Todai Today

Not wanting to ruminate in front of a computer today, I accompanied the Condiment Queen to the edge city around Woodfield for some errands. We thought about Shaw's but ended at Todai the chain "seafood" restaurant in the mall. Think you come to this place for the all you can eat sushi? Maybe. But really come to Todai for the cookies. I do not know if I have had finer cookies in a restaurant.

We arrived at Todai a few minutes before opening. Not only does this negate too much waiting, it gets you a loud greeting and a bow from the staff. Then, one by one they lead you past the stations: desserts (try our special tofumitzu we were told), tempura, noodles, soup, hot food, fruit, salads and the reason for most other people, the sushi. My instinct said to start with hot foods, that with a buffet nothing hot could really be that good soon. Yet, my sense of meal decorum made me eat some salads first. Then the hot foods. Then the sushi. Then the cookies.

Last week on the listserve that a lot of Chicago foodies subscribe, there was debate on the nature of Asians in a restaurant as a mark of splendor. Todai would be the ideal location for the dueling positions to duke it out. For one thing, the majority Asian clientele was clearly to my trained eye not soley Japanese. It represented a mix of peoples. For another thing, what do all these people know about food? Clearly, Todai speaks to various Asian sensibilities, some I understand, some remain hidden to me. The place is large, bright, technologically advanced and designed to the extreme. All it is missing is some Pokemon cards and a few hello kitty tchotkes to complete the scene. It seems a bit Vegas too, but having been to Asia and having been to Vegas, I know the difference.

OK, does Asian sensibilities mean fake crab and small shrimp. Todai uses a lot of both. I avoided the former and handled the latter fried twice as tempura and with breading fine. Most of the sushi tasted fine too. The kind of sushi that tastes very fine as all you can eat, but maybe not what you want at Katsu or Heat. The sushi selection included conch, mackerel with lemon zest, squid, snapper and a few other things that made this more than just combination A, so I liked also the fact that I could sample. Of the salads, they achieved about a 33% success rate, which is astonishing low for salad, stick with the winners, seaweed and cucumber and shredded cabbage. I took small samples of filet mignon with broccoli, chicken tempura and green lip mussels in the very Asian style of hot mayo, and as small samples, they were fine. None of that stuff would be worth a meal. Still, what I liked most about Todai, and most makes me want to return, the cookies and other desserts.

Know what? I skipped the tofumitzu (but could not resist another chance to say tofumitzu--if you know me as well as Ms. VI or the chowhounditas, you might know that I'm gonna spend the rest of the night, maybe the rest of the weekend saying tofumitzu.) I did not skip much else on the sweet table. Those used to mochi and fried green tea ice cream may be surprised by the dessert aesthetic in Asia. What Japan did once to European cars, they have also done with European desserts. Re-created them, yet accentuated the absolute details. Little jewels of cheesecake, cherry tart and almond bars seemed far better than their models. No place, however, does Japan out France France though is in the cookies. Dream cookies. Cookies that linger over your tongue for seconds then evaporate into thousands of molecules of chocolate, sugar and butter, so much butter.

Sushi and cookies, perhaps my execution menu.

Todai is in the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL

I've been three times now with a friend who loves the place, seeing as I'm treating him and it is his choice, we go.

Each time is better than the last, maybe I'm becoming good at picking out the few decent items.

I still will never be a huge fan as they deleted lobsters which the other Todais carry (or at least used to).

The deserts are good, I like the mini creme brulee

I also really like the crepes, the crepe guy there amazes me with his ability to turn out perfect crepes with nothing more than a little ladle and a straight icing knife. I weep at the prospect of making Swedish pancakes for the family...I made a batch once about ten years ago perfectly and that about the last time I've had better tha na 25% sucess rate!

I like the sushi, I'm no sushi guru and while I would LOVE to try Katsu, I'm now on my 6th week of unemployment so that's a far off dream. So is Todai come to think of it, but hey thems the breaks.

I did have lunch at LSC in Westmont on the way to an interview in Lisle yesterday. Their Szechwan fish filet lunch special has got to be one of THE best deals around.

What a to-do Todai today....

(I just felt it had to be said.)

How expensive is Todai? I ask because there is a japanese/korean mostly sushi buffet out in Lisle that I tried once. Pretty mediocre, but even at that, fairly pricy (maybe $12 at lunch) compared to other meals. So I had this value problem, even if there were a few pleasant items.

But, as I have said before, I am growing less and less happy with buffets of any form.

The cost of dinner at Todai is $23.95, lunch is $12.95, I believe.

I ate there Saturday night and the food was not as good as it had been in the past three times. There was enough good food to make it worth while.

jlawrence01 wrote:I ate there Saturday night and the food was not as good as it had been in the past three times. There was enough good food to make it worth while.

That is my total sentiment. A lot of things good enough far outweighed the fact that in total it was all just above average

Like Fogo de Chao, at lunch it really is a bargain though. Really, I can eat $14 worth of their desserts.

Fogo de Chao is ~$26 bucks for lunch. I realize you can get a lot for your money but still, not exactly a great lunch deal. I may just go to Todai today...depends on how i feel in the next half hour.

