Guu with Otokomae — Restaurant in Vancouver

I have been two times before, and it was great, but this last time last night left a bad taste in my mouth. Come here if you want terrible service. Our server spent the night hamming it up with two tables, and completely neglected us. We waited 20 mins with no water on our table, offers for drinks or anything before she decided to pay attention to us amd let us order. Our food sat on the counter for 10 minutes of me thinking...is this our food? Why have we not even had drinks or water? It was our food. Another server brought the dish that had been sitting there for a while, and when our drinks finally arrived, it was all ice, with two sips of actual drink underneath, for both our drinks. I have never been so disappointed. Our server eventually came by, to ask us how our food was before taking our first bite, not acknowledging that our first dish took a long time to get to us and that it was just put down on the table by one of the bartenders on the other side of the room. She eventually brought our other food, still no offer of water, while refilling the cups of the other table and hamming it up and lingering around the two tables she liked. Shw didnt check on us once after that. Just stayed hovering around her chosen tables, even when it was clear she was responsible for all the tables there. We weerent the only ones she was ignoring. It was extremely difficult to try to get our bill. She forgot about us even after acknowledging that we wanted to pay and leave, and hovered around taking orders. I had to flag her down again, and she said oh right...went to get our bill, came back to our table with a machine and no bill, looked at us expectantly before realizing she still forgot to get the bill. We were patient and quiet the whole time, expecting her to somehow redeem herself but that never came. I am NEVER coming here again. I was so embarrassed to suggest this place, I have never been inclined to leave a bad...

Have always been a big fan of the Guu franchise. Have also tried all the Guu locations in Vancouver. Guu has been the pioneer for Japanese Izakaya in Vancouver. We have also been to this particular location in the past and had a great experience. However, not so much the case for yesterday. We've arrived at the restaurant 10 mins after the restaurant opened. The place is practically empty. Probably 3 tables with people at the most. Thinking that we could get a table immediately, the waiter told us that the tables were fully reserved from 6-9pm. Have 2 kids with us, we don't typically stay too long at restaurant. We eat then we go. Not planning to hang out and drink for hours there. We were told that the tables were not available since guests are coming at 6. I explained to the waiter that we still have another 50 mins and it's plenty of time to eat. It literally took another 5-10 mins to convince him to let us in. After getting the menu, they told us that we can't order items that require longer cooking time and if we do, it would be wrapped up to go. We've ordered the beef tenderloin bowl which was excellent, grilled squid, udon noodles, and chicken knees. Everything was great except the chicken knees, it tasted kind of funny at first and I didn't think too much of it. I actually got sick afterwards from it and perhaps it was undercooked. We ended up finishing everything before 545 anyway and the tables were still emptied before we left. I felt like they didn't want our business right from the beginning where clearly they were putting up barriers. I am not entirely sure whether because we have kids with us. My kids are age 8 and 10 and very well behaved also. Perhaps they want to keep it hip for younger crowd to eat there. This by far was the worst experience that I had with Guu. Very...

Stopped by for a late lunch on a Tuesday afternoon and the place was fairly empty. This was probably due to the fact it was just before happy hour which started at 2:30PM. Our party of 5 was seated at the topmost level beside a larger open window overlooking the street. Access to the restaurant and upper floors is all stairs so I had to carry our stroller up.

For appetizers, we order the Takowasa (marinated octopus) and the spicy agedashi tofu. For the mains, we ordered an udon salad, a combination deep fried set meal, and some takoyaki (puffed octopus balls).

The takowasa was definitely the most surprising dish. It was raw octopus and very slimy. Surprisingly, the taste was ok with the wasabi stem masking a lot of the unpleasantness. The spicy tofu was pretty standard with the spicy part just being a dab of hot sauce on the top. The udon salad was literally just some veggies and lettuce on top of a bed of udon noodles. The dressing was a nice soy based vinaigrette. The takoyaki was nice but I always have to remind myself that it can get quite heavy, especially with the amount of sauce they lather on. Finally, the combo plate had a variety of their deep fried items along with rice. The chicken karage was good and the chicken was still super moist. The pork cutlet was less stellar and was somewhat dry. The panko covered shrimp made up for it though and paired nicely with their homemade tartar sauce.

Overall, a decent lunch option and wasn’t too pricey for the amount of food we ordered. The regular menu isn’t extensive but it appears they have a rotating menu so we may...