VanFoodies.com

Last week, I went to Minami Restaurant’s grand opening party. Minami is the sister restaurant of Miku, which is among the best Japanese restaurants in Vancouver.

Minami Restaurant

The evening began with the Kagami Biraki ceremony, which is the opening of a cask of sake using a mallet, conducted by owner Seigo and two of his guests. Minami offers a large variety of sake on the menu; they even have someone on staff who specializes in sake.

Kagami biraki ceremony

Seigo-san spoke about the philosophy behind his restaurant group and the three main pillars: food, atmosphere, and people. We heard about his quest for the mural artist and the custom-made porcelain.

Murals by Hideki Kimura

He talked about his passion for delivering high quality of food, as well as his vision in providing top-notch service through his knowledgeable staff. Everything was demonstrated at this grand opening event.

Cooks and staff

I was very impressed by how efficient the staff were. Cooks and sushi chefs pumped out food like a machine; servers were attentive, knowledgeable about each item and were able to describe them to guests.

Sushi demo

My favourites, hands down, were Aburi Salmon Oshi Sushi, Ebi Fritter and the assortment of Nigiri Sushi. I also liked the two sake-based cocktails, especially Pacific Pimm’s.

Aburi Salmon Oshi Sushi – pressed local salmon, jalapeño, miku sauce

That said, the overall quality of food was excellent, especially considering that this was a grand opening party and party this size tends to get a little crazy and quality couldn’t be maintained because you have to make a massive amount of food and serve a big flock of guests within a short amount of time. It was never an issue here, so you know this is not an ordinary Japanese restaurant. Kudos to all the staff at Minami.

Guests mingle

Frankly, I have never been to Miku either, so I’m very intrigued to go back to Minami for another visit, or to finally eat at Miku.

Here is a gallery of mouth-watering pictures from the event:

Minami Restaurant
1118 Mainland Street, Vancouver
604-685-8080
minamirestaurant.com