There is a new izakaya in town! It is called Dondon (means more in Japanese). It is on the 2nd floor though at Dundas and Bay so I wonder how well they will do.
I called their number at around lunch and was told that they do not take same-day reservation. I wonder why that is? But I guess they are still at their soft opening stage so they wanna limit the amount of people who go there. We took our chance and still went downtown and see whether it would worth a visit on a Saturday night.
There is about 5 half-flights of stairs to get to Dondon. But they do have an elevator as well. I did not realize it is so close to Kenzo the ramen place and Japango! Their entrance has a drum which they would hit to announce when every visitor comes. Kinda cool but also LOUD....
They must have spent a lot to decorate the room coz it looked very nice. I did not take a photo from outside but it looked quite stunning with all the sake tub. I still think it would be better to have the restaurant on ground level though....
Vince ordered a small bottle of unfiltered sake （東西雪娘）and I ordered a 3 oz glass of Takara umeshu. I kinda like how Fin presented the sake in a nice Japanese style holder than a cold looking metal one used here :P
They have their menu stapled on photocopies right now, like when we visited Juu Izakaya a long while ago. I hope they have a decent printed version soon!
Our first round of food is below:
Edamame with friends $3
Soymilk tofu with soy skin $4
Takowasa $3.5
Buns wish melt-in-the-mouth pork $8
Yakitori set for $6 (bacon wrapped asparagus, bacon wrapped king mushroom, quail eggs, chicken....but look at the middle piece it was quite burnt, and gizzard)
So far so good. The Soymilk tofu is a signature dish of Daisuke-san from Keiseki Sakura. He is the head chef at Dondon now I believe. The Takowasa is on the small size though. But there is never enough takowasa for me haha!
Vince's unfiltered sake....
I have not had kushiage for some time and here they offer a set which is $12. I find it a bit pricey but you do get a variety of items like cheese, sausage, even cherry tomato here!
The warayaki salmon is pretty good. I find the size of the fish small though so at $11.9 it is not cheap. Though I have to say the quality is good.
The saba is blowtorched by the table, just like Fin Izakaya. I do find the portion small again but the quality of the fish seems to be fresher.
The kitchen is on fire! I think it is pretty entertaining and the room decor is very nice, comfy and welcoming. It has not be overly loud and disturbing for me like the second location of Guu was. OMG I swear I would not walk into the Guu on Bloor anytime soon. That place was too loud for me my ears were ringing for a long time afterwards.
Our second round of food above!
Another yakitori set. Forgot to mention we chose tare for all. We also got their wasabi flavored seaweed chips but I could not taste any wasabi there. I find a bit overly salty but may be it is good to go with beer. We ordered another warayaki dish but this time it was hamachi and was tasty too. It is more expensive thou at $13.9. And the last dish to come was the pickled salmon which was just meh.
We also ordered a bowl of Gyudon but it was a bit dry....so nothing to write home about and it was $5 I believe.
We had the black sesame ice cream to finish off. It is not your usual Hime-brand of black sesame ice cream and it is almost pitch black! Nice sesame flavor but just wish it is a bit less sweet. Also seems like they have pre-scooped them to the bowl so it came a bit hard and hard to dig in at first.
Since Dondon has not had their grand opening yet, there are still things that I believe they could do better. But their service has been pretty good. The menu does not have a lot of items which can fill you up though (the pork bun is pretty small...we did not try their tokyo hotdog though). I think they should include some filling food in the menu because I think my husband felt as though he ate nothing after the meal haha.