Party of Six   Price Range:  Very Expensive   Food:  Good   Rating:  B   Service:  Rude  

I had greatly anticipated going to Tojo's on the 12th of October with a group of friends who are all celebrating birthdays within a week of each other.  

Entering the restaurant it seemed friendly, clean and busy.   We had a room in the restaurant and we set out to ordering drinnks  and making decisions on the food.   We decided to go with Tojo's selection a four course presentation of Tojo's chef creations.  The food was excellent, from the crab cakes, to the Tuna sashimi and the plates of sushi at the end....We were there for a total of two hours and almost $500.00 and at the end of the two hours our waiter came the table and said "You have to leave now"....Pardon me..."You have to leave now we need you table"...No one told us when we sat down that the evening was very busy and that after two hours we would have to go.  There was no response from the management and I feel I would never go back to the restaurant....But of course if I were a movie star or celebrity none of this would have happened...

Tojo’s restaurant is tucked away in a second floor office building on a commercial street in Vancouver. The view of the city from certain tables is awesome and the restaurant has many very positive testimonials and praises from its myriad of celebrity clientele all over its walls.

The chef’s choice, a menu set by price per individual and prepared by the chef is indeed a great experience as all of the food was exquisite.

However, in the hospitality department, Tojo’s restaurant, for all of its great food and celebrity visitors, rates an F. Our party, which had spent several hundred dollars, was told: not asked to leave, because they needed the room for another party. We were not informed of this when we made a reservation, if we had been, we would have made other plans. When we asked for an explanation and pointed out that it was extremely RUDE to demand that guests leave, the manager and the staff acted as if we did not exist and paid no attention. No apology was forthcoming.  The moral here is, unless you are famous, you will be treated very poorly at Tojo’s.  All of the superb sushi in the world will not make up for bad manners.

Date of visit: October 12, 2002 – which will be the FINAL visit by this party

Grade: Food “A plus 

Hospitality and Service:  “F minus” - if it is indeed possible to get worse than a failing grade.

Tojo's was by far the most innovative Japanese restaurant I've experienced. We went early so that we can sit at the sushi bar (highly recommended). We were asked if we had any food allergies even at the time of reservation and were asked again once we settled down. The rest of the meal was up to Mr. Tojo.

I lost count of how many wonderful items we had. They were all excellent. The absolute freshness, skill and presentation were evident. Mr. Tojo's innovation was in the fusion of ingredients and sauces. We must have had a dozen or so items, mostly sushi, yet not one was similar to another. We heard that there was a customer that came in every single Wednesday for the last 25 years and Mr. Tojo made sure that at least two items were new every week. Now, that's innovation!

We started with a sashimi dish. Chunks of Albacore tuna were served in a small bamboo tub with ginger wasabi. Then we had sushi wrapped in egg flying fish egg, scallop, shrimp and crab. Not all dishes were sushi or raw. We had a fried zuchini blossom stuffed with fish and shrimp ball. There was a halibut cheek cooked with enoki and shitaki mushrooms. These were simply some of many dishes.

Mr. Tojo checked periodically to see if you were getting full. At such a time we were served one more then a wonderful fruit dish to finish.

If you love an adventure and love Japanese food you've got to give this a try. It was not inexpensive at about $100 Canadian per person (with beverages) but with the exchange rate and given this caliber of food it was well worth the price.

The AAA TourBook noted that Tojo's as "A know celebrity hangout!" Judging from the photographs on the walls the observation was correct.