:yuno: can you explain what a 4/10 for value would be?

Ummmm...Miku's Salmon Oshi? Its good. But its just 6pc of premade(as in they are all made at once, stuffed in a bin ready for dinner) salmon + sauce + lightly seared for $16 :badpokerface

Yeah no...maybe Value should've been like 7 or 8....

I go there every once in a while, mainly because it's the closest hotpot place to my home.
The service is excellent, every empty plate is promptly taken away and changed, drinks always topped up. If they are not slammed busy they will always help you prepare your food. Like stirring the claypot rice and giving a bowl to each person, separating all the oysters for each person, etc.
It definitely is quite expensive but the quality of the meat and seafood there is top notch. I noticed that recently they cater to mostly mainland China people which ruins the atmosphere a little IMO lol.

^The staff are awesome. The younger dude (compared to the rest) is hilarious and kinda reminds me of Chapman To :lol

Green Leaf Sushi 5/10
Another sushi place trying to ride the coattails of minami/miku's success with their knock off salmon oshis and aburi rolls. Except this is pretty alright, 25% discount off the original while able to mimic 85% of the taste is acceptable. Anything that was 'original' was pretty bad. I had the aburi spicy unagi and the scallop was pretty bunk

shang noodle house: 3.5/10

i got the spicy beef noodle soup. it was just spicy and that's it. the soup base was crap, the noodles were alright, and only have 2 pieces of broccoli. and its pricey, even if you include the 10% off card. i just had the plain noodle soup and i think it was like $9-10. if you had added a drink, it would be like $11.50.

the best place for noodle soup currently is: wang noodle in marpole area and deer garden or an authentic pho place you would go to.

Le Crocodile

Food 9/10
Service 10/10

First time going. Went with the wife for early Valentines last night, didn't want the rush crowd on Saturday (And they were already fully booked)

I ordered the 5 course Chef Tasting Menu and added on the Pan seared Foi Gras
Wife ordered the mushroom soup with truffle oil, escargots with basil, and Braised rabbit legs with double smoked bacon and shallots

Firstly, their portion sizes are good and fair - came home extremely full and our expectations were met and more

Food:
- First thing given to us were tiny quiches made of cream and goat cheese. I really liked it a lot, light and fluffy with great pastry
- Mushroom soup with truffle oil was good, I thought it was a bit salty. I had tomato brioches with brie cheese and tomato, with lobster bisque. I thought the bisque was very good and the brioche was amazing
- Fois gras, where have you been all my life?!!! First time I have ever had fois gras, and IMO, it's the best thing I've ever had. Wife was complaining I was making too many "foodgasm" faces when eating this. For me, this was the highlight of my year, let alone meal LOL
- Escargots, it was the lowlight of the meal, very average. Escargot with a baked crunchy shell, with basil and butter
- Scallop and truffle with fetuchini. Good, but needed some salt.
- Main course for me was Tenderloin with mushrooms and chilean sea bass with saffron sauce. Both were good, tenderloin was very good. Not the best I've ever had, but still very good
- Braised rabbit legs with double smoked bacon + shallots was very good. I enjoyed it a lot, was not gamey. Sauce was not overpowering
- Mango sorbet to clean palate
- Waiter was able to switch out my set dessert to a menu dessert, so we ordered the Grand Mariner souffle and the Passion fruit creme brule
- Grand Mariner souffle was very good, felt like eating an orange flavored cloud
- Passion fruit creme brule... was the best dessert I've ever had in my life. Perfect blend of sweet, sour, tart, and creme brule. Was not overtly heavy tasting


Service: It was pretty busy for Wednesday night. Apart from the kinda grouchy impression from the captain/managers (I don't know what the real technical term for their role is... they're not waiters, but they take you to the table and help out with orders) the service was extremely good. Waiter Chris was very diligent and held honest conversation and was not annoying. Catered to our needs very well, and actually talked to him about his work and his real life outside of work. Very helpful and nice. Waiter got me a 2nd ice tea, didn't know that the bartender went home for the night, so he made the ice tea himself and didn't charge me. Gave him the biggest % tip I've ever given and talked to his manager about his great service.

Will be going back again for special occassions. Food and service was well above my expectations.

Overall 9.5/10

Truong Thanh
Ummm...I saw them pouring back the leftover satay soup in a giant bucket with a filter to take out the noodles, sprouts and what not. I've heard of horror stories of Gold Train on Kingsway re-using soup so I'm a bit frazzled :heckno:. Someone please let me know if I'm just being paranoid

Come on man......
Soup gets poured down the sink. Noodles and all the other shit end up in the organics bin. You can't pour noodles and sprouts down a drain, and you can't put soup in a bag.

Are you white by chance? (Serious question)

No. Again, just unwarranted paranoia. I'm glad I was wrong

Bauhaus 7/10
FYI this is a set menu for valentines day so it may not be an accurate representation of the restaurant in regular hours. It was $100 for a 4.5 course menu (dessert was shared) and unfortunately the food did NOT deliver and fell very flat for the price. It didn't matter how many extravagent details and ingredients they used at the end of it it seemed like looking forward to a really good movie on paper and after watching it it resulted in a "that's it?". Don't get me wrong, the food was good but it didn't command the price.

