Hyack Sushi–New Westminster

A new sushi restaurant popped up next to Douglas College during October.  They seemed to have been renovating all summer and finally opened.

This is from their front street entrance:

They also have a back entrance with some parking spaces too:

They have an unusual wide open empty space at the front of the restaurant:

However, they also have a huge seating area so there shouldn’t be too many issues getting seating even when busy:

We ordered BC Roll and Dynamite rolls to try:

They were presented very nicely on a fancy plate.  The rice had perfect texture for both.  They had a generous amount of salmon for the BC roll.  Also there were two plump deep fried prawns inside the dynamite roll.  Usually at other places you only get one skinny piece of prawn, so having 2 here at Hyack felt like a bonus.

We also tried the deep fried California roll:

This was quite a modern take on the traditional Cali roll.  It was presented very nicely just like above.  It includes some spicy sauce and some teriyaki sauce to top it off.  The batter was very light and not too oily.  It was sort of like tempura batter.  This is a must try if you come to Hyack Sushi.

We also ordered assorted tempura:

It came with 3 pieces of prawn and the rest were yam.  It was the first time I had yam tempura where it was cut like yam fries.  We’d prefer the flat slices instead as this feels smaller.

We also tried chicken karrage.

It had about 8 plump pieces of boneless dark meat and came with a spicy mayo dipping sauce.  The chicken was quite fresh and was mildly seasoned.  It went well with the sauce.

Hyack is very new so it’s not too busy yet.  They have a lot of modern hip sushis that you can try out.  The assorted tempura would have been better if it had bigger pieces of yam or even some other veggies to spruce up the color.  The servers were very friendly and attentive and prices are actually quite good for what you get.  We’ll certainly be coming back to try out their other special sushies later.

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.

Ogenki Sushi–Vancouver

Ogenki Sushi is a copycat version of a popular Sushi chain in Hong Kong called Genki sushi (without the O).  This is located along Main street in Vancouver.  We got there for a late lunch on a Friday and it was not very busy at all.

They had a lunch special combo where you can pick 2 items for $8, or 3 for $11.  They have a dinner version of a similar menu which we’d imagine will be a bigger serving size.

Miso soup is included in all the combos.  It was hot and was just the typical miso soup you get at low end Japanese places or all you can eat joints.

There were a few of us so we ordered different sides from the combo menu to share.  This is the assorted tempura that includes prawn and yam:

The tempura batter was a bit thick and over cooked.

This is the California roll: 

You get 8 small pieces.  Nothing special, just typical.

This is the dynamite roll.  You get 5 skinny pieces with a small prawn inside.  Also typical ad nothing special.

This is the gyoza.

For the mains from the combo, we ordered chicken teriyaki rice:

And beef teriyaki rice:

Sorry for the blurry pics.  The bowls of rice was a rather small serving, but I guess you get what you pay for.  It had too much sauce and little rice.  The beef was not tender enough though.

This would not be a restaurant we’d recommend you make a special trip to visit.  We actually just passed by, by accident, and wanted something quick.  It wasn’t superbad, but it wasn’t supergood either.

SFDD gives 2.5 out of 5 Delights.

Gami Sushi – Richmond

We came to Gami Sushi for an early lunch Sunday.  Gami is located in a strip mall at Williams and No 3 road right by Safeway. We arrived a little bit past 11am and the restaurant was almost full.

We were served a pot of green tea.  This is the heaviest tea pot I’ve lifted ever.

To start, we ordered a dynamite roll.  It was presented nicely.  The prawn tempura inside was very fresh, still hot from the fryer.

Next we ordered their bento box lunch special.  For about $10, you get quite a bit in the bento box.  First, it comes with a miso soup.

The soup was hot and not too salty.

The bento box as you can see has vegetable tempura, fried gyoza, salad, teriyaki chicken, a small order of California roll and a bowl of rice.  You can choose other meats instead of chicken.

This was quite a good sized box. we noticed lots of other patrons ordered the bento box too.

Next we ordered a teriyaki chicken sizzling hot plate.

It comes with a bowl of rice too. When the hot plate arrived it was sizzling at full heat.  It sizzled for a long time that the veggies started to burn.  This was a good sized plate.  It had too much bean sprouts.  It would have been a bit better if they had more broccoli or other veggies to balance it out.  The chicken was slightly bland and was too dependant on the sauce for flavour.

