Do a search below using the city or postal code search box if your city is not listed above.
Get dining news including restaurant closures and qualify for giveaways.
have been here three times. they do have a liquor license. the food seems to be on the decline each time i go there. i believe this place is chinese owned and operated. possibly trying to catch on the trend. the location is abit aways from anything else. so parking is not a problem.
they got the izakaya's item, sashimi, robata items. tried most of everything on the menu. They keep taking things off the menu. prob cause the menu was too big to begin with. Like they dont have lobster sashimi. none of the items stood out or were better than the DT izakaya's. agree the ebi mayo was a disapointment, the batter was thick and soggy.
not bad to have some robata items and sake in richmond. but overall when you factor everything in, i'll think twice before coming here again. dinner for two was $140 with a lot of sake.
Food: Had the seafood fried rice and calamari - they were both pretty good but nothing special to write home about. Definitely chinese food served here, not Japanese or fusion.
Service: I found it to be quite good although we did go at night when there weren't very many patrons. We were seated right away and our tea/waters were always refilled.
Ambiance: I thought it was quite nice inside, a lot nicer than I thought it would be. If this place weren't masquerading as a japanese izakaya, then I would probably recommend it to others. If you're just looking for some chinese food, you could check this place out.
I might return if there's no where else to eat. It's not bad but it's not what it claims to be either. I can see why some people would be disappointed if they ate here but I went in expecting chinese food so there wasn't much disappointment in that sense.
The way the large booths are designed, it can seat quite a few & that seems to be the trend of Richmond youths. Large gatherings hanging out in a place with plenty of small plates to choose from and spend accordingly depending on how light your wallet feels. You may leave hungry if you don't order enough or order right as dishes like the Kimchi Udon with tobiko isn't too generous in portion as well as the overtly salty grilled black cod... no wonder it was much less than $10 a pop. The seafood pancake is a little thick but still managed to retain some crisp on the surface/edges & it does contain obvious chunks of white fish & such. The croquettes are pretty good when eaten hot while it's still crispy & only if it's been dipped in the thick citrusy sauce. The Dozo fries is, I suppose, their take on a poutine but topped with what tastes exactly of spaghetti meat sauce & baked cheese topping. I made the mistake of expecting the usual yam fries as these were just the usual potato variety. The tuna tataki is seared well enough.
A good place to hang with a large group of friends with mediocre, but affordable food & chug down some beer or hot watery tea. Plenty of parking in the plaza but fills up quite easily since it seems ppl rarely carpool in Richmond...
Service is friendly & efficient enough.
What to avoid: ALL of the desserts. The coffee jello came straight out of the packaged stuff I used to buy a lot of from T&T for $2.99 for a pack of 3 cups that comes w/ a little flavourless creamer. The green tea sponge cake is the instant whipped up variety as well. I suspect the "3 kinds of small rice balls" are the Lotte packaged variety. In any case, they do seem to cut corners where they can, unfortunately.
I am Japanese, i am insulted that they try to put this food off as Japanese Izakaya. I have been here two times and it didn't get better. It got worse. The owner, i don't think is Japanese. He can't write Japanese. It's not real Japanese menu and the food is not good.
The chefs are not Japanese and the waitresses don't know the menu or even what the menu says in Japanese.
It is like reading a bad Chinese menu translated into English. Not very good. Even the people who gave this place good reviews I don't think they know what real Izakaya is. But then you have to go to Japan to know the difference.
The poeple who enjoy this place will also enjoy those Chinese western cuisine places with 300 items on a menu.
I do not know what more to say, but blech. Plaase. to the owners of this place. If you want real credibility make it authentic or just call it a Chinese Tapas and change the name.
trying to be trendy does nothing for me. It has to be tasty and real and fresh. It is none of these.
Sorry. maybe next time It will be better.
We went to try out Dozo Izakaya because it looked quite flashy and modern and because we like trying out new izakayas.
Never judge a book by it's cover? Correct! This is prime izakaya poser example - the place looked great, the interior design was modern and chic but the food was nothing but boring, tasteless, unoriginal, overcooked pieces of food served in style on slick Japanese china-ware.
Here's my lowdown:
Food:
As mentioned before, it was uninspiring and tasteless. The menu was a carbon copy of other izakayas and I would give it a failing mark for trying to mimic the dishes. I had the tuna tataki and it was equivalent in quality and taste to eating a California roll sold at the deli section of Superstore or at SFU's school cafeteria. Argh...
