All Entries in the "Japanese" Category

Ebisu Japanese Restaurant on No 3 Rd and Ackroyd Rd, Richmond

Polly and I went to the Ebisu Japanese Restaurant for lunch during the Olympic weeks as we do not want to go to Vancouver with all the restricted parking. It’s kind of hard to find new dessert places too. Recommendations are most welcome. The only requirement is that it must open for breakfast or lunch at least.

The Ebisu Japanese Restaurant in Richmond is located in the Ackroyd Mall. There are two other Ebisu in Vancouver, Ebisu on Robson and another at West Broadway.

What brought me to Ebisu in Richmond is the above advertisement. I wanted to try their Izakaya items. But, unfortunately, the above are only available at dinner time. What a bummer.

Luckily, they have the lunch special going during our visits. It’s $2.88 per item, minimum order of 3 per person. Polly and I opted for the lunch special since they are light tapas.

Ebisu has clean lines and spacious setting. We were there at 11:30 am when they just open for lunch and I managed to take a photo without the crowd. It was quite full during lunch time. Most of them look like office workers. Service is prompt but not rush.

We ordered the miso soup for 50cents extra. The miso soup has generous amount of tofu and green onions. Just right for the rainy winter day when we were there.

We started off with Sesame Seaweed for appetizer. Love the crunchiness of the seaweed and the mild sesame flavour.

Next, we had the Chikuwa Cheese which is fish cake filled with cheese and deep fried. The melting cheese adds richness to the lightly crunchy fish cake. You have to eat this immediately when served.

The Prawn and Vegetable Tempura came with … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Tomoya Japanese Restaurant on Nelson and Kingsway, Burnaby

Karl (of The Friday Lunch) met up with me again for lunch around the Metrotown area. Karl is a great lunch partner … lots of things to say and we do share the same interests too.

BTW, I finally found out why he calls his blog the Friday Lunch. Karl goes out with his gang at work on Fridays. It is like a eating club of sorts. This makes me want to organize one too at work seeing how successful it was the last time I organized the Turkish lunch at Anatolia’s Gate. I had expected only a handful to come but 20 turned up. Those who went raved about the lunch that there were two other parties (those that could not make to  the first round) from my company who went.

Yeah, maybe I would organize another one soon.

This round, Karl and I went to check out the Tomoya Japanese Restaurant. Tomoya is located just next door to Lao Shan Dong Beef Noodle place.

I walk past Tomoya EVERYDAY and yet I have never been there before. I have been meaning to try their food which is kind of unique. At one point, they were touting themselves as Japanese-French fusion food. During our visit, it seems like they are more Japanese than anything. Behind all these, I think they are entirely Chinese owned.

We were there at noon on a Monday. So it was quite empty but it soon filled up very fast. I had read feedback of their bad service on various sites but seriously we did not have that sort of things happening to us. They even came up to fill our water.

You know and I know. One can only trust so much about reviews you find on sites like urbanspoon or dinehere.ca or yelp. For the most part, the feedback and reviews are useful information but at the end of it, it is up to you and I to make our own judgment … whether or not to trust the reviews. That goes too for chowtimes. LOL!

Seriously.

Back to Tomoya. Tomoya is small and compact. While the tables and chairs are placed very close to one another, I did not find it “intrusive” to the point that we are aware of our neighbor. The place has that cozy feel to it … like a place you could hang out in and take your own sweet time enjoying the meal. No rush-rush kind of place.

You just gotta check out their menu. Very nice menu with pictures of the chef’s creations. Tomoya has very unique rolls and that is what they are famous for. They are not like Sushi Garden or Asakusa where they serve run of the mill sushis and makis.

It took us a while to get down to getting what we wanted. At the end we decided to get a couple of their unique rolls and the Black Sun. Oh … the Black Sun … you WANT to get the Black Sun. I had never quite seen anything like it before. Karl wanted the Tokayaki too … so we got that too.

Since these were called the “Chef’s Creation”, I was curious as to who the chef was. I asked our waitress who merely said that the chef is not here. I did not ask any further but there I was sitting and thinking that perhaps the original chef is no longer there?

