Omakase at Tojo's

Seventeen seats, one sitting, Edo-style nigiri piece by piece, and your phone face-down all night. Michelin-recommended and books out fast.

The Kitsilano sushi counter whose omakase regulars guard like state secrets, and whose uni and bluefin prove them right.

Twelve seats. Chef Satoshi Makise. Edomae nigiri shaped right in front of you, delivered with the quiet instruction to eat now.

A 38-seat binchotan counter where the chef hands the roll straight across, still warm, and the nori is still crackling.

All-you-can-eat yakiniku where you grill prime beef together on a two-hour clock, and 13,000 reviewers agree it was worth the lineup.

Flame-kissed aburi sushi by Burrard Inlet, where the salmon oshi arrives, gets photographed, and makes the table go silent.

Sumu grand opened in August in the old Sala Thai space, 130 seats of blackened steel and hand blown glass flowers, with binchotan yakitori mostly under $4 a skewer.

Fukuoka-style tonkotsu you customize on a little order sheet, plus a queue that counts as your best first-date warmup.

Michelin-listed Main Street kitchen where Peru meets Tokyo and Canton: alpaca tartare, arroz con pato, and a pisco bar that hums until close.

A calm Newport Village sushi room with soft jazz and private curtained tables you can pull closed and slip your shoes off at.

Chef Hector Laguna's plant-draped Coal Harbour room, where the world-ranked cocktails alone justify the good shirt.

West Broadway's papier-mache-and-neon sushi institution since 1983, with 50-plus rolls that have never once cared about tradition.

Named for chef Tushar Tondvalkar's mother and the Marathi word for poetry, Kavita's Ammakase tasting earns both meanings course by course.

Iron Chef champion Alex Chen's glamorous Burrard Street seafood room, Michelin-recommended and seriously polished.