Granville's guide to Vancouver's finest sushi restaurants
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Sushi Bento Express
1258 Robson St, Vancouver
604-681-1150
Sushi Bento Express is one of many small and inexpensive take-out-style sushi places on Robson Street, but it recently distinguished itself by winning a contest organized by 3rdWhale.com that challenged sushi restaurants in the West End to become more environmentally sustainable. Its menu now includes a “sustainable choices” section offering gindara (sablefish), albacore tuna, and Alaska wild salmon.
The young owners infuse a refreshing sense of energy to this modest restaurant, and unlike a lot of take-out joints, put a lot of effort into the food presentation. Taste, however is uneven. The miso-marinated gindara is soggy. The albacore tuna, featured in the “tuna love,” a variation of the Philadelphia maki roll, does not stand up to the amount of rich cream cheese, avocado, and spicy sauce used. The rice is dry and the ingredients are not spread evenly over the entire sushi.
Yet for $8.50, you can get a California combo that includes a California roll (with imitation crab made of Alaskan pollock), one wild salmon roll, and one albacore tuna roll. If you are on a shoestring and care about where your sushi comes from, it is hard to beat.
So, I was quite surprised when I saw the article/reviews of sushi restaurants in the city without any caveat about how the consumption of sushi, and fishing in general, is causing a very big problem for our immediate future.
Did you know that, according to Al Gore, all of the world's oceans are seriously overfished, and that in a mere 40 years [probably our lifetime] all [every single one] of the fish will be gone? This will mean no more Orca, no more seals, sea lions, walruses, polar bears, sharks and all the other things that live on fish.
As much as I appreciate that Vancouver is a city that prides itself on its close proximity to fresh fish, I think that it is somewhat irresponsible to promote the continued overconsumption of fish in this city.
Personally, I would much rather see some advocation of responsible consumption - like, if you catch it, you can eat it. Well, okay, I know that this is practically impossible, but I must admit that I would rather see a magazine that prides itself on environmental care in consumption advocate limits to eating sushi and opening new sushi restaurants, instead of promoting something that is negatively impacting the ocean in such a far reaching way.
Shannon Enns
Lisa Nakamura Nguyen
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