Skip the unappealing agedashi tofu, and move toward more interesting dishes, like the ebi-mayo prawns ($7.25), enormous, plump shrimp are deep fried in a crispy tempura and served with a spicy mayo. With the beef tataki ($7.80), tender pieces of rare beef carpaccio are rightfully laden with a creamy chili sauce; a little sweet, not too salty, and not too weirdly seasoned.

With the Ishiyaki ($7.90), pork is cooked over a hot stone, with rice, tomato, miso and an egg topping. Another route to go is with the house specialty of Hotate Carpaccio ($7.80). Fresh scallops are arranged in a circle on the plate and a tangy caper-parsley oil is poured over. Other items on the tapas menu prove less seductive, some of them rising only slightly above adequate and a few of them - Tako wasabi, Kinoko Meshi, etc - falling well below that bar. Also, much of the menu is the same as the Robson Street Hapa, so clearly, if that is your wont, that first location is still the better of the two. Cocktail culture never really goes away, but Hapa gets Izakaya just right.