Restaurant: Gushi
Location: 707 Dundas Street W, Toronto, ON M5T 2W6
Price Range: $
[wp-review]
Started in 2012 as a pop-up food vendor, Gushi now have a brick-and-mortar store located in Market 707, which is Toronto’s first shipping container market! There are roughly around 10 shipping containers along Dundas street West, each housed a local shop and they are mostly food stalls. Since these shops are small, there aren’t many seats but there are several picnic benches along the sidewalk. This concept is perfect for summer with nice weather, though I’m quite concern of how they will manage once winter comes :(.. because most customers ain’t going to wait for 10 minutes in -30 degrees weather!
Gushi specializes in karaage chicken, which is a Japanese style fried chicken so most of their dishes will contain their specialty. I have tried their Gushi original and skewer, my next choice would probably be takoyaki as the ones I have in Toronto so far have been quite disappointing.
Service at Gushi wasn’t the quickest, but the girls who served us were really nice and friendly.
I ordered a medium gushi original while C ordered the same thing plus a skewer. To be honest I’m not a fan of deep fried chicken, but I will always have a soft spot for chicken karaage. Unlike other versions of deep fried chicken, karaage is not greasy and will not make you feel gross or drowned in oil afterwards. The chicken karaage at gushi achieved just that, it was juicy with a crispy-light surface, while still remained succulent when cold.
The purple rice was alright, I found it to be cold and hard to eat :(. The rice can be bland for some people, however the karaage had a right amount of salt in the seasonings with a hint of spiciness from the mayo sauce. Although they didn’t give me any lemon wedges, there was some ginger to refresh your palate so I can forgive that! :p
C ordered the chicken skewer for $6 and don’t be fooled by the picture, the skewer was longer than an iPhone 6 Plus! (Yes sorry for the weird comparison, but I can’t think of any other object to compare to lol).
Again, the skewer was juicy and delicious! I wished they served this with some lemon because I loveeee squeezing a liberal amount of lemon before eating karaage ;). It really helps to lighten the dish and kill any kind of gaminess of the chicken.
In my opinion Market 707 is really a great concept for the neighbourhood and local businesses in Dundas street west. Admittedly I rarely visited this neighbourhood as there wasn’t anything appealing before, except for some restaurants that are located a bit further of Dundas street. I have been here multiple times and with every visits, I always find something new or unique to try out :). I hope the vendors are here to stay forever as they offer everything from clothing, phone repair to cheap local eats, and Gushi is definitely one of them!