Service:
This was decent - our waitress was attentive and we have no complaints here. Just don't expect to practice your Japanese here and remember, they may pronounce your dishes wrong so you might just end up correcting them.
Ambiance:
The place is done well - modern decor and comfy leather seats. Has an ambiance closer to a higher end bubble tea place than an izakaya.
Conclusion:
Dozo Izakaya is a good choice for those who just want to eat airplane food quality Japanese food in a modern, funky place.
I came here with my coworkers last week and I have to disagree with some of the earlier posts. We ordered sukiyaki hot pot, beef and enoki mushroom roll, salmon sashimi, takoyaki, a bbq beef dish, okinoyaki?, oyster motoyaki, grilled onion, beef carpacio, a steamed egg with seafood dish, kunpao beef, and kimchee udon. All the dishes except the kimchee udon was presented well and tasted great. The kimchee udon was soggy and we thought t was going to be pan fried.
The restaurant decor is lovely and has a nice modern ambiance. The servers were not bad. They do have alchoholic drinks. When we were there, they had a cocktail drink special where you can mix and match a type of liquor with juice/pop. Depending on how much you eat, the price can really add up. The bill for the four of us came to around $120.
It's advertised as an izakaya yet it serves more chinese food than Japanese. An Izakaya is suppose to be upbeat with a hearty "welcome" upon entry, and a sincere "thank you" when you leave. You get neither here. Service was awful but it might have been a bad day but it's not good when the 3 servers take care of 1 table and basically ignore a whole section. Food is average but more Chinese than Japanese. Lately, there has been a boom of copycat izakayas popping up in many places. This is one. Just because you serve raw fish, it doesn't make it Japanese. Even the name dozo is spelled wrong.
Ambiance: Looking at the place from the outside it was pretty decent looking, went inside, nice decor. Looks like they spent quite a bit & did a pretty good job considering this place used to be 7-Eleven. Modern looking with some neon lights, but the glass ball display looks a bit tacky.
Service: It was decent considering they are pretty new, but they had way more servers on the floor than necessary. Tea and water was flowing fine (No liquor license). Most of the servers didn't know much about any of the dishes. Also they were ALL Taiwanese. I kept hearing them speak Mandarin to each other which kinda throws off the whole 'izakaya' feel.
Food:
Potato Works - Since they only cared to write descriptions in chinese. I could only assume this was some kind of baked chunks of potato (izakaya-style), but what came out was a poor version of a Burger King poutine! Fries topped with hardened cheese and some ground beef! Funky & overpriced.
Spicy Chicken Wings - The sauce was so strange, and way too much loaded on, the wings were dripping with it! Also it was NOT spicy and a bit too salty. Maybe even sweet?
Ebi Mayo - What, the, heck. So soggy, tasteless and the prawns looked like they went through a dishwasher!
Salmon Carpaccio - raw salmon marinate. No idea what it was marinating in as it was quite bland.
Beef Sashimi - Pretty good, taste and price! One of the better dishes and values on the menu.
Rack of Lamb - Soo dry and chewy! It was like eating week-old pork chop! No sauce either.
Chicken Heart - This was the only bbq skewer I ordered and I had to have it sent back. It was burnt, shriveled and bitter. At least the server said she would take it off my bill and make me a new one.
Chikuwa cheese - They were HUGE! I could barely fit one in my mouth, took 3 bites. Since they made it so big, the cheese wasn't even melted ... *shudder* ..
They don't have any desserts. None at all.
Oh and did I mention no alcohol?... bleh
How bad was Dozo? Prices were quite steep, portions were small, menu variety was limited and was not impressive at all, and the quality of food was MEDIOCRE to say the least!
I came here for my birthday dinner. Nothing on the menu catches my eye so I ordered several appetizers and then headed out quickly! Ordering 3 appetizers came out to $25 - how could that be?
We ended up going to Ebisu in Richmond (No 3 & Ackroyd, where Chapters is) for my 2nd birthday dinner after our Dozo experience.
NOT RECOMMENDED! I wonder how long this place can last...
