ChineseBites #2.5: KiBo Restaurant and Lounge

Deviating a bit from the Chinesebites.com Signature Dishes Tour, we were invited to try out a new Japanese-fusion restaurant in Yaletown, KiBo.  I was joined by Romina, Rick, Grace, Alvin, Kevin, and Sherman for an intimate tasting of their dishes.

A few of us also ordered drinks.  I found the drinks to be quite sweet to taste and not that interesting.

We started off the evening with garlic toast served with negitoro ($8), which was served with toast.  The negitoro was pretty standard and was heavy on sesame oil, green onion, and tobiko.

We sampled the Kibo set, a platter of three types of sashimi ($24). Each one had their own sauces on them already.  I enjoyed the tuna since it was fairly light on the sauce, but did not like the heavy seaweed taste on the salmon.  The fish seemed to be fairly fresh.

The beef carpaccio ($9) was a weird combination of parmesan cheese and wasabi dressing.  I didn't enjoy it because the cheese was too heavy, covering the beef itself.  The kibo salad with tuna, mango ($13) was also unexciting for me, especially since I had quite a decent mango salad the evening prior at Indochine.  I disliked the dressing, and this unfortunately seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the meal for me.

We tried a variety of aburi kibo sushi set ($17).  I sampled the salmon and the scallop, both of which weren't bad.

The chikuwa cheese ($6), which is essentially Japanese fish cake stuffed with cheese them deep-fried, was alright.  Not sure what the cheese inside was, as it was not stringy (and hence not mozzarella).  The Japanese short ribs ($7) were pretty good and not tough at all. I liked the grilled taste of them.

Any meal would not be complete without bacon; we sampled the ebi bacon ($9) -- skewers of prawns wrapped in bacon.  These seemed to be grilled and was pretty good.  The bacon wasn't crispy, but that was alright since the prawn itself was crunchy.

The hamilton roll ($14) was essentially a dynamite roll topped with a variety of sashimi.  By this time I was already really full due to prior froyo consumption.  The volcano roll ($12) was pretty different from the other rolls since it was deep-fried.  I thought this was pretty interesting.

The caterpillar roll ($12) was also of the dynamite variety, except topped with unagi and avocado.  The Philadelphia roll ($12) with salmon and cream cheese was not bad.  I'm not huge on cream cheese in rolls, or rolls for that matter actually.

The marinated sablefish ($14) was quite good and soft.  It wasn't overly oily despite being an oily fish, and I really liked this dish.  At $14, this was well-priced.

The kibo beef ($15) itself was good and not thought at all, but I really disliked the sauce.  We wondered how the rack of lamb ($16) was Japanese because it was cooked with mustard seeds and cumin. Not to mention lamb isn't really a Japanese thing.  I only had a bite of it, but I thought it was a bit overcooked to my taste.  I like lamb quite rare.

To end the meal, I thought we were being served green tea, but it was actually soup.  A really delicious soup.  The seafood dobin ($10) tasted like a beautiful umami combination of shiitake essence, with clams, fish, scallops, and prawns.  It was really tasty and probably the most enjoyable part of the meal.

More: Good Eat - Yum / Rick Chung / Sherman's Food Adventures / Alvin Lee / Small Girl Big Plate / 604foodtography


More ChineseBites.com's Signature Dishes Tour:

#1: Golden Swan Restaurant

#2: Fatty Cow Seafood Hot Pot
#2.5: KiBo Restaurant and Lounge

#3: Ken's Chinese Restaurant
#4: Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant
#5: Grand Dynasty Seafood Restaurant
#6: Golden Ocean Seafood Restaurant
#7: Nong Chinese Restaurant
#8: Cindys Palace
#9: Shanghai Élan

KiBo Restaurant and Lounge
1261 Hamilton St   
Vancouver, BC
(604) 336-3268