y North American standards, Toronto has increasingly become a first-rate sushi town. Fish-fans can choose practically any two-block stretch and get a selection of fine (and some not so fine) sushi spots. Some of the best are still long-time contenders (i.e. Kaiseki-Sakura, Nami, and Hiro) while other little spots tend to come and go. Yuzu, a just-opened venture on Adelaide Street has entered the sushi race; while it doesn't quite reach the upper echelon, it is an ambitious entry to the scene.

Curiously located at the end of the club-land strip, Yuzu may not look enticing from the street, but when you walk in the door you know it's the real deal. Endearingly, cheerful, hard-working staff scurry by with platters of colourful raw things. The décor is basic prescription sushi house: simple, airy, suffused with uncluttered table settings, and accented by a polished wood bar. The kind adjective is "bland," though others might counter with "cramped." One way or another, this restaurant somehow manages to fit a well-drewsed crowd into a long and narrow space. It's a true small-budget treasure.

The food ranges from straightforward udon chow to surprisingly good sushi plates. The Sunomono Salad ($3.50) is crabmeat and long harusame clear nodles (great tasting if hard to chopstick) with a light dressing. The Wakame seaweed salad ($4.99) is tossed with sesame oil, soy sauce, and sesame seeds. Other starters include four or five sushi sampling plates and tempura shrimp dishes. There's nothing fancy about the tempura; it's just vegetables in a light tempura batter. What sets Yuzu's version apart isn't the quality of the ingredients, which is excellent, but the sheer size of the dishes. If you finish an entire order, congratulate yourself.

Moving on to the sushi-house litmus test: maki. A single roll ranges in price from $4 for the meaty avocado option to $14 for the more exotic lobster-tail version and is meant to be ordered as an entrée. With generously overstuffed slices delivered with a small side salad, you won't need much more.

The Negi Sake Maki has slices of sashimi-grade salmon spiced on one edge and supplemented with green onion; it's pretty bland, despite the spice, and it's difficult to pick up, even with a fork. The Salmon shin maki fared much better. Served raw, this salmon is even texturally richer than some tuna. The Spider Maki ($12) has the usual beautiful soft shell crab texture with avocado.