Tekkaba: New Japanese izakaya with omakase in Gastown

I was recently invited to try a dinner omakase at Tekkaba, a newly opened Japanese izakaya located in Gastown.

Omakase means “Leave it to you (the chef)”, and is usually a multi-course meal. Tekkaba offers lunch ($42 per person) and dinner omakase ($78 or 118 premium per person). I love omakase because I love having a curated menu and I get to try a variety of dishes. Here is everything we tried in the regular $78 dinner omakase.

---

The vibe

Very unassuming entrance leads to a larger-than-I-thought restaurant space. They have a grand piano near the entrance, and large booth seating alongside a brick wall. The booths are spacious and can fit 4 people each. There’s also a larger table in the back and a few bar seatings.

The vibe is pretty private as there aren’t really any tables near you. We were seated across from a kitchen bar, where a projector screen was hung on top and constantly playing a looping video of a pianist.

---

$78 Dinner omakase

This is their dinner omakase menu from August 23 – 27.

Chawanmushi

The first course arrived really fast – like we sat down and it was in front of us within seconds.

Chawanmushi is a steamed egg dish. This one here has sweet prawn and comes with some nuts (maybe pistachio?) and ichiban sauce. You pour in the nuts and sweet soy sauce on your own so if you are allergic to nuts, you can opt to not sprinkle it on top.

The chawanmushi had a great texture – had that jiggle! A very comforting and warm appetizer, although there wasn’t much sweet prawn inside (I had one piece).

Ankimo

Ankimo is monkfish liver – the little pile of brown crumbly bits on top of the arugula. It is served with some balsamic and a side of sponge egg with Tekkaba’s logo.

I’ve eaten ankimo a few times but it’s usually shaped into a circular piece that is smooth and can be picked up with chopsticks as one piece. Here, it is more like a mashed texture so it is easier to eat with the arugula underneath it, but it also broke apart quite easily.

Ankimo has a slightly bitter taste because it’s liver but it’s offset by the sweet balsamic sauce. The sponge egg was also a nice little side (sweet and fluffy).

Sweet prawn tempura

This next appetizer looked very appetizing when it arrived. It’s a deep fried sweet prawn with dendashi sauce.

The sweet prawn looked big and it was fried really well! The sauce on the bottom wasn’t too much so it didn’t make the whole thing soggy. They also deep fried the head so you can eat the whole thing (don’t waste!).

Pacific cod jiri

Next in the 4th course, we have a small bowl of traditional Japanese style cod soup with garlic and green onion.

It is a light soup and very clear. I only found one thin slice of cod in my soup, but it had a nice flavour to it still.

Sashimi (3 pieces)

Now we start our sashimi course! Our server brings us several condiments – salt and matcha powder, ginger, a Korean sauce (maybe samjang? or beanpaste?), and a classic wasabi and soy sauce.

The sashimi comes with 3 pieces – madai, bluefin tuna, and hamachi. I found them all to taste quite good and fresh, especially the bluefin tuna and the hamachi.

I tried dipping this sashimi in the different condiments but found the best combination to just be soy sauce. The Korean sauce overpowered the delicate flavours of the white fish and I just wasn’t a big fan of the salt and matcha powder pairing.

Our server also told us that the flowers are edible so we tried to eat them. They are a little bitter.

Nigiri (3 pieces)

Entering into our main courses, we have 3 pieces of nigiri sushi – jumbo prawn, madai and hotate (scallop). The madai comes with some wasabi and yuzu jus.

I start off first with the madai sushi – similar to the sashimi except it is paired with rice. The jumbo prawn was ok (I never really like the ebi sushi… often it tastes kinda dry to me and I prefer raw fish sushi). The hotate was big and fresh! Had a nice sweet taste to it.

Aburi nigiri (3 pieces)

Next we have a trio of aburi nigiri (these are often seared) – ika (squid), salmon toro and tuna toro.

Every time I’ve eaten ika sushi, I haven’t really liked it because the squid is usually kind of slippery and the wasabi gets separated and I end up with a glob of wasabi on my tongue and my nose hurts. Well finally this didn’t happen with this ika sushi! So I dare say it is the best ika sushi I’ve had 😂. The squid had a nice chewy texture and the lemon zest gave it some extra flavour. And look at the cuts on top! So intricate.

The salmon and tuna toro were both quite good – had that rich fatty flavour. It is more dependent on the original flavours of the fish compared to a salmon oshi aburi with mayo sauce on it (because there is no mayo here).

Nigiri (3 pieces)

Again we have another trio of nigiri, this time with a few more premium cuts of fish – hirame, jutoro and hamachi.

The hirame is a white fish and comes with a topping of black tobiko (fish eggs). The hamachi was actually my favourite and I loved the little burst of saltiness from the ikura eggs on top.

Lastly, the jutoro is a fatty tuna with some edible gold flakes on it (fancy 🤩). Delicious as expected, but I still thought the hamachi tasted more fresh.

Tako maki

Our last few main courses are arriving. Here is the tako maki, which is kind of confusing because I think tako means octopus in Japanese but there is no octopus in this dish. Instead, there’s some spicy scallop in a deconstructed hand roll with nori and rice.

The spicy marinade they use is very similar to the ones you’ll find at Korean-Japanese restaurants when you order the spicy sashimi.

Caviar truffle uni pasta

We end the mains with a starch – caviar truffle uni pasta! But actually we were told they ran out of caviar so they used black tobiko instead.

The pasta is a decent portion size for one person. I mixed the uni and black tobiko with the cream sauce and it was easy to eat and have the sauce coat all the pasta noodles. You can really smell the truffle, but the taste isn’t overpowering in the actual cream sauce (tastes more like a regular cream pasta with a hint of truffle). The uni kind of gets lost in the truffle flavour and the cream.

Candied sweet yam + ice cream

Finally for dessert we get 2 courses – a candied sweet yam with starch syrup and a simple vanilla ice cream.

By this time, I was quite full so I was glad the dessert was not overly sweet or large. The candied yams were nice and hot and I love me a good savoury dessert.

---

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Disclaimer: I was invited to eat here and try their dinner omakase, so dinner was free. But looking at the price point of $78 per person for everything we ate, I think is certainly worth it.

We have Vancouver omakases serving up 12 pieces of nigiri for $200, but here at Tekkaba for $78 you get 9 pieces of sushi + 3 pieces of sashimi and many more dishes. I think their menu is long enough for it to be impressive and to try a variety of dishes, and I also think it has some smart thinking behind it. I love that their omakase ends with the pasta because often times I wonder if I will be full and I think adding a large starch at the end will help those with larger appetites be more open to trying omakase, knowing they will be full at the end of the night.

They also change their omakase menu weekly so by the time I post this review, they probably have some different dishes on their omakase menu!

+ free mini concert

So I must include in my review that at the end of our meal, there was a free mini piano concert (hence the big piano at the entrance). The mini concert is played by a lady named Jiyun Kim, who is also a Director at a non-profit called Hope For The People Holdings.

Jiyun plays the piano for around 20 minutes, a mashup of popular piano songs from Yiruma and other OSTs and classics. Kelvin and I both used to play the piano so we quite enjoyed the mini piano concert, but it was kind of funny because I don’t think either of us expected this. They started closing the doors and turning off the lights, and we were wondering what was going on 😂. We were also done all our food at this point so it’s not really the concept of a dinner and a show, but more like a dinner and then a show.

They do not ask for donations or heckle anyone, so please feel comfortable and enjoy the music.

Sincerely, Loewe