Oh My Guud!

Before I left our fair northern neighbors, I stopped by for dinner at Guu, also in the aforementioend Aberdeen Centre, and had some of the best sushi I've ever had in my entire life. No joke. BEST. SUSHI. EVER. Guu is somewhat of a chain in the Vancouver area. It's an izakaya, which pretty much just means small plates. Like tapas, only japanese. Guu also gets their fish directly from Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. You know, the biggest fish market in this whole wide world. Literally home to the best fish in the world.

The place is very casual. Everyone that works there is japanese, and speaks japanese. When you walk in, everybody yells hello to you, in japanese. It's just what they do. Ok, not yell, but talk very loudly and enthusiastically. They're happy to see you, and they tell you so. Out loud! I wish I spoke japanese so I would know properly what they said. They could have said "WELCOME! YOU NAIVE TOURIST! WE CAN'T STAND ANY OF YOU!" and I still would have found it adorable.
They have sushi and other random small plate japanese dishes. It was cold that day, so I wanted something warm and soupy, but not miso soup. So I decided to get a bowl of oden. I got the assorted oden, which lets you pick 6 pieces of whatever you want. I picked the assorted because I wanted a bite of everything. It was a good idea, but I had no idea how big this thing would be. I thought there would just be a 1-2 bites of the 6 different things, but no, it had 6 giant pieces of everything. Oye. I could barely make a dent in this thing. For my six pieces, I had picked egg, fish cake, tofu, deep-fried tofu, puffed fish cake, and bamboo shoot. If I could do it over, I would have just picked the fish cake and the puffed fish cake. I especially liked the puffed fish cake. It was super light and pretty much melted in your mouth. The broth was hot and hearty. Perfect on a cold and rainy canadian day.
I'd looked at the menu before I visited, and I definitely wanted the crazy salmon. In addition to that, I got the original sushi combo. It just happened that it also came with a piece of crazy salmon. The original sushi combo is three pieces, one yellowtail, one salmon, and one tuna, and is prepared by the chef, however he feels like it that day.
This yellowtail was grilled just a tiny little bit, and the rice was charred a little bit as well. Then topped with some sliced onions and a little sesame oil and soy. I don't regularly order yellowtail, but if they all tasted like this, I'd order it in a heartbeat. Gawd. It was so good.
The crazy salmon is a long piece of salmon belly grilled with coarse steak salt. Again, I'm not the biggest salmon fan in the world, but by jove, this was a near perfect piece of sushi. Everything just melts in your mouth and radiates freshness. You just know it's hard to get a better piece of fish than this.
But then you get to this piece of heaven right here. Spicy tuna with chunks of avocado and a hunk of extremely thinly sliced cucumber. Just about one of the best things I've ever eaten. Give me a plate full of these and I'd scarf it down in a minute.
I was so overpowered by this perfect sushi that I went and ordered another combo. Yes, I would get the same three pieces, but I didn't give a crap. I wanted the same three pieces! And I scarfed that down as well! I sat at the bar so I got to watch it being made, and seriously, sushi is such an art form.

Service was great. Everyone was super friendly and the sushi chefs at the bar kept asking me how everything was and if I needed anything else. Everyone pitched in and everybody made me feel special and welcome. Even when I left, they all thanked me for coming and said goodbye. In japanese, of course. I wish I could go back. Again and again. Over and over. For the rest of my life. That would truly be food heaven.

Herbalicious!

Within Aberdeen Centre, there are countless chinese herbal medicine shops. I'm not into it, but my mom is. And so are all of her friends. And so are most asians. But not me.

When I was little, my mom used to torture me and my brother by making us drink weird herbal concoctions. Dark, brown, disgusting cup fulls of liquid made from crock potting sliced antlers, roots, and who the hell knows what else. We dreaded it. It first started because my bro and I were pretty scrawny little kids. She wanted to put some meat on our bones so she made us drink some of this crap. She'd also try to shove it down our throats when we got sick. And if you get some kind of terminal illness, they're all about using these to cure whatever ails you. Does it work? No idea, but I found them to be foul and tried to avoid it at all costs. Crazy thing is that it's mad expensive. So if someone gives you this stuff as a gift, they've spent tons of money on you. And you'd feel bad not using the stuff. But man, does this stuff taste terrible.
Cure-all or not, I'd rather not subject myself to this stuff. Billions of chinese can't be wrong, but please asian parents, please don't torture your kids. They'll always remember it!

Daiso!

