Green Leaf Cafe

For those of you who have never heard of Green Leaf Cafe, it is a very popular Japanese restaurant located in Kitsilano. The Japanese restaurant specializes in aburi sushi (flame seared pressed sushi), is known to be a cheaper alternative compared to Miku and Minami (creators of aburi sushi) and they recently opened a second location in Burnaby near Lougheed Mall.

The Burnaby location is a lot more spacious compared to the restaurant in the West End and has an inviting atmosphere. There are a few Japanese restaurants in this area and considering that Green Leaf is newly renovated, it is definitely the restaurant with the nicest decor as well as more modern dishes.

SCALLOP OSHI ($12.00).
Scallop, fish egg, oshi sauce, black pepper. A favourite of mine due to its creaminess and butteriness. And the addition of a tiny crunch from the masago. I also appreciate that Green Leaf diced large scallops rather than use baby scallops.

MACKEREL OSHI ($12.00).
Sweet vinegar seasoned mackerel, house made miso sauce, green onion. Up next is the saba oshi sushi, another favourite of mine! I loved the fattiness and richness from the saba itself, and the green onion to cut some of the grease.

SALMON OSHI ($10.00).
Double layered Atlantic salmon, oshi sauce, jalapeño. Last of the oshi sushi is the salmon. If compared to the Vancouver location, the salmon oshi tasted a lot greasier and less creamy. The salmon was fully cooked and was my least favourite out of the three. It was the least aburied too and could have used a touch more.

UNI SEA URCHIN BIBIMBAP RICE ($18.00).
Fresh local sea urchin, mushroom, house made seasoned seaweed sauce. I actually ordered the uni linguine, but received this instead. The bibimbap had a plentiful amount of sweet and full pieces of uni (no loose and small pieces here!), delicious mushrooms that provided some texture in this creamy bowl of yumminess and the rice was perfect. I am really picky with rice and this was spot on - soft, fluffy and chewy.

YUZU DUCK BREAST LINGUINE SOUP ($10.50).
Linguine, slow cooked sous vide duck breast slices in yuzu dashi broth. The soup exhibited a nice clear broth along with a hint of yuzu, and the al dente linguine tasted great although the duck was a touch on the chewier side.

CHARCOAL GRILLED BBQ EEL RICE ($15.00).
BBQ eel, greens, unagi sauce. This was the least favourite dish. The unagi was overcooked and chewy, and some portions of the rice were really hard as if it was scraped off the bottom of the rice cooker. However the sauce did not overwhelm and the rice bowl was not salty.

BEEF YAKI UDON ($10.50).
Stir pan fried beef udon. The yaki udon was well cooked and exhibited a nice chewiness, which paired well with the buttery and tender beef. It was overall on the saltier side though.

Green Leaf Cafe is a great addition to the Lougheed Mall neighbourhood in Burnaby because there are not many above average Japanese restaurants there in my opinion. Actually Hanamori is great, but most of the Japanese restaurants in the area focus on value such as Sushi Garden or Sushi & Roll. Plus Green Leaf has a variety of dishes!

POSITIVES
- Tasty aburi sushi
- More options that other Japanese restaurants especially in this area

NEGATIVES
- Those looking for quantity and value

This is our go to sushi restaurant in Burquitlam area. Great food, reasonable price, nice room. What else do you need. Always get the snapper tempura as it is amazing. The Greenleafer is a good platter as is the Aburi Platter. Service is always on point and it is a nice room.

Overall this place was pretty good, but a few things really fell short. Came here for lunch on a Sunday a little after noon and was able to get a seat for 2 right away. Service was prompt and attentive. We ordered the deep fried dashi tofu, aburi yellowtail carpaccio, and the aburo salmon oshi. We got up sold on the tonkatsu for +3.99. The dashi tofu was a big hit, definitely my favorite item we ordered here. It came out piping hot, the outside nice and crispy and the center of the tofu nice and gooey. Literally perfect! The yellowtail carpaccio was good but lacked the punch it could have delivered. I was expecting a nice hit of acid from some cirrus, a nice ponzu tang, plus some heat from the peppers. I feel like every flavor note just fell a little flat. The aburi salmon was the biggest disappointment. The rice was hard, the salmon was very thin and lacked any of the smokey flavor that should have been imparted through the aburi process. It literally tasted like it was made yesterday and sat uncovered in the fridge all night. Sadly the worst aburi salmon I've ever had. The tonkatsu was a good filler and a steal at 3.99. However the taste was just mediocre. All in all my experience mostly positive, nothing was disgusting, but most things really just fell short.

