Izakaya Archives - Page 3 of 3

In Four Beakers

Alpha Sushi & Japanese Tapas: A Good Alternative

May 5, 2012

Alpha Sushi and Japanese Tapas is located in Yaletown and is quite popular even on weekday nights. It was empty at 5pm, but by 6pm it started to get quite packed. As you can gather by their name….they do have Japanese tapas and sushi.

CandiedZen and I decided to meet up after my last day of work to just catch up over food and drinks. My last visit was probably 5 years ago and I remember it being a delicious place.

South Pole ($5.75) has tequila, cassis, pineapple, and lychee.

Pint of Sapporo ($5) is something I must get when I have Japanese food. I find it the perfect pairing. It’s light and not too strong.

Tako Wasa ($4) is seasoned baby octopus with japanese horseradish. It is served with shrimp chips on the side. You would scoop the octopus onto the cracker and eat it. The shrimp cracker gives it a nice crunchy texture to go with the octopus. CandiedZen liked it with the shrimp cracker but I thought it was a bit strange since it’s usually paired with seaweed.

Mini Potato Croquette ($6) is a deep-fried potato with bits of beef. It has a side of fruity vegetable sauce. I liked the small size and its simple taste.

Tuna Garlic Pepper Sashimi ($9.50) is one of their popular items that they sell. It has black pepper and garlic flavoured seared fresh albacore tuna with ponzu sauce. It was good, but I felt there was a bit too much going on with the plate and drowns out the natural taste of the sashimi. If you love garlic, you’ll love this dish.

Dill Salmon Carpaccio ($8.75) has sliced dill salmon with capers, dressing and a side salad. There really wasn’t much dill to it except for the sprinkles of dry dill. It’s best enjoyed by taking a bit of everything and eating it.

Grilled Hokke-Mackerel ($8.75) is grilled salted hokke mackerel with ponzu sauce. They already remove the bones so it’s quite easy to eat. I enjoyed it with the ponzu sauce since the acidity from the sauce blended well.

Ebi Mayo Japon ($6.50) are deep-fried nobashi prawns in breaded panko crumb batter with tartar sauce. It was delicious!

Overall, it’s a great alternative to the other izakaya restaurants in town. Some items can be a hit or miss, but a majority of the items are pretty good. They have lots of specials and special drinks. To help make ordering a bit easier, they have a list of the most ordered items of the previous week. The service was quite attentive and the servers were helpful.

Words of Wisdom:

Most dishes under $10
Large variety in food and drink menu
Gets busy at peak hours even on weekdays
Ebi Mayo is highly recommended

We Rate Alpha Sushi & Japanese Tapas:

Address:
1099 Richards St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
http://www.plusalfa.com/

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In Four Beakers

Guu Garlic: Garlic Chips are Addictive

April 29, 2012

Guu Garlic is one of my favorite Guu locations as they serve tapas with a theme of garlic. Since there are so many Guus in Vancouver now, there are only 2 that I adore going to … Guu Garden and Guu Garlic. The menus are slightly similar, but it’s about the atmosphere and company that makes dining at Guu great. It’s a very noisy place since the servers are always shouting out order across the room.

The new executives of the Social Media Network at SFU decided to head out here for night of eating! Getting enough space for about 10 people is quite hard especially during the weekend at dinnertime. We waited for about an hour and twenty minutes for seats. Since we were determined to have Guu, we waited patiently. Gmoney and I shared a few dishes.

Glass of Sapporo ($5) is needed especially on a weekend. It’s a light beer and one of my favorites.

Beef Carpaccio has ponzu sauce, mayo and pea shoots on top. The cuts of beef were thin and tender. Anything with ponzu sauce is delicious!

Tuna Tataki ($6.80) has several pieces of thin seared tuna with onions, green onions, garlic chips and a container on ponzu sauce. This was also delicious! Plus, the garlic chips are awesome! I’m a sucker for raw fish.

Chicken Karaage ($5.40) comes with a lemon and a side of mayo. The picture above is 2 orders rather than one. It was crispy on the outside and very juicy on the inside.

Yaki Udon ($7.80) has pan-fried udon with beef, mushroom, green onion, soy sauce and butter. Its delicious as usual.

Scallop and Cheese Pizza was ordered by M and he said it was good. It’s small in size, but there is at least a small scallop on each slice.

Overall, we all had a great time! The dishes are fairly consistent each time I come here and I’m usually not disappointed, but Japanese izakaya is my favorite type of food. I could eat it over and over and over again.

Words of Wisdom:

Hard to find parking
All tapas below $10 and well priced
Great place to casually eat and drink

We Rate Guu with Garlic:

Address:

1698 Robson St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.guu-izakaya.com

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In BBQ

Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ: $7.95 Lunch Combo and Happy Hour

March 11, 2012

Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ is a new Japanese restaurant that opened up Downtown. It’s located beside Relish Gastopub and below Guu Garden.

They have a lot of good lunch combos and even a Happy Hour special. They sell Japanese BBQ grill dishes, noodles, rice and other dishes. You can have a good lunch for under $10 after tax.

The interior is really quite nice and there’s lots of space. Perfect for games too since they have a projector.

Fried Chicken Karrage (Reg. $5.50 | Happy Hr. $3.50) this was really delicious! I’ve had a lot of chicken karrage in the past and this is my favorite Karrage at the moment. The chicken meat is very moist and the fried exterior is crispy and perfectly flavoured. There is also mayo and lemon if you need extra taste.

Spicy Tuna Volcano (Reg. $6.95 | Happy hr. $3.95) comes with 4 pieces. The rice is deep fried with tuna and a wasabi sauce on top.

The rice inside was actually moist looking normal rice. The tuna was tender and had a good texture. The thing that some of us didn’t like was the wasabi sauce. If you aren’t a wasabi person, ask for the sauce to be removed.

BiBimBap (Reg. $7.95 | Happy Hr. $5.95) was not very good. Unlike typical Korean BiBimBap, there wasn’t much oil in the stone bowl, so a lot of the items just burned. MeatLover really didn’t like this dish.

