japanese Archives - Page 4 of 24

Yah Yah Yah Ramen

August 22, 2020 Leave a Comment

Yah Yah Yah Ramen is a ramen joint I’ve heard good things about, but haven’t tried because fatty ramen broth wreaks havoc on my chronic digestive problems. The fiance and I used to love going for ramen, so I’ve been trying to find places that I am able to enjoy that offer a vegan based broth too!

I didn’t know that Yah Yah Yah Ramen was an authentic Japanese chain, with a few locations in Japan. We came for an early dinner on a weekend because I knew this place was popular, and we didn’t want to wait.

Pandemic wise, it felt clean here with half their tables closed. We noticed a clipboard for contact tracing but they weren’t actually using it…

They also do not use any MSG in their broth, and list out the exact measurements of the ingredients here.

Shio ramen: The fiance decided on a shio ramen, which is always the best choice in my opinion. The shio is the most simple so you can really determine if the broth is good or not.

The fiance absolutely loved his shio ramen and wouldn’t stop raving about it for the next few days. I think we’ve found our new to go ramen place! The ramen was delicious – rich, creamy, and very flavourful. It was the perfect bowl of comforting ramen that nurtured your soul.

Vegan ramen: (Sept 2021: See update to vegan ramen below) My vegan ramen was not bad as well! It came with corn, edamame beans, tofu, and wood ear mushrooms. Compared to other vegan ramen I have had, the toppings here were the most generous. I also added a ramen egg which was delicious and had a slightly gooey yolk.

The vegan ramen had a good richness to it and was flavourful. Spinach noodles are the normal accompaniment but I asked for the regular ramen noodles with a firm thickness. The noodles were cooked well and firm.

Chicken karage: We also got a small side order of the chicken karage. This was delicious! The chicken karage was served piping hot and very crunchy.

Our first visit to Yah Yah Yah Ramen was wonderful and I have no doubt we will be back when we are in Richmond. The food and service was great, I can see why it is so popular here.

Update (June 2021): Unfortunately, they changed the vegan ramen bowl! I was really disappointed because the new vegan bowl looks quite sad and measly. I wish they kept the tofu, corn, and edamame because they are filling. The broth and noodles are the same.

With that said, I’ll continue to come here because it’s the husband’s favourite spot, but lower my expectations for the vegan noodles.

Update (Sept 2021): Due to the disappointing vegan ramen, I thought it’d be a good time to try the salmon don. This is the combo add on, which is smaller than the usual size. The usual size comes with two pieces of salmon. The salmon don was simple, but not bad. The salmon was pan fried and had a slight crisp to it.

Kilala Sushi – Revisit

August 11, 2020 Leave a Comment

I wrote about Kilala Sushi about four years ago when I first tried it! I should make a point to come here more though because the quality is great here.

Cola, the monkeys, and I went biking and were looking for a convenient place to pick up dinner near Confed Park for a picnic. I suggested Kilala since it was pretty decent before.

Kilala Sushi is run by a Japanese husband and wife duo with no other staff. The entrance to this place is a bit hidden and inconspicuous because it is covered behind a bush. The dine in area is quite small, but they do have a really big kitchen in the back.

Rumour is that they make tamago for many restaurants around town in the kitchen, and it’s pretty damn good tamago!

House roll: I remember the house roll being delicious. The house roll (top left corner) came with imitation crab meat, salmon, tuna, tamago and smoked salmon. The roll was quite huge and messy to eat though, as it fell apart.

Everything was fresh and delicious inside the roll. My only complaint would be that the imitation crab meat was really dry and could have used more sauce.

Salmon roll: I honestly can’t go to a restaurant without ordering salmon roll. Kilala’s salmon roll was good too. Just like the sashimi and house roll, the salmon in here was very fresh and delicious.

California roll: The California roll was delicious too. The avocado was ripe, fresh, and creamy. I don’t remember if the imitation crab meat was dry like the house roll though.

Salmon sashimi: The salmon sashimi was amazingly fresh and so delicious! No complaints about it.

Negitoro roll: The toro was also very fresh and melted in my mouth. The quality was great and the onions were fresh!

Saba: I was curious about this but I was not a fan of it. The saba was fresh but I found it too fishy for my liking, although Cola enjoyed it.

Beef teriyaki roll: We ordered so much food that evening that I didn’t get a chance to try this roll out. I wish I did though. There were no complaints about it from everyone else.

