Itoh Dining is a highly regarded restaurant group in Japan that runs several fine dining spots, including one that is a partnership with legendary Japanese chef, Nobu Matsuhisa. When I heard they were coming to Vancouver to open a teppan spot in the late Boneta space in Gastown, it seemed like great news. The new restaurant, Shirakawa (White River) would feature the extremely expensive and rare kuroge wagyu beef on its menu, likely the only restaurant in B.C. to offer this particular delicacy.
If you’ve never heard of kuroge wagyu, you’re not alone. It sells wholesale for $100 per pound, making it out of reach for most restaurants and consumers. Why so expensive? Simply put, these cows live the high life. Daily massages, classical music for their listening and relaxing pleasure, maybe some beer or sake aperitifs – it’s all good times until the chopping block.
The result of all this fine living makes for extremely well-marbled and buttery meat that is fork-tender almost before you cook it. The best method of preparation involves a teppan (Japanese iron griddle) to sear the meat to no more than a medium-rare state. A little salt, and you’re good to go.
Shirakawa delivers on the kuroge, which sells for $60 for two ounces or $100 for four ounces. They prepare it in the correct manner, and serve it with a wasabi-pepper sauce on the side. So far, so good, and maybe if you’re willing to drop that kind of coin for less than a handful of meat, it’s worth trying at least once.
The rest of the menu, unfortunately, doesn’t live up to the promise implied by the quality of the ingredients, and, even with the radically lower prices (most plates range from $4 to $16, with only a couple over the $20 mark), the value just isn’t there.
Ebi abo ($7.50) was a thinly laid out salad of halved prawns and avocado in a wasabi and tobiko cream. The prawns were bland, as was the wasabi cream. Ginger-soy marinated chicken wings ($8) were crispy on the outside and promised good things, but the meat was undercooked and, again, the flavour was bland.
The better choices would definitely be the $16 sirloin steak (not the kuroge, but a very decent triple A from Alberta), which is seared on the teppan, thinly sliced and finished with a soy-butter drizzle. It’s definitely buttery, and the kitchen got the cooking time just right here. The sushi on the menu is decent, and if you’re really itching to try the wagyu, but don’t want to shell out the big bucks, it’s available by the piece.
As for beverages, there is a small but select list of premium sake that promises good things, and the brews are craft and mainly local. Unfortunately, there are other places in the city to indulge in quality hooch and Shirakawa needs to first up its game to match its ingredients in order to attract customers way from other haunts.
All ratings out of five stars.
Food: *
Service: **
Ambiance: **
Value: *
Overall: *
Open daily for dinner, 5:30pm-late; lunch Monday-Friday, 11:30am-2:30pm.
Anya Levykh has been writing about all things ingestible for more than 10 years. Hear her every Monday on CBC Radio One’s On the Coast and find her on Twitter @foodgirlfriday and Facebook.com/FoodGirlFriday. FoodGirlFriday.com
