Finally, my last set of pictures from Vancouver. This is a late night meal at Hapa Izakaya, a Japanese place on Robson.
ebi mayo - deep fried shrimp
aburi shime saba - fresh mackerel seared at your table
negitoro with garlic toast
kakuni - slow simmered chinese pork with steamed buns
ishi-yaki - rice, pork, garlic, egg, tomato, and miso cooked at the table in a korean hot stone bowl
This was sort of my second dinner, so I wasn't that hungry, but this stuff was good. The shrimp was a little standard... nothing special. I'm not usually a big fan of saba but Geoff likes it and he said this was good. It was cool watching them sear it, and it tasted good too. Still raw for the most part but smoky on the outside and less of the fishiness that usually comes with saba. The negitoro was more like a tuna tartare type of thing than a traditional negitoro, but good anyway. We ordered the kakuni out of curiousity, half expecting cha siu bao. This turned out to be really delicious, but the piece of pork was probably the fattiest/oiliest/greasiest thing I've eaten in a long time. Weak eaters be warned. The ishi-yaki was really good too - the egg is raw when they bring it to you and everything cooks in the stone pot, basically like a bibimbap (the picture is taken after everything's been mixed up). By then we were too full and could only finish half of it.
The restaurant looks really cool and hip inside. Izakaya apparently translates roughly to "bistro" and serves a bunch of shared smallish dishes as well as lots of drinks. Great deal too... each dish was only about $7 Canadian.
ebi mayo - deep fried shrimp
aburi shime saba - fresh mackerel seared at your table
negitoro with garlic toast
kakuni - slow simmered chinese pork with steamed buns
ishi-yaki - rice, pork, garlic, egg, tomato, and miso cooked at the table in a korean hot stone bowl
This was sort of my second dinner, so I wasn't that hungry, but this stuff was good. The shrimp was a little standard... nothing special. I'm not usually a big fan of saba but Geoff likes it and he said this was good. It was cool watching them sear it, and it tasted good too. Still raw for the most part but smoky on the outside and less of the fishiness that usually comes with saba. The negitoro was more like a tuna tartare type of thing than a traditional negitoro, but good anyway. We ordered the kakuni out of curiousity, half expecting cha siu bao. This turned out to be really delicious, but the piece of pork was probably the fattiest/oiliest/greasiest thing I've eaten in a long time. Weak eaters be warned. The ishi-yaki was really good too - the egg is raw when they bring it to you and everything cooks in the stone pot, basically like a bibimbap (the picture is taken after everything's been mixed up). By then we were too full and could only finish half of it.
The restaurant looks really cool and hip inside. Izakaya apparently translates roughly to "bistro" and serves a bunch of shared smallish dishes as well as lots of drinks. Great deal too... each dish was only about $7 Canadian.