Vintage Japanese Izakaya - Tairyou Ichiba Burnaby (大魚市場)

This restaurant's been here for quite a while and it's definitely one of the more authentic Japanese restaurants around. The owners are Japanese and the way it's setup is very similar to some places in Japan (like Izakayas) where you drink some beer/ alcohol and then eat at the same time. I came here with my family on the weekend for dinner and it was quite busy. Here's my impression:

Service (I would give them 3/5)
I think they are under staffed, so it seemed like between the three waitresses, they were stretched thin. When we arrived, it took us around 15 minutes because a waitress came by to take our order and then another half an hour before we got our food. So it was a bit on the slower end. That said.. given that it's supposed to be Izakaya style.. I think we were supposed to order drinks (which we didn't do) and then wait for the food to come, but instead we only ordered food. The order the food came was also a bit strange. We ordered the chawanmushi (which is an appetizer I think) that came after the sushi came. The noodles we ordered also came after the sushi. At the end, everyone ate at a different time because the time spacing between the food was longer than usual.

Selection of Food (I would give them 4.5/5)
I do have to admit that when I first looked at the menu, my head hurt a bit on how many items were on there. It reminded me a bit of my university days when I was trying to look through my computer code to see where error was and then having a hard time doing so because of how much text I had to look through. The menu here was like that and there were quite a few items. There were some Japanese dishes like the Chawanmushi that I saw here and that I'm a big fan of.


Value (4/5)
Overall, this is one of the more authentic Japanese around restaurants around. The price of the food is priced pretty fairly in my opinion for the most part. There were a few things that I thought was a bit overpriced like the Chawanmushi (for $5+ when it's nothing more than some vegetables and steamed egg with a small piece of scallop). That said, the rolls of sushi were pretty fairly priced and all tasted pretty average. If it wasn't for the long wait to get the food, I would definitely given this place a higher score.