Chicken Karaage | VanFoodies.com

Posts Tagged ‘Chicken Karaage’

Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba – Unique Japanese Dry Noodle Bowls near Lougheed, Coquitlam

Posted in Coquitlam, International Brand, Japanese, Joyce, Noodles, Restaurants, Take-Out, tagged #TakeOutDay, Burquitlam, Chicken Karaage, Dry Noodles, Kokoro Mazesoba, Mazesoba, Milk Tea, Noodle Bowl, Noodles, Take-Out on June 4, 2020| 2 Comments »

Despite the COVID-19 crisis, new restaurants continued to open up in the Burquitlam area, including one I was really excited about. Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba, an international chain originated from Japan. You may have been to their other location downtown on Seymour Street. I did, and every time I walked away with a belly full of carbs and I didn’t regret it one bit. Opening their second location in Burquitlam means it’s much closer to home and more accessible to me. Even though dine-in service was not available at the time, I had to order take-out from them to support.

Note: This is a review of a take-out order during COVID-19. Since restaurants are operating under different circumstances, menu items and dining experiences may be different.

Food

Kokoro specializes something called mazesoba. It’s a dry noodle dish using fresh multi-grain noodle that is somewhere between ramen and udon. Kokoro makes these noodles fresh in-house. Most of their mazesoba bowls come with spicy minced pork and a combination of toppings such as minced garlic, green onions, seaweed flakes, and ground saba fish. A lot of those also come with a raw egg yolk, but for take out it’s been replaced by half soft boiled egg. To enjoy the noodle bowls, you stir everything together thoroughly. In fact, when you dine in, you could order a scoop of rice at the end of your meal to ensure you pick up every last bit of sauce.

For the four of us, we ordered one bowl each, including three different mazesoba bowls and one rice bowl to add variety, and a chicken karaage for appy. (more…)

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Afuri ramen + dumpling Arrives in Vancouver

Posted in Dinner, Japanese, Joyce, Lunch, Noodles, Quick Service, ramen, Restaurants, Richmond, tagged Afuri, Afuri ramen + dumpling, Bao Bun, Chicken Karaage, dumplings, Gohan, Gyoza, Karaage, ramen, Rice Bowl on January 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

The wait is over. One of the highly anticipated restaurants to open in Vancouver – Afuri ramen + dumpling – has officially opened its doors. The Afuri brand was established in 2001. This is the fourth ramen + dumpling location outside of Japan, first in Canada. Last year we went to Portland and checked out the ramen + izakaya and I was quite excited about the arrival of ramen + dumpling here in Vancouver. Technically the restaurant is in Richmond. It’s where Dazzling Cafe used to be (remember Dazzling Cafe?). I was invited to its media night and previewed some of its menu items.

Afuri ramen + dumpling uses a kiosk system. Meaning, you go up to one of the three kiosks at the restaurant, place your order, grab a number then head back to your table. At the media preview, to my surprise food arrived very quickly so I don’t think it would be a long wait at the table for your food.

Food

Afuri’s signature broth is chicken based. We saw this giant stock pot (apparently there’s only 3 of these pots in Vancouver and here’s one) that holds enough broth to serve 450-500 bowls of ramen. It takes 300lbs of chicken (meat and bones), 3 types of dried fish, konbu seaweed, and fresh vegetables, on a simmer at 90 degrees for 3 hours. They never bring this broth to a boil, to ensure a clear broth in your bowl. It also helps skimming the fat easier. They then add yuzu, a small citrus fruit native to Asia, to give this broth a refreshing taste.

As for noodles, they make them fresh, in house, daily. If you visit them at lunch, you will likely see the machines going, mixing and rolling the dough and cutting the dough into noodles. Will they run out? I was told they would make enough servings everyday and if need be, they can jump in and make some more to meet the demand.

