Photo by ethervision from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. We wanted to start off this challenge with a proclamation, in Japanese, of our deep love of sushi. Unfortunately, all the online translators we tried just came up with a bunch of squares. We're pretty sure the Japanese language has evolved past this, so we're going to have to blame it on our inferior translator-finding skills and move on. Invented as an early form of fast......

Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, the fourth volume in the popular comic book series by Brian Lee O'Malley, hits stores across the city today. We feel confident in saying that there has never been a person in the history of time who hasn't liked this series. The fact that Scott Pilgrim is set entirely in Toronto only makes it more appealing: live vicariously through the characters as they eat dynamite rolls at New Generation......

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Toronto Japanese Short Film Festival opens its doors tonight and runs until Sunday at the Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Avenue). The theme of this year’s festival is “Life is short, work hard!” and is explored throughout the festival’s programming, beginning tonight at 6.30 p.m. with the Momo (Japanese for “peach”) program. The program begins with a couple of hilarious shorts from Japanese comedy duo the Rahmens, The Japanese......

Eat Me is a regular feature about the nooks and crannies of Toronto's restaurant scene, about the amazing restaurants that are––for some reason––criminally underpatronized. It's pretty easy to find sushi places in this city. From the Bloor Street strip to North York, sushi places range from suspiciously cheap to ridiculously expensive, from having incredibly creative culinary creations to the same old rolls. Quietly tucked on the east edge of Little Italy is Jun Jun Sushi......

“That’s something you won’t find at Loblaws,” said Frank Yip, as he gestured toward the delectable-looking barbecued meats hanging behind glass at the deli. He’s right; though a staple in Chinatown, it’s a tantalizing display that might be unfamiliar to Toronto citizens used to a more typical grocery shopping experience. It’s also the perfect welcome to T&T Supermarket—the new best friend of Portlands-area foodies. Mr. Yip, construction and engineering manager for T&T, was on......

For the long-suffering fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the year 1967 has become synonymous with past glories and forty years of failure. On Saturday night, the surviving members of the last Leaf team to win the Stanley Cup were reunited at the Air Canada Centre for the first time since that storied championship. An Alex Trebek-narrated video tribute began the proceedings, in what turned out to be a relatively simple, modest, and perhaps......

It's tough to get excited about Kikkoman soy sauce bottles. They've been around since 1961, and you find them at every sushi dive in the city. But, at one time, they were the height of tableware innovation, and for that reason, they're included in a new show at the Design Exchange: Japanese Design Today 100. This exhibition, co-presented by the Japan Foundation, celebrates 100 everyday objects that each, in their own way, broke design......

Some residents of the Beach have threatened a legal injunction to stop a local church from housing 12 homeless people one night a week. Merry Christmas to you too, folks… Investigators say that the fire which destroyed Sassafraz restaurant in Yorkville was a caused by a cooking accident. Local sushi restaurant owners are nodding smugly. The Globe and Mail reports that some 850 wanted criminals are at large in Canada, having either escaped from......

The Black Lips and Be Your Own Pet played The Horseshoe last night, and it was one of the most physical and fluid-exchanging shows in quite awhile -- both on and off stage. In no particular order, and without distinguishing which band did what, here are some of the goodies: boy-on-boy action, spitting and swallowing (uh, spit, that is), beer spewing, glass smashing, a certain guitarist jumping into the crowd to make out with......

Everyone's all excited over the reopening of New Generation Sushi, and that's all very well and good, but it seems no one has been paying much attention to the odd goings on, sign-wise, across the street at Sushi Time: First of all, it seems to have been renamed either J-Time or I-Time - it's hard to tell. This doesn't help in clearing anything up - we're even more confused, what with the old name plainly......

Don't have plans for Mother's Day? Why don't you take your mother to the newly reopened New Generation Sushi. Torontoist was sad to see the Annex stalwart get gutted by fire in December but we're happy to see NGS back on its feet. All we have to say is Kampai (that's cheers in Japanese).......

Ban there, done that. In lieu of the City of Chicago's ban on foie gras, Toronto and our various bans seem a lot less authoritarian. In fact, we would venture to say our city is substantially lagging in the ban game. To make ourselves feel better about this, Torontoist has put together a list of memorable bans, almost bans and future bans for the city. Since there is no comprehensive list of banned items (that......

The Star reports that the TTC and eight other crime enforcement agencies have made another arrest in a huge scam involving fake TTC tokens. Mississauga mayor/overlord (overlady?) Hazel McCallion is indestructible. Her car hits a light pole and not only does she escape serious injury she also doesn't miss a beat and keeps on working. Councillor Karen Stintz accuses the city of prostituting itself to developers. Which now begs the question, who's the city's pimp?......

The delightful Jill Murray overheard the following at Sweet Lulu this weekend: J. Crew Dad (blue collared shirt, brown blazer): Maybe next year we can go for sushi. J.Crew Daughter (pink collared shirt, pink sweater): Ew, I don't know... J.Crew Son (beige collared shirt, beige sweater): You know what we should do? We should try a new ethnic food every year.......

New Generation Sushi, a mainstay of the Annex neighbourhood, has closed due to a fire accident. At post time, there are not many details as to the severity or cause of the fire - only that occurred within the last few days. The Japanese restaurant will now begin restoration and renovation "until further notice." The unfortunate closure has attracted the sympathy from surrounding businesses, who've sent neon poster board 'get well' cards on display in......

