You could be forgiven if you heard the name Toro and concluded that the restaurant is a Spanish one done up on a matador theme. But just as logically, Toro in Newtown is a pan-Asian restaurant with a really good sushi bar. Its name is based on the fatty part of the tuna that is highly prized by sushi aficionados. And that’s no bull.
A tony town located to the east of Danbury, Newtown has not entirely rolled out the welcome mat to Hat City residents, even though a good number hold service positions there. Consider it a public service if I warn that the town is aggressively patrolled by a white unmarked police vehicle eager to pull people over for failed tail lights, tinted glass or any other irregularities that suggest out-of-town origins.
Assuming you have inspected your car thoroughly from top to bottom, Toro is a worthy destination. The restaurant is spacious and attractive in a contemporary sort of way. Toro bills itself a Japanese, Chinese and fusion restaurant, but the term “pan-Asian” is actually more accurate than “fusion.” Much confusion surrounds these two terms, but Asian fusion means that multiple Asian cuisines are blended within a particular dish, whereas a menu that offers representative dishes from a number of Asian countries should be termed pan-Asian. Toro offers fairly standard fare from Japan, from China and even from Thailand. The closest Toro gets to fusion is in some of its sushi items (e.g. Cajun tuna tataki), but when sushi is adventurous and non-traditional, we generally term it “nouveau.”
From the Chinese side of the menu, we tried spicy shrimp with peanuts.
While ideally the peanuts should have been stir-fried separately in peanut oil until lightly browned and then added in at the end, rather than having been added in raw toward the end, the reality is I can’t name any Connecticut restaurants offhand that get this right. Putting aside the carping of someone who’s cooking specialty is Szechwan, this dish was fresh, tasty and a cut above the fare produced by most Chinese restaurants.
We also tried—but I forgot to photograph—a shrimp and vegetable tempura and the accompanying bowl of miso soup. Few non-Japanese-owned restaurants get either of these Japanese dishes right, so I use them as a benchmark. As I recall, Toro’s miso soup was spot on. The tempura shrimp and vegetables came very close. With tempura, the batter, the cooking temperature and the timing are critical, and most restaurants don’t clear the first hurdle. In Toro’s case, the tempura batter was first-rate and the oil was heated to the correct temperature. Unfortunately, the shrimp and vegetables were pulled from the hot oil a few seconds too early, leaving them slightly doughy. They were still better much than most, and my guess is that the kitchen usually gets this dish right.
But the top reason to visit Toro is its sushi, which is the best I have found in the greater Danbury area. Toro is apparently a sibling of Mannen in Ridgefield (which I haven’t tried), whose head sushi chef has a good reputation. From the photos that follow, you can see that we tried a reasonable assortment. Everything that we sampled was first rate. The rice was made perfectly, another common failing of non-Japanese-owned sushi joints. Toro’s fish is delivered daily, it’s of uniformly high quality, it’s cared for properly and the sushi chefs know what they’re doing.
Although I didn’t get to try as many items as I would have liked, Toro put a smile upon my face. Toro put smiles upon these faces, too.
Toro, 28 Church Hill Road, Newtown, 203-364-0099