Photo Credit: ecstaticist.

So I’ve dedicded to start a new project for dining in 2010. The tagline of this site is “Sampling the World’s Cuisine Without Leaving Vancouver” and so instead of of traipsing around Vancouver’s culinary delights in the random way I have been for the last (almost) 2 years, I am going to present my finds country by country.

I still have a bit of a backlog of reviews, so I may post those interspersed with the project and if I feel really keen, I may even post some recipes.

First stop on the grand tour: North America. Got any favorites you’d like to recommend?

Recently I filled out a foodie quiz and it pegged me as an “adventurous” eater – a handle that made me question both the quiz and other people’s appetites in general. But the truth is, after being a vegetarian for years and years and then switching back, not only will I try anything once, I actively search out new things to try. That’s nothing new around food-lovers, but I think I may now have gotten to the point where I’ve already tried everything that tastes good.

Case in point: tonight I found myself at Zakkushi on Main Street, where the menu is fun (c’mon, eating meat on a stick is always fun) but not overly adventurous. I’ve been to Zakkushi before and have a couple of favorites there (garlic stubs wrapped with pork, please!) but I wasn’t expecting much out of the ordinary Japanese fare. Until I noticed that one of the specials tonight was natto gyoza.

“I’m ordering that,” I said.

“No you’re not,” said my dining companion, who came to that conclusion from once, long ago, having smelled Natto, a Japanese dish of soybeans fermented with bacteria so that they form a sticky, smelly clump. To say it’s an acquired taste may be something of an understatement. Another friend describes it as “flavoured ‘spider eggs’ with a hint of sulfur,” so you see what I’m getting at here.

At Zakkushi, though, they weren’t serving plain old natto. It was inside gyoza with ponzu sauce on the side. I debated a bit as to whether this would still count as having eaten natto and then considered it a small gift, to be accepted with grace, and dove in.

Well that’s not entirely true. I ordered it. As restaurant fate would have it, it arrived last, after we had finished all of our food and all but one swallow of beer. Was water going to get this taste out of my mouth? Did I have gum? “You’re hesitating,” my friend said, so I took a big bite. Thankfully, it didn’t immediately taste nearly as bad as I had been led to believe it would, and I said as much, taking another big bite.

And then the rankness started to seep through. I could feel the crushed beans getting between my teeth and a sort of rotten stench settling onto and into my tongue. How this food is usually eaten for breakfast is beyond me. Talk about morning breath. But apparently the smell is caused by certain enzymes that help cure blood clots, so the bad is not all bad.

And really, with the gyoza wrapper and the ponzu sauce, it was only the soybeans that tasted bad! *ahem.*

I said on twitter, “tonight I ate natto and now I never have to do that ever again” but trying durian for the first time was a worse experience, and now I actually quite enjoy it’s aquired taste, so you never know.

What’s next?

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Zakkushi
4075 Main Street, Vancouver

Yesterday saw us sampling souvlaki from Greece, today’s protein on a pike is Japanese yakitori.

Walking into Zakkushi, I did a double-take. Servers and kitchen staff hollered out a loud welcome in Japanese, soft candle-light reflected off warm wood walls and ceilings and rows of sake bottles lined the rafters. I felt  like I had fallen through some kind of wormhole into a roadside inn somewhere in Japan. A crowded inn. Stunned, we left our names with the hostess went back outside to Kitsilano.

The second entry was no less lovely for being somewhat expected and we settled in to order some meat.

They call themselves Zakkushi Charcoal Grill Diner, because their speciality is yakitori – meat (usually chicken) grilled on bamboo skewers.  The flavour is smokey without being saucy, although as with the souvlaki, sauces are provided. At Zakkushi, the idea of limiting themselves to chicken is laughable, although they do have 7 different kinds of skewered chicken. They also have pork, beef and chicken “meat balls”, pressed chicken with toppings. My friend and I ordered the kushi set, which includes Momo (chicken thigh), Memaki (garlic stubs wrapped with slices of pork), P*toro (pork belly), Shiso Maki (chicken thigh wrapped in shiso leaf), and Harami (beef with Japanese radish and ponzu sauce). Skewers are available individually.

The idea is simple. Who doesn’t like grilled meat? But the execution is sublime. Harami was the best of the five, the beef getting a sweet-salty taste from the ponzu sauce, but the variety was welcome and had I not been stuffed to the gills from an enormous lunch, I would have tried many more.

We also ordered some ahi tuna sashimi, ahi tuna poke and edamame and it was decent, but next time I’m going to keep it simple and just order one of everything from the grill. A couple of those bottles of sake off the rafters too.

