Too-long menu has rewards, but leaves possibility for disappointment
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Kyo Ju (left) and Makoto Max Kito proffer fresh prawns and vegetables and a crispy roll at their Mandala Iki Asian Bistro on West Fourth.
MANDALA IKI ASIAN BISTRO
Overall: 3
Food: 3
Ambience: 3
Service: 3
Price: $/$$
2394 West Fourth Ave., 604-734-3715.
www.brownricesushi.com.
Open for lunch and dinner, daily. Brunch available Saturday and Sunday.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.
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Give me a long and rambling menu and suddenly I need hip waders. I feel directionless and knee-deep in dishes. But if a restaurant offers good value for those dishes, sometimes it’s worth navigating your way around the too-big menu.
Mandala Iki Asian Bistro opened in Kitsilano a couple of months ago. It cast a big net with lures of Japanese and Chinese dishes and a Thai tom yum soup thrown in. On weekends, there’s a muddled brunch with smoked salmon bagel, sushi bowl beef “chunck” steak and sub sandwiches (one of them with smoked “soekeye” salmon) as well as regular brunch-style fare. Along with proofreading the menu, owners need to hone in on what it wants to be, at the very least, for brunch.
Basically, Mandala’s dinner menu evokes a Chinese and Japanese restaurant under one roof and the owners have tailored it to a health-conscious Kitsilano dining profile — their sushi is offered with a choice of brown or white rice, and they cut back on oil with the traditional Chinese style dishes; there’s no MSG in the kitchen and they also use local produce, bought at Granville Island Public Market. Shellfish is from Lobster Man at Granville Island but I did notice the salmon sashimi was farmed salmon, albeit quite good quality. I noticed the menu lists “salmon sashimi” and “sockeye salmon sashimi” so if you want the wild, ask for the sockeye.
We were happy with the sushi. We tried the Ruby Roll (crab, cucumber, avocado, salmon eggs and green onion) and the Lobster Crispy Roll (lobster, asparagus, avocado, tempura, lobster miso sauce) and the fish was fresh.
Tempura passed the crisp, light and delicate batter test. Agedashi tofu, too, was as good as I’ve had at finer Japanese restaurants. A papaya, mango and avocado salad (Thai?) was very good.
The one unforgivable breach was the octopus sunomono. The fishy smell arrived even before the dish was presented. Neither of us could get past the heavy past-due-date smell.
We tried a couple of dishes under the Mandala “Chinoise” section and felt they weren’t strong. I did get carried away, however, eating too much of the Szechuan Crispy Ginger Beef with its sweet, almost sweet and sour sauce. Vegetable Delights was a healthy offering of crisp-fried tofu, mushrooms and other vegetables but it didn’t stand out as particularly fresh.
The menu is too lengthy for me to pilot you through it but it seems from my two visits that the Japanese dishes are stronger than the Chinese; some dishes are very good, while while others might be surprisingly disappointing.
However, if brown rice sushi appeals, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed; it’s worth considering as a neighbourhood spot for an inexpensive lunch or dinner. Almost all dishes are under $10, making for that good value that most of us are in search of these days.
