InsecureGirl and FragileBoy visited this place before and told M and I we must try it. So, one day after class, they dragged us here. I think this was the best idea yet. M and I were kinda skeptical about a Japanese Restuarant on Rupert street. It’s located across the street from Golden Oscars.
The interior is really nice and modern and has a lot of jazz elements on the walls.
The owner and chef of Kimura is named Itsuroku Kimura. He has had an impressive legacy in the restaurant business. He has open up places in Mexico City, Shanghai, and various place in Los Angeles. For his retirement, he settled down in Vancouver and opened Kimura to keep his passion of food alive. He always experiments with his food and can make custom items for his customers.
His love of jazz can be heard through out the room as he only play relaxing jazz music.
He is always seem at the counter preparing all the sushi items. If you want an amazing experience, sit by the bar and talk to him.
M started our with have a large Kirin beer ($8.95). You can’t go to a Japanese restaurant and not have Japanese Beer.
M and Fragile Boy then had a large hot sake ($12). What is great about Kimura is how they arn’t trying to cheat you! You can see they fill the container all the way to the top unlike other restaurants. M and Fragile Boy dubbed this the “never ending sake” because there is so much.
They have a variety of different skewers that you can order. We started off with the 2 orders of Quali Egg Skewer ($3 each)and 2 orders of Dango skewer ($3 each).
The quail egg skewers are just boiled quail eggs, if you love eggs this is for you. I personally wasn’t a big fan because i dont like yolk.
The dango skewer was pretty damn good. I think it was just seasoned pork on skewers. Nothing like what a dango is supposed to be.
We ordered the Deep Fried Oysters ($7.95). You get a lot for that price. They are crispy golden on the outside and has a nice deep oyster flavour on the inside. The oysters were big as well and not small little dinky ones.
I still find the deep fried oysters at Rodneys better, but for the price of $7.95 its’ not bad at all.
Since we heard their Fresh Uni ($15)was the best in town, we tried it. Uni is sea urchin. You can was Kimura prepare the uni. Some pieces can still be seen moving if you look carefully.
I’ve had some pretty bad defrosted uni at other sushi restaurants..at Kimura, you can’t get any better if it’s straight from the shell.
The uni had a very interesting texture and you are basically eating the uni’s ovaries. It is best if you squeeze the lemon on top and add a bit of salt.
We ordered 2 orderes of Crispy Rice with Spicy tuna ($4.50 each). The pureed spicy tuna sit on top of a piece of lettuce and on a circle of fried crunchy flavoured rice. It is garnished with jalapenos, and various sauces.
The correct was to eat this is by using your hands to eat them … kinda like a taco. This is probably THE BEST dish on their menu. It’s unique and the flavours work so well with each other.
FragileBoy and InsecureGirl also ordered baked mussels.
They also ordered the Salmon Carpaccio , which M and I accidentally ate. Best mistake ever! This has thin slice of salmon sashimi in sesame oil and ponzu sauce, It is the best salmon carpaccio ever. It’s probably due to the sauce.
Insecure and FragileBoy also ordered the Take Combo ($15.95), which comes with Assorted Tempura, Sushi 6pcs, Sashimi or Ginger Pork, Miso Soup and dessert.
This is the Assorted Tempura.
This is the 6 piece sushi .
This is the sashimi.
This is the miso soup.
M and I got the special Omakase Set ($30). This is what you need to order to get a full feel of the restaurant. The items change on it everyday depending on what they have fresh at the restaurant. You may luck out and have a super fantastic set. Even though it says $30 per person, not everyone at your table needs to get one. It’s a lot of food, so i would suggest 1 per 3 people and add a dish or 2 extra.
The first dish of the Omakase was the appetizer, it has braised beef with radishes, cold shrimp, and marinated lotus root.
2nd dish of the Omakase is the Agedashi tofu. Various tofu are in this pot with varying sizes in the traditional sauce you would normally have in agedashi tofu.
3rd dish of the Omakase set was fried soft shell crab. At this point, we were tripping out because this is a WHOLE soft shell crab. Very delicious and I’ve never had it outside the “spider roll” before.
The third dish of the Omakase was Chawan mushi. It is an egg custard with dashi broth, mushroom, and seafood. Delicious!!!
The forth dish in the Omakase Set was the Braised Kobe beef with curry. M and FragileBoy was shocked to find out this was Kobe Beef. This made the entire $30 worth it! The curry was spot on and the braised kobe beef was very tender and fell apart nicely.
The fifth dish of the Omakase Set was some unknown dish, I will just call it sashimi. When it arrived, this looked so nice, it had fried shrimp heads (Totally edible and delicious), amaebi with tomato, lime and ikura, geoduck, and scallops. This was heavenly!!!!!
Since 2/4 of us ordered different set menus…in additon to the other items we ordered, Kimura was kind enough to give us all dessert. Plus, we did rack up a large bill.
We chose to have red bean mochi with mango ice cream for our dessert. At this point, we were stuffed but the dessert still tasted amazing.
This was our bill. $127.51 / 4 = $31.88 per person. It was a bit expensive, but we did eat A LOT.
After this experience, I fell in love with this restaurant. I even went again two more times. I will post those up a bit later. I love Kimura Japanese Restaurant because getting the Omakase set is like a grab bag, you don’t really know what to expect when you go there.
Even if you don’t get any set, most dishes are under $10. It can be quite affordable, but this time we just decided to splurge.
Words of Wisdom:
- Parking in front or in residential areas
- Most items under $10
- Lots of combos and specials
- Customizable dishes
- Amazing service! (Like actually!)
- Fresh Ingredients
- Be adventurous and don’t try the usual japanese items, thats how you will love this place
- Omakase set and Spicy tuna with crispy rice and items you need to order!!
We rate Kimura Japanese Restaurant: 
Website: http://www.sushikimura.com/
Address:
3883 Rupert Street
Vancouver, BC
