Chow
3121 Granville Street
604.608.2469

www.chow-restaurant.com
info@chow-restaurant.com

Lunch Mon-Fri service from 12:00
Dinner every evening service from 5:00
$38 prix fixe nightly 5:00-6:00

****Stars (out of a possible 4)

By Elisa Wakabayashi
Eat Vancouver Writer

My experience at Chow was so wonderful that I can’t wait to go back and order the same things again! We arrived on a Friday at 6:30 and while the place was only medium busy to start it begin to fill and we were ultimately glad that we had made reservations. I’d been anticipating our dinner for awhile and had already been salivating over the menu on the Chow website so I  knew exactly what I wanted. We started with the Caesar salad: parmesan crisp, duck prosciutto, breadcrumbs ($12), deliciously clean in presentation with the items separated and a perfect share plate. Alongside it we shared the Albacore tuna tartar: avocado carpaccio, green papaya and grapefruit salad, preserved lemon, cilantro, taro chips ($16). I particularly  enjoyed the perfect balance of flavours in this dish. I have been craving fruit and tuna for quite some time now. I love that combination and this definitely didn’t disappoint. However, both dishes had such an inviting presentation, and we were so hungry, that we forgot to take photos before we dove in to enjoy.

Both of us were so enamoured with the descriptions, and subsequent presentation of our chosen mains that we decided to share only a few bites with one another. Mine was the braised veal cheeks: sauteed spaetzel, smoked bacon, parsnip puree, brussel sprout leaves, mustard sauce ($26). This really caught my attention when I saw it on the website menu and I was really looking forward to trying it. Remembering this time, I patiently took a picture, and then savoured my first bite: a tender, juicy, magical flavour with such a caressing texture that made me want to raise a flock just for their cheeks. It was truly delicious. Usually I  would just eat the meat and leave the extras behind, but in this dish the spaetzel, bacon, puree, and brussel sprout leaves complimented the cheeks so perfectly that soon there was nothing on my plate.

As for the other main, which was a 12oz ‘AAA’ beef striploin accompanied by a pomme puree with cheese curds, braised carrots, champignon de paris ($35), there was also no disappointment. Both meals were generous in proportion and so delicious that the only downside was we were left with no room to sample dessert. Have we learned our lesson? Probably not. I can’t imagine dining in the restaurant again without ordering these two remarkable dishes.

We were equally impressed with the drinks we had that night. I ordered a classic Shirley Temple which turned out to be perfectly constructed and delicious. I understand this is not daring, but I tread carefully with my beverages and I was driving that night. My dining companion was not driving, and so ordered a “Pony Water:” rye whisky, apricot du Roussillon, lillet, lemon juice, egg white ($11). We were suspicious at first, thinking this drink sounded quite rough and not at all pleasurable to drink, but our server, Claude, who’s attentive service, knowledge and overall demeanor can be described as nothing short of “awesome” insisted on the smoothness of flavour of this concoction. He was correct, as servers who know their stuff usually are, and I and my dining companion were both smitten. Thanks again Claude!

I must re-stress that I will be rushing to return to this establishment. The atmosphere was trendy but not snobby, clean but lacking an overwhelmingly sterile design, and, most importantly, the sumptuous food will invade my dreams until my next visit.

Wanted pass this last minute dining and wine opportunity along. I haven’t reviewed La Terrazza for eatvancouver.net yet, but I have been there for dinner many times in a former life and was always tremendously satisfied with the quality of the food and the overall dining experience. This particular event looks like it might be fabulous.

If anyone out there does attend, please drop us a line and let us know how it was!

—————-

Please find below information on a May 14th wine dinner at La Terrazza in Vancouver that includes rare, library (no longer released) Duckhorn Vineyards wines from 1996, 1997 and 1998. This dinner, priced at $199 per person features wines valued at well over $400 a bottle and is a once in a lifetime opportunity to taste some of these selections.

