For Valentines day, the boyfriend and I wanted to try something different… so I did a bit of restaurant researching, and found Gyu-Kaku which looked super enticing! We really love yakiniku so jumped at the chance.

There was a problem, though… it seemed like everyone else had the same idea and the reservations were fully booked for all 3 of their locations (unless we wanted to eat dinner at 9pm). So, we waited 3 weeks for our reservation and were really excited to try it!

I would definitely recommend that you make reservations, or else you wouldn’t get a table or have to wait awhile. I overheard the host quoting 30-45 minutes for non reservations!

We went to the location on West Broadway, which is located on the second floor of the building. There was a parking lot but it was full, so we found some paid street parking nearby.

The restaurant is long and narrow, but able to fit many tables and it did not feel cramped. It had a lively atmosphere too, perfect for eating out on the weekends!

They have set BBQ menus which seemed like a good deal. However, due to my digestive problems, I wouldn’t have been able to eat a lot of the set menu things so we ordered a la carte.

Melon soda float (alcoholic): The boyfriend had his eyes set on this drink even before we got here! We miss Japanese melon soda and wish that more places sold it here. The melon soda is not actually Japanese melon soda, it is Bols Melon which is a melon liqueur. It was topped off with a scoop of ice cream, which he really enjoyed!

Sadly, I was not able to try some with my sensitive stomach.

Spicy tuna bowl: To start, the boyfriend ordered a spicy tuna bowl. He enjoyed it, but probably wouldn’t order it again because he rather save room for more meat. He said that a plain bowl of rice would have sufficed.

Gyu-Kaku Kalbi Short Rib: One of the two beef plates that we got! Out of the two, we both liked this one more. The beef was melt in your mouth soft, and buttery. It came marinated with a tare sweet soy, which was made up of pear juice, soy sauce and ginger (couldn’t taste much of the ginger).

New York Steak: The New York Steak was thicker than the short rib. It was yummy too, but not as buttery since this was a leaner cut. The sauce that it came with was the miso and soy sauce.

Assorted veggies (see above): We thought it would be better to order some veggies too because the meat don’t come with any! They took a bit of time to grill, so we ate them near the end. They had a very small amount of sauce, which I couldn’t really taste.

The corn normally comes with butter, which I sadly can not have. But the corn was still sweet!

Chicken thigh: I love my chicken! The chicken came with yuzu sauce, which was delicious! There was a slight zesty tang at the end which made it different from other marinated chicken.

Duck breast: Duck breast isn’t something we normally see offered in restaurants, so we gave it a try here. It came with the shio white soy sauce, which was a combination of garlic, salt, and soy sauce.

I wasn’t expecting duck breast to be that fatty, I thought it would be more lean. Taste-wise, it was delicious!

Pork belly (no photo): The boyfriend loves pork belly, so this was an obvious choice. Due to my digestive problems, my stomach can not handle that much fat unfortunately. The pork belly came with the shio white soy, which was the same as the duck breast. He had no complaints about the pork belly!

All in all, we left very satisfied and could see why this place is so busy all the time! It’s delicious. Service was a bit slow because it was so busy, but they were friendly.

Brown Bites is a mini series on my blog featuring places the boyfriend has tried without me, so it wouldn’t be my own review. Why the name Brown, you ask? It is named after the Japanese LINE character, Brown. Brown is a cute, shy, emotionless cartoon bear but secretly full of love, and we adore him to pieces!

This is a special Brown Bites post, because it is a guest post written by the boyfriend!

Welcome to another edition of Brown Bites. I am Carmen’s boyfriend, finally back with another guest post.

In today’s edition, we have another ramen joint: Ramen Gaoh.  They are a part of the ramen chain that also consists of The Ramen Butcher and Ramen Gojiro. Carmen and I have been to Ramen Gojiro in the past, so I was not hesitant to give Ramen Gaoh a try. You can read Carmen’s Ramen Gojiro review here.

