Dude, the best part of Christmas is definitely Christmas dinner. Any reason to eat so much that your tie-dye sweatpants rip apart is a good time with me. But I’m not really a big fan of turkey, unless it’s smoked BBQ Texas style. So instead, we’re funking it up this Christmas at Matsuda Japanese Cuisine… Who needs turkey when you can have teppanyaki, bro???
Now, in case you’re a pagan, a wiccan or an Israelite with an appetite, the good news is that most Asian restaurants in Toronto are open on Christmas Day. But this ain’t just any ol’ Asian restaurant. This funky Japanese joint is serving up everything on its grilled teppanyaki menu for $38.99 — and you can even go back for seconds!!!
You’ve got steak, you’ve got chicken, you’ve got duck, you’ve even got grilled tofu and bacon-fried rice…plus an entire sushi menu at your disposal. Now, I’m not gonna fill up on sushi when I can be eating steak. But I had to give these wasabi mussels a try:
This was definitely different from any seafood dish I’ve ever had. These mussels were as cold as ice, ice baby, with so much wasabi that I felt it in my face. Did not see that coming! Of course, I couldn’t just order one thing from the sushi menu, so I dived right in to the deep-fried section, with some super shrimp tempura and calamari:
Now, I dunno if this pic even does it justice, but this shrimp was so long, it belongs in an ExtenZe commercial, bro! And there were about five or six more where this one came from–they definitely don’t short-change you!
The first thing to come off the grill was seafood. The grilled flounder was legit, the jumbo shrimp were literally on fire, but this flame-grilled Atlantic salmon was the best part of waking up (at 8 pm). Fish was super flaky, with a great teriyaki glaze… I could definitely go for more of these!!!
Now, here’s something I’ve never had at a teppanyaki joint before. They take this duck breast, thinly sliced and cooked up nice on the grill. What the duck? I think I musta ate at least 17 pieces of this stuff!!!
Now, the first rule of Flavourtown Food Fight Club is that everything tastes better with bacon, bro! This includes bacon-fried rice, which they make right in front of you on the grill. There were some other delicious dishes too, like chicken teriyaki, beef short ribs, and thin, stringy mushrooms wrapped in bacon…but let’s cut straight to the main event, the top choice ribeye steak:
Now, even the raw cuts of meat looked super tasty, but once they slice ‘n dice em and serve ’em up, I bet they taste even better. I haven’t put this many pieces of meat in my mouth since that one time, at beef camp…but you KNOW I still had room for dessert, bro!!!
Dessert is also all you can eat, which means you don’t have to choose between ice cream, chocolate pudding and deep fried bananas…you can have all three! Or four, or five, or six, or seven–calories don’t count on Christmas Day, dude!!!
Burgers, Bacon & Beer 