| rev:text
| - This is no Guu, and for my fellow Vancouver transplants, no Hapa either.
Upon entrance to the restaurant you're in a small enclosed corridor where a host greets you and you're surrounded by bamboo sticks separating you from the restaurant. It was around 7pm on a Thursday night we visited and seemed to be very quiet, figuring we're early and the rush hasn't happened yet. After talking to the host, all tables are taken! This is not the same atmosphere as Guu where upon entrance their yellowing on top of their lungs to welcome you as you step in and the room is filled with noise and excitement. A completely different atmosphere, more quaint and you could actually have a group conversation and hear everyone clearly, except when they beat the large Japanese drums at the door as patrons enter the dining room.
Hoping the food could compensate for the lack of atmosphere in the room, it really didn't overwhelm that much. We tried their sashimi selection (sweet shrimp, butter fish, yellowtail, smoked hay bc tuna) which were ok but we've had better elsewhere in the city. I will give them points on the sweet shrimp as it was big and really succulent. We tried their grilled skewers (can also be fried) which were ok and personally I can't taste the difference between ones with sauce and one that is salted. The egg salad with bacon is a twist on the deviled egg with added bacon on top. The steamed shabu shabu came in a bamboo steamer layered with bean sprouts with several slices of pork and some sauces for dipping, very healthy but nothing special. We also tried the Japanese egg which is basically hot tamago sushi without the rice. The ginger chicken is fried and done well but didn't taste any ginger nor did we taste any ginger in the tofu marinated in ginger sauce. Overall the food was very underwhelming and price points I found on the higher end of the spectrum for izakaya. I just didn't find any value, the food didn't tantilize my taste buds, or the plating/presentation was anything special. I will give them kudos for their extensive sake selection, as we ourselves enjoyed 3 bottles during our stay.
On a side note, it's run by the same people as Sushi Time on Queen Street, so not sure if that is a good or bad thing for people. But I did find their interview with TheGridTO a bit comical saying how they first got the idea to open an izakaya in Toronto 10 years ago but Guu beat them to it.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)