Calamari – “Done the Right Way”

I’m quite impressed by the Vancouver Chinatown scene nowadays. There has been quite a few new, cool restaurants in the area. I went to try another – Torafuku, the other day. Again, it was a modern, fusion Japanese concept. There were booths and a communal table as well. Everything was tapas style so we ordered a few dishes to share between the two of us. We choose “Rye So Messy Chicken Wings” and “Kissass Rice 2.0″. And we went with their recommendations – the “Gone Fishing” and “Calamari – done the right way”. The chicken wings were tasty encased in “Ramen Crumble” and “KFC sauce”. What? That’s what. For the “Kickass Rice”, we obviously did not read the “Aburi-style” in the description since we were both expecting a rice bowl. Instead, we were presented with Aburi-style sushi, which was a nigiri sushi where the fish/topping is partially seared. In this case, it was a pork belly and it was delicious. The presentation was also very nice. The concept of “Gone Fishing” is very cool. It is basically fresh fish cooked whatever way they like. Today, they were frying it and placed on top of rice and drizzled it with special Japanese mayo sauce. It sounded delicious when it was marketed to us. The taste was alright. It was lack-lustre compared to the other dishes. And I’m saving the best for last because the calamari was really “done the right way”. It exceeded my expectations and was definitely my favourite dish for the night. I am not quite sure what they added to the seasoning but it was delicious! Overall, a pleasant experience with above average dishes. Loved the ambience minus the loud music as we found it quite difficult to catch up and chat over that.