Kintaro is one of the older ramen establishments in Vancouver; tiny with very limited seating and there is usually a line outside during peak hours. Rainy days, like this past weekend, are perfect for ramen. Restaurants that specialize in ramen usually have very limited menus, so it’s easy to choose what you want. There usually isn’t much variation in the toppings you get, but there are slight differences in the broth. The cheese ramen (with lean pork, above) includes bean sprout, menma, corn, green onion, BBQ pork, and two kinds of cheese. They don’t specify the kinds of cheese, but they are similar to mozerella. The cheese melts into the hot broth and gets intertwined with the ramen noodles. It is similar to a french onion soup, but there’s noodles. At the end, the cheese got a little clumpy and it was a little too much.
At Kintaro, you need to specify the richness of your soup and the kind of BBQ pork you would like (fatty or lean). Above, is the Shio Ramen with medium soup and fatty pork. The pork is VERY fatty, but it is also extremely flavourful. The ramen is average, but the broth is perfect and the you can definitely feel the roots of the establishment with their paper signs posted on the wall and comfy seating arrangement. Check out the video of Kintaro chefs in action:
This year’s summer night market is bigger than ever. The grounds are packed full of food and retail vendors, the biggest the night market has ever been. New additions to the food vendors include:
Hapa Izakaya recently opened it’s newest location in Yaletown. I have tried the other two locations and there’s spectacular quality across the board. There are always new and innovative dishes to try; the restaurant also does a great job with showcasing ingredients that are in season. The presentation style they use is simplistic, but focuses on the food. My favourite dish of the night was the saba sashimi – they torch the dish at your table to brown the skin a little. It was fresh and very tasty.
The ebi mayo was a little different from the one we had at the Kitsilano location. The batter was thin and the sauce was soaked into the batter more here. Read more about the Kitsilano location here.
I’m a huge fan of raw oysters, so we had to order the fresh oysters with 3 dressings: hot mustard, seafood sauce, and a lemon. The dressings were nothing special, but the oysters were clean and fresh.
We tend to order what we’ve eaten before at restaurants, because we know the dishes are good. The ika was grilled to perfection and great as always. We also had the sockeye and spring salmon sashimi. I’ve never had spring salmon sashimi before and it was light compared to the regular salmon sashimi you get from sushi restaurants. We had 6 dishes, including about 5 alcoholic beverages and our final bill was about $100. Overall, Hapa is one of my top choices for izakaya restaurants for dinner or light snacks and drinks before dinner – I think they’ll gain quite a bit of attention in the next month.
Location: 1193 Hamilton Street Vancouver, BC (map)
Ninkazu offers all-you-can-eat sushi and hotpot for dinner. The price is very reasonable: $19.95 / $22.95 for the lite or deluxe sushi menu, plus $3 per adult to add on the hotpot option. These types of restaurants are good for groups or large parties, because there are many options and everyone gets to choose what they want to eat. If you are not a fan of raw fish, there are many cooked dishes on the sushi menu (page 1, page 2) and there’s a hotpot menu, where you cook your own food. The seafood selection includes, prawns, oysters, squid, and of course salmon and tuna sashimi. When the boys were tired of eating the fish raw, they cooked it in the hotpot. Our final bill including two soft drinks came up to about $76 – an amazing price for a sushi/seafood dinner for 3 people. They also have a location in Vancouver on West Broadway called Tomokazu.
Location: #205 – 4231 Hazelbridge Way, Richmond, BC (map)
Getting There: Highway 99 is the closest highway. It is on Hazelbridge, between Cambie and Alderbridge. There is FREE parking in the plaza.
SkyTrain Stop: Aberdeen Station or Lansdowne Station on the NEW Canada Line. Walking distance between the two stops.
Price: Dinner Adults $19.95 Lite/$22.95 Deluxe; Children under 12 $9.95; Plus $3 for Hotpot Option
I have not had any additions in the last two weeks, because I have been without a camera. The night market is one of my favourite places to go when I am looking for a place with energy, cheap food, and awesome deals on merchandise. I have been here about 5 times this season. I was even interested in being a vendor this year. It gets so packed there, I frequently bring friends here to show them the excitement. If you plan on going, do not eat before you go. You will find all kinds of food and retail stands by Vancouver restaurants/stores and new small business owners. There’s dim sum, gourmet desserts, japadogs, fried oreos, skewers of different kinds of meat, fried marshmallows, and the selection goes on and on. Also expect to do lots of walking around while you are here. All I have to say is, highly recommended for all ages.
Photos courtesy of Morgan De Chalain.
Event Dates: May 15th to October 4th, 2009; Fri & Sat 7pm-12-pm;Sun & Holidays 7pm-11pm
