Gyo-O

To round-up our day of Japanese food exploration in Richmond, we decided to have dinner at Gyo-O. [ #2137-3779 Sexsmith Road, Richmond, (604) 233-7050] Being a bit of a lame-o and not spending much of my days off in Richmond, I knew relatively little about Gyo-O. A few months back, I had heard that Gyo-O had really good udon and I suggested it to “Boomer” and “The Great Wall” as a place we could check out, after an early dinner service. Occasionally, we’ll finish service at Tapenade Bistro at 8:30pm, if we are booked for a private pharmaceutical function. If we’re caught up on our mise-en-place and “all our ducks are in a row,” we sometimes have a desire to go as a group and grab a bite to eat. Even though we had discussed this as an option and even though my kitchen staff understands that my life revolves around “keeping them happy,” they ended up dissing me, got together for lunch on a Monday afternoon without me and made me feel like a “self conscious and jealous outcast” for a very long time. Why don’t my guys want to hang out with me? I’m a nice guy. I know I can get kind of intense, I’m pretty serious and focused around the restaurant, but don’t they know I have feelings too? I’ll even pick up the bill and they still don’t want to spend quality time with their loving chef? Sigh. It’s been a couple of months, my therapist says it time to let go, though the words “forgiven not forgotten” still ring in my ears. The wounds have healed, but an ugly scar remains, but day by day, life continues and I will eventually forgive them for shunning me. OK, drama queen aside, when they told me about their meal, maybe I was holding a grudge, maybe my listening skills were not up to par or maybe their communications skills were not so excellent, but they pretty much described Gyo-O as another izakaya. I heard such buzz words such as uni, ikura, yum-o, “gobble gobble” and bukkake(???), but that’s about it. I do recall the boys saying they “loves it,” so it was good enough for me and off we went.

After an afternoon of snacking and Asian mall shopping, “Nuoc Mom” Canada-lined it to Richmond and met up with us after she finished work. We arrived at Gyo-o at around 6:30pm and though the place is tiny, we were the only table there. Lots of other people showed up later, but we had their undivided attention at the beginning of our meal. My first impression was I loved the place. The decorations, the Japanese characters, the colors and the big painting/mural of the tuna on the wall, made me feel instantly at home. I felt like I was about to experience an authentic meal and though I had no idea what we were going to eat, I was getting excited. When I looked at the menu, it took me a few minutes to understand exactly what they were offering and proceeded to order for our table. This was not an izakaya per se, but a Gyoza King group restaurant focusing on udon and rice with seafood.

The first round of dishes I ordered comprised of uni tai ryou mori, mini ikura don, negitoro don, octopus tempura and chicken karaage with ontama bukkake udon. The uni special sushi was unbelievable. Apparently, I was supposed to look at it for a while and appreciate it before I started eating it, but that didn’t last long. The dish itself was six big pieces of sea urchin, perched on top of three pieces of seaweed maki. The rolls were negligible, in fact the rice was just so so and the seaweed wasn’t toasty enough, but the sea urchin was amazingly fresh and tasty. The mini ikura don was a small bowl of rice, with a generous mound of marinated salmon roe. It came with a little seaweed and wasabi and was absolutely delish. I don’t know why I’m so into ikura these days, but I love the texture and the flavor of the ikura with the warm rice. The negitoro don was a bowl of rice with a nice mound of chopped albacore belly with green onion. There was also a garnish of tobiko and though this don was not appreciated by “Monk” and “Nuoc Mom,” I thought it was excellent as well. The octopus tempura was lousy; it was chewy, wasn’t crispy and did not taste much like anything. The bukkake chicken udon was interesting. The dish was basically udon noodles which I tossed with a barely poached egg, a dressing of some sort, green onion, assorted seaweed and fried chicken. The texture of the udon was great, but the dressing was a touch bland. I understand the concept of mixing the egg with everything to give the dish “unctuosness,” I just thought the dish needed more depth. I’m not even going to discuss the concept of bukkake because that would be “much too easy and much too controversial.”