Thursday, May 14th, 2009
La Terrazza Restaurant in Vancouver
Presents Duckhorn Vineyards, Napa and Anderson Valley
Current and Library Wines
Paired with a Six Course Dinner by Chef Gennaro Iorio

6:30 PM RECEPTION / 7 PM DINNER

Reception
Canapés - canapes
Introducing Trump® Super Premium Vodka
“Trumptini”

PRIMO – first course

INSALATA CONFIT organic micro greens tossed in champagne vinaigrette with Fraser Valley duck confit,
candied walnuts, golden beets, Okanagan goat cheese and grilled red onions
Duckhorn Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc, 2007

SECONDI – second course

MERLUZZO oven baked sable fish encrusted in dried porcini mushrooms
in a mushroom fish fumet, paired with a risotto pancake
Goldeneye - Anderson Valley Migration Pinot Noir, 2006

TERZO – third course

RAVIOLI pasta envelopes stuffed with apple wood smoked paprika lamb sirloin,
sautéed roasted peppers and braised cabbage on a tomato ragú,
topped with poached golden potatoes and oven baked ricotta
Duckhorn Vineyards Napa Valley Merlot, 1997

QUARTO - fourth course

SCALOPPINE seared natural grain fed veal in a red wine,
herb emulsion with morel mushrooms. White truffle gnocchi
Duckhorn Vineyards Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, 1996

QUINTO – fifth course

BISTECCA ALLA FIORINTINA – Triple A T-bone steak grilled over apple wood smoked coals
with toasted Israeli cous cous
Duckhorn Vineyards - Paraduxx Napa Valley Red, 1998

DOLCE - Dessert

DELIZIA DI FORMAGGIO custard of Toma and Idiazabal cheeses
paired with a date, raisin jam and cherry crisps
Recioto Capitel Fontana Tedeschi, 2004
A dessert wine from the Veneto, Italy
$198.88 per person exclusive of taxes and gratuity

Reservations
La Terrazza Restaurant
1088 Cambie Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 6J5
604-899-4449 or www.laterrazza.ca
Complimentary valet parking

Beyond Restaurant & Lounge at the Century Plaza Hotel: Sunday Brunch Buffet
Located in the Century-Plaza hotel & Spa
1015 Burrard St. Vancouver
Brunch 10am - 2pm every Sunday.

Adults $24.95
12 & under $12.50
Seniors $17.50

www.beyondrestaurant.com

Zero Stars (Out of a possible 4)

Hello readers! Let me take this opportunity to apologize for, what certainly feels to me, like a long hiatus. Life has been getting in the way of posting but with this submission I expect that we will be back on for regular tasty tales!

We’re starting a Sunday Brunch series and our first adventure began two Sunday’s ago at Beyond Restaurant’s Sunday Brunch buffet. At Beyond they combine breakfast and lunch and give you the option of choosing one or the other or both. If you choose brekkie you get it at a reduced price and if you choose lunch you pay the full price of both regardless of whether you take advantage of the breakfast “side” of the buffet.

Naturally, we chose both!

As a bit of background: in a former life I traveled extensively throughout North America and have had the, mostly, good fortune of enjoying a vast array of hotel breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets. I offer this by way of the context I feel I have for hotel style buffets in general. I have eaten at many.

The other thing to note about this particular review is that it is a group effort. We are five buffeteers that contributed to the comments here and will be buffeteering going forward in this series.

As for Beyond, their website boasts that the Sunday brunch buffet is “an instant hit to start Sundays off right! Offering a colourful array of Beyond’s best breakfast and lunch selections.” We imagined tables overflowing with fruit and fresh pastries.  We imagined the food would be fresh and delicious. Ah, the wonders of imagination.

We arrived at what feels like a typical brunch buffet time of 11:30am. The restaurant was not very busy. I counted 3 other tables. The first thing noted when we walked into the restaurant area was that the buffet is quite small. That’s not in itself necessarily a bad thing particularly if the dishes are all unique and delicious. However, not only was the selection limited, but also, most of the dishes were stale and had clearly been sitting out for a good amount of time. Sauces were congealed, all the hot breakfast items were overcooked except for the sausages which weren’t cooked enough in the first place. Croissants were dry, the hot dishes were lukewarm in their chafing dishes, and the desserts, while looking pretty, tasted as though they were made and refrigerated the night before, and put out on the table numerous hours before we arrived.