If you order some lunch combos, you will get an additional salad or miso soup.

The salad was good and refreshing with egg, cucumbers, greens, pepper, radish and a mild sauce.

The miso soup was quite standard. Nothing too special

Chicken Karaage Bowl Combo ($7.95) comes with miso soup and salad. The chicken karaage is similar to the appetizer but with seaweed, mayo and green onions over rice.

Kuppa ($7.95) comes with salad. Don’t get this confused with Koopa from Mario. It has a rich broth soup with rice, beef, egg, and some other items. I liked it because I have this weird fascination for soup and rice.

Overall, price-wise was good and affordable for lunch. The Happy Hour deals were a bit confusing since it says you need a minimum of $15 spent per person. For all of our appetizers, we expected to pay the regular price, but to our surprise the happy hour price was applied even though we did not spend $15 per person.

Words of Wisdom:

$9.99 pitchers of beer of Canucks game day
Some items are a hit and miss
Under $10 lunch specials
Happy Hour Lunch deals

We Rate Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ:

Address:

888 Nelson St
Vancouver, BC

Website:

http://www.gyu-kaku.com/

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In Downtown

Hapa Izakaya Coal Harbour: New Beginnings

March 8, 2012

Hapa Umi was the higher-end restaurant of the Hapa Izakaya chain. From hearing much feedback from the customers, they decided to change Hapa Umi into Hapa Izakaya Coal Harbour. The prices are much lower and you will be having similar items to the other Hapa Izakaya restaurants.

Flo heard about the Grand Opening and how the first 40 people to make a reservation gets 30% off through Twitter. Since we like deals we quickly made a reservation online and came here after work. I also forgot my memory card at home, so I’m sorry the pictures aren’t as good.

The interior is the same and has a nice modern vibe. The hostess and the service was really good.

Kakuni ($10.99) is braised pork belly green pepper sauce and grilled garlic bread. This was my favorite dish. The pork belly literally just melts in your mouth and the green pepper sauce accompanies it very well. Definitely something you need to try!

Just look at that pork belly! If you are afraid of fat, just eat it! Sometimes fat is good for you. Flo and I just gobbled this whole dish quite quickly. YUMMM.

Seafood Rissotto Ishiyaki ($11.49) has scallops, squid, halibut, mushrooms, parmesan, shiso leaves and yuzu zest. It’s like a soupy rice in a stone bowl. It was good, but we both didn’t like the addition of the shiso leaves. It just has a minty taste to it. Just a personal preference.

Trout carpaccio ($10.99) has salmon style steel head trout with potato wedges, grainy mustard, vinaigrette and wasabi sour cream. This dish was quite different from any other carpaccio dish I’ve seen. The trout really looked like salmon, but was very delicious. At times I found that the potatoes were a weird pairing with the salmon. But… that’s just me since I’m not a potato person. Regardless, it was something new that no other izakaya place has created.

Ebi mayo ($8.99) is tempura wild shrimp and spicy mayo sauce. This was a disappointing dish since we both felt the tempura of the shrimp became very mushy because of the sauce. Flo said she preferred the mayo on the side.

A good thing about this dish is that the shrimp is quite large!

Banana Chocolate Cake was good, but different for a place like Hapa Izakaya. The banana bread has lots of chocolate chips inside but I felt like the cake could be much warmer. This dessert was just so-so.

Overall, it was great to see the change in their menu be similar to their other locations. If you like the other Hapa Izakaya locations, you’ll like this one too.

Words of Wisdom:

Great taste
Order their Fresh Sheet items
Can get a bit expensive
More higher end compared to other Japanese Izakaya Restaurants
Great place for special occasions

We Rate Hapa Izakaya Coal Harbour:
Address:
909 W Cordova St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
http://hapaizakaya.com/

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In Four Beakers

Sushiyama: Amazing Japanese Food!

January 6, 2012

Sushiyama is a very popular Japanese restaurant in Vancouver. It’s good for their cheap eats and quality food. No wonder during peak hours, there can be a lot of people lining up.

Luckily, it was after the lunch hour rush when I took MedicalGiraffe and BaguetteGirl here. They wanted something different and super delicious. They’ve passed by a dozen times, and thought this place was a bit sketchy, to their surprise, it would be some of the best Japanese food they would have.

They have a few killer items on their menu. If you come here, sushi is a must….or at least a few key rolls.

Negitoro Roll ($2.75) has chopped tuna belly and green onions. It comes with 6 pieces. Very good price, plus it tasted really really good.

Caterpillar Roll ($6.95) contains cucumber, avocado, mayo, crab meat, eel and BBQ sauce. It is probably the best thing to get! It is covered in a lot of thin slices of avocado. I can’t remember what was inside but it tasted really good! Highly recommended!

Crunch Roll ($4.25) has yam, sweet potatoes, shrimp tempura, and avocados. This was pretty horrible. After we ordered, it came like a minute after We were really confused why it came so fast and why it didn’t look as cool as the caterpillar roll.

Salmon Sashimi ($7.25) has come amazing thick pieces of salmon. Really delicious too!

Seaweed Salad was alright. If you love seaweed, you’d probably like it.

Grilled Black Cod was really good! One of my favorite items. Yummm.

Overall, really good food here for good prices. I would come her again and again!

Words of Wisdom:

Very cheap and affordable
Mediocre service
Long Lines
Best to go in 2′s if you hate to wait. the larger the group, the long it will take ..during peak hours
Caterpillar roll and sashimi!!!!
Bento boxes are of great value if you want to try a bit of everything

We Rate Sushiyama:

Address:
371 E Broadway
Vancouver, BC

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In Izakaya

Sushimoto: Hidden Sushi Place in North Burnaby

December 28, 2011

Sushimoto is a hidden Japanese restaurant in Burnaby near Holdom Skytrain. It’s a nice hidden find since nothing else is really around that area.

They are quite busy during peak hours and are growing to be quite popular since they are known to give away complementary dishes! M, Jojocake, NotFauna, and KoreanGirl decided to head over for some sushi since it’s very close to where we all live.