In Aberdeen Centre, there is a Daiso store. There was actually one in the mall near my hotel in the Seattle burbs, but this one was huge. What is Daiso? It's a japanese chain of 100 yen stores. In Canada, that means most things were $2 canadian. In the US, it was $1.50. And they sell just about everything. I mean anything... housewares, underwear, makeup, food, crafting supplies, everything. I wish we had some around here. Japanese snacks of all different kinds. They love their snacks, that's for damn sure.Bizarre little drinks too. They even have staples like noodles and nori so you can buy regular grocery type things here too. And if you need something to cook them in, they got that too. And something to wear while you eat them, they got that too. It's a fun place.

The Dreamiest Food Court

The third floor of the Aberdeen Centre is mostly the giant food court. This place is huge. And it's full of tons of various asian cuisines. There really isn't anything you can't find here. It's like my ultimate mall food court dream. Korean food galore. Vietnamese food, including pho! Japanese... noodles and tempuras... Desserts! Pizza and pasta, japanese style! Chinese congee and noodles... You could come back again and again and try something new each time. Sure beats Sbarro and Arby's!

Look So Real!

I was told to visit Richmond, which is a suburb of Vancouver, and chock full of asian folk. As in more than half of its residents are some variety of asian. That's a lot of asians! There's even an entire mall, Aberdeen Centre, that is pretty much strictly asian stores. I've never encountered anything like it in my life... not even when I was in asia.
Have you ever been to a japanese restaurant where they have replicas of the food they serve, except it's fake? To show you what the dishes look like so it can help you decide what to order? There was a store in this mall, Look So Real, where they sold this fake food. For anyone to purchase for themselves. For what purpose? I have no idea.

My Favorite Thing About Canada

A few jobs ago, I had to go to Canada a lot. Not like every week, but much more than anyone would want to. And it was most likely during winter. Have you ever been to Canada in winter? It's no joke. But one of the saving graces of our northern neighbors is Tim Hortons, a restaurant chain. It's not exactly a restaurant, it's more of a coffee place. When I first started going to them, they were mainly a coffee and donut / breakfast sandwich kind of place. Eventually, over the years, they started adding sandwiches and soups and other food stuff to their menu.
I'm not a coffee drinker, but on those wintry canadian mornings, I would always stop at a Tim Hortons to get a hot chocolate and a blueberry muffin, both of which were always excellent. And I would always see canadians ordering coffee, saying things like "double double", and me not understanding what the hell they were saying. I did try the food once, and it too was good.
There are Tim Hortons in the US, just none around here. They have some complicated relationship with Wendy's, or at least they did, and so you might see some Wendy's / Tim Hortons combinations throughout your travels. If you encounter one, give it a try. Millions of canadians can't be wrong.

Dim Sum In Vancouver

Mention Vancouver to anyone who's been there and one of the first things they'll mention is how good the food is there, specifically the chinese food. On my last trip to Seattle, I ventured south to Portland, but this time around, I decided to venture north, to our neighbors in Canada. I've been to eastern canada umpteenth times, but never had I been to british columbia. Man, when I got there, all the streets where I needed to be were closed for a chinese new year parade. It was freezing cold and rainy but they were still having the parade. Apparently, vancouver is nuts about their parades. So after driving around for what seemed to be an hour, I was finally able to get somewhat close to my destination - chinatown.

I wanted to have dim sum, so I went to the biggest most famous of them all - Floata. The place is huge, like you'd see in the movies. If there was a huge ass chinese wedding banquet, and you invited all your closest 500 friends. There's no menu. And this place is run like a tightly-run factory. They seat you, your table gets a number, you get tea, and then little carts come around with food, and you decide what to eat. Like these shrimp and chive dumplings. These little suckers were delicious, filled with fresh shrimp and chives in a light rice based wrapper. They come around squawking in chinese, and I had no idea what they were saying. So then you ask and they open up the little steamer baskets and show you. Next I got these little seafood filled things. Don't ask me what they were called. I think the wrappers were tofu based and there was imitation crab, scallops, and shrimp inside them. It was ok, but definitely not amongst my favorites. Now my favorite were the shrimp and pumpkin dumplings. They were similar to the regular shrimp and chive ones, but had little slivers of slightly crunchy pumpkin in them, and the wrappers were a little different. I'm not sure what the wrappers included, but they had a little something in them. In theory, it sounds weird to have pumpkin in a dumpling along with shrimp, but it was an unusual yet delicious complement. It doesn't seem like tons of food, but after these three, I was stuffed. What was service like? Eh, I've had much better. It took me two tries to get some water, and they didn't bring me any kind of dipping sauce for any of the dumplings until I asked. But whatever, it's dim sum, I wasn't expecting anything fancy. The point here is turnover, turnover, turnover, so they try to get you in and they try to get you out. It'd been a long time since I'd had dim sum, I mean years and years and years, and It was a lot of fun.