Food Without Borders

Located in Yale­town in Van­cou­ver, BC, the cool mod­ern inte­rior is fronted by a large awning cov­ered patio where you can dine al fresco — which is usu­ally fine in Vancouver’s great weather. Opt for the out­door seat­ing if you are vis­it­ing from out of town. The restau­rant fea­tures yak­i­toris of var­i­ous types. They have kobe beef meat­ball, wild salmon, gin­ger glazed chicken, Louisiana fried oys­ter, tem­pura mush­room, scal­lops, short ribs , 7 spice rare ahi  tuna, and rose­mary lamb. Each is served with accom­pa­ni­ment of Asian slaw mar­i­nated in a sesame and gin­ger vinai­grette atop a crispy papadum. We ordered two yak­i­toris in the bar area and received dou­ble the slaw. This was fan­tas­tic since the slaw is light and plenty enough to serve as a salad when dining.

Once we were seated we were given fresh in house maid cin­na­mon sugar donuts — more like donettes since they were very small. This was a great alter­na­tive to bread and but­ter. But be care­ful, they are deli­cious and crispy, so I could imag­ine myself grab­bing a hand­ful and  throw­ing them into my mouth. My wife was not quite ready to order so she asked me to order first. I  ordered 5 dif­fer­ent yak­i­toris. Indi­vid­u­ally they are priced from 1.85 to 3.50 CAD; you can get a selec­tion of 10 for 24.00 which is share­able.  The waiter responded with thank you and left. He had seemed a lit­tle rushed ear­lier so I fig­ured he was going grab some­thing and would be right back. While the waiter was gone my wife and I dis­cussed that pos­si­bly he thought the order was large enough for the 2 of us — thus the rea­son he rushed off with­out tak­ing her order.  When the food arrived I was a lit­tle shocked. I did not think it would feed even me. I asked the waiter to come back over. I told him that my rife would like to order now. She decided on a Cae­sar salad — which I rec­om­mend any­one pass­ing on; it was noth­ing spe­cial with big cut of romaine and a pretty generic Cae­sar dressing.

Var­i­ous Yakitoris

There’s a lack of starches on the menu so we placed an order for the home fries. You may just con­sider going starch­less and then after your meal cross­ing the street to the bak­ery to grab a slice of bread. The short rib yak­i­tori  was ten­der and beefy as slow cooked short ribs should be. I also enjoyed the 7 spice rare ahi tuna and panko crusted oys­ter. Pass on the Kobe beef meat­ball; the mari­nara and herbs in the meat­ball mask any thoughts you would have that the beef was Kobe — the ten­der­ness could have just as well come from the plen­i­tude of bread­crumbs. The oys­ter is fried in a panko bread­ing and lightly sea­soned with Cajun spices. Its like a small hush-puppy with an oys­ter inside. After fin­ish­ing the yak­i­tori and  salad we ordered another oys­ter and chicken; the chicken varies in qual­ity depend­ing on whether you are given a wider or longer piece. The longer pieces are grilled bet­ter and have less fat.

Your best bet is to go to Glow­bal at night and order yak­i­toris along with a drink. After our meal, my wife and I looked around and noticed that most tables were eat­ing brunch — eggs, bacon, and home fries. We left won­der­ing if we should have done the same. — M.G.

Yak­i­tori Menu — at the Time We Visited