Zakkushi

I’ve been a few times to Zakkushi at various locations, but never have I had a good experience. From the food to service nothing seems to be spot on, ever. And at this point I think I’ve given them too many chances.
Zakkushi is known for their skewers, but they are very disappointing, the meat is cooked but it isn’t cooked well — it’s either too on the raw side or over cooked to the point were it kills the meat. Chicken is always super dry and beef/​pork are never well seasoned, just a bland piece of meat — no fun. I’d rather go to the night market and pay a premium and get properly cooked and seasoned meat.
Appetizers are mediocre, their takoyaki is mushy and not tasty or passable by any means. Beef tataki is horrible, the meat is sliced thickly and is not pleasant to eat. Oden was flavourless, and the ingredients seemed very artificial — fish balls that tasted like dough — blegh.
Only liked the atmosphere of the restaurant since it’s very cozy, the restaurant and restrooms are very clean which is nice. Other than that, there was nothing good about Zakkushi. Will not return.

I’ve been to this Zakkushi since it opened and now it’s closing. Rent is insane in Vancouver, and this is proof, since the place was packed at 11PM on a Thursday when I went there just now and they still have to close.
As with all of the locations, they specialize in skewers as well as having good fresh sushi and other unique Japanese items.
They had a special Kitsilano menu which I tried. The Kitsilano menu starts with a trio of appetizer amuse-​bouches almost, which were a small dollop of seaweed salad, a marinated octopus dish with some kind of mustard, and a Japanese-​flavored slaw. The seaweed was nice, crunchy and not overly vinegared like many places, the slaw had a good crunch, and the octopus was fresh although there was a lot of mustard and so I didn’t really get a good sense of the seafood.
Then I had to sit around for what seemed to be forever (as an example, my friend ordered 5 different small vegetable dishes and he got all of his and even finished some before I got the next stuff in my dining menu) and finally got my next items, which was three pieces of sashimi — salmon, tuna and bonito (I’m not sure why this took so long to prepare), all of which were very fresh. Portions were still bite-​sized.
The next things that came out were a series of their skewers, which were excellent, as is par for the course with Zakkushi, and a bowl of broth with a piece of tofu oden. The broth was the right balance of pork, slight salt and a bit of sweetness, and the tofu was nice and firm and had absorbed some of the flavor. Ebi mayo came after this, which was good and crunchy with a nicely light mayo sauce but nothing eye-​popping from my perspective.
Finally came their yakitori don, which was nice, though very light on the chicken with a lot of rice so it ended up tasting kind of bland.
For $ 25, I think the Kitsilano Meal was very fair, because the food was prepared nicely and I did end up quite full by the end of it (and I had been cycling to and from work so I was starving at this point).
The dessert I picked, which was an ice cream with deep fried mochi, kind of failed — the caramel was too sweet and the mochi didn’t add anything to the dish. The ice cream also tasted like a generic store brand vanilla with too much sugar. This was a separate $ 4.
Service here is always done with a smile, and I have enjoyed coming here over the years. And now it’s gone. Sigh. But I’ll always have the memories.

Pretty much the only game in town if you’d like authentic (–ish) Japanese yakitori (chicken skewers).
Having lived and worked in Japan for many years, I do miss my local yakitori joint. The thing about yakitori is that the beer and skewers are supposed to be cheap. That way you get 5 sticks for $ 5 or $ 6 bucks. The more you drink the more you order. It’s a beautiful thing to nibble and socialize with friends. Here, the skewers are all $ 3 – 5 individually, so you likely won’t gorge yourself unless you have a fat wallet.
The West 4^th location is tiny, so reservations are a good idea. The service was quite spotty when four of us went there to celebrate a birthday, even though it was a weekday. The restaurant wasn’t particularly crowded, yet our server forgot some items and others took forever to come (my chicken skin skewer of ETERNITY!).
Highlights include the tsukune, mochi cheese skewer, and the fried fish (non-​skewer). The naizo (innards) are the skewers I most look forward to at a yakitoriya. Sadly, the liver, gizzard, heart, at Zakkushi weren’t that great. The liver in particular was quite skunky. Eat at your own risk. The chicken skin was also not crispy… this is not a deal breaker, but I think it should be crispy. All in all, I would recommend sticking to the white meat skewers for quality assurance.
Zakkushi definitely fulfilled my hankering for yakitori, but it simultaneously really made me miss my local yakitori joint in Matsuyama.