Green Leaf Sushi

Was pretty good. I guess I'd say 8.5/10? maybe even 9?
Got the aburi combo which came with like 6 pieces with 5 or 6 different rolls. Definitely liked how it was plated.
also ordered salmon sashimi, spicy agadashi tofu < they give you more pieces than most places tht i've been to

Small shop. Always busy. Try to go a bit ealier to avoid waiting

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...41&oe=5764C8A5

:considered:

^Should've been more specific. When I said "except this was pretty alright" I was referring to the knock off salmon oshi only. The only other 2 rolls I got, the spicy unagi and aburi hotate I thought was meh at the very most.

Is it just me or is aburi sushi meh.

I absolutely love aburi sushi. But I haven't tried Aburi sushi outside of Miku, Minami (same I know), Kishimoto and Taka's in white rock.

some places for aburi is really shitty thats why,def hit up miku, minami, sushi s, kishimoto, theres one in new west too but i forgot what its called..

im not that picky compared to you guys apparently but i thought it was good. idk if ill go back but maybe i gave it one too many points but i liked the presentation lol except the rice kept breaking up that was the downside of it

Because aburi sushi in Vancouver is basically sushi drenched in a sauce and LIGHTLY seared which really basically means you are tasting the sauce. Most of the time searing the fish doesn't actually do much. Searing only enhances the flavour and/or texture of certain types and parts of fish like Engawa (flounder's fin/fringe), Sabas, really fatty Toros/Bellys (a fat albacore toro could potentially melt in your mouth when seared right), but doesn't work for Otoros(don't bother wasting it). I'm missing a lot but I'm sure you get the gist of it

@jinxcrusader I think thats all you need to try hahaha. I hope you went to Taka's BEFORE Taka san retired. Its shitty now since his disciples taken over

Back on the topic of Green leaf. I did not have a good impression simply because I HATE restaurants that blatantly copy another's popular item and try capitalize on it with an inferior copy. Have some fucking pride in your work. See also cattle cafe and main island cafe and all the other places that tried to make crappy fish soup noodles after seeing Deer Garden's success

When did Taka retire? I went last Summer. It was good, everything was fresh but it's probably the most expensive place I've ever gone to for Japanese.

I also went to Le Crocodile for the first time, except I went yesterday so right after the V-Day rush. They said were not offering the regular menu on Sunday anyway.

10/10. I would rarely give a perfect 10 anywhere but they deserve it. IMO probably best restaurant in Vancouver. However it would not be fair to compare to Chef Eric Ripert's Le Bernardin in NYC as that was my truly mind blowing experience.



Dinner began with these little complimentary quiche tarts which Endless already mentioned was a great starter, light and fluffy.
Appetizers:
Lobster Tempura and Grilled Scallops - Juicy and delicious with a hint of refreshing lemon zing.
Seared Foie Gras - Pleasant surprise to find a big diver scallop on top, bonus haha. Soft, fragrant and yummy.
Bone Marrow - Creamy almost like butter, place on slice of toast, a dallop of the sweet tomato paste to balance the flavour, heaven!
Entrees:
Caribou Tenderloin - Light gaminess which I enjoyed, the greens underneath were seasoned perfectly and complimented the meat perfectly
Angus Steak - The way the server described it made my mouth water already lol, they cook a fatty hunk of foie gras on top of the steak so the oils, juices and fat just flow into the meat. Orgasmic!
Dessert:
Lemon Tart with Passion Fruit Sorbet - I'm not much of a dessert person and this was probably my fault, but it was way too sour for me. (duh genius, lemon tart?)
Apple Pie - Warm, great crust and perfect sweetness paired with vanilla ice cream, nice and simple.

Service was impeccable but I expected nothing less from this top rated restaurant. The server was super friendly and was not perturbed at all when I requested to repeat all 6 specials of the day again because his French accent was a little thick and by the time he got to the 5th special I was still mentally digesting the 3rd one lol. They brought out little "in-between" bites, the potato sticks reminded me of the bags of Hickory sticks I used to eat back in the day.

I will definitely be coming back again - for the next special occasion. Once my wallet recovers haha. Expensive but worth it.

Everyone has their preferences. Just like how I'm personally not a big fan of drenching tuna in spicy sauce, but it's ok every once in a while. It's one of the more popular dishes at those Sushi Garden places and even Ebisu.

I'm pretty sure Ebisu was actually the first restaurant to start doing Aburi box press sushi in Vancouver. We started doing it in 2006, Miku opened up shop in 2008. They just marketed way more and pushed it as their gimmick, we just quietly had it in our menu lol. We serve more pieces and cheaper too. We have variations, box pressed salmon with a Tiger prawn inside.

Seared Engawa is amazing. I also prefer seared Saba over regular saba, brings out the flavour much more.

On the topic about copying... this place :facepalm:

Directly ripped my personal photos and put it in their menu. They didn't even have the decency to change the corny names that I thought up lol. There's so much competition in such a saturated market now there's only so many things you can do with sushi. Trying to keep prices reasonable, quality up.
https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...ed&oe=575E7BC4

Since November. Last time I got someone to call Taka's (because there were pictures floating around social media that looked like him at work) to confirm his retirement and his disciple said he is in Japan currently and will be back in the summer so who knows, maybe he'll be working again by then.

Taka's actually has the cheapest prices for a lot of things. They are only one of the few places to sell Kanpachi Toros, and it was only $3.75/pc, its $6? at Octopus Garden and $3-4 for just regular Kanpachi in places like Hachi, Seto etc., their Otoro which was the best for $6.75 while Octopus Garden's half ass one was $12 and Seto at $10.
Man..I don't even...

These places are pathetic. I hope they run their businesses into the ground.

I had sushi by yuji today after months of not going, place is still good.

8/10


And going to anna lenas tonight , cant wait to try this place.