Free miso soup. Come to think of it, I don’t know how many Sushi places actually gives free miso soup. I had never paid much attention to this before but I thought that not many restaurant does. This is because I only remember ordering the miso soup in Japanese AYCE.

Not that I really want to know. I am just being myself … asking mundane questions. :-)

Mundane questions begets another mundane picture. I just love that shot above. The ginger looked good huh? BTW, how did the ginger get to be that red? Was that coloring?

He he he … another mundane question, I know.

Ladies and gentlemen … mesdames et messieurs … señoras y señores … nushi men, xiansheng men.

The Black Sun … le soleil noir … el sol negro … hei taiyang.

I had never seen something like this before. As beautiful as it looked above, it looked better in real life.

Let me tell you how good it is by telling you what Karl “said” when he ate this:

“wow … mmm … wow … mmm … wow … mmm … www … mmm”.

That’s what Karl said … seriously. He was mmm’ing and wow’ing with every bite.

The Black Sun is $9 and is a combination of … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Santouka Hokkaido Ramen on Robson, Vancouver

The last two weeks had been a blast for all of us in Vancouver, hasn’t it? Without a doubt, yesterday was the high point of the Olympic. We felt so proud of being Canadian and having hosted the world in this great sporting event. Hope the legacy now in place will lead the city to greater things in years to come. We now nervously wait for the accounts people to tally the tab!

Last Saturday was the final dress rehearsals of the Vancouver 2010 Closing Ceremony for Arkensen and Nanzaro. They received an email just the night prior informing that they need to do TWO dress rehearsals instead of one. So instead of 11:15AM to 7:00PM, they were informed that they need to stay right until 10:30PM. They sure worked hard for it … and in total secrecy too. We are actually proud that they kept it a total secret from us. We finally saw their performance on TV! But damn the guys at CTV who cut out a LARGE part of their performance to air commercials!!!! Both Arkensen and Nanzaro was so totally upset when they saw the replay last night. They practiced so hard to show the WORLD.

After dropping the boys off for their final practice, Suanne and I thought we go to the section of downtown for lunch knowing that the western part of Robson is quiet. Indeed it was. There was lots of street parking around.

We went to Santouka, the new Ramen place that everyone is raving about the past few weeks. Apparently, Santouka is a popular chain restaurant in Japan which specializes on serving Hokkaido ramen. I think they also operate a chain in the US too.

Santouka is located just next door to Guu with Garlic on Robson Street. You might miss it because the shop front is hidden behind a bus shelter. Anyway, the address is 1690 Robson Street.

We were surprised to learned that they had been opened only for the second day. We assumed that it was already a week since they opened. The restaurant was busy, not quite full but given it being opened for just the second day, we were impressed.

The dining area seats about 35-40 people. There are counter seats that overlooks the open kitchen which was separated by glass which we thought was good because it does not steam up the entire restaurant with the boiling broth.

We were seated at the section in front where there is a low kidney shaped table which has a large wooden carving of a bear in the center. We like that section. The only draw back was that there is no where to hang our coats or place our bags.

Service was excellent as one expects from Japanese restaurant.

We were promptly served glasses of water with mini ice-cubes. For a restaurant this size, there were a lot of waitresses. There were four of them milling around ever ready to help when needed. So yeah, we get almost anything instantaneously and the glasses were always topped.

Their menu came in a plastic binder and has pictures. They only have limited selection on that day. Basically we only can order from the first two pages. What a bummer.

The other pages were items they will only serve on their grand opening day. Click on the images above to see a more legible version of the menu.

I ordered item listed under the section that says “Limited Quantity: First Come First Serve”. I see a lot of ramen places does this “limited quantity” thing that makes people want to order that even though it is more expensive. The normal ramen is about $9 while the “limited quantity” ones are $13.

I got the Toroniku Kara Miso Ramen. It came served with a bowl of noodles in a spicy hot miso soup and a side plate with all the other ingredients including the pork jowl which is the star of this dish. First thing we did was to taste the soup … in a word, awesome. It is sesame flavoured and rich. I don’t know how to describe this better … it is not the smooth kind of broth but grainy (?).

