Oyakodon (“parent and child” rice bowl) is a delicious and popular Japanese meal that more Torontonians should know about. Most typically found on a residential kitchen table or a casual cafeteria, you won’t find it on the menu of izakayas, sushi joints, or ramen shops. It gets its name from the combination of chicken and egg combination that are the feature of this dish.

Fresh chicken is stir fried with soy sauce (GF) and free-run eggs, then garnished with scallions, gobo-kinpira (a savoury-sweet mix of braised carrot & burdock root), and homemade chili okazu (a spicy chili oil condiment). It’s all piled on top of a bowl of Japanese haiga-mai, a short-grain, half-milled rice that’s somewhere between brown rice and white rice, and especially healthy. There will also be a vegetarian version with mushrooms & tofu instead of chicken.
$12 (tax in)
(vegetarian & gluten-free options)

Add a bowl of homemade miso soup +$2

For Dessert there’s fun Jewish-Japanese mashup: wa-hamentashen. Hamentashen are small triangular pastries eaten around the festival of Purim, traditionally stuffed with poppy seeds or prune jam. Jess’ will be flavoured with matcha (Japanese green tea) and stuffed with an anko (sweet red bean paste) filling.
$1.50

Jess Mantell is a designer turned entrepreneur who, after seven years of living in Japan, has returned to her hometown of Toronto with a deep appreciation of the seasonal and regional flavours, fresh ingredients, and nutritional merit of wa-shoku (Japanese food). She has brought her passion and knowledge together in the creation of Abokichi, a Japanese-inspired food business.

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Every Friday we invite guest chefs – amateur or professional – to come share their favourite dishes at The Depanneur.