What is That Smell?

Sometimes the lack of planning leads to good things...sometimes. Thankfully, this was one of those times. On a balmy Saturday afternoon, we just wanted some Japanese nosh coupled with air conditioning and came across Shuraku on Granville Street in downtown Van City. Now anyone who knows Granville, knows that it is pee-central, so naturally that pee wafts into restaurants who have their doors open. It was a balmy day, like I said, so obvi Shuraku's patio doors were wide open to some pungent pee aromas. Not really what you want to have with your meal, but no one inside seemed to be bothered by it. O-kay (eyebrow raise). I was too hungry, so the goal was to eat quickly and get the hell out.

Like lightning speed, we ordered the lunch box and the stone curry.

The lunch box was more food than expected! From the top left - california rolls; shrimp, asparagus, eggplant and zucchini tempura, seaweed salad and beef short ribs. The rolls were aight; the tempura, however, were excellent, coated with an airy (albeit non-oily) batter. The seaweed salad was fresh and light which complemented the hearty grilled beef. Quite a bit of food for one person, but perfect for one very hungry person.

The stone curry, which was a house-made Japanese curry, engulfed the rice beneath it with some righteous chicken karaage proudly sitting atop. This is something I definitely see myself coming back to on a cold, rainy day. Note to everyone: let this sit for a bit to cool down and cut up the chicken so it lets some of the steam out or do what I did and dive in and burn your whole mouth. Verdict: so worth it! I didn't think chicken kaarage could get any better, but enveloped by that curry, oh my, pure bliss.

And about that pee smell...what pee smell? I guess we just became nose blind. Well, what do you know!

Kits-Italiano

Compared to Toronto, Italian cuisine in Vancouver is expensive. I don't know why, but it is. But you can't live on sushi and ramen forever, so when that craving hits, you gotta give in. Coincidentally, our hunger pangs surfaced the same time as the Celebration of Lights (BC's firework festival/competition), so we thought we make a night out of it. After some research, we came cross Novo Pizzeria & Wine Bar, a wood-fired pizza joint in Kitsilano that was not too far from the firework festivities. Perfect.

Ordering was relatively easy - 2 glasses of wine, the burrata special to start, chorizo pizza and mushroom pasta. The burrata arrived pretty quickly and was, well, weird.

It was goopy, not the solid mass that I'm used to. But then we realized it was a stracciatella, which is supposed to resemble shredded burrata. I'm sorry, but this is soup. Albeit, with delicious figs and the best deli meat in the world aka prosciutto, but still soup. It was belatedly accompanied by some toasted house-made bread, though useful as a vehicle to scoop the cheese, it didn't really complement the flavour. Strange, just strange.

The chorizo pizza was adorned with mozzarella, basil, smoked provolone, ricotta di bufala and some thyme honey, and was definitely quite appealing to the eye. The crust was spot on, but the pizza, in general, was too sweet. If the meat was on the spicier side, it would have been a home run. The balance was just off.

The pasta was a truffled funghi fettucine drizzled with garlic, thyme oil, chilli flakes, lemon, parsley and a dollop of pecorino romani. Flavourful right? Wrong. Absolutely zero flavour. First off, truffled fettucine should have a hint of truffle flavour; as Al said, maybe it was once in a room with truffles. The mushrooms were bland and supposedly a mix, but I'm pretty sure they were all the same. The pasta itself was beautifully al dente, but, at the end, such a waste.

Why did we bother with dessert after such a lack-lustre meal? Because I can't resist sweet stuff okay! And, I'm so glad we did. This tiramisu was all sorts of goals.

Sturdy so we could see all the layers, moist (sorry, Sandra, I know you hate this word), gorgeous coffee flavour and good-quality cocoa. High five, Novo! This was by far, the best thing they served.

With our bellies full, but not exactly thrilled with the food, we made our way to the fireworks. Btw: the competitors were Japan, UK and Canada. Spoiler alert: Japan won. On second thought, maybe we should have gone for sushi and ramen anyway!