Ho Yuen Kee

My friends took me to Ho Yuen Kee a few weeks ago only because Angel Cafe was closed. It's pretty much another run-of-the-mill Chinese seafood restaurant, but then again, there were only a few of us and we only ordered three dishes. We'll have to try it again sometime in a bigger group.

We ordered the house-special chow mein, which was good, but our next dish was a mistake on our part.....
......the assorted meats hot-pot, which is pretty much the exact same ingredients as the house-special chow mein except no chow mein and it's served in a hot pot. Again, this dish was really tasty, lots of ingredients, and good size portion.

The deep friend smelt was cooked with sliced garlic, there were loads, but wasn't quite salty enough for me. Spicy, but not quite salty enough. Nothing a bit of extra Chinese seasoning salt couldn't fix.

Like I said, the food was pretty good, but we didn't get a chance to sample many different dishes, so we'll defintely have to go back again. Several other tables had ordered crab, which may be this place's specialty....it looked really good.

Zakkushi

Zakushi first opened up shop on Denman near Robson as a little Japanese BBQ/grill place. It was a noisy little place filled with BBQ smoke and poor poor ventilation. After my first visit, my ears were ringing, my clothes stank of BBQ meat, I had a nice full stomach, and I was probably a little drunk......I loved it! It really reminded me of some of the places I went to when I was in Japan, and the nostalgia really hit me. This was all part of the charm, but some winy customer probably complained to health and safetly official now it's a lot less smokey - in fact, there's no smoke at all.

Since then, they've opened a few more shops and the one I usually go to now is the one on 4th Avenue near Burrard Street. It's a cozy little place, but the problem is, there's very little seating and the place is always full. Still, despite all that, I still like to go there as I don't have to fight through downtown traffice to get there. Sake to go with the snacks....actually, should be the other way around....snacks to go with the sake, but I guess we just don't drink that much...
Tako-wasa, one of my favourite drinking snacks.
Gomae

Bacon-wrapped asparagus and p-toro (pork belly) More P-toro goodness.
Beef carpaccio....I think.
Ahi-tuna salad
Chicken karaage
Grilled shishamo, a nice alternative to the typical deep-fried variety often found in crappy all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurants. This really is one of the ultimate companions to sake or beer.
I think this was black cod.

More p-toro
Tori-kawa

Beef stew - something that tastes like home. Mentaiko kimchi udon.

My friends and I have gone to Zakkushi on numerous occasions, even booked the whole place and had a few birthday parties there. The prices are reasonable for a drinking establishment. I personally don't go there to get full, but it's a defintely a pretty cool place to have a few drinks.