The noodles was equally good and tasty too. We could even eat this alone with the soup … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Kura Japanese Restaurant on Kingsway and Wilson Ave, Burnaby

There are so many Vancouver food bloggers these days that I could not even catch up reading all of them, let alone aware of all the new ones. However, there was one that caught my attention because he blogs about restaurants in Burnaby and a number of them along Kingsway. So, I had been following Karl of The Friday Lunch for sometime.

I like his easy to follow style with short to the point sentences. Not to mention too his selection of restaurants are exactly the type I normally go to. Since both of us work around the vicinity, we arranged to meet up for lunch and say hi.

I suggest that we meet at Kura Sushi on Kingway. Kura Sushi had been a place that I wanted to visit for a long time because LotusRapper had recommended that place a few times. I had been trying to save this place up to go with Suanne but we never got round to that — and I think we will never get round to it given all the “To Try” places we have on the list.

I had walked past Kura Sushi many time before and had seen their menu. It does give me the impression that this is a very authentic Japanese restaurant (with higher than normal prices). This is reinforced by the heavy wooden door outside. This was a real thick heavy door, not a fake. Frankly I don’t know if this door works in their favour because it sort of felt less welcoming to the customer. That is just my opinion.

The hand-written sign outside the restaurant sounded very convincing that they are the only branch of a some big time sushi restaurant in Tokyo. I was curious right? So, I tried googling various combination of Kura-Tokyo-Sushi but came up with some Kura Sushi which is a Kaiten Sushi joint.

Anyone able to tell me if there is actually a well known Kura Sushi in Tokyo?

He he he … at a glance, the picture above looked like it’s some call center operation, right? It’s just that they have partitions between the smaller tables just to save space and provide some privacy. From the looks of it, there are a lot of office workers when we were there.

I like that tall ceiling and dark walls … and yet it was very well lighted where it matters.

They have a large menu with pictures — making choosing difficult. I wish I could take pictures of their entire menu because I am sure many of you will like to see it. Given the number of pages, I thought I better not or else Karl and I freak them out. So, I just took pictures of their Lunch Special above.

What do you think? It’s a buck or two above the normal lunch special price range in many places but they all look a bit more better too.

Hmmm … LUNCH SPECIAL. Not sure about you but my benchmark price for lunch specials is $7-$8. Anything above this is expensive and anything below that is real cheap. What about you?

The Miso Soup. We did not order that. I guess it is complimentary for all customers. As far as I know, not many Japanese restaurants serves complimentary miso soup.

You know, I can’t get over the idea after all these while that they don’t give a soup spoon with the miso soup. Yeah, I know … the Japanese drinks, no slurp, the soup direct from the bowl. I am saying this because in my research on Chinese cuisine, Chinese do not customary drink direct from the bowl in a formal setting.

We decided to get a couple of rolls and two other “fancy” items instead of getting the lunch special. That is just me … I just don’t want to blog about lunch specials because they do not often represent the best the restaurant has to offer. Oh … did I say that just a few days ago?

Anyway … we got Beef Sashimi … a small order ($6). I would have preferred a bigger order ($10) but I guess it’s too much to order.

Isn’t the beef sashimi beautiful? It is simply one of the best looking sashimi I had ever see … and it tasted great and flavourful. When I was eating this, I was thinking if this is safe eating raw beef. LOL! If Suanne is here, she would comment that it is not safe because bacteria will multiply quickly on the surface. So I am curious how they are able to keep this safe. I am sure it is safe … but just wanted to know.

Then we got the Geoduck. In Japanese they call this Muragai.

Anyone of you know how Geoduck ended up being pronounced as Guu-ey-duck and not G-O-duck? Don’t roll your eyes when I say this OK? Not everyone knows what Geoduck is. For one it is not a duck and does not resemble a duck. This is how Geoduck looks like. A little trivia here … did you know that the Geoduck has the longest lifespan. It is known to easily live up to 150 years!

