Open Mon. - Wed. from 11 a.m to 10 p.m. Th. - Fri. 11 a.m to 11 p.m. Sat. 4-11 p.m. Sun. 3 -11 p.m. Licensed. All major credit cards. 735-8118.
 It’s every restaurant’s bad dream: three food critics coming in en masse, completely unknown to the staff. And there’s no smart maitre d’ with a handful of dog-eared photos and brief descriptions of the food hounds with a promise of “time-and-a-half upon identification” working that particular shift.
Imagine the nightmare of being under three microscopes: murmured appraisals, judgments, convictions and acquitals just beyond earshot; photos being surreptitiously taken. It’s enough to strike abject terror into the ordinary restaurateur doing a normal Wednesday’s night shift.
This was the situation last night at Masako Sushi, a new little hideaway on Cote des Neiges, slightly off the main drag, near Queen Mary.
Critic “A” is a weatherbeaten, old-time sushi hand, number of makis tattooed in microscript on the eight sides of his travelling chopsticks.
Critic “B” is a Let’s Go, Serve-me-anything-as-long-as-it’s-stopped-moving kind of fellow.
Critic “N” is me, your easygoing 20% tipper and general bon vivant.
Talk about loins being girded, egos being assembled, sharp knives being drawn to quarter the new kid on the chopping block.
Not.
It was actually a very casual, extemporaneous thing, because that’s the atmosphere that permeates Masako Sushi.
Inquiries reveal that the folk here are Cambodian. Three critics immediately demand: why is the food not Cambodian? The answer is that Hea Ny, the owner, feels a spiritual connection with the cuisine of Japan and felt she could do a better job with it, rather than trying to convince a reticent Montreal public to adopt Cambodian cuisine as its next comfort food.
 We three critics had “issues” with that, but then, we critics always have “issues.” But the issue now at hand was glorious, lovingly hand-rolled makis, noris, nigiris, -yakis, and onis (devils—that’s us.)
The place is small. It occupies a space that was once a candle shop but is now a coolly oblong quadrangle of smart design. Rear toro-belly-red walls enclose an intimate room which is divided from the front with translucent glass panels filled with ghostly summer geishas. Little shoji lamps adorn the walls. Tentacle-like halogens illuminate an ethereal mirrored bar replete with modern amphorae of elixirs for everything which ails ye. Johnnie Wakame, anyone?
You are seated in lacquerware-red chairs at impeccably coiffed linen-covered tables. The menu is led by sushi, as it should be.
The Three Critics barely glance at the teriyaki side-dishes.
Critic A: “Ebi (shrimp). And I want Unagi (eel).”
Critic B: “What’s that sea-urchin stuff (Uni)? Can I have some of that?”
I, Critic N, want something with tobiko (&Mac223;ying fish roe).
Critic A doesn’t want the “Chef’s Choice” special (“Why let HIM choose what we want to eat?”) and Critic B gets the salmon caviar, which isn’t quite as horrific as the uni, which tastes like a gallon of seawater distilled into a teaspoon.
Extra unagi is ordered; many things that make their careers under the sea are ordered to the chopping block.
For taste-whetters, there are unctuous gyoza as an appetizer: gentlemanly ground pork served with a home-brew ponzu sauce. A smooth Miso soup. Grill-marked shrimp, robust and smoky, accompanied by taro tempura, crunchily crackle-juicy with an explosive middle. Presentation is excellent.
Breath is held.
The Three Critics applaud!
 There is more saké and anticipation for the pièces de résistance: Quail eggs on roe wrapped in maki. Ooohs and aahs. Special-request tekkyuu-maki (cucumber and tuna rolls,) are out of this world.
Critic A, a noted fish guy, frowns slightly. There is a slight note of fishiness apparent on a couple of the maguro rolls. Breath is held as he samples a quail-egg maki. He smiles! The two other Critics applaud.
The unagi is meltingly smooth, almost obscenely succulent, something that makes the mind irrationally want to hunt down and kill eels and charcoal-broil them on one’s balcony, of course ordering the special sauce from Masako first.
Then there is a remarkable breaking of the Taste Barrier, as we are served with Masako’s specialty Eye of the Dragon rolls. These are amazingly cute-’n-tasty little slabs of inside-out sushi that consist of a tempura-fry outer crust, an orange salmon-mayonnaise layer, crunchy scallions and luminescently scarlet flying fish roe in the center, served with a creamy french-dressing-type sauce, the ingredients for which should be typed out on a piece of paper to be clapped in irons and put in a safe-deposit box for a long, long time.
At the end of the evening, the Three Critics’ sated proclamation: Masako Sushi is ready to battle the big boys. This tiny eatery delivers hugely on the food-as-nectar principle and will serve as a walk-in center for the appeasing of cravings of sushi addicts all over town, hopefully for a long time to come.
Sample menu: Vegetable teriyaki, $8.95; Tempura, $14.95; "Melange Masako" (chicken brochettes, vegetable and shrimp tempura, teriyaki filet mignon) $21.95; take-out (or local delivery) sushi menu averaging about $5.50; lunch specials (miso soup or house salad, 3 sushi and 5 California maki, $9.95, all the way to miso soup or house salad, 5 sushi, 5 sashimi, 4 hosomaki, 5 New York maki, $19.95.)
—Reviewed by Nicholas Robinson
Note: "Critic A" was the late Ashok Chandwani. This was my only and last meal with him. It is my regret that it was the last, because he was great fun to go dining with.
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