Restaurant Review: Torafuku

By Sherman Chan,
Special to The Post

The terrine cubes of pork and pork jelly were rather bland on its own, but with the house made ketchup, there was more pop. The crispy bacon fried rice was crunchy and tasty. We had Nice to Meat You featuring "big bang" sweet & sour ribs that were crispy from the deep-fry, yet moist and chewy. These were coated with a sticky, sweet and spicy glaze along with peanut sauce.
The Crack Salad had brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, crispy rice and lap cheong croutons. It was tasty. The gochujang curry was balanced off by a spiciness and sweetness. It was a bit greasy so the ingredients weren't as crunchy. The Lucky Tiger Ramen  looked more like a Dan Dan noodle. However, with ground pork, corn, pea sprouts melted cheese, smoked garlic oil, tomato tonkotsu broth and soft egg, it did not taste like ramen.
We were excited to try their award-winning Rye So Messy Wings, but we weren't impressed. There was too much batter. The meat was juicy and succulent, but wasn't that flavourful. However with so much rye & gochujang sauce and mango glaze it really didn't matter. But it was too sweet. The Calamari Done The Right Way had too much batter. I liked the compliments: onion, tart tomatoes, sweet lychee and pea shoots.
Our final dish, Old MacDonald's Dirty Business, was my favourite. This was a complex dish with sliced rice cake with tender and buttery chicken hearts. There also was well-charred pork cheeks. Bringing everything together was a spicy Chinese black peppercorn sauce. This item was the most complete of the dishes we tried. We thought the prices were fair and the service was fairly attentive. 

Torafuku
958 Main St, Vancouver, BC V6A 2W1

The Good:
• Kudos for using many ingredients and different flavours
• Okay pricing
• Attentive service

The Bad:
• Food needs some refinement and tweaks
• Overall, many dishes were pretty sweet
• Food came out a bit too fast for our small table

Sherman Chan is the #1 ranked food blogger on the Vancouver portal of Urbanspoon.com. Read more of his reviews at www.shermansfoodadventures.com.

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