When it came we were kind of delighted, or at least I was. I was thinking … oh wow, all this for just $8?!?

Sigh … my balloon was deflated when … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Benkei Ramen Noodle Shop on Robson, Vancouver

I don’t think many people see it turning out this way. All the restaurants in Metro Vancouver were all bracing themselves for the expected onslaught of customers during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. It did not turn out that way.

Instead, everyone were clustered around the Robson Square area where the Olympics actions are. Not only that the expected increase of customers did not materialized, the number of customers actually decreased.

Suanne and I spent last Friday in downtown. We decided to go to Benkei for ramen. We had always see that this part of the city is teeming with people on Friday evenings. But that day was eerily quiet.

Which was good for us anyway. There were no lines when we went there and got a table straight away. Benkei Ramen had always ran second fiddle to Kintaro Ramen just around the corner. I am not sure why though because I don’t find a lot of difference between the ramens of these two places. Food aside, there are a lot more I like about Benkei than Kintaro.

The interior is way better than the bare basic interior of Kintaro. We were kind of surprised how spacious it is inside. From the outside it does look deceptively small and narrow.

There is this casualness about Benkei I like too. We thought that the box chairs were a great idea because they also act as a bag holder. We also like the fact that their offer to hang up our jackets.

Service wise, there are no shortcoming we could point out. They are friendly, genuine and even anticipative. I am saying this because …

… Suanne and I was just sitting there and was reading a sign on the wall saying that minced raw garlic and chili sauce is available for the asking. The waitress who walked past saw us pointing to the sign, stopped in her track and then said, “I’ll get you some”.

The menu is just a simple two-pager. You just order out of the five soup offerings and then decide if you wanted extra toppings and sides to go with it.

We got a side order of Chashu Plate ($3.75). Thinking that it would just be a small plate given that price, we were quite pleased it was quite a serving despite it sitting on a bed of beansprouts.

The Japanese name Chashu sounded a lot like Char Siu in Chinese. I am surprised if they have the same root words. We love this. It has a softer and moister texture compared to the Chinese Char Siu with quite a bit of fat too.

I had the Akaoni (Spicy Miso) which is $7.80.

It had a rich flavour from the … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Sakura Sushi in Brighouse Square, Richmond

I gotta listen better to chowtimes readers.

Like I said in the earlier post, we get the best recommendations for good food from our readers. This is another one.

You see, we received two strong recommendations on Sakura Sushi and did not take it seriously.

• From Kenrick who commented on 25-Jan-2010: “If you haven’t already, I would also suggest you try out Sakura Sushi across the strip next to Bob’s Submarine shop. It is owned and run by a small Japanese team and the chef there prepares fresh and delicious sushi (I believe his name is Yoshi). I go there for lunch often and they never fail to deliver. They have a crispy panko dynamite roll which I love and is quite unique. I will say their portions are not big, but they are filling, and focus on the simplicity and taste/texture rather than flash.”
• From Vina who sent us an email on 07-Aug-2010 saying: “just wanted to let you know about sakura sushi in the staples strip mall on no.3 road in richmond.  it’s probably my favorite sushi restaurant despite it’s small size and unpretentious interior because of its great service, good pricing and fresh sashimi.  i would personally recommend the seaweed salad and ‘what the hell’ roll that has unagi on top of a salmon and avacado roll.  all the salmon that it serves is only wild alaskan salmon which is great because it is much healthier than the usual farmed pink salmon.  give it a go one day!”

Two weeks ago, I was lazy to go out for dinner. As you probably know, Suanne NEVER cooks on the weekend. I have my day off work and so she said she MUST have her day off too. So we had to eat out. I decided that we should just go to one that is closest to home and have a quick dinner. Moreover, the boys would definitely say yes to sushi.

I had little expectations really. Firstly the name Sakura Sushi sounded so unimaginative. Secondly, for a Japanese restaurant located in Brighouse Square I had my doubts that it is Japanese owned. Thirdly, the store front let me think how small it was. Fourthly, the sign is in bright red and yellow which makes me really think it is Chinese owned.