Ramen Gaoh’s menu consists mainly of miso ramen, along with appetizers like gyoza and chicken karaage. The menu is simple and easy to understand. It gives you the option to add more toppings to your ramen, but doesn’t give you options to select the richness of your broth or fattiness of your chashu as some other ramen places do.

In my visit, I arrived a little after they just opened, around 11:40am, and was actually the first customer there, but the restaurant did start to fill up as it got closer to lunch.

AKA MISO RAMEN: I ordered the Aka Miso Ramen, which is red soybean paste broth. The ramen comes with bamboo shoots, wood ear fungus, bean sprouts, and a single slice of chashu topped with green onions and ginger. The noodles were perfect: good texture and decent portion.

The broth was not for me though. Since I prefer my broth as plain as possible to get the chicken and pork flavour from the stock, the aka miso overpowered the other flavours of the stock. It was a mistake on my part. The chashu was good, if nothing special.

ORIGINAL GYOZAS: The gyozas were part of the ramen combo for an additional $3. The skin was thin and pan fried to a nice crispiness, and filling was tender and juicy pork. Definitely worth trying in their other flavours.

ORIGINAL CHICKEN KARAAGE: If you have been to Ramen Gojiro and tried the chicken karaage, then you will not be disappointed here. The chicken is the same garlicky, crispy, and juicy chicken goodness you can get there.

This was a lot of food for one person so I ended up taking the chicken karaage home for later.

In conclusion, I’m glad that I finally tried Ramen Gaoh. I would come back for their chicken karaage, instead of making the trek to their sister restaurant, Ramen Gojiro in downtown, or the gyozas.

Thanks for reading my guest post! Now I will hand it back to Carmen.

Instead of our usual hangouts, we traded in board games and bubble tea for rockclimbing and trying out a restaurant nearby after, The General Public. I have mixed feelings about this place and am not sure whether to give it a good review or not.

I usually don’t write such long intros… but the stories below, prior to our dinner, is why I wouldn’t come back.

The General Public is a funky, eccentric restaurant similar to their sister restaurant, The Eatery in Kitsilano. The restaurant was unlike any sushi restaurant I’ve been to in terms of atmosphere. It reminded us of a nightclub or a pub… definitely not a sushi restaurant.

We made reservations for 7:15, but ended up finishing our activity earlier than expected, so I asked if we could come in at 6:20/6:30ish instead. Usually, restaurants are a lot busier at 7pm than 6:30pm, so I thought it would be better for both us and the restaurant to start and finish early. The lady on the phone seemed annoyed when I called and asked, and said they were fully booked until our reservation. We found that a bit odd and also a lie considering her tone… I know that sounds a bit weird, but we just had a feeling she was lying.

So, we decided to go early anyways to see if we could just get a walk-in table. Sure enough, the restaurant was half empty. When we got in, it took a long time for the hostess to acknowledge us… and even then, they said they were full and ‘only the patio’ was available.

At this point, I was getting really snobby vibes from the restaurant and soured my taste of the restaurant before even sitting down. We contemplated going across the street to another Japanese restaurant but my friend preferred to go here, so we killed a hour before our reservation.

Again, it took about 5 minutes for the hostess to acknowledge us, and it was not that busy still.

While we were standing at the table, I saw the book of reservations… you know how earlier I said we had a feeling she was lying about not having an earlier seat? We were right. In the book, there were no reservations from 6:15pm-7:00pm. Wtf?

What was the point of lying about that?

We were seated in a tight cramped table but once the customers beside us have left, it was a lot more comfortable.

Cocoa’s stomach wasn’t feeling well, so she asked for hot water. The server just gave her a blank look and said, ‘uh… sure… oh wait.. the hot water machine is broken…’ again, her tone felt like she was lying about it and just didn’t want to make the effort. So she asked for water without ice… yeah, it never came.

While waiting for our food, there was a DJ which for the most part, was okay. But there was a 5 minute period in which she played this terrible, high pitched, screechy dubstep thing. It was a horrible noise….ugh.

Ugh. Finally on to the food.

