Matsuyama

I've been going to Matsuyama quite a bit lately. We need some late night eats after sports on Tuesdays, and a friend has allergies that sort of limit our options. There's nothing safer than just fish and rice, so we normally go for Japanese.

There are plenty of options for late night Japanese in Richmond, but we almost always end up at Matsuyama because they have a cheap late night menu, and while the quality is not stellar, it's the best I've found at this price point. I've always though Matsu was Kishu prices at twice the quality. They're actually a better deal than Kishu since you have to order at least $5 of food for Happy Hour at Kishu, which always means at least 2 items with their pricing scheme.

Today, I decided to sample their line of nigiri. It's something I've wanted to do for a while, but always got distracted by other menu items. At $0.89 each, they are dirt cheap on the late night menu. The ones I ordered today are, starting from left to right on the top row are: spicy scallop, spicy salmon, spicy tako, spicy tuna, tamago, saba, tai, and amaebi. These were all very well made, and not overly small despite the small price tag. The rice was firm, and had just enough tangy sushi rice seasoning, but not overpowering.

The saba in particular was very sweet. It was the first time I had saba and I will be ordering more of it the next time I'm here. The amaebi was also very sweet, as it always is when I get it here. The spicy nigiri were all dressed in a mildly spicy sauce, with a spinkling of sesame seeds and occasional chili seed. The spicy scallop was also rolled in tobiko as is the norm with chopped scallop rolls. In retrospect, I probably should have ordered the regular version of the scallop nigiri for variety. Nothing special to note about the tamago - it was pretty standard. The The only one I didn't particular care for was the tai. It tasted flat and the soy/wasabi didn't help it out much.

Cheema started with the crab + tobiko salad. This is basically just finely minced imitation crab on a small bed of cucumbers, smothered with mayo and topped with tobiko and more mayo. It is served in a large bowl and a very large portion for a mere $2.95. This is the dish to get if you like california rolls and don't want to fill up on rice. It will satiate any hunger pangs - guaranteed.

She then had the chopped scallop roll, which was pretty standard fare. Chunks of scallop rolled in mayo and tobiko. It is pretty well made here, and a popular item when we visit.

Several people ordered the oyster motoyaki, and we see this a lot as they are very tasty here. The mayo is mixed with tobiko and chopped spinich, both of which add a very pleasing taste and crunch. Matsuyama motoyakis are awesome and never sit in a pool of oil. These points combined pretty much makes it mandatory to eat all the mayo, which is not something people normally do with motoyakis. It's a credit to the chef when every mototyaki ramekin I've seen consumed here is pretty much cleaned completely of mayo. It's not so great for our waistlines though...

It is also worth noting that the motoyaki ramekins are raised and hollow at the bottom, so the portion is not as large is the picture would suggest.

Material Boy decided to start with the ika karage. Even though it's only $3.95. I've always found the portion for this to be a bit disappointing. This is the late night portion pictured, and though I've never ordered the regular menu version, I hope it is a more generous portion than this. Matsuyama does make this pretty well though, as the ika we've had were always tender and crispy, but never too oily.
 
He finished off with a plate of assorted nigiri (hokigai, tamago, chopped scallop, crab salad) and unagi roll. I don't like hokigai, so I can't comment on these. The crab salad roll is pretty much the same as the crab + tobiko salad, or basically california roll filling. It is worth nothing that the late night unagi roll here is the same price ($2.95) as the other rolls. This makes matsuyama one of the more affordable places to get unagi, which is often quite expensive. It is also a popular item when we visit Matsuyama.

Others in my party ended up with sushi plates as well. Backhand ordered 4 salmon nigiri, spicy tuna nigiri, spicy tuna roll, avocado roll, and a spicy tuna cone. He remarked that the salmon nigiri looked unusually large today, and it indeed looked larger and fresher than the ones we usually get. Let's hope this becomes the norm from now on.

Blunt had a plate of chopped scallop roll, unagi roll, and dyanmite roll. He had no complains about his food. I've always wanted to try their alaska and dynamite rolls. I'll have to remember the next time I'm here.

It was unusual for everyone to have ordered sushi today. Normally, the donburis are a very popular item for our group. At $4.75, they are a great deal and many people just order a don end up completely full.

