Last week I had a great dinner at Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen on commercial Dr.

The 4 of us shared a bunch of appetizers and sushi rolls. My favorite appetizers of the night were the Toro Tataki and the miso eggplants.

The fatty seared tuna was topped with lots of green onions and garlic flakes. The ponzo sauce was light and made the dish really refreshing. The eggplant was grilled perfectly and glazed with sweet caramelized miso crust. I really liked the fact that they cut out the meaty part of the eggplant and utilized the shell of the eggplant as a bowl. It’s both easy to eat, and pretty at the same time.

Speaking of pretty, we were all so wowed by the presentation of the sushi rolls we ordered. Everything came on a big plate and it was decorated with daikon flowers, daikon lamp, and some edible sticks (don’t really know what it is) that made the plate so fun and 3-D. It was really like a sushi theme park on a plate, because each section of the plate was decorated differently. It was hard not to take a picture of it before you eat.

As for the sushi, they were delicious. I loved the spider roll that was rolled in a thin sheet of daikon. It had the mix of crunchy deep fried soft shell crab and creamy avocado with the refreshness of the daikon, really tasty.

My next favorite was the Mamenoki roll. This vegetarian roll was wrapped in avocado. On the inside, there were edamame, carrots, and cornflakes. It’s my first time having edamame in a roll, and I liked it a lot.

Another special roll I ordered was the Salmon Oshi Sushi. It was salmon battera with cream and jalapeño on the top. Another thin slice of salmon is sandwiched in between the rice. Each piece of the sushi was flavorful enough that you don’t need soy sauce with it!

Finally, we finished off the meal with home made black sesame and yuzu ice creams. Black sesame at a Japanese restaurant is almost always a must for me, and this one didn’t disappoint. I was impressed that it was home made.

It’s really nice to see a sushi restaurant that is fun and creative with their food in Vancouver. Besides from the fresh and tasty food, the plating won a lot of bonus points from us. It’s an instant favorite sushi joint for me for sure.

Note: Closed Mondays. Restaurant is tiny, reservations would be wise. One thing we found really weird was that to get more tea, the waitress takes away our cups instead of bringing a pot of tea to our table. It was a little distracting because it kept us concerned if she was going to return each of our cups to the right person.

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Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen
2054 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC V5N
(604) 255-5550

Giant Sashimi!

Samurai Sushi is probably one of the first sushi restaurants that started the giant sushi trend. My friends and I came for dinner because we haven’t been in a while.

On the table we had a full order of Salmon Sashimi, chopped scallop, spicy salmon, negitoro, dynamite and unagi rolls. Those are just my friend’s orders, I had a Chirashi don with a side of tako yaki because it was on special that day.

The Chirashi don was very filling. It had an array of sashimi such as salmon, tuna, saba, red snapper, shrimp, octopus and scallops. Between the seafood and the rice, there were some pickled shitaki mushrooms and some sweet Japanese rice seasoning. This was really nice because not a lot of Japanese restaurants do this.

Giant Sashimi, giant sushi! This is probably one of the best places to get your sashimi cravings fixed, because a full order of a salmon sashimi is pretty much equivalent of half of the salmon itself. And as for the rolls, they will definitely fill a super hungry stomach because not only are they big and tasty, they also contain a lot of rice.

Dinner at Samurai Sushi is always satisfying. I’ve been here numerous times over the past few years, and I’ve never left disappointed.

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Samurai Sushi
1108 Davie St
Vancouver, BC V6E

Vancouver

On the day I visited The Mac Shack‘s media event, I arrived early and starving. I decided to get some snacks at Tokyo Thyme, a couple stores down after a quick search on Yelp.

This Japanese owned restaurant has some interesting and unique Japanese dishes. I managed to only order a few appetizers with Dee, but trust me, I wanted to have a full blown meal right then and there.

We started with Agedashi Tofu.  My favorite thing about it was the sauce because you can taste its authenticity, it’s sweet yet light. My only issue with this tofu dish was that the tofu wasn’t crispy.

Next stop was very fancy, elegant looking and tasty Tuna Stack.

It was chopped red and white tuna with avocado, mountain potato, nori and green onions (raw quail egg can be added for an extra 50 cents). It came with some nori sheets and a bowl of rice. The way to eat it is to break the pretty tuna stack and really mix everything together, then take a sheet of nori and make your own bite sized sushi with the rice and tuna.

This tuna stack was so yummy. I had asked what the sauce at the bottom of the tuna dish was.  ”Secret sauce” was the answer I got from the owner. Everything was fresh, had a really nice texture, and the secret awesome sauce just binds everything together.

Our last two appetizers were Baked Eggplant and a Shitaki Tama Q roll.

The baked eggplant was glazed with special miso, it was buttery, sweet and had a crispy sugar glaze at the top of the eggplant, a really nice dish.

Shitaki Tama Q roll was a vegetarian roll with shitaki mushroom, tamago, avocado and cucumber.  For a vegetarian roll, this was very well done. It was tasty and the avocado gave really it a nice creamy texture.

After these appetizers, I planned to come back for a proper full meal. I brought a couple friends with me a couple days later to go for lunch here with me.

For lunch I started with a half order of the House Special Sunomono.  This was not a noodle in sour soup kind of sunomono. I remembered my Japanese friend told me that a sunomono is basically any vegetable prepared cold and somewhat pickled. This house special sunomono had smoked salmon, crab, prawn, avocado, mountain potato, and everything was wrapped in cucumber ribbon. The rolls were sitting on top of a sour sauce with some cooked seaweed. This was extremely tasty, refreshing and not to mention, pretty cooking! I really got to taste each ingredient as I chewed, I absolutely loved it.

My Chirashi don arrived shortly after I finished my sunomono, and again, this was a very fancy, pretty looking dish. I liked the fact that some of the sashimi like octopus and saba came with their own seasoning on top to compliment the seafood. I also really liked the fact that there wasn’t a huge amount of unseasoned steamed rice underneath. The rice was topped with very thin slices of shiso, nori, and daikon, all together they had nice texture, and the shiso made the rice taste minty and refreshing.

This was definitely a hidden gem in Vancouver. Everything was prepared carefully, beautifully and was tasty. If you want something different and authentic, this is the place to check out. I love this place.

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Tokyo Thyme
5405 West Blvd
Vancouver, BC V6M
(604) 263-3262

A couple weeks ago our good friend Mike had his birthday dinner at Suika Izakaya. We had a great time at Suika for Mike’s birthday, and we sampled quite a few dishes.

We started out with some  really fresh sashimi included salmon, toro and  mackerel. All of the fish got the perfect bit size and were really nice and delicious.

We also ordered a negitoro battera, a pressed sushi with negitoro, avocado and homemade seaweed sauce. We ordered it because some dude called it ‘the game changer’ on foursquare. This roll was not to the point of amazing, but it was definitely good. The flavors were subtle, but the buttery tuna belly was present, it was a nice roll.

In terms of none seafood items, one of the highlight of the night was their Chinese poutine. Fries, cheese curd, and chinese minced meat sauce, sure why not! It was actually not bad, meat sauce was kind of sweet, it was a weird combination, but it kind of worked. It is strange how they’d make a Chinese poutine in a Japanese restaurant though.

Another surprise dish of the night was their Tokyo Ox-tail Ramen. This soy sauce soup based ramen was one of my favorite. The soup wasn’t overly salty, the noodles were cooked well and it’s got a good amount of oxtail. It’s unique and it’s super yummy. An izakaya that does really well on ramen, this is what I would call ‘the game changer’.

We finished off the meal with some green tea and red bean mochi ice cream. This dessert was awesome. The mochi wasn’t too hard or too chewly. My favorite was the red bean ice cream, which to me kind of tasted like taro ice cream.

This place has got great food and great staff. Our waitress did a really good job waiting on us. This is a favorite izakaya outside of the downtown bubble for many people and mine too.

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Suika
1626 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6J
(604) 730-1678

Whenever Wheel comes back for a visit from Seattle, we’d always visit an all you can eat Japanese restaurant to get his sushi fix. This time we tried E Bei Sushi on Oak and 41st. One of our friends suggested E Bei because of it’s $13 all you can eat price, and that there was unlimited sashimi.

The $13 late night all you can eat starts at 9.30pm. We got there around that time and there was already a huge line up outside of the restaurant, luckily the hostest pulled some magic and we only had to wait for about 5 minutes.

Sashimi! It was what I have been waiting all day for, but when I got the order sheet, it clearly stated 1 order of 6 piece salmon or tuna sashimi for an extra $1.50. What? What a disappointment!! I’d like to believe I was misinformed by my friend, but it also could be likely that they just took sashimi off for late night all you can eat, who knows. It was a bummer, because all I really wanted was sashimi.

I got my sashimi ‘fix’ from salmon, tuna and tai sushi. Like most AYCE restaurants, you can expect sushi here with thin slices of fish and a big ball of rice. They were not bad, just too much rice per sushi. When I eat a piece as is with out taking any rice off, I could barely taste the fish.

The spicy salmon and tuna sushi cones and their sushi rolls were not bad either. But again, lots of rice and very little of the ‘expensive stuff’.

Other none sushi things I enjoyed were the spicy agedashi tofu and the chicken wings.  Compared to the regular agedashi tofu here, the spicy version was way better. The deep friend tofu were drenched in a lot of spicy sauce. It smelled really spicy, but it tasted sweet with a hint of spiciness.

The chicken wings came out hot with crispy skin and juicy meat. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to come here and have all you can chicken wings for $13 here.

We only ordered 2 rounds of food, and on the second round some of the items just conveniently came less than we what ordered. All you can eat sushi without any sashimi is just not satisfying. I don’t get the big deal about this place, even at $13.

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Once again we have another new ramen joint in Vancouver. I actually visited Ramen Jinya twice. The first time I was there to grab a quick bite, and a week later I visited it again with my ramen obsessed friend.

I didn’t have my camera the first time, just went purely for a quick dinner. Looking at their menu, it seems like they specializes in tonkotsu broth, so I ordered a shoyu tonkotsu ramen. I liked the shoyu tonkotsu quite a bit, it wasn’t as good as Ramen Santouka‘s but it was better than most other places.

The shoyu ramen came with bamboo shoots, spinach, and some fried onions. The best thing in the bowl of noodles were the 2 pieces of chashu. They were fatty, tender and had this really awesome bbq charred flavor. On this visit, my rating for Ramen Jinya was 3.5/5

I came back here a week later for lunch this time with 3 other friends. This time I tried the miso tonkotsu ramen while my friends tried their shoyu and shio tonkotsu.

The miso broth was a lot darker, richer and saltier than their shoyu broth. I remembered the broth being very thick and also very fatty. I thought it was just how the miso was, but my friend’s shoyu broth was also very thick. It was different from what I had the week earlier.

