46Guu Izakaya

Drive by Guu any night and check out the lineup snaking around the parking lot. Are these people all nuts? No, they are aficionados of Toronto's only real izakaya joint. In Japan izakaya is where you get drunk and snack after work, and the servers yell hello and goodbye in unison to all comers. Same deal here, which creates more fun than most Torontonians have ever had in a restaurant, which explains why we're willing to line up for as long as two hours to get in. Guu takes no reservations and you sit at plain wooden tables on backless benches. And the food is wonderful. Takowasabi is octopus with chopped wasabi stem in hot/sweet sauce. Maguro tataki is almost-raw tuna with ponzu sauce and crisp fried garlic. Pork belly is bathed in rich pork soup. Salmon natto uke is raw salmon, with natto (fermented soybeans), crisp fried garlic and wonton chips, shibazuke (pickled eggplant and cucumber in plum vinegar seasoned with ginger), takuan (pickled daikon), green onion and raw egg yolk. We mix these elements and wrap them in crisp nori to make fabulous little flavour packages packets. Small wonder we're lining up.