Another nice touch I've noticed is that if you order the chicken or beef teriyaki rolls, they give you extra dipping sauce on the side. It's attention to detail like this that sets Matsuyama apart in my opinion.

Material Boy has remarked that he noticed that the scallop used in the rolls don't taste so fresh to him, and that the chicken in the rolls and donburis often have a bit of freezer burn. I haven't noticed these, but I don't eat as much high quality Japanese cuisine as he does, so I'll defer to his expertise. I find the taste and texture of both here to be satisfactory.

All in all, Matsuyama is a great place to unwind after a late night of sports. It's affordable, delicious, and clean. The place does get very busy, which is a good thing in terms of keeping a high turnover of fresh meat, but not so great when it comes to parking, waiting for tables, and getting staff to take orders or refill your tea. At times, it can seem to be slightly understaffed. Still, I highly recommend it for good, cheap late night eats.

Feb 11, 2011 Update: Pics of Alaska Roll and Agedeshi Tofu

Pros:
-cheap late night menu
-quality remains high despite low pricing

Cons:
-can be difficult to find parking at peak/late hours. Carpool if possible.
-despite being a large restaurant, can fill up completely even during late night
-staff can be overwhelmed and forgetful at times

Notes:
-open late with late night menu
-has daily specials

-small parking lot, hard to find street parking on foodie street (Alexandra Rd)

Menu:
 

Late Night Menu (Better one can be found on Urbanspoon link below)

Menu 1

Menu 2

Menu 3

Cactus Club Cafe (Metrotown)

After getting a request for "no Asian food today", we headed down to the Cactus Club Cafe chain restaurant across from Metropolis.

We started out with the calamari appetizer. This was a huge serving. The picture doesn't do it justice since we ate half of it before I remembered to take a picture. For $11, this could have been a meal in and of itself. The calamari was lightly battered and fried with sweet jalepenos, carrots and dill. The calamari meat was very tender but the batter was not quite crisp enough. It was very soggy, yet not oily. It might have needed more time in the fryer. It was served with both tzaziki and chipotle aioli dipping sauces. The chipotle was by far the favorite and ran out almost immediately. For such a large portion, they didn't really include enough dipping sauce.

3 of us decided to try the prawn + scallop spaghettini. This was a Rob Feenie signature dish, and Mr. Iron Chef Champion sure lived up to his reputation. The pasta was al-dente and tossed in a deliciously sweet and tangy tomato sauce. It was served with a generous amount of scallops and prawns as its namesake suggests. Both were incredibly fresh, flavorful, and cooked perfectly tender. On the side, were 2 parmesan crostinis which I didn't really care for. It was kind of soggy again, and I couldn't taste the parmesan. This was served in a very high bowl, so the picture doesn't adequately show the portion size, which was decent, but not large.

Others in the party decided to get the 7oz steak blackened with creole butter, and J.D. BBQ burger. These were eaten quickly and I forgot to snap pictures. I could tell by how fast these were inhaled though that they were tasty. The steak was medium-rare as requested and served with seasonal veggies and mash. The burger was decently sized, running with juice and sauces, and served with a side of sea-salted fries.

It was hard to get wait staff attention at times since we were out on the patio, but they did check in often enough to not leave us in the lurch.

 Pros:
-well executed food

Cons:
-pricey

Notes: 
-small parking lot next to entrance, can also park at Metropolis or Save-on-Foods across the street

Menu: http://www.cactusclubcafe.com/2007/pdf/bc/ccMenu-burnaby-kingsway.pdf

Kishu River

Kishu River has always been an oddity. They have "Happy Hour" pricing on certain items starting at 7pm. This translates into some awesomely priced dinner eats.

Now I've been to Kishu frequently over the last year. Not too frequently though, since some of my friends are wary of the freshness of their ingredients given the low price tag. However, I've never had an issue with their food, which I always found to be well seasoned, appropriately portioned, and decently priced. The general feeling, though is that their hot food is better than their cold, which can be iffy with not so fresh raw fish.

