Hapa Izakaya apparently is known to people in Toronto as the Japanese restaurant with super hot waitresses. Since I’m a girl, I really care more about the food!
BaguetteGirl and I went to have dinner before she departed on exchange to France. We chose Hapa because I’ve never been there and I’ve heard great reviews about the food!
We couldn’t decide where to sit. So we decided to sit at the Sushi Bar because it would be interesting to see a chef at work! It was a delight because we went some time looking at the food he was making and pointing to it and wondering what they were.
To start off the exciting experience, BaguetteGirl ordered the Hello Kitty and I ordered the Harajuku Girl. Very girly drinks but THEY TASTE SO GOOD! The Hello Kitty was made out of Vodka, Calpis, strawberry puree and soda. The Harajuku Girl had Vodka, Sourpuss Raspberry, Butter Ripple Schnapps, Calpis, and soda. The drinks were refreshing to the start of the meal and not alcoholic tasting…even though it had vodka. One thing that suck with these drinks was that the lemon and lime were cut really badly, they were not firm and just slouched over.
The menu reminded me of Guu! Lots of tapas, lots of choice, super good.
We started off with the ebi mayo, which is prawn tempura in spicy mayo sauce. It was not overly spicy and had a good balance of flavour. This dish is a staple dish in my opinion whenever you go to a Japanese tapas place!
Next we had the beef tataki! I love beef tataki!!! It’s so good! I LOVE MEAT. Anyways, the beef tataki was made out of Seared AAA beef slices with a sesame-chilli sauce, onions on top! Very nicely put together.
Next we had the GINDARA & TAKANA MESHI which is Hot stone bowl rice with baked sablefish marinated in miso and soy with Japanese mustard leaves. It was also super delicious. The waitress would bring it to the table and help you mash up all the ingredients in the bowl so all the items are mashed up to the right size.
After that we had the pork belly and lettuce wrap, for some reason that took a while to get to the table. The dish contained Crispy pork belly, apple yuzu jam, pickled red onions & butter lettuce! The dish was good but when we put all the ingredients together it did not taste extraordinary. Something was missing from this dish. Perhaps something more acidic to balance the pork belly?
To end off the meal, we had the assorted ice cream. It comes with 3 different ice cream flavours. It was a very interesting experience and if you are craving dessert, why no just try it for the heck of it.
The first ice cream was a roasted tomato which sounded really strange at the time.
The second was similar to a frozen crème brulee.
The last was a coffee and pepper ice cream.
If you are looking for some delicious Japanese tapas and some drinks for a girls night out or a date, this is the place to go. Nice atmosphere, nice décor and servers!
We rate Hapa Izakaya:
Check out their website: http://hapaizakaya.com/
2 Comments
Was the place expensive, in your opinoin?
Ya, a tad bit. Our bill came to $60 something, but understandable since we had 3 drinks.