On the next wave of dishes, I ordered a mini chicken chili don, ebi chili, takoyaki and a uni hotate don. The mini chicken chili don was fried chicken on rice with chili mayo and tartare sauce. It was fine, not exceptional and I manly ordered it as filler because “Nuoc Mom” likes to fill up on carbs and does not eat raw seafood too often. She did take quite a liking to the sea urchin that evening and really was open to trying different things. The ebi chili was uneventful and so non-memorable that I can’t remember anything about it. The takoyaki was really nice; hot, tasty and crispy on the outside. I ordered the uni hotate don simply because the sea urchin was so good and I felt like I needed a little more uni to get through the night. After all these dishes, I also ordered a chikuwa tempura udon to wind things down. This dish was udon in soup with a tempura fish tube. The broth was very clear and tasty and again, the texture of the udon was excellent. When I ordered this last dish, the look on the staff’s face made me feel truly gluttonous. They were shocked and a little embarrassed to be serving us so much food, but I’m use to this strange look by now. I’m just trying to sample as much of their menu as possible and I along with the people I tend to dine with, have big appetites.

Issue and concerns; no alcoholic beverages and cash only. I was really looking forward to a Japanese cocktail or a cold Japanese beer, but no liquor license, no libations, just hot tea. Also, it is 2010 and I don’t use or carry much cash these days, but fortunately I saw the sign earlier in the day and made a trip to the ATM earlier. Accepting credit cards is part of doing business in 2010. Overall, the food was very good and I like the purity of this style of food. It’s all about the star ingredient served with some rice or udon. Some of the side items were extremely disappointing, but I now have a good idea of how and what to order, next time I visit. I’ll stick to fish and rice and I’ll be just fine.

On my chef’s night out scale, Gyo-O receives 3/5 SOB (slices of bacon).

Japanese Food Village

So after a nice ramen lunch and a quick loop around the Richmond Ikea, “Monk” and I were feeling “kinda snacky” and we decided to go check out Tenku Bakudanyaki. [7100 Elmbridge Way, Richmond]  By the time I get this posted, they will have moved to a new location, but I’m not 100% sure on the details. [12831 Clarke Pl., Richmond]  I’ve got to be honest.  I knew nothing about Tenku Bakudanyaki, had only caught a couple of words of half-coherent intel from “Godfather” and armed only with an address which I keyed into the GPS, off we went, to continue our day of Japanese cuisine exploration in Richmond.

When the GPS said we had arrived, I saw absolutely nothing that referenced Tenku Bakudanyaki. [TB for the rest of this post]  I was “rubber-necking” around, wreaking havoc on the Richmond roads, propagating the stigma of “bad Asian drivers,” while at the same time completely ruining the good reputation of hybrid owners.   Then suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a couple of shiny trailers in a fenced off parking lot attached to ICBC.  I hammered a high velocity U-turn, cut off a couple of hard-working taxpayers, was sworn at voraciously by an elderly lady and eventually jammed on the brakes at the front gate of the Japanese Food Village.  To be perfectly honest, I’m really quite a good driver (don’t ask “Monk”) and generous artistic license was used in the previous paragraph to illustrate my desire to be the next Michael Bay. 

OK, back to reality.  I started getting a little excited, when I started putting together what I was seeing.  I’m really not terribly bright and I finally realized that there were three food trucks, with three different kinds of Japanese offerings.  There was TB, Fumisen Creative Sushi and Shoryrumen.  I haven’t had too much food truck experience in my day, but I’ve been hearing a lot about the awesome food coming out of food trucks in LA and NYC.  Here in Vancouver, my understanding is that food trucks are not allowed and though I have no idea what the legal issues are, I say bring on the street food and the food trucks.  I’m a street food junkie and think Vancouver would be a much better place if we had a vibrant street food scene.

Because “Jazzy” was taking a nap, “Monk” went in first and did the first round of reconnaissance.  When she came back, she told me to order a chicken omurice cone from Fumisen.  She left the rest up to me and I decided to order a chili mayo bakudanyaki from TB.  The chicken omurice cone was rolled to order and was composed of chicken, Japanese omelet, ketchup fried rice (???) and rolled in a soy wrapper.  The bakudanyaki was one big fritter made up of assorted seafood, cabbage, quail egg and rice cake.  It too was made to order and then it was topped with chili mayo, tonkatsu sauce, bonito flakes, seaweed sprinkles and some other stuff I’m sure I missed.  I brought the gear back to the hybrid and we tucked in like a couple of “recently paroled inmates.”  The chicken omurice cone was tasty, the flavors were very odd to me and though I would not have ordered it myself, it was quite enjoyable.  The bakudanyaki was also super tasty.  I’ve slowly become a takoyaki aficionado and bakudanyaki is like takoyaki on steroids and cocaine.  Though “Monk” found the center to be a little too runny for her taste, I though the whole dish was hot, tasty and very intriguing.  After finishing off these two items, “Monk” was still feeling “snacky,” so she picked up another cone from Fumisen filled with her choice of ebi gyoza, avocado, tobiko and chili mayo.  I was a little disappointed with the texture of the gyoza in the cone, but overall, it too was interesting and tasty.

