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Posts Tagged ‘sashimi’

Matoi Sushi – The Uni is Still Alive!

Posted in Coquitlam, Dinner, Japanese, Joyce, Restaurants, Seafood, Sushi, tagged , , , , , , , , , , 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).

Fresh Sea Urchin (Uni)

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.

Beef Sashimi

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

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#TurnOnTheRajio with Rajio Japanese Public House

Posted in Dinner, Food Bloggers, Japanese, Noodles, Restaurants, Salad, Seafood, Tapas, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Partnering once again with the team at VANEATS, we were invited to sample the #TurnOnTheRajio package. If you remember, last time we checked out Rajio we quite enjoyed it, so I was happy to plan a return visit and I invited LW to join me.

#TurnOnTheRajio by VANEATS.ca

Food

Before we began eating, we ordered a Smashing Hit Punch. At first it looked a bit steep at $12, but it was more than a drink. First, it’s served in this cute watermelon cup. In addition to the cocktail, they also cut the watermelon in cubes and placed them in the cup. Did you know that watermelon works like sponges? The fruit pieces just soaked up all the alcohol so when you eat them they’re extra delicious! It’s like a spiked fruit salad!

Smashing Hit Punch

Now, onto the food. The VANEATS package includes 4 items:

The Kushikatsu is the house specialty. For this package you will be given 4 deep-fried, panko-breaded skewers at random, upon chef’s recommendation. I have looked at other bloggers’ photos and we all seemed to get different things. I got to try 1) Camerbet cheese, 2) Takoyaki, 3) Beef, and 4) Asparagus. All these skewers come with the house dipping sauce. The skewers themselves do not have a lot of seasoning, but the sauce adds some sweet and savouriness to them, accentuating the flavours. Now remember, only one dunk per skewer. Why? It was recommended by the restaurant; I suspect it has to do with softening the breading and affecting the crispy exterior.

Kushikatsu

The Bagna Cauda is your Japanese twist of veggie and dip. (more…)

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Guu Garlic – The one that started it all for me

Posted in Dinner, Japanese, Joyce, Meat, Oysters, Pizza, Restaurants, Seafood, Tapas, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »

With different Japanese izakayas popping up around town, it’s been forever since I last visited a Guu location. I remember the Thurlow location was my very first izakaya that I’ve visited in Vancouver and it was such a unique experience: the screaming servers, the exchange of Japanese throughout the room and the long list of small plates that we could order. It was so much fun I took a visiting guest to Guu Garlic after. Now, years later, I’m back.

Food

Guu Garlic’s name came from the extra use of garlic at this particular location, and it still holds true to this day. With my girlfriends, we ordered a number of dishes. First, the Salmon Sashimi didn’t look super fatty at first, but it’s actually quite good. It tasted fresh and did have a bit of the fatty texture.

Salmon Sashimi

And so we had an encore of sashimi. The Assorted Sashimi included salmon, scallops and tuna tataki. Not very many pieces so I’m not sure if it’s the best value, but the scallops were sweet and the tuna tataki was skillfully thinly seared on the outside.

Assorted Sashimi

Funny enough, we also ordered the Tuna Tataki (when a bunch of hungry women blindly ordering food off a menu, there could be a lot of similar items lol). The difference here was that they made it more like a salad by including some greens, ponzu sauce and a generous serving of crispy garlic chips (remember I talked about the use of garlic? Proof #1). I prefer this iteration of tuna tataki, using the slightly acidic ponzu sauce, over the sashimi version with just soy sauce.

Tuna Tataki

The last raw dish was the Yellow Tail Carpaccio. The flavour of yellow tail (hamachi) is quite delicate, so the sauce was a bit too over-powering in my opinion. The garlic chips (Proof #2) and sliced onion were actually a bit sweet (though also a bit spicy) so they did work with this plate.

Yellow Tail Carpaccio

Ebi Mayo is my must-have at all izakayas. (more…)

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BanZai Sushi House Richmond

Posted in Dinner, Japanese, Joyce, Restaurants, Richmond, Seafood, tagged , , , , , , , on April 24, 2014| 2 Comments »

Looking for a quick dinner idea in Richmond, we stopped at BanZai Sushi House across from the Richmond Public Market. It was recommended by a family friend – I’m often skeptical about recommendations but I decided to give it a shot.

Food

As we perused the menu, we also looked around at our neighbours’ food and realized that their portions are pretty big. Therefore, we were careful about how much we ordered and hopefully just enough – leftover sushi is never good.

We ordered Tuna & Salmon Sashimi, and boy, these were some thick slices. We thought the size of salmon sashimi at Hi Genki was generous, but these were at least 2 times bigger. Salmon tasted fresh, meaty and fatty; I really enjoyed it, and I wish we had more to share. The tuna was pretty good too, but at certain bites the slices were a bit stringy. That being said, for $10.95 I thought this was a great deal for sashimi.

Tuna & Salmon Sashimi

For sushi rolls, we had one of my favourite rolls, Spicy Scallop Roll (top of the picture below). Usually restaurants would mix in the spicy sauce to mask the fishy taste of the not-so-fresh scallops. Because they just put a dollop of the hot sauce on top of the roll, the fishy taste was completely exposed and it wasn’t very pleasant. (more…)

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Date Night: Miku Restaurant x Lincoln MKZ – What She Says

Posted in By Invitations, Dessert, Dinner, Drinks, Japanese, Joyce, Restaurants, Seafood, Special Occasion, Tapas, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 27, 2013| 3 Comments »

Being a foodie couple, you can imagine date night with Mr. would most likely be a visit to a new or hot restaurant in town. Thanks to our partner at Lincoln Motors, we were sent on a Blogger Date Night experience that’s much more exciting and unique. Not only daid we get to enjoy a nice dinner at a restaurant of our choice, but we also got to drive a new Lincoln MKZ for a day, which was right up Mr.‘s alley. Many of you aren’t aware, but Mr. is a huge car guy; he reads up a lot about cars, and he enjoys fixing up his cars. The car guy in Mr. plus the foodie in me, this date night couldn’t be more fitting. And, it was the day before the blog’s 4th anniversary. Yes, this is how we celebrated our 4th anniversary — in style!

We went to Miku Restaurant for dinner. It has been on my list for awhile now, since its former Coal Harbour location. Now that it has moved to a prime location neighbouring Canada Place, I was quite excited to have the opportunity to check it out.

Miku Restaurant

Miku Restaurant

We started with a couple of cocktails and some appies. Of the two cocktails, I quite liked the Miyazaki Mango. It was strong with the dark rum, but the mango flavour made it tropical and the ginger beer gave it a subtle kick.

Miyazaki Mango

First of all, we ordered some of my favourite oysters, Kusshi. I like that they aren’t too big, but with a crisp, refreshing cucumber taste. Fresh Oysters here are served with 3 sauces. The kaffir lime mignonette and ginger cocktail sauce are a twist of the traditional mignonette and cocktail sauce, so they worked pretty well. Personally I didn’t understand the wasabi chimichurri. It reminded me of the green onion/ginger mixture that Chinese people dip their steamed chicken in; it was too overpowering and covered up the original taste of the oysters.

Kusshi Oysters

Miku prides themselves for their Aburi style of cooking (giving the fish a light sear directly from open flame then match each of them with a specialty sauce), so it’s on our must-try list. The Aburi Sashimi was a trio of fish: (more…)

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