Hi everyone! Happy weekend! I’m glad the sun came out today… I almost forgot what it looked like! I finally edited my birthday photos from Guu Izakaya. Guu first originated in Vancouver and the small tapas-style pub quickly became popular amongst the yuppie crowd.

The average wait time on a weekday is 1.5 hours. That’s average wait time. Is it worth the wait? Oh, YES it most certainly is! My brother arrived there first at 7pm and put his name and # on the list and the hostess informed him that it would be an hour since we required a large table (8 people). He then went to Starbucks to wait since it was HUMID and POURING… I met him there and got my usual venti iced black tea. Not even 10 minutes later, he received a phone call that our table was ready! WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO WITH THE DRINK?! I brought it in and of course got in trouble – oops! I tried to drink it as fast as I could but got brainfreeze. Luckily the BF was there to save the day and drank the whole thing in a few gulps!

I ordered most of the food that night based on my memory of all the good dishes we had last year. My friend “checked” me into Guu on Facebook and a ton of people messaged me their recommendations. Social media is so convenient

Here are some of the dishes we had that night.

Enoki Hotate Bacon – 9/10 (bacon wasn’t smoked and it wasn’t too salty)


Tontoro – 7.5/10 (a bit too salty for me)


Karubi – 6.5/10 (nothing special – not sure how you can make short ribs “better”)


Deep-fried Brie Cheese – 7.5/10 (not a cheese person – I ordered this for the table)


Ikapiri – 8/10 (I got punched in the face with spice but loved it)


Yakiudon – 8/10 (can’t go wrong with udon noodles)


Takoyaki – 8/10 (reminded me of my time in Hong Kong)


Okonomiyaki – 6/10 (too chewy for my liking)


Cheese Bibimbap – 9/10 (soooo good! Lots of people recommended it)


Nasu Miso – 9/10 (I love eggplant and the sweet miso was the perfect complement to this dish)


Ebimayo – 10/10 (SO good! I’m not a fan of shrimp but I LOVED this!)

And for dessert…


Banana Tempura – 10/10!!!!! (so so so so good. I love bananas and you can’t go wrong with deep-frying it!)

Of course, someone snuck off and informed our server that it was my birthday. He got the whole restaurant to sing “Happy Birthday” to me. Not sure if it was English or Japanese because I was so embarrassed but I still appreciated the gesture. Someone video-taped it so I must stop it from circulating around the Internet!

It was a GREAT birthday! I came home to 300 birthday messages from friends and family all around the world – I felt so loved My parents and I then shared a few desserts I got from Pusateri’s. I get the same thing every year – Opera Cake, Mango/Papaya/Coconut Mousse Cake and a Key Lime Chocolate Tart. Hooray!