I'm Only Here for the Food!

Numero Uno Pizza
708 Davie Street
1020 Granville Street (Location visited)
Vancouver, BC

Kuroshio Sushi Express
1011 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC

A constant “complain” in Vancouver is that it is a boring city. Most places are closed relatively early, no decent entertainment locations, et al. Whether this is true or not, I can’t say for certain, though I can vouch after certain hours (10:00 p.m.!), most places are indeed closed. The main entertainment center in Vancouver is Granville Street and, after clubbing or going to the theatres, chances are you might want to get something to eat. After my visit to Yaletown, as I blogged yesterday, I dropped by the area to, as expected, get something to eat. Sure, it was way before midnight but that gave me the chance to eat something and snap pictures undisturbed (well, almost).

My first stop was Numero Uno Pizza. This is its second location, the other one being in Davie Street.

Before I continue, notice those barriers. It happens right now there are constructions in the area due to the Canada Line, the rapid transit system that will connect Richmond and YVR (Vancouver International Airport) to Downtown Vancouver.

One thing that might raise your eyebrow is the claim of freshness. If your idea of fresh is being sitting under a heating lamp for who-knows-how-long, I would rather just skip that claim and overlook that. Anyway, I went for their “special”, i.e., two slices with a can of pop/soda. And here are the two pieces:

To the left, what looks like ground beef with a mayo topping and, to the right, the infamous Hawaiian, ham with pineapple.

In both cases, they were bad: Bland and tasteless. I have doubts it would have been any better had it been fresh, as I could not taste any hint of the sauce at all. The only redeeming quality was the sesame seeds on the crust.

After that unsatisfying quick-bite, I went across the street to Kuroshio.

While we have heard a lot about fancy sushi spots, it is interesting that they took sushi back to its roots, i.e., that of a snack/street food. While there were a couple of nigiri items, their emphasis was mostly on maki/rolls.

Now, I was not too hungry so I went for something small, their “burrito” (just under $3). OK, I know it sounds funny, Mexican and Japanese? If you think about it, if you have a roll with the seaweed outside and choose not to cut it, what do you end up with? If you can’t imagine it, well, just look below…

I think I should have place a coin beside it for scale purposes. If I have to say, it was about 8 cm/3 or so inches. Don’t quote on me though, I was having troubles of my own trying to take this picture on the street to worry about measurements!

Sorry for the fuzzy pictures!

In my particular case, I went for the BC roll version, i.e., grilled salmon skin. While it had some rolls characteristics, for example, the umami taste of the seaweed, other flavours were lost, either due to the lack of vinegar in the sushi rice or the lack of crispiness of the salmon skin.

Overall, out of the two, Kuroshio was decent. However, based on what I had, neither one would be places I would go because of the food. If it is a really late snack, may be. But then again, it is unlikely I would end up on such situation. Go ahead, feel free to call me boring!