Eat Bar & Patio Haraheri — Restaurant in Vancouver

So this is the second year I've been to Dine Out Vancouver at Guy Garden. I would say last year was considerably better. This year we brought my bfs parents. So we had quite a bit of food ordered. We did pre-order our food choices when making our reservations to make things easier. So there is quite a bit of positives and negatives. Let's get into the bad first. (this review was only based on my experience, I can't say it will be like this for everyone)

Service when we sat down we had told them we had out prereserved dishes, they said okay they can start bringing dishes out. So they immediately brought out our Mapo Hotpot, 2 Lamb Curry Hotpot, Quail Karrage, and our two rice dishes immediately, no time in between. Our table had stacked foods, soups and it made us feel extremely rushed. Worse it took us quite a while to get small places and soup bowls for sharing. And as soon as we poured soup they piled on our Steamed Salmon and Mussels, again with no room at all. Our food now was all going cold, no room between anything.. So we're just rushing to eat and make room. We finish some soup and our Quail, and moved the finished plates to the side, the waitress comes with our Uni Pate, and sets it on top of our dirty dishes. Why? I don't know. We obviously needed to eat to make room and I felt it was very bad service to not notice our situation. And to not even clean up the dishes we had stacked for her. And that had happened for the rest of the dishes as well. The food that was supposed to be hot was warmish at best because of this and the colder foods were not as cold as they should have been. Also we had to ask for our tea to be filled, sometimes twice before it happens. Same with when we had asked for two glasses of water, it didn't happen for a long time. Not sure if this included in service but our server had a bunch of holes in her shirt. Didn't seem very pleasant

Food A lot of our food was cold or not as warm as it should be, even when we did eat the few as fast we could. Only the soups were genuinely hot. Rice wasnt warm much at all.

In the Salmon and Mussels, we had two orders. It came with one peice of salmon, and 3 mussels. So out of the 6 total mussels only 2 were opened. My boyfriend even tried to pry it open but couldn't. And they were under done. So that was very disappointing for the mussels.

I did enjoy the texture of the Duck Liver Confit but the taste was quite a bit sour.. More sour that I'd want to enjoy.

Lastly, I'm not sure if this was supposed to be hot or not but the squash Korokke was slightly warm, I did love the flavour but if they made it as a hot dish I'd love it much more.

Okay! Positives. Ima just group all of these together

The environment was great, I liked the waiters and waitresses welcoming you. (unfortunately we were beside a screaming baby) but I like the natural loud ambiance

The Uni Pate was fantastic, the crackers/ toast, was perfectly crisp and there was a generous amount of pate for each piece.

The Mackerel Nigiri was very large portions of perfectly cooked Mackerel. The taste was very good, something that boosted the whole meal to another level.

The salmon. Wow. So so soft. It was perfect, better than when I Sous vide my salmon. The flavour of fish was there and I couldn't have imagine it cooked any better.

The rice, I'm not sure where to put it for whether I enjoyed it a lot or not. I enjoyed how it had that great clay pot taste, and was not over done, had the perfect texture. But also mine was not very hot which brought it down. Also my family said it had coffee taste hinted. I agreed. Not sure why. But I would say it was good, especially if it was hot.

I love Mapu Tofu, this one wasn't really spicy and not numbing at all. But the flavour was good, I enjoyed it and made it make my rice hot.

So. I didn't review all the food I ate, I tried all them. But I just wish the service would have been better. It wasn't worth the money I paid for me and my family because the food wasn't kept fresh and I wasn't...

Very disappointed. I was a big fan of Haraheri until today because some staff were so nice, but not anymore because of the guy who doesn’t look Asian but can speak Japanese. It wasn’t the first time that he treated us so badly, but the manager(I believe he is the manager) and the staff(she is Japanese and really nice) treated us really nicely.

About the bad experience with the guy who I mentioned earlier at first, we already finished paying the bill and sat at the table to finish our drinks, he came and told us that there was remaining which was $0.01 to pay and asked us to pay for that. It was really ridiculous to ask to pay because there was rounding up when we split the bill. But we didn’t complain and just paid for one cent with the credit card as he asked. I don’t even want to mention the other day when he ignored us. I don’t want to say that he is racist, but he was nice to only Caucasian and Japanese. But, we tried to be nice because of the staff who I mentioned earlier.

