Shishinori: Hungry for More

Recently, I've noticed that Shishinori has been hitting Urbanspoon's homepage top ten "Talk of the Town" list. After browsing through a couple of food pictures, I was sold. Shishinori is a small and cute restaurant located on Cambie near Save-On-Foods. This restaurant reminded me of Marulilu Cafe, a nearby cafe that's also fairly cute. Even both are Japanese, their menus are completely different. 

It was the pictures of all the different and refreshing salads that attracted me to this place. As I'm trying to include lots more vegetables into my diet, I find it quite difficult to do that in typical restaurants. So, I decided to come here for dinner on a Sunday night. I got their wild salmon paradise bowl and I loved it, especially the appetizing dressing. This bowl contained brown rice, edamame beans, alfalfa sprouts, carrots, grape tomatoes, spinach, red radish, half an egg, and pieces of salmon sashimi. 

wild salmon paradise bowl $10.50

wild salmon paradise bowl

I loved how they have brown rice instead of white rice in this dish! Even though I enjoyed this dish, I was definitely not full. I wish there was more rice in it to go with the dressing as there was like just a small scoop of rice. (or perhaps I'm just a big eater) Oh, and there could also be a bit more salmon too.

wild salmon paradise bowl

The second dish we got was the ahi tuna carpaccio bowl. With any order, you can simply add $2.50 make it into a meal, in which you'll get a drink and miso soup or dessert.

ahi tuna carpaccio bowl with enoki portobello mushroom miso soup and green tea $12 + $2.50

I found that the ahi tuna was a little bland. Again, this "meal" was fairly small, and it seemed more like an appetizer to me.

ahi tuna carpaccio

Besides the presentation of the food, another aspect I really liked of this place is the wooden utensils and cutleries that they used. On the wall, they also have a projector that plays anime. As winter is creeping around the corner, I'd advise you to wear more if you are planning to visit this place! They had their doors wide open to show that they are indeed, open. However, I got chilly sitting there so I asked if they could close the doors. They told me they'd turn on the heat higher because they wanted to keep the door opened, but I didn't feel a difference. 

I'd definitely be come back to Shishinori to try other dishes or to even have the wild salmon paradise bowl again. Though portions are small and I wouldn't really say prices are cheap, but they are affordable and a much healthier choice. 

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Menya Japanese Noodle: Nagahama Ramen

Menya Japanese Noodle Restaurant is a small restaurant at the corner of Broadway St. and Yukon St. 

Menya Japanese Noodle Restaurant

We arrived at the restaurant for dinner and they weren't very busy at all so we were quickly seated and served tea. The outside of the restaurant made it seem boring and plain, but when I entered, they're actually quite cute and unique. They have long benches along the wall as well as stools (for sitting, not poop), which gave it a kind of street-eat feeling.

Menya Japanese Noodle

I ordered what seemed to be their most popular and the specialty, the Nagahama ramen. The description states that it is "authentic tonkotsu ramen" with pork bone soup and Menya special soy sauce.

Nagahama Ramen $6.95

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Marulilu Cafe - Cozy, Cheap, and Calming

I always go down to Broadway and Cambie for food and groceries, but I don't know why I never noticed Marulilu Cafe until I saw it on a several foodies blogs. Marulilu Cafe is conveniently located right across from the Broadway City Hall Canada Line station. It's a small and cozy brunch/afternoon cafe with an affordable menu offering Japanese and western foods.

On other foodies blogs, I've heard a lot about the Japanese style breakfast which consists of grilled salmon, Japanese plain omelet, rice, miso soup and your choice of natto or tofu. So I've heard a lot about natto, (fermented soybeans), which have a very unique taste and texture and is high in protein. I'm always up for trying new foods, whether it be traditional or innovative, so I chose natto. 

Japanese Style Breakfast (grilled salmon, Japanese plain omelet, rice, miso soup, natto) $6.99

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The Eatery: Funky Sushi

The Eatery is pretty well advertised in the UBC community as their ads appear in our AMS Insiders (free agenda for students). As well, if you show them your student card, you get 10% off. It is also located fairly close to UBC and can get there by just the 99 B-line. 

The Eatery is definitely funky and not your typical Japanese restaurant. Here's a page of their menu, "The Eatery Store" and whether they actually sell these "sushi makes miso horny" t-shirts, I'm not too sure. 

The Eatery Store

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Suika: Two visits, one blog post

One of the challenges in having a food blog is keeping it up-to-date with when I actually visited the restaurant. Unfortunately, that is still something I'm working on. I've visited Suika again before I had the chance to blog about it so my two visits will be combined into one big post. 

Beer bottle lights

A very prominent and creative design - colourful Japanese beer bottle lights hanging from the ceiling.

Salad

In addition to being served green tea, we were also given green salad to start off. I really liked this - the greens were fresh and the dressing was very appetizing. And, you could ask for more salad too.

Double tonkatsu set (deep fried pork cutlets with homemade breadcrumbs) $12.80

Double tonkatsu

I got the double tonkatsu set and even for me, it was huge. It came with miso soup, rice, and two different types of sauce. The waitress told me to grind the black and white sesame and put it in the sauce. I did that, but I don't think it made a big difference (or perhaps I didn't do it properly). The pork cutlets were served on a rack which was smart, because nobody likes soggy breadcrumbs. I wasn't a fan of the sauce. Even without dipping into any sauce, I didn't find it dry.

My friend got the seafood don and it had a variety of fresh sashimi and seafood. It came with miso soup as well and looked very good, but she liked my order more. As a result, I happily let her help me eat some of it so that I was able to leave nothing behind :). 

Seafood bowl set

SECOND VISIT:

Green salad with amazing dressing

As I mentioned, my friend really liked the double tonkatsu set so we decided to come here after our last Brain Day presentation. We got to the restaurant just past 11am, but then we found out that they actually open half an hour later. Luckily, they had their doors unlocked already so we were allowed to sit inside on the couches and they even handed us the menu. Of course, my friend didn't need that since she had her mind set on the double tonkatsu. I could tell that Suika is a popular place because shortly after, another group arrived (before they were even opened). Right at 11:30am, they seated us and again, served us with fresh green salad with the yummy dressing that I really liked.

To start off, we got the hamachi carpaccio. There were 8 pieces with bean sprouts and alfalfa sprouts. I think there was a bit too much mayonnaise and sauce as it was too flavourful in that I couldn't really taste the fresh fish itself.

hamachi carpacio 

This time, I got the beef tendon bowl set. Again, it was a generous amount (or perhaps I ate too much salad...). I was actually expecting pieces of beef but the beef was shredded and mixed with egg, onions, and some veggies served on top of rice. The rice was a tad too gooey for my liking this time, but it did mix together easily with the beef and egg. It was yummy, flavourful, and gooey.

Beef tendon bowl set ($8.80)

Stewed beef tendon and egg on rice 

I look forward to trying Suika's sister restaurants someday: Kingyo in downtown and newly opened, Rajio in the Point Grey area.

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