Japanese food is practically home cooking in Vancouver – the school lunch program has a sushi day – so you’d expect to find Japanese food everywhere. However, as progressive as Vancouver is on many other issues, city ordinances prohibit sales of most foods on the street except hot dogs.
The solution: Japadog. Owned and operated by Japanese, these hot dog carts may look humble but their output is anything but. The meats are a selection of beef, turkey, bratwurst, even kurobuta (black pork) sausages, sakana (fish sausage with tuna flakes) and korokke (with croquettes of mashed potato and green cabbage).
It’s the topppings, though, that make Japadogs really stand out. The standard is terimayo (fried onions, teriyaki sauce, mayonnaise and – the piece de resistance – confetti nori seaweed), oroshi (with grated daikon radish, sliced green onion and special soy sauce) and okonomi (with tangy okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise, fried cabbage and dried bonito flakes).
Click here for Japadog’s menu and locations: Japadog website