Chicken curry: The boyfriend was missing his Japanese curry, so he ordered this. Unfortunately, it reminded him more of Indian style curry, which is spicier and more fragrant. Japanese style curry is more sweet with subdued spices. It was decent, but he was just craving Japanese curry more than Indian curry.

Tunacado: Both Cocoa and I ordered this, they had a section of only tuna so we thought it would be pretty good! It came with nice, fresh chunks of tuna, ripe mango, and avocado. I found that the sauce didn’t go really well with it, there were hints of paprika? or something but overall, it was decent.

Tuna don: Again, they had a lot of tuna dishes so Cheese decided to get this! There were large tuna chunks and it was fresh. It also came with some minced tuna belly and onions.

Chirashi don: My chirashi don was delicious! It made up (not really) for the sour taste in my mouth with the stuff that happened above. There was a generous portion of thick, fresh sashimi. I was quite impressed. A bed of fresh greens separated the sashimi and rice. The rice was drizzled with some sort of sweet teriyaki sauce which was delicious.

Tataki attack roll: This roll came with crab, scallop, avocado, mayo wrapped with seared tuna. It was decent, although probably best described as a California roll with tuna tataki on top.

Alaska roll: Cheese ended off our meal with an Alaska roll. He had no complaints about it!

As you can see, the food was delicious and we didn’t really have complaints about it. However, the servers gave off a pretentious, snobby vibe in the beginning (see above paragraphs) and service was quite slow throughout.

Perhaps we didn’t quite fit their hipster clientele, but I wouldn’t come back because of the snobby staff. It’s a shame because the food was good. But there are plenty of other Japanese restaurants in Vancouver where they would treat their customers better and not lie.

It was time for dinner with Biscotti! We decided on going back to Hachi Hana Japanese Restaurant, after having some decent takeout from here last year.

Hachi Hana is located in North Vancouver on Lonsdale. I’m not too familiar with the Lonsdale area, but the street has a lot of shops and can get busy. Parking may be difficult depending on the time you come, but there is underground paid parking in the Whole Foods if you can’t find street parking.

Although they have bright signage, I got a bit confused this time and last time for pickup (which was 8 months ago so I forgot exactly where the restaurant was). It’s funny because next door is Rogers, which is also red and white! So when I’m driving by, my mind automatically just sees the Rogers sign and colours…. and I’m thinking, where is this place?? LOL!

Yam and shiitake roll: Biscotti had this roll before and enjoyed it. It comes with shiitake mushroom inside, while the top is yam tempura. She had no complaints about it.

Avocado aburi oshi sushi: Since we were seated at the bar, we were able to see the chefs make the food! Biscotti had never tried aburi sushi before, and it smelled wonderful so she gave it a try.

The avocado aburi sushi came with a basil pesto sauce, which smelled lovely. After it has been torched and melted, the sauce resembles cheese.

Agedashi tofu: Biscotti’s agedashi tofu looked delicious too!

Salmon avocado roll: For myself, I ordered the salmon avocado roll. It was delicious. There was a very generous amount of salmon sashimi inside – just look at that! Meanwhile, the avocado was perfectly ripe and creamy.

California roll: Such a basic roll, but I love my California rolls. Again, no complaints about it. My favourite part was the creamy avocado.

Salmon nigiri: Again, sitting at the bar is dangerous because you just want to order everything that comes out! I wanted the salmon sashimi, but it was quite expensive so I settled for the nigiri.

Look at that freshness! After having this, I can see why the sashimi is expensive. The quality was great, and the salmon was very fresh.

Tamago roll: Last but not least, tamago roll! The tamago roll here was delicious. It was a bit on the sweeter side but I did not mind one bit. Additionally, the tamago was light and fluffy.

All in all, we enjoyed all the food at Hachi Hana. The service was attentive, friendly and efficient too! The prices are a bit higher than your typical ‘fast food sushi’ joints (eg. Sushi Garden, Sushi Town, Sushi California) but it’s good here. I would definitely come here often if I lived in the neighbourhood.