Zakkushi on Denman

Mr. Clam and I went Downtown on Saturday, and we walked along Robson Street to look for food.  Both of us felt like Asian food that night.  For a moment, I was half jokingly telling him that if we couldn't find anything we wanted by Denman street, we'd go to Hon's.  Of course, he didn't like that idea.  (Nothing wrong with Hon's Wun-Tun, it's just that if we wanna have Chinese food, we'd go somewhere else.) So! We were at the end of Robson and Denman, and we still couldn't find anything we wanted.  In the end, he decided to try a restaurant on Denman St. - Zakkushi.

It was our first time at this restaurant.  We took a look at the menu... it has LOTS of grilled skewers.  It took us a while to decide what to eat. In the end, we ordered:
(sorry the pictures are taken from cell phone, so the quality is not good)

Asahi Black.  Mr. Clam it's hard to find in other restaurants.

Assorted Oden:

Ume Shiso Tsukune (Chicken meat balls with ume and shiso leaf):

Omochi maki:

Kushi set:

Chicken Gyoza:

Banana Gyoza:

Mr. Clam and I liked all the dishes!!!  I could eat the tofu pocket with mochi (もち巾 in Japanese, not sure what that's called in English) in the Oden dish, which made me SOOOO HAPPY!  I was surprised that the plum sauce (ume and shiso) tasted so well with chicken meat!  I'm definitely going to buy a bottle of plum sauce now!  The mochi was really crunchy on the outside - loved it!  Chicken Gyoza... I thought it was just regular gyoza, but it turned out to be chicken wings deboned and then stuffed with chicken meat.  Hmm... I"m thinking maybe I'll try it some time (when I'm really bored and have nothing to do).  Banana Gyoza... the idea is very new, but to be honest, it's just ok.  

We paid about $60 for 2 people, which is not bad for Japanese food downtown.  We also knew that they have 2 other stores in Vancouver.  I guess we'll try those 2 restaurants later! :)