By Sasha Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: May 21, 2014
23343 Mavis Ave, Langley, BC
Hours: 12 p.m. — 8:30 p.m. Saturday, 11:00 a.m. — 9:00 p.m. weekdays
Prices: $9.50 — $12.50 for dinner box
Fort Langley is my go-to place when I’m feeling depressed or stressed out. The cozy gift shops, the art galleries, the endless antique barn, the riverbanks, and the pretty streets really cheer me up.
Of course, everything in Fort Langley is fairly expensive, including the many restaurants. And after a day of wandering, looking at all the handcrafted pottery, vintage garden tools, and local art, it’s nice to sit down somewhere to eat.
Tokyo Garden isn’t the only sushi place in Fort Langley, but it is the cheapest. Cheap sushi is a risk, but I’ve had very bad expensive sushi too, so I feel like it’s a gamble every time.
Seeing their $9.50 dinner box advertised outside drew me in. It was fairly busy, but our server greeted us straight away. The place was clearly a family-run business. Random Japanese pictures were crooked on the walls, the booths were a bit grungy, the atmosphere was very bring-your-grubby-children. It was very casual, a little run-down, but comfortable. Various kitchen things that should have been neatly out of a customer’s sight spilled out into the dining area: a fridge, jugs of soy or tempura sauce, stacked cups and dishes, a crock pot. But the grubby children were quiet, so no harm done.
We ordered a dinner box to share with the usual — miso, tempura, sunomono salad, teriyaki, a few rolls, and sashimi. Our server promptly went to the little crock pot to ladle out some miso. Having been under the impression that miso just came from a package mixed with boiling water, I was actually impressed.
And the miso was very, very good. I know it’s an extremely basic dish, but it was rich, with just the right proportions of seaweed and tofu. Was it because it had simmered in a crockpot? Maybe.
I hadn’t finished eating the miso before our food came out. It was so quick that I wondered if it was a bad sign. My immediate impression was that the dinner box was put together in a frenzy. The sushi was helter-skelter, the rolls poorly wrapped, the teriyaki kind of slopped on. I’ve never seen such terrible presentation.
I had been looking forward to the sunomono salad, which usually comes out first, with the miso. Instead of digging in, I spent a few minutes trying to catch the eye of my server, who, though had been very friendly, did not look our way for quite a while. I complained about my sunomono craving to my partner for a while before realizing it was right in front of me in the dinner box. It was literally so small that I didn’t see it.
It didn’t do much for my craving. Not only were the portions miniscule, but it was also skimpy on the vinegar.
The rest of my messy dinner box was surprisingly decent. The tempura had broccoli and a good crunch, which made me very happy. The teriyaki was flavourful with lots of bean sprouts. The portions weren’t huge, but two people were full at the end of eating it.
I felt like I was eating homemade sushi. It had all the good flavours and love, even if the presentation was that of a novice. And for the cheapest sushi in town, I felt like I had a pretty good fare.
