Izakaya Ju Japanese - Markham

Stumbled across this restaurant on a Thursday night. Service is great, staff is super friendly. Food came out fresh and piping hot! Everything we tried was amazing.

Izakaya Ju is one of the most traditional izakaya place located in J town.  Many of the new izakaya restaurant offers more varieties than this place. However, because of the good review of their eel rice, I pick it for dinner tonight.  We ordered mushroom salad, grilled chicken salad, baked mushroom and oyster with cheese, takoyaki, fish cake, eel rice, ramen, sashimi platter for 2, grilled whole mackerel and vanilla ice cream.  Overall, the quality of food is good.  The eel rice is not as stand out and personally i won't come back because of the eel rice.  Sashimi is fresh and cut is thick.  Fish cake is a bit lack of flavor.  The chicken salad has some surprise, reason to say that is I don't expect such a large portion and very good taste at the price point of $12.  Finally the vanilla ice cream with brown syrup is excellent.  Very special to end with this for a dinner.

Good atmosphere for a meeting with friends. Place is crowded, it makes sense to make a reservation. Service is good. The food looks simple but made very well. The sauces used make it taste very delicious. I tried a lot of dishes and was positively surprised with all of them. Enjoy!

Like a classic Japanese yakitori place, love the vibe there. Had few cold app, skewer platter, fried chicken and takoyaki, all tasted great with no complain. We wanted to order a 720ml sake but they ran out(only had small bottle), so we end up ordering a bottle of Japanese soju. Should have stock more sake for a nice lzakaya like this.

Came here on a quiet Thursday evening for dinner. I made reservations anyways just in case they got busy. (Note: they only take reservations for 6pm 8:30pm, as they are currently only open for dinner. It ended up being pretty quiet, so food was hot, fresh, and delicious. We came with a table of four, so we ordered a few small plates and rice ramen bowls to share. The karage was fried to a crispy perfection, and the inside was moist and deliciously seasoned. The agedashi tofu was hot and a wonderful palate-cleanser. We ordered the mixed set of skewers, both meat and veggie: both were delicious, but I enjoyed the veggie one a bit more. The fried rice was a little heavy, being it covered with mayo, but the contrasting textures of the chewy octopus and the slight crisp of the fresh bonito flakes. The ramen was very refreshing: the broth was light, but full of flavour. Service was amazing. The staff were friendly, efficient and very helpful. I look forward to coming back to try more of their menu.