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Posts Tagged ‘Tuna Tataki’

Stake at Hard Rock Casino Vancouver – Fine Dining in Tri-Cities

Posted in Coquitlam, Dinner, Eat Local, Fine dining, Joyce, Meat, Restaurants, Steak, West Coast, tagged beef tenderloin, Crispy Pork Belly, Hard Rock Casino Vancouver, scallops, Stake, Surf & Turf, Tri-Cities, Tuna Tataki, United Boulevard on March 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

In Vancouver, there is no shortage of fine dining options to celebrate your special occasions. The suburb, is a different story. Last year, Hard Rock Casino in Coquitlam revamped its restaurants and introduced Stake, a fine dining establishment focused on sourcing local products. I was there when it launched its menu in the Fall (here’s the proof – check out 0:45 and the hand model at 1:17 – I could be a YouTube sensation one day!) and was quite impressed. So to celebrate CC’s birthday, a few of us girls went there for dinner.

Food

The menu isn’t very big, but there are a few good options. We shared a few appetizers to start. The Signature Smoked Crispy Pork Belly was our favourite appy. The meat was tender, the fatty bits were rendered nicely. Perhaps the edges were a bit too charred but it didn’t have any burned taste.

Even though the Albacore Tuna Tataki was a standard affair, I had to commend on the nice sear they’ve had on the fish. I liked the thick cut on the fish, so it gave you a bit of a bite. They could probably up the acidity in the sauce to help cut through the rich tuna.

The Pan Seared Scallops were nicely caramelized on the outside, and just slightly rare inside. (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 Almond Tofu, Beef Tongue, Ebi Mayo, Guu, Guu Garlic, Hamachi Carpaccio, Karaage, oysters, Pizza, Salmon Sashimi, sashimi, scallops, Takoyaki, Tuna Tataki, [yellow tail] 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.

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.

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.

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.