Shiso Tree Cafe

A bunch of my friends and I decided to meet at Shiso Tree Cafe (J-Town) on Friday night because we haven't seen each other in such a long time.  The type of food Shiso Tree Cafe serves is Japanese style Italian pasta (Wafu).  I had no idea such a thing existed.  The definition of Wafu: pasta cooked in a japanese style or to japanese tastes (as opposed to a western style).  I was in for an awesome night!

When we walked in, we immediately saw a board that listed the specials.  We looked at the specials and took a peek at the regular menu and most of us decided to order off tthe specials menu.  All the pasta dishes come standard with a salad with wafu dressing and slice of garlic toast.  You also had the option of making it a full meal by adding $7 for a soup and a slice of cake for dessert.  The cakes I hear are not actually made by the cafe but brought over from Bakery Nakamura (J-Town).

For our appetizers we ordered the Nori Fries and Fries with Tartar Sauce.  Both delicious freshly cut fries, not from frozen.  The Nori Fries were supposed to be dressed with wafu dressing topped with shreds of nori.  However none of us could taste the wafu dressing.  The Fries with Tartar Sauce were the same fries as above topped with a large amount of home made tartar sauce.  Most of us loved the sauce, minus the one that normally dislikes mayo.

While we were chomping on our fries, the soups arrived for the ones that ordered the combo set.  There was only one soup option which was the soup of the day.  The waiter never mentioned what it was when he set it down so we figured we could take guesses after we tried it.  None of us had a clue.  It was green, undersalted, and super creamy. 

Soon after, our salads arrived.  Just normal mixed greens with shredded carrots on top.  The so called 'wafu' dressing tasted a bit like soy sauce, vinegar, and seasame oil.  I liked the salad quite a bit because the dressing was very light and not like the normal salad doused in dressing in normal Japanese restaurants.

And then the barrage of pastas appeared!  Yum!  We were starving!  And the chance to try a new 'flavor' of pasta was super exciting to me.  The pastas ordered are as below.

Spaghetti with Sake Miso Ginger Sauce & Manila Clams

Shrimp Okonomiyaki Pasta: Spaghetti sauteed with bacon, onions & shrimp dressed like an okonomiyaki pancake.

Sukiyaki: Japanese soy sauce based pasta with thinly sliced rib eye, enoki, king oyster, and shimeji mushrooms.

Unagi-Don: Pasta sauteed in a special teriyaki sauce and shimeji mushrooms, topped with a broiled eel.





The consensus over the pasta was mostly that it was different, and good. Obviously different than your normal pastas.  My pasta (Spaghetti with Sake Miso sauce) unfortunately was inedible, overly salty.  It was like eating spoonfuls of salt.  I took two bites and couldn't eat anymore.  I'm normally not the type of person to complain about my food, no matter how bad it is, I'll eat it.  But this was inedible.  I told the waiter that my pasta was overly salty and I couldn't eat it.  His response was that he's never heard of such a thing, that this was the first time and the sauce is always consistent.  He then offered to go into the kitchen and tell the chefs.  My dish still sat at the table.  As I watched my friends eat, I ate my garlic toast which was good, as good as garlic toast can be, and kept expecting the waiter to come back and let me know what the kitchen said.  But NOTHING!  No sorry, no apologies at all.  The waiter then came back to clear the plates and then bring a tray of cakes for the two combo diners to choose their desserts.  No mention of my salty pasta.

The slices of cake that we chose were:

Chocolate Cake - Layers of chocolate cake a chocolate mousse filling.  Very chocolately and satifsfying if you are a chocolate lover like I am.  However, hearing so many good reviews about Bakery Nakamura, i was expecting more.  I found the cake layers to be kind of wet and not 'smooth' the texture of it was filled with holes.

 Green Tea & Red Bean Cake - Layers of Green Tea Cake with a layer of whipped cream and a layer of Red Bean mash.  Cake layer texture was like described as above. I'm not a fan of whipped cream as frosting/icing.  The red bean mash was smooth and not overly sweet.  Overall, cake did not have much green tea taste.  The only parts with green tea flavor was where there was green tea dusted on the cake.

Also wanted to mention, while we were having our dessert, the table next to us also waived down the waiter to make a complaint about their pasta dish.  We couldn't hear exactly what the complaint was, but we did hear the waiter say again that this has never happened before etc.  In the end, the boyfriend had to switch his pasta with the girlfriend (the one that made the complaint) and finish the pasta.

Overall, the pastas were interesting, but i'm not sure if I would go back and try any more dishes with the service that I had.  Usually I like to give restaurants at least a second try if the food wasn't the greatest on the first try.  They could have just had an off night.  But when the restaurant does not believe their customer, thats not right!  To this day i'm still not sure if it was my fault for having more sensitive tastebuds or if the kitchen was indeed heavy handed with the salt.  I'm leaning towards the latter just because the next morning I woke up and my face was swollen!  This usually happens when I intake too much salt from the previous night.

Shiso Tree Cafe: 3160 Steeles Ave E. Unit 1
905-479-9319