Despite overall lackluster appearances and unappealing temperatures, some dishes were acceptable. The lamb phyllo, and meat satay were quite tasty, as was the artichoke salad.  We also enjoyed a beet salad and a particularly delicious stuffed and rolled porkloin that was being carved intermittently by varying staff members one of whom told me that they cooked it overnight in a slow oven. It tasted slow-cooked and was succulent and juicy. There was an omelet station too but there was never anyone there to cook omelet’s and you couldn’t really tell what it was unless you understood why all of those small dishes were sitting grouped together next to the pork loin.

Overall the breakfast buffet side was simply not good. There was a nice cheese and fruit selection on that side but, again, the fruit had been there awhile. I think the breakfast buffet had probably been there since 7am when breakfast began. Hard to tell exactly but it was far from fresh or even recently freshened.

In the dessert section the only really fresh items were the strawberries, the chocolate fountain and the whipped cream none of which deserve any criticism.

As for the service, it was lazy and intermittent. Our server tried to discourage us from ordering juice, making a strange big deal about the fact that it wasn’t included in the buffet. Several things were simply forgotten when requested. Coffee refills rarely appeared and none of us ever received new utensils at any time we left the table to get more food so we lifted them from other surrounding tables. In response to the question of what to do with plates we had already used he told us we could put them on adjacent tables and he’d get them “later”.

Remaining optimistic despite this unhappy experience, we’re reluctant to completely write-off this restaurant.  Some of the items showed that there is culinary promise in the kitchen even if this buffet was poorly executed. We will, however, write-off this brunch.

Ebisu on Robson
827 Bute Street - Second Floor
Vancouver, BC
604.689.8266

****4 Stars (out of a possible 4)

I confess to being a regularly evening Ebisu on Robson customer. It’s close to my home, and the evenings are busy with a great mix of local Japanese students and a pan-global clientele tempted by the sometime’s inconsistent but usually very delicious Izakaya-style food, and the well-priced drinks.

We recently discovered their lunch special and it just so happens to nearly fit our smackdown requirements. It’s in the plus/minus a dollar or two range so we are going to be liberal and include it in the mix. Why? Because I can!

Ebisu provides a complex array of choices in this lunch price range. First up (see the photo’s) there’s a mix and match menu of items for 3.99 each or 3 plus dessert and beverage. Then there’s a 1, 2, 3, 4 combo choice that gives you Soup, Salad, Entrée and Dessert options. There’s also Noodle Combos, the standard Bento Boxes and then 4 different Seafood Boats. 

My regular dining companion has had numerous of the 1-4’s and it was at her behest that we were there for lunch this time. 

Surprisingly, the place wasn’t very busy. It was mid-week but given our experience the joint should have been jumping. I often take that to be a bad omen for a meal as I’ve found many times both as a customer and when I worked in the business, when a restaurant is having a slow day that’s when the overall quality of the experience tends to suffer. I asked the manager why he thought they were so quiet and he said they were always pretty quiet at lunch – the place is always packed at dinner. He thinks it’s because local office people only have a short lunch hour and they are just a block or two enough off the path that the perambulatory commute shaves off too much time to make the eating time relaxed and enjoyable. Whatever the reason the quiet restaurant isn’t skipping the quality.

On our first occasion we settled on the Saba Miso with Sashimi Salad and Asari and the Bento A. On a subsequent visit my dining companion enjoyed the Sashimi 1-4 and I had the Sushi Bento. All turned out to be, as expected, very tasty choices.

To start, the Miso soup was delicious. Piping hot, fully flavored and the seaweed was not overboiled as it so often can be. I am often very disappointed in the quality of the Miso soup that accompanies Bento Box meals and other combo types. I think that many restaurants see this item almost as a throw-away and don’t give it the loving attention it deserves to make it the beautiful soup that it should be. Happily, on both occasions the soup was delicious.

The Sashimi salad both times was also fresh and delicious with this strips of snapper, fresh greens all drizzled lightly with miso and sesame oil based dressing. Very refreshing flavours.

