***½~ (3.5/5)

I was in Yaletown last week looking for a quick bite for dinner, and my friends brought me to Ki-isu Japanese. I didn’t really have a high expectation for Japanese restaurants in Yaletown. I’ve been to one that’s really near by Ki-isu, it was pretty bad. That was before the existence of MePlusFood, and no, I will not return just to write a post about it.

I was pretty tired that day, and a bit lazy on deciding what kind of things I wanted to try here. Good thing there’s always dinner boxes that has pretty much everything. I decided to just get a Dinner Box A with Teriyaki Beef ($13.95).

The appetizer part of the Dinner Box A were miso soup and sunomono. The soup was average, but the sunomono was delicious. It was nicely chilled, the noodles weren’t mushy, it had just the right amount of sourness; a very refreshing dish to start off the meal.

In the actual Dinner Box there were Beef teriyaki with rice, Spicy Tuna & Dynamite Roll, California Roll, Salad, and the Tempura was served on a separate small dish. There was a lot of food.

There were 4 pieces of vegetable tempura and 1 piece of shrimp tempura. They gave me full sushi rolls instead of just 3 pieces of a roll. The Spicy Tuna & Dynamite roll was a bit messy to eat because it was pretty big, it was also pretty tasty. The beef teriyaki was also pretty good, and there was a lot of it. The beef wasn’t over cooked, and the teriyaki sauce wasn’t too sweet.

I don’t remember the last time I ordered a lunch box or a dinner box at a Japanese restaurant, and ordering one here wasn’t a bad idea. I was really full after my meal, and I packed the rest home and ate it for lunch the next day. For the amount of food, I think it was fairly priced. Just to give a prospective on how much food there was in Dinner Box A, the couple at the table next to me shared the same Dinner Box I got, with a side of something else. That was a smart thing to do.

It was a good find in Yaletown, and I’d come back to try some of their pretty looking appetizers.

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Ki-isu Japanese
275 Pacific Blvd
Vancouver, BC V6Z
(604) 899-0366
www.kiisujapanese.com

***~~ (3/5)

The Lion’s Den Cafe has been in business for 10 years, but I only heard of it recently from other food bloggers. A Caribbean cafe with a preserved lion that also serves Okonomiyaki? I am definitely intrigued.

We stopped by the cafe for lunch. From the menu, you will learn the word “Japaribbean”. It means the fusion Japanese and Caribbean food, and therefore explains the existence of Okonomiyaki. The day I went, their daily special was Soul Food. They had cat fish, fried chicken and Jambalaya. I was more in a mood for curry, so I ordered the Curry Goat off the regular menu. My friend ordered the Jerk Chicken, also off the regular menu. I was really hungry that day, before my food arrived my table, I decided to also ordered the Jambalaya to share with my friend.

Food here looks really home made. My Curry Goat came with rice, and corn bread. The Curry Goat looked like there would be a lot of flavor, but it was actually pretty bland. There’s just wasn’t a lot of spices going on. I asked for spicy, but it wasn’t spicy at all. I’ve never had goat before, the meat was pretty tender, but there was more bones than I expected. I couldn’t really taste any goat flavor either. It also felt like the curry was microwaved, because some parts were really hot, and some parts were just lukewarm.

The Jerk Chicken on the other hand, had more flavors going on. It came with 3 chicken drum sticks. The meat was really tender, not dry. It was spicy, but the kind of spicy that builds up slowly. It was delicious.

We ordered the Jambalaya with sausage and shrimp. The Jambalaya here looked different that I am used to. It was probably because it was just sauce on top of rice, instead of everything mixed in together. The sauce was less stewy, it was rather more clear. It was tomatoey, and unlike the Jerk Chicken, you can taste the spiciness right away. And again, more flavorful than the Curry Goat. It was pretty good, but the shrimps didn’t have much flavor.

All 3 dishes came with a side of corn bread, which I liked a lot.

The restaurant had a great relaxing/hipster vibe. The owner had a great attitude, and was super friendly. He goes around to chat with everyone in the restaurant. He could tell if you are a first timer. And if you’re a first timer, he’ll tell you the story of The Lion’s Den Cafe, and will ask you to sign his guest book that he’s had since day one of his restaurant.

