I believe that food like good music and a good book is a solace to a person's soul. Food is both a science and an art - a yin-yang balance to your body and also an appreciation of colors, textures and sensory experience.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Gyu King Teppanyaki - 755 Burrard Street

Gyu Japanese Teppanyaki on Urbanspoon

Urgh - Gator has been swarmed and so have not been updating my blog for 2 entire months. I feel so bad because I have an entire backlog of pictures to upload and so many stories to share.

Sometime ago, I purchased a Groupon from Guy King Teppanyaki. It cost CAN$59 and includes a 10 course set meal for two. I thought it was worthwhile to give it a try, given that the original price was over CAN$100 (that was what was stated in the Groupon). I think I bought the Groupon in October last year and only redeemed it in January this year.

For a start, we had some drinks. My dinner companion was intrigued with the Singapore Sling and ordered it to try. To be honest, I never liked the Singapore Sling, even though it is one of the icons in Singapore at the Raffles Hotel, Long Bar. The original Singapore Sling cost about SIN$30 (CAN$24) a glass and to me, it tasted a bit like cough mixture, with alcohol.  Gyu King's version is fortunately cheaper and the mixture was definitely lighter than the original - still not my favorite. See the original Singapore sling in its glory. http://www.travelfish.org/blogs/singapore/2011/09/01/a-singapore-sling-at-raffles/

The Singapore Sling - half drunk - I have to admit that it didn't taste that bad compared to the original - it came with a little umbrella (I think)
I chose a fruit cocktail (lime & non alcoholic) - it was so refreshing.

My lime cocktail - I like it

My frothy and foaming lime drink
The first dish was the salad, followed by a lobster miso soup. I thought the soup was quite tasty.
Green salad - rather refreshing. I like that it had a hint of some soya sauce and mayo. 

Its almost impossible to extract the meat from the lobster - there was not much meat anyway .

Next, came the Atlantic lobster and the prawns. I am a big fan of seafood so I enjoyed these two dishes very much.

Mmm - Gator loves lobster.
Took some time to extract the lobster from the shell. The prawns were yummy!

A close-up of the lobster. Goes straight into Gator's mouth and tummy
Dipping my lobster into the sauce
Gyu King provides three different types of dipping sauces

An array of sauces - soya sauce (extreme left), garlic and soya sauce (middle), followed by the chill sauce dip (extreme right). 

This is one of my favorite pictures in my meal - the prawn looks as if it is waving to me. Hehe!
This is another of my favourite dishes - thinly sliced beef with green onions, garlic and mushrooms

The thinly sliced beef (usuyaki) 
The beef was succulent and I must say that the garlic added a kick to this dish!
The beef tenderloin was quite a delight as well - Gator requested for the beef to be done medium - quite a success, I think

A generous serving of beef tenderloin
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the fois gras which came wrapped inside a flat bread. It was pure fat and carbohydrates - yummy!

After so much protein, it was a relief to have some fiber - mixed fried vegetables.

Some vegetables to balance all the protein
By this point, I was absolutely stuffed - but there was still fried rice. I tasted a little bit - was not too impressed. Fried rice is best done with overnight rice - this version was a bit too wet.

Beef fried rice

A word of caution - if you are looking for fancy hand work for teppanyaki, there is not much  to rave about

Then, came the finale - a choice between mango or green tea ice-cream


I was really, really stuffed at the end of the meal. Then came the bill - they automatically put a 15% tip on top of the bill and when we paid using our credit card, the machine again asked us whether we wanted to include a tip. Now, that was not too classy. I totally understand if this is part and parcel of the settings in the credit card, but it will be totally helpful if the server can inform us that the tip has already been included in the bill. Maybe - Gator was being picky but what if you were not paying attention and immediately added on more tip on your credit card? My dining companion was also kinda peeved - thanks for paying for the tip and drinks :)

Deco: Functional. I like the waiting area before you proceed for your teppanyaki
Quality of food: 4/5 - it was not bad actually. I had had some fancy teppanyaki years ago in Asia but I am not complaining about the quality of the beef and seafood etc.
Value for $$: There is no way that I am going to spend over $100 bucks for this teppayaki but the Groupon was a good deal. Still, my dining experience was marred by the tip/credit card at the end. If you are expecting some fancy display of knives etc, you wouldn't see much of it. The modus operadi is to serve a bunch of customers (maybe 6 of you) at the same time. Efficiency is the name of the game here.
Overall Experience: 3/5 - I was thinking that I would grade this place with a higher score, since there was variety etc. But, there were a couple of things that irked me. For example, they never offered us a place to hang our coats - I later found that they had a closet where you can hang your coats. Gator hates the smell of food getting into my coat etc which kinda explained why I am not too thrilled with BBQ food or teppanyaki - you kinda smell like cooked food after exiting the restaurant. Its worth a try only if you have the Groupon.