Kappa roll: Kappa roll isn’t something I usually order at restaurants, but this was a request from one of the monkeys. Compared to other restaurants, I found that the cucumber slices were quite generous and big here. I didn’t try this and no one had any complaints about it.

Overall, we had a satisfying and delicious dinner at Kilala and the quality was just as good as I remembered. The only complaint we had is that a lot of the rolls fell apart quite easily and we’re not packed tightly enough.

Despite that, I would love to come back again and support an authentic Japanese restaurant run by a friendly husband and wife team!

Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba

August 5, 2020 Leave a Comment

After discovering Ramen Danbo‘s delicious vegan ramen (their regular ramen was great too!), I went on a vegan ramen hunt. For those uninterested in vegan reviews, keep reading because we also had a regular meat dish too.

I was really happy to see that Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba had added some vegan additions to their menu! I knew the fiance would love this sort of noodle, and now there was finally something on the menu that I could eat as well that wouldn’t upset my stomach.

I remember when Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba first opened in 2018, Vancouver went absolutely nuts for it!

I wanted to try as well but due to the rich and fatty nature of the noodle sauce, I knew my chronic stomach problems wouldn’t be able to handle it. Also, no I am not vegan. My stomach can’t handle rich, animal fat based ramen broths so I can only have vegan broths which are better for my stomach.

We weren’t sure how busy the restaurant would be these days, but we went early around 5pm just incase. Fortunately, it wasn’t busy at all and we were seated right away.

Kokoro was one of the few restaurants I’ve been to that have asked for contact tracing so I was impressed with that.

Niku mazesoba: The fiance went with the pork belly mazesoba. He found it delicious – very rich, creamy, and fatty. I had the smallest nibble (quite sad, really) and I found that small bite to be really good.

The noodles were wrapped with the seaweed and green onion once mixed, which elevated the rich and fatty flavour of the pork belly even more. The pork belly was also very flavourful and tender. The fiance’s only complaint would be that this was pretty salty, which I also did see mentioned on other reviews.

I read other reviews and their menu advertised that you could get some rice after to soak up the sauce, once you’re done with the noodles. However, there was no sauce left once the fiance finished his noodles so it made us wonder if they gave us less sauce this time?

Vegan ramen: The vegan ramen was made with some kind of creamy soybean broth. Overall, I found it alright. There was a nice creaminess to it with a slight richness. It looks like it would be spicy, but it actually wasn’t.

The redness came from what I am guessing is tomato, since the broth was pretty tomato-ey.

In addition, the vegan ramen came with two pieces of firm, sliced, tofu which was slightly grilled. There was a generous amount of onions, corn, and wood ear mushroom. It was not bad for a vegan dish but I prefer Ramen Danbo‘s more. However, I wouldn’t mind having it again if someone suggested coming here.

Overall, our visit to Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba was pleasant. The mazesoba was delicious and the vegan option was alright too. We wouldn’t mind coming back again for it. They also opened a new location by Lougheed Mall earlier this year.

Ramen Danbo

July 4, 2020 Leave a Comment

Ramen Danbo has been on my list for awhile now, because they offer both regular ramen and vegan ramen! I loooove ramen but unfortunately, had to stop eating it due to my chronic stomach problems. However, I wanted to see if vegan ramen would be any good, and I’ve heard really great things about Ramen Danbo.

The last time I had ramen was 2 years ago at Marutama, how delicious that was before my stomach problems went even more downhill (I did go to a couple of places like Jinya and Ramen Gaoh but didn’t order a ramen dish)!

Ramen Danbo is an authentic ramen shop with locations in both Kitsilano and downtown. The Kitsilano location was their first location outside of Japan!

One of the worst things about having ramen is the line up. Most authentic ramen joints are always lined up! Because we hate waiting in line, we went to the Kitsilano location about 10 minutes before they opened and were seated immediately.

The restaurant was pretty small as most ramen places are, and they removed half of their tables due to COVID. As with most restaurants, they have a QR code that you scan to see the menu.

Ramen Danbo has a lot of customization options: noodle thickness, noodle firmness, thickness of broth, amount of lard (if non-vegan), and amount of karadare (spicy sauce).

Vegan shio ramen: I chose thin noodle, firm, standard thickness, and a little bit of karadare.

I’m pretty sure I confused the poor waiter by asking for a slice of pork and egg with my vegan soup. Oops! Anyways, I found the vegan ramen to be absolutely delicious. The broth was very flavourful and creamy, with so much umami flavour.

