Suika

Ahhh, here we are at last. Suika. This was seriously a long time coming. A whole four years have magically gone by since I’ve first heard of this place and I have finally been able to go!

And upon walking in, I just HAD to take a picture of their “signature” sake bottle light fixture. I swear everyone takes a picture of this when they’re here because it’s just so cool!

Suika is part of the Kingyo and Rajio group and so it was no surprise that the interior reminded me of Kingyo’s. Speaking of, since it was so hard to get a spot at Kingyo last time, I made sure to call ahead and reserve a table!

Suika menu

When we got there, the hostess was very friendly and guided us to our table right away. She presented us with the menus and made sure to answer any questions we had.

We decided to get green genmaicha tea ($2) with our meal because it was quite cold that day. Grayson actually wanted a beer but I wouldn’t let him because we say no to drinking and driving!

Deluxe suika box

★★★★

To start we decided to get the deluxe suika box ($12.80) so we could try a bunch of things at once! So clockwise starting from the left: (top) seared saba salad, salmon cream cheese toast, marinated lotus root; (middle) tofu with housemade chili oil, tempura salmon, soy marinated eggplant; (bottom) tomato kimchi with peashoots, steamed egg, octopus and cucumber.

My favorites were the tomato kimchi and steamed egg. Grayson’s favorites were undoubtedly the saba salad and the eggplant for sure. I thought that the texture of the octopus was really interesting because I’ve never had octopus outside of baby octopus before. I probably wouldn’t get this box again though because I don’t think it was worth the money but it was a fun thing to try for sure!

Grilled duck

★★★★

Grayson really wanted the grilled duck ($8.80) so we decided to try it. We were disappointed when it came to the table though because the piece of duck was quite small and we thought that the tomato + apples were going to be incorporated into the dish but they were just on the side as a garnish.The cook on the duck was a nice medium rare and it was prepared in such a way that it didn’t taste too gamey. The main reason as to why I don’t like duck is because of it’s gaminess but the balsamic based sauce helped with it.

Kakuni bibimbap

★★★★

So we had our veggies with our appetizer, then we had our protein, so now it’s time for the carbs of course! Grayson wanted the oxtail ramen at first but since he got to choose the protein I got to choose the carb by default. I went with the kakuni bibimbap ($9.80) because I’m a sucker for bibimbap and I don’t get to have it often enough.

The bibimbap had dried shrimp, scallions and braised pork belly. I’m no fan of pork belly so I made Grayson have most of it but the few pieces I did have were tender, moist and flavorful. I really liked the soy based sauce they had in it. We always like to make sure we leave our rice on the edges extra long because who doesn’t like crispy rice?!

Would we come again? maybe maybe not. The food was pretty yummy but there wasn’t too much on the menu for us to choose from because it felt quite limited. But then again, it’s as you would expect at Japanese izakaya/tapas bars.

If I had to choose between suika and kingyo though, I’d go for Kingyo. I have yet to try Raijo but when I do, I will have to update you all on which one’s my favorite!