ABURI Market Yaletown — Local services in Vancouver

Attached to Minami, this is sort of like a high-end Japanese convenience store. They carry some Japanese seasonings, frozen and cook-at-home foods, alcohol, soft drinks, probably more grocery items too but I didn't look very hard, and a variety of restaurant-quality ready-to-eat food including sushi, rice bowls, sandos. dango, mochi/wagashi, baked goods, and more. I noticed there were a few items that were labelled as vegan. There's nowhere to sit and eat in the store, but there's parks nearby to take your food to if you want to eat on the go. I came for lunch and got their oshi sampler and a black sesame coconut mousse. The oshi sampler included 2 pieces each of 4 different kinds of seafood - I was really impressed by how fresh the seafood tasted and by the composition of each piece of oshi. The best grab and go sushi I've ever had by a long shot. The mousse was also very good, it was very smooth and surprisingly light. It came with a cup of cookie crumble to add on top that was kept separate to preserve the crunch. I thought the dessert was good both with and without the crumble added, but the crumble was tasty enough to eat on its own! It goes without saying this the food is more expensive than typical ready-made meals, but it's definitely worth it, and it provides a nice opportunity to get some really high quality Japanese food without going through the steps of ordering at...

We used to order sushi take-out from a local restaurant that offers a black rice option which is better better for health than white rice. But lately, we've started coming here because it is so very convenient. And being the first restaurant to introduce aburi pressed sushi to Vancouver, Minami makes the best pressed aburi sushi in downtown Vancouver – their pressed sushi rice is superb. Over time, they have improved their offering in the 'Japanese market' – we can now purchase three kinds of Minami made gyoza, salad dressings and sauces, and even tableware. I also learned that they do sell out every day because one day I showed up at around 5 pm and the choices were very limited and apparently, the sushi in the fridge sells at 50% off just before closing. We are now somewhat addicted to their aburi-to-go items and have tried a variety of rolls and combination aburi, and items from the freezer. I really like their sweet soy sauce, but discovered that the first ingredient is corn syrup, hmmm, better not! Overall, we really like the idea of being able to enjoy Minami food at the comforts of our own home, without having to wait or dress up, and without the noise from...

I heard that their aburi to go sushi is pretty much the same as what is offered in the main Minami restaurant, which I’ve never been to. Maybe it might just be that I’ve overhyped it too much in my mind, but I feel it is mediocre at best. The one I got was the shrimp and the salmon, both of which I could not taste. The sauce(?) was very overpowering, and the amount of rice in proportion to the seafood was way too much. It doesn’t taste bad, but I would have loved to taste more of the fish and shrimp topping.

I also got the wagyu shabu onigiri which I didn’t take a photo of. The seaweed was crispy, but the filling was just… mediocre. They could’ve used any other meat.

Since they are premade and refrigerated, I’ve also taken into consideration that it’s going to be cold, with hard clumpy rice. That I perfectly understand.

Overall, as far as the onigiri and the aburi sushi were concerned, I feel it’s not bad, but there are other...