Ya, as usual I need my tea!

Complementary Salad comes with the meal. I was surprised and super confused because they never use to do this. It had a bit of everything in the salad – vegetables, cranberries, almonds, croutons…etc. It tasted alright. You need to mix it up in order to have the dressing cover all the ingredients.

Awesome cream cheese roll ($11) has avocado, crabmeat, cream cheese, baked salom, nnegi, masago, bonito spicy mayo and unagi sauce. M really liked it, but it can be a bit expensive for just a roll. It’s one of their specialty rolls, so thats why its more expensive.

Red hot chili roll ($8) has chopped scallop with spicy tuna on top and green onion, spicy mayo and spicy sauce.

Spicy Tuna Roll ($3.90) tasted alright. The usual stuff and it wasn’t spicy at all.

Spicy Chopped Scallop Roll ($3.90) has the spicy sauce on top of the chopped scallop roll. It was also alright, nothing too special about it.

Takoyaki ($4.50) comes with 6 pieces. It’s an octopus ball with bonito, mayo and dontatsu sauce.

Tako Wasabi ($3.5) is octopus marinated with wasabi. It also comes with a few sheets of seaweed to eat it with. It doesn’t have a strong taste of wasabi, which is disappointing because I wanted it to sting me. Kinda weird, but I found the ones at Guu and Kingyo much better.

Ika Wasabi comes complementary too. It’s squid marinated with wasabi sauce. It also didn’t have a strong wasabi taste.

Overall, the food was good and the decor was great. Certain items can be a bit over priced, but the addition of the complementary dishes made up for that. It’s a nice little place to go to if you are sick of places like Sushi Garden or Sushi Town.

Words of Wisdom:

Street Parking
Large variety in menu
Sashimi = good!
Make reservations to avoid waits.

We rate Sushimoto:

They are located at:

2221 Holdom Ave S
Burnaby, BC

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In Downtown

Guu Garden: Rice Burger Bento Lunch Is Awesome

December 20, 2011

Guu Garden is probably my favorite place to have lunch downtown. It’s cheap and you are guaranteed a fabulous lunch. Plus, I love Japanese food to death. For AvocadoGirl’s last day of work, I took her here since she really needed to see their amazing lunch.

You get super full for about $10.

The lunch menu is above, but they do change once in a while.

We grabbed some tea and waited for our order to arrive. Unfortunately, it was busy at lunch so it did take quite a while for our meal to arrive. I think it took about 30 minutes for our order to arrive. This was quite a bit long since lunch is supposed to be a fast meal. Eventually it did arrive, which is good.

Kobe Beef Hamburg Steak Rice Burger Bento ($10) it comes with green bean fries, prawn & avocado wasabi salad, side dish and miso soup. You can also double the patty for an extra $2.50.

Kobe Beef Hamburg Steak Rice Burger look really good and flavourful. It’s a bit hard to eat with your hands, so I used a knife and fork.

The Kobachi served when I went here was bean sprouts with a little bit of chili sauce. Overall pretty good, but it was small.

Prawn & Avocado Wasabi Salad is another one of my favorite dishes. It doesn’t have a strong overwhelming wasabi taste, so its good for people with varying spicy tolerance.

Green bean fries complimented all the other items nicely since it had a nice crunch. Not oily at all.

Grapes came as the finishing dessert. It was just normal grapes, so can’t really say much about that. They use to have this almond pudding instead and that was so much better than grapes.

Okara & Veggies Korokke Rice Burger Bento ($10) it comes with green bean fries, prawn& avocado wasabi salad, side dish and miso soup. Everything is the same except for the burger.

AvocadoGirl had this and I don’t think she had any complaints.

Pasta of the Day ($10) has their daily pasta, side of avocado shrimp salad and a miso soup.

They warned me that the pasta would be spicy, but it really wasn’t. It had a light tomato sauce with peppers, tomatoes, herbs and bacon. It was alright, but nothing too spectacular.

The miso soup was pretty good! It even has bean curd in it.

It’s the same avocado and shrimp salad that comes with the other combos. YUM!

Avocado Cheesecake surprised me at first! How can you put those two together? It tasted really good, the avocado is subtle but you can still taste it!

Overall, really good lunch deals especially in the downtown area. Highly recommended!

Words of Wisdom:

Amazing $10 bento lunch
Hard to locate the restaurant
Slow service

We Rate Guu Garden:

Address:

M101-888 Nelson Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.guu-izakaya.com

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Vancouver

In Izakaya

Kingyo Japanese Izakaya: Kingyo Craze Dining Package

November 25, 2011

Foodology Disclaimer: VANEATS.ca approached me to try out their “Kingyo Craze” dining package and write a review about it. I got a complementary dining package for myself and bought an additional one for a friend to keep the review as unbiased as I could. This review does not guarantee 100% similar service you might normally get from this restaurant.

Kingyo Japanese Izakaya is one of the better Izakaya restaurants in Downtown (according to this article from Vancouver Sun). I’ve been here in the Summer with CandiedZen and we had a great time…except it kinda broke our wallets since we are both students.

This time around, I came with CandiedZen again to try the Kingyo Craze Dining from VANEATS.ca . Seemed like a good deal since the dining package for one person is $19 for 5 courses.

The interior is quite nice. It’s not a super large place, so it’s always good to make reservations.

Fresh Housemade Ginger Ale, which I have forgotten the price was quite refreshing! It’s a good drink if you feel like not drinking anything alcoholic.

Fresh Melon White Wine Sangria ($7.50) has fresh melon, calpico, white wine, melon liqueur, soda and lime.

Sashimi Salad – three kinds of sashimi (changes daily) on a bed of organic springs dressed with soy based vinaigrette and garlic oil

On the day we arrived, we had salmon, scallop and tuna I think. They had the right amount of dressing over it and the yuzu jelly on top and the crispy lotus room complemented nicely.

