ShuRaku Sake Bar & Bistro

Surprisingly fantastic sushi, and great service considering its in the heart of Granville’s tourist district. Portions are big, cuts are fresh, and the rolls have a creative strategy along with a great sake selection.

ShuRaku and I have a complicated relationship.
I’ve been here a few times due to a lack of places I want to land on the Granville strip, and the food’s always been good, but damn those prices are high!
Last time I was here was with Boyfriend on election night before heading to a concert. We wanted something warm so naturally went for sushi. Their menu is good, and I ordered their ramen. It arrived quickly and was very flavourful with a good noodle to broth ratio.
Boyfriend got half his food quickly, and the other half we had to remind our server about. Usually we’d split a carafe of hot sake, but I couldn’t see one on the menu that didn’t break the bank!
In short, the food is good, the service is ok, and the prices are very silly.

Service is great, good food. though i did get stuck picking a bunch of bones out of the Sashimi which tasted a bit off as well. Everything other than that was good

Dropped by ShuRaku Friday night after Nordstrom closed on me at a ridiculously early 9pm. Although ShuRaku looked empty from the outside, it was surprisingly busy inside, especially for after 9pm.
I think our server was a manager or something because I later saw her giving instructions to another server. In any case, all staff seemed very attentive and prompt to help or execute requests.
I was there with a friend just for a late-​night snack and we ordered just three things.
Ei-​Hire ($ 4.50) Dried and barbecued sting ray fin
–This was on the special menu of the day, not in the regular menu.
–Winner! This turned out to be very thin slices of fish. Slightly sweet, not very fishy. Chewy but not insanely so. Strangely tasty because of the mild sweetness and fun to eat because of the chewiness.
–Net portion of maybe a half cup is less than appetizer-​sized. Still, worth a try.
Chopped Scallop Maki Sushi ($ 4.95) With tobiko (fish roe) and mayo
–Really boring. You get exactly what you ordered – diced raw scallop in some kind of sauce, a sprinkle of fish roe, and rolled in sushi rice. Quite a lot of sushi rice actually. About half the inside of the sushi roll was rice.
–Boring tasting unless you like raw scallop I guess. But it’s a «normal» non-​premium roll so what can you really expect?
Ebi-​Mozza Harumaki ($ 6.50) エビチーズ春巻き Deep-​fried spring roll with shrimp, mozzarella cheese, and shiitake mushrooms. Served with chili aurora sauce.
–Turned out surprisingly boring. Mostly I tasted mozzarella although I could clearly locate shrimp and diced mushroom.
–The sweet aurora sauce with which it had been drizzled was really decent though, and helped make the bed of deep fried vermicelli more palatable.
–If you order this be sure to get a spoon to help with the noodles.
Genmai Tea ($ 2.80)
–Small pot with possibly unlimited refills of hot water. When we both asked for tea, instead of bringing another pot she simply brought another cup to share the pot, resulting in only a single order of tea on the bill. Nice!
Bonus points for service (or maybe more properly, our server). Some servers speak fluent English (heck, one of the guys was caucasian), unlike some sushi places where everyone’s so Japanese that sometimes it’s like they were imported fresh to cater to the local Japanese populace, and therefore have a frustrating level of ESL.

Came here yesterday for lunch. Unless you come right when it opens, it’s probably a good idea to have reservations. They have decent lunch combos and specials, but yesterday I had the Oyako Donburi — Chicken Bowl. It comes with egg, onion, and chicken on rice. It doesn’t look good, but tastes delicious.
The bento boxes usually can fill me up. Some of their other dishes/​specials are definitely a bit on the smaller side. Service can be a hit or miss as it may be fairly difficult to flag down a server. If you’re coming as a party of 2, you’ll probably be seated against the wall and I personally find the tables too close to each other, so the tables next to you can easily eavesdrop if they are snoopy. Food is definitely great here, an easy 4 stars. Overall I want to give it 3.5, but Unilocal doesn’t do half stars.

Went here for my birthday this year. I reserved a table for 14 people and they were able to accommodate it. When we arrived, there wasn’t as many people as expected, but I liked how you had the option of booking for large groups on their website. The Volcano Roll and the Spicy Salmon Tartar is a must try. Gave Shuraku 3 stars because their seaweed chips for the Spicy Salmon Tartar were really stale — an obvious pointer that it was from a batch made much earlier. I brought it up to our waiter and asked if it was possible to change it, and she took it away to get re-​fried. It didn’t bug me too much but if I were more picky, I would’ve preferred a new one. Also, their signature rolls start at $ 9.95. For that price, there are much better places that I would rather go to.

Sushi is new to my palette so I was nervous. Everything I had was delicious. The service was great, atmosphere was buzzing and I really enjoyed my lunch. Fantastic and very reasonable.