Issues and concerns; the bakudanyaki at TB could have been cooked a touch more and it would have been nice if I didn’t have to track down the girl working there.  She was having a bowl of ramen at Shoryrumen and I do understand that sometimes, you just gotta eat.  As for the cones at Fumisen, I love the concept of putting together whatever you want, but I found the rice to be a little wet and mushy, the seaweed was not toasty enough and the texture of the ebi gyoza in the hand-cone did not live up to my expectations.  Overall, I love the concept of the Japanese Food Village and I will be back in the near future.  I want to try Shoryrumen and though these trailers might be on the move, they’re now on my radar and I will find out where they end up next.  Is it great food?  No, but this is my kind of fast food and I’m going to have to do some research into what exactly is the “state of the union,” when it comes to Vancouver street food.  

On my chef’s night out scale, Tenku Bakudanyaki receives 3/5 SOB (slices of bacon).

On my chef’s night out scale, Fumisen Creative Sushi receives 3/5 SOB (slices of bacon).

G-Men Ramen

We finished our “business” earlier that day by dropping off our tax package with our financial advisor and meeting up with “La Reina’s” mom to pick up some outstanding baby gear. Now it was time to eat and to start off our day of Japanese cuisine exploration in Richmond. We decided to have lunch at G-Men Ramen, [3778 Sexsmith Road, #1101, Richmond, (778) 296-3779] and since neither “Monk” nor I have eaten there before and because I had been downing bacon cheeseburgers like they were going out of style for the past couple days, we decided to go check it out and eat somewhat healthier.

G-Men Ramen is owned by the Gyoza King group and is located in a nondescript Asian strip mall in Richmond. Being ramen aficionados and having checked out most of Vancouver’s ramen offerings, we were much overdue in visiting G-Men. When we arrived, there was a bit of a wait, but within 7.37 minutes, “Jazzy”, “Monk” and I were sat at a freshly cleaned table. We perused the menu and I ordered the torigara shoyu ramen, the tonkotsu ae soba and a mini donburi of shredded chashu and green onion. It turns out that at lunch only the torigara (chicken broth) ramen are available and at night only the tonkotsu (pork broth) is available. Since I usually use tonkotsu miso ramen as the benchmark for most ramen shops, I was forced to try something completely different.

Within a few minutes the mini donburi arrived and after snapping off a quick photo on the iPhone, I dove in. The taste of the rice was delicious, perfectly seasoned and a nice combination of pork, nori and green onion. The rice was a tad overcooked, but it was super tasty. Our bowls of ramen arrived right after and we immediately tucked in. Mine looked and smelled extremely appetizing. The broth was nice and clear with just a touch of oil bubbling on the surface. There was wood ear mushrooms, green onion, half of a perfectly cooked soft-boiled egg, toasted nori and two slices of lovely chashu as toppings. The clean taste of the broth was very enjoyable and texture of the ramen was very good. I have never had ramen with wood ear mushrooms and found the texture to be very complimentary to the bowl of noodles. The egg was really nice and when I had a bite with a little of every component and a big slurp of soup, I found it very tasty. The pork was cooked nicely, had great flavor and was a good balance of fat and lean meat. The tonkotsu ae soba was a “soupless” ramen with the exact same toppings as the previous, but dressed with a warm reduced pork broth and an interesting shrimp paste, drizzled over the pork. This bowl of ramen was very tasty as well and though I had never had a bowl of ramen such as this, I found it extremely comforting and enjoyable. The flavors were very good and the pungent kick of the shrimp paste added a rich umami profile to the bowl of noodles. As a person who rarely drinks much of the ramen broth, I found this style of ramen “quite up my alley.” I don’t know if we were “super hungry or what”, but we ate quickly, paid our bill and were out the door in less than 20 minutes.

Issues and concerns; I don’t really have any. The service was very competent since we arrived right after the lunch rush. The flavors were very good and the value seemed quite good as well. Compared to our favorite ramen shops downtown in Ramen-land, I think the G-Men ramen holds up extremely well. Though I don’t like eating noodles for dinner, we will return in the not-so-distant future and try G-Men’s dinner offerings.

