Takenaka Uni Bar: $185 Valentine’s Day special course for 2
Valentine’s Day is coming up and what I always look for is a restaurant with a special tasting menu 🥰. I don’t like to order al le carte on special occasions – I want to have a curated set meal where someone else made the decisions and not me for once 🙃.
Takenaka Uni Bar currently has a special Valentine’s Day course menu priced at $185 for 2 people 💖. The uni bar location in Gastown is still pretty new considering their origins started as a food truck. We actually dined here back in June when we signed our wedding papers because they had a regular tasting menu priced at $168 for 2.
We were invited to try out their Valentine’s Day menu and we were totally blown away 🤯! Some restaurants like to use Valentine’s Day as a reason to sell overpriced tasting menus to folks, but I really believe their Valentine’s Day menu is worth every dollar and it is way better than the regular tasting menu we had in the summer. Here is everything it includes (spoiler: a lot of uni 😉)!
Recommended: Read my full review of Takenaka Uni Bar’s regular $168 tasting menu for 2.
Takenaka Uni Bar
52 Powell St, Vancouver, BC V6A 1E7
The vibe
I mentioned this in my last review of Takenaka, but the interior of their restaurant space really reminds me of Rodney’s Oyster Bar 🤔. There are a lot of wooden elements like the wooden table tops, bar seating, and the white wooden chairs.
Last time we were here, we found the lighting to be a little bad for photos. This time, we were seated near the window and we felt the lighting was much better.
Food and drinks review
Disclaimer: As part of an Instagram collab, we got to try the Valentine’s Day special course menu for free. The menu is priced at $185 for 2 people and this is everything it includes.
Drinks: Yuzu and peach sake
The tasting menu comes with 2 drinks which is awesome! They have non-alcoholic options like tea and mocktails, but we both opted for a fruit sake. Previously, we tried the lychee and peach sake. This time, we tried the yuzu sake and peach sake.
Out of all 3 sakes, I can confidently say we liked the yuzu one the most 🍋. It was the most refreshing! The lychee and peach were both sweeter with the peach being the sweetest. We got it on the rocks and it stayed cold and nice to sip throughout our entire dinner.
Local uni matcha soba
The first item that arrived was something we tried before in their regular tasting menu – the uni matcha soba. This is a small cold appetizer made with matcha soba noodles, Japanese yam, quail egg, dashi jelly and topped with uni (sea urchin).
You mix it all up to eat and it has this creamy and light texture. It is also quite appetizing. I can taste the green tea flavour from the noodles and the dashi jelly explodes in your mouth. The quail egg and uni gives it that creamy taste.
Japan & local uni egg roll
The next dish that arrived were the uni egg rolls. There are 4 in total and they are big one biters (I have a big mouth so I can fit it in 1 bite 😂). Two of them feature local uni and the other two use Japanese uni. The actual roll has a kind of cooked egg yolk that is still runny but stands as a solid and some ikura (salmon caviar).
I really liked the little soy sauce dispenser they stabbed in here – so cute!
These rolls were umami bombs 🤩! So much flavour, so creamy, and so well-balanced. It was a little hard to differentiate between the different types of uni but my feeling was that the local uni tasted a bit more “fishy” or “like the ocean” while the Japanese uni tasted sweeter.
Fresh sashimi platter
This course was the star of the show 🤩! Our mouths were open when this sashimi platter arrived at our table. Granted, it wasn’t the largest sashimi platter we’ve ever ordered but it was plated so beautifully and each item looked luxurious and extravagant.
What is included in this sashimi platter? 4 kinds of sashimi – salmon x2, yellowtail x2, scallops x4, and amaebi (spot or sweet prawn). Also, there are 4 large oysters topped with local and Japanese uni, more scallop sashimi, and ikura.
All of the sashimi tasted so fresh. My favourite was the scallop sashimi – so sweet and clear! I also liked the prawn sashimi also but they were the small ones (I usually prefer the large ones but they are not in season).