They're a small family-owned shop, with what looks to be young teenaged kids waiting tables at times. They are impeccably mannered though - nothing like me when I was a teenager :p. Probably Vietnamese owned, as they have a small Vietnamese section of the menu. However, I've never had a chance to try their Vietnamese food as they aren't part of the happy hour discounts. Even though it's just the usual pho noodle soup and lemon chicken rice etc, I'm going to have to try them one of these days.

Today though, I decided to go with the seafood yakisoba, and negitoro roll (6pcs). The soba was stir fried in soy sauce with chunks of prawn, salmon, imitation crab, squid, cabbage, and onion. The noodles were al-dente and the portion was generous for the price ($4.17 with happy hour discount).

The negitoro was pretty standard, although they probably used regular tuna instead of fatty (toro) tuna. I couldn't tell. For $8 flat including tax and tip, this was a decent meal.

The rest of my party decided to get oyako don, beef teriyaki don, prawn and salmon tempura, bento box A, and orders of negitoro and california rolls as well.

The oyako don is a personal favorite of mine: boneless chicken pan fried with egg, onions and vermicelli, served over seasoned rice. The beef teriyaki don was also served with egg and vermicelli , which is a bonus in my book since most restaurants don't bother with these when you order beef/chicken teriyaki don. My friends thoroughly enjoyed these dishes, and they were again a great value at under $4.50 with happy hour discount. Sorry for the grainy pictures. Still fiddling with my new camera >_<

Mr. bento box A decided not to opt for any happy hour items. The bento came with chicken teriyaki (this was NOT served with egg or vermicelli which he would have got if he ordered a don), california roll, assorted veggie and shrimp tempura, green salad, miso soup, and a slice of orange. This is not a bad deal for $9.95, as a lot of Japanese joints jack up their bento box prices for dinner time. Mr. Bento must have been stuffed since he didn't eat his orange.

The prawn and salmon tempura was interesting as not many places do salmon tempura. This dish was a real winner. I had a bit of the salmon and it was very well done. The batter was light and not oily or overpowering, and the salmon inside was moist and flavorful. This was not a happy hour item though.

Everyone was happy with their food, and left satiated. I've always been happy with Kishu, and it's safe to say we'll be returning every once in a while.

Pros:
-very well priced "Happy Hour" discounts at 7 PM!
-friendly service

Cons:
-low prices may mean some sacrifices in ingredient quality (according to some)
-small shop can fill up quickly. No guaranteed seating for large parties.
-must order at least $5 for Happy Hour, which means at least 2 items with their pricing

Notes:
-open late
-happy hour discounts after 7 PM
-plenty of street parking or across the street at London Drugs complex

Menus: unfortunately, they have a large array of menus and I forgot to snap everything.

Happy Hour Menu - January 2011

Menu Page 1 - January 2011

Menu Page 2 - January 2011

Menu Page 3 - January 2011

 

Tomokazu Japanese

The first time I was at Tomokazu, it was for their deluxe dinner menu in July 2010. I thought it was fantastic then, and at $27 per person before tax, it better have been. This time, we were there for their $10.95 lunch menu. Expectations were obviously less stellar than before, but it turned out worse than I anticipated.

We started out with the usual appies, miso soup, goma-ae, and ebi sunomono. The goma spinach was tender and covered with just the right amount of sauce. I didn't have the other appies, but the rest of the party had no complaints. Sorry about the grainy pics. I'm still learning to use my new camera :-(

Next, we got some rolls and cones. People didn't want to fill up on these, so we only had a few orders of the Tomokazu roll, california roll, spicy tuna cone, and spicy seafood cone to satisfy a few people's cravings.


The Tomokazu roll had what appears to be a imitation crab tempura with some tobiko and assorted veggies (cabbages and cucumber). It was rather dry and flavorless and needed some tangy mayo or sauce to help it out. The california roll was your standard imitation crab and avocado - nothing special here.


The spicy tuna cone was quite tasty, but had way too little tuna stuffed into it. The spicy seafood cone looked to be canned flaked salmon/tuna with a splatter of mayo. It also suffered from a dryness problem as flaked canned fish often do. More sauce would have helped a lot here, but nothing can really save this mystery meat.

We then had orders of agedashi tofu, chicken katsu, beef teriyaki, chicken teriyaki, and gyoza.

