New Fuji: New Japanese restaurant in Kitsilano
New Fuji is the newest addition to a popular chain of Japanese restaurants across the Lower Mainland. If you are a fan of Raisu, Suika, Kingyo, Rajio or Takenaka, then you will want to check out their new sister restaurant, New Fuji.
Recommended: Read my reviews of my past visits to New Fuji’s sister restaurants:
Raisu: Uni omakase 2022
Raisu: Anniversary dinner 2019
Kingyo: Birthday dinner 2023
Kingyo: Izakaya 2022
We paid New Fuji a visit for my fiancé’s birthday dinner this month and holy shit did I over-eat 🤰🏻. I ate so much I had to go for a stroll after dinner and I wanted to puke. This sounds like toxic behaviour but it was because there were so many dishes we wanted to try on the menu and because it was a birthday dinner, we just over-indulged. Luckily for you my reader, at least you will get to learn about all the dishes we tried.
The vibe
The interior of New Fuji is pretty cool. They have a retro Japanes vibe going with posters and memorabilia from popular films and celebrities. The most aesthetic thing to look at is their very cool bar that is filled with lit up blue squares and more collector items.
Next to the cool bar, they have a pretty big grill station and actually their menu offers quite a lot of robata /grill items and meat, so there is some smoke/bbq smell that will waft through the restaurant even though they have proper ventilation above the grill.
I would say the overall size of the restaurant is medium, and most tables fit 2-4 people. They have a few larger table options and bar seating available. We were seated at a pretty small but cute table by the window for 2 people.
Food and drinks review
Here is everything we ordered for 2 adults (too much food. Do not be like us). Prices are in CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar.
Dirty yuzu shirley temple ($13) + Shochu slush ($12)
New Fuji has an extensive cocktail menu full of really delicious and fruity sounding drinks (these are right up my alley). All cocktails are also reasonably priced at an average of $11-13 and for all drinks, you have the option to make it a virgin cocktail and only pay around $7 instead – great for friends who do not drink!
We ordered 2 cocktails off of their specials menu of the day. The dirty yuzu shirley temple was recommended as the prettiest cocktail on the specials list. It has 1.5oz of vodka, yuzu, citrus mix (yuzu juice, grapefruit juice, orange juice), grenadine and sprite. It was a very pretty and refreshing cocktail – tastes like juice.
My fiancé ordered the shochu slush, which uses Dandan shochu slushy (1oz), pink grapefruit juice and frozen raspberry bits. It was also very fruity but had a more frozen/slushy texture.
Unagi omelette ($12)
The first appetizer we ordered came very quickly. It was a simple egg dish cooked in a fluffy omelette form with some chopped unagi/eel.
I originally wondered really $12 for an omelette 🤨 but man, this was so good. There wasn’t a lot of eel in the omelette, but the real deliciousness comes from the sauce it is cooked in! The egg is fluffy and soft and warm, very comforting and the sauce it is soaking in is so full of umami and will make you feel like you have a Japanese mother who loves you 😭.
So yummy but also quite filling!
Truffle corn karaage ($8)
I have been really into corn in the last few years so I really wanted to order this corn karaage that normally I wouldn’t order because it’s $8. I will say though that for the portion size, $8 is acceptable.
The corn cobs are chopped and very lightly deep fried then tossed in a truffle butter sauce. I did taste the truffle flavour coming through and as expected, it tasted good with the corn. The way it is chopped also made it quite easy to eat, which I appreciate.
Crispened duck ($15)
This is from their robata section of the menu – sliced duck with crispy skin in a balsamic reduction, sweetened soy sauce, and some arugula.
I felt this crispy duck was pretty tasty and wasn’t overcooked. The sauce was a good pairing with it.
Dashi butter scallop ($6/pc)
Also on New Fuji’s grill menu, we order the scallops that are cooked in a sweet soy BBQ sauce. This is a pricier item but if you love grilled scallops you should still try it.
The scallops are imported from Hokkaido and they were certainly delicious – juicy and full of flavour! We drank the butter and sauce leftover in the shell.
