Osaka Island – Japanese Food on Edmonds

I’ve been avoiding Edmonds Street for a long time due to all of the construction that’s been going for the last few months.  Well the road is finally starting to regain some semblance of normalcy so I felt it was time to start venturing out for some eats.  Osaka Island is one of the many Japanese restaurants that dot the Lower Mainland’s landscape.  Located in a small mini mall next to a Korean restaurant, Osaka has plenty of free parking in the area.

The interior seems relatively spacious since they don’t squish the tables too close together (there’s about 12 tables in this restaurant).  The interior appears clean with plenty of wood decor and origami cranes hanging from the ceiling.

My lunch came with Miso Soup that was served in a cute little covered bowl that reminded me of a coconut.  The miso itself wasn’t overly strong (or salty) but was served hot and had tofu squares and green onions in it.

I selected the Mix Box ($13.50) which came served in a large bento box with chicken yakisoba, Japanese green salad, spinach gomaae, dynamite roll, and bacon wrapped prawn skewers.  The menu description was a little deceptive as I was only expecting plain yakisoba so the addition of chunks of chicken in it was a pleasant surprise.

The gomaae was quite good and refreshing.  The item in this dish that I really liked was the bacon wrapped prawns… the bacon still had a bit of a crisp to the texture and I think I enjoyed this more than a traditional bacon wrapped scallop.  Note: they don’t wrap a whole prawn in bacon… it’s more like a chunk of prawn wrapped in bacon.

The sushi here comes with a lot of rice in my opinion.  Some people like this because it’s filling but I prefer my sushi with less filler so I wound up breaking off about 1/2 of the rice.

I also ordered the BC Roll (normally $3.25 but they had a 20% off special).  Some places use regular pieces of salmon and call it a BC Roll but I prefer mine with salmon skin so I was delighted that Osaka’s version was actually salmon skin.  Aside from the amount of rice in the roll, I would say this was pretty good.

The service here was friendly and the food was on the average to good side of things… I might not go out of my way to come here again but if I’m in the neighbourhood with a hankering for Japanese food, it would make a good choice.

7615/7617 Edmonds Street
Burnaby, BC

www.osakaisland.com

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