I just drove from UBC to Zakkushi at midnight just because I was craving the P-​Toro Don… worth it.

Plain and simple this place takes the cake for my fave restaurant in the city. Great food, experience, staff…
I go weekly !

Ikayaki! Get the Ikayaki! Nummynummynummy yakitori sets… oh, how I live for that grilled meat. While the Kits location doesn’t quite live up to my high standards set by the Denman Zakkushi, it comes surprisingly close — especially for a restaurant on 4^th (not that there’s anything wrong with 4^th, it’s just not where one would expect a rowdy izakaya, is all).
To be clear, Zakkushi is not fine dining, nor is it where you’ll find some out of control crazy inventive sashimi set (though, this location does sashimi well); Zakkushi is a place for charcoal grilled meats. It’s a businessman’s izakaya. It’s about drinking and snacking. It’s full of sodium, noise, booze, and some of the best grilled meat on a stick this side of Japan. I love it, but it’s not for everyone.
/​end preface
The interior is tiny, like super-​cramped-​sitting-​beside-​strangers kind of mini; but I’m okay with it. It’s cosy-​like. Wooden walls, dim lights, lots of yelling — it’s proper. Just as with their other locations, the servers here are not all too attentive. They will take your order, yell it out to the kitchen, come back with your booze (you best be ordering booze), and leave you alone. Don’t be offended. Also, don’t feel as though you need to order everything all at once. Get a couple of skewers at a time. Savour the surroundings. Order some asparagus or perhaps a quail egg wrapped with pork. Get a little buzzed and pretend you’re in Japan.

*Originally posted this review for Toto-​Ya. Conrad Y. gave me the correct, current name which I will forget again immediately!*
Odd, had trouble finding the listing for this Japanese restaurant in Kits. It’s a favourite with several friends, but I can never remember the name. But it’s easy to find, a few doors east from the old Videomatica store on West 4^th Avenue. It’s quite small, maybe seats 30 – 40 people tops. Possibly a big hit with the foreign student population.
I think it would be considered Yakitori cuisine; that means all the food is cooked/​delivered on skewers. There is a large selection of dishes but they start tasting very similar to my palate as the meal progresses. Perfect for a medium size group to share dishes and some large bottles of Japanese beer. It’s an experience type of restaurant and I will return soon.

The Kitsilano location of Zakkushi (
) — came here for a birthday party — it’s the same menu with some key differences:
— this place is much smaller than the Denman location — nearly ½ the size — all the seats and tables are pretty crammed up together. Good if you want something ‘cozy’, bad if you are attending an overbooked party. To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of the hard wooden benches either — if I’m in full-​on drink/​eat mode, I need proper seat and lumbar support. You don’t give Yo-​Yo Ma a ukulele, you don’t give Michael Jordan flip-​flops, and you don’t give Johnson a hard seating surface when he’s trying to drink beers by the litre and eat meat on sticks by the dozen. I’m am part virtuoso, part athlete and all amazing when I’m get my glutton on.
— they have 1L Sapporos for $ 9 each — I love these things. You easily can promise someone that you’ll limit yourself to *one* beer… I didn’t lie, you never clarified units of measure. And on that topic…
— …there’s one unisex bathroom stall only. Okay — I’ve probably gone on my unisex bathroom rant before on Unilocal somewhere. Here’s something women of the world simply have to accept: men’s public restrooms are like Swiss departure lounges (well… with a faint smell of urine and a bit ‘splash’ damage) compared to women’s public restrooms. Ask anyone that’s ever cleaned a public restroom. Go ahead — ask them. I will give nice odds that the filthiest washroom they’ve ever cleaned belonged to the ‘fairer’ sex. For a few of simple reasons: (1) men go to the washroom less frequently and for shorter periods; (2) men don’t *usually* ‘hover’/‘squat’ while going ‘No. 1′; (3) hair, makeup and blood… that is all. Yes, despite having what appears to be a precision instrument, men can easily miss. However, I can bet that I’m Carlos Hathcock (uhuhuh… ‘Hathcock’) in comparison to anyone that thinks they can ‘hover’ with any semblance of accuracy. Finally, one must be alert to the danger of ‘cooties’. Eww — cooties.
— to be fair, the washroom at Zakkushi was clean — but I just abhor unisex washrooms. But at least they did it purely out of space restraints — not because it’s a gimmick or a ‘cute’ talking point (i.e. Guilt & Co, Chill Winston, etc. — bleech).
— maybe because we came for dinner, but the place seems more subdued and quiet than Denman. Some may like this — I actually like the raucous atmosphere at Denman. More like a real izakaya. But the cramped spacing at the W 4^th location more reminiscent of Omoide Yokocho (a.k.a. Yakitori Alley in Shinjuku).
— service is a degree friendlier here — but the problem is that it was pretty much staffed by two waitresses and a single chef on a weekend night. With a party of about 12 for us alone and us making up about half the seating capacity — this meant really long waits between courses. Some of the party were getting hungry again just waiting for food.
— they didn’t tack on auto-​gratuity for our large party
So in short, smaller and quieter than the original Zakkushi with friendlier service. Might be good for small groups or couples. As long as you’re cool with the risk of longer waits and possibly being crammed. Men: You will have to share a restroom with the ladies. Ladies: You have to come to the realization that not everything emanating from your bodies smells like roses and daisies. If that were true, would there be a perfume industry?
Still not convinced? Well — let’s have André 3000 explain this — I dedicate ‘Roses’ to you:

$ 9.99 Sapporo pitchers. Drink them while this promo lasts (Aug 31).
This place is small, like maybe 30 seats small, so most definitely make reservations. As we didn’t, we had to wait a good 40 min (somehow I’m that patient).
Love the WYSIWYG fully pictorial menu. People are visual. It only makes sense!
Ordered a bunch of skewers, with my favourite being the Kobe beef meat balls. Juicy, flavourful balls. Although around $ 2 ea, it quickly adds up. Tip: come here for drinks and a snack, I’d be broke if I was starving here.
Service was friendly but quite slow, so eat slowly. We sat at a shared table. A trend I like, if only Vancouver people who sat at them weren’t so snobby. I’m not expecting you to tell me your life story, but at least say Hi back. Annoying points go to a couple guys across from us who kept yapping about dumb stuff. Somehow their female friend kept listening. Sigh.
Dessert was uniquely good. Fried mochi with vanilla ice cream drizzled with maple syrup. My uncle taught me to put maple syrup on ice cream. It’s good sh*t.
The waiting kind of got to me so I wouldn’t come back for dinner, maybe for a nibble.

This is a tiny hole in the wall with small cramped seating and great street food. They do have sushi, but that’s not what you come here for.
The dishes range from tame (but yummy) chicken balls (the spicy one and the grated daikon with ponzu are my favorites) that you eat off skewers to more adventurous dishes like jellyfish. One of my favorites is the kimchi udon — it has a hint of spice and is a large portion. The mochi ice cream dish is a fun dessert to share.
The salmon skewer is the only thing I’ve had there that I wouldn’t order again — it was dry.
If you want to try it, go with a very small party (2 is best, 3 or 4 max), stick your head in and if they don’t have space, go to one of the many other restaurants on the block. You can also call ahead and see if there’s space.

I had a chance to finally try Zakkushi’s great Japanese izakayas, yakatoris, and tapa dishes.
I enjoyed the classic wooden décor and atmosphere. I called ahead to see if it was busy and the server amusingly replied, «mediocrely», which made me laugh. It was a very casual dining experience.
The visual menu makes it hard to choose what to order. Everything looked so good. The photos were a great help in seeing what Zakkushi had to offer.
The shrimp ebi mayo was tasty and saucy in its goodness. I really dug the presentation of all the dishes. The Tiksune set is a must for some variety. The beef and chicken skewers were quite good. It was chewy and good.
The other signature Zakkushi set wasn’t as good but still fine and went down well. The uzura maki balls were particularly good. I really like the warm, moist squid texture and taste.
I will definitely return to have some more of the dishes. It’s fun having a bunch of small plates and taste more of what Japanese cuisine has to offer.

This place is awesome. This was the best Japanese «kushi» I have had since Japan.
With the full warm welcome when you walk in to wonderful servers and a good selection of authentic Japanese flavours you cannot go wrong.
Zakkushi is an excellent place to hang with out friends for some beers ($ 10 Sapporo pitchers all summer!!) and share some food.
If you aren’t into sharing and want a quiet place, this is not for you. This is a great gathering place for a small group of friends who are comfortable eating off each others plates.
Dig the F in!