The food itself was OK, but the friendliness of the staff definitely added some bonus points to the dinning experience.

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The Lion’s Den Cafe
651 E 15th Ave
Vancouver, BC V5T
(604) 873-4555
www.lionsdencafe.oxyfx.com

***½~ (3.5/5)

Alpha Global is a small little Sushi/Izakaya restaurant slightly off of the heart of Yaletown. I actually haven’t even noticed this place, but I decided to go here for my birthday dinner with my friends. I made a reservation for 12 a week before, and they asked if I could provide them with a list of things we’d want to order because they have a small kitchen and would like to prep some of the food before hand.

We ordered a lot of food! A lot of which I probably don’t remember the name of. To start, I had a spinach goma-ae ($4.50) but was unable to edit because it smelled a lot more peanuty than sesame. I could’ve been wrong, but I didn’t want to take the risk. First, I had the Mozzarella Kushi-Age ($5), which are just breaded-deepfried mozzarella sticks on skewers. It supposedly had a bit of curry and chilli peppers, but I didn’t really taste too much. It was seasoned a bit, but I couldn’t pick up those flavours. It had a nice crispy coating, and gooey cheese inside but it wasn’t too stringy. We ordered three Chicken Kara-Ages ($8.00) and it was pretty good. It was big boneless chunks of chicken deep fried and served separately from the sauce. The chicken was crispy on the outside, and very tender and juicy inside. It was lightly salted, and the sauce was soy sauce based. I prefer the sauces used at Guu and Hapa over this one though. The agedashi tofu ($4.75) was lightly fried, and not too crispy. It was sitting in the sweet sauce so it got a bit soft, but picked up a lot of flavour.

The Italian Spring Roll ($7.50) was filled with mozzarella cheese, tomato and basil. With this one, the roll cooled down a little to fast and the mozzarella was already solidified again, so the texture in your mouth wasn’t very appealing. It also didn’t have much flavour to it. Pumpkin Croquette ($6.00) were decent, but it actually was squash. Inside the crispy exterior it was a very sweet and soft filling. My friends liked Guu’s croquette better because it has the egg inside too. The Beef Sashimi ($9.50) was lightly seared and topped with a ponzu sauce. The sauce was sweet, and the beef was pretty tender, but nothing special. Manzo’s is still my favourite because the beef was a bit thicker, and a lot more tender. I didn’t like the spare ribs, because it was quite chewy and hard to eat off the bone.

They had a bunch of items that weren’t on their online  menu or take out menu so I can’t remember what they are called. We also ordered a few more spring rolls. They had something similar to a california roll sans rice which was wrapped in spring roll paper, fried, and served with a mayo sauce. I enjoyed it but I don’t think my friends did because I ate most of it.

My friends really said the Richards Roll ($10.75) was amazing. It had prawn tempura, tobiko, and cucumber and topped with unagi and avocado with a yummy wasabi mayo sauce. They also ordered the Alpha Roll ($12), Mango Vancouver Roll ($9), and possibly more. Some ordered the Mentaiko Udon ($6.75) which they didn’t enjoy because it was weird. It seemed kind of cheesy.

They had a lot of things that I could eat, i.e, a lot of non-seafood dishes that I haven’t seen at other Izakayas so that’s a bonus. The dishes were decent for the most part and cooked well, but I’m not sure if all of the flavours worked well together or with the theme of a Japanese restaurant. Their menu is also really weird, they had a bunch of super-natural books and they just pasted their menus inside on the front and back covers. Really weird idea, and I don’t think I like it.

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Alpha Global Sushi & Bar
1099 Richards St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 633-0355

http://www.plusalfa.com

***½~ (3.5/5)

I wanted to go to Toratatsu back in May for a friends birthday, but we had to settle for Wanoma Izakaya, which was the third option. However, I got to go to Toratatsu for another friend’s birthday in June. Toratatsu is another izakaya restaurant in the Denman/Robson area.  We ordered a ton of food, but I’ll just go over the one I ate, or can even remember. My friend’s ordered the top 10, plus some additional food.