Chicken Breast Tender & Cod Roe Spring Roll served with a side of mayo & special soy sauce

This was probably my favorite dish out of the entire meal. The chicken was super tender and it complimented the code roe and the filling nicely. Having that in the crispy spring roll shell …then dunking it into the mayo +soy sauce = nom nom nom nom.

One of the dishes came a bit later than the first one and the consistency was a bit off. The color of the spring rolls as you can tell are much different too.

Despite this little issue, it still tasted super good! Something about the savory filling with the crispy shell dipped into the mayo and soy sauce just lit up our palettes. If you don’t end up getting the dining package, just order it off their menu because this dish is AMAZING!

Deep fried tofu and mushrooms served in a sizzling stone bowl

The waiter comes to the table with a two bowls – one with the hot stone bowl with the tofu and another bowl with the mushroom and sauce. It’s a good dish for the winter time. Even though it’s all vegetables, it will fill you up.

No, its not spicy and those green things aren’t jalapenos, but it’s Okra. Okra is delicious FYI.

CandiedZen really loved the stickiness of the tofu skin, but she felt the sauce reminded her of Chinese food rather than Japanese.

I thought the taste was very familiar but I really couldn’t put my finger on it. I loved the tofu and the mushrooms, but I found the sauce a bit salty for my taste.

Seared Negitoro Sushi – chopped tuna & green onions with seaweed paste and Kingyo’s original sauce

This totally reminded me of the Negitoro Battera from Suika, but except they have the seared top. This item is not on the original menu, but CandizedZen and I tried to push them to add it onto the main menu. (Lets hope they do because it was good).

We liked this because they held together firmly and was quite light. The 2 sauces on top complimented the negitoro nicely. Hidden inside the rice is a small piece of avocado. It was quite interesting to discover.

Petit Almond Tofu – Kingyo’s famous super smooth and refreshing almond tofu with persimmon sauce

I don’t think we had the persimmon sauce on top. Not sure why it wasn’t there. Regardless, we enjoyed the plain almond tofu. It comes is a really cute small dish with a wooden spoon. I love almond pudding, so this is good! It’s a good ending to this meal since it’s not too heavy.

Frozen Grapes finish off the meal! This is always my favorite part of the meal, I know it’s silly but I always anticipate the grapes.

Overall, CandiedZen and I thought this package was worth the price of $19. On a regular day, you could probably spend $30ish per person… I think once we spent almost $100 here. Good amount of food and you can really see the variety in their menu.

If you haven’t been here before, it would be a good way to see what Kingyo can offer. You can grab this package from VANEATS.ca

Words of Wisdom:

Make reservations on the busy nights
Have lunch and dinner
Good variety of items on the menu
Good place to bring a date

We Rate Kingyo Japanese Izakaya:
Address:
871 Denman St
Vancouver, BC V6G
Website:
http://www.kingyo-izakaya.ca

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In Izakaya

Ramen Sanpachi (Broadway): Way More Than Just Ramen

October 18, 2011

I usually go to the Ramen Sanpachi on Robson, but one day CandiedZen and I found ourselves venturing far down Broadway since we couldn’t decide where to eat. Eventually we ended up at Sanpachi kinda close to UBC. They have a different menu beyond just the typical ramen and sides.

It took me a while to figure out why this place looked so familiar and it was because it use to be Pier 3132.

Tea comes in a cute tiny pot and a cute Japanese cup.

Seaweed Salad ($3.75) is very light and refreshing.

Oyster (3pcs -$4.95) are fresh and is so good. CandiedZen and I actually ordered 2 plates of these since we couldn’t get enough. Tabasco sauce is a must if you want that extra kick.

Beef Tataki ( $5.45) comes with several long strips of the beef. It tasted pretty good but I didn’t like how it was cut so long. I much prefer it cut more into a square-ish shape.

Dynamite Roll ($3.50) just had the shrimp tempura, cucumbers, greens and tobiko wrapped in seaweed and rice. It’s nothing special.

Salmon Croquette ($7.50) comes with 2 pieces of the rice balls with bits of cooked salmon inside. This dish was ok, the salmon pieces were a bit small, so it was hard to really taste the salmon.

Cha Shu Ramen with Nori Mayo (Half -$8.25), normal and delicious as usual.

Nori Mayo that comes with the ramen was delicious as usual. It’s best to eat these when they arrive at the table or else the seaweed gets soggy and doesn’t taste as good.

Overall, they do have more variety than the Robson location. I would definitely recommend the ramen and oysters!

Words of Wisdom:

Decent ramen at decent price
Around $10
Combos are my favorite
The Izakaya items are a bit expensive for what you get
Oysters are good

We rate Sanpachi Ramen:

They are located at:

3132 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC

In Downtown

Hapa Umi: Delicious Food in Small Portions

October 10, 2011

Hapa Umi is the higher end version of Hapa Izakaya. They are located near Waterfront and serve up some unique Japanese dishes. I bought 2 Living Social Coupons a while ago, and since they were about to expire, I really needed to use them. I brought along 3 friends to join me on this delicious journey.

I tried making reservations a few days in advanced, but they were super busy with other reservations. I got an 8:30 slot, but we were so efficient that we arrived at 8 instead. The hostess was very nice and was able to seat us earlier.

The interior was quite nice! Theres even an area of seating where you can look at the water.

The menu has three courses and you had your choice of any 3 items.

From the booths that we sat at, we were able to see the chefs in action putting together our dishes.

Since no meal at a Japanese restaurant can be complete without beer, InsecureGirl got the Hapa Lager and I got a Sapporo.

Halibut Ceviche has fresh cuts of halibut sashimi with sliced cherry tomatoes, topped with onions, lemon-lime soy marinade and shiso-infused olive oil.

Very nice and delicate taste! It definitely has different texture, but I think I still prefer my usual tuna.

Pemberton Medows Beef Tataki has the thin slices of beef with garlic ponzu, green onion and spicy daikon.

KoreanGirl, InsecureGirl and CanuckGirl all liked the quality of the dish, but it did seem a tad small.

