Torake: $120 Premium birthday omakase in Richmond
For my husband’s birthday π₯³, I treated him to a choose-your-own-adventure date and we ended the day with an omakase dinner.
Torake is a Japanese restaurant in Richmond with 2 omakase menus to choose from – $88 essentials or $120 premium. My husband picked the more expensive menu and in this blog post, I will review everything the $120 premium omakase menu includes.
Torake
9471 No 2 Rd #130, Richmond, BC V7E 2C9
The vibe
Torake is a pretty small restaurant with a small parking lot shared with other businesses. I reserved bar seating (there are 4 seats) so we could watch the chefs prepare the food in front of us. Please note that if you make a bar seating reservation, you have to order one of their omakase menus and cannot order al le carte. However, if you are not sitting at the bar, you can still order omakase from a regular dining table.
Despite sitting right next to the cashier, we didn’t feel like anybody was in our space. The lighting here was quite bright, almost like a spotlight on the small dishes we get to eat. Seating was fairly comfortable for bar seating and they give you a box to store your coats and bags.
Food review ($120 per person)
We didn’t order any drinks and just had regular tea. The $120 premium omakase comes with 7 courses + 8 pieces of sushi.
First course: Sawara
We started our meal with this spanish mackerel sashimi, paired with some ponzu daikon oroshi, crispy shallot and shiso flower. This was light and savoury – a nice way to start the omakase.
Second course: Gindara
The second course was a small chunk of charcoal sablefish, we had a hint of smoky flavour. It is served with braised daikon, charred leeks and a seaweed butter sauce. This tasted like a mini-sized entree and I am a big fan of sablefish so I quite liked it. The seaweed butter sauce was very interesting because it had that umami to it and the charred leeks were a really good pairing to sablefish.
Third course: Ankou
Third course features monkfish tempura! This is something I’ve never tried before π―. The monkfish was fried well and still moist and flaky inside the tempura batter. There is also cauliflower, napa slaw, and yuzu kosho emulsion. A nice two-biter of crispiness.
Fourth course: Chawanmushi
The fourth appetizer is a steamed egg custard with seafood, mushroom, snow crab and truffle essence. I have eaten a lot of chawanmushi now and I even make it sometimes at home. This one was quite soft and jiggly with more dashi/broth than some of the other ones I’ve tried. The seafood and truffle flavours mix very well with each other.
Fifth course: Hotaru ika
The fifth course was this charcoal grilled firefly squid. I find this to be quite rare in omakase and I have only eaten this one other time at Stem Japanese Eatery’s Valentine’s Day omakase in Burnaby.
The firefly squid are small and they have an explosion of flavour at the head – may be a little fishy for some folks.
Chef choice sushi (8 pcs)
The next course was 8 pieces of sushi and here is everything we ate with my favourites:
- Flounder
- Horse mackerel
- Akami tuna
- Bluefin tuna ootoro βοΈ – I knew this would be on of my favourites because it ius the fattiest piece of tuna, but I was surprised to see them give it to me in the middle and not at the end
- Aburi engawa βοΈ – this ended up being my favourite nigiri out of all 8! This is seared flounder and it just melted in my mouth π€©
- Spot prawn βοΈ – Always love spot prawns It is almost spot prawn season in Vancouver!
- Unagi – this was a pretty big and smoky piece
- Tamago egg – this had no rice but had an interesting crΓ¨me brule-like burnt top on one edge. A tamago that is on the sweeter side
Overall, the sushi pieces were on the smaller side and I wish they didn’t give us mackerel or flounder twice because we already had it as an appetizer or as an aburi engawa.
Sixth course: Premium handcone
This premium handcone was so beautiful and not part of the regular al le carte menu. Inside, there is bluefin tuna and a healthy amount of uni – making it quite a luxurious handcone. There is also a deep fried shiso leaf inside to help with the structural integrity, which I thought was smart and added a nice crunch to the bites.
This tasted as good as it looked and made the premium omakase more worth it.
Seventh course: Yuzu cheesecake
For dessert, they served yuzu cheesecake with yuzu ice cream and lemon meringue shards. It is not a big portion but this dessert was so refreshing with all the yuzu flavours coming through.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: βοΈβοΈβοΈβοΈ
We had a delicious omakase meal at Torake trying their $120 premium menu.
Each course was presented beautifully with some unique dishes like the monkfish tempura and firefly squid. My favourite dishes of the night were the sablefish, chawanmushi, ootoro nigiri, engawa nigiri, spot prawn nigiri, premium handcone and the yuzu cheesecake.
We looked at their al le carte menu and noticed they actually have a pretty limited selection of nigiri sushi. They don’t have regular salmon, tuna, etc. They also don’t have a lot of the other appetizer courses either so the omakase is the only way you will get to try some of the items listed in this review.
Overall, I think Torake’s $120 premium omakase is worth it for a special occasion and we left feeling not hungry, but also not that full (we had happy hour 1 hour before which made the portions perfect for us).
I didn’t try the $88 Essentials menu, but when comparing the two, I think the premium one is more worth it if you’re going to order an omakase anyways.
Service was excellent – they kept pouring us tea, the glass was never empty. And each course came out in a relatively timely manner (we never waited too long).
Sincerely, Loewe