Torafuku is located on Main Street in Historic Chinatown. They are serving up traditional flavours but adding an innovative twist to their dishes. Chef and owner Steve Kuan is crafting contemporary dishes with local ingredients but with familiar Taiwanese and Chinese flavours. There menu is similar to Heritage Asian Eatery and Sai Woo.
Torafuku is now open for dine in, but with shorter hours, so reservations are recommended. They also have a great take out program with various frozen prepared meals and sauces. Torafuku is currently celebrating their five year anniversary with a special Omakase menu. I didn’t have the opportunity to try this menu but I did stop by to try out their lunch menu.
Their lunch menu consists of a variety of bowls that have different proteins. They also have their signature Torafuku Beef Noodle Soup and small shared plates.
Appetizers
To start, we tried their I Love Dumplings ($9.00). This is their classic pork and chives dumplings with mixed herbs, croutons, and house made chili vinaigrette. The dumplings had a nice firm filling with a thin skin. The vinaigrette isn’t too spicy and the herbs add a nice freshness to the dish.
Signature Main Dishes
For my main, I went with the Chicks + Crack Rice ($13.00). This bowl comes with their finger lickin’ chicken, crack salad on kick-ass rice – cooked with sake, butter and dashi, a perfectly poached egg, mixer herbs and pickled cabbage. The chicken was a bit soft for my liking. The spicy mayo gave the dish a nice kick. Their famous crack salad is as addictive as they promise – in particular the Brussels sprouts. The pickled cabbage helped to lighten up the dish as it was on the heavier side.
We had to try their signature Torafuku Beef Noodle Soup ($15.00). This hefty bowl comes with sake braised beef shank, hand-pulled noodle, bok choy, soft poached marinated egg, and pickled mustard. I’m not a big fan of beef noodle soup, but this bowl blew me away. The noodles were springy and chewy. The broth had a deep rich flavour (heavy on star anise). And the beef shank was so tender it fell apart at just the lightest touch.
Overall, I had a great time at Torafuku. The dishes are well made with lots of bold flavours. Their bowls travel well and are great for take out if you’re not comfortable with dining in. It is a bit out of the center of Chinatown as they are located at 958 Main Street, but it is very easily accessible from Main Street-Science World Skytrain Station.