I have yet to go to Fogo de Chao as the price tag at dinner is $40. I have had my fill of rodizio-style restaurants in my trips to Salt Lake City and Las Vegas at $15-22 for dinner. I just don't think that I would get my $$$ worth.

Last week I finally made the trek to Woodfield to visit Todai. What a pleasant surprise!! The buffet was excellant. They had soups, noodle dishes, teriyaki dishes and other cooked foods, but the piece de resistance for me was the sushi and maki. There was a large variety of sushi, including maguro, hamachi, ebi, tai, masago, etc, etc. There was a similar variety of maki. The fish in the sushi was fresh. It was cut a little thinner than some sushi restaurants, but since its all-you-can-eat it doesn't matter. If the price were $2 per piece like many sushi places, I had about $50 worth of sushi and maki for only $12.95 at lunch.

Also, confirming the quality was the large number of Japanese present at lunch, many of whom were speaking only Japanese.

Prices are $12.95 Mon-Fri, 14.95 Sat/Sun Lunch; and $22.95 Mon-Thur, $23.95 Fri-Sun.

Todai
E109 Woodfield Shopping Center
Schaumburg, IL
847-619-1088

HI,

There are rumors Todai will be opening a 2nd location at Old Orchard, so far Todai's website doesn't reflect that.

Time will tell.

Hi Cathy,

That would be a wonderful addition to the Old Orchard dining scene, because I go by there at least twice a week.

Jesper

Todai today-- to die! Sorry, I couldn't resist that.

I just got back from lunch at Todai and while it was not quite to die for, it seems like a very good lunch option to me. I had two kinds of seaweed salad, eight or nine pieces of sushi and a lot of poke, which was made with watercress and seseame seeds. The nigiri sushi is a bit of a mess, with pieces of fish balanced precariously on the rice-- about what you would expect at that price, but another time I may stick with rolls. The nigiri had less rice to fish ratio than most sushi I'm used to. It all tasted fine and seemed very freshly made. The pieces are not too big (my main problem with a lot of buffet sushi) and there is indeed quite a nice variety. I very much appreciated the fact that all foods were clearly labeled. There are some sushi ingredients I don't like at all, and it's nice not to find that you've taken some by mistake.

I wanted to try some hot foods and especially the cold tofu salad, which looked pretty good, but I was defeated by the large pile of poke I had taken. I settled for a couple of cold mussels which were blissfully mayonnaise-free.

Thanks so much for the tip on the desserts! They are very good. I had green tea cake with red bean paste, cheesecake and two excellent chocolate cookies. All desserts are tiny.

It was crowded today, but service was excellent with used dishes taken away promptly, and they kept the free refills of iced green tea coming.

From my experience, Todai is better on SLOW nights. They keep the food fresh and well stocked. On weekend nights, the place is generally jammed and the food quality drops considerably ... except for the desserts.

After a meeting in deepest suburbia I decided to kill a little time at Woodfield. Odds of finding something interesting were slim, but then I remembered Todai, which was just interesting enough, as the Japanese answer to Old Country Buffet, to be worth a try.

To sum up: not a ripoff, as my worst case scenario feared.

Sushi is pretty good for what it is, that is, somewhat sloppily made, supermarket-level sushi. Fresh and okay quality, though the salmon sure ain't tiger-striped with fat, more Costco than Katsu, for instance. Still, I was impressed to see things like clam on offer (which they aren't at Jewel or Whole Foods). I think if you focused on sushi you would find this, especially at lunch prices, a good deal.

Desserts were the other highlight, not that they're great, but they're better than the average Polish buffet's, you can't be unhappy about the prospect of a free run at a dozen different nice looking desserts.

Other things I found problematic. Tempura and such hot fried things would be good if you caught them right when they came out, less so if they've been sitting there for 10 minutes. The salads are somewhat impressive by an OCB (Old Country Bast-- er, Buffet) standard (eg., salad with blue cheese) but my desire to get to try some unusual things I'd never tried at Japanese restaurants wasn't really satisfied by the pretty ordinary, American-friendly stuff on offer. And a couple of things which even Panda Express can do well, like chicken teriyaki, were pretty lousy.

Final verdict: it's possible to eat decently here, and feel like you beat the system, but you could eat better sushi for about the same price (though not in the same quantity) elsewhere in the Woodfield-to-Mitsuwa area. I'd go here for lunch if I worked near here, probably not again since I don't, but at least compared to other Asian buffets, which isn't saying much, Todai looks pretty good.

Mike G wrote:Desserts were the other highlight, not that they're great, but they're better than the average Polish buffet's, you can't be unhappy about the prospect of a free run at a dozen different nice looking desserts.

Not great

I go to Todai just for the desserts. I find some of the stuff, some of the tarts, especially the cookies, about as good as at any commercial bakery in Chicago. I mean as good as Fox and Obel, Bittersweet, etc.

Not that long ago, we tried Todai for dinner. At first it seemed worth the extra money as there was crab legs, oysters, sashimi and other stuff that seemed to make the extra money a non-issue. Yet, by the end of the meal, I found most of that extra stuff, including god awful oysters, to be of such low quality that I did not feel it worth it. In other words, great deal at lunch for $15 or so, terrible deal at dinner at $25 or so. It's all relative...

I guess I meant on average. A couple were quite good, a couple of others were cardboardy and institutional. Any idea where they come from?