Hapa Umi

I was excited to revisit this restaurant because my experience was very positive the first time I was here. I looked forward to trying different dishes on the menu. Upon entering the restaurant, we were warmly greeted, and taken to our spacious seats. The entire restaurant definitely feels upscale due to the design and lighting. 

We were handed warm towels by the waitress before the meal began, very thoughtful. Being quite a large party, we ordered lots of food :)

We started off with the Oyster Tempura. This was a great start to the meal, I loved the slightly sour taste on the oyster from the sauce. I did not think there was too much frying batter, I think it was just right. It was a joy to bite into each piece. 

We also ordered two rolls, one of them was the Umi Roll, I forgot the name of the other one. The rectangle-shaped roll was very interesting for me. The rice used was like sticky rice which was pretty cool. 

The other roll tasted similar to a California roll to me, there was crab inside but what made it different was the piece of fish on top of the roll. I didn't think this roll was that special; the rectangle-shaped roll was awesome though!

We also got the Tuna Tataki. I would say this is one of the best foods I've had in a long long time. The "inner portion" of the tuna was cool, while the "outer ring" of the tuna was harder and had a "smoked" taste. That mixture of hot and cold in perfectly cut slices was great. 

The next dish was the Kakuni Scallop. The scallops of this dish were the best prepared scallops I've ever had in my life. It was just the perfect texture, temperature, freshness. The pork however was very average I thought, I thought it to be a little too "tough", I much prefer the Chinese style preparation of this meat. 

Next was the Chicken Karaage. I thought this was a wonderful value. The size of this dish for the price was excellent. These are like chicken nuggets, there are no bones and it is all organic chicken meat. The moment I bit into the chicken, I was impressed. The karaage just crumbles easily inside your mouth, delivering a salivating taste...

Next is the Sablefish. My favourite part about this was the fish skin. It was crispy and delicious. The fish itself was also better than what I've had at other restaurants. It did break apart too easily and had a smooth texture.

This one was the Bavette Steak. There was some miso on the plate to dip the steak into. This one was good as the steak was delicious, but I nothing really popped out at me for this dish.

For our last dish before desserts, we got the Kani Pasta. This was prepared using dungeness crab. I loved the taste of this dish, it reminded me of the Chinese-style preparation of crab using milk cream. The pasta itself was pretty good as well.

We ordered three desserts, the Chocolate Cake, Cheesecake, and the Polenta Cake. My favourites were the chocolate cake and cheesecake. The chocolate cake just explodes in chocolate when you bite into it. While the cheesecake was just, good.

Overall: Pricy for me, but a great great meal with excellent service.