Shizen Ya. Organic brown rice. Sustainable fish. And they told me to avoid the pickled ginger.
All that to make my meal as eco-friendly (and gluten-free—the ginger) as possible.
And it was tasty. The brown rice didn’t taste too whole-grain-y.
The spinach gomae was n a thick and textured homemade peanut sauce. Sweet and addictive.
The ambiance was relaxing. I went to the location on Broadway and had great service. Normally Sushi restaurants don’t even know what gluten is, and I’d never been warned about the ginger before. They didn’t make their own here, but at least they knew to warn me. I’d wondered why I kept having gluten-reactions to sushi when I’d bring my own gluten-free soy sauce. Oh, and they provided gluten-free soy sauce, which saved me from lugging around my bottle.
The wild sockeye salmon and sustainable tuna were bright and fresh. And you could get real crab in your California roll, not fake imitation crab made from pollock, which, thought sort of sustainable, is full of gluten and sweeteners and preservatives.
This is a non-sustainable sushi menu I had in Richmond, BC:
It reads nice, doesn’t it? But the fish is cheap. This is what came to the table:
Pretty, right? But it looks factory-cut. There’s no art to the slices. The salmon didn’t taste like anything. The white fish is oily butterfish, which tastes great but can apparently make you sick in large quantities. It’s also not sustainable. This is all defrosted blah-fish. Blah is not a type of fish. It’s a description of the lack of flavour and freshness.
I’d rather spend $15 on an appropriately sized meal of quality fish with not too many choices and great ambiance than less on low quality sushi en masse.
ADDRESS : 985 Hornby St., Vancouver, B.C.
PHONE : 604.568.0013
Open daily 11:30am-10pm
ADDRESS : 1102 W.Broadway, Vancouver, B.C.
PHONE : 604.569.3721
Open Mon-Sat 11:30am-10pm
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