Tag Archives: Japanese food

Marutama Ramen

Since it’s not on a main street, and hidden almost amongst the residental homes in the West End, we would have never known this existed if we hadn’t taken the road to avoid the traffic on the major roads.

The exterior was very interesting with columns of wooden bars. Inside was very modern and seemed similar to some of the Japanese Izakaya restaurants in town. The chairs were interesting, wooden chairs with a hole in the middle, and beam across underneath so you could rest your feet – good if you’re a small Asian. I found it a bit awkward to sit on and noisy when pulling them across the floor. My company didn’t like it at all. The decor continued into the bathroom, with a cool sink faucet and pretty sink. The women’s has a red bowl, while the mens have a black one. (no, I didn’t go into the mens! but my company did take a photo when he was in there lol)

Cool exterior

Neat faucet and sink in bathroom

The staff seemed all Japanese. The servers wore beret hats – I guess to be more trendy and modern. But they were all cheery and friendly. The tables were a bit too close to each other for comfort…like with Santouka, you were sitting with strangers and having to hear their conversation and vice versa.

I ordered the Marutama Ramen with soft boiled flavoured egg $10.50 or otherwise known as Tamago-Ramen.

The ramen came super fast, so that was pretty impressive. The server gave us some fried garlic flakes to put on top of the ramen for extra flavouring. However, I was disappointed in the men (noodle)…it was really skinny and didn’t seem like I was eating a real ramen. However that same week when I was talking to a friend, she said she really liked the men…so I guess it’s subjective….depending on your personal taste.

The broth wasn’t impressive, nor did I feel like sipping on it either.
The ramen were much pricier than say Benkei or Menya which I thought was way better, than again, those two are more on the ‘traditional’ ramen…so maybe I’m just old fashioned. LOL

I don’t think I will be returning again unless a friend really wants to go or something. It wont be on my top ramen-ya list.

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Itadakimasu

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I bought the 50% off Groupon for this restaurant. I had seen their ads in the KLIP magazine, so I was happy to get some discount on a restaurant that I was wanting to check out.

It was full house. I had tried making a reservation the previous Friday on that day, but I was told it was full, so I phoned the following Thursday for a reservation for Friday evening at 7pm.
The main goal of this trip was to try out the Cute Temari Sushi, which I guess is their signature dish. 10 round nigiri for $12. Very cute, but a bit difficult to eat unless you have a big mouth lol. The fish were fresh and tasty.

Cute Temari Sushi $12

Itadakimasu roll $9.50

Agedashi Tofu done in 3 ways $5.50

We also had the Agedashi Tofu done in 3 ways $5.50. The one with dashi sauce one was interesting. Subtle flavour. I think I liked the teriyaki sauce the best. Not much fan of the sweet chili sauce. It was just hot…that’s it.

We also had the Itadakimasu roll $9.50 which had unagi (eel) and avocado, tamago, tobiko, cucumber, and fried onions. It was crisply and very tasty, although I find that these ‘special’ rolls everywhere try to put a lot of things in it, and they all get mixed up. Other than the eel, it’s hard to know what’s inside, let alone taste anything with the BBQ eel sauce poured onto it. It’s definitely not the true Japanese dish where the focus should be on one flavour and not mixing a whole bunch of everything into one thing – which seems to be popular thing in North America. Despite that thought, the roll was still pretty good.

The restaurant was quite loud and busy, but the staff were very friendly and service was prompt. However, when we were done our meal, they started repairing the tables for some reason when it was still open for business and customers were still coming in. That was a bit disruptive – and so unJapanese like – especially when all the staff were Japanese.

Other than that, it was a pleasant dinner. The voucher process went smoothly, and would likely return sometime again the future.

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Applause Japanese Restaurant

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My company was told by a someone he chatted up with on the Grouse Grind. She told him to check out Applause as she thought it was a really good sushi-ya. So we thought we’d try it out on a Friday evening around 7pm.

