It seems that every time I go to Vancouver, there's a new crop of small plate Japanese izakaya-style places to try. The competition in this category is definitely fierce. After failing to get in to a few other places one night over the summer, Geoff and I ended up trying Shiru-Bay Chopstick Cafe in Yaletown.
Walking up to the joint I couldn't help but laugh - the picture may be too small to see everything, but their sign is the most buzzworded sign for a restaurant I think I've ever seen. In its entirety, it says: 'Shiru-Bay Chopstick Cafe, izakaya-ism, Japanese Fusion Gourmet Bistro Tapas-Bar, Flavour of Tokyo'. Now there's a mouthful of description... I think they have every possible base covered. The gimmick alarm went off, but we pressed on.
The room is sleek and modern, with plenty of black minimalism. We were seated outside but ended up moving inside to the counter, where a line of cooks prepare food in full view. Th menu is comprehensive, covering most of the usual Vancouver izakaya bases. We opted for a $40 11-course omakase (O.MA.KA.SE is how you spell that in hip menu language), and let them do the deciding. 
pickled vegetables They started us off with some pickled veggies, which were pretty standard fare. They took a bit to arrive, but we let them off because we did move tables across the whole restaurant. 
negitoro and avocado tartare with garlic toast, cheese tofu with honey and almond Next came this pair of cold apps. We weren't really sure how they were counting courses. It seemed like the pickles were supposed to be a freebie and not an actual course, but this may have been 2 courses because it was 2 different items. Either way, we ended up eating 11 plates of things, and stopped trying to keep track after a while.
This negitoro was just so-so. Again I'll remind everyone that "negitoro" in Vancouver izakayas (the first of the Big Three izakaya dishes that every place serves) seems to just mean negi-regulartuna, and not actually toro. This one was a bit oversauced in my opinion, and the garlic bread was just so so. (It was funny watching one of the cooks stick like 50 pieces of garlic bread into a little toaster oven at once, cramming them in there in any way possible.) The cheese tofu, weird and boring as it may sound and look, was one of the best dishes of the night - cool, delicate, and creamy. 
kobe beef carpaccio with fiji apples, reggiano & truffle oil This dish was another hit. It had a touch too much black pepper on top, but nothing too serious. They skimped a bit on the truffle oil, but for the price I guess I can't complain too much. 
hiaburi shime saba Item 2 of the izakaya triumvirate came with a slight twist. They did the usual show, bringing out the saba and blowtorching it, but rather than just serve the fish they took half of it and made it into a salad. And not a bad salad - it had some nice big chunks of onion and a vinegar dressing. The fish tasted the same as it does everywhere else. 
hamachi, maguro, amaebi The sashimi was actually really good. The hamachi was a bit lean but had a nice clean flavor. Maguro was typical. The amaebi were actually very sweet; I've started liking this more and more. After the sashimi came, we waited a looooong time. 
ebi mayo chilli - deep-fried prawns with 'their' original Chili-mayo sauce, topped with wonton chips & sliced almonds After like 30 agonizing minutes of watching food going to other tables, the last of the Big Three came out. Again, it was just okay at best. The batter was just too thick for me, and it was crunchy and oily rather than crisp and light. And I don't know who invented ebi mayo, but claiming originality for 'Chili-mayo sauce' seems like me saying I rolled the world's first burrito. I guess I could be wrong; maybe they were the first to do it. Either way, there was too much of it on the tempura. 
croquette of dungeness crab, corn, caramelized onion & bechamel sauce served in crab shell Now here's something I hadn't seen before. They actually stuffed the crab shell with the filling and fried the whole thing. This was pretty fun to dig into, and the inside was quite tasty as well, with a heavy dose of crab and cream. A definite highlight. 
pan roasted lamb chop with cran balsamic miso sauce, bacon garlic mash Nothing much to say about this. The lamb was decently cooked, but completely unspectacular. It felt like this was stuck in here just for the sake of having a meat course. The mashed potatoes were horrible. 
yellowtail braised in sweet ginger-soy reduction After the disappointing lamb, the meal rebounded with this fish. The fish was flaky and tender, while the sauce had a slightly sweet but very deep soy flavor, without being too salty. This was probably the best of the hot dishes. 
sushi: dragonball, musashi, unagi & cream cheese We knew these sushi things were coming, and we weren't really looking forward to it. We were seated at the counter right in front of the sushi station, and throughout the entire night, we'd been watching a cook make this stuff from an assembly line of old, cold, pre-molded rectangles of rice and the various ingredients. The Dragonball, their signature, has prawn, avocado, salmon roe and tobiko. The Musashi has dungeness crab with mango coulis and tobiko. The unagi & cream cheese is pretty self-explanatory. The ingredients all tasted good enough, but there was a general over-use of mayo and sweetness. And the rice, as expected, was cold and just plain bad. 
strawberry ice cream and fruits The dessert course was a bit lazy, but the ice cream was decent enough I guess.
In the end, while I felt like the meal was still a good deal for $40, the food was too inconsistent and the service a bit off for me to go back. The people were nice enough, but the timing of the dishes was pretty bad - we'd wait long periods of time, then have 3 come at once, etc. And while there were some great dishes (the cheese tofu, the fish), there were some bad (lamb) and some really bad (sushi) ones. I think the sushi is a real example of a restaurant trying to extend and do too much. I mean, if you're gonna be making sushi using rice like they do here, just don't bother serving sushi at all. The menu has its strengths, but definitely focuses a bit too much on style over substance. With the quality of other izakayas in Vancouver, I don't see much reason to go back to Shiru-Bay. I'd rather eat at Gyoza King, Hapa, or Guu any day.