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| - I finally got to try out this Izakaya. Being a huge fan of Guu, I got a deal to come here and could not be more excited. Arrived @ 5:30 pm, which is early for an izakaya, but soon realized that this is probably the best time to come as it got busy later on and I felt that the kitchen/service ended up being slow towards the end of the meal.
Really small quaint place, reminiscent of Guu/DonDon with the wooden tables and benches but a lot smaller. A little less hustle & bustle and the loud cheeriness that the former have though.
The tapas in general were pretty good and tasty, but portions were really small. I mean, I know it's meant to be small side dishes, but it felt like I just gobbled it up really fast and be left waiting for more, picking at the small crumbs until the next dish came. I don't have a huge appetite, but it still felt lacking.
Memorable dishes:
- Tuna tataki: I would order this as this is one of the popular dishes; really nice succulent tuna with a sour vinaigrette, but gobbled it up in seconds
- Takoyaki: A bit more crunchy than the typical interpretation of it, but still really good; I would order this
- Kamo rice: It was REALLY tasty, the duck was perfect and the rice I could eat forever; as others have mentioned, came in the smallest bowl possible and literally had like 2 spoonfuls
- Fried shrimp: A nice portion, nice charcoal taste from being grilled from this Japanese wood... would recommend ordering if you like tempura
- Ika yaki: Nice grilled squid, but took forever to come...
- Kimchi pork cheese: Personally I love this, it was a definitely popular with that hit of saltiness & grease; who would've thought such a good combo existed?
- Grilled eggplant: Had a sauce I wasn't a fan of, so I was disappointed. However, the rest of the party enjoyed it...
Didn't try the sushi as it seemed kinda expensive, but looked really good. Tried a cocktail without alcohol (cause the LCBO was closed) and it was good, but probably would pass on it since I've tried better sours at DonDon. Without a discount I think my overall bill was ~$70-80 for 3 people, which was not bad for an izakaya I guess (?), but none of us really left with the feeling that we were full/satisfied.
I think the flavors is all there, and I would come back with friends if I was in the area, but I wouldn't particularly go out of my way to eat here. Maybe it was the SLOWWW service after 6:30 pm, or that the servers need to be slightly more attentive (they were nice but forgot my order, then doubled my order and charged the bill wrong), or it was the SAME background Japanese song that looped over and over again (I usually don't pay attention but it's hard not to when it's the SAME song not even a shuffle of songs replayed 20x the whole dinner)
Overall: Still a Guu enthusiast, sorry Chou.... you still have some things to improve on.
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