Went for lunch recently at apparently the only Hapa Izakaya that serves lunch, the Coal Harbour location.
This location is located near the convention centre area where the new Rogue location is. When we arrived, it was around 1pm and this place was packed with business suited people. No surprise this was a favourite among workers downtown!
There were a bunch of people waiting at the front of the restaurant, but we had reservations so we walked right in and got our table. We were seated in this section of the restaurant:
The couch seating is quite nice and comfy, and they have TV's on both ends of this room. The bar is to the right of this photo and turns around further to the right in an L shape. If you can't tell, those are mirrors on the left wall, so this room only "seems" much larger than it is.
I like to take photos of the setting!
Starting off with drinks, we were about to order beers, but then sake came up on the menu, and our minds changed to drinking sake with our lunch! This was probably my second time ever having sake, so I had forgotten what it tasted like. We ordered a hot sake, because apparently hot sake is better than cold.
They were served in little cups as seen in the photo above. The photos aren't the best quality due to the dim lighting at the restaurant, but you get the idea!
This sake tasted very smooth and went down like nothing! It had a very nice easy flavour to it, which went well with the food we had.
Now, onto the food!
We started off with several appetizers, as usual! The first was a chopped tuna ceviche style topping served with chips. This was pretty tasty and a nice dish to get our appetite going. It has a nice salty seasoned flavour and pairs well with the chips. I don't care much for the radish on top though. (I don't like radish...)
Next was a very delicious dish of beef tataki! They provide a lemon to squeeze on top, but we were so hungry we devoured it before even thinking about the lemon! This dish, as you can see, provides ample portion to share among the 5 of us.
Next came the lettuce wraps with some very delicious grilled pork! The pork was so juicy and the sauce provided paired very well with the lettuce wrap. The lettuce pieces provided weren't the most ideal pieces of lettuce for wraps, but they sufficed.
We also ordered a dynamite roll, which was your typical dynamite roll as can be seen in the photo above. Nothing special of note here.
Next we had a curry rice bowl served in a stone bowl! It arrives nicely plated, but this is the end result after the server mixes it all up. The flavour is superb in this dish and is definitely worth trying! All the flavours combine together to make a wonderful tasting rice bowl. The rice bowl wasn't too soggy and wasn't too dry, it was right in the middle! I can't say I tasted any curry though...
We also ordered the Agedashi Tofu, which was another common Japanese dish. This was good, but nothing special to note here. Photo courtesy of Ricky.
This was the YakiUdon we ordered as well, which I apparently didn't eat! There were so many other dished that I somehow neglected to try this one! I've heard from my coworkers that this was was pretty good though! Photo courtesy of Ricky.
We also had the cod, which was VERY delicious! It's almost like fish and chips, without the fries, done up Jap style! Photo courtesy of Ricky.
Of course we had to order some sashimi! Here we have a variety of salmon, tuna, and a third one that I forgot what it was, but it was very good regardless! Photo courtesy of Ricky.
This I believe was the baked saba. This was AMAZING! Definitely worth trying if you haven't already! The fish is cooked through very nicely and is flavoured so well that it goes through to the meat! Photo courtesy of Ricky.
We believe this was the Salmon and Hamachi Yukke, but we could be wrong...It was similar to the tuna dish with chips, excep this one was salmon and served with garlic baguette toast instead! Very delicious regardless! Photo courtesy of Ricky.
Going to Hapa just isn't complete without an order or Ebi Mayo, although the portions are always so little, but good as always! Wish I could just have endless Ebi Mayo...Photo courtesy of Ricky.
Lastly, we ordered their Yakitori, which were three soy-ginger marinated chicken skewers, two grilled chicken meat balls brushed with Hapa's signature Yakitori sauce. The chicken and the meat balls were both very good, and came off the stick very easily! Very delish! Photo courtesy of Ricky.
So as you can see, we had A LOT of dishes, and they were all very yummy! The service was good as we were attended to very quickly when we needed it, and they provided excellent suggestions for the menu when ordering. Plates were also cleared for us with new plates once in a while when they deemed it necessary. Since we ordered so much food, and the table next to us had no one, they gave us that table as an add on to place all the other food, hence a good portion of the photos being credited to Ricky as he was much closer to that table than I was.
Overall this place is awesome! Great food, great sake, great service, great decor, great ambiance! I definitely recommend trying this location out if you haven't yet. Only thing is, being downtown, you gotta pay for parking, wherever you end up parking, or you can transit and skytrain to Waterfront.
Food:
4/5
Service:
4/5$$
4/5
- Phil
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