Omai is my absolute favourite restaurant overall in Toronto. Everything from the food to the ambience to the friendly owners and staff to the awesome music playlist is amazing. I've now been to Omai 5 times and I've never once been disappointed. Out of the Temaki handrolls (you can't go wrong with any of them), definitely try the Tamago. It has sweet egg and truffle in it and may not stand out on the menu, but it has an extremely refreshing taste that will surprise you. Omai regularly tries out new recipes and dishes on their menu, so you're always in for a treat (if you're like me and continue going back)! read more

Amazing restaurant with a lot of diverse selections to choose from. This isn't a traditional Japanese restaurant, they do really good fusion food. We tried 90% of the menu so far, and impressed with almost all of them. Here are some stand-out items: - octopus - pork belly - croquettes - trout hand roll Minus one star because they ran out of rice for hand rolls and tuna - which we were looking forward to! But we will for sure return again. Great service as well, they are always open for you to taste the various sake options they have to make sure you pick the right one for the night. read more

Stopped by for a quick lunch - their hand roll (temaki) lunch sets are great -- love the freshly made temaki made to order to be eaten right away to keep the seaweed crisp. The cauliflower app was a bit disappointing, I remember a great broccoli tempura appetizer they used to have here that was much tastier. Good small spot on Baldwin. read more

Omai Restaurant - Cauliflower appetizer (meh) + really good scallop temaki - Japanese Near Me - Toronto, Ontario

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I came here recently with my partner for an anniversary lunch, and we both had a fantastic time! We opted to sit outdoors, and the patio was absolutely lovely. There's a generous amount of shade and privacy, even up against the restaurant next door. With regards to the food, the lunch specials are an incredible deal! The portions are generous, and the prices are quite fair. I had the chirashi don, while my partner had the 3 handroll set, and we both left with our bellies very very full. It was also charming and wonderful to have fresh wasabi! We also opted for 9oz of their Goddess of Sake, which was rich and buttery in flavour, while still being very refreshing. Overall a lovely experience! Would love to return for a dinner service sometime. Our first visit, but surely not our last! read more

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Had my friend's birthday lunch here. The weather was nice, so we sat in the patio. We shared croquettes and beer battered cauliflower, I got chirashi bowl and my friend got a few hand rolls. Overall I am very satisfied with the food quality. Of course places like this are not about "the quantity", so the portion was tiny. But I think the food quality made up for it and I would go back to try different items on the menu. The service was good too. I think during winter, without the patio, the seating may be limited since the inside looked really dark and small. So try to take advantage of nice patio area while the weather is still good! read more

Omai serves some extremely tender Fried Chicken and Pork Belly which cuts like butter as you chew on it. Pleasant overall but the price is a bit too much for the food portions provided. read more

Omai Restaurant - Pork Belly - Japanese Near Me - Toronto, Ontario

Made the trip to Omai after hearing a coworker rave about it, and so glad I did. I recommend booking online before coming in, as it can get busy and is a bit smaller. The hand rolls were perfect, a solid 5/5, and the friend chicken had the perfect amount of flavour. I also got to try the croquette, which I highly recommend. Everything on the menu is delicious, the staff was friendly and welcoming, and with the boutique-y cool vibes and reasonable prices, I would give Omai 5 stars. read more

It's a cute place but quite small, love the design of the front door! Need to book a table in advance. We came here for the rice bowl, especially for the uni one. It was fresh and delicated. I was also impressed the 'Seoul dog' and wondering how the name came from. The sausage and bun were pretty good, worth to try! My friend also recommend their hand rolls. I didn't know about them previously so I would try them next time. Their service are friendly and nice. read more

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Nice dinner here last week as a group of 4! Sat at the corner of the bar (I don't think there are any tables that fit 4). Tried the cauliflower, fried chicken, a few handrolls, and the steak! Food was good (steak was really good quality) but the portions a little small for the price. The hand rolls were good (my fave was the shrimp) but not amazing - I was hoping to be blown away and I wasn't. Glad to try out this spot, recommended if you have some extra money to spend :) read more

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Went on a Thursday evening with no one there. 30 mins later, the place was packed. We went for the tasting menu and I have to say, I was very impressed. As I was going through the portions, I was thinking how hungry I was still, but as soon as dessert came, I was done. It sneaks up on you. Highlights from the tasting menu for me are the tuna tartare, the squash croquettes and the tuna hand roll. For dessert, we had matcha creme brûlée which was a nice change from the norm. Highly recommended for an intimate and unique date night idea. Definitely ask for a seat at the bar where you can see how they make your dishes. read more