BC Wild Spring Salmon has the pan seared salmon on skewers with gnocchi, roated cauliflower, cauliflower puree, grilled zucchini with a soy-maple shallot butter.

Tofu two-ways Tofu steak with crispy tofu, scallion-ginger soy, peppers and a basil cream. One tofu was deep fried and the other was pan fried.

This dish was alright, good flavours but I found the portion sizing to be quite small for the entree. Very good quality, but it still left me hungry.

AAA Alberta Beef Tenderloin Steak came medium rare with vegetables and some other sauces. This wasn’t written on the menu since they needed to make a few substitution on a few items. InsecureGirl said this dish was pretty well executed, but was also a tad small.

Their dessert menu is separate and our eyes just lit up when we saw it.

We ordered 2 orders of the Cannoli and the cheesecake, but they decided to present it to us in a larger plate so we all could share.

Umi Cannoli ($9) citrus cream cheese filling, shiso and strawberry compote with sour cream ice cream. These are the small circular things on the plate. There were really really good, but its not the type of cannoli you would see in the stores. This is more flat like a cookie with delicious filling. I could eat these all day!

Souffle Cheesecake ($9.50) has strawberry and shiso compote too. The cheese cake was quite dense and did eventually slowly fill us up.

Overall, good quality and taste of the food, but the portions and price are completely different spectrums. It can get quite expensive.

Words of Wisdom:

Japanese modern fusion type of food
Great taste
Small Portions
More higher end compared to other Japanese Izakaya Restaurants
Great place for Business meals or special occasions

We Rate Hapa Umi:
Address:
909 W Cordova St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
hapaumi.com

Twitter:
@hapaumi

Vancouver

In Gastown

Guu Gastown: Guu’d Food

September 13, 2011

My goal in life is to go to every single Guu in the world! Hopefully that can be achieved in my lifetime….which may be hard since locations keep popping up around the world. Today, my adventures brought me to Guu Gastown for a friends “catch up” dinner.

Even though I put down reservations, we still had to wait in line. I came prepared and came a bit early to make sure we didn’t have to wait too long.

We got seated at their large window…my this wasn’t too bad of a view but it did get colder once the night rolled in. For the people attending the dinner that didn’t know where it was…its a fun idea to scream out the window so they know where Guu Gastown is. Keep in mind, that would be very embarrassing if others started looking at you.

The menu is similar on most days, but they also have a fresh sheet too.

You know me, Sapporo is a must at Guu. We ordered 2 pitchers and they have the tall Sapporo glasses. Yum!

Tako Wasa ($3.50) is marinated cooked octopus with wasabi and its served with sides of roasted seaweed. This is not a dish for everyone. If you hate wasabi, best to avoid. I love this dish because wasabi give your face a nice kick. I am not a big fan of wasabi, but I quite enjoy it in this form with the octopus.

Ebi Mayo ($7.80) are deep fried prawns in a crispy batter with spicy mayo. I really don’t like ebi mayo battered like this. It’s a bit thick and I think the other Guu’s make it better.

Takoyaki ($4.80) are deep fried battered octopus balls with tonkatsu sauce, wasabi mayo, mustard mayo, bonito flakes and dried seaweeed.

It’s pretty good and comes with 5 pieces. So much better than night market!

Saba with Garlic Herb ($7.20) is soy sauce + olive oil grilled mackerel with garlic chips, bill, peppers, herbs, lemon and onions.

I find the best part about this are the garlic chips! The saba has no bones, so it’s great for children!

Guu Tataki ($6.20) is seared beef sashimi with ponzu sauce, garlic chips and green onions. There’s really nothing I can say about this dish since its so delicious!

Eel Cutlet and Egg ($7.20) is deep fried panko breaded eel with kabayaki sauce, topped with a soft egg and japanese peppers. I’ve never had anything like this and CandiedZen and I just thought this dish was fabulous. The crunchiness of the fried eel matches with the soft gooey egg.

Sashimi Salad ($8.20), I was not very impressed by…but it did still taste good.

Guu Yakiudon ($7.50) is pan fried udon with beef, green onions and mushrooms topped with bonito flakes and dried seaweed. Always one of the most delicious dishes!

Overall, the choices on the menu were pretty good. I like how all the Guu’s have similar items, but are executed a bit differently. You really can’t get bored of the different Guu chains. After trying the Gastown location, I still prefer Guu Garden and Guu Garlic.

Words of Wisdom:

Yakiudon, eel cutlet and egg, beef tataki recommended
Very busy during the evenings
Best to get reservations
Closest Skytrain: Waterfront

We Rate Guu Gastown:
Address:

375 Water St
Vancouver, BC

Website:

www.guu-izakaya.com/gastown.html

Twitter:

@GuuIzakaya

In Commercial Drive / Grandview

Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen: Great Addition to The Drive

August 22, 2011

My sister found a new Japanese place on Commercial Drive called Kishimoto that serves up sushi and different izakaya dishes. Since I just adore Japanese food to death, I dragging M to come eat with me.

There are a few other Japanese Restaurants on Commercial Drive and at first we accidentally went to the wrong place. It looked nothing like Kishimoto, but it had a similar name. M thought I took him to a crappy place, but we just went to the wrong place. We felt super bad to be leaving, so we just grabbed our stuff and quickly said “umm errr we have to go”. As we walked infront of Kishimoto, our eyes just lit up.

Their interior is quite dark, so it gives it a bit of a romantic intimate vibe. The servers were really nice!

I can’t live without beer, so I got a bottle of Kirin. Kirin isn’t as good as Sapporo or Asahi.

Ebi Chili Mayo ($9.75) comes with 5 pieces of the battered and fried prawns with chili mayo sauce. The prawns were beautifully butterflied so you can taste more of the natural taste of the prawn . I loved how the mayo is on the side since I really don’t like my ebi mayo doused in the sauce.

What I found was that even though this dish is good, it is quite pricey for just 5 pieces.