Beef fillet nigiri ($5) + AAA Kalbi nigiri ($6)
Kelvin ordered these 2 individual meat sushi – there are quite a few red meat options at New Fuji. Out of these 2, the beef fillet one tasted better but he didn’t think either was very worth it.
Bluefin negitoro long pressed sushi ($28)
Craving some more seafood, we decide to order this long pressed sushi with negitoro (chopped tuna). It is topped with some rice crackers, onion, apples, and shiso chimichurri. One order comes with around 10 pieces of sushi so this would be pretty fun to share with others, but for 2 people I think this is a bit too much. I saw on their lunch menu they had a half order, which would have been perfect, but they only have the full version on the dinner menu.
Uni and wagyu bara chirashi ($38)
This was the most expensive item we ordered on the menu – the uni and wagyu bara chirashi for $38.
It came in a pretty big wooden bowl (it is not a very deep bowl) and is good to share between 2-4 people. I would recommend this if you want something filling at the end of your meal.
Inside there is a bottom layer of sushi rice, and then they decorate the top with cubed wagyu steak, tamago cubes, fish eggs and uni sashimi. There is a light soy sauce in here also and you basically mix it all up and eat it.
I felt for the price, this wasn’t a bad deal because there was quite a lot of uni in there. However, my fiance felt the uni was a bit too fishy so maybe the quality is not premium (it tasted fine to me but I’ve definitely had sweeter uni before). The wagyu cubes were good but I honestly can’t tell this is wagyu.
Snow crab, scallop and crab miso cream udon ($28)
Lastly, New Fuji has a lot of soup and yaki udon dishes for you to choose from. From the menu, we decided on the snow crab and scallop cream miso udon.
It came in the biggest bowl I have ever seen 😳 – totally unnecessary but kinda fun.
The soup udon was good and it was creamy but I did feel like it wasn’t as special as I thought it would be. There wasn’t that much snow crab in it and the scallops were small/thinly sliced and kind of dry. I also feel like this cream miso udon (or a variation of it) is available on a lot of their sister restaurant menus so I don’t think it was that unique in that aspect.
Ichigo cake daifuku ($10) + Tiramisu parfait alle fragole ($12)
So we were really full after ordering all that food, but we still wanted to try some dessert. Their dessert menu boasted a lot of strawberry so I was pretty excited because I love strawberries.
The ichigo cake daifuku is the little nugget on the left hand side in the photo. Wrapped inside a layer of mochi, there is a thin slice of sponge cake topped with red bean paste and a whole strawberry. The sauce on top is mascarpone sauce.
This daifuku was really large and good to share with 2 people. I found it reminiscent of those strawberry mochis you can buy at the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. I don’t usually like red bean paste, but I felt it really worked in this dessert.
The tiramisu parfait was the most pretty looking dessert, but long story short, I didn’t love it as much as the daifuku. The parfait had a base layer of cocoa cookie crumbles, covered with a tart strawberry sauce and tiramisu-inspired mascarpone (also contains some whiskey).
Taking my first bite of this dessert, I actually started coughing a little like the cinnamon challenge 😂. I think they sprinkled too much powder on top. Overall, I found the parfait a little dry and I prefer my tiramisu with a higher ratio of mascarpone than cake.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We had a really enjoyable dinner at New Fuji and think it is an awesome addition to the family group of restaurants.
Looking at the menu, we feel that New Fuji has a bigger strength in meat as their menu has a lot of red meat dishes and they have a whole robata grill section. The variety of cocktails is also a big plus for us. We recommend you to check out New Fuji if you are hanging out with your friends or celebrating some sort of special occasion.
When we first entered the restaurant, they made sure to write down our names so they could present us a special little birthday dessert. We were actually already really full + ordered 2 desserts so we were surprised they gave us a 3rd dessert, which was a sort of strawberry sherbet (refreshing!). They also wrote our names on the plate, lit a candle and sang happy birthday to us. The service was really friendly and warming and they were also good at recommending items on the menu.
After tax and tip, we spent around $240 for 2 people.
Sincerely, Loewe