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Wow what wonderful food we had at Omai last weekend. I'm still dreaming of the tamago temaki with truffle... excellent service, very friendly staff, menu worth making a huge detour for (we came down from Montreal lol) it's obvious each item on the menu was thought about and balanced in textured and flavours. I would definitely return next time I'm in TO. read more

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The restaurant is not that large, should probably have made reservations if we had 4 or 6 people. I like bar seating where you can see the chef make the food. I also like that you can order directly with the chef in front of you, so you don't even have to wait for servers. Sake selection is good as there are not many sake places in Toronto. Handrolls are decent size, but could add a little bit more fish. We tried pork belly and croquettes. We like them both and presentation is nice. I would go back for my sushi fix once in a while. read more

Omai Restaurant - pork belly - Japanese Near Me - Toronto, Ontario

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must stop if you're in Toronto and like Japanese food. go see my guy Steve and get you a memorable dinner. food is absolutely fire

Cute cozy patio perfect for Happy Hour. Great deals on sake, beer, and oysters. Uni toast is really good. Pretty much everything we had on the menu was delicious and the 3 of us almost went through the entire list. Staff are spectacular. WC is impeccably clean. read more

Omai Restaurant - Happy Hour beer & sake. Uni toast. - Japanese Near Me - Toronto, Ontario

We were 2 people and ordered 4 temaki hand rolls, 2 sharable dishes, and sake. The servings were pretty small; the waiter actually recommended 3-4 hand rolls per person and 4 shared plates. The inside has an open concept, cozy, and dark vibe, good for a date. I found it over priced but ironically cheap as they give you disposable chopsticks... if I'm paying $80-100 for a dinner for 2, is it too much to ask for real chopsticks?! We tried the ganpyo, wild shrimp, king salmon, and octopus hand rolls; the pork belly and sunomono main dishes; and the server's recommended hot sake. I can't recall the sake's name, it was in a red bottle and had an especially umami taste, which the server recommended was good to drink hot. The hand rolls are made quickly and right in front of you (if you sit at the main table). You can ask the server to cut your temaki in half if you want to share! Service was great. Hand rolls tasted okay, some were a bit bland. The pork belly was crispy and just the right amount of fatty/salty. The sunomono was a unique dish of fish roe, octopus, cucumber, shrimp, and julienned zucchini. read more

This is a really cute tapas style restaurant. It's a pretty small restaurant so I suggest making reservations ahead of time. My friend and I ordered the tasting menu since it was our first time. Everything was really delicious and it was around 50$ per person. The only disappointing thing was that wasn't very filling for the price. read more

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Favourite new spot in Baldwin Village. The menu is eclectic Japanese with beautiful plating and excellent flavours. Great for sharing. The service is warm and inviting. The minimalist modern decor is the cherry on top. Featuring $5 sake and $1 oysters during happy hour! The menu is not cheap as with the neighbouring resaurants but is well worth its pricetag. Bonus points for having a stylish website! read more

This restaurant on Baldwin street is not the easiest to find as the sign is discreet. Upon entering, you feel the hip and relaxed vibe. Service was attentive, the warm sake recommended by our server was quite delicious and much needed on a cold winter evening, and overall, the food was good. Although we were very impressed with their kitchen menu, the temaki, which we had high hopes for, was a let down. We found the rice in the temaki to be slightly dry, which was a big a disappointment. We tried the red sea bream, tamago and octopus temakis. Overall, the combination of ingredients in each temaki and flavours were good, but the drier rice didn't leave us wanting more. From the kitchen menu, we tried the following dishes: - Yu Choy ($7) - A common way to cook yu choy, a Chinese leafy green vegetable, is to blanch it quickly and serve it with oyster sauce. This is a much fancier version, with the yu choy served on top of a light dashi broth, complimented with a cashew miso butter. We didn't find this dish special as the cashew miso butter didn't have much flavour, although the presentation was nice. - Croquette ($9) - The fried butternut squash and creamy oka cheese had a nice melt in your texture. Although we enjoyed the dish, we didn't really taste the nori in the aioli, which we felt would have added that nice umami punch if the flavour was stronger. - Sunomono ($11) - The vinaigrette in this dish was very refreshing and we really liked the ingredient combination. The octopus was tender, and the cucumber and zucchini added some texture to the dish. - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Chicken Liver Pate ($12) - The addition of the orange blossom honey to the chicken liver pate was very creative and it really elevated the flavours with the sweet and tangy notes. This was one of our favourite dishes. - MUST ORDER: Pork Belly ($14) - This was definitely our favourite dish for the evening. The skin on the pork belly was crispy, yet the pork belly itself literally melted in our mouths. The dish was also balanced in flavour and the sunchokes added a nice earthy and nutty taste. - Beef Cheek ($16) - The beef cheeks were really tender and the persimmon added a nice sweetness. Overall, we really enjoyed the kitchen menu, especially the hot food. There is a lot of potential here, but as mentioned above, the slightly dryer rice in the temakis was a huge disappointment as we were expecting these to be more of the highlight for our meal. read more