Another thing I noticed right off the bat was their noodles. They were different from my last visit’s, they were different from my friend’s shoyu and shio ramen’s noodles. Miso tonkontsu ramen just gets different and thicker noodles here than others, not sure why that is.

Unlike my first visit, this I was rather disappointed with their ramen this time. The broth was just way too thick and salty. The chasu was still the best thing in the bowl, but it wasn’t as good as last time. It also came with some spinach, but unlike shoyu or shio ramens, it didn’t have the bamboo shoots nor the fried onions.

My friends were also disappointed with their ramens. The shio ramen was a really light ramen, it came with thinner noodles, but it was lacking some flavor in my ramen-fiend friend’s opinion. Other than the ramen itself, she ordered a half boiled egg on the side. She was also extremely appalled when it came fully cooked that she had to send it back. It turns out that that’s just how they prepare their eggs, they were all fully cooked.

So, two different visits, one good, one disappointed. It seems like they’re struggling with consistency. On my first visit, I’d recommend it to others for sure, on my second, not so much.

It’s got a great location that caters to the yaletown neighbourhood. I hope they’ll find their consistency soon before someone else plants a another ramen place in yaletown.

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 Ramen Jinya
270 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC V6B

The Roll Factory is a small sushi restaurant on Davie. I’ve had a group coupon here for the longest time, and it was about to expire, so I finally went and used it last week. The place seems like more like a take-out restaurant, but there are seats there to eat. It was kind of strange when we went in, because they didn’t ask if it was dine-in or take-out and they didn’t really tell us where to sit. We kind of just sat down, and we had to ask for the menu (which was also posted on the wall). Once we sat, we were also given luke-warm tea.

We sat a table that was really wobbly, and  our tea was spilling everywhere. I just wanted a snack because I was going to Gotham’s later that night for a Birthday, so I ordered one roll, and let my friends use up the rest of the two coupons. I ordered the Victoria Roll which has Yam Tempura, Cucumber and avocado topped with even more avocado and sesame seeds. My roll was pretty good, the yam tempura was freshly fried and very crispy. Very sweet overall though with the yam and loads of avocado. The sauce they added was pretty sweet too. But overall I think that was the theme of the rolls we ordered. Everything was quite sweet. Anyways, I liked my roll.

My friends ordered the Dragon Roll, Scallop Magma Roll, Spicy Salmon Roll, and Dynamite Roll. The Dragon Roll had prawn tempura and cucumber topped with unagi and masago – a bit different than a standard dragon roll. This too had a bit of sweetness. The Scallop Magma roll was a little bit spicy, and it had white tuna mixed with tempura bits, and topped with chopped scallops and a black sesame sauce. The spicy salmon roll wasn’t spicy at all, and actually a bit sweet, maybe they heard wrong?

Overall, my roll was pretty good, but my friends didn’t like their rolls. And since they were the ones who were eating the seafood, I’ll take there word for it. There are tons of sushi places around there, and my friend who lives close by says he probably wouldn’t go back as there are better choices in the area.

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The Roll Factory
809 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 568-8539

herollfactory.ca

Hapa Umi is the newest Japanese restaurant by the creators of Hapa Izakaya, Justin and Lea Ault. Be warned though, this is not an izakaya! They have much more high end food, that can still be shared, but don’t expect your ebi mayo and chicken karaage. They serve much more refined food. Hapa Umi, is located on West Cordova near Waterfront Station. There aren’t too many signs so it’s easy to pass it by. Their location is kind of hard to find, and it’s not too close to the heart of the downtown dining/party area. I think currently most of their business comes during lunch, and early dinners.

Tanis from T2 Communications invited Beipas and I, as well as Erin from the Foodists for a small intimate tasting event last Thursday. Hapa Umi has been open for almost two months, but the reviews haven’t been too great. Originally, their menu wasn’t well received, and the reviews on Urban Spoon weren’t so high either. MePlusFood loves the Hapa Izakaya restaurants, but we weren’t too sure if we would love Hapa Umi. I told Tanis last minute about my seafood allergy, and they were still able to accommodate me  on short notice with different dishes, although they already planned a set menu. At Hapa Umi we were able to try out a few selections on their lunch, dinner, and dessert menus as well as many of their wines and sakes. The dishes shown aren’t the size you would get, as this was just a sampling.

The first dish was a halibut ceviche, a lemon-lime soy marinade, with a shiso-infused olive oil. I think the first taste got some nice reviews. Since I’m allergic, I was given a duck tataki with a orange soy reduction.

The second was a Pemberton Meadows beef tataki with a garlic ponzu sauce, with green onion oil, and spicy daikon. This is probably the best tataki I’ve had because of the sweet garlic ponzu sauce, and the pop and spice from the green onion oil and spicy daikon paired with some tender lightly seared beef.

Third was an edamame ravioli with a yuzu brown butter and truffle oil sauce. This pasta was awesome, and everyone wished they could order an “Anton’s” sized plate. This is only an appetizer, and comes with 5 raviolis. The very al dente ravioli was stuffed with edamame and ricotta. It was quite mild, but still can tell it was soy bean inside. It came with a nice citrusy yuzu brown butter. The yuzu adds a nice tart acidic kick.

They served us a lunch bento box which comes with a lot of variety and sells for $19. It comes with a miso soup, rice, and potato salad on one plate, and another container which varies. Ours came with a couple pieces of sushi and sashimi, tamago, vegetable roll, tomato,  and a pork belly. The stand out here was the pork belly which was really fatty and melted in your mouth. It wasn’t a thick fat that lingered in your mouth and throat, it was quite smooth. It came with a sweet sauce that is very similar to a sauce used with Filipino roast pork.

Next came a selection of sushi rolls and cones. They came with a couple spicy tuna rolls, and a vegetable roll. Not a big fan of vegetable rolls because they are quite bland, but at least ours came with some crunchy asparagus and green beans. Also came with a chop scallop cone, and a specially made vegetable cone for me. The sushi was good and fresh.

For our mains we got a BC wild spring salmon wish was really white and didn’t look like salmon at all. Heard it was really moist and it was presented very nicely. Peace country lamb shank was braised and crazy tender. Just putting a little bit of pressure on the meat broke it apart. If you look at it closely, you could see it was already pretty shredded, and possibly reshaped.. Very moist and tender and packed with flavour. It  came with some nice sauces, and a rich pommes-puree. This is a close to perfect main for me, just wished there was a bit more pommes-puree. Both the mains were very shareable if you like.

We were also given a selection of their desserts – opera cake, passion fruit mochi ice cream, hapa umi shortcake. The Hapa Umi shortcake was definitely the stand out for me. It was a crunchy almond biscuit with a sweet tomato and cream cheese in the middle. This was awesome, the tomato jam was very sweet, and almost berry like. Very good combination and my favourite of the bunch. The second best was the passion fruit mocci ice cream. I’m not a big fan of mochi to begin with, a bit too sticky and chewy for me, but it was Beipas’ favourite. Very tart and perfectly wrapped around a ball of vanilla ice cream. The opera cake wasn’t that good in my opinion, but that’s because I don’t like green tea in my desserts. It was very rich.

They have a really good selection of wines and sakes, and their sommelier did a great job pairing our dishes. I’m a big fan of the Granville Island sakes. Some were very mild and sweet and went down smooth. They have a lounge area where you can have some drinks and watch the game, and the main dining area. They also have a chefs table. Let’s hope that with the new adjustments to their menu, that they’ll start getting more customers. I hope the location isn’t their downfall, because the dishes we tried were for the most part very good. The prices are a little on the high end, but they are serving high end food with excellent ingredients, with lots of preparation and care.

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Hapa Umi
909 W Cordova St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 420-4272

www.hapaumi.com

A couple weeks ago my friend took me to his buddy’s newly opened Koi Japanese Tapas Bar for dinner. This izakaya restaurant on Kingsway is super new. The space was kind of small, but the places had a really good vibe.

We had a lot of people, and we went without a reservation, and thankfully the owner was super nice and was able to accomodate us to the best he could.

We ordered a lot of food, pretty much the entire menu. There were some really memorable dishes such as the Tuna Tataki, Koi Roll, Cheese Tofu.

Tuna tataki is a standard izakaya dish, and Koi did a really awesome job on it. The tuna was seared perfectly with nice smokey crust. There were some garlic flakes on the tuna which made it really flavorful.

Koi Roll is the sushi roll you have to try. I was so crazy about this roll. This roll had shrimp tempura, avocado, and mostly importantly, deep fried onions. Onion rings and rice, how come no one has thought of this idea before?! The sweetness of the deep fried onions was the best part about this roll. I loved it so much we ordered 3 of these in total.

Cheese Tofu we ordered out of curiosity. This was a really interesting dish. It came out looking like a cheesecake. It had the consistency of a cheesecake but less dense. It was a little bit sweet and it was served with some crackers. Was it cheese or was it tofu? I still don’t know, but it was a nice appetizer.

Like I said, we ordered almost every item on the menu, and non of them were bad. For those of you that enjoy raw beef, my friends really liked their beef tartar. I didn’t try this dish because it got too many things I normally don’t enjoy in raw form (beef and egg), but since my friends said it was really good, I will take their word for it.

This was a cool little place for some Japanese tapas off the downtown area. Given that there are so many izakaya restaurants out there, I was really glad that they had their own spin on a lot of the standard izakaya dishes, as well as having their own signature dishes.

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Koi Japanese Tapas Bar
630 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC V5T 3K4
(604) 566-9263

After about 3 nights of watching people eating unlimited ramen and curry on a Japanese game show, I had some serious cravings for Japanese pork cutlet curries. I was searching for Japanese restaurants that has Japanese curry, and I brought my friends to Kimura.

I came here for curry, but there were lots of different items on the menu I also want to try. I ended up sharing 2 set menus (Take and Ume) and a pork cutlet curry with a friend.

The Take set menu came with tempura, California roll, nigiri sushi, and soup. The Ume came with mini udon, nigiri sushi, and ice cream.  Sushi here was good, the seafood was fresh, and I really liked the rice because I could taste a little bit of the vinegar mixed in with the rice. Presentation wise, for the rolls and the sushi the chef was a little sloppy with the rice.

The pork cutlet curry looked just like the ones on the Japanese game show. The curry had great flavors, and it was a little spicy. I wished the curry was a bit more warmer than it was. The rice was again, perfectly cooked, and the pork cutlet was tender and the crispy batter was really nice. Craving satisfied.

Dee and our other friend ordered the chicken cutlet curry, chicken karaage, and grilled skewer plate. The chicken curry had the same curry base as the pork cutlet curry.

