Ethnic Eats – Sampling the World’s Cuisine Without Leaving Vancouver

Trying to find food on the way to the fireworks, there were a couple of options, but Gyoza King (don’t bother clicking the link unless you can read Japanese) won out because they had the shortest wait time.

Fine by me, I am a huge fan of Gyoza King and hadn’t been there in a while. Authentic Japanese with a seemingly strong stance against sushi (they have shirts and signs indicating that there is no sushi whatsoever to be found on the premises, although several of their dishes bear striking resemblance…), their specialty is obviously gyoza. There are 6 different kinds of gyoza – ranging from vegetarian to prawn – and even though some of the dishes we’d ordered after the gyoza showed up first, it was simple and delicious, with a solid wrapper covering piping hot, meaty filling.

I could eat gyoza for days. Cheap, tasty, filling and easy to eat…it’s no wonder that almost every country in the world has some form of dumpling.

And unlike that other staple of Japanese cuisine, the thick cuts of fresh sashimi, gyoza is easy and cheap to make. So predictably Gyoza King and several other eateries on this stretch of Robson are filled with ESL students from Asia attending classes nearby. They can usually be found giggling and slurping noodles at the bar or in the raised section of the restaurant where you need to remove your shoes.

Tourists and other sullen adults tend to gravitate to the other side of the room, but the youthful atmosphere permeates. Servers are usually smiling (altho sometimes they seem frazzled, despite the restaurant’s small size) and small bits of pop culture add to the decor, such as a toy Yoda ready to hurl mints from the candy dish.

It’s fun and – although we had to wait 20 minutes to get a table on fireworks night – fast, but the food doesn’t disappoint. Their menu is divided into various sections, alongside a hefty specials page, and we chose the Saba Miso (mackerel in a tangy miso sauce), Scallop hotate with Mushrooms, and Albacore tuna marinated in vinegar and served sliced thin over white rice to accompany our beer and gyoza.

The Saba Miso was perfectly tangy and flavourful and the fish so well done that it broke off with the tip of a chopstick. I tried to savour it while scooping up mouthfuls, but alas, it was gone far too quickly. The subtle taste of the scallop and mushroom dish faded a bit between the stronger fish dishes, but there were no complaints.

Did I mention it was cheap? We were full and happily sated for $40, food and beer combined.

I tend to think of cosy little Japanese eateries like this one as more for winter. Curled up in a corner with a bowl of noodles and perhaps a book and some never-ending gyoza sounds idyllic to me, but now that I’ve sampled the summer fare, I’m pretty sure I’ll be back before the seasons change.

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Gyoza King
1508 Robson Street, Vancouver