Sadly, I missed the blogger’s lunch, but I stopped in to check out the open house at the Irashai Grill last week. I had mistakenly thought it was a new restaurant, but apparently it’s been open for a year or so and not getting the traffic they would like, so an open house seemed like a good way to meet the neighbours, so to speak.
And they have a lot of neighbours! The place was packed when I got there and as I lined up for the sake tasting I surveyed the rest of the scene. They had taken out a lot of the tables to make room for standing-room only mingling and most of the mingling was happening over by the kitchen. No big surprise.
I sampled the 3 sakes, grabbed a beer and headed over to the space near the kitchen where Darren and watched the feeding frenzy that happened every time a new dish was brought out.
Madness! People were grabbing at rolls with chopsticks from across the table and picking up handfuls of takoyaki. I was kind of terrified, to be honest, but Danielle stepped in and made sure we sampled some sashimi, tempura and a few other things. They were good, but the experience was so not indicative of what a normal dining experience would be that I’ll have to go back and check it out again. I’ve heard good things though, so I’ll put it on the list.
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1368 West Pender Street, Vancouver
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I won’t soon forget the hordes who swarmed the table of bland california rolls or what appeared to be pretty run-of-the-mill sushi (read: being prepared in mass quantities at lightning speed).
It was a little scary…almost made me wonder if these people had eaten all day.
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