Of course, I had to for “the raage” (Karaage). The Chicken Kara-age was good here, but not the best I’ve had. It was served a bit differently with a bunch of vegetables. It was good, but the chicken wasn’t as crispy and as well seasoned as other places. It came with a little dallop of mayo too. Beef Carpaccio was decent, and served with some onions over top to add a little flavour and some texture. The onions weren’t too overpowering which is a good thing. I remember the beef being a little bit tougher and chewier than I like.

The sukiyaki was awesome! Most importantly, the broth was really good. It came with tofu, pork, mushrooms, cabbage and some other leaves. After a few minutes of boiling it all together, it made for a really good and flavourful soup. The stock had a bit of sweetness to it which I really enjoyed. Pork Bun was very good. The meat was very fatty and the sauce had just the right amount of saltiness to it. It was basically like a BBQ pork bun that you had to put together yourself. I loved it. I wasn’t too fond of the Duck dish that I had. It was cooked and served with a bunch of sweet stuff. Strawberries and some sort of white chocolate sauce from what I remember. I personally didn’t think it mixed well together. The white sauce had a weird texture, and the flavours just didn’t go together. After one taste of the chocolate sauce, I stayed away. Cha Siu Nigiri was decent. It was a ball of rice wrapped in a thin slice of pork, which you then wrap in a lettuce leaf with some Kim Chi. It was kind of messy to eat when you added the Kimi Chi. Overall it was decent but nothing spectacular. It was one of the cheaper items on the menu. I actually really enjoyed the chicken salad there. The chicken was just pan fried and served on a bed of mixed greens with a bit of a vinaigrette on top. I think I ate most of this dish for myself. It wasn’t anything special, but there was nothing to complain about. It was pretty plain, but still tasty.

The Cheese Tofu was really good, and definitely something to get for dessert. It was a sweet Mascarpone cheese with honey, almonds, and strawberry’s served on a toasted baguette, which was seared with some Japanese characters on it. It was awesome.  The cheese had the texture of a really soft tofu, and the strawberry and honey made it so sweet and tasty. My only complaint was that there wasn’t nearly enough baguette slices. I guess we should’ve loaded up more cheese on each piece of bread. Definitely order this at the end of your meal. We had it near the start because we ordered the top 10 at the beginning.

My friends also ordered the Ebi Mayo and loved it. It had a slight spiciness to the mayo sauce, and they really enjoyed it, as well as most of the other seafood dishes that I coudln’t try.

Toratatsu was pretty good, but I actually enjoyed myself more at the Guu’s and Hapa’s downtown. I think most of my friends and the birthday boy enjoyed the food. And a lot of the food was definitely well presented. The food was a bit pricy though, when I didn’t get to eat as much as I had liked. They were also out of their foie gras dish that I really wanted to try.

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Toratatsu
735 Denman St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 685-9399

www.toratatsutapas.com

***½~ (3.5/5)

Who knew there’s a Benkei Ramen on Main and East 5th? It seemed like it was in such an odd hidden location. I would have never knew it existed there hadn’t my friend ask me to meet her for lunch there.

One thing about eating at chained restaurants is that you’re already familiar with the menu. I have been to Benkei on Robson a few times, and I’ve tried almost every type of ramens they have. Everything except for the Cold Ramen that’s only offered during the summer.

The Cold Ramen was served sans hot soup. It was sort of like a Zaru Soba, it came with a side of soy sauce based sauce for you to drizzle onto your noodles. The toppings it came with were imitation crab meat, pork, eggs, seaweed, sweet shitaki mushrooms , cucumbers, and 2 pieces of shrimps.

This was a very refreshing dish, everything was nice and chilled. The noodles were cooked perfectly. I did end up using quite a bit of the sauce it came with, because that was really the only flavoring it had. Good thing the sauce wasn’t too salty. There was really no right or wrong way to eat it. I just poured the sauce on and start mixing in the toppings together with the noodles. One thing I really liked about the Cold Ramen was that unlike the soup based ramens the noodles would never get too soggy from absorbing the water from the soup.

Everything stayed nice and chilled through out my meal, it was a really good alternative ramen choice for the summer.

Note: Limited Street Parking, Open only for Lunch, Closed on Weekends!

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Benkei Ramen
43 East 5th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V5T
www.benkeiramen.com

****½ (4.5/5)

Yesterday, I visited Zipang Sushi for lunch. I have been to Zipang a couple times before, and it’s been one of the sushi places in Vancouver that I would recommend to other people.