Sockeye Salmon Ishinabe ($14) is rice and sockeye salmon sashimi with a bunch of other ingredients in a 450 degree stone bowl. This reminded me of the Korean bibimbap, but with a Japanese twist. You need to leave the ingredients in the bowl until the bottom gets crispy. I love the crispy rice, so I let it sit there for awhile.

For the price, you wont’ get super full from the dish. It also tasted really good, but quite pricey.

My favorite dishes were probably the sushi! It comes with such a lovely presentation! It has a tea light candle in the center with red currants. Red currants are currently in season, so its a perfect garnish.

They do little things on the dish that just impresses me. They even turned bits of carrot into a butterfly!

Kishimoto Roll ($5.95) has scallop, salmon, radish sprouts, wrapped in rice and soy paper. It was really good!!! It’s probably one of the best sushi’s I’ve had in a while. Its the type of sushi that requires no soy sauce and the flavours really just shine through. It was not super dense and it was really just perfect.

Little Princess Roll ($7.95) has oba leaf, cream cheese, unagi, mayo wrapped in rice and inari. This roll even has edamame eyes! The roll just melts in your mouth and you really just fall in love with the combination of unagi and cream cheese.

Overall, M and I fell in love with their sushi! We did like the other items, but they got pretty pricey. You really need to look and choose the items carefully on the menu or else you will break your wallet. The quality of the food is amazing and I will probably come here again for their sushi.

Words of Wisdom:

Kishimoto Roll is a must order!
Prices are slightly high on certain items
dark intimate atmosphere
Great service
Free parking in residential areas

We Rate Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen:

Address:

2054 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/pages/Kishimoto…

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Vancouver

In Izakaya

Electric Owl Social Club: Surprising Asian Inspired Menu

August 16, 2011

It was @wongers birthday and she decided to have it at the Electric Owl. The name of the place sounded very interesting, seemed more like a pub/lounge to me. Since we went there early and it was fireworks night, this place was pretty much desserted except for our large group and some other people.

They serve up items you would see at an izakaya place. This place really confused me because there were chopsticks and most items on the menu didn’t match the look of this place. Their Japanese style snacks are prepared by a Vietnamese chef in an izakaya-inspired room and a live band.

Their whole philosophy is that, like great drinks and creative food, good is always better when there’s more.

There are 2 bars, a large stage, an open dancing area in the middle and lots of seating around the restaurant. Its actually great for large birthdays where you want to have food and drinks. Usually there is nightly entertainment, so there isn’t a need to go elsewhere if you want to party.

On all the tables are the Japanese-like ceramic cups with napkins and chopsticks.

Since the menu was so Japanese, I decided a Sapporo (Pint – $5.30) was a must. Straight from the tap and it comes in the tall glass.

Spicy-cured Beef Tataki ($7.90) is seared NY steak spiced with togarashi seasoning with greens and mayo. The cut of beef was really nice, but I felt that the dish did not have the spice I was looking for. It was not at all spicy. The mayo did not work very well with the beef since it does not give your pallet a good clean feeling compared to the traditional ponzu sauce.

If you are going to get this dish, you might as well go to Guu or any other Izakaya to get the traditional item with ponzu sauce.

Karaage Chicken ($6.90) is deep fried chicken seasoned in soy sauce. It is topped off with leeks and has a side of mayo. M said it was alright, but he wasn’t full from just one dish. You probably need to order about 2 dishes to get full.

Drunken Ebi Mayo ($7.80) is sake-marinated, deep-fried prawns with mayo cocktail sauce. It was alright, but anything out of the ordinary. I liked the side of the cocktail sauce since some other places like to just douse it all in the sauce.

Owl Poutine ($6.20) has fries with teriyaki gravy, cheese curd, green onions, nori, and mayo. You can also add bacon for $1.60. This is one of their popular dishes. It tastes really good!

Matcha Rice Pudding ($4.30) is creamy matcha-infused rice pudding. I liked it even though the presentation is not that exciting. It’s not very heavy and a great light dessert to finish off your meal.

Ice Cream agemono ($5.30) is deep-fried phyllo-wrapped vanilla ice cream with fresh fruit and green tea compote. It tasted alright, but it melted pretty quickly.

Overall, the food is really not the main attraction. It’s a good venue to just chill with your friends and have a drink. They always have large special events, so great social place. Even though their website advertises 2 for 1 ‘appy hour’ from 5pm – 7pm, we didn’t get it. Perhaps it was because we were in a large group.

Words of Wisdom:

Large amount of items are not available on their menu anymore. No brunch, No Bubbletea.
Customizable drinks and super nice bartenders
Lots of large events
Reservations for large groups
Owl Poutine is a must
Free parking in rear
Closest Skytrain: Main

We Rate Electric Owl:

Address:

928 Main Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.electricowl.ca

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/ElectricOwlSocialClub

Twitter: @electricowl_ca

In Four Beakers

G-Be Izakaya: Dragon Ball Z Inspired Sushi

July 18, 2011

The last time I was here, they were still doing a soft opening. After many many many month, they finally fully opened. Since M and I were not super hungry, we decided to grab a few dishes since we were in the area. G-Be Izakaya, as the name suggests it’s an izakaya restaurant serving up Japanese tapas.

The interior was still the same and is very very calming in here. It’s not very noisy compared to places like Guu or Hapa Izakaya. It’s a good place … for the older generation or people who want a quiet place to dine.

The menu has dramatically changed since last time. There are way more choices and includes pictures.

Tea still isn’t free, so you have to pay for it. I got the genmaicha green tea ($1.25). You get refills of your pot so it’s not too too bad.

Ebi Mayo ($7.50) was ok, but not the best I’ve had. I really don’t like how it was drenched in mayo. It really overpowers the delicate taste and texture of the shrimp.

Tori Kara ($6.00) is deep fried chicken covered in a rice crisp. The chicken is incredibly moist as usual. I really did not like the salty seasoning that comes with the dish. It was much better with a miso/sesame sauce like last time.

Salmon and Multi-grain Rice Croquette ($7.00). It’s a deep fried salmon and rice ball with a tonkatsu sauce. It’s actually pretty good and tastes super healthy with the multi-grain rice. Unlike the usual potato croquette, the rice does capture a lot of flavour from the salmon.

