Munchie Adventure: Miku Restaurant, Downtown Vancouver

Restaurant: Miku Restaurant (visit their website here)
Location: #2-1055 West Hastings Street (Guinness Tower), Vancouver
Cuisine: Japanese
Price range: $20+ per person




Date of visit: August 28, 2012
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 3/5
Food quality: 4/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

Fancy miso soup bowl! Took a bit of
effort to take the lid off though =P

This time me, my friend JC and his brother went for the long-awaited Miku Zen lunch ($24.00) =D We were there pretty early, not the first people there though. Our waiter was really nice, seems like the norm for Miku hehe Nowww onto the food!

Miso soup was miso soup. Just like every other place, I don't know if it counts as a bonus that they didn't mess it up? xD

Anyways, we all got the same thing, so the only difference was...eating speed. I'm a very slow muncher, so pretty much they ended up waiting for me. The problem about slow eating came when some of the foods had to be eaten fresh, but I can't eat it in time ><"

The display was very beautiful and the waiter explained to us in detail what each dish was.

First thing was the tofu salad. I'm sure there were fancy names, but I don't remember them ^^" I liked this, the tofu was cooked then crushed, placed on a bed of various veggies, and topped with some crunchy strips of what seemed like spring roll skins. Pretty good, a bit on the oily side though.

Then was an albacore tuna on white radish with onions. The onions were the highlight of this dish, sweet and flavorful, it went really well with the radish. Tuna was meh, but then again, I'm not a fan of tuna to begin with, so it might be biased :)

I would just call this deep fried chicken breast nuggets. It had a better name for sure, but that's what it was. Topped with a white sauce that I couldn't really remember anything special about, this chicken didn't stand out to me that much. It was juicy though, so cooking time was perfect. I probably ate it too slow, so it wasn't crispy anymore.

Last in this wooden box was the buckwheat noodles with tempura flakes and flame broiled duck breast. The piece of duck wasn't that big, nor was it that broiled. The noodles were chewy and the soy base was tasty. However, due to me eating slow, the tempura flakes just got all soggy and gross. *sadface*

Onto sushi!! There were five pieces in total, the first two (from right to left) being their infamous aburi salmon sushi, which I was really looking forward to!! Too bad I ate it too slowly, it had become cold and the fat was starting to harden ><" Not as amazing as my first time. Then was the albacore tuna. It was topped with a zesty sauce, which complimented the tuna well. the shrimp, as JC's brother said, was like ranch sauce on a pizza. So... as I ate it, it reminded me of pizza too xD Not bad though! Last piece was the hamachi, it was really fishy ><" The sauce on top was some sort of wasabi sauce, a bit strong if taken all in at once.

Since I was finally done, we decided on dessert, so why not go all out, and try the $10 desserts? That's what we did. We got the Coconut Blueberry Cream, which was like the other ones, all with fancy descriptions of items I didn't know =P Anyways, when it came, it looked AMAZING. The sorbet was the highlight for me, when I put it in my mouth, it was like an explosion of flavors!! There was the blueberry with a hint of lavender, and not too sweet. Loved it. The coconut cookie part was hard to get at, and I didn't like it as much as the sorbet. Maybe if I wasn't so full from the Miku Zen, I would've enjoyed it more. The candy swirl on top was good too =P Added a nice touch.

Then the brothers decided to gorge on more ice cream ($4.50) to end our fantastic adventure. Vanilla and green tea this time. The balls of ice cream actually looked smaller this time =O Are they cheaping out on ICE CREAM?? Anyways, looked like it was very enjoyable since I was too full to fit anything else into me haha.

Last, here's our bill (it ended up to be $110 with tips and everything). A bit pricey IMO, but hey, once in a while, it's nice to spoil ourselves :) A big thanks to my friend who treated ^^ Maybe someday when I have more financial stability, I'll come back and do this again =P