The place is small and simple. It is so small that counting the number of seats is easy … 1, 2, 3 … 11, 12, 13. That’s it.

Sakura Sushi is most definitely Japanese owned. The waitress is Japanese who was very polite and friendly and spoke English with a very heavy Japanese accent. Even though we were the first one there the waitress informed us that they are very busy and will take some time for our order to come. It seems like its a small operation … there is only the chef and the waitress that we saw the whole time. I think they were busy because of take away orders. We were not in a rush or what, so it was not an issue for us.

Their special is pasted on the wall. I was quite drawn to the Unagi Tamago Roll which has an extra line that say “please try this without soy sauce because it’s tasty!” The words “without soy sauce” was underlined and printed in red — so it must be darn tasty.

Sold! That is what I had.

The Unagi Tamago Roll costs $4 for six pieces. Since we had a coupon printed from their website, it was $1 off. So, it is $3. Not bad.

No wonder it said no soy sauce. It is because they already have sauce (teriyaki?) on it. It was quite good but nothing outstanding if you ask me.

Oh yeah, the tamago in the picture looks like avocado doesn’t it? It is made of eggs. It is just that it is compact and cut so smoothly and the greenish outline seems to make it looks ike avocado. Suanne and I debated about this for a long time and was wondering if we forgot or what.

We love the Deep Fried Soft Shell Crab. Delightfully looking isn’t it? This is $7.75.

The meat is simply fantastic … soft. The shell is so soft too that you just … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Shoryumen and Fumisen and Bakudanyaki Food Trucks in Richmond

Alright.

Some of you might remember that I blogged about Richmond’s answer to Vancouver’s Japadog last summer. That post generated quite an active discussion not only on chowtimes.com but a picture from that post also made it into a discussion thread on chowhound.

The unflattering picture of a half-eaten bakudanyaki became the focus of the Most Frightening Food You Have Seen Lately discussion thread. When I took that picture above, the only thing I was thinking of was how delicious it was. But on hindsight, I guess the Bakudanyaki does look rather frightening.

That one and only street food stall in Richmond has since grown …

It is now THREE food trucks. I had wanted to earlier name this post “Vancouver 1 – Richmond 3″ but decided otherwise because it will inflame the Vancouver area food bloggers.

But seriously, I think Richmond is going to blaze the way in terms of promoting street food. Richmond is going to show Vancouver that it is alright to sell street food other than hotdogs.

In addition to the Tenku Bakudanyaki food truck, they have expanded to selling ramen and sushi cones too. They are still at the same location — at the intersection of Gilbert Road and Elmbridge Way.

The Richmond food trucks are easier to locate now. It is just next to that Inukshuk which is fashioned out of containers. Someone apparently thought it is a great idea to put that up in support of the Olympics. Good thing they did not paint it in the colors of the Vancouver 2010 logo or else VANOC will be going after them.

These food trucks are making news. Even the CBC were there doing an interview with the man behind all these food trucks when we were there.

*gasps* We are getting identified. While waiting for the interview to finish, the assistant of the CBC interviewer turned to me and asked “Are you chowtimes?” LOL!

I was kind of surprised, right? So my first reaction is “Yes, but how did you guess?”. Apparently she recognizes Suanne, Arkensen and Nanzaro. :-)

The man behind the three food trucks is Kan. He came across to me as energetic and brimming with ideas. While he was making the ramen for us, I asked him some question. He was excited  and wanted to tell the world the plans he had in mind and yet he held back being specific about them. He said three times how little time he has to implement his plans.

From my conversation with Kan, I can clearly see that this young man is not going to stop expanding anytime soon.

We decided to try two bowls of Ramen. These are simple ramens.

Ordering is simple. You just choose one of the soup base you want. Kan said that he only have the Kuro, Aka and En ramen for now. The more expensive Ton ramen is not available until February 9th. That Ton is interesting because he said he is limiting that to only 20 bowls a day because of space and time constraints.

Each of the ramen comes with … More on following page. Click here to continue reading