The restaurant quickly filled up after 12pm.  Gami also has many specialty sushi rolls. We peeked over other tables and saw these specialty rolls looked quite nice.

SFDD gives 3.5 out of 5 Delights.

Maui, Hawaii Special – Da Kitchen Cafe

Da Kitchen was recommended to us that serves some good traditional Hawaiian dishes.  Hawaiian food seems to have its own unique mixture of different Asian cultures influencing its style.

There are 2 locations in Maui that we are aware of.  We went to the one near the airport on our final day just before our evening flight back home. 

We got here at about 6:30pm, and it was already packed with people waiting to get in. The restaurant was quite spacious with high ceilings.  It appeared most of the customers were locals, which was a good sign.

They had quite a lot to choose from on their menu.  Here is a sample:

We started off with the famous Hawaiian sushi known as spam musubi.  It’s a sushi with spam.  This is so popular that you can even find it served at convenience stores like ABC.

We didn’t try the one at ABC, but we are certain this one would taste a lot better. Unlike sushi, this one is served warm.  The spam felt like it was pan fried.  It came with some sweetened soy or teriyaki sauce.  It’s hard to tell the relative size of the musubi, but it is certainly extra large.  The spam complemented well with the sauce, rice and seaweed.  Da Kitchen also serves a fried version of this musubi. We saw many tables ordering the fried version too.

For the main, we ordered Loco Moco,which is another common dish you hear people talking about in Hawaii. 

Loco Moco is a hamburger steak served over rice with a sunny side up egg, onions and a gravy like sauce.  This was a rather large serving for one.  If we had known it was going to be so big, we would have just shared one dish instead of ordering 2 mains.  Anyway, the hamburger steak was cooked well-done.  The sauce was also nice to have for the load of rice you get.  However, the egg was way too runny.  Next time, we will ask for a cooked egg to avoid risk of food borne illness.

The other item we ordered was the SaiMin. We wondered what was a SaiMin, because we saw it on a McDonald's menu, but were afraid to order it.  We found out that this is a ramen type of soup noodle served with veggies, green onion and pork.

Again, this looks like  an extra large serving.  It had endless pieces of pork.  The pork is prepared similar to the Chinese style BBQ pork.  The noodles were quite chewy.  It’s similar to Japanese ramen, except this felt more like a whole grain type of noodle due to it’s chewiness.  The soup was a clear  broth and was not too salty at all.

We were quite full after our meal.  It was great that we had a chance to experience some popular traditional Hawaiian dishes here at Da Kitchen.  Servers here were quite friendly and the food came within reasonable time given that it was dinner time on a Friday evening..

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.

Maui, Hawaii Special - Sansei Seafood Restaurant and Sushi Bar

Sansei Seafood Restaurant is a chain of Japanese restaurants in the different parts of Hawaii.  We visited the one in Kihei for an early dinner after a fellow tourist recommended it to us a few days earlier.

If you get here before 6pm, you can get 25% off most of the menu so we made it just on time at about 5:45pm.  The waitress was kind and said we didn’t have to rush o we took our time to review the menu.

We started with fried calamari.

The batter was light and the portion was just right for the two of us.  It came with a spicy dipping sauce, similar to the ones you use for shrimp cocktail.

We were not that hungry since it was still early, so it was going to be a light dinner, sushi only.  The server was overly generous with the wasabi and ginger. It’s hard to tell the proportion, but it was a large chunk.

We ordered the California roll on the right, and on the left is the Paia Make roll. the Paia maki was mainly a veggie roll with avocado, cucumber, nuts and some local greens topped off at the end that sprouted out like a flower.

We also ordered one of their specialty rolls called the Sansei Mango crab salad hand roll.  Instead of using seaweed, it’s wrapped in something called mamenori which is like a rice paper.  But at the time we ate this, we thought it was a type of lettuce due to the color and the texture.

This was a very unique roll that we’ve never tried before so it was quite a tasty surprise. It paired well with the peanuts, mango and the vinaigrette on the bottom.

The sushi's we ordered were better than expected and were very unique from our own experience.  The ingredients used were very fresh and were definitely made to order.  It’s too bad we were unable to sample more of Sansei’s sushi's this time.

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.