The grilled skewer plate came with 9 different skewers included meatballs, eggplant, liver, pork belly, quail eggs, and a shot of sake! Really nice selections of bbq skewers.

This restaurant was tiny and really busy. I wouldn’t return to this restaurant without a reservation because we waited almost 10 minutes for a waitress to greet us and take our name down for a table, then another 40 minutes for a table. But once we sat down, the waitresses were really nice and friendly.

The food was awesome, I totally pigged out that night, I loved the selection from sushi to curry to skewers. I liked how the food was kept simple, no fancy schmancy sushi roll names with 50 ingredients wrapped in it. I’ll definitely come back, with a reservation of course.

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Kimura
3883 Rupert Street
Vancouver, BC
(604) 569-2198

One night we did a search for Japanese restaurants, and found Zero One Sushi. While browsing for their website, we found an online ordering option as well as for delivery.  Ok, how cool is online ordering and delivery for sushi? It’s awesome!

The online ordering cart was pretty user friendly with pictures provided, and the menu had lots of delicious looking rice bowls. I wasn’t sure if we were more excited about the actually sushi delivery part or the food. After finally placing our order online, we called just to confirm that they have received the order. After about 20 minutes of our call, we got our food delivered to our door. Sushi delivery, so amazing.

we ordered a Uni and Salmon Roe Donburi, Salmon Roe and Mountain Potato Donburi, some sashimi and sushi rolls.  Everything still looked really fresh when it got here. The sashimis were really fresh and tasted great. The sushi rolls were pretty delicious too, the rice was just a tad too dry though.

I ordered the Salmon Roe and Mountain Potato Donburi for my friend, because I knew she likes salmon roe and I was curious about what mountain potatoes were. Turned out I’ve had mountain potatoes before, I just didn’t know the English name of it. It looks kind of like daikons, and it doesn’t have much taste, and has a really slimy texture. I am not a big fan on slimy food, and luckily my friend knew what mountain potatoes were and she likes them too.

Will I order from Zero One again? yup! Food was fresh, and finally there’s other options for food delivery other than pizza and greasy Chinese food.

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Zero One Sushi
559 W Pender St
Vancouver, BC V6B
(604) 605-1625
www.sushizeroone.com

Our guest writer Kid loves Japanese grilled skewers, so when she visited, she hand picked to visit  Zakkushi Charcoal Grill. Having already visited Zakkushi on Main Street, I knew she won’t be too majorly disappointed with the food. This time we visited their Denman location.

We ordered a bunch of stuff to share all of the skewers had really good charcoal flavors from the grilling. We had some regular grilled skewers such as Beef Meatballs, Steaks, Scallops and Minced Chicken.

We also ordered some fillers such as yakisoba, we actually ordered another yakisoba right after we finished the first one because it was really tasty and not overly greasy. Another filler type dish I really liked was the Onigiri. It was grilled rice balls. It had some terriyaki flavor in the rice, and it’s got a great crispy outer crust from the grill.

If you really love rice and runny eggs, you should also get the Yakitori Don SP. It was terriyaki chicken skewers with soft boiled egg, mayo and nori. I’m not a fan of runny eggs, but mixed in with the rice, it was pretty good.

My table was adventurous on eating the innards, actually they love those things. Aside from the ‘regular’ stuff, we also had grilled Chicken gizzard, Chicken liver, and Cow Tongue on our table. Chicken gizzard, I’ve tried before, it was no biggie eating them. The liver and the cow tongue however, I just had to close my eyes and chew. The chicken liver was way too rich for me, and the cow tongue has a really weird chewy/gummy texture. I probably won’t order these items on my own in the future, because now at least I can say I’ve tried them.

For desserts I ordered the Almond Tofu. It was a weird dessert presentation wise. It was almond tofu in a champagne glass and a bubble tea straw. You kind of just have to suck the tofu out from the straw. It was a good dessert, it had the texture of panecotta, and the stawberry jam on top was really nice with the almond tofu.

I really liked the fact that they had pictures for every single item on the menu, that really helped us a lot.  This was just a really cozy place with good atmosphere to have a few drinks with good friends.

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Zakkushi Charcoal Grill
823 Denman St
Vancouver, BC V6G
(604) 685-1136

I have been wanting to try Marulilu Cafe for a while now. What caught my attention at Marulilu Cafe at first was their Japanese style breakfast, and after reading other blogger’s review on this restaurant, the Katsu Sandwich got me drooling.

The Japanese style breakfast came with steamed rice, salmon, omelet, miso soup, green onions, and we ordered it with natto (Japanese beans). Besides natto, you can also choose tofu. Everything came on a tray, and from the looks of it, it could also be a lunch dish. Everything on the tray had subtle flavoring. The salmon was cooked and seasoned nicely.

We also ordered the Chicken Doria, which was curry flavored chicken fried rice baked with cheese. This dish looked promising, every single grain of rice had yellow curry colour, however I found this dish to be bland. Maybe it needed more curry, more salt, or more black pepper.

On the side, we ordered an Okonomiyaki to share. It was pretty good. It was loaded with lots of bonito on top. Cabbage and octopus were some of the ingredients in the pancake. It was nice that they already pre-sliced the okonomiyaki in little pizza slices, it made it really easy to share.

The other bloggers got me drooling for the Katsu Sandwich, and it was not a disappointment. This was the sandwich I’d come back for. It was a tasty tasty warm sandwich. It had a very big slice of pork cutlet, with katsu sweet sauce, tomato and mayo. My favorite part of the condiments was the raw cabbage, it gave a really really nice crunchy texture. Very yummy.

To finish off the meal we ordered a Waffle. It came with chocolate and regular whipped cream, as well as maple syrup. While the waffle was fluffy and airy, I didn’t find it to be amazing. I still prefer the denser Belgian waffles.

There was a little confusion when I was ordering food. Although it seems like a restaurant because of the type of food they are serving, it is a cafe. You have to order everything at the cashier. Honestly, there was only one dish I truly enjoyed, and that was the Katsu Sandwich, the rest were pretty mediocre.

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Marulilu Cafe
451 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC V5Y
(604) 568-4211

Word’s out, there’s a new Japanese ramen restaurant in town. Really? do we need another ramen joint? Well, if you are like my ramen fiend friends you won’t be complaining. It has been freezing these couple days, so my friends and I decided we want something soupy for dinner, and we went to check out Sanpachi on Bute and Robson.

The menu were pretty standard, and has the 3 basic soups that all ramen joints have: miso, shoyu and shio. They also have tonkotsu (pork bone) soup base as an option or some ramens. They do have some ramens that sounded interesting enough for us to order like Negi-Ramen, and Butter and Corn ramen. We also have an order of the Chashu Ramen with shoyu soup.

The Negi-Ramen has a lot of green onions and leeks. The first thing I tried was the tonkotsu soup, it was very good and surprisingly, light. There was a lot of green onions and leeks in there. The leeks added really nice light onion flavor. I personally think there were just a tad too much leek in the ramen, but if you love green onions and leeks, this would be the right choice of ramen for you. The noodles were just a tad softer than I’d like, but they were still chewy enough. As much as I enjoyed the tonkotsu soup, I also found it to be too salty as I was finishing up my meal.

The Butter and Corn Ramen comes with chashu, green onions, corn and ‘special’ butter. Yes, butter was listed as ‘special better’ on the menu. It didn’t look like there was anything special about the butter, except they gave you quit a lot of it. Adding butter to ramen soup is a personal preference and it makes your soup more creamy and taste more buttery.

As for the Chashu Ramen with Shoyu soup base, we were all really surprised with the shoyu soup. It was different than most other ramen restaurant’s shoyu. It was rich, but also has a notable sweetness to it. It also has a lot of onions, also a good choice for onion lovers.

Besides ramen we also got the Nori Mayo for appetizer. I loved these nori-mayo thingys. It was nori seaweed wrap with steamed rice and mayo and pork filling. They were really tasty. We also wanted some gyoza, but they were sold out that day. We were quite bummed about not able to have gyoza, given that it was only 6:30pm. Those gyozas must be really popular for them to be sold out that early.

I thought the ramens were tasty overall. They all have a lot of really tender pork slices. Sanpachi was not quite as good as Hokkaido Santouka, but it was better than Benkei.

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Sanpachi
770 Bute Street
Vancouver, BC V6E
(604) 609-9938

Ocean West Coast in an izakaya and sushi restaurant on Granville that has been open for about a year. A friend recently redid their website and introduced us to them. We were invited to try out the food, and we finally made it over this past weekend.

Our server took really good care of us. The menu was really big, so we told them our preferences (and allergies) and she made some recommendations. We had a weird group – I’m allergic to seafood, and our friend likes mostly vegetarian food and not a fan of raw meats & seafood, not a very good choice to review a Japanese restaurant eh? Luckily Beipas will try almost anything. I ordered the bulk of the items – Puppy Love (modified with tamago), agedashi tofu, ocean gyoza, beef tataki, chicken karaage, jyagaimo korokke, tsukune, and the pork neck skewer.

Originally the Puppy Love would come with unagi and some ikura. For us they replaced it with the unagi with tamago. I really liked this roll. It was quite sweet from the mango and sauces. The tamago was very light and airy and just added a little bit of flavour. The agadeshi tofu nice and crispy outside, soft inside with a slightly salty sauce. Eat it quick so it doesn’t get too soggy. The Ocean gyoza was kind of like a Japanese XLB. This gyoza was filled with pork and vegetables, but had some liquid in there when you bit into it. It was really good and had a nice crisp browned skin. Pan fried perfectly.

Beef Tataki was served with some ponzu sauce, and some fried garlic chips. Alone the beef tataki wasn’t that tasty, but mixed with the sauce it was really good. They gave quite a bit too, and it wasn’t cut too thin. There was really good marbling on the beef. Chicken karaage were smaller pieces of battered chicken served with a mayo sauce. I think the chicken was cooked a little bit too long. The chicken was moist, but the batter was a bit too dark. Kind of a had a little bit of a burnt flavouring mixed with the seasoning. I prefer the larger chunks of chicken karaage because they are usually a lot more juicy.

Jyagaimo Korokke is a potato & pumpkin croquette with some corn. This was one of my favourite dishes of the night. The outside was very crisp. Inside it was very creamy and sweet from the added corn. It was an awesome croquette. In my opinion it’s a lot better than the pumpkin croquette at Guu with the hard-boiled egg in the middle. We ordered another one right before dessert.

Tsukune is a minced chicken meat skewer basted with a teriyaki like sauce. I wasn’t a big fan of this one I guess I just didn’t like the texture of the meat. It was a lot looser than what I would have preferred. This was probably the proper way to do it, but I just didn’t like it as much as other tsukune’s that I’ve had which were a lot more solid. The flavour of the sauce was good though. The pork neck skewer was probably my favourite meat item. I have a hard time describing it. It was hard, but not really tough. It had a pretty hard and dense texture, but was very moist and fatty. I loved it.

