JAPADOG — Restaurant in Vancouver

When traveling, we reserve an extra meal for the end of the evening...after dinner, after dessert, after the late night cocktail...I'm not sure what it's called, but in Canada it often means "vegetarian hot dog" because the nation is rich with they-hardly-ever-close hot dog places, always with a veggie dog option. That was our experience in cities in the east of Candada, and to our delight, here in Vancouver where Japadog services up a zillion different unique Japanese hot dog combinations, with a veggie dog ready to put in place, and, for heaven's sake, they're open until 3am.

We were in Vancouver for 3 nights, and, sure enough, we went to Japadog 3 times. If you're there before 10pm you can sit in their small dining area. After 10 you order at the street window and there are a couple of stone bench/planter areas right in front you can park yourself.

They have a separate vegetarian menu which is not fully on display in the restaurant, but IS available when you use their electronic ordering tablet (and viewable on their website.) That threw us off a little on our first visit when we knew we had seen the veggie options on the website, but it was before 10 and we were ordering from a live person who only mentioned 2 different options. (There are a lot more than 2!) No matter, over the course of our three nights we tried the Veggie Croquette (made with fried potatoes), the Veggie Oroshi, and the Veggie Terimayo (With no mayo). All looked unique and tasted good and served our late-night extra-meal stomach reserved for just such occasions.

The fact that it was almost across the street from our hotel was a bonus. (Or a disaster depending on how you look at it.) Please, Japadog...you have many locations...what would it take for you to open up just one more here in Newhall, California, and also be open until...

I was in need of a quick bite and stopped by Japadog before heading to Stanley Park for the afternoon. Upon arrival you can really tell that the focus of this place is the food, and the food only. I’d probably treat this place as a grab and go kind of spot as there is a bit of seating, but the interior isn’t anything special or well kept. The service isn’t that great either, but that could have been because they were pretty busy and didn’t seem to have much workers.

We ordered the Yakiniku Rice, Tonkatsu, and Wagyu Termiayo hot dogs, and paired them with some Ramune (one my recent favourite drinks). The Yakiniku had tasty meat, but the rice was extremely soft and mushy. Also, watch out when eating this because it’s a messy one! The Tonkatsu was my favourite. Everything about this ‘hot dog’ tasted really great together, but the pork Katsu was kind of small. The Wagyu was yummy as well, but in my opinion, it didn’t taste super different from the regular hot dog in the Yakinikuo.

If I’m being honest, I kind of feel like this place is a bit overhyped. I was expecting amazing tasting and unique hot dogs, but I think their quality of ingredients kind of takes everything down a notch. That, alongside a poorly looked after seating area and decent service.. all made for not the...

i got very severe decision paralysis from this huge menu and i have so many regrets about my life choices. the hot dogs were a tad disappointing tbh — the bun was very normal looking and wasn’t very fresh. i think it would’ve been a lot yummier if it was fresh. the cheese on the tonkatsu dog was a bit plasticky, although it did make it more flavourful. the wagyu menchi katsu dog was vEry juicy, you could tell that it actually was very high quality (unlike the bread), and its heavy flavour was balanced by the sweet sauce. however the cutlet actually only took up like half of the bun so half of the time you were literally just eating mayo and slaw. both the tonkatsu and menchikatsu were fried FRESH so it was served nice and piping hot.

compared to the hot dogs, the desserts were MUCHHHHH better. the black sesame milkshake was so good — it wasn’t too sweet, but there was a great black sesame flavour. the age ice cream buns were also reALLLY yummy. the fried, crispy sweet buns were really warm and paired so perfectly with the (not too sweet) cold and smooth matcha ice cream. the sugar coating the bun also elevated it — honestly these fried buns were such...