I couldn’t get enough of it. It wasn’t as fatty as the fiance’s regular ramen, but it still satisfied my ramen craving and I’d come back. In addition, the pork slice was tender and soaked up the broth well. The soft boiled egg was a nice touch too, ramen eggs are delicious.

Personally, I prefer my ramen broth as simple as possible to enjoy the full umami flavour of the soup which is why I usually get the shio ramen. Because of that, I wouldn’t order the karadare again because the spiciness distracted the broth.

Don’t get me wrong, I love spice and hot sauce but I prefer my ramen simple.

Classic chashu men: The fiance went with the thin noodle, firm, strong thickness, rich lard, and no karadare. The broth was very flavourful and rich.

It was the perfect bowl of comforting noodles to warm your soul. However, he loves his ramen as rich and fat as possible (to the point where you’re drinking straight up lard LOL), so he would go up a level to the maximum amount of richness, aka the extra rich level.

The chashu ramen came with a whooping 6 pieces of pork as well.

We enjoyed our visit so much that we decided to try delivery. However, the delivery experience wasn’t as good.

The portion was smaller and although they only had firm noodles as an option, the noodles were pretty soft. I wouldn’t get delivery again and would recommend going to the restaurant.

We will definitely be back!

The Rise Eatery

June 28, 2020 Leave a Comment

It has been over 3 months since I have ate a proper meal at a restaurant! How crazy is that? The last sit down meal was at Do Chay with Avocado in March.

The Rise Eatery is an Asian-fusion restaurant inconspicuously located in the South Granville area, a block away from Kyo. The restaurant is located at the end of the shopping area so it’s a bit hidden.

The restaurant was about half full, with other reservations that night too. We had a server who was friendly, but slow and hard to flag him down at times.

Drinks: We started off with some drinks! Starting from the left, Jerky ordered the ‘Life’s a Peach’ which came with peach tea, peach puree, ginger ale, lime and rosemary.

In the center was my drink, Dark n’ Timmy. I’m a huge fan of ginger beer and this was delicious! The drink came with ginger beer, grapefruit juice, lime, vanilla, and a candied ginger. The grapefruit gave it some sweetness and rounded out the spicy flavour of the ginger.

The birthday boy Smores ordered a Lolliwood North, which came with bench 1775 sauvignon blanc, lychee liquor, elderflower soda, cranberry & orange-mango popsicle. The popsicle was a cute and unique addition!

Uni-Versal Pasta XO Edition: Smores has been here before and raved about this. After deciding between the pasta and the heart attack rice, I decided on the latter and regretted it because this was delicious! I had a bite (the first bite with a clean fork so no germ transmission going on here), and was in love.

This came with squid ink pasta, sea urchin cream, runny egg yolk, sauteed prawn, flying fish roe, and toasted seaweed. It reminded me of an elevated and fancy version of a mentaiko udon.

I couldn’t stop thinking about this dish the next day! I would definitely order this for myself next time because one bite was not enough.

Heart attack rice: My rice bowl came with grilled chicken, a runny egg, and chicken crackling cooked in chicken fat rice. I can definitely see where the name heart attack rice came from.

The rice bowl was delicious as well, although a bit oily but that’s to be expected. The grilled chicken was tender with a nice char flavour. So good! The chicken crackling was essentially deep fried chicken fat, which was too rich for me and my sensitive stomach so the fiance happily ate those pieces.

Shad thai: The only disappointing dish of the night. The sauteed fish noodles were very odd and not good… think of a springy, light fish ball but in noodle form. Some things should not be made into noodles, this is one of them.

The “noodles” came with a fish sauce, with a hint of sourness to it. The sauce was okay but the noodles were not good and ruined the dish. It also didn’t feel worth the $19 price.

Chicken seoul good: This was amazing! Korean style fried chicken with wild mushroom cream, truffle oil, and grated Parmesan. All of these things combined was a match made in heaven. The chicken was juicy and crunchy, and the mushroom cream and truffle oil went so well together.

The truffle oil scent was very aromatic too. The cherry on top was the melted parmesan. Sooo good.

All in all, we enjoyed our visit to The Rise Eatery. It’s a bit hidden at the end of South Granville, but very good (just don’t get the Shad Thai). They do Asian fusion very well and you won’t be disappointed with the uni pasta or fried chicken!