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Kita no Donburi – Japanese Lunch Downtown

Posted in Casual, Japanese, Joyce, Lunch, Meat, Quick Service, Restaurants, Sushi, Vancouver, tagged Chanko Don, Chicken Karaage, Donburi, Downtown, Downtown Vancouver, Kita no Donburi, Spicy Tuna, Spicy Tuna Roll, sushi on February 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

It’s been awhile since I’ve enrolled in a course. Even though it’s just a 3-day course, and it’s a course meant for working professionals. Still, the concept of carrying a backpack and dressing casually had been a distant memory. So when work sent me to a 3-day class downtown, I had to scout out my lunch spots. And then there was Kita no Donburi right across from the campus (I was at the Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue).

Let me first start by saying, it’s weird to eat alone. I don’t like sitting by myself and all I have is my phone, emails and social media. Occasionally I like to chat with my dining companion too, you know. Not having made any friends in class just yet, I had to eat alone at Kita no Donburi.

Food

On the first day, I ordered the Chanko Don. It caught my eyes right away on the menu because it just had everything – beef, chicken, prawn, tofu, enoki mushroom, shitake mushroom – all ingredients I love! And it came with a miso soup. It was a satisfying rice bowl. It had some nice umami flavours from the combination of tempura sauce and seafood dressing – it was sweet, it was salty, it had a hint of seafood/seaweed. The beef was the shabu shabu kind, so it was thinly sliced, which helped soak in the flavour from the sauces. It’s really fun to eat because every spoonful gave me different combination of ingredients (it would drive Mr. crazy though, as he likes having a little bit everything in one bite). What would make this even better would be a soft pouched egg, so I would stir in the runny egg yolk into the rice bowl. That would be soooo good!

I returned the next day, and tried something else. The Chicken Karaage (appetizer version) was a decent portion. (more…)

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Matoi Sushi – The Uni is Still Alive!

Posted in Coquitlam, Dinner, Japanese, Joyce, Restaurants, Seafood, Sushi, tagged Chicken Karaage, Chopped Scallop Roll, conch, Matoi Sashimi, sashimi, Sea Urchin, sushi, Tempura, unagi, Uni, Yaki Udon on April 8, 2015| 1 Comment »

My family and I used to frequent Nagano near Coquitlam Centre a lot, before it’s closed temporarily due to a fire. Since then, we have been going to Matoi at Sunwood Square by Lougheed Highway.

Food

This time around, in addition to our usual staple, we also tried a few new things. First, Fresh Sea Urchin (uni). I mean, the whole thing! If you follow me on Instagram, then you would see the video of the live sea urchin as it arrived at our table. The flesh had some natural sweetness, not stringy, and didn’t have the unpleasant fishy taste that some may have. It was served with strips of nori (seaweed), and with a few drops of soy sauce, the taste of sea was accentuated. It’s not cheap but definitely an occasional treat that’s worth every nickel (as we phased out our pennies hehe).

Usually Japanese restaurants serve Beef Sashimi almost tataki style, with a quick sear on the outside. Not here. It was straight up slices of raw beef, and with a dip into the yuzu based sauce, you can actually taste the beefy flavour. Our order had some nice marbling, so the meat slices just melt in your mouth. I was hesitant about the 100% raw beef but it was actually really good.

We usually add conch to our soup, so Conch Shell Sashimi was a first for all of us. (more…)

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[Food Truck] #FoodCartFest Vancouver – Deliciousness Every Sunday!

Posted in Burger, Culinary Events, Dessert, Food Cart Fest, Food Truck Series, Food Trucks, Joyce, Pie, Restaurants, Vancouver, tagged Aussie Pie Guy, Chicken Karaage, Cloud Nine Cotton Candy, cotton candy, DougieDog, Feastro, Food Cart Fest, Holy Perogy, Jamaica Blue Cold Brew, Johnny's Pops, Mangal Kiss, Mogu, Popsicles, The Burger Joint, The Kaboom Box, The Pie Shoppe, Via Tevere Neapolitan Express, Vij's Railway Express, Zero Waste on July 4, 2014| 1 Comment »

Food Cart Fest has returned to the Olympic Village! Every Sunday starting June 22, 20+ food trucks gather together to serve you some awesome eats on wheels. On the opening day on June 22, we went to the VIP preview event and got to sample the trucks before the event was open to the public.