Dragon Ball “G” ($12) has eel inside the purple rice, covered in avocado and the signature soy-milk croquette on top. It also has a ceasar sauce on the side too. We really enjoyed this roll because it was named after the popular Japanese anime – Dragon Ball Z.

The sushi itself is not that incredible, but it’s really about the croquette on top. It kinda has a texture like mozzarella inside. The roll is quite expensive for what you get, but at least you can eat this and reminisce about the TV show.

Overall, it was good unique food as usual, but it did cost us a bunch for 2 drinks and 4 dishes. Since it’s located at the Grand Villa Casino, maybe thats why the prices are so high. Made me want to gamble a bit before eating dinner, but I know I always lose.

Words of Wisdom:

Free Parking
Most dishes under $10
Healthy ingredients
Expensive compared to Guu
Unique dishes

We Rate G-Be Izakaya :

Address:

4331 Dominion St
Burnaby, BC

Website:
www.g-beizakaya.ca

In Four Beakers

Guu Kobachi: No Regular Menu, but great concept!

July 16, 2011

@floyvr organized an impromptu EatUp with @wongers, @kcclaveria, @alexglee and @crazyut . Since I am a Guu fanatic, I really really wanted to see their “No Regular Menu” concept. We arrived quite early since the @GuuIzakaya account told us to show up early. Since all openings are not perfect, there were a bit behind on opening at 5:30pm. We just chilled outside till we got in at 6pm.

Guu Kobachi is located at the old Toratatsu near Denman and Robson. They serve up fresh sheets, so the menu will change quite often depending on what ingredients are in season.

The interior is quite small and has the same layout as the old restaurant. It is very simple and wooden. The staff are energetic like the other Guu locations. They don’t have a lot of seating, so going at 7pm with a large group will not be best for you. They won’t be taking reservations till August, but they do have a large table that seats a lot of people if you wanted to have a b-day party dinner here. Just something to note in the future.

This is the setting you will get. They even have the chopstick thing that you see at Chinese restaurant.

Marinated Red Tuna Sashimi ($6.80) was the first dish that arrived at our table and we thought it has the cutest presentation ever! @crazyut enjoyed it and said the tuna had a good flavour and was very fresh.

Marinated Red Tuna Marinated ($6.80) is similar to the one above, but it is marinated to soy sauce or ponzu sauce. We found it was not too bad, but the sauce realy over powered the delicate texture of the tuna.

The first kobashi dish to arrive was the Miso Kakuni ($3.80). It is a slowly stewed pork belly pieces with quail egg in miso and soy sauce soup. This was an amazing dish! The pork belly was very tender and just full of flavour. They are in small pieces, so you will not feel guilty consuming so much fat. ** Must get dish**

Long Green Pepper ($3.80). It is boiled long green pepper marinated in a sweet sesame sauce, topped with bonito flakes. It is like a gomae but with green peppers. The peppers were not spicy at all.

Marinated Eggplant ($3.80). It has rectangular chopped cubes of eggplant with peppers, chili oil and bonito flakes. I liked eggplants, so I liked the pairing of the spicy chili oil and egg plant. I know some people at the table were not keen about eggplant.

Cold Tomato Curry ($3.80). Yes, this is a tomato! I didn’t get a lot of curry taste, it just tasted like a cold salted tomato.

Whole Onion ($3.80). Yes strange right? A whole onion. The onion was stewed in chicken stock and I really enjoyed the taste. Since it has been cooking for a long time, there is no sharp stinging taste.

Vege Chips ($3.80). These are assorted vegetable deep fried. Imagine super healthy chips. There were green peppers, potato skins, lotus roots, and other unidentifiable vegetables. Pretty unique dish and it would go great with beer.

Pork Ginger Spring Roll ($3.80). It has pan-fried pork ginger and cabbage inside. You can really taste the ginger in the pork filling. I didn’t really love this dish, but it was alright.

Chicken Gizzard ($3.80). This is chicken gizzard marinated in cili oil. This is an digestive organ of chickens. I’ve never had gizzard before and it had a very strange texture. When you bite into it, it is tough and hard.

Sweet and sour pork ($3.80). One of THE BEST I have ever had in my life! Very minimal breading so you can really taste the texture of the meat with the amazing sauce. ** Highly recommended**

Rolled Chinese Cabbage ($3.80). It is a stewed meat mixture wrapped in nappa cabbage in a tomatoey fish broth. This was a very unique dish and the meat they used for the dish was pretty good quality.

Marinated Conchi ($3.80). This is the meat from conch shells. It is marinated in garlic soy sauce. We found as we kept chewing on the conch that, it was quite salty. Very interesting to try.

Saba in Curry Sauce ($3.80). This is saba (mackerel) in a a curry sauce with potatoes. The saba tasted really good especially with the combination with the curry.

Beef tenderloin Tataki ($8.90). This is mid-well broiled beef tenderloin tataki style. SO GOOD! THis is the most tender beef I have ever had! ** Highly Recommended**

Kara-age-regular ($6.00). Its a simple japanese deep-fried chicken. It has no bones and comes with a side of mayo for dipping. Meat was very moist and had a light coating.

Squid ink calamari ($6.80) was quite different! It’s purple/black! We found that the deep fried calamari with squid ink just tasted like normal calamari. If you really focus on the taste of it, it has a very subtle taste, but it hard to pick up the flavour.

Ebi Mayo’s sister ($6.00) has ebi mayo coated in shredded potato batter. They add a whole new level to crunchiness! I really liked it since it looks like a sea urchin, but hidden inside is a very tasty piece of shrimp! **highly recommended**

Oyster Chazuke ($6.80). This has seared oyster on rice in fish broth soup. The oyster flavour is quite prominent and infused nicely with the fish broth. If you are an oyster lover, you will enjoy this dish.