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Loud Sushi on Bloor patron 'bragging' to his dining partner: I got nominated and came in 2nd for best part-time faculty at York. We appreciate the consistency in his mediocrity. He probably orders his wings extra medium.......

The Bloor Cinema is heavy with festivals so shortly after the celebration of its 100th birthday, with The One-Minute Film and Video Festival starting tonight,as blogged below, and last night’s opening night gala of the Reel Asian Film Festival, The Motel. Michael Kang’s debut is a strange little indie film set in the depths of the nowhere, USA that most Americans know – endless freeways linking motels and other road side ‘attractions’, with the......

A couple of months back Torontoist wrote about the sushi stretch on Bloor Street. Our readers weighed in recommending favourite places and eventually went to the other extreme and raved about fish and chip places they liked. Recently, Toronto Life contributor Ryan Bigge followed up on our observations and wrote up a chart for the most recent issue. Sadly much of this chart was hacked because of space constraints. Fortunately for us here's Bigge's cheeky......

TOist's peaceful sushi lunch was somewhat disrupted by an overly enthusiastic response to his dining partner's admission that it was her time of the month. Guy who is maybe a bit too easily impressed: I just think, WOW, it's this AMAZING that your body does! I mean, my body doesn't have any kind of monthly cycle!......

Advance copies of Toronto Life are telling us that TOist gets the big mention in a media column on blogs by the grand Fulf himself. We're not the best seat in his house, just a site that 'nails some of Toronto's clichés,' while still lacking a bit of a voice. But we're young and mute, so it may take us a while. The rest of Fulford's piece discusses Andrew Coyne's decision to ban comments, Zerb's......

Le Mercredi Mixtape returns. Yep, it's *sixeyes sharing music on Torontoist with you the Torontoist readers. So, put a plug in it, plug in and listen up while Torontoist plugs some recent discoveries and some favourites. 1. Kyle Andrews - "Sushi" Nashville indie-pop upstart, Kyle Andrews, sounds like he's having fun telling us about a Sushi bar and asking, "You gonna save me or not?" Uh, will listening over and over save you? Then,......

Bloor Street, between Spadina and Bathurst, was already the go-to-it stretch for cheap sushi, and free green tea ice cream. But the past few weeks have helped the sashimi strip up the ante even further - two new Japanese restaurants, which brings the tally to an impressive eight restaurants in about as many blocks. They're all on the cheap to reasonable side to begin with, so TOist has to wonder how low the pricewars will......

This week marks the countdown to next weekend’s opening of the much-anticipated and much-debated Massive Change exhibit at the AGO. Everyone has criticized Mau’s bizarrely utopian and woolly optimism. Mau’s 2001 book, Life Style, focused on shaping design’s role in individual lives, recognizing that ‘lifestyle’ in the post-war period had come to be defined solely in terms of consumptive patterns rather than class or occupation. The argument was loosely patched together by brilliant aesthetic design......

You either stumble upon it or have to hunt for it, and it seems you either love it or you hate it. The unassuming Shanghai Cowgirl Diner is either a great hit or a bad miss. Lucky for us, Torontoist has had only good times at the trendy late night spot on Queen West. Open till 4am on weekends, it's a great place to stop in for a reliable meal or decent drink any......

Two shows are opening in previews in Toronto today and –- to either the delight or the dismay of those who have been complaining lately about the under-representation of women on the city’s stages -- they are both written by female playwrights. Keira Loughran's Little Dragon, a story about a Chinese-Canadian woman who is introduced to martial arts and begins to suspect that Bruce Lee may be her father, is at Theatre Passe-Muraille, while Claudia......

The scene: Torontoist was walking by the school kid sushi shop of choice, Sushi on Bloor, when a wonderful and strange conversation fell over our ears. Four amiable geeks engaged in very loud discourse outside the resto. It all went something like this: Guy 1:The tabs are like so awesome! Guy 2: Dude, I hate those effin' tabs! Guy 3: You can make the tabs go away, you know, man! Guy 4: Yeah, dude. What......

Ontario sushi-lovers declared victory yesterday, as the Ontario government relented on its "take no prisoners" approach to sushi preparation. As previously reported on Torontoist, the Ontario government was talking tough on the Japanese delicacy, saying it had to be frozen for seven days prior to consumption. Recognizing the dumbness of the plan, Health Minister George Smitherface had this to say: "Upon reflection, the medical officer of health said the regulation will be revoked and it......

Reports are surfacing this morning that the city blew $850K on hotel rooms for the homeless that were never used. What can we say? Bummer. Total Bummer. What a shame that the city entered into such a ridiculous arrangement, one that best resembles charging policies at All-You-Can-Eat sushi nights, where you pay for what you can't eat. And all this leftover sashimi at a time when city shelters were full to bursting. It makes Torontoist......

The Ontario government has a new message for the province's unfrozen raw fish: You can swim, but you can't hide! Starting Jan. 1, 2005, Ontario will take a swipe at the illness known as anisakiasis by banning unfrozen raw fish in restaurants. Unfrozen raw fish (street name: "sushi") can very rarely carry a parasitic roundworm that burrows into the stomach or intestine. The Ontario crackdown on unfrozen raw fish will force the sushi chefs to......