Yummy Workshop

I vis­ited this restau­rant with some friends a while back, I was pon­der­ing if I should write a post about it because it has been…a while since we went there…like more than a month ago. I decided that I should still write about it because I think it is worth post­ing on my blog — our expe­ri­ence was quite good.

I bought two din­ing passes called “Suika-to-me” from VanEats. The site offers great din­ing deals around town (Van­cou­ver). I got the pass for $18/each and it includes a Salmon Carpac­cio, Steak, Oxtail Ramen, and a Pump­kin Crème Brulee. Since there was a total of four of us, we also ordered some other dishes to share.

Suika is located on West Broad­way. The inte­rior of the Iza­kaya style restau­rant is very Japan­ese, so is the menu, I actu­ally felt like I was in Japan. “Suika” means water­melon in Japan­ese, so don’t be sur­prised if you see ran­dom water­melon related objects in the restau­rant. It was busy the night we went, prob­a­bly because it was a week­end so it was good we made a reser­va­tion in advance.

First came the oys­ters, they were served on ice, topped with some ponzu jelly (Japan­ese cit­rus based sauce), chopped spring onions, and a wedge of fresh lemon. It tasted very refresh­ing — the oys­ters were fresh and the flavours worked well together.

The lotus root had a crispy exte­rior, I think they were coated some kind of starch or flour before they were fried. They were dusted with some salt and Chi­nese five-spice pow­der. The dish was very sim­ple but had some nice flavours and a good texture.

The Salmon Carpac­cio was part of the din­ing pass, the salmon was very fresh and the dress­ing was tasty as well — a deli­cious and refresh­ing starter.

This was a grilled pork neck meat, this cut of meat usu­ally has a chewy springy tex­ture and it is great for grilling. They have also topped it with some sweet “oroshi” (grated daikon) and chopped green onions with a light tast­ing sauce. It wasn’t too dry and grilled quite nicely with a lightly charred flavour.

Oops…this was already half-eaten when I took a pic­ture of it. This is the squid ver­sion of the chicken kara-age. It had the usual kara-age flavours of gin­ger, gar­lic, and soy sauce. It was nice and salty and sur­pris­ingly, the squid was quite ten­der and not over­cooked. It was served with some shred­ded green onions on top.

The steak was part of the din­ing pass and it was served on a hot plate with wedge fries. The meat was very juicy with the soy onion sauce, ten­der, and had a good fat con­tent in it. Fries were like usual fries with Shichimi spice pow­der and served with a dip­ping sauce, I couldn’t really tell what was in the sauce but it was a bit spicy. The fries were good on their own anyways.

“Kakuni” is a Japan­ese style braised pork, usu­ally the belly. So this rice dish had some kakuni, sweet dried shrimp with spring onions served in a hot stone bowl. As the server mixed the rice and its con­tents in the hot bowl for us, I could already smell the dried shrimp com­ing though the steam. I per­son­ally thought this tasted a bit sweet and the rice was a lit­tle mushy but I did enjoy the charred rice on the bot­tom of the bowl. In terms of flavour, I think it might need some­thing refresh­ing in there to freshen it up.

When I saw ramen, I was expect­ing a big­ger bowl, but this was just a lit­tle big­ger than a reg­u­lar Asian rice bowl. But size wasn’t a prob­lem because we were quite full when it came. This took a very long time until it reached our table, we sus­pect that the wait­ress (seemed like a new­bie) has given them to the table next to use which also hap­pened to have the same din­ing passes as we had. So we asked the wait­ress and waited for a while and it finally arrived. The broth had a very deep, rich beef flavour, it was very savoury and tasty. The noo­dles had a good bite in it and the beef was very ten­der. I actu­ally fin­ished the broth. (Yes, I prob­a­bly had too much salt that day.)

I liked this crème brûlée because the pump­kin (I think they used the Kabocha squash) added a good tex­ture and flavour, but it was still very smooth and creamy. Besides the sweet­ness com­ing from the sugar, I could also taste some sweet­ness from the pump­kin purée.

I haven’t been to an Iza­kaya for a while but I love Iza­kaya food. It reminds me of the days I spent in Japan as an exchange stu­dent, hang­ing out with some good friends at an Iza­kaya as we enjoyed their cheap drinks and food. I miss cheap Yaki-Tori…seriously!

Suika serves more mod­ern style Iza­kaya food and we all enjoyed their well-prepared dishes with sim­ple flavours and com­bi­na­tions. I would love to go back and try some of their other creations!

Con­clu­sion:

Ambi­ence: 4/5
Food: 4.5/5
Ser­vice: 3/5 (New­bie Server)
Value: 4/5