Gyoza King

It was a super cold Wednesday evening when InsecureGirl and I were SUPER HUNGRY after long classes and meetings at SFU. I told her to decide where we should go. After she did a lot of stalking on Urbanspoon, she stumbled upon Go Haggis’s Review on Gyoza King. Looking at the pictures, it made her super excited and more hungry than ever.

Gyoza King is located on Robson Street specializing in Gyoza’s and traditional Japanese dishes.

From the outside, it looks like a large restaurant, but it is pretty small from the inside. It seats I would says about 50 people. When we went, it was about 11pm and it was not empty at all. People would come in for the gyoza’s, tapas and drinks. InsecureGirl really liked the interior decor and said it was pretty clean. I really had no idea what she was saying because the floor looked dirty.

I have this thing about hand drawn daily specials. I think it’s super cool and you don’t need to hire any designers! Reminded me of other Japanese places like Hapa Izakaya and Guu. Gyoza King also had a list of top 5 items on their menu this week. If you are super indecisive like we are, it’s a good guide to see whats good for the week.

Mmmmm Tea.

Gyu Tataki ($6.50) is seared beef slices in ponzu sauce. It is topped off with green onions, and radish. It was really delicious and the acidity of the ponzu sauce made it very enjoyable.

Ebi Mayo ($6.50) has tiger prawns with a type of mayo sauce. Compared to places like Guu…Gyoza King’s version has smaller shrimp. The taste of the mayo went well with the tiger prawns.

Pork and Vegetables Gyoza (6 for $4.95) was a must because this place is called Gyoza King. I found them to be quite average. Maybe I am use to the flavours of dumplings because I eat so much at home. When you add the ponzu sauce (in the small black tea pot on the table) to the dumplings, it makes them so much better!

This udon was quite interesting. It had pureed radishes, beef slices, and seaweed in ponzu sauce. InsecureGirl was really skeptical about the pureed radishes and now it all fit with the dish. After mixing it around, it added more texture and soaked up the ponzu sauce.

Japanese-style duck breast with sweet soy ($9.50) came with a small salad, lemon and some fried onions. The duck was #1 on the top 5 things to have at the restaurant. The duck was well cut and thin.

It seemed like InsecureGirl and I had a lot of ponzu sauce in our meal. If you don’t know what ponzu sauce is, it’s a citrus soy sauce. It’s probably one of my favorite soy sauce for all foods. With all the Izakaya restaurants on Robson, they are all starting to seem very similar to them all. What you can say about Gyoza King is that if you have late night cravings at 1am….you can get your fix!

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