The first post from our recent trip to Vancouver as well as the first Feeding My Ohana post to Urbanspoon. To find eating spots, my market research sources included Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, a Buddhist minister, a transplanted San Jose stylist now living in Vancouver, onsite visual/olfactory inspection, and the all-important, family consensus. Japadog was a most definitely a non-vegetarian meal. |
Banish those images of Oscar Meyer and Der Wiener. Japadog's kennel includes kurobuta, arabiki, Kobe beef, and edamame-packed sausages, plus traditional turkey and beef. We had the signature Teri-mayo, kurobuta teri-mayo, negi miso turkey and okonomi. All of them were inhaled, and if I could sample more of them, I would have tried kurobuta kim chi and oroshi. Click here for the complete menu, and note that not all varieties are available at all locations.
We made a meal of it by sampling the 4 different kinds of flavored french fries: butter-shoyu, shichimi garlic, aonori and curry. The family favorites were butter-shoyu and shichimi garlic. Pass on the curry flavor. It is a little pricey, at nearly $10 per person for a hot dog, fries and a can of pop. However, at the end of the meal, we were all very full and happy. It's a fabulous every-so-often indulgence.
Japadog started as a hot dog stand on the streets of Vancouver and is run by a husband/wife team that immigrated to Canada from Japan in 2005. Grueling hard work, ono, funky and unexpected hot dog combinations, a big native Asian population and the 2010 Olympics are what made this "outrageously quirky" hot dog business.
I wish there was a store in the Bay Area. To make do, we are already thinking of how we can have a Japadog-esque bbq this summer at home. The fixins' are easy enough, but finding Kobe beef and kurobuta hot dogs may be more difficult to source.
But we'll always have Vancouver.