This place gets really busy during dinner, but at lunch time, on a weekday, it was pretty quiet. When I got there, my eyes were glued on their special menu written on the chalkboard at the sushi bar. I remembered it last year they had this really delicious Cold Udon dish on special for the summer, I was hoping they’d have it again, but sadly they didn’t this time around.

I ended up ordering a Zaru Soba, Negi Hamachi Roll and a Spicy Tuna Roll.

The Negi Hamachi had yellow tail and green onion, very simple ingredients. This sushi roll was really light in flavor, but it was really delicious. The yellow tail was really fresh, it was best to eat it with very little soy sauce and wasabi to be able to still taste the fish.

The Spicy Tuna Roll was pretty good too. It wasn’t too spicy, the tuna was really mashed up, and it had a little bit of cucumber in it. I liked this one a lot too.

The Zaru Soba was on their special menu. It came with the zaru soba sauce, green onions and really strong wasabi paste. This was again a very light dish. The sauce wasn’t as salty as other restaurants would serve, but they do give you quite a lot of sauce. The soba noodles were nice and cold. It was a perfect dish to get on a hot summer day.

Another visit to Zipang and they didn’t disappoint, I really appreciated their consistency in food. The prices were reasonable too.

I also really liked the simplicity of their interior design. It was a little place, yet it was bright, it felt spacious, and cozy in there. It’s a great little place to get great sushi on a hot summer day.

Note: Street Parking

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***½~ (3.5/5)

I’ve known about Goldfish Pacific Kitchen as it has been in the Taste of Yaletown for the past few years. I finally got to go for my mom’s and brother’s joint birthday dinner. As we arrived we noticed that they had an engagement party completely with bunny ears. Anyway, the restaurant looks really cool and trendy. The decor is really nice, and the restaurant is actually quite big. I think they had an outdoor room in the back with white sofas…or at least it looked open.

Goldfish has a 3-course set price menu for $28 between 5PM – 6:30PM (I believe it was $25 a few months ago). They also have happy hour between 4-6PM on weekdays.  I decided to try out other stuff on the menu, while the rest of my family went for the prix-fixe.

We ordered drinks to start. I copied my brother and dad and got Tiger beer from Singapore. It came with what seemed like chilled glasses, but once we got it, it seemed pretty warm. Cool, but not ice cold. It made the beer taste crappier. I wasn’t a fan. They had a bunch of cocktails that seemed good, but I didn’t order it this time.

Anyways for my meal, I started the Pulled BBQ Duck Spring Rolls ($12) which came with nuoc cham, fresh mint, and butter lettuce. For my main I ordered the Korubata Pork Ravioli ($25). The spring rolls were nice and crispy and fresh from the fryer. I think it came with 3 rolls cut in half diagonally. I’m not really too sure what was in the dipping sauce (nuoc cham), but it was very, very mild. I’ve noticed that restaurants are using butter lettuce even more now (also at Hapa Izakaya) for wraps. I guess they are better because they aren’t as hard/crisp as other lettuces. They are better used for wrapping, as they are pretty tender and soft, but also can keep its curved shape. I’m grateful they cleaned the leaves, but they didn’t do a very good job of drying the leaves. So I was instructed to wrap the the spring roll in the lettuce, and place a mint leaf inside, and dip in the sauce. The flavour of the spring roll itself was good, and when combined with everything on the plate it added a few more layers of flavour, even though the sauce didn’t add too much.

My Ravioli was quite different. You could definitely see the fusion going on here as you had ravioli in a coconut cream type of sauce. It came with 4 pieces of ravioli. The pasta dough seemed a bit different than regular Italian pasta dough. The coconut curry sauce was really good, and had a bit of spiciness to it which I enjoyed. The ravioli was stuffed with pulled kurobuta pork and very tender. Nice asian fusion here.

I wanted to try some stuff on the dessert menu like the Vietnamese Coffee Cheese Cake, the Toasted Cocnut Tart, and the Warm Banana Spring Rolls with Lychee mint salad. Thankfully I didn’t, because the Spring Rolls have a cashew butter in it (says the online menu)..I was going to come back to give these a try. Uh, on second look, it seems like they changed the cashew butter with hazelnut on the menu at the restaurant. Maybe I can go back and try =).