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Zakkushi Charcoal Grill Diner
1833 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver
(+ 2 other locations)

1. Hapa Izakaya

1479 Robson St, Vancouver

Hapa is first because I take everyone to Hapa. Sexy, modern, exotic and delicious with an inexpensive and varied menu, it does a fantastic job of showcasing Vancouver’s Asian cuisine and satisfying a wide swath of people.

Fresh fish, decadent ebi mayo, cold sake in bamboo carafes. Very reasonably priced. No resos between 6 and 8.

2. Boneta

1 West Cordova, Vancouver

Boneta’s tag line is “Boneta loves you” but I just want to squeeze them and tell them I love them right back. How can you not love Boneta? Fresh, flirty and fabulous, it manages to be somehow luxurious and casual at the same time. By which I mean that you can eat the best carpaccio (bison! with quail egg!) in the neighbourhood and not have to dress up for it, and you can likewise sip a glass of bubbly at the table next to Jennifer Beals and feel absolutely at home. The staff work hard to maintain this balance and I think that the emphasis on creating a welcoming environment is very Vancouver. That and it’s filled with local art, locally harvested products and minor local celebrities.

3. The Refinery

1115 Granville Street, Vancouver

Having recently celebrated their official grand opening, I suspect that the once quiet room at The Refinery is now going to be packed, but with good reason. Amazing cocktails like Lauren Mote‘s prize-winning Charred Bourbon Sour (in house “house” bitters, bourbon, lemon, egg white, charred american oak and caramelized coconut syrup), lots of B.C. wines and locally sourced product wherever possible.

The staff is incredble, the room is gorgeous and icing on this delicious cake is that the place is head-to-toe sustainable. Ocean-wise fish and on-site filtered water, organic and (where possible) homemade juices in the cocktails, recycled wood tables and wood fixtures and even a bike storage locker. The only thing that would make it more quintessentially Vancouver would be yoga on the roof.

4. Raincity Grill

1193 Denman Street, Vancouver

I haven’t actually been to Raincity Grill yet, but it’s a local favorite of many friends and foodists and I think has to be included on this list because of its dedication to West Coast cuisine and locally sourced food.

I used to frequent Aurora for that reason, RIP.

5. Dim Sum…somewhere

Doesn’t really matter where, but you need to go for dim sum if you’re visiting Vancouver. Har gow…siu mai, these are common words in the food-loving Vancouverite’s vocabulary and with so many quality asian restaurants, in my mind it’s a requisite stop. Happy Valley is a good choice, or Dai Tung or any of the fine establishments in Richmond. The Richmond Night Market is also a perfectly acceptable substitute and has the added benefit of being able to buy miles and miles of crap merchandise for your guests to take home with them.

What do you think? Where would you take an out of town guest?

When you start hanging out in a new neighbourhood, you inevitably start to frequent the local eateries. I recently moved to Oak Street, so it didn’t take very long before I ended up at Hiroshi’s Sushi Creations, a couple of blocks away.

I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive about the “sushi creations” part of the name and while I didn’t order any, there are several of these on the menu. Tuna with pumpkin or mustard and cilantro, for example.  I had  my standard chopped scallop cone as well as salmon nigiri, unagi and negitoro with lots of green tea to wash it down and I was satisfied. The salmon was limp and lifeless, but the negitoro and scallops had good texture and taste. The unagi in particular was full of flavour.

This is a tiny spot that was bustling at lunch and I’m sure does a roaring take-out business as well. I’m sure I’ll be back as long as I’m in the neighbourhood.

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Hiroshi’s Sushi Creations
3720 Oak Street, Vancouver

Last week found me back at the Irashai Grill where I was invited to sample some of the dishes I missed at the open house. While introductions were being made, I sipped on a lychee whisky sour. Whisky is making its way into more and more cocktails after a long hiatus and while not all of them are good, this is one I would go back for. It straddled the balance between two of my favorite flavours without being neither too sweet or too strong.

Keeping in the style of simplicity = awesomeness, next came some mouth-watering hotate (scallop) sashimi on a bed of kiwi and greens. The sweet tang of the kiwi and citrus dressing on the seafood was exquisite. There there was red tuna tataki with mayo and dark miso sauce, lobster tail tempura with lime and smoked sea salt that was so good I had trouble leaving the rest of the salt on my plate after the lobster tail was gone. I’m not a big fan of tempura usually. There’s something about the grease and the texture that doesn’t do it for me, but apparently a squeeze of lime and some sea salt changes everything.

