Takeout Reco: Mississauga Japanese restaurant has the best chicken donburi
Published January 15, 2022 at 11:00 am
Mississauga’s got a bunch of great Japanese restos, but if you’re longing for something more than all-you-can-eat sushi and maki, then this hidden gem restaurant is definitely worth checking out.
Hiroi Sushi is a small takeout joint located at the corner of Glen Erin Drive and Britannia Road West. The menu has a pretty wide variety of sushi rolls, sashimi, tempura, donburi, and even a “pizza” that features salmon and avocado on deep fried rice.
In case you’ve never had it before, donburi is an assortment of fish, meat, and veggies simmered together and typically served in a bowl of rice (think the Japanese equivalent of a poke bowl). Hiroi’s donburi offerings include Salmon, Deluxe Chirashidon, Spicy Dynamite, and Chicken Katsu Donburi.
THE DISH:
There’s few foods I like better than good chicken, so for this Restaurant Reco I tried the Chicken Katsu Donburi: Fried chicken cutlets with lettuce, seaweed salad, edamame, crab meat, avocado, cucumber, fish eggs, yam tempura, takoyaki, corn, spicy mix, topped with Hiroi spicy mayonnaise and veggie sweet sauce.
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It’s exceedingly rare for a dish to incorporate so many ingredients and have every single one of them taste amazing, but Hiroi’s Chicken Katsu Donburi definitely makes it onto that exclusive list. This is a delicious and very filling meal, with every ingredient tasting absolutely fresh. The fried chicken cutlets are tender and well-seasoned with crispy sesame seed breading, while the takoyaki (octopus balls) are soft and succulent. The crab is also deliciously crispy and helped round out this dish’s meat offerings.
There’s definitely a lot of green in this dish as well, so it’s a nice option if you’re looking for something more on the healthy side. The avocado and seaweed salad, drizzled in spicy mayonnaise and sweet sauce, are both extremely flavorful and contributed nicely to this dish’s overall combination of tastes. Then there’s of course the soft, fluffy white rice – delicious in its own right, but also a good palate cleanser which helped me pick out and appreciate the flavours of every other ingredient that much more. If you’re craving a big, hearty meal that also offers a ton of variety, then this is the dish for you.
THE UNIQUE:
Donburi is just one of a range of options of Hiroi’s menu, which also has sushi rolls, sashimi, tempura, donburi, and their special Hiroi Sushi Pizza: Spicy salmon and avocado on crunchy deep fried rice. The restaurant is takeout only so don’t expect to dine indoors here, but on the other hand that means it’s been completely unaffected by the province’s current indoor dining restrictions.
THE VERDICT:
Hiroi Sushi is definitely one of the city’s better Japanese restaurants, and while all of the donburi options look great, I would highly recommend trying the Chicken Katsu Donburi.
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