The restaurant is a decent sized space, sectioned off with white IKEA curtains (which I have in my living room! lol). My German company was bothered by the huge tags still left on all the curtains which had all the info in like 20 different languages. Bothered so much, he told one of the servers to cut it off. LOL. I dunno if cutting the tags would help. I didn’t like the curtains (at least in the restaurant as a separator) at all. It made the place seem cheap or unprofessional. Surprisingly, although the German company always complained of architectural structures (mostly that it’s not built right or poorly constructed), he liked the place. I thought otherwise. It seemed like a cheaply made interior. Nothing to wow about – nothing to praise anyways. My Chinese friend also liked the place…so I guess I’m the odd one out on this one.

Like many restaurants in Japan, a server isn’t really assigned to a table. Since there are no tips in Japan, everyone serves whenever they can to help the customer. So we had several servers come by to take orders, bring food, refill our tea cups and to do the bill. Most of them were friendly, though one was a bit stricter.

The plates were coloured with flower patterns. When they brought out the tea, the female got a red or pink tea cup, while the male customers got a blue one. Interesting.

I ordered 2 salmon nigiri (sockeye salmon) $1.75 each, negitoro roll $3.50 and corn cream croquette $5.25. The salmon nigiri was really good. The salmon seem to almost melt in my mouth and the portion of the rice was just right. The negitoro was really good too. The croquette was surprisingly excellent. Really hot, super crispy on the outside while soft and creamy in the inside. My Chinese friend said it was really good too.

Assorted Sushi Plate $11.50

Negitoro, 2 sockeye salmon nigiri and masago

Corn cream croquette $5.25

I wouldn’t say the interior is great as the other two seem to praise it. However, I thought the food was really good. I definitely recommend this restaurant and we’re planning to go back for lunch with a bigger group.

Second Time for Lunch
For the second time, we went as a big group of 10 people for lunch. We had made reservations a week in advanced, so we didn’t have much waiting time, like the others who were waiting to be seated.

Sheepie was very impressed when he saw that all the ugly big tags were cut from the dividing curtains which he had complained to the restaurants about the last time we were there. Yay~! They actually listened to their customers! Well, it might be a small thing, but it looks much nicer with out them.

They had the lunch menu, so I took advantage of the offers. I ordered the California Sushi Combo $8.95 which included a miso soup, salad, vegetable croquette, tuna/salmon/tai nigiri and 6 piece California roll. I was super happy about the great bargain. All that under $9! Awesome! The entire set was really good. Good quality, good taste, good service = happy customer. I wish it was closer to home…then I could go there more often.Authentic tasting miso soup. Excellent!Like many Japanese restaurants, they close between the lunch and dinner hours, so we left at 3pm when they closed down. If you are thinking of taking a group, reserve early and they have a limit of 10 people. Also, they ask that everyone is on time, as they fill up very quickly with waits on the weekends at lunch.

Another dish at another time:

Shrimp Gyoza $6.95 I thought that this gyoza was going to be ground up gyoza – like how you would have it in the shumai. But to my pleasant surprise, one gyoza had one whole plumpy and juicy shrimp in tacked, with the tail sticking out of the wrap. It was delicious – I highly recommend it if you like shrimp and gyoza!

Tuna Tar Tar was on their special menu board $5?. Visually, it was very nice, however the tower was drowning in salty soy sauce/ponzu. I wanted to drain all the sauce. Then it would have been perfect. But it was hard for me to eat through…

Back Again

Sheepie and I were both disappointed in our last visit to Applause.
Some notes taken:

our server wasn’t really friendly. She didn’t smile or anything.
my sushi came on the wooden board that was all wet… gross…
sushi rolls were a little bit sloppy
no flavour in nori (seaweed) or the green onions in my Negitoro
Sheepie said his fish was bland and rubbery
watching the chef in front of us make more sloppy rolls wasn’t all that inspiring
they made a mistake and served my Masago Nigiri on Sheepie’s plate
no ‘Irasshaimase’ (welcome) or ‘Arigatougozaimashita’ (thank you) shouts
service was prompt
restaurant was still kept clean

Perhaps it was just a bad visit, but if this is what Applause has become, we wont be returning and will be taken off our ‘good sushi-ya to-go-to’ list. I kept the carrot rating the same for now…

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