The oysters really blew us away and it was our favourite item of the night 🦪. When I first tried to eat it, my big bite was just everything on top – the ikura, scallop sashimi and uni. It tasted so fresh and delicious… and then I realized I didn’t even fit the oyster in my mouth yet 💀. The raw oyster was creamy and also tasted very fresh and great with the ponzu sauce (again, in a cute little squirt bottle).
I was able to fit everything into my mouth for the second oyster and man… it was just so amazing 😋. So many pops of flavour and it just tasted like such an expensive oyster – definitely one of the best loaded oysters I’ve had in my life!
Japan uni chawanmushi
Ah, the classic chawanmushi. This is a steamed egg dish that is so comforting and makes my heart feel full. It comes in a small cup but don’t let the size fool you – it is full of lovely flavour and has that jiggle! It is topped with Japanese uni and ikura, but the star is definitely the simplicity of the egg custard itself. It is enveloped in this warm and savoury broth and has a bit of seafood in there.
Chef selected main dish: Yellowtail cheek
On the menu, there is a chef selected main dish. That means depending on the day and time, this dish will be different. On the day we went, the main dish was a yellowtail fish cheek.
We are a couple who actually like this part of the fish. We have ordered fish neck or collar or cheek quite often at other Japanese restaurants. You do have to kind of pick at it with your chopsticks, making it not that easy to eat so perhaps if you are not good with chopsticks, this may be a little weird for you, but not for us.
The skin had a nice crackling sound to it as we picked at it, but I did find most of the fish meat to be a little dry. I’m not sure if that’s because of the type of fish itself since we usually don’t order yellowtail fish cheek or neck/collar (we usually order salmon).
Uni comparison bowl
This uni comparison bowl was a lot of fun. We were expecting the bowl to be larger but it was smaller than we thought. However, once we started eating, we realized how filling it is and how full we already were from the previous courses.
They call it an uni comparison bowl because they lay out 2 different kinds of uni – local and Japanese, separated by a river of ikura.
I actually feel like this entire tasting menu has been a comparison between local and Japanese uni as it is featured in a lot of the other dishes like the egg roll and loaded raw oysters. But it was definitely easier to taste the difference when paired with just rice and ikura. As I had thought, the Japanese uni was creamier and sweeter, whereas the local uni was bigger (looked like it had the texture of a tongue) and more fishy tasting.
Miso soup
To pair with the luxurious uni bowl, you also get 2 bowls of miso soup. It was simple, comforting and warm, but nothing too special about it.
Dessert: Uni mousse cake
The dessert was something I’ve never tried before – uni mousse cake! I was like wow this menu sure has uni everywhere, even in the dessert 😮!
The uni is likely mixed into the mousse mixture. The mousse cake is very soft in texture with a bit of chocolate cake at the bottom, paired with whipped cream and some chocolate sauce and chips.
The chocolate did mask or hide most of it, but I could still taste the flavour of uni coming through. I can’t say I was super into it 😕. It gave it an interesting and new after taste, but I preferred last time’s desserts more (matcha panna cotta and salt caramel pudding).
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We just loved the Valentine’s Day menu at Takenaka Uni Bar and highly recommend it for any couples who love uni.
Priced at $185 for 2 people, that’s around $93 per person but it includes a drink and 8 luxurious courses. Compared to Takenaka Uni Bar’s regular tasting menu, this one is way better and only a $20 difference.
Our favourite menu items were the raw oysters loaded with sashimi and uni and the sashimi platter, the uni egg roll, steamed egg, and the uni comparison bowl. Everything tasted so well thought out and most importantly – special! On Valentine’s Day, we want to impress our partners and really celebrate each other and I think this special tasting menu is not only worth it, but also special and curated with love.
Service was great and very attentive. The staff are also good at explaining and recommending dishes from the al le carte menu. The food came quickly and multiple courses came all at once so you can have a whole feast in front of you.
The Valentine’s Day menu is available now until February 16 – make sure you check it out before it is gone! Super worth it.
Sincerely, Loewe