Beipas and my friend ordered the Flammable roll, chawan mushi, mentaiko asparagus, tai sashimi, mentaiko udon. I didn’t  try these because I was allergic to them, but I’ll write down what I can remember. The Flammable roll was a spicy tuna and tempura topped with salmon and avocado. It was good but very very spicy. The chawan mushi was an egg custard dish with seafood on the bottom. It was a bit too salty. The mentaiko asparagus and mentaiko udon were way too salty for my friend. They were both covered with a lot of white roe. The tai sashimi came in a huge bowl. It was very fresh and Beipas loved it. The waitress urged us to come back to try more seafood because they get it very fresh and that’s the thing to order on their menu. We saw a bunch of tables order Lobster sashimi and it looked great. Beipas will definitely go back to try out more. They told me to order it as soon as I get over my allergies.

For dessert we got deep fried black sesame ice cream, and a caramel custard. The deep fried ice cream’s batter was a bit too thick and was actually a bit salty. The ice cream itself was good though. They also had two other flavours. The caramel on the caramel cream was just a few seconds over cooked, as it was a little bitter. The custard was light, and I found myself liking it the more I ate it.

As for the cocktails. They were really good. I tried a couple and was really happy with it. I ordered the Pom Pom which has a really strong Soho (lychee) taste upfront and mixed with pomegranate vodka and juice, and aloe. For a lighter drink, they made me Melon Breeze which was really delicious. It had green apple vodka, melon liqueur and calpico soda. They have different specials each day.

I know this is a long review, but we tried a lot of dishes. To recap, I loved the cocktails, pumpkin croquette, beef tataki, and pork neck skewer. I liked the ocean gyoza, and puppy love roll. The service and the owners are awesome. If you love fresh sashimi, this is definitely a place to go to as their selection is really good. This place is a little pricier than Guu though, but the quality of the food is really high. If you want a more laid back izakaya approach this is the place to go. We were there on a Friday night, and it wasn’t nearly as loud as a Guu, maybe because it’s not downtown.

Note: There is parking in the back.

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Ocean West Coast
3121 Granville St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 736-3121

www.oceanwestcoast.com

After lens shopping with my friend on Broadway we tried to go to Japas Bistro for some sushi burgers, but they closed a few minutes before we walked in. My friend hadn’t tried ramen yet, so I decided to go to Benkei across the street. I’ve been to the two locations on Robson, and haven’t really been impressed, but since it was close by, I decided to go. I ordered the shio ramen with egg and corn, while my friend got the shoyu. We wanted to try more stuff on the menu, so we ordered some chashu, gyoza, and chashu onigiri.

The large chashu plate came quickly first. It was cold sliced pork topped with green onions and a sweet and salty sauce. It was weird because some pieces were fairly tender, while others were very dry. I guess it would have to do with some of it being fattier than others. It was cold meat though, so cold fat is kind of gross. Overall though the dish wasn’t very good, I probably would have preferred it served hot so the meat would be softer. The gyoza had a thin skin, but the inside had a kind of mushy consistency and  a bit watery. The chashu onigiri was also a disappointment. There wasn’t very much pork mixed into the rice, but it had quite a brown color. I swear it was really good the first time I ever had it, but the last two times haven’t been good.

The shio ramen came with two nice tender pieces of pork (the best part), some bamboo shoots, green onions and of course, the noodles. I added half a hard boiled egg and some corn for an extra 50 cents each. You can add all of the toppings for $3.50. The broth wasn’t as salty as I’m used to, which is good. The last few times I’ve been to Benkei the broth has been really salty, and I’m glad this one wasn’t. Unfortunately I still didn’t really like it. I think ramen just isn’t my thing. I must make my way to Santouka one of these days before I give up entirely on ramen.

My friend wasn’t impressed with the ramen either. He would’ve rated the ramen a 5/10 for his first time having actual ramen at a restaurant. They are promoting a Benkei curry which we were tempted to get, but we weren’t sure how full we would be after our ramen and 3 small plates. Sorry Janet, I just can’t get into Benkei lol..

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(604) 568-6178

www.benkeiramen.com

The new food trucks have been around Vancouver for a while now, but I haven’t gone to any of them. I’ve heard good things about Roaming Dragon Truck, so I decided to take a stroll there for lunch.

There were less than 10 items on the menu and they cost around $6 dollars each. You can also pick any 3 items for $15. The Duck Confit Salad was sold out for the day, so I decided to get the Pork Belly Sliders, the Korean Tacos, and the Deep Fried Rice Balls.

The Korean Tacos were the first thing I ate. It had shredded beef short rib and it was topped with some of the side salads you’d get in Korean restaurants. There were sprouts, mushroom, spinach, carrots and nori.  I really really liked this taco. It was very flavorful. I liked that they used corn tortilla, and that they used kimchi sauce. It was nowhere near an authentic taco, but what do you expect with the name like Korean Taco? The beef was really tender, and it did taste like a Korean dish, minus the spiciness.

An order of the Pork Belly Sliders came with 2 mini sliders. These sliders were pretty delicious. They were pork belly on white Chinese bun with hoisin sauce and cucumbers. The pork was nice and tender, and the bun was nice and soft. I really liked the sweetness from the hoisin sauce. Some might say the sliders might be too sweet because of the hoisin sauce, but I enjoyed the sliders quite a lot. The pork belly pieces were a kind of tiny compared to the buns. If I wanted to, I could eat the whole piece in one bite. I found myself ‘saving’ the pork as I ate so I won’t be left with just the bread.

I don’t think I’ve ever had Deep Fried Rice Balls until now. Props to them for the creativity. The rice ball itself was rice mixed with tiny pieces of I believe sausages, and other vegetables. They had a really nice outer crust, and the rice inside were still soft. This was a surprise to me, and I also liked them a lot. These rice balls came on skewers, which made it easy to eat.

After contemplating for a while, I’ve decided to get the Lychee Basil drink. I contemplated because it cost $4. The Lychee Basil drink was really refreshing. They might have added some club soda, because it was a little fizzy. It had a lot of real lychee pieces, which mimics the texture of bubble tea drinks. I really enjoyed the flavor. It was sweet, a little sour, and the presence of basil was definitely there.  Add in some vodka, it’d be a great cocktail drink.

The owner, Jason was really nice. While we were ordering, my friend mentioned that Victor from Raincity Bikes recommended us going there, and just because of that, we got a free Lychee drink! Jason and Victor must be really good friends.

Overall, I really liked everything I ate, and I’d order all of them again the next time I walk by.

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Roaming Dragon Truck
Vancouver, BC
www.roamingdragon.com
(Visit their website for location and hours)

Japas Bistro on Broadway is a Japanese tapas restaurant by night, but for lunch they almost have a completely different menu. I went to check it out with my friend for lunch a few days ago, their lunch menu consisted of Japanese rice burgers, and 5 appetizers.

For those of you who are not familiar with rice burgers, it is basically a burger with rice patties instead of bread buns. I’ve had one of these rice burgers a few years back in Taiwan at Mos Burger, a famous Japanese burger joint. I wasn’t a big fan of those rice burgers, I thought it was more of a gimmick for the fast food joint than anything else.

Lunch menu at Japas Bistro kind of left me no choice but to give these rice burgers one more try. I ordered a Unagi Rice Burger, and my friend ordered a Corn Croquette burger. We also shared Tofu Salad and Spicy Roe Udon as appetizers.

The rice burgers came with both fries and salad, and also miso soup. I kind of liked not having to choose between salad or fries, even though there weren’t much of both.

My Unagi Rice Burger was very saucy, and really sweet. The rice patties held together really nicely on its own, it was mostly soft, and the outside was a little crispy, but there was just was a little too much sauce. It made the burger soggy and messy to eat. There was a fair amount of unagi in it, it also had raw onions which give it a little spicy flavor. There was also melted mozzarella cheese (I believe) inside, which was really tasty. My overall impression of the Unagi burger, was pretty mushy, and pretty meh.

The Corn Croquette Burger on the other hand was pretty great. It had a total different texture from the Unagi Rice Burger. It was crunchy and crispy with crispy rice burger patties, crispy deep fried sweet corn croquette, and shredded raw cabbage. It was a lot easier and cleaner to eat. The corn croquette was creamy and wasn’t too sweet.

I’m glad someone brought this rice burger concept back to North America. They did a good job on those patties. From the texture itself, I think they were baked. The owner told us they used a little bit of terriyaki sauce to help the rice stick together, and that’s where the patties got the brown colour from, they were not brown rice. The service was great, if you are remotely interested in these rice burgers, it’s worth to come check them out during lunch time.

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Japas Bistro
552 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC V5Z
(604) 876-3534
www.japasbistro.com

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

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

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

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

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

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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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

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

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

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

I never knew that there were so many other Izakaya places in Vancouver. I was only really familiar with Guu and Hapa, and only until recently I learned about Zakkushi. I was helping my friend look for a place for her birthday. Wanting to try new places, I found 3 Izakaya restaurants around Denman and Robson that I hadn’t been to. Unfortunately, we went to our last choice, Wanoma. This place is really tiny, and at the time was hosting two fairly large groups, ours of 10 and another across from us with probably about 10 too.

They weren’t very busy whereas Kingyo right beside Wanoma was packed. We were late for our reservation by 30 minutes, but we were still able to get a seat for 10 immediately.

I ordered the Chicken Karaage of course, and Crispy Pork Belly. The karaage had a little bit of sauce drizzled on top. From what I can remember it was a very subtle mayo based sauce. The chicken was a bit overcooked and stringy at first, but the more I ate, the better it got. Either just a few pieces were overcooked, or the Soju was getting to me. I’m not sure. I do remember the later pieces being more tender and jucier.

I had the choice of either salty or spicy pork belly. This time I chose salty. What I got was something almost bacon like, in that it was thin strips of pork with fat. It wasn’t very crispy though. It did have a nice saltiness to it. Just the right amount. Again, some pieces were more tender than others. Under all of the pork was a mix of different long thin green vegetables. I think they had a mix of asparagus and a long string bean. The salt and fat from the pork gave the vegetables a nice flavour, and were actually more enjoyable than the actual pork!

My friends ordered a bunch of different foods, sadly I can’t really remember the names of them all, but you can check the pictures. I tried some of the ramen, but it wasn’t up to par with the likes of Benkei (the only ramen I’ve tried here). The noodles were a lot thinner and softer, but the stock wasn’t really salty. Instead of a nice piece of fatty pork, it came with ground pork and a bunch of different vegetables. I also got to try a beef and rice dish. The beef was a bit different, and my friend kind of described it as Chef Boyardee beef (you know, the beef ravioli) on top of rice. Though similar in texture and slightly in taste, I have to say this isn’t that bad. I’ve tried Chef Boyardee fairly recently, and it’s not good at all.

