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| - Koyoi vey. It would have been awesome to discover a great izakaya in the neighbourhood, especially with its lovely little patio...but we didn't.
The good: fries with curry & cheese ($6), agedashi tofu ($4), Koyoi salad ($6) and "pizza" (a small super-thin crispy flatbread with cheese and the very awesome burdock plant, $6) were really tasty, albeit all priced a dollar or two too high. Our friend enjoyed the karaage (deep fried chicken with lemon, $5.5).
From there, downhill:
- Avocado with wasabi & soy sauce (a ludicrous $5) was, sadly, exactly what it sounded like: half a sliced avocado with a dab of soy sauce on the side.
- Onigiri (rice ball, $2) and ochazuke (rice in broth, $4) both offered a "choice of salmon, marinated plum or okakamayo" but should probably have just read "rice". A single quarter-sized plum and an amount of salmon so minuscule there is no unit of measurement to adequately describe it. Literally too little to taste.
- "Chilled Chinese noodles" ($11) were appropriately named, I guess, but with a few sliced cucumbers and scant pieces of ham, the medium-sized dish of yellow noodles was grossly overpriced.
- Our meat-eating friends were underwhelmed by the "#1 customer favourite" beef tataki ($6).
- Oden ($1.50 per item): fine. Fish cakes were fish cakes.
We shared a couple rounds of the house sake ($15 for a large size - actually a tokkuri on the small side) which was nice, though why the waitress said it would be enough for 6 people is unclear - there were five of us and not much to spare.
We wanted to order the grilled potato but they were sold out, and they also couldn't/wouldn't make the okonomiyaki without meat, for some reason. Our friend ordered a desperate second helping of karaage and wondered aloud if an evil wizard had cursed the restaurant such that the more its customers ate, the hungrier they got (suspicion unconfirmed). $125 later, we went across the street for cookies and fro-yo.
In summation: getting a full meal here is a Sisyphean task. Maybe worth a happy hour visit? I'll definitely head over to Guu (or try one of the many other izakayas around) the next time I'm jonesing for Japa-tapas - a much more generous menu, inventive kitchen and better service/atmosphere at the same price. For delicious Japanese pancakes (made with whatever you want in them), go to Okonomi House.
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