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)
SkyTrain Stop: Yaletown Roundhouse Station
Price: $5-$15; tapas style
More Info? http://www.hapaizakaya.com/
