.