For the fixed price menu:

- Appetizers: Soup of the Day (Tomato) or Wild Mustard Green Salad or Tuna Tataki
- Main: Fish and Chips or Shaken Wok Beef Tenderloin or Pan Roasted Artic Char or Maple Soy Chicken
- Dessert: Creme Brulee or Sorbet (Grape fruit)

I got to try the Shaken Wok Beef Tenderloin, and it was OK. Flavour was pretty nice, and the meat was fairly tender, but it could’ve definitely used some rice! It was just a plate of beef topped with bean sprouts, fried garlic, and bit of pepper for heat. I liked the fries with the Fish and Chips though. I also defied death again and tried some of the fish and chips (I can’t help myself recently). Since, I’m not very familiar with it, and since I just had a few slivers, I can’t really comment. The fish lightly battered, and wasn’t too crispy.

I was also able to try both desserts. I really wasn’t happy with the Sorbet. I don’t like grapefruit to start with, and this was no exception. It was tart, and had a pretty bitter after taste. They also forgot to bring the almond cookie, but we got it after asking. The brulee was tasty. Had a nice solid torched top, and a nice custard inside. The jasmine was very subtle.

Overall the staff was nice and friendly. The manager even liked talked with my almost 1 year old nephew as he was staring at the party with bunny ears. The food didn’t blow me away though. I’d come back on a night out for some drinks and dessert.

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Goldfish Pacific Kitchen
1118 Mainland St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 689-8318

http://www.goldfishkitchen.com

****½ (4.5/5)

Guu Otokomae was latest of all 5 Guu restaurants  that I visited. I went to this one with a fairly high expectation because my friends love this place and said it is the best out of all Guu restaurants.

The menu for food and drinks at Guu Otokomae was significantly larger than Guu with Garlic. I let my friends did the ordering, let them show me how this Guu is ‘the best’ out of all.

They ordered a bunch of dishes that I’ve never had before at other Guu restaurants, which was great. The only dish I was familiar with was the Ebi Mayo. I wasn’t surprised to see this dish because how can you visit Guu and not order this dish? The deep fried prawns topped with their special mayo, warm, crispy batter, yummy.

If you are a cheese lover, you should definitely get the Brie Cheese. It was big chunks of Brie, deep fried, and served with mango and blueberry dipping sauce. This dish is so bad for you, but so good. The Brie was completely melted when I bit into it. The mango and blueberry sauce was delicious.

We also tried a couple of tataki dishes, Salmon Belly and Beef tataki. They were both really good. They both came with a bed of shredded daikon, and loads of the very yummy ponzu sauce. The tatakis never fail to impress at Guu.

We ordered 3 desserts here. The best 2 out of the 3 were Coconut Ice Cream and Baguette Hot Pot, and Earl Grey Créme Bulee. The hot pot dessert was really interesting. It was baguette chucks bathed in hot caramel sauce in a hot stone bowl and topped with a big scoop of coconut ice cream. Just be careful when you’re eating the baguette and ice cream together at first, because you might get burned by the hot baguette soaked lava like caramel. Overall the dessert was good, the coconut ice cream was really yummy, but it was a little bit of sugar overload. And you’d need to eat this quickly, or at least remove the ice cream from the hot stone bowl if you don’t want your ice cream to melt too fast.

If you’re not a big fan of sugar, you should get the Earl Grey Créme Bulee. Créme Bulee with a hint of earl grey, it was pretty awesome.

I really enjoyed eating here. The service was excellent, food was great.  The only item I didn’t really like was the Deep Fried Taro Balls, but that was because I was expecting it to be sweet. That was my fault for not reading the descriptions. And I think I’ll have to agree with my friend, even with all the hype, it didn’t disappoint. Guu Otokomae, is the best out of all Guu restaurants I’ve been to so far.

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Guu Otokomae
375 Water St
Vancouver, BC V6B
(604) 685-8682

***~~ (3/5)

Finally, the long awaited Japadog on Robson opened. We joined the opening day rush, and visited it right after work. We got there at a really good time for dinner. Since it was opening day, we were already expecting a big line up, but to our surprise there were not any when we got there. There was only 1 lady in front of us. However, this lady in front of us, took 15 minutes to order 2 hot dogs, therefore the line up was formed once again.