A very good place to have temaki. I ordered the lunch set of three (scallop, tuna and another one that I forgot). The salad and miso soup are tasty too. I like the decor but not the music. The lighting is kinda dark. WiFi is available. The menu is simple and concise. Not a lot of seats besides the bar. read more

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A hip, unique sake bar with a focus on temaki hand roll. You sit by the bar, and the servers are also the chefs! We tried all the hand rolls and the standouts are: Ganpyo - surprisingly delicious, the humble daikon is marinated with a mirin, soy sauce base, paired perfectly with creamy avocado. Tamago: if you enjoy truffle you will like this. Shrimp: refreshing and creamy. Salmon: hard to detect maple flavour but very fresh. Most of the snack menu we tried were good but nothing really stood out. Karaage has a light interesting batter. Overall it's a tad overpriced for what it is. Bill was $150 for three of us with a drink each. It's a cute place for an intimate date or friend catch up. read more

I wanted to like this place really bad cuz the place looks hip and fun to hang out at night. Small space with a temaki counter if we can call it. Great concept on a temaki that could be ordered like eating omakase. Heres what i had Salmon - nothing great, menu said it has maple, i didnt get any of that flavor. Tuna - it was good, but nothing to crave for it, very traditional. Shrimp- it was good, the meyer lemon aioli match well with the shrimp Tamago- the best and must try, truffle paste. Delicious. From the kitchen we had the ff. chicken pate this was great, best thing on what we ordered Porkbelly- crispy pork with a sweet soy, nothinrg to rave about, but the pickled ramps was good. Plate looks good too. Beef cheeks- mild in flavor, persimmon carried the dish. Plate looks nice too. Sumomo(sp)- spring summer dish, super light refreshing. I could opt not to get this. All in all, 3.5* worth trying but probably wont be back. read more

Came here with a friend for the tasting menu. Flavours were excellent, service was amazing and above all the uni was mindblowing. Ive come back several times during lunch time and the wualuty of the ingredients really shine through. Its also great to see chef at the bar seating skinning the fish. read more

Went here for my birthday dinner with friends and it was a great night! Fits maybe 15/20 people MAX. We ordered a bunch of the hot food to share and a couple temaki each. I ordered the tuna, tamago (egg), and salmon temaki. I found them to be fresh but nothing especially remarkable. The same cannot be said for the other menu items though--they were fantastic! The pate was so yummy, perfectly paired with the seaweed crisps. The fried chicken was so well seasoned and juicy. But my favourite item was one hundred percent the potato croquettes! Soooo incredibly creamy in the inside and perfectly crunchy on the outside. Great sake selection and kind servers. Definitely don't take 7 people like I did and just come here with a hot date and get cozy with some yummy snacks ;) read more

Very remincisnt of Kazu Nori in New York City. The tasting menu is also a great price for the amount of food. Highly recommended.

Crispy seaweed with lots of umami, seafood tastes good, rice is proper sushi rice seasoned well. In my opinion the rolls only need rice seaweed and the seafood. The crunchy greens, onions etc are unnecessary. Sushi is like a good pasta. Simple better with the best ingredients. If not for this 5*s for sure. Would still go back and ask them to hold the veggies. read more

Loved how the temaki hand rolls are made and served right infront of you. They were very fresh and tasty. I especially liked the broccoli with bonito and the steak dish was fantastic! Will definitely go again, great little date spot! read more

Really nice place, service was really good. We had the tasting menu and it was incredible. Make sure you get the wild shrimp temaki! The greens with miso butter was also amazing. The pork belly and the octopus were to die for. Definitely coming back! read more

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The ambience is really nice, and the service is good. However, the food is on the pricier side for what you get. This is the new restaurant where ND used to be and I was expecting better drinks selection. There is a large variety of sake, but is pricy for the amount you get. They serve it in these glass cups with a wooden holder underneath so they overpour the glass for you at least. We had the tuna rolls which were good but could have been a but more flavorful to go with the sake. The pork belly we ordered looked and smelled amazing, but was under seasoned and dry. Expected a lot better. read more

This place man. Wow. Me and two others ordered the tasting menu which was the most valuable thing I've ever ordered off of a menu. It seemed the dishes just kept coming and each was a masterpiece. My favorite had to be the chicken liver pate with a blueberry compote as well as the matcha brulee for dessert. This place is now my go to sushi spot when I visit Toronto. Bravo read more

Amazing temaki hand rolls! Super fresh fish. The sake menu is quite extensive and amazingly selected. Definitely recommend! read more