And the mains did not disappoint either. The Saba Miso was cooked perfectly and lightly glazed. The Teriyaki Chicken Bento Box had a nice fresh salad (could have had a slight bit more dressing for my taste but that’s purely a personal call). The tempura consisted of two pieces of root vegetables and two perfectly cooked prawns and none was greasy. The teriyaki chicken was also cooked right, moist and tender in the middle and slightly crispy on the outside with a light jelly-teriyaki sauce. The chicken sat on a bed of yakitori noodles that had their own tasty flavour too. Often in a Bento Box the chicken either sits on a bed of bean sprouts that end up greasy from the chicken or, whatever it’s sitting on is overlooked and either flavourless or just flavoured by the teriyaki sauce from the chicken. In this case they had taken the effort to provide another distinct item. Very nice.  The box also included 6 pieces of sushi roll, two dynamite, two California and two cucumber roll pieces. Each fresh and while not spectacularly remarkable, still very nice.

Equally nice was the Sushi Bento with 18 roll pieces including tuna, salmon, California, dynamite and smoked salmon roll. Fresh, delicious and a couple of lovely fruit items to cleanse the palate afterwards. Good flavours. Good value.

The Sashimi was also fresh and delicious and served with a nice bowl of plain white steamed rice.

I am looking forward to returning to Ebisu on Robson and trying numerous of the other lunch options. The price, value and quality is compelling.

Just as a quick addendum Ebisu on Robson is also affiliated with Kamei Royale on Burrard and I have heard they have opened another Ebisu somewhere on Broadway. If anyone has any experiences with the new one we would be happy to hear about them.

Monday - 4pm - 11pm
Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday: 11am - 11pm
Friday: 11am - 12am
Saturday: 10am - 12am
Sunday: 10am - 11pm
Serving Brunch Saturday & Sunday: 10am - 4pm

** 2 Stars (out of a possible 4)

With a friend recently here from Toronto for the holidays and staying briefly in the Commercial Drive area the breakfast and catch-up journey led us to Fets for the second time - the first being the last time this same individual came to town a year ago. I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about the choice of venue. My recollection of last year was a lackluster breakfast served piecemeal with items incorrect, food cold and, in particular, my burger, overcooked and dry.

I’m happy to report that this year the experience - aside from a slight “policy” blip that I will explain in a moment - was unexpectedly very pleasant, in fact I would go so far as to say, delicious! Unfortunately we were caught without a camera so no visual experience to accompany this review this time.

While I was very reluctant to order a burger again my visiting companion was jonesing for a chunk of meat to sustain her through the long flight back to Toronto that afternoon and I was too hungry for eggs. As I always try to do when I am uncertain on menu items I queried our server in a casual way about the burgers and observed her reaction keenly to try to tell if her positive answer to “Are the burgers good” was couched in any non-verbal “you’re out of your mind” physical betrayals. Satisfied we were getting an honest appraisel, we both settled on the Fets
Standard Deluxe Burger that comes with cheese and all the fixings with a choice of fries, salad or soup. The soup choices were a Cajun clam chowder or a bean soup. I chose the chowder and my friend chose fries to accommodate our third companion and the aforementioned “policy” blip.

Before I get further into the meal let me pause for a moment to rant about one of the most arrogant, aggravating and egregious abuses of service to customer experiences that a restaurant can perpetrate and that is the “no substitutions” policy. While there are certain legitimate reasons for denial of change from kitchen to customer like when the baked Alaska already has strawberry ice cream in it and you want maple walnut or the long lovingly simmered soup has thyme in it and the customer hates thyme or some such thing - you get the idea. If the item is pre-prepared and complex then it’s fair to say that it may be very difficult if not impossible to provide a substitution but when the requests center around exchanging one existing item for another existing item on a plate or in a recipe - particularly at breakfast - then a denial policy is the height of arrogance and abuse. Please be reminded that the customer is paying the bills and should be accommodated as much as is humanly possible. This is the SERVICE business people. At some levels restaurant food can be art but rarely at the breakfast and burger level. GET OVER IT and find a way to accommodate your customers.