From what I can remember, they really liked the stuffed mushrooms! I wish I could’ve tried it, but I think there was crab stuffed in the mushrooms.

The service was OK. They were a bit slow at coming out with some of the food. One of my friends pretty much got all her dishes last. We brought in an ice cream cake for the Birthday girl, but I don’t think they put it in a fridge or freezer. Though they came out with the cake with lit candles, we had to ask for plates, forks, and a knive to cut it. And that took a while. Water was slow to be served too.

I didn’t enjoy the food or the service here as much as I have at Hapa, the Guu’s downtown, or Manzo. I didn’t hate the place, but I did wish I went to Kingyo or Toratatsu.

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Wanoma Izakaya
867 Denman Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 687-6601

After 2 attempts of trying to get seats at the infamous Hokkaido Ramen Santouka, I finally made it! I was there on a Tuesday night, and Tuesdays seem to be the day to visit this ramen joint without any line ups. I assume that goes the same with the rest of the weekdays except Friday.

I went into this place with a lot of hype, a lot of expectations, and I was really hungry. This combination always spells a disaster, but Hokkaido Ramen Santouka held its place quite nicely. I was not disappointed! In fact, I loved it.

The menu had a lot more items than I expected. There were regular ramens ($8 dollars ish), and there were these Toroniku ramens ($13 dollars). I ordered a Toroniku Shoyu Ramen because other bloggers had suggested it, and also I wanted to see what was the fuss about separating all the meat and ingredients from the soup and the noodles. I also ordered a Tofu Salad, and Gyoza for appetizer and side dish to go with our ramen.

The Tofu Salad was really nice. The Tofu was chilled, and there were pieces of cooked shrimp on top. The dressing was soy sauce based, and it went really well with the tofu. It was a really good appetizer.

My Shoyu Toroniku Ramen came on a tray, and it smelled really good. I went for the soup right away because I thought maybe this was the reason they didn’t want to put other things in it, so it’s not contaminated with other flavors. The soup was indeed very yummy. It was so rich, and deep with flavor. The noodles they used were thinner than most ramen restaurants. They were cooked perfectly for me, not over cooked, and a little chewy. It was nice to not having to ask them to cook my noodles, ‘kata-men’ which means, ‘hard noodles’.

The pork cheek that came with the noodles were so soft. I could break them just by picking them up. They were nice and fatty, and they did melt in my mouth. I wasn’t completely in love with them though, I thought they had a bit more soy sauce taste to them than I would’ve liked. But they were indeed, very soft. Probably another reason why they didn’t put it in the soup, because it breaks so easily.

I really enjoyed the ramen here. It was my first time eating mostly the soup and the noodles more than the extra things it came with. The bowl of noodles looked small, but it was a deep bowl. There were a lot of noodles in it.  The soup was the best, I was so full and I still finished the noodles and almost all the soup.

It definitely lived up to the hype and worth the hassle of downtown parking. And compared to Kintaro and Benkei, I think this place wins. I’m already planning my next visit. Spicy Ramen is the one I’m going for next.

Note: Cash Only!

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Hokkaido Ramen Santouka
1690 Robson St
Vancouver, BC V6G
(604) 681-8121
www.santouka.co.jp

After Dee missed out on our really great experience at Hapa Izakaya on Robson, we finally had the chance to bring him to our next Hapa Izakaya destination: Hapa Izakaya Yaletown.

We were there on a week night, and this place was as busy as it would be on a weekend. Luckily, we were able to get seats right away. Having already been to their Robson location, I had already known what to expect. And not wanting to try the same things, I stayed away from the regular menu, and ordered things from their ‘fresh sheet’ instead.

There was one thing we ordered off the regular menu: Chicken Karaage, we ordered it because I told Dee that I had one of the best chicken karaages at their Robson location. When it arrived at our table, it looked different than what they served me last time. Instead of serving the deep fried chicken as is with dipping sauces and mayo on the side, this one was covered with sauce. It was still delicious even though sauce didn’t have much flavor to it. The chicken was very juicy, and the portion size was big for izakaya dishes. To compare both locations, the chicken karaage at Robson was still, the best.

Off the ‘fresh sheet’ menu, we ordered Smoked Tofu, Beef Chili Rice in a Stone Bowl, Saba Sashimi, and Crispy Skin Pork Belly.

The Smoked Tofu was really good. It was my favorite of the night. The tofu was chilled, and they were served on nice bite size pieces along with a slice of bread. You can taste the smokiness of the tofu along with the sauce on top, really light, and delicious.

Normally, I would not order Saba Sashimi on its own. What made me order it here? On the menu description it mentioned something like: ‘flame seared at the guests table‘, I was in intrigued. It arrived with the waitress who was also holding a torch. After a confirmation with the waitress, she lit up the torch, and started cooking the top of saba. Flames at my table, so cool.

The top of the saba were cooked after about 40 seconds under the flame. I’ve never had saba partially cooked before, I liked it more than I thought I would. The fire brought more taste out of the saba, the skin was a little crispy while the rest of the fish was still soft. I could eat it with a bowl of steamed rice alone.

Another dish I also liked more than I thought I would was the Crispy Skin Pork Belly. The skin was really crispy, and the fat of the pork belly just melted in my mouth and it didn’t feel greasy. Really nice flavor of the sauce on top, not very powering the flavor of the pork. You should get this if you are not afraid of eating pork fat.

One thing I didn’t think was spectacular was the Beef Chili Stone Bowl. It was beef chili with rice, with a side of guacamole, cheese, and butter lettuce. I think I had to blame myself partially because my dyslexic self read it as ‘Chili Beef’, as in beef slices with chili sauce. So, I wasn’t really expecting, beef chili, and when it arrived, the guacamole and lettuce in the menu description made so much sense to be all of a sudden. I’d say overall, the chili and the rice all together was too heavy for me. Eating it by itself was a little weird, but not bad all together when wrapped with other ingredients in the lettuce.

The service was great, however our table for 2 was a bit small to fit all of our dishes. Some of our food ended up on the counter by the kitchen because we were seated right beside it. I thought it was cool how they’d have their own twist of the same dishes at different locations, for example the chicken karaage. Hapa Izakaya at Yaletown’s atmosphere was consistently trendy as Hapa Izakaya on Robson, but if I had the choice between these 2 locations, I’d pick the Robson location.

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Hapa Izakaya Yaletown
1193 Hamilton Street
Vancouver, BC V6B5P6
(604) 681-4272
www.hapaizakaya.com

Day 4  of Vancouver Dine Out 2010 we visited Zakkushi Charcoal Grill on Main street. I was really excited about going here because their dine out menu sounded really delicious and also I have heard good things about them. I went with 4 other people, and for the 3 course meal, 4 of us got exactly the same things except for Dee, the one person who is allergic to seafood. Dine Out at Zakkushi is $28 dollars.

For appetizer, I had the Fisherman’s Favorite sashimi plate. The plate had of 10 pieces of sashimi that consisted of salmon, tuna, shrimp, uni  (sea urchin), and red snapper. It was really delicious, the sashimi were fresh and they were cut in perfect bit size pieces.

The other appetizer was Japanese Antipasto Trio, which had beef tataki, marinated taro roots, and Gomaae. I had a little bit of the Gomaae, and it was really good. Overall, Dee said he enjoyed the non-seafood appetizer.

For the entrée, I picked Japanese Tradition. It was Japanese Bouillabaisse, seafood with broth. It had a lot of seafood in it, included king crab, clams, oysters, salmon, prawns, and black cod. It was really really yummy. The broth had a sweetness from the seafood, and it wasn’t too salty. Aside from the seafood, it also had corn, yam, and shitaki mushroom. The bowl was packed with the ingredients that all tasted really good.

The Japanese Tradition also came with 6 pieces of nigiri sushi. There was scallop, salmon and tuna nigiri. If you didn’t think the bouillabaisse will fill you up, these nigri sushi would do it for you. The fish on the nigiri sushis were good, but the rice wasn’t. The rice was not cooked properly for these sushis, they were too hard. That was for all nigiri sushis that was served on our table. Screwing up on rice for sushi.. yikes.

Another entrée we had was the Charcoal Grill Intensity. It had some bbq skewers, and a beef steak don. I had a little bit of the skewers, it had a really rich charcoal flavor. It was really nice. The beef steak don came in a really pretty bamboo trunk. The dish itself however, was again, ruined by hard rice.

As for dessert, I really recommend the Frozen Duet. It was a scoop of black sesame ice cream and a scoop of yuzu ice cream. The yuzu ice cream, was some what an acquired taste. It was a fruit with a little bit of lemon taste, and also a little by tarty. I was not a fan of it. The black sesame ice cream on the other hand, was sooo yummy, it was so yummy that in the end we were all fighting for each others black sesame ice cream. This is a must get.

The Green Tiramisu looked like a toy when it first got to our table. I think it was a cat. It was cute, very Japanese. The taramisu itself was pretty good too. I imagine green tea dessert lovers would like this a lot because it had a lot of matcha in it.

I liked this place a lot. The service was really friendly. The food was great, and it was too bad that they screwed up on the rice, otherwise, they would’ve received a higher rating. I will definitely come back to try the things on their regular menu. I loved the decoration of the restaurant, a lot of wood, very earthy. Check out their bathroom too, they have a very unique bathroom.

I think for the amount and the quality of food here, charging their customers $28 dollars was very reasonable. The 3 course meal felt like a 4 course meal because there were 2 parts to their entées. Don’t forget to try their saké sampler, 3 different kinds of saké for $8 dollars.

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Zakkushi Charcoal Grill
4075 Main St
Vancouver, BC V5V
(604) 874-9455
www.zakkushi.com

Walking down Davie Street you’ll find many, many sushi restaurants.  I was intending to go to a different sushi place, but it was full so I just walked literally two doors down and came across Tokyo Miyako.  The restaurant was empty which had me a bit concerned, but I was hungry so was willing to take the risk.  An empty restaurant means you’ll get seated immediately and likely to get food fast, right?

The tea arrived lukewarm so I was immediately skeptical.  Thankfully the spinach gomae came out quickly after the tea and it was tasty.  I spent a few minutes looking over the decorations that they’ve got and their lunch specials which were posted on the wall.  It didn’t take long for my next dish to come out; miso soup.  Their miso was very good, just the right level of salty and piping hot.  I also had their pan fried gyoza which I found to be tender, but overall they were just okay and I likely wouldn’t order them again.