Sable Fish with Yuan (sake) Sauce was another favorite, followed by a spread of imaginative and artful sushi (from left to right in the photo below):

• White Slope Roll: crab and avocado topped with chopped scallop and spicy sauce.
• Black Eel Roll: mango, avocado and cucumber topped with avocado and eel tempura.
• Alaskan Crab Leg Roll: Alaskan king crab, mango, and masago fried slightly to give it a bit of a crust. Served with lemon mayo.
• Summer Roll: prawn tempura, masago, and cucumber topped with spicy tuna and avocado. Drizzled with spicy mayo and sweet soya sauce.
• Umeboshi maki (not shown) at the request of Raul.

Macha crème brûlée finished us off.

Taking a look at their online menu, you can see that there’s a lot going on here. Raw bar, grill, dessert, sushi, etc. They’ve even got an omakase menu. Sushi ranges from the traditional to the eyebrow raising – like the Poison Spider Volcano made hot with melted cheese – all aesthetically prepared.

On my first visit, it seemed as though this spot suffered from a lack of foot traffic, but it was easy enough to find with the crowd of people out front. Returning on a Monday night, the ‘blink and you’ll miss it aspect’ was even more obvious. There are a lot of residential buildings in the area but a busy street and an instantly forgettable storefront do nothing to lure people in. And what a shame that is, because with a chef trained in French and Italian cooking (as well as Japanese) and a menu straddling the balance between innovative and traditional dishes, it’s well worth a visit. The grilled lunch combinations - from grilled sablefish to deep-fried tonkatsu - promise to be an excellent deal and if I’m ever in the area for lunch I’ll be sure to stop in and try it.

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Irashai Grill
1368 West Pender Street, Vancouver

There has been much hype on the interwebs (and @BAKUDANYAKI on twitter) about a little van out in Richmond serving up bakudanyaki, a Japanese fritter filled with octopus, squid, cabbage, mochi, egg and sausage. Tenku Bakudanyaki is doing a roaring trade in these fried snacks and there were a number of people hanging out in the parking lot when we got there, some reading or playing catch while they waited for their orders.

Although I couldn’t bring myself to eat the more tentacly parts of the octopus and I never did see any sausage, this was still a pretty filling and decently delicious snack for only $5.

The trouble is, for me, that it’s out in Richmond. A Vancouverite without a car, I get out to our ethnic-eating treasure of a suburb much less frequently than I would like. But I got a map and found the parking lot this van is parked in (don’t worry, there are signs) and placed our orders. My friend and I both had the special, norimiso (seaweed and miso), but it’s available in original, curry, wasabi, chilli, pizza and mustard flavours.

I’ll be back. I’d like to try a couple more flavours. I just wish they’d drive their van into Vancouver once in a while.

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Tenku Bakudanyaki

7100 Elmbridge Way, Richmond

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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Irashai Grill

1368 West Pender Street, Vancouver

It used to be that I just wouldn’t eat sushi on the Drive. None of the somewhat grungy places looked promising and there are just so many better places for sushi in the city that it didn’t seem worth trying. But my empty cupboards eventually got the best of me and I set out to see how bad it really was.

I have a pretty strong stomach, so I wasn’t worried, but to avoid disappointment and give these east side joints the best possible chance, I tried not to order anything too obscure and chose much more cooked sushi than usual. In most cases, I picked the chopped scallop cone (my favorite) when it was available and then went standard issue on the rest; California rolls and yam rolls, etc.

The following is a list of all the sushi places on the Drive, given a 10 point rating.

1. First up was Britannia Sushi at 1016 Commercial Drive, because it’s a favorite of my roommate’s.  Under their red awning, Commercial Drive denizens pack into the vinyl benches. It’s been busy every time I’ve been there and with the friendly, fast service and good prices, why not?

I ordered a chopped scallop cone ($3.85),  one of their special Dynamite Dragon rolls ($8.95) which is a regular dynamite roll with  BBQ eel and avocado, and a White Dragon roll ($5.95) with spicy tuna and onion topped with tuna.  The avocado in the White Dragon roll was a little bit mushy and soggy from the BBQ sauce, but otherwise both rolls were preety good. The fish was fresh and kudos for the creativity of the combinations.

On a subsequent visit I had a yam tempura roll and a California roll to round up out the research and both were quite tasty. The avocado was not as mushy without the sauce and both rolls held their flavour well.

Britannia: 7 out of 10. I’d go back.

2. The next attempt was at Isshin Sushi (1861 Commercial), where I had a chopped scallop cone, a yam tempura roll and a California roll. The sushi was generous; big chunks of scallops in the scallop cone (some even fell out when I tried to dip it), large California rolls and huge yam tempura rolls that came to the table still warm and very flavourful. Everything was a little on the bland side, however, and the wasabi serving was not nearly enough.

