Dosanko Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

It's interesting how the service of a restaurant impacts a customer's overall experience of dining in it, no matter how good their products are. This is exactly what had happened. The food was moderate, but it was the customer service that will not make us return in the future. Our experience was that of a new restaurant operating on a soft opening capacity, and not something that has been around for 2 years.

Food wise, it's nothing to rave about. A very extensive selection of local beers, however. Something I did not expect from a Japanese restaurant.

We were seated, however it took us a while to order because we had to flag someone and ask for the menu. Correct me if I am wrong, but most restaurants place the menu as soon as the group has sat.

Also, I noticed that unlike most restaurants, the servers here have no sections assigned. It's whoever you see and can flag, and so that creates a problem of not knowing the needs of each table. After getting our orders, the server mentioned orders take about 20 minutes. Upon noticing that it has been a while, I surveyed the entire restaurant we noticed that none of us the tables have received their food yet. That's fine. Not a problem.

Brother-in-law ordered the tonkatsu rice, but received another item, one of their sandwiches. The server went and checked, and came back and asked which size he wanted (140g vs 180g) giving the impression that the first order was not recorded at all, when he was asked the same the first time we ordered.

I ordered the beef hamburg and the omu-rice and specifically said the omu-rice was for take out, I was even asked which sauce I'd like to pair it with. While we were finishing our food, I asked for the omu rice because we are about to be finished. This particular server again checked, then came back later asking which sauce I would like with it. This creates the impression that again, the initial order was not even put in the first place. Very bad look.

Managers/owners, please look into this. I am under the impression that if these servers are not new, then they certainly require more training in serving. Our expectations were very high considering the reviews posted on here, so it was a really disappointing visit.

EDIT: Classy response. Nice to know you'd let people who are sick to serve, wife or not. I don't think you were supposed to admit that, and play it off as something noble for still showing up to work. Also, to help with your reading comprehension, my issues were us being asked again for the preferences as if the first time our orders were taken weren't put in. The issue was never the fact the omu rice never came early. I planned to ask for it towards the end of our meal obviously. Again, classy response instead of just sticking to facts, as you said. Clearly your personal issues played a huge hand in your very emotionally-charged answer. Here's a start of what a customer would have rather read from you - "I apologize the food came late. We were short staffed that night and tried our best to get the food out as soon as we...

My husband and I came back from Japan and craved for good Japanese food. We came here to have dinner. Our first time!

We came here after 6pm and luckily got free parking on the street right outside the restaurant. The restaurant was not very busy that two servers were serving customers. Both servers were Japanese ladies that they were super polite and friendly.

We ordered the omurice with hayashi sauce (beef), fried cod with salad and rice, a bowl of miso soup and salad. All of them tasted great! The food was Japanese style but more suitable for western people.

The amazing part of eating omurice was cutting the eggs in half and pouring the hayashi sauce (beef) on top of the eggs. The eggs were very soft and smooth. The rice underneath the eggs was cooked with carrots and other ingredients. Excellent!! We tried omurice in other Japanese restaurants in Vancouver, but the omurice here was close to the real one in Kyoto in Japan. The real omurice actually has the egg sauce that comes out from inside if we cut the eggs in half.

The fried cod tasted great or better than the American fish and chips. It came with two types of veggie salads and rice. We would probably come back to try their tonkatsu with rice next time. It is also a famous dish in Japan, so we would like to try it here.

The miso soup was very unique that it was not a normal miso soup with tofu and seaweed. The restaurant or chef put more ingredients to thicken the soup base.

The salad included some flowers! It only cost $10! We thought it was a very good deal. It priced reasonably and tasted incredibly fresh. The restaurant got some of these veggies or ingredients from farms in UBC.

Last but not least, we ordered a matcha milcrepe for desserts. The restaurant or chef made all the desserts in house. The matcha milcrepe had about 20 layers. It tasted soft and went well with some whipping cream and caramel jello (that tasted sour).

The restaurant is located in a sketchy area on Powell Street. Other than that, we had a great eating experience here. We will come back here to try other dishes in the...

I'd had my eye on Dosanko for quite awhile and we finally got to try it out! This isn't your run of the mill Japanese restaurant. There's no sushi to be found on their menu. They are described as a Japanese Homestyle Yoshoku Restaurant. Yoshoku is a term which refers to Western food, so Dosanko serves up Japanse dishes with Western influence.

Mugi Cha Grape Calpico Soda Kinpira Crispy Cheesy Onigiri Farm Vegetable Tempura Beef Belly Katsu Sandwich Omu Rice Pacific Cod Fish Katsu

We'd had a Cheese Yaki Onigiri in Seattle earlier this year, and until now I didn't know of any places within Vancouver that served it. Even Takenaka's Onigiri Cafe, which is Vancouver's one and only dedicated Onigiri restaurant, does not have a Cheese Onigiri on their menu. Dosanko not only impressed us by having Cheesy Onigiri on their menu, but they also managed to cook it better than the one we had in Seattle!

We'd been happy already with the one in Seattle, but that was because it was the first and only Cheese Onigiri we'd ever had. There was no basis of comparison. After trying this one from Dosanko, there's no way we'd go back to the one in Seattle. Upon a first glance, Dosanko's Cheesy Onigiri was paler in colour and didn't look as attractive as the one we had in Seattle. Biting into it was a different story though. It was way less greasy than the one in Seattle, and so it felt better in our stomachs.

"O mu goodness," the Omu Rice was soooo good! They gave us plenty of tomato sauce for the Omu Rice too, so we were able to pour some of the extra tomato sauce onto the plain rice that came with one of the other dishes.

Every other dish was executed to perfection as well. This was such a wonderful meal and we will definitely be back sometime to try out their lunch special!

Five stars for the foods; however, it was a hot summer's day and there was no air conditioning in the restaurant, so....4 stars overall when factoring in the ambiance.

Service: Good Parking: Paid parking on the street. Free parking a couple of blocks away. Location:...