A healthy strike of the taiko drum greets each customer (Image: Gizelle Lau)
When we first told you about DonDon Izakaya last summer, it was slated for an October opening, but as such things go, it wasn’t until early January that the Japanese restaurant opened quietly after nearly 10 months of renovation. Located on the second storey of an unassuming building at Bay and Dundas, DonDon took over the space once occupied by One Up Restaurant & Lounge. Despite the slightly inauspicious upstairs location, it’s already drawing customers (the big wooden entranceway probably helps), but not quite the mad lineups of its izakaya forbear, Guu—a least not yet.
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Seven years after opening its doors in a bank building on King Sreet, Japanese fusion resto-lounge Blowfish is getting ready to do it all over again with a new location in the financial district. The team behind the original spot had been mulling over a second outpost for some time, says co-owner Joseph Siahou (executive chef G.Q. Pan and nightlife impresario Zark Fatah are also back on board). They were eventually convinced by a prime 3,500-square-foot space at the northwest end of the Bay-Adelaide Centre. “A lot of our clientele is from the financial core,” Siahou says. “Ultimately, we felt that’s where the best bang for our buck was.” 
After three new restaurant openings last year (
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