For the mains, I had several types of rolls.  Their spicy salmon roll I’d rate as average.  It had a moderate spiciness to it, but the sauce in general wasn’t all that wonderful.  The avocado however made it much better (yummmm avacado!).

For the non-seafood eaters (ie. dee), the chicken roll was pretty good.  It had just the right amount of sauce on it so I was happy about that.  The yam tempura roll was very crunchy and overall was nicely prepared, though it wasn’t anything special.

The wait staff (two people) wasn’t all that attentive, despite having an empty restaurant at dinner time.  Overall this is an average restaurant, but if you have a chance, try the place next door as it always seems to be much busier and the people inside seem happier. 

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Tokyo Miyako
630 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC  V6B 2G5
CANADA

Tel: 604-488-0399

I’ve been to Benkei Ramen a few times, but this is my first time at their newest location on Thurlow. We were seated fairly quickly which is surprising because we were there during prime dinner time during the Vancouver Winter Olympics. We were seated in a kind of open booth, the waitress can walk in the middle and take orders and serve the food. We are seated on wooden box-like chairs with an opening on the bottom for you to put your stuff. I don’t want to put my jacket on the floor, so I just placed my jacket on my lap while I ate. Kind of uncomfortable.

After we seated we placed our orders. I ordered the Shoyu Ramen and a Cha Siu Nigiri. Our waitress was kind of out of place. I think normally they always hire Japanese employees, but this one was Chinese, and had a harder time taking our orders. Oh well. I got my Cha Siu Nigiri first and it wasn’t as good as I remembered, or maybe just not as good as the Robson location. It fell apart way too easily so that made it a bit harder to eat, and it seemed like their was less pork. The flavour was decent though.

Our Ramen came a few moments after. I guess let me start off by saying that I’m not much of a ramen fan, because I find the broth a bit too salty for my liking. I just ordered my ramen with no extras. The one thing I do love about ramen is the fatty pork (belly?). It tastes really good, and is definitely my favorite part. The noodles were cooked well, and there was quite a bit of them. It came with some seaweed on top, and some green onions and bamboo.  It was decent but still a bit too salty for me. I’ve had the Shio flavour as well, and that also seemed too salty for me.

They seemed to have more broth choices at this location, or they just changed their menu. My friend ordered a spicy one which he really liked. My other friend ordered a lighter based soup which I can’t remember what it was called, but of course she liked it too.

I don’t know, I’ve had ramen about 4 times (three times at Benkei, and once at Ajisen in Toronto) but I guess ramen isn’t my thing. However, I still do want to try the ramen at Hokkaido Ramen Santouka. If I’m not fond of that one, maybe I’ll stop eating it. Many of my friends really like it though and Benkei is currenlty their favorite.

I think Benkei is opening up a new location too.

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Benkei Ramen
747 Thurlow St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 568-8371

I went on a business lunch at Komi Sushi. This Japanese restaurant has great location. It’s in the middle of all the office buildings, and I imagined it was a frequent lunch spot for most white collars working in that area of downtown Vancouver. Having that said, great locations don’t necessarily have great food. Judging from the looks of it outside, I was already a little hesitant to walk in.

I was there for a very early lunch, we were one of the first diners. As soon as I sat down, I already noticed a sticky wet spot on the edge of my table. The restaurant was empty, I think it was from last night. Eww.

The menu was pretty typical, it tried to serve every type of Japanese food, from bento boxes, to sushi rolls, to ramen, and to shabu shabu hotpots. I was hungry, but nothing on the menu looked particularly appetizing. I ordered a Komi Seafood Yakisoba ($10).

The portion of the yakisoba was big. It came on a sizzling hot plate, and it had shrimp, squid, fish fillets, with lots of vegetables such as carrots, zucchini, broccoli and eggplants. It had more seafood and vegetables than the actually noodles.

It tasted OK, but not authentic. It got pretty greasy for me half way eating it. At first I could still taste the sweetness of the yakisoba sauce, but that taste quickly got covered by the oily taste. I wouldn’t say this dish was bad, it was just too greasy.

This was a typical restaurant that is survived by its location, and not its quality of food. The service was friendly and the prices were reasonable, but it felt more like a cafeteria or food court to me rather than a restaurant. And they really need to wipe their tables clean.

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Guu Garden is the latest in the Guu’s restaurant line up. It’s located on Nelson and Hornby, but it’s a bit tricky to find the entrance. The bitch hostess at Relish showed us how to get there. She claimed I should’ve seen the “big sign”. Look at the gallery to see how big the Guu Garden sign is. And I didn’t even walk to the other side of the building.

I went to Guu with Garlic last week and had a great experience, and so I wanted to try the new one out (Guu at Aberdeen was a huge disappointment). When we got in we were greeted by the staff – the host, waitresses and cooks. We were seated right away as I had made a reservation earlier.

We ordered a pitcher of Saporro to start and they came with chilled glasses which was nice. We ordered shortly after. The menu wasn’t too descriptive, and they westernized a lot of the food (e.g. Karaage was Fried Chicken). We ordered Wasabi Mountain Potato, Green Bean Fries, Lamb-Paccio, Tuna Tataki, Fried Chicken (Karaage aka the Raage), Fresh red tuna sashimi, sockeye salmon sashimi, and deep fried skewered miso pork cheek.

The food came out pretty quickly. The waitress came over and had to apologize because I think they ran out of sockeye salmon sashimi. They politely offered to change it with something else for free, which was nice. It was a bit of an awkward moment, but a very kind gesture, because she stayed for a while after we said, OK thanks!

We got the Green Bean Fries first which is just Green Bean Tempura with some mayo. Sadly my first bite was kind of soggy, not crisp. But the rest got better. I’m not sure if the mayo had anything mixed into it, as I couldn’t pick up any hints of anything. Next came the Wasabi Mountain Potato which was weird to say the least. It had a pear-daikon texture to it, and was very slimy. You could see the goo slide off of it and connect to the plate when you picked up a piece. It has a decent amount of wasabi flavour to it though and some shredded seaweed on top. There was extra wasabi on the side too in case you wanted more. I don’t think it’s something i’d order again. It the texture was too strange, and the taste wasn’t that good.

The Lamb-paccio came next which is basically Beef Carpaccio but lamb. It was slightly seared, and was topped with onions (which weren’t very oniony, was it even onions?), and a light sauce. It was good. Definitely order this again.

We got the chicken next which came with a garlic aioli. Same thing here though, either it wasn’t an aioli or it was very very subtle. Either way the Karaage was cooked well, but not as good as Guu with Garlic’s! It was tender too, but I got some cartilage pieces in one of mine. It was usually tender though and the skin was crisp and lightly seasoned, but oh so good.

The Miso Pork cheeks came next. It was pork cheeks and green onion skewered and fried. It was pretty good, it was a lot better than the Pork Belly skewer I had at Guu with Garlic. This skewer was very dark, and looked like it would pack a lot of flavour, but it was actually a mild miso flavour. It was good though.

The seafood came last, but I can’t say anything about it. But my friends loved it (please leave a comment buddies!). The Tuna was the best according to them, as it was melt in your mouth and so flavourful. The others were fresh and tasty too.

As we left, we were almost not greeted, because there was no one at the front, except for two cooks/chefs, but as we left they greeted us kind of shyly (because I looked at them as I left the door as if I expected something heehee). They saved some points! (jk). Overall, it was a good experience, but I think Guu with Garlic is still the best one. Need to try the other two still.

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Guu Garden
M101-888 Nelson Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 899-0855

http://www.guu-izakaya.com

A few of my friends from LA came visiting this weekend, and before they came they had asked me to make a list of restaurants for them. They were only going to be in Vancouver for 5 hours, and I gave them a list of maybe 20 restaurants. I have to say I salute my friends for hitting up 4 restaurants in Vancouver/Richmond in the span of 4 hours, and still came and ate like champions with me at Guu with Garlic.

I’ve always loved Guu with Garlic, because the food is always good, and it’s just such a good place to grab a drink with friends. Tonight we ordered a lot of stuff including: Tuna-Yukke, Beef Carpaccio, Ume-Shiso Udon, Kabocha-Krokke, Creamy Krokke, Krokke, Nankotsu-Karaage, Tori-Karaage, and Ebi-Mayo, Grilled Pork Belly, and a couple other specials of the night dishes I can’t remember the names of.

The food tonight was really good as usual. It was the first time I had Kabocha-Krokke, it’s deep friend pumpkin ball with a boiled egg inside. It looked more like a dessert when it came. The pumpkin was mashed with herbs, it was pretty good, and the egg, was just a boiled egg. The Creamy Krokke was a special of the night.  There was runny cream and corn inside after you break it, it was sweet, had a lot of corn flavor, and really tasty.

The Grilled Pork Belly was also really good. The pork belly were skewered with whole cloves of garlic. It had a really nice charcoal BBQ flavor to it, all together with the garlic, so yum. Another dish I liked was the Ume Shiso Udon. It was pan fried udon with mushrooms, beef, and veggies, topped with seaweed. It had a nice presence of Ume (Japanese pickled plum) taste to it. It was refreshing in some way. If you’ve never had Ume, you might find it weird tasting.

The Chicken karaage is a must get. It was so yummy. Boneless deep friend chicken with garlic mayo. So good. So good with beer.

I had a really good time here. The price was very reasonable, the beers by the pitchers were fairly cheap, I didn’t think it was expensive for its food quality. My LA friends really liked the food too. It was really fun eating with a group of people that constantly made the ‘Mmmm!’ sound through out the dinner, and I’ll have to thank the restaurant for that.

Note: The restaurant is small, and always busy. Go in early for dinner to avoid long waits. The lunch menu is a lot smaller than dinner menu.

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Guu with Garlic
1698 Robson St
Vancouver, BC V6G
(604) 685-8678
www.guu-izakaya.com

I found ShuRaku while surfing on Urban Spoon. I needed a restaurant real close to the Granville 7 theater to watch a screening of She’s Out of My League (thanks @followmefoodie). I didn’t really do much research but saw the ratings were good, I just needed somewhere close, because we were tight on time.

I went in and got pretty excited. The place is dim and very trendy looking with almost a lounge feel to it. The restaurant is basically one long row of seats and tables, and then they had an open area for the chefs to prepare the fresh food. I think the cooked food was prepared in a back room beside the sushi chefs.

This place isn’t too cheap especially for sushi, with special rolls ranging from $8-13. The tapas aren’t too expensive and neither are the donburi’s.

