April 26th, 2011 by Dawn Becker

I’m one of those sushi-loving fiends that has well-established standards and when I’m about to eat something raw, I want to know that it was made with care. I wouldn’t call myself a purist but I certainly can’t handle eating at the bleach-scented fast-food style student-priced sushi joints that keep popping up around town. It’s not about the price point. I’m happy to pay less as long as the quality is there. In my experience though, you get what you pay for.

Other than my perennial favourite that’s priced for all pocket books, Tokyo Kitchen, I’m always on the hunt for a consistently awesome sushi restaurant and preferably one that opens Sunday which is harder to find than you might think.

I ventured into Yuzu on Adelaide a few times and it’s definitely made my sushi worthy list, which includes Tokyo Kitchen and Ichiriki plus a handful of my favourite places I have yet to blog about. Yuzu offers a premium quality sushi menu with delicious specials and hot plates. On one occasion I had the Buta No Kakuni pictured below off the daily specials menu. It was four tender morsels of pork belly and truly the most delicate I’ve had in flavour and texture, literally melting on my tongue. If I recall the menu correctly the pork belly was slow braised for 18 hours. I hope you’re as lucky as I was to find it on their daily specials when you visit.

While I can appreciate that the prices are definitely on the high end, the taste and presentation of their dishes answers any question you might have about why. Below is an oyster shooter, ikura (salmon roe) sushi – my apologies that some of these shots aren’t as clean as I would have liked as I try to shoot with no flash to prevent from annoying neighbouring dinner patrons – two sushi close-ups that show off the delicate toppings of crispy fried shallots and fried daikon with seaweed salad, both of which offset the fish perfectly, and finally my lunch portion of sashimi.

Yuzu is a wonderful addition to my favourite sushi places. The atmosphere is upscale and perfect for a romantic dinner for two. While I really don’t recommend take-out sushi, Yuzu does offer a take-out menu if you really have to have their sushi at home.

April 12th, 2011 by Dawn Becker

I recently read an article by Jan Wong in the April 2011 issue of Toronto Life magazine, entitled "Not Asian enough: Jan Wong on the phenomenon of ‘Tiger Mom’ parenting”. While I usually don’t agree with Jan Wong’s often contentious opinions in her articles, I did find this month’s column intriguing.

Some of my Canadian friends don’t understand how cultural duality plays into my Chinese-Canadian life. Most of the time it seemingly doesn’t. While I agree that as a Canadian-born Chinese I have all the benefits of every other Canadian born in this country, visibly I could still be identified as Asian, and therefore have experienced my share of discrimination (in my youth) and objectification (when I was a budding adult). Admittedly, growing up in the 80s, in the quiet suburban town we know as Pickering, in an elementary school with only five other Asian kids, one of whom was my sister, things were very different from today.

Culturally speaking there are definitely distinctions. For example, at the end of my Mandarin class – yes I am finally taking Mandarin lessons to add to my food/shopping Cantonese, proving that it’s never too late to learn a new language – my teacher sent me away shouting "Work hard!", while I simultaneously shouted back at her “Don’t work too hard.” We both had a laugh as we realized this was a perfect example of Western versus Eastern work philosophies.

When I find myself in an all-Chinese scenario, say a family reunion or wedding, there’s always the comment that “it’s such a shame that I don’t read or write Chinese”. It’s true. I do have language envy. My cousin, Casey, was brought up in a family where Cantonese was spoken daily, where the culture was instilled unconsciously, in an environment where you were proud to be Chinese. So I struggle to find myself not being Chinese enough and being Chinese in a Western society. I was delighted to read Jane Leung’s article Tired of not being ‘Chinese enough’ where she shares similar opinions to my own. And better yet, she refers to herself as being a banana too where some of my critics raised an eyebrow as to whether that was derogatory or not. I commented about that in my first post.

Today, I couldn’t be prouder to be both Chinese and Canadian. And when the opportunity presents itself, I dive right into learning what I can about other cultures attempting to see what their lives look like through their unique cultural lens.