Eating Live Octopus at Gonoe!

Gonoe Japanese Sushi

Location: 5 Glen Cameron Road, Thornhill

Access: Along YRT, Viva and TTC bus route, public parking available

Price: $15-$30

Blogsters' Rating: 4/5

Gonoe is located in a plaza among many other Asian restaurants and marketplace. Owned and Operated by Korean, Gonoe serves Japanese cuisine along with several Korean dishes.

As this restaurant is so popular, it is always packed. We went on a weekend and could not make a reservation and waited around 45 minutes for a table for 5.  

Tempura Appetizer

The assorted tempura appetizer includes your typical shrimps and vegetables like cucumber, sweet potato. It is deep fried to perfection with a very well done crispy breaded coating. The only complain would be that the shrimp was not fresh. 

Side Dishes

Like your typical Korean restaurant, Gonoe serves a few side dishes. We got kimchi, japchae (glass noodles), broccoli and pickled radish. Something to clear the palette between different dishes. We also each got a salad as a starter.  

Grilled Black Cod

One of our favorite hot dishes of the night. Accompanied by a lot of vegetables and a bowl of rice. The black cod was flavored perfectly with a very smooth and soft texture by the well preserved oil from the fish itself. The natural oil of the fish makes it very moist.

 

Flounder Sashimi (Small)

Served beautifully on a bed of shaved radish with an assorted variety of leafy vegetables, the flounder sashimi is one of the most popular dishes at Gonoe. There are a few different ways to eat the flounder sashimi, you can either eat it dipped in your typical soy sauce and wasabi or wrapped in lettuce with miso paste, garlic slices and jalapeno. We found the flounder sashimi to be a little chewy because of its tendons so it was rather difficult to eat as a wrap. Although we only ordered a small platter, it was quite a large portion and we got bored of eating it after a while. So it's best if you order it with more people. It was nonetheless very fresh and tender but not our favorite dish and probably won't order it again. 

 

Live Octopus Sashimi

The highlight of our night of course was the octopus sashimi. This has got to be the freshest yet most challenging way to eat an octopus - while it's "alive" and moving. With this dish, we are mainly eating the tentacles, it is served diced up on a small plate with dipping sauce that contains sea salt and sesame oil. While the octopus itself doesn't have much taste to it, the dipping sauce gave it a light salty flavor that brought out the sweetness of the fresh octopus. It also has a very unique chewy texture that is softer than its cooked version. It might seem slimy and disgusting to some people but it doesn't actually feel that way once it's inside your mouth. Do be careful though to chew thoroughly or the tentacles might get stuck in your throat with their suction cups!  

 

Assorted Sushi and Sashimi Boat (Medium)

Filled with freshness from the sea, this boat consists of a good mix of sashimi, sushi and rolls including Salmon, Tuna, Snapper, Surf Clam, Octopus, Hiring, BC Tuna and Hamachi, Eel, Shrimp, California Roll, Dynamite Roll . The sashimi is very fresh to taste and have beautiful colors and evenly distributed fat.     

We had quite a lot of fun eating at Gonoe. Although the wait was a bit long, we enjoyed the food very much, which made the wait worthwhile. We highly recommend you to go try out this restaurant if you happen to be in Toronto! It's one of the few places that serve quality live octopus and fresh sashimi. We hope you enjoy your time at Gonoe as much as we did!