We looked at the menu, and placed our orders. I got the Chicken Tsukune ($5.80), Pork Katsu Don ($8.25), and the Godfather Roll ($12.50 dayum! most expensive roll I’ve ever bought). The Godfather roll was pretty expensive for me, considering the most expensive roll I usually buy is a Chicken Teriyaki roll for $4.50-5. My favorite dish of the bunch was the Tsukune, then the Godfather Roll and then the Donburi. The Tsukune was minced up chicken with a nice sweet sauce on top, along with some grated radish and green onion. It came with two patties. They had the coolest dipping sauce which was a tempura’d egg, with a soft yolk that you break to dip the chicken in. I have no clue how they did this. It seemed like they put tempura on the egg whites, and deep fried it and kept the yolk runny. I like how when they brought each dish, the server gave us an explanation on what it was, and how to eat it if it was different. The Pork Donburi wasn’t that good because the pork was kind of dry and the sauce wasn’t very flavourful. I really need to stop ordering this, maybe I’m just sick of it. My Godfather roll came last, and I actually had to ask for it because we really needed to get to the theater. It was already made, I’m not sure why it took so long to make it to our table. Anyways it was a roll with cream cheese, avocado, and cucumber inside, and then topped with mango, prosciutto and a caper, with some balsamic vinegar reduction on the bottom. The overall taste was pretty subtle. The avocado and cream cheese made for a very creamy centre. I couldn’t notice the flavor of the mango at all. I think the most dominant flavour came from the balsamic vinegar.

My friend ordered a Salmon Tartar which was chopped up salmon with some herbs and an egg, which you top on very crispy tempurad seaweed. She said it was good, but not the best tartar. She also ordered tempura eggplant which was very good. It was very crispy, and wasn’t oily, which eggplant tends to do (soak up the liquids). I liked this a lot. It was seasoned well. She also ordered the Roulette roll, which was OK, but not very spicy. She also ordered some tea, which came in a little tea pot. It wasn’t free.

The presentation of each dish was great. They liked to use lotus root chips to garnish their dishes, and each plate was very clean looking. Probably one of the better places I’ve been to in terms of food presentation. The taste of the food itself was good, but not great. The overall service was wonderful, except having to ask about my roll. As we left, we were greeted by the staff in Japanese, and our waiter also walked us to the door and opened it for us. That was a nice touch. I’d be back, maybe with more friends for a drink. Their drink menu was pretty big, but I didn’t get to try it out. There were also a few tapas I’d want to munch on.

I wish I brought my camera! My pictures from my Blackberry suck.

ShuRaku Sake Bar and Bistro
833 Granville St.
Vancouver, BC

604-687-6622
http://www.shuraku.net

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This weekend I went to get some late night grub at Ebisu on Robson with some friends. I went in with a fair amount of excitement, because I like Japanese tapas and I like having drinks with tapas.

It was a bit of chaos for a us group of 8 to order our food. I knew the waitress was trying make it easier for us to split our bills, but got quite confusing before we actually get to order.

My night didn’t start well, I decided on a drink called Sakura, it was on their drink specials menu, and when it came it didn’t look like the picture at all. I thought the waitress gave me the wrong drink, but she told me the picture on the menu for this drink was wrong. I kept the drink anyway, but I wish I didn’t, because it wasn’t good at all. It tasted like club soda.

We ordered a few dishes including: Thunder Fries, Beef Sliders, Chicken Karaage, Oyster Motoyaki, and some Fresh Oysters.

The food looked pretty, but taste wise, didn’t have any wow factor. My favorite of the night would be the Thunder Fries. The yam fries were soft, and the batter was crispy had herbs in it. It came with a dipping sauce, but it tasted good by itself.

The Beef Sliders were kind of bland. It was terriyaki beef, and the meat was a little dry. Too bad the avocado and the dipping sauce didn’t do much to the dish.

We also tried a couple desserts there, Coconut Ice Cream and Monkey Banana. The coconut ice cream had mango sorbet in the center, I’ve had this at other restaurants, it’s a pre-packaged dessert. They tried to do more with it by adding mango purée and corn flakes on top, I thought it would be better without the corn flakes. The Monkey Banana was deep fried banana with red beans on top, it was pretty good.

Overall, I thought this place was kind of meh. The bad news was I got the bathroom runs a couple hours after I ate here. My friends were ok, so maybe I just got the bad fresh oyster of the bunch. So that was a deal breaker for me, I am not returning here, ever.

Dee’s Review

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Ebisu
827 Bute St
Vancouver, BC V6E
(604) 689-8266
www.ebisu.ca

I went here last week because it was somewhere that I wanted to try and we were able to get our fairly big party in with little notice. I’ve been looking at the menu for a while now, and there were lots of appealing items on the menu.

Read Beipas’ Review from a Seafood Lover’s Perspective and for pictures.

When I got there, there seemed to be less things that I wanted to try. There were a lot of good sushi rolls that were there, but then there’s some sort of seafood added to each one. I settled for trying the Butter Chicken Don, and the usual for me – chicken teriyaki roll, a piece of inari and a piece of tamago. Sadly my Inari and Tamago didn’t come.

The chicken teriyaki roll was BIG. It was a little expensive ($4.50), but it was 8 big pieces. But, the taste of it wasn’t that good. I definitely prefer the other ones I’ve had. The roll was actually a bit too moist for some reason. The chicken didn’t have much of a teriyaki taste to it.

To my surprise, the Butter Chicken Don actually came with a bowl of miso soup, and sunomono salad (no shrimp). I didn’t like these dishes much at all. The Miso Soup didn’t take very miso-like to me. It had a more beef broth flavour, but my friends said it tasted normal. To me it seemed a bit off. It had a piece of tofu in there too. The sunomono salad wasn’t good either because the noodles were too hard for my liking. It may normally be like this, but I didn’t like it. I haven’t actually had this salad, because it usually comes with shrimp.

The Butter Chicken Don was a breaded and fried chicken with a Japanese interpretation of a Indian Butter Sauce, served over white rice. The sauce tasted pretty much like ketchup, with a few other spices and cream mixed in. I wasn’t too fond of the sauce, but the chicken was cooked nicely. I wouuldn’t order this again, and probably order something more traditional instead of trying something out of the ordinary.

I also ordered a Green Decadence roll on the side which was OK. It was a veggie roll with asparagus, green onion, and avocado with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I actually couldn’t taste the balsamic vinegar, and the roll was very mushy.

My friends really loved their sushi, but my food wasn’t very good. Maybe it was just what I ordered. I also didn’t get two of my dishes. I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed my food more if I was able to try the funky sushi rolls they have.

The waitress also took way too long to get us our bill. We’d look at her and try to ask for the bill but she’d quickly turn away. It was at least 15 minutes before we were able to get our bill.

The decor of the place is pretty neat. They have a bunch aliens and Astro Boy hanging from the ceiling. They were also playing the anime Akira playing on the wall behind me, and they had a DJ spinning.

The Eatery
3431 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC

(604) 738-5298

http://www.theeatery.ca

We came to The Eatery because it was the only restaurant we could get a table at during the Olympics. Not that this place wasn’t busy at all, we just got lucky because a couple tables had just cleared right before we got there.

We went in and didn’t really expect anything, but this place is pretty funky. They had a live DJ playing pretty decent music, the place is dim, they were projecting an Japanese anime cartoon on one of their walls, and if you look up there were paper mache creatures including an Astro boy.

Their menu is huge. There were so many items, included quite a few vegetarian selections too. There was a lot to read. We ordered quite a few items for our party of 7. I’d say overall, the food was really good, and there were a couple items worth mentioning.

Tuna Tempura was a really good appetizer. If you like Tuna Tataki, you would probably like this dish too. The tuna slices were deep fried in tempura batter, they were fried just enough to sear the outside of the tuna, the inside is still raw. It was topped with mayo, sweet sauce, and came it with a dipping sauce. Something I’ve never had, really good.

The Electric Banana Roll was the best thing I ate that night. Deep fried banana on a sushi roll along with avocado and unagi, how did they come up with this surprisingly tasty roll? The sweetness of the banana, just worked with everything else, so tasty. It was a shock to the taste buds, in a really good way. I loved it.

The Miss Piggy Roll was a good one to get for bacon lovers. 2 strips of bacon wrapped with scallops, asparagus, and unagi sauce. mmm yummy. The Volcano was a big one. It was deep fried roll with tuna, scallops, salmon and a mountain of crab meat on top with spicy sauce. Delicious.

Since there were so many vegetarian selections, we decided to try their Green Decadence roll. It had tempura green onions, asparagus, avocado, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It came warm, which was a bit weird, and it tasted OK. Not as good as the seafood rolls of course.

We also tried a couple desserts here: Caribbean Fantasy and Malaysian Fantasy. They were really good as well. The quality of cream and ice cream were good, although I think it would’ve tasted better if the waitress had given us spoons instead of forks for our melting ice creams. Why would you give us forks for ice cream?

This place was a really nice surprise. I’m usually pretty skeptical about fusion foods, but the Eatery had done really well. The selections were big, and it was nice to see the variations weren’t just different pieces of fish on a California roll, they all had different ingredients. Very creative on naming the dishes as well, it definitely gave a boost to a customer’s curiosity. The atmosphere was young and fun. A good place to eat for the young and adventurous.

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The Eatery
3431 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6R
(604) 738-5298
www.theeatery.ca

Hapa Izakaya is probably one of the better places for Japanese tapas in Vancouver. This is one of my favorite izakaya restaurants.

I went to their Robson location with a party of 5, and we were offered a really nice big round table to sit at. The seating was spacious, and the furniture was really nice with dark wood tables and cushioning seats.

We ordered 10 tapas along with a pitcher of Strawberry Sake Margarita. The margarita was good, but nothing special. The food on the other hand, had pretty presentations, and was very very good.

Some of the dishes that I enjoyed a lot was the  Negitoro, and Maguro Roll. The tuna on both dishes were fresh, well marinated and well seasoned. Also the Tuna Carpaccio was really good together with the bread it came with.

The Chicken Karaage was probably the best Japanese fried chicken I’ve ever had. The meat was juicy, and the batter was really crispy and really well seasoned. Together with the mayo and a drizzle of lemon juice, it was pretty damn tasty.

The Okonomiyaki was very flavorful. It had pieces of octopus and cabbage in it, with a lot of fish flakes on top. It tasted authentic, and it was one of my favorites of the night. The other warm food that I enjoyed were the Gyoza, and the Grilled Saba.

I didn’t eat the Beef Tataki because I don’t eat raw beef, but my friends all said it was really tasty as well.

I liked this place a lot. It’s a really good place to get a drink and get some tapas after work. The atmosphere is modern, clean and relaxing. The staff was friendly and helpful.

Note: They have 3 locations: Robson, Kits, and Yaletown. No green teas here. I settled for Oolong tea.

Tip: Try start with the cold dishes first, and work you way to warm dishes.

