Manzo Itamae: Japanese izakaya in Richmond

Manzo Itamae is a Japanese-style izakaya located in Richmond. My boyfriend took me here on a date night and got this restaurant mixed up with their sister location, Manzo Izakaya. Luckily, the menu is very similar and actually their locations are only a few minute drive away as well. This review is based on an in-dining experience.

Interior

The interior is kinda cool. It’s mostly dark with red furniture but I like how they display all the sake bottles. We asked to move our table to a more secluded area and the servers were happy to comply. I did notice that most of the servers are/speak Chinese so just a side note for authenticity (i.e. perhaps not run by Japanese folks).

Food

We order a bunch of different items because their menu is huge. Literally has everything.

Lemon chu hai and a calpi sour ($7 each)

We ordered 4 drinks throughout the night – all Japanese cocktails – and I have to say they all tasted pretty bad. The drinks tasted like a lot of flavoured syrup and hard liquor, but at least it got us tipsy.

Deluxe assorted sashimi ($60)

We start off with the deluxe assorted sashimi, which comes with almost 30 pieces of sashimi. They don’t give you any premium items like uni or toro, but they have decent thick cuts of the usual – tuna, wild salmon, mackerel, octopus, Thai yellow snapper, sweet prawn, etc.

I thought the quality of the sashimi was quite good as it tasted fresh and not frozen. Slices were thick and well proportioned.

Softshell crab ($15)

My boyfriend and I are suckers for soft-shell crab so we decide to order this. It was actually one of my favourite dishes of the night! The soft-shell crab was fried lightly and not greasy and we were able to eat every part. The ponzu sauce the served it well complimented the dish and I also liked the fish roe they included to make it a bit saltier/heavier.

Yakitori ($10)

We ordered 2 chicken skewers for $10 – most of their skewers come in orders of 2. The chicken skewer was quite juicy and we liked it, but it is quite expensive at $5 per skewer.

Oyster motoyaki ($6)

An oyster motoyaki is a baked oyster with mayo. Note that it is a big oyster! It tasted very similar to how it would taste if we ever made it at home.

Octopus karaage

This was on their specials of the day menu so I forgot to note the price, but I think it’ll be around $10-15. This dish was slightly disappointing because the deep fried batter on the outside wasn’t sticking well to the octopus meat, but pairing it with mayo was tasty.

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐

We had a pretty enjoyable dinner at Manzo Itamae. My favourite dishes of the night was the deluxe assorted sashimi and the soft-shell crab.

We actually had quite a difficult time choosing what to order from the menu because their menu is so large and covers so many different food, from skewers to sushi/sashimi to hot pot. I find that usually when a place has such a large menu, they don’t excel in any specific type of food, which is why I found everything mostly average and nothing extraordinary. I also saw sushi pizza on their menu, which horrified me.

Prices were on the high side and izakaya style quickly adds up. If you are ordering sushi rolls, it might be reasonably priced. For our dinner for 2 + 4 drinks, our total came to around $140-150.

Sincerely, Loewe