mindless ramblings

As a North American city, Vancouver is really lucky to have several izakayas to choose from, like Hapa Izakaya and the 3 Guu restaurants (Guu, Kitanoya Guu with Otokamae, Guu with Garlic). Feeling adventurous, we took a drive downtown to enjoy some izakaya.

Despite being a Sunday night, it was pretty crowded and we had to wait about half an hour for a table. Eventually we got seated in the upper section, where you take off your shoes and sit on the floor. I prefer it to being in the main room as the food smell isn’t as strong and it’s kinda cosy.

Kabocha-Korokke
This was the first dish to arrive. It’s basically a boiled egg placed inside a deep fried pumpkin ball, which is then drizzled with a house sauce. Since I don’t eat eggs, Esther had the whole thing to herself, which was probably too big of a serving for a single eater. The house sauce had hints of thousand island, while the pumpkin was a good combination with the egg.

Ebi Mayo
This was one of the daily specials. If you know Japanese you’ll know what’s in it. Deep fried prawns with a chilli mayo sauce, with a hint of coriander on top. Both of us loved this, the prawns were a good size, and the chilli mayo was perfectly spiced and wonderfully creamy. I hope to see this on the regular menu so I can order it everytime I go there!

Yaki-udon
This was distinctly average to us. Despite having beef slices, mushrooms, seaweed and a single slice of vegetable, it was rather lacking in ingredients and felt like eating plain udon. It was well prepared though, with strong overtones of garlic. It’s good if you want to get full, but for $7.50 I’d pick something else and leave less full. I’ll give this a skip next time.

By this time we only had 1 dish remaining (which was nowhere in sight), so we ordered 2 more dishes to pass the time.

Calamari
What can I say about calamari. It’s just fried squid. This isn’t like your regular fried squid rings though. This was real squid, fried with minimal batter and seaweed salt. It tasted different from your regular squid too. This squid had body, it was really chewy and tasted more “natural”. Nothing spectacular to me, but Esther thought it was quite good. A decent sharing dish I suppose.

Deep Fried Avocado and Bacon
When I saw this on the menu, I immediately had visions of the mouth-wateringly delicious bacon wrapped dishes we previously had at Hapa Izakaya. Well this was slightly different. A little piece of avocado was protected by large strips of bacon, rolled around in batter, and then deep fried before being sliced lengthwise and served on a plate with some greens. I couldn’t taste the avocado at all as my mouth was overwhelmed by the amount of bacon. It was a pretty heavy dish too, best to be shared amongst more than 2 people.

Despite finishing the 2 dishes we had ordered later, our original dish was still nowhere in sight. We bugged the waitress a couple of times and it finally appeared!

Saba-grill (Grilled Mackerel)
It was worth the wait! When it first arrived, it looked like it had been sitting on the counter for a while. But when we dug into the fish, a cloud of steam shot upwards, reassuring us of its freshness. Everything about it was good. The skin was charred to a crisp and the meat was fresh. The sauce was equally delicious, mixed with fried onions, garlic chips and lemon, it was bold and paired up very nicely with the fish without overpowering it. This is the second time I’ve had this and it’s fast becoming a regular for me.

We shared a green tea ice cream to wash everything down and that was it! For $40 before tips, not the cheapest meal but we were stuffed! It’s definitely nice to experience another side of Japanese cuisine besides teriyaki beef and california rolls once in a while! Next up: The other 2 Guus! Bring it on!