Stem Japanese Eatery — Restaurant in Burnaby

I was so delighted when I found out there was a new Japanese izakaya opening just minutes from my house! The reviews looked promising, pictures were appetizing and decor was cozy and clean.

However, I’ve lived in this middle class neighbour pretty much all my life and this restaurant is priced like Miku in downtown. Quite shocking, really. The food is good, but the location, portions, and quality do not justify the price. I’m curious as to how this place has so many 5 star reviews. We ordered 10 dishes, 2 drinks, 2 desserts for 3 people and our bill came to $200. We left still feeling hungry. If I was rich and didn’t mind spending lavishly then I’d give this place another star, but too bad I’m not.

Now on to the dining details. Service was excellent. The waitstaff was attentive and knowledgeable. Everyone had a smile and our water was always refilled promptly. Food also came out at a decent pace, not too slow nor fast.

The good food: Of the 10 dishes we ordered the highlight was the Ahi Tuna Avocado The tuna melted in my mouth and the avocado was perfectly ripe. Combined with the black sauce on top, it was truly a little taste of heaven. The next best dish was the grilled squid. It was tender, moist and flavourful. The portion was decent as well. In fact, we ordered another one because we thought the first was so good! Unfortunately, the quality for the second squid was not consistent. It came out a little too sweet and saucy. I guess first time’s a charm. I also thought the soba crab roll was highly inventive and beautifully presented. Looking at the dish transported me to a ryokan-like atmosphere. You can surely taste the nice fresh piece of crab in the middle and the soba provided great texture. The last great tasting dish was the hojicha creme brûlée. The tea flavour was strong, the cream was smooth and perfect consistency. The brûlée on top was also very well done, thin and evenly layered. It certainly made a wonderful crack as my spoon dug into the dessert!

The so-so food: We ordered the rice dish of the day. It was flavoured steam rice with clam and bamboo shoots. Though the rice was cooked well, the flavour was very subtle. The clams were fresh but over cooked. My dad had sand in his clam and he definitely wasn’t very happy about that. Next, the grilled hokke was a nice portion size and quite tender. However, I did find it a little too salty. If you ate a lot of it then the salt would be overwhelming. Lastly, the green tea tiramisu was soft and the sponge on the bottom was moist. However the green tea flavour was lacking and the white chocolate on top had an over powering sweetness that took away from the entire dessert.

The disappointing food: I was most disappointed with the wagyu tataki. It definitely was not wagyu quality. The beef was chewy and tendony. It didn’t have the melt in your mouth quality that wagyu beef is supposed to have. The meat was also very lean, so perhaps that is why the texture wasn’t there. The sauce and accompanying garnish was very fresh and delicious though. The king salmon carpaccio tasted fishy. At $19, I expected lots, lots more than that. I’d rather go to sushi garden to get my salmon. Then we had the Kouji Duck. The portion was so small, it was laughable. At $15, we had 5 thin, tiny slices of duck. I’m sure half a duck can make at least 10 portions of this dish for the restaurant. Half a duck costs less than $10 at the super market. The flavour was good, but we were completely put off by the ridiculous portion to even enjoy it. Lastly we had the daily appetizer trio. The green tea tofu was a mush and I couldn’t really taste the tea. The salmon nikujaga was not bad, but tasted simple. The third dish was a simple mushroom, pea shoot salad. It was refreshing but nothing special.

All in all, there were some great tasting dishes here; however, I doubt I will be coming back as I’d rather go to Miku in downtown for the better ambiance and quality at a...

I‘d been wanting to try Stem Japanese Eatery for ages so I was super excited when my husband and I got to join a group of people from Lower Mainland Eats for dinner at Stem Japanese Eatery. The dishes here were so elegantly presented. Presentation, flavors and service were all very impressive.

Featured here: Soba Crab Roll Miso Cheese Eggplant Sweet Potato Tempura Local Duck ”Tsuke Men“ Grilled Yuzu Soy Marinated Wild Sockeye Salmon Chawan Mushi Obanzai Grilled Shoyu Koji Local Duck Breast Grilled Miso BC Sablefish Collar Renkon Hotate Shinjo Hasami - Age Matcha Tiramisu

Only the first 5 dishes on this list belonged to us. The remaining dishes belonged to other people but everyone at the table was kind enough to allow us all to take photos of each other's food!

My husband enjoyed his Duck "Tsuke Men." He said the meat was tender and flavorful. Miso Cheese Eggplant was amazing! We both loved this dish sooo much. Sweet Potato Tempura also blew us away. It was incredibly crispy, didn't feel greasy and was accompanied by an amazing truffle aioli. We have been disappointed a number of times in the past when we ordered or purchased truffle foods and didn't taste any truffle in it. The truffle flavor in this aioli was very prominent so we were very happy with it.

The Sockeye Salmon dish was cooked and served in a Staub Cocotte which was a cast iron dish, slightly smaller than an average sized Dutch oven. I loved how piping hot this dish was. It was great for warming the belly plus the Ikura (salmon caviar) really added another dimension of texture and flavor to the dish. The sensation of the Ikura popping in my mouth was similar to the feeling I get when I bite down on boba poppers, and I love boba poppers!

Soba Crab Roll was the one dish that was just OK for us. It was more impressive visually than it was when we popped it into our mouths. There was nothing wrong with it, but it just didn't really excite us either.

When my cup was empty I asked for more hot water, so our server refilled my cup. I was impressed when she came around later in the evening and refilled it again, without me having to ask this time. Many other restaurants will only refill if/when I ask, or else...they don't even refill at all.

Service: Excellent Parking: Free parking on the street Location: 5205 Rumble...

First off, I want to start by saying this was one of my favourite Japanese restaurants in the area and I have recommended it to others many times. I made reservations a couple weeks ahead of time and got a reservation for 8:15pm for Valentine's Day. We arrived for our reservation right on time and our table was not ready. It took about 5mins to get us seated but that's not a big deal. As we were seated I noticed that we were given the regular a la carte menu and we were not offered the Valentine's set menu. We ordered some Sake to start and my girlfriend ordered a cocktail as well. The server came to take our order and I asked about the "6 course Mini Omakase" and he apologized that it was sold out for the night so I ordered a bunch of other items from the a la menu including the Chef's choice 8pc Nigiri Omakase. Sadly, the Uni shooters were not available either. After a few minutes he returned to our table to apologize again because he stated that they had no more rice (NO MORE RICE?!) for any sushi at all so I changed to 3 kinds of sashimi instead. The Sake arrived shortly after and along came some of the food. A few dishes arrived and still no sight of the cocktail so we asked the server and he had forgotten about the cocktail altogether. All of the food we ordered was elegantly presented and everything tasted very good but the service was almost non existent. It's Valentine's Day and if you need to know ahead of time if we preferred the special Valentine's Day menu, why not offer or ask when I made the reservation over the phone 2 weeks prior? If you have a reservation coming in and you are running out of sushi rice already wouldn't you try to make some more before they arrived or at the very least, let the guests know upon arrival that there is no more rice in house to be cooked if that's the case. I don't like making bad google reviews but on a special day like Valentine's Day and paying $440 after tip for 2 people, I'm definitely not a happy customer and don't know when I'll be...