On my chef’s night out scale, G-Men Ramen receives 3.5/5 SOB (slices of bacon).

Chong Lee Market (Banh Mi)

Quite a few weeks back, “Monk” and I were out and about and we needed to grab  a quickie lunch (get your mind out of the gutter please).  We were running errands, had banh mi on our minds, so we decided to swing by Chong Lee Market [3308 22nd Avenue E, Vancouver, (604) 432-6880] for a couple of sandwiches.  Not many people know, but they have a little banh mi  counter at the front of the market and it’s been one of our favorite banh mi spots for years.

“Monk” first introduced Chong Lee to me 7 years ago.  We’re rarely in the area, but having grown up in East Vancouver, she was quite familiar with this Asian grocery store.  Chong Lee is pretty much your average Chinese/Vietnamese market with a decent selection of fresh vegetables and seafood and a reasonable selection of Asian grocery.  I’ve never been overly fond of the store, but have always liked the banh mi from there.

A few years back, when “Monk” was considering opening the “Banh Mi Tree”, we did our research and tried almost every Vietnamese sub in Vancouver.  From Ba Le, Au Petite Cafe, Kingsway Deli and Tung Hing Bakery to countless more; I think in one afternoon, the two of us ingested at least 10 different subs all in the name of product research.  Having travelled through most of Vietnam, we have sampled banh mi from the north all the way to the south, so we’ve definitely been exposed to our share of Vietnamese subs.  Through all my Vietnamese sandwich sampling, the sandwiches at Chong Lee Market consistently rank high on the list . 

What makes a great banh mi is the bread.  It’s got to be fresh, the crust, golden and crispy and the inside, light and pillowy.  Is it great bread on it’s own?  No.  I would much rather eat an artisan baguette made with a gorgeous natural starter, but for banh mi, the perfect sub starts with this simple, yet perfect, Vietnamese/French style baguette.

Let me preface this by saying, I love sandwiches.  I hate skimpy sandwiches, and I feel that a well-crafted,  generous, but not excessive sandwich, is a thing of beauty.  I know I am going off on a tangent here, but I love the sandwiches we make at Tapenade Bistro.  I think they are on great bread, filled with great ingredients, very generous, yet very well-balanced in regards to flavors and textures.  I once had a pastrami sandwich at a Time Square deli immediately after finishing a James Beard Dinner, that angered me and the chefs I was with, beyond words.  When the $22 sandwich arrived, it was about a foot tall, was on two mushy pieces of rye bread and was wrong to me in every way.   I sill remember the first time I had a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s in Montreal  and I could tell you about a grouper sandwich incident at Hooters in Miami that would make most of you blush.  Sorry, I need to get back on track because I could easily ramble about sandwiches for days.   I am the “Bubba Gump” of sandwiches and I’ve got a long list of good and bad ones from around the world, if you ever want to hear about them. 

OK, back to Chong Lee banh mi.  Hey, that rhymes, I’m such a “lyrical gangster.”  Aside from the bread, the ingredients are super important.  At Chong Lee, I usually go for the special sub (dac biet) and it consists of a few different Vietnamese meats/hams.  There is a reddish hued rolled pork belly which I love and have aptly named “caution pork” .  I call it that because you need to be cautious of how much of it you eat, because it’s so good, but it’s so fatty and it can’t possibly be good for you.  There’s Vietnamese headcheese, a “ham” rolled in banana leaf, a ”ham” with springy tendon and a few other meats, which I know very little about.  There is butter/mayo and Vietnamese pate spread on the baguette and then it’s covered with the fresh toppings consisting of pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber, chili peppers, cilantro and scallion.  A little seasoning sauce (maggi sauce or some fish sauce concoction) and you’re good to go.   The sandwiches at Chong Lee are made to order and are hot and toasty when finsihed. 

Issue and concerns; my one issue with the sandwiches at Chong Lee is there is nowhere to eat them.  I want to eat them while they’re hot and I won’t eat them in the hybrid or the Exploder, because I won’t allow baguette crumbs to run rampant.  “Monk” and I usually eat them standing up in the parking lot or sometimes find a park in the neighborhood and devour our sandwiches along with some other prepared Vietnamese dishes like salad rolls, rice flour dumplings or rice rolls (bahn cuon).   The sandwiches are really tasty, they are so inexpensive and the pre-packaged stuff we buy is really delicious as well.  Give it a try and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as well.

On my chef’s night out scale, Chong Lee Market receives 3/5 SOB (slices of bacon).