Our mission was to try new hot dogs on their menu. Aside from the regular Terimayo and Oroshi hot dogs, we got the Okonomi, Tonkatsu, and Love Meat. We also got the Choco Banana sweet dog.

The Okonomi wasn’t a brand new item at Japadog, but since I’ve never had it before, I thought I’d try it. It was black hog pork with okonomi sauce, bonito flakes and fried cabbage. It was pretty good. I liked it. It the okonomi sauce was sweet, and balanced out the saltiness from the hot dog. There was no surprises there, it tasted like an okonomi.

The Tonkatsu was one of the new items on the menu. It was breaded pork cutlet in a hot dog bun with cabbage, and mayo on top. I wouldn’t really say this was a ‘hot dog’ because, it felt more like a sandwich to me since there wasn’t any hot dogs in it. If you wanted a hot dog, you would not get a satisfaction out of this. The pork cutlet was breaded and coated with a sweet teriyaki sauce. The flavor was pretty good, but it was too bad that the pork was not warm. I didn’t seem like they made it to order.

The Love Meat was another new item on the menu and it was basically their version of a chili dog. It was hot dog topped with meat sauce and melted cheese. Dee was fully disappointed with this hot dog, so much to the point where he didn’t even finish it. After taking a bite of it myself, I understood why he stopped eating. Yikes! it was bland. The meat sauce did nothing to the hot dog at all. It got a little better after we put some wasabi mayo on it, but I think by that time Dee’s appetite for it was already gone.

Japadog also offers their hot dogs in a combo with fries and a drink. We tried a couple of their Shake Fries. It was literally fries put in paper bag and shaken with seasoning. The fries weren’t very good. They tasted like they’ve been fried a while ago, they tasted stale.

Finally we moved on to the Choco Banana sweet dog ($5.29). It was sugar coated doughnut with dark chocolate coated banana and whipped cream. It was delicious. It’s so fattening, but I loved it. The doughnut was really soft, and the layer of dark chocolate was pretty thick. For Dee and our other friend who didn’t have good hot dogs there, they said it was the best thing they ate there. It was a great dessert, however it was also almost $6 dollars, I’m not sure if it’s worth the price.

Even with no expectation, we were mildly disappointed. Well, at least my Okonomi and the Choco Banana was good! It’s really too bad. I do think a lot of it has to do with their opening day. Maybe they pre-cooked all the stuff to the anticipating crowd, that’s why some of the stuff tasted cold or stale.

The hot dogs were quite messy to eat. There were limited seating with 3 tables, and a bar along the walls with a few chairs to sit at. It’s good that they had a sink near the back of the restaurant for you to wash your hands, because I sure did make big mess. If you are located closer to Burrard street, you’re better off just to visit the Japadog on Burrard and Smithe, because you’re not missing much from the Robson location.

Note: Cash Only!

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Japadog on Robson
530 Robson St
Vancouver, BC V6B
www.japadog.com

****½ (4.5/5)

Japadog on Burrard & Smithe has been around for a few years now, and it is probably the only hot dog vendor that I get street hot dogs from in Vancouver.

Although there were a few different types of hot dogs there, I’ve always stuck with the Terimayo and the Oroshi hot dogs there. It’s not that I didn’t want to try anything else, it was just that it’s hard not to order what you already know its good.

Oroshi ($4.75) was the first ever hot dog I got at Japadog. It was pork bratwurst, with grated daikon (radish), green onions and special sauce. I liked it a lot. The bratwurst was juicy, and the daikon was there to sort of cut through the grease from the bratwurst. It was very different from a traditional hot dog, but very good.

I tried the Terimayo ($4.75) later on and I remember liking it more than I thought I would. It had sautéed onions, nori seaweed flakes, and teriyaki sauce. I loved the sautéed onions, and I loved the seaweed flakes. Everything just worked together, even better with wasabi mayo on top. It is my favorite at Japadog.

This place is always consistent, even with different chefs behind the grill. If you’re a Vancouverite and has never been here, you are definitely missing out big time.

Note: Cash Only!

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Japadog on Burrard & Smithe
845 Burrard St
Vancouver, BC V6Z
(604) 667-4663
www.japadog.com