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Hapa Izakaya
1479 Robson St
Vancouver, BC V6G1C1
Tel: (604) 689-4272
www.hapaizakaya.com
twitter.com/hapaizakaya

The amount of meat and cooked food was the most I have ever seen which is a HUGE plus for me, and probably why I’m rating this place higher than any other AYCE sushi place that I’ve tried recently. Just check the menu on their website to see what I’m talking about. Most of it was good too.

We had a group of 6, and we came in at about 6:30PM, so we paid the regular $20-21 for AYCE. We got seated in one of those “private” rooms. We ordered right away and the food kept coming. I ordered almost everything on the menu that wasn’t seafood just because I wanted to try everything, and was so excited that I could eat more than 5-6 things on the menu. They did have some weird stuff on the menu like shitake mushroom maki, spinach maki, carrot maki, and fried chicken skin. I’d probably stay away from these next time. But they also had Katsu Curry dishes, which I haven’t seen at the other restaurants. What I really loved though were the Chicken Teriyaki, and the Beef Sashimi. It’s been a while since I’ve had the beef sashimi so I was really pleased that I was able to eat it again, and it was good. Their chicken karage was boneless! Their inari was also a bit weird as it didn’t come in a tofu pocket, but it was a strip of that tofu pocket placed on top of a piece of rice, like a tamago. Not as good, but still tasty.

The service was OK. They kept refilling our tea, and we also had a free karaoke show with a somewhat annoying high pitched voice. We did have some problems where we didn’t get part of our orders, or not the full amount of our orders, but that can be expected from an AYCE Japanese restaurant. I guess that can happen when you try to order 15 pieces of shrimp tempura on one sheet, along with 20 other things checked off. But that’s how we roll…

They have a happy hour from 4:30PM – 6:30PM so if you get off work early, head down here and save some money. The only problem is that the parking is pretty crappy unless you go later in the evening, and you can park in the back for free.

Note to self: Try Ninkazu in Richmond next.

Fish on Rice Japanese Cuisine
1414 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC
604-732-0112
http://www.fishonricejapanesecuisine.com/

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This is an all you can eat (AYCE) Japanese restaurant and I have to admit, I used to frequent this place a lot during my university days due to the crazy cheap Late Night price per head. They have three prices for AYCE: Late Night ($15/person), Regular Menu (~$20/person), and Deluxe (~$26/person). I usually swing for the Deluxe menu because I like the extra menu items it includes, mainly the raw oysters, ikura (salmon eggs), and extra assortment of fish for sashimi. The regular menu is fairly priced given that they only offer Salmon and Tuna for the sashimi.. well they also offer spicy salmon/tuna sashimi, but that’s not really a draw for me.

Sashimi is one of my favourite things to eat.. I’m not sure exactly why I like it so much, but the fish here has never been half frozen for me, or too “mushy”. Portions are large and tonight, they didn’t “slim down” our orders of sashimi for us as a lot of restaurants seem to do as the night goes on.. you know what I’m talking about: You order 20 salmon sashimi, and 14 come.. I mean if you’re going to charge people for left over food anyway, why not just let them have what they order?

Another must-have for me are the cones/hand rolls. The seaweed used to wrap it was still crispy when it got to our table and had a good fish to rice ratio. I generally go for the chopped scallop cone, but saw that there was a negitoro cone on the menu and had to try it. Personally, not my favourite negitoro anything because it could have used more chopped up onions since I could barely taste it in the cone. Still, I love tuna, and it was very tuna-y.

Rolls wise, not a large variety for the regular menu.. I’m not sure why. I’d like to have seen a few more varieties of roll here. The only thing that caught my eye was the Alaska Roll, which was decent, but they go way overboard with the crab/california roll filling stuff. I like cali rolls but comon’, making a cali roll huger and cramming a piece of fish in there seemed to be ‘alaskan’ enough.. I’ve seen better and I think this place can do better in that respect.

Lastly, the beef short ribs: these are awesome. Though the awesome-rating seems to vary for me depending on which menu I order from. If I am eating from the Regular/Deluxe menu, they are always good and contain more meat than bone/fatty chunks. But when I’m chowing down on some Late Night madness, I find the quality of the meat is a little more.. fatty and less.. errmm… meaty. Could just be me, but I never noticed it until I was making enough money to spring for anything more than the late night menu. Either way, they still taste good.

Overall, the food quality itself is above average for an AYCE restaurant and the staff is pleasant. I have heard some issues that a few friends have had with being charged extra for unfinished food, but I haven’t had an issue with this. They are usually pretty forgiving whenever I have been there and haven’t finished every spec of food on the table. I’d definitely hit up Tomokazu again, or correct me if I’m wrong, Ninkazu the sister-restaurant (is that phrase even real?) in richmond.. another favourite AYCE up my sleeve that I’ve been meaning to hit up again.

Haha, ‘AYCE up my sleeve’, I should try to write jokes for Family Guy. I wonder what else I could do.. start a sushi restaurant? I own a knife.. I also own a fridge. What else would I need?

Tomokazu Japanese Restaurant
1128 West Broadway, #201
Vancouver, BC V6H1G5
Tel: (604) 677-0434

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Epic Fail.

If you walk on Robson street in Vancouver, you will not miss Tsunami Sushi. They are located right in the heart of the busy street, with big restaurant signs. So, in the midst of Christmas shopping this year, I finally went in to give it a try. I remember thinking, they’re on Robson, they’ve been around, they can’t be THAT bad. Now in retrospect, I should have kept walking, or visited the food court instead.

You have a choice of sitting at the bar, and grabbing sushi off from the boats that goes around the bar, or at a table. The boat concept seems good in theory as you get to start eating right away. This was very important because I was super hungry that night. But it was irrelevant to me when all the food looked unappetizing. It took me way too long for me to pick up my first dish – spicy tuna roll. I wasn’t too impressed with it. After the spicy tuna roll, I decided to order something off the menu, because it was just that hard to pick up a second dish from the boats.

My friend and I ordered gyoza, 2 tamago sushi, 2 inari sushi, and a spicy salmon roll. The spicy salmon roll is the worst I’ve ever eaten. The overall quality of all the dishes were just crap. Everything was not fresh, the rice is hard, the gyoza tasted like how it looks, crap. The only acceptable item was probably the green tea. We gave up on ordering more, because it was just too painful.

On top of the crap quality of food, the service was terrible. It took 20mins for them to make the food we ordered off the menu. The waitress stapled all of our receipts together, including the one I’m supposed to take home. Oh, and the food was overpriced, but frankly, that was the least of Tsunami Sushi‘s problems. I left angry, and still hungry.

With the number of Japanese restaurants in Vancouver, I cannot comprehend how this place still exists. Please don’t waste your money and time here, you would be better off with food court sushi.

Note: Do not eat here.

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Tsunami Sushi
1025 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z
(604) 687-8744

Ebisu is located on corner of Bute and Robson in Downtown Vancouver. This is a place that my girl friends like to go to chill, drink, and snack during late nights out in town. This was my first time going here, and was quite excited about the menu. It was really busy there on a Friday night. We reserved a table for 10, but there was actually 12 of us. Our server didn’t mind moving the group of 4 beside us to another location.

So Ebisu is a Japanese restaurant with some of the more funky food that you can actually find in some regions of Japan (says my Japanese friend). Things you wouldn’t really equate as Japanese food, because of strong Mexican influences - like nachos, or taco rice, and lots of cheese.

Anyways, there was a lot on the menu that I wanted to try because they were just so different from what I normally see at any other Japanese restaurant. A lot of there stuff was loaded with cheese or butter. Anyways, I was able to try quite a few things off the menu for my first time there. The food was OK. One of my friend’s said the food isn’t really good, and to stay away from the Thunder Fries. Low and behold, my other friends ordered the Thunder Fries, and they actually were not bad today. They were good. Even my friend who said to stay away liked it this time. They were probably the best thing I had that night, and I had quite a few different things. Anyways, Thunder Fries are basically strips of tempura sweet potato and served with a tangy house made cajun dip. I think last time they ordered it they only got 5 sticks, this time we got a whole basket full. Maybe they asked for two orders, I’m not sure.

We had some Edamame on the side which are nothing special, my friends ordered a couple of plates of Fresh oysters which they seemed to love, because they ordered another one after they finished with the first. My friend also ordered some Mushrooms, which was served in tin foil over top of a little grill. It wasn’t anything special, just I think 3 different types of mushrooms – button, shitake, and enoki. I think it’s an ugly presentation.

Now onto what I ordered. I don’t know why, but I just kept ordering random things here and there. First I ordered the Butter Potatoes, because for those that know me, know I am in love with butter. These however were alright. There wasn’t anything really “buttery” about it. It was mostly just Potatoes covered with cheese and baked. I also ordered the Colossal Cheese Yakitori. Yes, another thing loaded with cheese. This skewer was pretty huge. It was a metal skewer with chunks of chicken with some green onion on top, then loaded with cheese. The chicken was tender, but it seemed like the green onions were whole (or at least a layer of it, length-wise), so it was a little bit tough to bite through. I wouldn’t eat this all by myself. If I did, I’d probably feel sick due to the huge amounts of cheese I had already eaten. Both of these things, I would not order again.

Next I ordered the Asparagus Bacon Twirl, which was asparagus wrapped in bacon and skewered together. There were three sticks, each with 2 sets of bacon wrapped asparagus. It was already precooked, but it also came with a little mini grill to heat up your food, or char it a bit more. Again, nothing special. Finally, I ordered the Kamei Katsu Don. Why? I have no clue, because I wasn’t even hungry anymore, but they said they were taking their final orders. This was very lacklustre. Maybe because I was no longer hungry, but at the time it wasn’t anything special. The pork was overcooked and a tough. And the egg-onion mixture that was poured on the rice didn’t have much of the flavour that I love oh so much from other restaurants.

The 4 dishes was only $25, so the price is reasonable. But add the price of alcohol, and the price was up there. We also ordered an Asahi Big Baby, and had lots of rounds of sake (which wasn’t very good, and .. cold? I thought it’s supposed to be served warm. It was also very weak and served in a Bamboo shaped bottle). Ebisu on Robson seems to be a really happening place for Asian people. They had lots of TVs around the place to watch sports and wrestling. Next time I go, I’d probably order more stuff, but I’d stay away from the cheesy items. Most of their menu items had pictures and descriptions to help you decide. The best thing I had was definitely the Thunder Fries, which I would order again, and pray that I don’t get the crappy kind that my friend had.

3-stars, and fairly inexpensive. I would definitely go back to try some of the other stuff on the menu.

Ebisu
827 Bute St.
Vancouver, BC
604-689-8266‎
http://www.ebisu.ca