OK. Moving along. At Fets you can’t deviate from the pre-defined breakfast plate. Ridiculous I know. Our third companion wanted to have eggs and french-fries (like the British egg and chip) but this was simply impossible in the totalitarian environment of Fets without a song and dance of extra charges so we organized it amongst ourselves. Our Toronto friend would get the fries with her burger and give them to the Egg friend. After we got our meals the not-overly-worldy server still couldn’t get over the idea of having fries with the eggs and was laughing and shaking her head. Another tip for you restaurant folks is that passive-aggressively ridiculing your customers choices is probably not the best tactic for your tips or for the restaurant.

I don’t want to give the impression that this policy episode overshadowed the meal or our enjoyable time. It did not. The burgers were absolutely delicious. Served on very fresh grilled Portuguese style buns, they were moist and tasty with fresh ingredients and generous proportion. The really pleasant surprise though was the Cajun chowder. I often think a restaurant can be judged by the quality of it’s soups. This was beautifully rich in clams and vegetables with a perfectly spiced succulent broth. I tasted it first when the meal arrived and immediately wished I had ordered just the soup for my meal - though once I dove into the burger I was also completely satisfied on that front.

Our Eggs friend was (finally) happy with his simple but well prepared breakfast items and all in all the food was hot, fresh and tasty.

I will go back to Fets. It has the kind of low-key, casual, unpretentious and slightly grubby charm that I find very comfortable sometimes. And, with this recent visit it seems, the food is good. I would like to try some other items but I know that next time it will be another burger and soup.

Joe Fortes

777 Thurlow Street
604-669-1940

11am until 11pm seven days a week.

www.joefortes.ca

**2 stars (out of a possible 4)

A recent stop on our quest for the ultimate downtown 10 buck lunch was at enduring Joe Fortes for their Lunch Blue Plate Special. For nearly 25 years Joe’s has been considered a favorite seafood and chop house destination and a haven for suits around the piano and oysters on any given Friday afternoon. Right now they’re pulling them in at lunchtime with their different-everyday 10 buck lunch.

We went there on a Friday and true to form the joint was bustling with suits and tourists alike in a very upbeat jazzy atmosphere. We were shown to a small deuce and kind of wedged into a long line of table and our pleasant server organized the standard water and bread items while we perused the lunch offer. We knew we wanted the Special but I noted that going off that special menu puts you, not surprisingly, into the realm of the upper end of lunch pricing. One particular bonus was nicely starched linen napkins - a rarity at lunch.

Being a Friday the 10 buck lunch was Grilled Salmon Caesar Salad. We didn’t wait long. In a heartbeat our meals arrived. This made me instantly suspicious as perched atop the Caesar salad was the expected grilled salmon and I knew there wasn’t time to have cooked this to order. The salmon itself was a whole piece  - a good sign and unlike the often chunks or strips you sometimes see.

Unfortunately, unlike my companions salmon which she insisted was “fine”, mine was overcooked and hard on the outside,  dry and cool leading me to believe that my suspicions were well founded and that this fish was pre-cooked and awaiting an order.  The good news is that the friendly and attentive server immediately organized a replacement and when the second piece arrived  - after an appropriate cooking time -  it was perfectly cooked and delicious with light spice and a drizzle of olive oil over the top. That’s the good news. The slightly less good news is that the Caesar salad was decidedly lackluster with a very light uninspired creamy Caesar dressing - I confess I am not a fan of the creamy Caesar dressing in general and will cover that problem off another time. However, the croutons were nice, fresh and homemade. In addition to the basket of bread the salad also came with a rectangle of garlic toast that was fresh and tasty but not particularly special.

Overall, the atmosphere had that exciting downtown action feel to it, the service was very good and the food  - at least for a tenner - quite acceptable. We are looking forward to trying some of the other days.

900 Seymour Street

T  604-523-6188 

www.cibotrattoria.ca

Sorry this ones a bit on the late side, though it seemed a late release to me at the time it is good for the entire month of December. Cibo Trattorio sent out some info regarding their Holiday Cheers Menu. I haven’t been for this, or for any reason, but if you have let us know. 