We made a late reso at 8:15 PM on a Saturday and got seated promptly after the previous patron had left. The first waiter we had didn’t write down our rather large order, which was fine to me because I’ve seen excellent waiters juggle orders before. But he missed a few of our dishes, and then we had a very warm waitress who confirmed our order and served us the rest of the night.
The beef tataki was perfect. It wasn’t frozen, wasn’t too thick, perfectly rare. Very nicely done.
The smoked salmon roll I had was interesting. I’ll eat anything smoked salmon, but I thought this would have been better if replaced with sashimi or tempura. The mango inside was such a pleasant addition. Two of my favorite foods on my palate at the same time? Yes please.
I had the salmon and hamachi sashimi from the five kinds platter. The salmon was smooth on the tongue, not slimy at all. Both were flavorful and fresh.
The pork belly tacos on the featured menu was SO BOMB. Tender pork belly melted at each bite, accompanied with greens and warm soft taco. It greased up my hands like no tomorrow and luckily the waitress was very good at replacing my napkin.
The first cocktail that started off my night, Juliet, was just sweet enough but I felt like it was drinking juice. I’d recommend it to my non-​drinker friends. God of Thunder was more my cup of tea.
I’ll definitely come back for the tacos again before they’re gone!

Weekdays, are predominantly an office crowd, as you may have guessed. This is the old Kitto location renovated into what is now Shuraku.
午餐時: 大部分啲客喺寫字樓職員喇喇声嚟到食. 個個人唎食咗之後唎就標(唔喺尿呀!!)
日式咖哩猪扒飯及套餐B. 套餐唎,有烤牛仔骨片,加州卷,两種日式沙律,天婦羅,同味噌湯.
How did all of this fare? It’s OK. Not great, but OK. I wouldn’t rush back for this.
Curry katsudon was a bit bland and had too much MSG. So much that what I sampled at lunch, I still couldn’t sleep at night. 哎吔!!! 够辣但喺唔够味.
Box B lunch was again, OK. See pic.
Overall, it’s OK. Nothing terribly spectacular. It serves a purpose.

I am torn. The Uni was one of the best I’ve had. It was so flavorful and fresh. The grilled mackerel was good. However my main lunch was subpar.
I ordered curry pork. The pork was dry… not that good and the batter kept peeling off every time I picked it up to take a bite. I had to eat the pork and fried batter separately. Obviously, the meat was previously frozen before the preparation but that doesn’t mean my thought bubble should be filled with the word, «frozen meat»!
Other than that, the curry itself was good but not enough for the rice! my rice was becoming dry and curry-​less. I showed the waitress my situation (showed her my bowl) and asked her if I could get just a bit more curry. She went into the kitchen to see if this could be done. She came back and said I would have to pay extra. I wouldn’t mind paying more if I wanted something beyond what I should have gotten but I did not feel they had the right ratio from the beginning.
She said she didn’t think so and no one ever mentioned this.
U hmmm… Ok?
Well… That was that.
I’ve been to Japan numerous times. I also enjoy going to curry houses. I am used to a different ratio of curry and rice so I didn’t think I should pay more for what was lacking in the first place. I ate to the point it was too dry to continue.
Better to reduce rice proportion if they don’t want to be more generous with curry.
Uni was oishi.
Grilled Mackerel oishi.
Don-​Kat-​Su no oishi.
Curry-​less dry rice No oishi des.
Sayonara

Wow again another sushi place thats fully fallen off the rails too !! TUNA is mainly red and quite nice so why no sell it any more? Most people I know don’t like the white stuff and some don’t even know their is white tuna
So on the menu put WHITE tuna only !!
Then people won’t get all upset and send it back !!
Settle can get it 200 miles away so why all the canada thing ???
Thx

Decent lunch spot that definitely has better quality than grab and go sushi places. Hood variety of items for lunch such as curry and smaller izakaya items. Their lunch specials are well worth the price, and some are them are just humongous. I’ve also been here a few times with large groups, and they are usually able to accommodate us.
Beware that this is not a fast lunch spot if you are sitting in. We’ve never managed to get in and out under an hour.

Super fresh fish. Everything was yummy!
We had the volcano roll and it didn’t disappoint

Food was good but (as a party of five):
1) we weren’t given water till we waived someone down, about ten minutes in
2) waiter got a few orders wrong
3) some entrée items were brought before any appetizers
4) remaining entrees awkwardly spaced out so that when the last person finally got theirs everyone else was done
5) overpriced for what you get

Really not impressed. Everything was passable but just barely. The staff were nice but the desert portions were the smallest I have ever seen. I really don’t recommend this establishment for anyone who expects value.
If not for the excellent serving staff, I would have been quite annoyed.