But, I’m done with that ridiculous situation. It was the end of the year, and I visited Haraheri with my coworkers. For us, it wasn’t even the first time to came here together. We ordered Sapporo pitcher, Sapporo Black lager, happy hour menus; Tuna tataki, takowasabi, harami, and mekyabetsu, and regular ebi mayo. The Japanese girl who took our order was not good at English, but I totally understand the language problem because English is not my first language as well. So for her, we double-checked the order just in case, and guess what? We got happy hour ebi mayo which has 5 prawns, and I told her that we ordered the regular ebi mayo. She tried to say something, but she might have trouble to explain in English. She said she would check it in the kitchen and brought the dish of ebi mayo. When she came back with the ebi mayo that she took earlier, she said the kitchen would make the regular one for us (or the rest of the ebi mayo). We were talking while we were waiting for the food, and the other Japanese girl brought another happy hour ebi mayo. We complained that we ordered the regular size, and THAT guy didn’t even explain it to us instead he said he was going to explain it to the other Japanese girl. They started talking in Japanese, and when he came to our table, he explained that we got two happy hour ebi mayo which is the same amount as the regular ebi mayo. I told him that we’d ordered the regular ebi mayo during happy hour because it was better quality and quantity than the happy hour one, and it usually comes in more than 10 (between 11 to 12, and the size was bigger than we’ve got). He went to the kitchen to ask and came back with a weird answer. According to him, they measure the weight and serve, so the amount of the ebi mayo would be between 10-12. But the ebi mayo’s batter was really thin and the size was really small. When he explained to us, two kitchen staff came out from the kitchen and stared at us which made us feel terrible. So, we asked him to change to two happy hour ebi mayo which is $20 instead of the regular ebi mayo which is $22, and he said he would. We felt really bad and didn’t want to stay there anymore, so we decided to move to the other restaurant. Once we asked for the bill, that guy brought the bill and explained that the regular ebi mayo is cheaper than two happy hours ebi mayo, so he didn’t change the price. He thought we were dumb enough to cheat? I don’t know what he was trying to do. We always paid tips even if the staff missed our order or something, but not this time. If he wouldn’t lie to us, we at least paid the average tips. I feel sad that I lost my favourite place, I came here when I had something to celebrate. But I might not be...

Updated in mid. of April, 2025 : (dinner) Went there on a busy Saturday night. Tried many items from their Regular Menu. Most of them were amazing. Started with their Five kinds Oden "Moriawease" : a perfect starter especially for a chilly night . The ingredients were great & the broth was refreshing. Cauliflower Karaage - super tasty & crispy Tori Karaage - my friend's favorite Truffle & Mushrooms Cream Udon - my fav. dish Mentaiko Aglio e Olio - the fettuccine was a bit too al dente for me (taste was really good though) Cajun Salmon Oshi Sushi and Saba Shima Sushi were fresh and yummy. The Beef Tongue Steak was a bit chewy & hard, taste was ok. Service was attentive as usual. We did enjoy a nice dinner & this place is the best Japanese restaurant in Downtown Vancouver for us by far.

Updated in late February, 2025 : (lunch) Thought I was in Tokyo today... The best Japanese Hamburg Steak in Vancouver is back!!! Ordered : Five kinds Oden "Moriawease" - chef's choice of 5 kinds oden stewed in a a traditional fish and kelp dashi broth - 5 stars The traditional bonito and konbu dashi broth was fresh & the ingredients were tasty - a very good appetizer! 2 Teishoku combos (come with house blend brown rice, veggie miso soup and vegetable pickles) - House Smoked Fish (Black Cod) - 4 stars Taste was ok but would be better with less bones Wagyu Hamburg Steak, wa-fu ponzu sauce (6 stars) I strongly recommend this Wagyu Hamburg Steak! I could experience the cooking techniques used to prepare it, lightly seasoning, the textures & presentation with fresh ingredients. This was by far the best Hamburg Steak I've tried in Vancouver. I thought I was enjoying the meal in Tokyo. Service was very attentive. We had made reservations this time and were offered to be seated at a quieter area with Japanese lower table & seats. If you miss Japanese food very much like me, this is a MUST place to go! Updated in January, 2025 : (lunch) Very disappointed! Got a totally different dining experience this time : Went there for an early lunch but started to be really noisy with customers talking all around - tables were a bit too close to each other making the environment not very comfortable. We ordered the Haraheri Bento Box (w. Wagyu Hamburg Steak), and a Wagyu Hamburg Steak set. OMG.... we have never had such a chewy, hard to swallow beef burgers before, not to mention they were made with Wagyu beef! This main dish only deserved one star. The other side dishes & miso soups were ok therefore I gave an overall 3 stars for food. I hope the Management can take the issues into consideration and make improvements. It was a pity I strongly recommended visiting this restaurant last time.

Reviewed in November, 2024 : (lunch) A Good Vibe! Visited this restaurant on a quiet, rainy weekday. Food was great with very nice presentation. Hamburg Steak was tasty and juicy. Sukiyaki set was also good as a whole. Servers were attentive. Overall dining experience was superb. Definitely will visit more often. Highly...