Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba - Kitsilano — Restaurant in Vancouver

The mazesoba is delicious, at least when dining in, and consistently well-prepared. However, the free extra noodles promotion is overly confusing to the detriment of the customer and the wait staff.

Here’s my understanding (after asking several times): you can have free extra noodles but only if you order it in advance of your dish arriving to your table. The wait staff speak to you as if this caveat is intuitive and self-explanatory. Once you realize that your dish has not come with extra noodles and endure the rigamarole of inquiring how to acquire said noodles, you are informed that you cannot have any because you did not respond correctly when posed the strangely worded question prior to your dish arriving at your table.

This review contains zero exaggeration. You literally are forbidden to have any more noodles. I, personally, did not care if the extra noodles were free or not. In fact, I asked if I could simply pay to have some more noodles. But you cannot pay for extra noodles even though you can hypothetically have them for free, if only you had selected the right mystery door in this Kafka-esque nightmare. Why promote free extra noodles if you'd actually prefer your customers not to have them? Why subject your wait staff to this bizarro bureaucracy? Why can't I pay for extra noodles at a restaurant whose sole purpose is to make noodle dishes? I have so...

One of the best Japanese food chains is finally at Kitsilano! I don't normally go places during the soft opening, but as I already know what to expect from this place since I had been to several other locations, I decided to try this time. From the entrance, it seems to be a little different from the other locations with pictures of Japanese streets on the walls. Seemed like that they wanted to have us to have 'authentic' Japanese experience. Servers were super nice, and they knew what we wanted as we needed more water, utensils and etc. We ordered several appetizers and one main ramen each, and they all tasted great! For those of you who are not familiar with mazesoba, you just basically mix all the ingredients with noodles and have it like noodle salad. My favorite thing about this place is that they give you a complementary bowl of rice as you are nearing the end of your bowl, which you can mix the rice with remainder of the toppings. If you are craving some Japanese food, but as the weather gets hot and you don't want to have something hot like ramen, this place is for you! Parking is street parking, or you can easily go there by taking 99 or other buses. Don't forget they have house-made soft...

Decided to come here because another very popular ramen place next door had a 45-minute wait while Kokoro had empty tables, and after eating the food, let me tell you, it is an injustice that this place isn't getting a similar amount of business.

I had the Mentaiko Cream Mazesoba, and it was amazing; a porky, fishy, garlicy, peppery taste explosion in a creamy sauce that coats your whole mouth with bold flavors, and thick noodles, cut to the perfect length to fill your mouth, and so chewy you get addicted to eating them. It really captures the taste of authentic Japanese food, and reminded me of my travels in Japan.

For the price point, you can get any of the 3 bowl sizes AND, with mazesoba, you get a side of rice to mix into the remaining sauce in the bottom of your bowl, which comes out to quite a bit of food. I was definitely satisfied.

I came here as an alternative to another restaurant, but it deserves so much better. Now, whenever I'm in the neighborhood, I'm choosing this place first, for...