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Came here on a Thursday evening for the very first time and was seated at the bar area. There were three of us and we each ordered 3 rounds of Temaki (hand rolls). From the selection of 7 types of hand rolls, I was able to try three: Ganpyo, Tamago, and King Salmon. My personal favourite out of the three would be the Tamago which has sweet egg and truffle. The aroma of the truffle fills your mouth when you bite into the hand roll, even the person sitting next to you can smell the truffle. It was delicious. The Ganpyo consisted of daikon (winter radish), avocado, and sesame. If you like refreshing and crunchy fillings, this hand roll is for you. The King Salmon was okay, nothing too special. Although the menu states that there's maple flavour along with daikon, all you really taste is the salmon. You can barely taste the maple. From the kitchen menu, we ordered the Croquette, Fried Chicken, Soon Dog, and Bavette Steak to share. The croquette was deep fried to perfection with a butternut squash and oka cheese filling with a nori aioli on the side. The fried chicken was seasoned with house spices served with ramp aioli. It was a little on the salty side for my liking. As for the soon dog, which is blood sausage, sake steam bun, plum mustard, and sage chips, the bun was a little hard. I personally don't like eating intestines and organs, so I didn't really enjoy eating it, but the sage chips on the side were really good. They were thinly sliced and tasted even better than Lays original flavoured chips. Lastly, the bavette steak was probably the highlight of the entire meal. The steak was cooked medium rare and was very tender and juicy. It was grilled with kalbi butter and served with roasted eggplant and garlic chips and wasabi. This restaurant is fairly new to Baldwin street and it already quite popular, so if you plan on coming, I'd recommend making a reservation as seats as limited. The quality of the photos I'd be sharing will be comprised as the lighting in the restaurant is fairly dim. read more

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Doesn't have a large seating area: be wary if you go during rush hour (lunch or dinner). Nice ambience, great friendly service, delicious food.. dont go too hungry because the portions are (understandably) small. Would definitely reccomend going once-if not more, to try everything on their menu- I had the steak rice bowl & it was pretty decent in terms of quality but nothing so amazing that I cant get anywhere else. read more

We thoroughly enjoyed our dinner here. Drinks are inventive and food was excellent. The service was first rate.

THIS PLACE HAS SUCH A GREAT VIBE!! The temaki hand rolls were so fresh and the chicken dish was so delicious. The Good: The scallop handroll, hands down! Chicken - it comes with two flavours, a saucy and dry rub. These were prepared so perfectly. Tuna and kanpachi handrolls were fresh, with just the right seasoming. The Meh: Sumomuno was pretty disappointing. Not a lot for the price and vinaigrette taste was a bit strong. The uni handroll could've used a bit more taste. Pretty pricey for the amounts you get. Overall a win. Will come back! read more

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This place used to be Kappo until they shut down. The vibe and interior is totally different and I dig it! Great spot to hang out, enjoy some good food and drinks. No tables, but rather moreso bar style where you sit on bar stools. I got the shrimp, scallop and salmon handrolls (all were delicious as they were very buttery). They cost about $8 on average each. My friends also got the same ones except they got a tuna roll (which they said they didn't enjoy it much). We got the fried chicken and beef cheeks to share (really delicious, and moist) would definitely get those items again. Staff were friendly. Great service and experience overall read more

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Food, ambience, service, value: 4-4.5/5 Everything is good to superb. Finally a terrific resto in Baldwin Village. This is my favorite Japanese bar by far now. Would highly recommend reservations for 2 or more in advance as this is a cozy establishment :) I can see this place catching on fast. Other notes: Only alcohol served here is sat read more

Went here for a work lunch. Very quiet and modern. I throughly enjoyed the chef making our food right in front of us. The Yu Choy and Croquettes were amazing. We ordered almost all of the hand rolls but my favorite was the sea bream over the salmon which is usually my favorite fish. I thought the tamago had a bit too much truffle for my taste but still good. They even let us order a dinner menu item for lunch. Overall it was delicious and I will return. read more

Omai Restaurant - Yu Choy - Japanese Near Me - Toronto, Ontario

Everything we had was very good, but was quite pricey. My personal favourite was the pork belly. Our bill came out as $80ish but we were still very hungry. read more

I had a few different items there, but definitely the temaki was the best. Really fresh fish. It's a pretty small place and the Temaki come out very fast, they make it right in front of you. The Soondog was a pretty unique taste and it got me pretty full. Would definitely go again. read more

Lovely atmosphere and a great selection of sake. Stopped in for dinner and had the shrimp and the egg hand rolls which were very good. Loved the seaweed they use for their rolls. We also had the tartare and that was really tasty as well. Cute little spot worth a visit. read more