Japanese Izakaya: Gyoza King

Vancouver is an extremely multicultural city.  Over the past twenty years there has been a major influx of immigrants from Asian countries like China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan.

This has resulted in Vancouver having an extensive and impressive selection of Asian-style restaurants.  Most Vancouverites can tell the difference between Indonesian, Taiwanese and Malaysian food and can distinguish between northern Chinese and southern Chinese dishes (Vancouver has the 2^nd largest Chinatown in North America after San Francisco).

If you’ve been reading my blog you’ve probably gathered that I am very fond of Asian-style cooking.   While I love food from China, Thailand and Korea, my favorite hands down is Japanese.

Walking around downtown Vancouver there is a sushi joint on almost every street.  In fact, buying sushi in Vancouver is often as cheap as buying McDonald’s!  I do love traditional Japanese cuisine (sushi rolls, tempura, ramen, teriyaki, etc) but my absolute favorite style of Japanese food is called Izakaya.

Izakaya is Japanese tapas/fusion.  Most of the plates are small and meant for sharing.  You’ll find lots of grilled meat/seafood, dumplings, noodles and all sorts of tasty treats (every time we go we always find a new dish to try).  My favourite place for Izakaya is a restaurant called Gyoza King (one of my top five restaurants to eat at), located at 1508 Robson Street, Vancouver.

Photo Credit: http://www.followmefoodie.com/2010/09/gyoza-king/

I’ve been eating at Gyoza King for almost 10 years and it’s never let me down.  It was one of the first Izakaya style restaurants to open in Vancouver.  It’s small and cozy, the décor is wooden and it feels like you could be in Japan (the staff just barely speak English).  When you walk in the staff greet you by shouting out the warm sounding, “Irrashaimase”, which means ‘welcome’.  This restaurant is usually really busy, so expect to have to wait a bit (I assure you it’s definitely worth it).  We try to avoid this by arriving right at 5:30pm when they open.

As the name implies, Gyoza King specializes in gyoza dumplings and they make the best dumplings I’ve ever had.  A gyoza dumpling is a pan-fried flour based dumpling with a vegetable, meat or seafood filling (or a combination of all 3).  There is no other Japanese restaurant in Vancouver that makes dumplings as good as Gyoza King (if anyone knows of anywhere please let me know).  They are always crisp, golden and cooked fresh to order.

The prices are also totally reasonable.  We went this past weekend and spent $65; we had six dishes (and 2 miso soup), one large Asahi beer and a lychee liqueur cocktail.  Here is a photographic tour of our delicious meal (apologies that I don’t have a fancy camera, it’s just my iphone):

Japanese-style duck breast with sweet soy ($9.50)

Ebi Mayo – fresh tiger prawn with special mayo sauce ($6.50)

Ton Toro – Pork belly with mustard mayo ($7.95)

Tako Yaki – deep fried octopus balls ($6.50)

Nira – pork & chive gyoza dumplings ($8.95 for 10)

Beef Yakiudon   –  beef & udon noodles with shoyu sauce and shaved bonito flakes ($9)