Tojo's - Vancouver, BC

Our first night in Vancouver we made reservations at Tojo's, a very popular Japanese restaurant. They confirmed reservations online and were very pleasant in the Japanese manner over email. In person they were just the same and called me "Goto-san", how novel :-). The restaurant is located in a business building on the second floor. The decor is very understated and simple.

Our dishes in order were:
1) Tuna tartar - 3 types of tuna chopped up. It has a ponzu and lemon sauce it floated in. I thought it was neat that when you finished the dish the sauce was perfectly proportioned that it was gone when you finished. I don't care that much for tuna tartar. I think my taste buds are attuned to poke more and I always expect that when eating raw tuna. However, not to say it wasn't prepared very well. Very tasty and it contained a multitude, if not a plethora of flavors. I tasted shiso, lemon zest and ginger. . . don't know what else was in there.

2) Our next dish was described as "Japanese escargot". I think that wasn't a good description because you think about garlic and buttery flavor. This was Japanese flavored sea snail with hints of bonito broth. It was very tasty and was a mixture of the broth, different mushrooms and snails. It was nicely presented in a shell which was HOT and placed over on bed of sea salt.










3) "KFC". . . is what the waiter said. . .well he actually said "Keee-Effu-SHE". . since he had a Japanese accent. Then he explained it was cod. This dish reminds me of a Chinese dish overall especially the gravy sauce over it. It was topped with mushrooms, mussels and some greens. The fish was deep friend with a corn flake coating. . .not the panko flakes you would have expected.

4) Salmon with miso sauce came out next. By now were thinking. . .are we going to have sushi? Oh well, David liked this fish dish. I though it was a little dry and not too fatty. The miso sauce was some complicated teriyaki-miso mixture. The garnish was fried tofu and fern stems.











5) Ahh, Sushi finally. I can't remember exactly what everything was but it was interesting mixes. Pinapple, mango in one of the rolls, Salmon skin in another. One had lobster the other had crab.

6) The dessert was refreshing. Ice cream floating in yogurt sauce with pieces of mango and pineapple.










Over all it was a neat meal. It's kinda like having a meal prepared by Iron chef except there wasn't a special ingredient. One thing though I noticed I drank a lot of water. The food didn't taste salty when eating it, but it must have been. We had dinner at 7pm and when we left, the place was packed. The service was very good and friendly and it was nice to have the Vancouver city background outside. I don't know if we'd go back or recommend the place. San Francisco probably has some comparable places. However, pretty great food presentations and solid dishes of Japanese influenced food that didn't taste like weird fusion dishes.

We picked a set price for each dinner and they feed you accordingly. There was an option of "no price limit" and wondered what that entailed. Do you keep eating until they have to roll you out the door? Hmm, if I was rich I'd go for it!