Tap & Barrel | VanFoodies.com

Posts Tagged ‘Tap & Barrel’

A Sushi Tour in Vancouver: from the Eyes of a Toronto Visitor

Posted in Dinner, Guest Post, Japanese, Lunch, Restaurants, Seafood, Sushi, Travel, Vancouver, tagged Bay Sushi Cafe, Cartems Donuterie, Chopped Scallop, Commercial Drive, Downtown Vancouver, Fat Duck Mobile Eatery, Granville, Hole-in-wall, Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen & Sushi Bar, La Taqueria, Marpole, Parallel 49 Brewing Company, Re-Up BBQ, River Market, Rue 909 Sushi, Spicy Tuna, sushi, Sushi King House, Tap & Barrel, Viet Sub, Yamato Sushi, Zakkushi on October 16, 2014| 2 Comments »

Peter is back for another guest post! If you don’t remember him, he’s a friend of mine from Toronto. I met him while he’s working in Vancouver, but he’s moved back home since. Recently he returned for a short visit, and made around town for some sushi:

Now that I no longer live on the West Coast, people always ask me what the number one thing is that I miss about Vancouver. And my answer is always: sushi!

So when I returned to Vancouver for a week-long visit this summer, naturally I spent a great deal of time hitting up all my favourite sushi spots.

Sushi King House

First stop on the tour was Sushi King House in the Granville-Marpole area. This was a favourite years ago, and due to its proximity to our hotel, it was a great choice for our first meal of the day. As the name may suggest, Sushi King’s claim to fame is its larger-than-average nigiri (had to eat it in two-bites!), maki, and cones. The must-order here is the chopped scallop (roll or cone). Definitely one of my favourite rolls, and this was the best I’ve had all week – cold, crisp, clean-tasting scallops lightly dressed with mayo and tobiko. And the rice was perfect too. Sushi King is also one of my favourite places to order toro. Beautiful slices of albacore tuna belly. Melt in your mouth, and very clean tasting. The first bite instantly had me contemplating a move back to Vancouver. This is an extremely casual, little gem of a restaurant. And the friendly service will keep you coming back – our server still recognized us (after four years!) and asked us why we haven’t been back in so long. We returned two more times that week!

8176 Granville Street, Vancouver
sushikinghouse.com

Bay Sushi Cafe

Later that afternoon we headed downtown to Bay Sushi Cafe. Known as “Sushi Bay” to its many regulars, this is a busy, casual, lunch-time spot located on Seymour Street, directly across from Hudson’s Bay. The winner here is the spicy tuna roll – made with avocado, a small amount of tenkasu (tempura bits), and I swear I tasted a hint of gochujang (Korean chili paste) in the mix. It’s by far my favourite spicy tuna in the city. The chopped scallop is also great here, and their salmon and tuna nigiri are consistently good. Mainly a lunch-time spot, Bay Sushi Cafe closes early at 7pm each day and is closed on Sundays. (And yes, we returned just before closing that night to get a second round of sushi to go!)

678 Seymour Street, Vancouver
baysushicafe.com

Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen & Sushi Bar

This was a new one for me. Having never been to Commercial Drive, my friend offered to take me to his favourite (and what looks to be the busiest) sushi place on the Drive. We headed out for lunch on the day of the World Cup final, and despite the lack of a TV, Kishimoto was packed. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Bite and Sip – Discovering Uber and Vancouver Urban Winery

Posted in By Invitations, Culinary Events, Food Bloggers, Joyce, Product Reviews, Restaurants, Vancouver, Wine Pairing, tagged Bite and Sip, FreshTap, limo service, Tap & Barrel, Uber, Vancouver Urban Winery, wine on tap on August 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Earlier this week, we were invited to attend an event called Bite and Sip, a boutique food show where meat, produce and wine on tap unite. For a quick recap, I checked out booths by Trimpac Meats and Freshpoint, and tried a few bites using ingredients carried by these two companies, including:

Tomato bocconcini pipettes
Lamb loin with feta
Wagyu short ribs with wasabi mayo

Bites I had

I got there towards the later part of the event, so not very many items were left for tasting. Therefore, I took the time to stop by the booths and chatted with the folks there. I found out about PEI Beef, and that Glowbal Restaurant Group is the exclusive restaurant buyer of PEI beef here in Vancouver (I was quite impressed by the meat quality when I ate at Black + Blue earlier this year). You can also get it retail at perhaps two meat shops locally.

Guests mingle

It certainly brought back some fond memories of my work in the agriculture industry a few years back when I saw Freshpoint’s tables.

Greenhouse veggie display

Mushroom display

Through this event, I made two major discoveries that I want to share with you here. First of all, the venue; then, transportation to and from the event. (more…)