Went here recently with a friend. There are no break times between lunch and dinner, so if one wants a late lunch or early dinner, it's a great place to get some good Japanese food. The service is good too, and the place has a rustic quality to it. There is definitely a casual vibe to the place.

The aburi was very good. My favourite was the crab between the two we chose. The mentaiko linguine was amazing, too. I like how there was also some shrimp. The tonkatsu was also delicious, but my favourite of all that we ordered was the crab aburi and mentaiko linguine. Our meal also came with some complimentary tea. Which is nice.

There are a lot of options, so I would likely come back or go to the kitslano location to try other menu items. I'd recommend this place to anyone who wants to try other oshi options.

Very delicious aburi sushi. B and I came here for dinner and we ordered a couple of items to share. We got the salmon aburi, unagi aburi, scallop aburi, sockeye salmon sashimi and gomae to share. We found the salmon aburi not very fresh. The rest was pretty good.

Service was ok. The restaurant is located at a strip mall and there are plenty of free parking. The restaurant itself is quite big and had a lot of seating. The restaurant itself is Korean and Japanese fusion. They offer much more variety compared to the Kitsilano location. They have pasta and other items.

I will definitely be back.

Completely blown away by the takeout aburi platter! Amazing presentation in a high quality box. Sushi itself tasted so good. Loved the assortment - the salmon oshi and scallop were my favorite!

I enjoyed our meal here. The whole restaurant is much bigger than I thought.

I personally did not enjoy the sushi too much, the texture of the rice was hard and felt off. My favorite things on the menu are the Mentaiko Cream Linguine and Tornado Omelet Rice. I would have been so content ordering multiple of these dishes to share! It was soo good.

Green Leaf Café isn't a traditional sushi spot and is a little more high-end. The service is incredible, and they even have the AI waiter bot that arrives to your table with food.

For the appetizers, we had gyoza and takoyaki. There wasn't anything special about the gyoza, but it was super crispy. The takoyaki wasn't dressed in the typical takoyaki/kewpie mayo sauce, it tasted a bit more tangy and sweet. It was enjoyable since it was served in a bed of salad, and the sauce was a great dressing.

We ordered the House Omelette Rice, and it was cooked perfectly. The omelette was so silky and the beef gravy had great umami flavors from diced mushrooms. The Aburi platter was the highlight of the meal, it had an assortment of Aburi that all melted in your mouth! I would definitely recommend getting the platter with a group of friends, since you get a chance to try all the types of Aburi and still enjoy every bite.

I would definitely visit again, and I would love to try their other plates off the sushi menu!

I could not in my own right mind go here again.

The meat on their aburi oshi is pitifully small with each piece being 85% rice. It was hard to judge the quality of the fish since everything was so thin and heavily blowtorched where they lost their defining flavors. I can see a version of this being good but also I'd rather just eat sashimi if I'm going to be eating at an expensive Japanese place. Of the ones on our combination platter, the scallop was the best and the mackerel was a pleasant surprise.

The tuna belly sashimi was not good. Mouth feel was a bit flabby and felt like it was just defrosted. Hamachi carpaccio tasted fine but the cuts of fish were pitifully small and felt more like a salad. Finally, the actual salmon salad featured the same thin flabby meat on a salad that was worse than some complementary salads I've gotten elsewhere.

I honestly don't think it was worth the meal slot and time commitment this took from me even though it was covered by someone else. I will NOT be back.

Greenleaf is one of my favourite places to go in the neighbourhood for oshi sushi! They are very reasonably priced and definitely satisfy my craving. I encourage you to try the platter if you are unsure of what to get at first otherwise the eggplant is definitely delicious and not as traditional. They also have delicious pasta options. They are Korean run and their staff are very nice and courteous. They also have a great takeout options if you just want to grab and go.

This is a place tucked away in a small strip mall in Burnaby. It can get pretty busy so would recommend calling a day ahead if You want to reserve a table..

We ordered Charmisul Soju long with Tuna Oshi, Vegetable Udon, Cha-Siu Linguni and a Tufu Sushi platter..

Most everything was tasteless and needed a LOT of Togarashi and Hot Sauce but the Tuna Oshi was EXCELLENT...

Service was good and so was the ambience..

Definitely worth it to come here once but don't recommend any of the Udon dishes if You like spicy food...