The Sunday Star, January 10 1988

"Mye has the cure for Fishaphobia"
By David Kingsmill
Star food writer

When I walked into Mye Japanese Restaurant in Oakville last week, the place was virtually empty. A man and a woman sat at the small sushi bar nibbling and they were the only ones in the place.

When you go into a restaurant, and it's empty, two things pop to mind: The place is either lousy or nobody knows about it. In this case, however, I suspect no one was there, because of fishaphobia. It wasn't because the pace was lousy. Couldn't be, actually, because Mye Japanese Restaurant is a treasure.

The place is white, white, and pine. Pristine and exuding the civility of eating that only the Japanese can; a rude word never stains the clean walls or polished wood of a Japanese restaurant.

A Japanese restaurant is also artistry, particularly in the food. Delicate strands of rice are coated in a tempura batter, shaped into a fan, fried and placed as a screen across the rest of the tempura plate. The batter coating straightened shrimp, onions, carrots, eggplant and peppers is as thin as gauze, as crispy as phyllo, and the ingredients under it are the finest.

The California roll glistens and spreads it's avocado and spring onion shoots upwards like a structure of beautiful proportion and grace.
The yellowtail sushi is precisely cut, firmly fresh, and arches over perfect rice and a healthy slash of hot wasabi.
Octopus is rarely this tender.

The beef sizzles. It's tender beyond the necessary, aged beyond the norm. Miso soup is of a superior broth flattered with seaweed, spring onions and curd.

If anything, the menu does not do the place justice. It gives the unmistakable impression that this is Oakville and thus expensive. Only five "meals" are listed: Sushi ($23.20), tempura ($22.50), steak ($21), sukiyaki ($55 for two) and the shokado ($22.30). But the meals are full ones and you can order sashimi alone for $15, or the vegetable tempura for $13.

Of all, the shokado box, a sampling of virtually everything beautifully arranged in a stunning lacquered box, is the ultimate. Dinner for two with sake will run $50 or $60. But it's worth every penny. And the Mye Japanese Restaurant should be mandatory therapy for fishaphobics.