Press Release:

A Perfect End to the Day – Holiday Cheers at Cibo Trattoria

Vancouver, December 16, 2008 – It’s finally that time of the year again…a time to make that shopping list and attack it with fierceness! Vancouverites all have their favourite boutique shops and places to find that perfect gift for their loved ones, but did they add a note to their list for a little “self holiday bliss”?

Centrally situated just one block from infamous Robson Street, Pacific Centre and minutes from Yaletown, holiday shoppers can enjoy the perfect end to their day at Cibo Trattoria.  During the month of December, Cibo Trattoria is offering a special Holiday Cheers Menu featuring a delightful three-course menu, including a glass of wine, for only $38 - available Monday through Saturday, from 5:00pm to 6:30pm, where one can leave their Christmas gifts with Cibo management while dining.  

Cibo Trattoria is one of Vancouver’s newest additions to the Italian culinary scene this year. Located in the newly renovated Moda Hotel, this 52-seat restaurant is under the expert guidance of Sebastien Le Goff (formerly of Lumiere and CinCin restaurants) and General Manager, Sahara Tamarin (formerly of Chow and Lumiere restaurants).

Executive Chef, Neil Taylor (formerly of London’s esteemed River Café), offers a contemporary Italian menu that focuses on local, seasonally evolving ingredients.

For you foodie keeners this announcement for Whistler Cornucopia 2009 was sent to us recently.

“Save the Date! Industry insiders know that the best way to launch into the festive season is with the insights and tasting tips from the world’s best chefs and breakout and award-winning wineries. Get a head-start on 2009, and save the date for Whistler’s 13th annual Celebration of Wine and Food, where insight meets abundance! Cornucopia is set for November 5 - 9, 2009.”

I’ve never actually been to this event but I’m told it is pretty amazing. If anyone would like to comment on their experience we’d be glad to hear it. I am going to mark my calender for next year and plan to attend.

Hurricane Grill

999 Marine Drive, North Vancouver, V7P 1S4

604-983-9444

1137 Marinaside Crescent, Vancouver, V6Z 2Y3

604-488-0555 

A quick post on a weekend birthday celebration that led to the Hurricane Grill in Yaletown on Marinaside Crescent. A tony address set on the water amidst Yaletown’s luxury skyscrapers. It was a cold evening and the Canucks were playing – a harsh shutout loss to Edmonton 3-0 for you fans in the readership – and the Hurricane Grill was an inviting upscale pub atmosphere with plenty of bigscreen tvs to feed the sportsfans amongst the birthday goers, which was most of us. Unfortunately the food was as brutal as the loss to the Oilers.

The menu is huge and tries to cover every possible base from grilled steaks to nachos, fajitas, pizzas, pasta, ribs, salads, and burgers. Our server suggested my partner and I start with their signature steamed mussels. To our dismay, we did. Firstly and typically, as any basic seafood cook knows, you steam mussels in the shell and those that open are good to go and those that don’t you toss as they have expired. These mussels were served with the other half of the shell already removed giving us no clue as to the health of the contents. The steaming “broth” was a horridly salty unidentifiable dark green liquid and the large rubbery mussels tasted of nothing leading me to believe they were cooked at another time and introduced to this nasty liquid later. My partner refused to eat more than one.  I was starving and ate about half before piling the shells plate on top of the main dish.

Since this was a sportspub-type evening I decided to go with a peppercorn cheeseburger as a main to compliment the lager. I was drinking I was hoping the mussels were a one off problem and the peppercorn sauce, I was told was delicious.  My partner chose one of her perennial favorite dishes - baby back ribs.

Sadly, burger was, overcooked, dry, bland and had an unpleasant texture. Three strikes. The peppercorn “sauce” was wiped on the bottom bun and not lightly brushed on to the burger during and after cooking as I had expected. I was able to work through about half of the burger before I couldn’t stomach it any further.

My partner’s ribs  - a half rack – were overcooked and dry. Clearly a theme for meats at The Hurricane. For both of us, sadly, the only “highlight” were the fries. And believe me this isn’t saying much.