I spent 3 nights in a row here. ²⁄₃ they were stupid busy, guess that is a good sign? Was disappointed there were no hooks below the bars for purses! This was the only place I went in Vancouver that didn’t have them! Minor detail.
Everything I tried here was tasty, which included most of the nigiri they offered. I like the traditional maki and the fun rolls like the shrimp and mango roll. The fried cauliflower with garlic and chili oil smelled amazing, but spicy isn’t my thing. Pretty good selection of sake and shochu. Try the yuzu infused sake with seltzer water! Easy going down for those low tolerance folks like myself.
They can be a bit slow when busy, but it happens. All the employees were super nice though.

Very busy on a Friday night but when you are seated food comes out fast and the service is friendly.
They have a unique twist on Japanese standards: Prawn Gyozas ($ 8.95 for 5) are individual prawns — not minced — set inside the gyoza wrappers. Delicious. The kani negiri is actual snow crab ($ 3.75 per piece). The small order of ankimo (monk fish liver) is served in triangles atop a pillow of nori-​wrapped rice, sprinkled with diced green onion ($ 2.95, and I wished I had ordered the large for $ 8).
The ribs ($ 11.00 for four) are sweet and fall off the bone. If you have unadventurous kids with you this is a winner.
Side note: It’s pleasantly surprising to see how many families were dining there on a weekend night. And there were 2 birthday celebrations while we were there.
Food presentation is top notch, especially with the sushi. Our orders came from the long specials list: uni ($ 3.95), shima aji (striped jack $ 2.95), ikura ($ 2.95), hamachi toro ($ 3.95); and we ordered from the regular menu: tobiko ($ 2.25), salmon ($ 3), and hamachi ($ 3.95).
Prices are excellent compared to the east coast of the U.S., but I will have to see how they compare to other Vancouver spots.

I’m really surprised that the average rating for this restaurant is 3.5 stars! It made me a little reluctant to visit at first, but since our hotel concierge recommended it, and hubby and I wanted to eat after a long road trip at an odd hour (I think we went in at around 3pm, and some restaurants don’t open until 5) we thought, eh, how bad can it be?
It isn’t bad. At all. In fact, it’s great! We ordered the lunch special (lunch menu is served until 4:30pm) that had a little bit of everything. I don’t even remember all of it, but it was about $ 17, had spring rolls, ribs, sashimi, tuna salad, crab salad, pickled veg, green beans, rice and then green tea ice cream for dessert. We also ordered some hotate (scallop) sashimi as well as wild salmon sashimi. OH SO GOOD. And I thought the presentation was quite pretty!
1 star taken off because our waitress, while nice, was a bit scatterbrained. I felt like we were almost forgotten after we were first sat (she seemed surprised right before asking for our order), and then forgot my husband’s beer, took a while to get a slab of extra wasabi, and we had to re-​ask for their wifi password. But no one was rude, so I’d still go back because the food was so yum!

From the outside, and online this venue looked very promising and I had expected the food, service and décor to match. However this wasn’t exactly the case. Just for exploratory purposes I’ll divide my memories into sections.
Section 1-​walk through restaurant to our seat. Decors are well done, fairly close to what one would find in typical modern Izakaya in Japan.
Section 2-​sit down service
They have a large specials menu like they do in Japan (or Guu if you’re familiar with them). Service was decent but could be better, however they were very busy on a Saturday night so other servers would bring the dishes along with the main one.
Section-​3 chomp
Food presentation was top notch, especially for the sushi platter. We also ordered Maitake Mushroom Tempura and Oyakodon (Chicken egg rice bowl). The Oyakodon was not done very well though. It had all the right ingredients minus the sauce which I thought was missing but actually wasn’t…probably one of the worst. Not excusable given that it’s from a Japanese run venue. The maitake dish used fresh mushrooms but the tempura batter was on the thick side for typical Vancouver (Japanese operated) standards. Even my friend who’s new in Vancouver expressed the same views for all three dishes.
Section– exit
Pricing is reasonable, restroom was a mess with paper towel that didn’t seperate at its respectable sections, might I mention the door in the men’s room opens on the wrong side (you can use your imagination). Menus were worn out or soiled flimsy paper. It’s like this place in runned down with more patrons than it can keep up with.
If I return I’ll just be ordering sushi.

Shuraku is a great izakaya but unfortunately, my dinner was a bit disappointing tonight.
Several of their dishes are extremely fresh, tasty and authentic, such as their salmon tartar or their sashimi dishes. However, today we opted out for a carby feast, composed of mostly dons and chicken karrage.
The karrage was fine, but our katsudon (deep fried pork loin) and oyakodon (chicken+egg) were sub-​par. I was quite surprised that our dons weren’t as tasty as they should have been since the chefs are all Japanese. I actually prefer the katsudon at Saboten in Aberdeen, even though the staff there are Chinese! I would definitely go back to Shuraku for their other items but perhaps I’ll avoid their dons from now on…