Guu round 2

On our last night in Vancouver, we went to Guu again for more.

Our first dish was baked duck breast with a miso sauce. The duck was served medium rare and very tender, and the slightly sweet miso sauce worked very well with the duck.


The next dish is grilled squid tentacles. The tentacles were surprisingly tender. Very nice.


Baked oysters in a roe-mayo sauce. Not our favorite, but not bad. The oysters were actually only a piece of oysters cut from the whole oyster.


Grilled pork belly: same dish as the last time, but this time even better.


Sweet shrimp sashimi: the shrimps are very fresh and actually sweet. The shrimps were small, though, and would have been even better if they were meaty.


Grilled scallops and mushrooms on toast. Same dish as last time, just as good.



Pumpkin croquette: really strange thing. It's a big ball of mashed pumpkin with a hard-boiled egg in the middle, all topped with a somewhat spicy sauce. Not our favorite, but it has to be tried.



Bacon-wrapped asparagus: how can you go wrong with bacon-wrapped anything?

Guu

Last night "K" recommended that we go to Guu for some Izakaya style cuisine. It was a number of small dishes that are suited to go with drinking. The food is not fancy by any means, and reasonably cheap. But the quality is great and the small plates allow us to sample many different things. It has a regular menu and also a large menu of special items for the day.

Monk fish liver: I have heard that this is the Japanese version of "foie gras" and I was not disappointed. Texture is great: just like foie gras. There is a bit of a fishy taste but it is actually good. It looks like the liver was wrapped in a log shape and poached gently. Delicate and very tasty. There were seaweeds on the bottom as well.


Grilled octopus balls: standard "street food" in Japan. It was done very nicely with some teriyaki sauce and mustard. I almost forgot to take a picture before we finished them all! Oops.


Grilled black cod with miso mayonnaise, with some grilled beans and bamboo shoots: I don't know what else to say...can we ever have too much black cod/sablefish? This is definitely not as delicately done as the other ones I have had at the more upscale restaurants, but it is still wonderful (and extremely good price!). The miso mayo was perhaps a little strong for me, and the fatty bits close to the skin shows that it is perhaps not a "choice cut" piece of fish. Still, the fat gives it extra "fish flavor" and it gives a different kind of enjoyment.


Traditional hot pot (Oden) with broth and various items: daikon, taro jelly, fried tofu, and various fish/squid cakes. Not our favorite, but it is still very interesting.


Grilled pork belly and garlic: the sauce is wonderful, and how can you go wrong with grilled pork fat?


Grilled scallops on toast: there were some sauteed fresh shiitake on top as well. The flavors were wonderful. The toast got a bit soggy, though, probably because we waited too long before eating.


Pork intestines: with some grilled green onions. It's an okay dish. The intestines are chewy as you would expect with a little bit of an "intestine taste" (don't know how else to describe it). It was good street food but not spectacular. I think this is the large intestine, but I could be wrong. The grilled green onions were very tasty.


Grilled rice balls with black sesame filling: this was great. I have heard of grilled mochi but I have never tasted it. The texture was wonderfully crispy yet very light. The crispy layer is extremely thin (no batter). Black sesame is definitely one of my favorite things for dessert.


With all this food, plenty of sake, taxes and tips, it came under $60 for two people. I think this is really good for the price we paid. Certainly worth going back again.

Tojo's, Round 2

I was so impressed by Tojo's that I convinced "K" to go there with me again after we met up in Vancouver. Neither of us were disappointed.

I found out that the Omakase would be the same one I had the last time, so we decided to order a la carte instead.

The first dish was the daily selection of sashimi. There was tuna, toro, sweet shrimp, hamachi, and other fish that we don't recognize. Everything was very fresh. The salmon was one of the freshest I have tasted in Canada (maybe with the exception of Hiro Sushi in Toronto).



Next dish: marinated grilled sablefish. It's sablefish again, and I love it just as much. The sauteed vegetables and sauce was almost the same as the one I had on the fried fish. Very tasty. The texture of the sablefish is buttery and the flavor of marinade is very good. I think it must be a variation of the "standard" miso marinade that everyone is using...



Next one: spider roll. This is a pretty standard roll in many places, but the crab legs are much
longer. Also, it is wrapped in thin sheets of cucumber instead of seaweed. The sushi rice at Tojo's is actually mushier than any other sushi rice I have tasted. I think this is by design, though I do not know whether I like it this way.

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Next one: some nigiri. From top left clockwise: octopus, mackerel, scallop, salt water eel (anagi, less common). Everything was very fresh. The interesting part is that the outer skin of the octopus is actually trimmed, so there is a more delicate mouthfeel to it. It is still a little chewy, but not crunchy.


More nigiri: this is a fish called "three line grunt". Never heard of it before, so we tried. It was good, but I don't have much more to say.



Dessert: we saw two interesting desserts so we ordered both for sharing. First comes the green tea creme brulee, coconut ice cream, and sesame cracker. The creme brulee is actually heavier/more solid than I like, but I think that's a Japanese thing because I remember this sort of consistency for custard when I was in Japan. The taste was good, but I prefer a "lighter" tasting creme brulee like ginger, for example.



The other dessert is a black sesame panna cotta and grapefruit jelly. The jelly was "the essence of grapefruit"...I tried one spoon but I don't have much to say due to my lack of grapefruit experiences. The black sesame taste was relatively light but very effective. It is definitely
lighter than the black sesame ice cream that I like so much. Still, it works very well.



Because we know what we are getting, the meal was perhaps less exciting than an Omakase. Still, everything was excellent and I was very glad that I have another chance to try Tojo's. I am glad I don't live in Vancouver, or I would be bankrupt very soon.

Lumiere Tasting Bar

I went to Lumiere Tasting Bar last Friday. I order from the $40 fixed price menu. The first course I ordered was tuna tartar with black truffles. It was very nice. Tuna was fresh, and the small amounts of truffle works well without overpowering the dish.



The main course was one of the signature dishes: sake-maple marinated sablefish, braised short rib meat, and a ginger-soy foam. It was good, though I have to say that I prefer the sablefish at the other places that I have gone to. Perhaps the sake-maple was a bit too light and didn't do much for me. In fact I can hardly taste it. The braised short ribs were delicious. I will have to try to do that myself (the "special" ingredient seems to be Port in addition to the usual braising ingredients of red wine, mirepoix, etc.).



The dessert was a milk chocolate bar with vanilla ice cream. Nothing extraordinary, but still very good.



Overall, it is perhaps not as good as I imagined from such a famous restaurant. On the other hand, I paid less than $60 for a 3-course meal including wine, tax, and tips. I think these cheaper fixed price menus are a great way to sample good food from these great restaurants. I am certainly very happy with the "quality-price" ratio. I would certainly go back again if I have a chance.