The service was a little slow. Considering I was likely waiting for the yam tempura to be
made fresh, I tried not to hold it against them, but it didn’t really pick up after that either. As long as your expectations are in order, you won’t be too disappointed.

Isshin Sushi is 6 out of 10. I might go back.

3. Ginger Sushi was dark and seemed awfully dodgy on first impression. There was a noisy fan whirring away in the background and a greasy chef that didn’t exactly inspire confidence. A note on the wall about excellent “sushi” was cause for a wry smile and some mild alarm but then tea and sushi arrived – standard order chopped scallop cone ($3.20), deep fried yam roll ($2.20), and a California roll ($2.95) – and I was placated a bit.

The tea was served in a styrafoam cup and the sushi was not very tightly rolled, but they did give me a generous dollop of wasabi, and the sushi was tasty enough. It’s the atmosphere that does this place in. Plastic chairs and layers of grime make take-out a better option, but I’m not going to be back. It’s at 1437 Commercial Drive if you want to check it out.

Ginger Sushi is a 5 out of 10. Not returning.

4. Sake Maki was probably my favorite of the bunch. At 1414 Commerical Drive, it’s taken over the space where Mekong used to be. The walls have been painted over with a calming blue mural, Mt. Fuji in the background and cherry blossoms blowing around. In the summer, the windows open to the street for some great people-watching. It has the nicest atmosphere of any of the Japanese restaurants on the Drive (Lime excepted) and the sushi is also above par.

The fish looked fresh and the kitchen clean, so I had the Pink Lady, a spicy ebi roll with tuna on top ($7.95) and the Vancouver roll, which is a California roll with salmon ($7.95). I also had a chopped scallop cone ($3.75) to have something to compare with the others on this list. All were tasty and the servings were enormous, although could have possibly done with a less mayo.

The service was decently fast the couple of times I’ve been there and while it was not overly friendly, it was efficient.

Sake Maki is 8 out of 10. I will definitely eat there again.

5. Asiano Sushi, at 1179 Commercial, is another decent sushi restaurant on the Drive. The place was empty when I arrived, but even so, I felt like I was being rushed to order and leave. Service was fast, but certainly lacking.

When I got to the food, however, it was pretty good. I had the Sushi combo B (2 tuna, 2 salmon, california roll for $6.99), and a chopped scallop cone ($3.95). There wasn’t enough wasabi, and the fish could have been fresher, but it was pretty good.

Asiano Sushi gets 7 out of 10. I might go back.

6. Sushi King is pretty mediocre. It’s got the plastic, temporary, take-out atmosphere down pat. You order from a counter and then sit down instead of getting table service, there is a space heater in the middle of the floor, and the requisite old, discoloured photos of fish on the wall. But there were smiles all around and that was appreciated even after I had to repeat my order some 3 times.

I had a California roll ($3.30), a chopped scallop with tobiko roll ($3.50) and a negitoro roll ($2.75). They tasted ok, but didn’t look the slightest bit fresh, having a bit of a uniform grey colour to both the scallops and the tuna. My roommate had the yam roll and reported it delicious. It did look good – certainly better than my greyish fish – with large colourful chunks of yam.

Sushi King is at 1431 Commercial and gets a 6 out of 10. I won’t return.

*Lime, a relatively new arrival at 1130 Commercial Drive, is definitely a 10 out of 10, but rather than a grab-and-go sushi joint, it’s an upscale Japanese restaurant with a modern twist on Asian classics. It’s really not fair to compare with the other restaurants on this list, so I’ve reviewed it over at Foodists.

We ordered one of everything available – save for the buckwheat – which means we’ve had miso, tonkatsu and udon to experiment with before landing on this approximate recipe:

1 Package of noodles (with pork bone stock)
1 piece of pork tenderloin, sliced thinly
a couple of baby bok choys
1 Thai red chili, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
~2 tbsp of miso paste
some ginger, minced
Red pepper flakes

1. Add about 500 ml of water and the miso paste to the stock in a small pot and bring to a boil.

2. Steam the bok choy.

3. In a large stock pot, boil water for the noodles.

4. Cook the noodles for a couple of minutes and when they are almost done, add the pork to the stock and cook for just  a minute.

5. Assemble the noodles, bok choy, chili, ginger, green onion and broth in large bowls and serve.

It certainly uses more pots than the Ichiban but when it’s pouring buckets outside nothing beats bending over a bowl of ramen and slurping noodles.

You may not be on direct dial with the Noodle Lady, but you can still get ramen noodles pretty much anywhere around town. H-Mart and TNT are especially good bets.