If the bustling dining room at Guu were any funkier, it would be in a movie: The tables, walls and backless stools are made of reclaimed wood, as are the long communal tables.J.P. MOCZULSKI
Guu Izakaya 398 Church St., Toronto 416-977-0999 www.guu-izakaya.com $80 for dinner for two with sake, tax and tip
Fin Izakaya 55 Eglinton Ave. E., Toronto 647-347-3864 $100 for dinner for two with sake, tax and tip
All the cooks in the open kitchen start yelling joyously at us the minute we walk in the door. Their words are in Japanese, so we don't know exactly what they're saying, but the enthusiastic tone makes it clear that they're greeting us - at the top of their lungs. The next people who arrive get the same treatment. Guu Izakaya, the hottest resto in town, yells greetings and goodbyes to everyone!
An izakaya is a Japanese bar that also serves food. In Tokyo, they are boîtes where salarymen stop in after work to get drunk and snack before taking the train home. In Japan, office workers often hit several izakayas before heading home. This is called hashigo sake (or, literally, "ladder drinking").
Over the years, there have been a couple of attempts to introduce izakaya to Toronto, but nobody got it right - till Guu. The now-defunct Izakaya on Front Street was too buttoned-down to aspire to the genre of drunken revelry with food, and Fin Izakaya on Eglinton just east of Yonge is just so … Yonge and Eg. It's outfitted with ordinary glass and wood, it's far too quiet, the three cooks make a token effort to call out hello and goodbye and both food and service are unfortunate. Nasu dengaku (normally eggplant topped with miso sauce) has acrid sweet sauce reminiscent of cheap candy, while so-called seaweed salad is a tiny hill of seaweed atop a bowl of lettuce. Among the assorted sashimi are tilapia, a farmed fish with the barnyard savour of fish pellets. Not exactly a Japanese office worker's ideal of after-work liquoring-up food.
Yoshinori Kitahara opened Guu, an authentic izakaya, 13 years ago in Vancouver and now owns five locations there. His Guu Toronto opened in December to instant popularity - and occasional fury.
Torontonians don't like lining up, and we especially don't like being told when to vacate our tables. Guu has been making diners mad on both fronts. I would love to tell you to take a pass, but it's the most fun place to open here since Noodles in 1974; the food is great and it's cheap. That they don't take reservations is maddening. That you can wait up to two hours for a table (standing against a wall in the cramped dining room or maybe even outside) is ridiculous. That they won't take your cell number and call you when a table comes up (like the Black Hoof, Pizzeria Libretto and Foxley Bistro do) is brutal. We got in by showing up on a Monday at 6 p.m., but don't try that late in the week. People arriving on a Saturday at 5:15 have been waiting up to two hours.
When you sit down, the server says: "We have a two-hour limit." I've heard horror stories of people's food coming so slowly that they've been turfed from their tables before finishing dinner. Why, you say, would anyone undergo such punishment? You have to check it out to answer that question. Guu's chaotic energy makes fine-dining establishments feel like a lecture hall doing Nietzsche.
And the food! With few exceptions, it was dancing a jig on my taste buds. I hardly minded that it all came at once. Takowasabi , for instance, is small, toothsome bites of octopus stir-fried with chopped wasabi stem. Maguro tataki is barely seared tuna with puckery ponzu sauce and a bouquet of super-crisp fried garlic chips contrasted with thin daikon strips marinated in ponzu. Ama ebi and uni (raw shrimp and sea urchin roe) are both impeccably fresh and sweet; they're served with ultracrisp nori for wrapping them up in. And tender-but-not-fatty pork belly sits in deep, rich broth. What more could a bec fin want?
And if the place were any funkier it'd be in a movie: Tables and a few walls are made of rough reclaimed wood, as are the small backless stools and the benches at the several long communal tables. One wall is dark grey slate, the bathroom signs are in Japanese and the "chandelier" is about 50 incandescent filament light bulbs hanging on wires.
The original Guu in Vancouver says on its website: "This is a short trip to Tokyo. Don't worry about things in your life. Get drunk and have fun! Our friendly staffs will help you to forget everything!" That's izakaya.
It helps that the food is such fun: Salmon natto uke is an edible Joseph's coat of many colours, a plate of raw salmon with natto (fermented soybeans), shibazuke (pickled eggplant and cucumber in plum vinegar seasoned with ginger), crisp fried garlic and wonton chips, takuan (pickled daikon), green onion and raw egg yolk. We mix these elements and wrap them in crisp nori to make scrumptious sweet/savoury, crisp/soft packets.
Other hits: the hot pot of marvellously rich fish broth with daikon, fish cake, tofu, bamboo shoot and taro jelly, the dark, juicy grilled mackerel and the agedashi tofu, superbly crisp, ungreasy deep fried bean curd in light dried-fish broth with a hint of soy.
Also delicious is the cheese bibimbap - an iconoclastic version of Korea's national comfort food - presented in its oven-to-table stone bowl with delicious garnishes of garlicky sautéed mushrooms and just enough melted cheese for a kick.
The only no-gos on the menu are the takoyaki (blah deep-fried octopus purée) and the sashimi salad (which is mostly lettuce and doesn't benefit from wasabi mayo).
At the end of the meal, they bring each diner one frozen sugared grape - and the entire staff yells sayonara. Good luck getting a table.