In retrospect we absolutely should have sent our food back and complained but you know how it is when you are at a celebratory event that is hosted by the celebrator and you don’t want to insult the host and make a scene. We still should have. 

There were about 20 people at the birthday dinner and a quick poll around revealed a consensus of lackluster meals. To be fair, there was a report that the cheese pizza was “pretty good”. A corn chowder was remarked upon as “really good” but the wrap it accompanied was “boring and tasteless” and the diner wished she’d had only ordered the soup. A steak covered salad looked good and was said to be “nice”. 

The atmosphere and service, and pricepoint are all quite good. Too bad the food doesn’t measure up. 

Hey readers! Let’s get back to the business at hand on eatvancouver.net.

This is the first installment in our plan for a continuing series on the quest for the best ten buck (or less) lunches in the downtown core.  A tenner seems to be a popular pricepoint and we expect to partake in an ongoing assortment.

Oysi Oysi

1136 Alberni Street,

Vancouver, BC

Tel: (604) 682-0011

Hours:

Monday to Thursday: 11am to 10:30pm

Friday: 11am to 11:30pm

Saturday: Noon to 11:30pm

Sunday: Noon to 10:00pm

1 star (out of a possible 4)

The journey has led on occasion to Oysi Oysi Japanese restaurant on Alberni Street.

Sandwiched between Tim Hortons and the entrance to Carmanah Plaza, Oysi Oysi is always a bustling lunchtime location. I believe that price is the primary reason.

The lunchtime clientele always seems to be a thorough mix of Japanese students, office workers and construction workers from the numerous nearby sites.

The lunch menu has several options within options all under $10 bucks.  There’s the mix and match Eye Opener for $9.95 that is only available Monday through Friday with four categories and numerous options in each category. Then there are the everyday offerings of the Chef Special which is Ramen and 3 gyoza and the Oisy Special which is a pared down version of the Eye Opener. And lastly there are 4 Combo lunchbox type items.

My first visit I had the Eye Opener with the teriyaki chicken. sushi, rice, wonton soup and gyoza. It’s a good portion and a good size meal. Unfortunately the items themselves didn’t hold up to the promise.

The chicken teriyaki was overfried. The chicken itself was hard and overcooked and the breading was beyond crispy and more like crunchy. The teriyaki flavour is ok, a bit oversweet, and the sauce is very gelatinous with the beansprouts underneath very greasy. The wontons in the soup were tasty but the soup itself had a slightly antiseptic quality that made me think someone had squeezed a cleaning rag into it. Not pleasant.

Eye Opener

The sushi was the star of the plate with decent portions on the nigiri and everything fresh with a nicely lightly vinegared sushi rice.  Makes me think the nighttime sushi might be quite good. Lastly, the gyoza were simply ok. Not particularly notable. Certainly not made in-house.

The second visit I tried the Oisy Special choosing prawn and vegetable tempura, chicken teriyaki again (to compare) and a California roll. It also comes regardless of your choices with Miso soup and bowl of rice. 

Oysi Special

The meal came in under 3 minutes. Quite literally. Clearly prepared in advance as there is no way any of the cooked items were to order. This time the chicken was tender (almost like it was steamed) but you could taste the flour in the breading. As if it was fried to get the outside crisp but not enough to cook through to the chicken. Again, the beansprouts underneath were greasy. The Cali roll had the standard Pollock faux crab that we have all come to expect though I long for real crab in my rolls – I know some places do serve it this way but I think it should be noted somehow on a menu. I’ve probably been watching too much of Gordon Ramsey. Anyway this roll was pretty standard. Moist with mayo and the avocado was very overripe to the point of being strangely too mushy and almost watery in one piece. The tempura was overcrisp from being sat under a hot light but the prawn was nice and it wasn’t’ overly greasy as poorly executed tempura can be sometimes. The two vegetable pieces were both potato. The Miso soup was hot and delicious and the rice bowl perfectly adequate.

All in all, neither meal was particularly special aside from the price to volume ratio.

The quest continues!