Japanese cuisine

Zest Japanese Restaurant
2775 West 16 Avenue
Vancouver, BC, V6K3C3
Ph: (604) 731-9378 or Reserve Online 

 Enroute to see Twelfth Night at Jericho Arts Centre we stopped off for dinner at Zest Restaurant, tucked away near the corner of 16th and MacDonald.

On the Granville Street Foodie Tour, I learned that Zest and ShuRaku (on Granville Street) are sister restaurants. The ShuRaku taste samplings reminded me of how as I had enjoyed a meal at ShuRaku last year, and that I had eaten at Zest before as well.

This meal would be my second at  Zest, and I remembered being very impressed by the taste and the presentation of the food on my previous visit. 

We had a nice-sized secluded table near the window and the service was efficient and unobtrusive. We decided to choose four dishes to share. One was local tuna sashimi, which is always a favorite of mine. 

Takashi
1952 N. Damen Ave.,
Chicago
Ph: 773-772-6170

As I noted in my  Chicago Diary 2009, this visit to Chicago  is brief,  essentially only four nights, so we wasted no time before setting out  to sample  some great food.  The first restaurant  my friends chose for me to check out was a Japanese cuisine and sushi restaurant, Takashi, in Bucktown on Chicago's North side. The restaurant takes its name from chef Takashi Yagihashi.

We were led upstairs to a pleasant seating area and initially seated at a corner table which was really too small to seat three people comfortably. On request we were quickly moved to a more comfortable arrangement with two tables pushed together. Our drink order was taken promptly and we were offered a selection of sesame or multigrain bread or baguette. 

The hot and cold small plate menu was enticing. I settled for a plate of three kinds of sashimi; Big Eye tuna with umami wasabi-soy dressing, Hokkaido scallops with pickled plum vinaigrette and Blue prawns with marinated eggplant and cucumber, Japanese omelette with golden raisins.  I loved the combination of textures and flavours.

Kentizen
2029 88 W. Pender St.,
Vancouver
Ph: 778-863-8281

We were planning to see Antigone Unbound later  at the Leaky Heaven Circus Studio above the Russion Hall, so finding ourselves in the general vicinity of Chinatown we decided to wander around and find somewhere for a casual supper. I remembered that there was a place inside the Tinseltown complex that I had wanted to check out so we took the escalator to the second floor and wandered into Kentizen. It was still early,  around 5:30 and so we took a window table and studied the menu. As we were debating the merits of Japanese food versus Chinese food, the manager suggested we check out the buffet.

One look at the sushi portion of the buffet and I was sold. So we each took an attractive oblong transparent blue glass plate and helped ourselves to some of the sushi, edemame and other items.