Until reading these reviews, I had no idea that Zakkushi actually had sushi on their menu! We arrived late, at 11pm, and were only given the yakitori and snackie menus. We had one miss and a lot of hits!
I loved the cozy wooden atmosphere — this seems like a great place to snuggle up on a rainy day, eating skewer after skewer and polishing of some saki or plum wine.
I started with a «Bossa» — a vodka soda with an umeboshi at the bottom — a big salted preserved plum. Yum! It had an addicting umami flavour that also pucked my cheeks a bit. S hated it, but he was happy with the Sapporo Draft.
We shared the tuna tataki to start, and found its mustardy sauce a bit gag worthy. Tuna, mustard and mayo together just reminds me too much of a tuna sub and I was worried that the rest of the food would also be weird.
Nope! The next snack — tiny whole shrimps, head, shell and all, deepfried and served with lemon and salt — was great! Crunchy and flavourful in a nice fishy way that reminded me of Spain and Vietnam simultaneously. Perfect bar food.
We ordered a whack of skewers next — whole crispy fish, teriyaki salmon cubes, butter scallops, garlic prawns and 2 different shitake mushrooms. Instantly we knew that this was the real reason to visit Zakkushi.
We have visited some great yakitori joints around the globe, but this was up there with some of my favourite — nice and charcoal grilled with a delicious smoky flavour. Each piece of fish was perfectly cooked and seasoned just right.
We will be back for skewers, salty little shrimp and beers on a crisp, cold fall day. Wanna join us? :)

Come here often. Small place. Great service. Favorites: Ptoro, Momo and Memaki.

Nothing special or great…
Places looks deceiving… making me believe it was authentic.
Rice on sushi was too thick and wasn’t seasoned right, therefore it wasn’t authentic as I had expected since chefs were of Japanese origin.
It’s ‘sushi’, but price is on high compared to quality delivered. Wouldn’t return

Food here is great! So is the ambience/​décor. I tried more than 5 different assorted skewers, each was great especially the mochi wrapped one, how unique!
Service was a little half-​minded, but maybe they were a busy. Food took a little while to come at times, they had to be reminded.
Great drinks though, they list their ingredients and you can request your own mix. Lychee soho + calpico is delish!

I have tried the one on denman and between the two, I think this was awesome!
Customer service was fantastic. Prompt and courteous.
The food was wonderful, zesty and brought out to our table quickly. I was absolutely stuffed by the end of the whole experience. I had so many of the skewers. Everything from chicken meatballs to my favourites the Memaki and asparamaki. The only skewer I wasn’t really a fan of was the mozzeralla meat stick.
This place is small and fills up fast!

Came here by accident. It was surprisingly empty. We (two of us) sat on the big table. There was one other guy by himself drowning his sorrows away as far as we could tell.
The food is tasty. We had a variety of the yakitoris. The chicken liver was pretty memorable, the spinach salad was actually really tasty, I’m so used to the premade junk you get so this was a welcome surprise. We got the chicken teriyaki bowl on rice to fill ourselves up and this was extremely delicious. The chicken was crispy, the rice crispy on the outside from being in the clay pot, and the egg still runny so it cooks a little from the hot rice.
Overall, this place is a good place to come with a couple of friends and everything on the menu goes well with beers and sake. The yakitoris can be hit or miss but are overall really tasty. I will definitely be back.

Inspired by encouraging reviews below to give this place a try. I’d only been once to its original location on Denman st and was not impressed at the time with the dry bbq skewers.
The Kitsilano location is much calmer and smaller than the original! Playing jazzy music, it’s a lot more relaxed than I’d expected. There are literally 5 tables in the restaurant though, so call ahead to avoid disappointment.
Stand-​out items include the chicken meat ball skewer with nori and mayo (very juicy. and it’s reminiscent of a japadog!), a refreshing generous daikon salad, the harami beef skewer with ponzu and radish, and the beet tataki. I did not enjoy the sake affogato dessert. might be an acquired taste.
Not a particularly cheap night out, those skewers at ~$ 2 a piece add up quickly. Between four of us and a pitcher of beer, we were satisfied but not stuffed for a bill of $ 120 before tip.

This was the first time I went to a Japanese grilling place. The place is small, but homey and is always packed so make sure you make reservations. Since this was my first time eating here, my cousin made sure we tried almost everything on the menu and that we did! All the skewers were pretty much made to order and were served to you right when it was done cooking.
The interior is dimly lit but decorated authentically, even the bathroom was cool with a small, running stream to wash your hands. They even had mouthwash in the bathroom for you!