sanpachi ramen

I've been to Sanpachi three or four times. When they first opened last December I was super excited about them. I tried the ramen there and loved it. It was very close to the ramen in Tokyo and had the richness of the boiled broth and the right taste. Having living in Japan for 3 years I would like to think I know a bit about ramen since I ate a lot of it. However, over the year, I think the ownership has changed from Japanese owners to Chinese-run and now the taste reeks of msg. My tongue was numb mid-way through the meal. 

Over time they've added more and more to their menu. The tskumen is a dipping noodle. The noodles are hot and served in a separate bowl than the soup. You dip your bite into the soup before devouring it. 

I love their half-sized menu with the option of adding gyoza or my favourite, the tuna onigiris! I love tuna onigiris. I would order them on their own if the restaurant was closer to my office. 

I think this was miso? It was super salty. Tasted like the broth mix from instant noodles. My tongue was numb. Noodles are nice and chewy though. When I first came, the pork was the perfect fat-skinny ratio. Now they are just too lean. :-( Sad. Everything about this bowl of ramen is bad now. I am so disappointed since I thought I'd finally found a good ramen shop in Vancouver.

The kitchen staff are Chinese. There might be one Japanese worker in there. The manager is a Chinese lady who speaks Japanese. Sorry but I'd prefer something authentically Japanese. 

So far I've tried: G-men, Santouka, Kintaro, Benkei and Sanpachi. I liked Sanpachi the best before, but now I don't know if I like any of them! Ramen explorations shall continue! Please recommend some if you know of  a great one.

sushi kimura

It was a friend's birthday last night and she wanted to go to Sushi Kimura. I'd heard of the place when I was trying to find a new Japanese place to take my family. It is run by a Japanese family and the chef is super cute. He looks like your typical cartoon character of a sushi chef. The regular menu seems really good (from what I glimpsed at other tables) but we had the omakase set, which basically means Chef's Recommendation. $30 for 7 courses.

We started off with a organic baby spinach and arugula salad. It was dressed with some light oil and bits of parmesan and some large flakes of crunchy sea salt. The sea salt added a really nice dimension to the salad without really adding saltiness. The portion was a bit large so after about halfway, I got bored with the taste although initially I enjoyed it quite a bit. 

Next was some nimono course. Nimono means boiled (usually in soy sauce and sugar). There was Japanese sweet potato which is actually more like mini taro, lotus root, spinach, pumpkin, konnyakyu (low-calorie hard  jelly substance derived from a yam) and a pickled smelt. The blob on the skewer is actually fish cake with edamame in it. Since I do not eat raw fish, I got the fish cake instead of the two fresh oysters that others got. This nimono course was alright. Everything except the fish cake, spinach and smelt, was pretty much tasteless. I suppose the light taste of the vegetables were to highlight its taste but because the produce isn't the most organic or choice, it fell a bit flat. If it was Japan, the Japanese sweet potato would be softer and slightly  slimey, the lotus would have been slightly more cooked, and the konnyaku would not have been tasteless yet spicy. 

Next came this fried shrimp course. The taste is reminiscent of soft shell crab. You are meant to eat the entire shrimp, head and all. I ate some of the heads but stopped after I got an especially juicy head. The sauce on the side was good with the shrimp. The shrimp itself was nice and flavourful.

After the shrimp, came this cod and potato pancake. There were pieces of cod inside this latkes looking thing. The potato was shredded incredibly fine. It looked like fried vermicelli. The dollop of sour cream with chives was definitely necessary to lend taste to the dish. The main thing I found was that each course was too big to be 1 of 7 dishes. By the end of the shrimp dish I was already full. Eating the rest of the dishes became more of a pain than enjoyment for me. With a dish like this potato and cod, it should be smaller and with less potato.

Next, came a lovely baked salmon and spinach with cream sauce. It was well presented and looked great. It tasted as the name suggests with the addition of chives and a bit of broccoli. No surprises. Again, it was too big for comfort and I ended up giving half away to some boys.

The sushi course came near the middle/end. I personally feel like it should have been sooner as most of us were too full at this point to really enjoy anymore rice. 

I got the california rolls with shrimp and unagi as I do not eat raw food. Of this plate, I only had one california roll as I was too full. It was decent. The rice wasn't drenched in vinegar so it was nice and simple tasting. 

You will notice there are some photos missing of the last few courses. There was a miso soup with tofu and pork meatballs. and some black sesame ice cream. 

So what is the final verdict? I think the idea behind the restaurant is nice. The chef looks like he loves what he is doing and the servers filled our tea a million times. However, the food is not good enough to keep a little place like this running for too long. It's decent. But I've had better. Well, okay I lived in Japan for three years, but still. The servers were a bit clumsy. During our dinner, someone broke a glass, the shrimp from one of our plates slid to the ground, and someone toppled a stack of miso bowls. We had a party of 12 people and it took at least 30 minutes before any courses began arriving. For a pre-ordered course, it felt a bit long. I would say go and try it for the experience, it's neat but go to Japan for the real thing. Perhaps the regular menu is better?