Sockeye Salmon Carpaccio ($6.80). Was very good!! You can really taste the freshness of their salmon and their light sauces allow for the fresh taste to really since throught! ** highly recommended**

This came near the end of our meal. I think the chef gave it to us because we waiting outside for them to open. I think this was the Assorted Vege Salad ($4.80). It has long strands of carrots, radish, bonito flakes, greens in a ponzu sauce (i think). The stands of the radish were very very long!! It’s like those times when you are trying to split a bowl of noodles but it’s difficult because its just so long.

This isn’t a regular salad. It still has a good refreshing taste and it’s quite large.

Sapporo (Pint-$5.50). This is definitely needed every time you go to Guu!

Overall, we all had a great time and then menu items are quite unique compared to the other Guu chains. Since it just opened, they do have a few issues such as leaky pipes and missing orders. Do give the waitress patience as well since their english is not very good. They are trying their best, but none of us got mad or anything. Do check your bill before you pay because sometimes they might get an order wrong or something hasn’t arrived yet.

I am sure in a few weeks they will improve on a few of their flaws. For an opening day, it went pretty well and the place was packed. We racked up quite a bill of $130, but we did order a lot! It was well worth it.

Words of Wisdom:

Recommended: Miso Kakuni, Sweet + Sour Pork, Beef tenderloin Tataki, Ebi Mayo Sister, and Sockeye Salmon Carpaccio
Well priced items
Good atmosphere
Free parking after 6 at rear ( best not to drive, very limited parking)
Best to get off Burrard and take the bus down Robson
Super busy at peak hours

We Rate Guu Kobashi:

Address:

735 Denman Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.guu-izakaya.com/kobachi/

Twitter: @GuuIzakaya

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KitanoyaGuuIzakayaOfficial

Vancouver

In Four Beakers

Guu with Garlic: Great Place to Eat + Drink

July 5, 2011

KoreanGirl and I just finished our intersession course at SFU, so we decided to meet up Mandu and head over to Guu with Garlic. We had a great girls night at Guu Garden last time, so we headed to my other favorite Guu – Guu with Garlic.

This Guu is cool because it has the usual dining area, a patio and also a Japanese style upper area. Since it was a very busy day, we were put in the Japanese style area. It was super cool but I had the hardest time sitting down. My pants proved to be a bit problematic as well as the part where my legs kept getting numb. I totally prefer real chairs.

They have a regular menu and a fresh sheet.

We started off with a pitcher of Asahi ($21). It’s something that KoreanGirl and I must have! Japanese beer is the perfect thing to order when you are going to dig into a lot of izakaya dishes. What we noticed about this pitcher was how bad the pour job was… there was way too much head.

Mandu decided she didn’t want to pack on the pounds so she got a large bottle of cold sake ($7.80) and a diet coke ($2). She just mixed those two slowly together throughout the night.

Mandu loves her Saba Grill ($7.80). I was a bit skeptical about it since last time but I am really starting to like the dish. The Saba meat is flaky and goes perfectly with the garlic chips and lemon. It is grilled very nicely and the soy sauce works hand in hand with the garlic chip taste.

No meal can be done without Ebi Mayo ($7.80) at Guu. It comes with 6 pieces in a chili mayo dip. It’s still not the best Ebi Mayo I have ever had, but it’s not too bad.

I actually love enjoy eating the crunchy tail! A lot of people find it weird and just leave the shell, but it is edible if it is fried.

I am a huge fan of Sashimi salad ($6.80). The salad is mixed greens with a plum dressing and wasabi mayo. The sashimi was part of this dish was prawns, and some other types of fish that I couldn’t identify. It was pretty good and was a nice refreshing dish that did not have a heavy taste. The wasabi mayo adds a little kick to the dish as well!

By now, the Assorted oden ($6.50) is a must have! You can choose six items in it and we chose daikon, deep fried tofu, mocha tofu bag, puffed fish cake, beef tendon and fish cake.

The broth is very amazing and light. The addition of the yellow type of wasabi added a lot of strong sharp spicy taste to it. We accidentally added it into the broth and it was SO good!

The Maguro steak ($8.50) is a slab of ahi tuna sashimi steak marinated in garlic, soy sauce and sake. We felt that it was really just a slab of ahi tuna, which needed more flavor. We thought there would be a more unique taste, but it wasn’t there.

2 kinds of chicken cartilage ($5.50) was something quite interesting and very different! They batter and deep-fry the different parts of cartilage from the chicken. The have lemon and salt + pepper to add for more taste. Clearly, they don’t waste any parts of the chicken.

From the fresh sheet, we got the Curry croquette ($4.00). Golden brown and crispy on the outside, but the inside was just very smooth and had a good balance of curry taste.

We then ventured into trying the Gyu Tan/Beef tongue ($4.80). This is grilled beef tongue with an awesome salt green onion mixture. The beef tongue was tender and was seasoned very nicely and the onion mixture accompanied it well.

The Yaki Udon ($7.80) is something more standard. It I span fried udon, beef, mushrooms, green onion, and then seasoned with soy sauce and butter.

It was all right, but nothing special.

The Okonomiyaki ($5.80) is a deep fried squid & cabbage pancake with tonkatsu sauce and a mustard mayo sauce. I thought this was all right and kinda reminded me of the Korean seafood pancake but smaller and with more sauce.

I love Ramune ($2.50). It is just a Japanese soda, which has a marble, as it’s “lid”.

At this point of the night, we need more beer, so we ordered a Mega Sapporo ($9.00). It’s a huge glass and it has about a liter.

We then had the Ochazuke ($4.30). It’s rice in a dashi broth with tuna. It was light and subtle and ended the meal very nicely.

Lastly, we had the Tako Wasa ($3.50). It is marinated octopus and wasabi sauce with seaweed. You take the seaweed and put some taco wasa onto the seaweed, roll it up and eat.

I liked it because of the sharp wasabi sting.

Overall, we all had a great time! We ordered way too much and drank too much. Eventually we racked up the bill and it came to $150 after tips. I like the atmosphere and it’s a good place to unwind at the end of the day.

Words of Wisdom: