Damso Modern Cuisine : Denman Location

Whenever I pass Damso Modern Cuisine on either their Bute or Denman Street location, I always think "meh". But at the same time, I always look back because of their advertised $9.99 gamjatang. The gamjatang in the photo looks pretty good too, showing a large chunk of potato and plenty of perilla seeds. So I decided to make a visit with a friend on her lunch break and made sure to check out their menu online beforehand.

Damso on Denman Street is a three men operated restaurant, where there are two in the kitchen and one at the front. The man at the front was friendly and a professional. Since the tables are fairly small at Damso, we asked if the food can come out slower and not all once, and he brought over new plates when we moved onto the next dish. He was also patient when answering questions and it turns out the menu I found was from a couple of years ago, so the bossam along with the galbi steak I was looking forward to having were no longer available :(.

The restaurant is small so there are only ten tables, but the seating arrangements are properly maximized. The high ceiling promotes a better air circulation and the restaurant is fairly clean too.

Maji Restaurant 麻吉台式熱炒

After waiting an hour and a half for Maji to open and suffering the consequences of grabbing a snack at R&H House in Lansdowne, we finally arrived! The Taiwanese tapas restaurant is located on Alexandra Road in Richmond and their hours run from 5:30pm-12:00am (open later on weekends). Maji has been on my list for a while because I have been wanting to try something different such as a restaurant that does not offer live seafood. Moreover, a restaurant that offers reasonable prices which is hard to find in Richmond when HK Style Cafes and Bubble Tea restaurants are excluded.

However, I was hesitant on trying Maji because being Taiwanese, I am more selective towards the cuisine. Okay, fine, I am very selective towards any cuisine… I really do not know why. When looking from the outside of the building, the restaurant does not even look that big so we were surprised upon entering. Furthermore, the interior looks fairly nice. The seating arrangements are not tight either and even the washroom was very clean.

Kamei Baru

Kamei Baru is owned by the Kamei and Ebisu group that serves Japanese cuisine. Since Kamei Royale and Ebisu (only the West Broadway location) are a couple of my favourite Japanese restaurants, of course I had to visit Kamei Baru. Kamei Baru is different than the other restaurants in the group because they serve tapas dishes. When walking in, we were greeted by numerous staff members yelling at us like any other Japanese tapas restaurant. My first impression, the menu is limited in sashimi and sushi since the restaurant is more tapas oriented. My second impression, the lighting at our table was really dark and it was quite loud sitting by the bar. If I knew seating upstairs was an option, I would have definitely chose to sit there. After ordering, I realized that the owner basically combined a bunch of popular dishes, and put them all in one restaurant taking advantage of Vancouver's tapas trend.

Suika Snack Bar

Being new to Urbanspoon, one of the restaurants I have wanted to visit based on average reviews has been Suika. On a weeknight for dinner, the restaurant was fairy busy and loud. In general, I am not a fan of tapas since I do not enjoy the dishes or find anything special about them, and I always drag going to any Guu location. However, I looked at Suika's menu online before visiting and the dishes seemed more appealing than any Guu location. When we arrived, the hostess tried squeezing us at a tiny table for two, in the middle of two larger groups of 6-8 people. It was nice of the hostess finding us a seat when the restaurant was busy, but luckily I saw a seat outside and asked if we could be seated there instead. The table outside was larger and it was a lot quieter. I definitely recommend reservations if you plan on making a visit since there were quite a few tables with reserved signs.

SPOT PRAWNS, TUNA-AVOCADO, AAA BEEF FILLET, DELUXE SUIKA BOX, GRILLED DUCK, TOKYO OXTAIL RAMEN AND THE TOROTOR CHA-SHU (PORK ROASTED).

Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie 寶貝小館

After seeing many positive reviews about Bao Bei, I have been wanting to come here for months! BF and I arrived in the early evening and we were seated right away by a male host. I was expecting to wait for a few minutes since I read sometimes there is a line up (the restaurant is very small), but the restaurant was less than half full.

The menu is limited and I noticed that everyone was drinking? Bao Bei seems to be a place to drink and snack. With the menu already limited, our waitress told us the pork jowl and crispy pork belly were sold out, so our menu then became more limited.