These were all excellent. The chicken katsu and tofu were lightly breaded and fried until lightly crispy - not oily at all. The usual pork katsu sauce complimented the chicken well. The chicken teriyaki was also pan fried to a perfect crispness and dressed with a right amount of sauce. They also used a nice fatty chicken for both so they were very moist.

The first order of gyoza was slightly burned but the wrapper was light, and the pork filling was moist and flavorful. The beef teriyaki was also well tenderized and reminiscent of slow cooked fall-off-the-bone type stewed meats. There were no tendons, or hard veins of fats or anything that you usually find in low quality beef teriyaki. In fact, they should have called it teriyaki beef stew because it was swimming in a pool of thin liquidy sauce. This was the only downside to the dish but I still thoroughly it. I ordered seconds right away.

Next came our orders of nigiri sushi. We got salmon nigiri, tuna nigiri, tamago nigiri, tobiko nigiri and inari nigiri. I enjoyed these as little as I did the rolls earlier. They all suffer from poorly seasoned sushi rice. The tamago was alright, but the the salmon and tuna used for nigiri just seemed a bit off to me both taste and texture wise. Having eaten some prime sashimi often in the last little while, it was hard to stomach this obviously lower quality sashimi meat. Despite my reservations, the others in my party managed to scarf down 50 of the salmon nigiri alone and thought they were great. I guess they have less discerning taste than I do.

No lower mainland Japanese AYCE would be complete without some motoyaki. Tomokazu offered seafood and seafood motoyaki with "Portuguese" sauce. Normally, seafood motoyaki has imitation crab, salmon, tiny scallops, mushrooms and other ingredients you can identify. However, these were unlike any seafood motoyaki I've had elsewhere, and were filled with a mash of corn and some sort of mystery meat paste that reminded me again of canned salmon, but this time, the non-flaked, whole filet with bone and skin variety. These didn't suffer the dryness problem because they were soaking in oily mayo, but the mystery meat was still unappetizing. Despite this, I ate four of the motoyakis...

The "Portuguese" sauce variety, though, everyone agreed was terrible. The sauce was not as oily as the mayo-smothered regular version, but it was bland and the texture was off. Paired with with the mystery meat, one of the 5 orders we had sat until it turned ice cold at the end of the meal.

Continuing with their pattern of excellently fried foods, the yam tempura and unagi fried rice were very tasty. The tempura was lightly battered and again not oily at all. Unfortunately, the variety of yam/sweet potato they used was not my favorite. I prefer the orange-fleshed variety and they used yellow. Since both of these are the same price at grocery stores, I can't really fault them for choosing an "inferior" variety. This was just my personal preference. Despite having next to no trace of unagi, the unagi fried rice was well-seasoned and a tasty carb filler item.

A few people also had chicken karage and I had an order of Alaska roll. Didn't manage to take pictures of these, but they were both pretty good. There were actually many orders of the karage and I should have snapped a few pics. 

We finished off the meal with orders of fruit which turned out to be slices of oranges, and jello. The oranges were fresh, and this is important because I've been to many awful Japanese AYCE places that served near rotten or moldy ones. These were very sweet and the crew ate a ton of them. The jello was the real darkhorse here. Nobody had high expectations for this, but those who choose to eat them couldn't get enough and had seconds. They were very sweet and firm, and probably packed with way too much sugar, but awesomely delicious.

For $10.95, I wasn't expecting much, but given my memories of the good deluxe dinner I had here last year, i was expecting some better execution in their sushi. I normally don't like deep fried foods, but found theirs to be very well done. Despite this and the cheaper price tag than most comparable Japanese restaurants, I'm not sure I would choose to come back for Japanese AYCE lunch. Maybe if I wanted to stuff my face with fried foods only since the rolls/nigiri were really hit and miss here for me.

Nothing special to note about ambiance and service. Both were decent and satisfactory. The place was clean with Japanese-style decor, and our teapots were topped up regularly. Food was served promptly and plates were bused regularly and not allowed to pile up.

Pros:
-cheaper than most other AYCE lunch menus
-well-executed fried foods
-awesome jello!
-attentive service

Cons:
-low quality rolls
-use of what seemed like low quality and mystery meats
-very hard to find free street parking in the area

Notes: 
-open late with late night menu

Website:
http://www3.telus.net/ninkazu/