Our Vancouver Visit: Kingyo

Since today was another dark and rainy day,

these two duck spectators were left without a tennis match to keep them entertained. The cold outside meant that it was a perfect evening to spend inside, at Kingyo--a restaurant that opened a few weeks before we left Vancouver (we tried not to take it personally that such an amazing place opened only a five-minute walk from our apartment just as we were moving out). The latest in a welcome series of Vancouver izakayas (Japanese "pubs" that serve a wide range of inventive dishes for sharing in usually energetic surroundings), Kingyo never fails to bring out the ooooohs and aaaaahs when the beautiful food arrives. I met my friend Jennifer there tonight and we started with a tangy daikon-radish, shiso-leaf, and bonito-flake saladand shared several other dishes which we were too busy eating to pause for photos! Our last shared dish was shabu shabu: veggies and thinly sliced pork ("barley-fed pork," according to the menu) in two different degrees of fattiness,
which we cooked at the table in a fragrant broth seasoned with seaweed and plum.
We plucked each piece of meat out of the boiling broth and dipped it into our choice of sauce (ponzu, shiso, or garlic) and sipped bowls of rich broth at the end of our meal. Actually, it wasn't quite the end, since we also shared a tiramisu made of matcha green tea and sweet red beans for dessert.
The beauty of our meal continued right through to our bill, which arrived with a tiny vase that held flowers and two skewers of frozen peach--much tastier and classier than mints!