I have a very strong urge to write some pretty terrible things about Dozo, but that would just make me come across bitter and insane. The point I want to come across is Dozo should be avoided at all cost. With Guu at Aberdeen and Sushi Hachi no more than 3 blocks away, there is no excuse to not avoid Dozo.
Let's begin with the food. The usual izakaya items, such as Ebi Mayo, Croquette, yaki udon, Robata dishes, are executed so poorly. Ebi mayo was very soggy, the croquette flavourless, the yaki udon dry (seriously, was closer to chinese fried noodles), and robata dishes were burnt and dry. I can't believe how bad it was. I think some AYCE places serve better cooked food.
Secondly, they didn't have alcoholic drinks on the menu. Opening an izakaya place without drinks is ludicrous. Izakaya are supposed to be about drinking.
Third, the service was terrible. Took 25 minutes to bring us tea and another 15 min before someone would take my order. Then it takes 20 minutes for each dish to come out from the kitchen. And this was at a time the room was at most 20% full.
The last problem, which compounds it all, is everything is expensive. Most dishes are $7-9. These are like Hapa, Shiru Bay prices. Personally, I have no problem with Hapa or Shiru Bay charging those prices because they offer good quality in return. But not at Dozo. It just feels like I am being robbed. Needless to say, I asked for the bill after 4 dishes. Although still hungry, I would much rather spend my money somewhere else.
FOOD: For the pricing we're paying, I would expect quality of Guu or Gyoza King, but it was a big disappointment. My husband got sick after eating there, they've probably put lots of MSG on their food. We ordered 6 dishes (all tapa size) and the bill was $50.
SERVICE: All the servers were pretty good but the one who took our order didn't seem to know much about the menu and she didn't seem to speak fluent English. She suggested us to order one of the dishes but when I asked her what's in it, she just stood there and smile....hello??? she suggested me to order the dish and she didn't even know what ingredients are used!!!
If you want Izakaya food, go back to somewhere that's own by real Japanese people!
More like bozo. Upon entering the first thing you notice is there is no bar seating. No sushi bar. Lousy setup for a single guy going into an alleged Izakaya. I ordered the special and a beer. Got neither. They were sold out of the lunch sushi special (come on its 12:30 pm) and no beer in stock. Yeah like thats a profitable Izakaya. These owners are NOT Japanese for sure. Once my second choice showed up it was to say the least unappealing and tasted as bad as it looked. Bill please Im outta here!!
I usually don't write reviews but I decided to write one for my recent visit to Dozo in Richmond. Let's begin with the positives for this restaurant.
Ambiance - The owner did a really nice job renovating the restaurant. I found the inside of the restaurant to be nicely designed with a pleasant ambiance.
Service - Service was solid as our tea was refilled without having to ask our server, and completed dishes were promptly cleared from our table. It appeared that there were too many servers on hand because we noticed one server lurking around our table waiting to take our plates as soon as we finished our food.
Food - In my humble opinion, food is the most important factor when rating a restaurant. It's great if a place offers excellent service and a bonus if the ambiance is terrific as well, but a restaurant without good food cannot claim to be a restaurant. I am sorry to say that Dozo falls into this category of restaurant because the food quality was very disappointing.
We tried a total of 4 dishes and none of them were worth the price charged for them. The grilled black cod was burnt and the slice of lemon that came with the dish was too large for the portions of fish on the plate. The rack of lamb dish was small with little meat, mostly bones and not much taste.
We left the restaurant still feeling hungry because we refused to order any additional dishes given the poor quality of food in the 4 dishes we tried. After leaving the restaurant we grabbed a burger and fries from Vera's which proved to be a better deal than Dozo.
If you are looking for good food, I would recommend trying somewhere else. If you are looking to hang out with friends over drinks, then you may want to give this place a try for its ambiance.
| 1. | Pho Han Vietnamese restaurant (19 m) |  |
| 2. | Manzo Itamae Japanese Restaurant (19 m) |  |
| 3. | Foggy Dew Irish Pub (31 m) |  |
| 4. | Prata-Man (42 m) |  |
| 5. | Furama Bakery (289 m) | |
| 6. | Subway (378 m) | |
| 7. | Liu's Taiwanese Restaurant (390 m) | |
| 8. | Richmond Sushi (390 m) | |
| 9. | Tapioca Express (401 m) | |
| 10. | Golden Bauhinia Restaurant (415 m) |
