Bonjour! During the Memorial Day weekend, we had an impromptu road trip to travel outside of the country across the border. We visited Montréal, the second-largest city in Canada. Our first pick of the night is a Japanese sushi restaurant named Jun-I at Ave Laurier Ouest. We arrived right on time, and were seated immediately. One thing we noticed was the giant wallpaper of snowed trees with ambient lighting in the middle of the restaurant. It blends in pretty well with the wooden looking sushi bar and its cabinets.
The menu offers a lot of the classic Japanese dishes and sushi. We ordered the following dishes:
1) Sashimi with five different sauces. The sushi chef selected five different kinds of “catch of the day” fish, matched with its own sauce. It’s almost like wine pairing.
2) Funny Maki. It has tuna, onion, avocado wrapped in white fish, and then fried in tempura batter. The maki also has salmon tartar on top. This is an interesting fusion maki which takes similar to a buttery fish ball.
3) Unagi Dynamite. This is our favorite maki from Jun-I. The sushi chef was so creative to use rice crispies mixed with spicy mayonnaise inside of a maki! The buttery taste of avocado always matches so well with eel. They are truly a perfect match. The crunchiness of the rice crispies makes the maki one of a kind.
4) B52. This maki contains tuna, avocado, and rice crispies mixed with spicy mayonnaise. We found that the rice crispies match much better with unagi than with tuna. This maki simply does not have the same effect as the Unagi Dynamite.
5) Dancing Unagi. This maki contains tuna and eel, which is an interesting match because of the contrast of hot and cold, also chewy and soft. Besides tuna and eel, there is also avocado inside of the maki. We love the richness and creaminess of avocado.
6) Scallop Sushi. It has a refreshing taste, but not as good as the ones we can get from Oishii.
7) Uni Sushi. It is comparable to the ones from the states, and is rich and creamy as usual.
8) Rising Sun Sushi. This is your typical flying fish roe with quail egg on top but has an extra piece of scallop added. By adding that extra piece of scallop, it changes the overall texture and taste. You have the popping flying fish roe, creaminess of quail egg, and fresh taste of scallop all in one bite. Another amazing creation!
The highlight of this restaurant is definitely their Tokbetsumaki. They are very thoughtful and creative paired with different ingredients that you don’t normally think of. I never thought that rice crispies would be a good match for a sushi maki, but it works well here! The service was friendly and attentive, and we never had to ask the waiter to come by. We will come back to this little gem if we go back to Montreal.
HOKAT Rating:
92/100
Address:
156 Ave Laurier Ouest, Montreal QC
(514) 276-5864
http://www.juni.ca/
1 comment:
Loved Jun I.
Picked their multiple course tasting menu on a recent visit there and each course was creative and satisfying.
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