Tasting Journey #6 - Hapa Umi

Hapa Umi
Waterfront Centre Office Tower
909 West Cordova Street, Vancouver
http://www.hapaumi.com/

Recently opened in March 2011, Hapa Umi is the sister restaurant of Hapa Izakaya. Unlike its sister restaurant (coming off my vague memory from visiting Hapa Izakaya 10+ yrs ago), this place is more like a fusion lounge bar where you can chat (but could be noisy depending on the crowd), and enjoy a well-prepared meal with quality food (of course, you pay for what you get!$$). As this restaurant is located in the heart of coal harbour, the crowd is mostly well-dressed, either in suits or business casual attire; probably guests who work in the area (considering that this is mostly a financial district).  But then again, there are the odd ones like us (luckily I wasn't in my stretchy pants that day) who wanted to take advantage of the deals offered by the Dine Out Vancouver event.

FYI - Dine Out Festival is a 2-week long event that takes place annually where participating restaurants offer set menus priced at $18, $28, and $38 ranges.  It is the largest restaurant festival in Canada, and is a good opportunity and excuse to try out new restaurants!

It was really a bonus dinner for me that day.  I was at work till 6pm and was about to go home when Carol/Karen spontaneously asked if I wanted to join them for Dine Out.  Apparently, they go through the list of participating restaurants every year, carefully reviews all the set menus offered, and lists out the restaurants that they'd like to try out.  Once they see a restaurant of interest, they make a reservation for a random x number of people on a random y day (I'm guessing evenly spread out across the 2 week period).  What I find interesting is that at this point in time, they still have not finalized any guest lists yet, ha.  Once all restaurants are booked, they round up the troops... Isn't it all just amazing!? I guess I lucked out by being at the right place and at the right time! ;) 

Despite all the other amazing dishes listed on the menu, we went ahead with the $38 3-course set menu.  Once we placed our orders, the first thing that the server did was 1) provide each person with a sauce dish, and 2) filled the sauce dish with soy sauce.  Interesting.  I wasn't sure why we were all poured soy sauce since my 3-courses are: Albacore Tuna Tataki, Umi-"Salisbury" Steak, followed by Matcha Mille Fuille for dessert.  Maybe the tuna with soy sauce? hm...maybe not.  None of us touched the sauce for the entire meal.  (I guess some people just felt that since this is a Japanese restaurant, the food's have to be paired with soy sauce?)

The dishes were very "well-dressed", as they were all nicely plated and arranged with decorative sauce & "side stuff".  Tuna Tataki was really well prepared, and was by far, my favourite dish of the night.  The slightly seared edges were crispy, and sprinkled with salt & pepper for added flavour.  The fish was fresh so you can fully enjoy the taste, texture and look of the dish.  Well done!  (the avocado sauce on the side is merely for the looks).  The Salisbury steak was...O..K..A..Y.... to me, it tasted like meat ball - sauteed ground beef, shaped in a ball.  I liked the plumb sauce that complimented the meat.  It offered a great balance to the richness of the meat. All the dishes were of decent quality, with the only disappointment of Karen's dessert - White Sesame Panna Cotta (black sesame ice-cream).  I'm not sure if it was made too early, or if something went wrong with the ice-cream maker, but when the dish was served, it did not look like an ice-cream to me. Rather, it was molten milk shake (left top image below).

   

The dishes at Hapa Umi can be considered delicate, and well-proportioned.  I would consider going their for fine dining for special occasions. (FYI - a california roll is $11, but they probably use real crab meat). I would rate it as a "thumbs-up".