Nomo Nomo brings yoshoku and craft cocktails to Commercial Drive

A tiny new cocktail bar tucked into the corner of Commercial Drive and Charles Street is the kind of spot your cool friend would take you to with the promise that they "know a place."

Nomo Nomo is a 24-seat bar consisting mostly of bar seating, brought to life by co-owners Benedict Lim and Wayne Chow. The concept marries yoshoku — a style of Western-influenced Japanese cuisine — with an inventive cocktail program built around seasonal ingredients.

The cocktail menu rotates, and the team's passion for the craft is immediately evident. The Vietnamese coffee-based Karudamon arrives topped with warm white chocolate foam and sweetened with kokuto (Okinawa black sugar), creating a playful tension between the cold, strong coffee and the silky foam. For those after something more restrained, the Mango — made with hojicha Suntory Toki, mango cordial, and angostura, served with an ice cube imprinted with the Nomo Nomo logo — lands like a refined Old Fashioned.

On the food side, the Hen of the Woods sets an ambitious tone: cold soba noodles with a lightly poached egg and mushrooms presented three ways — pickled shimeji providing crisp contrast to tempura, all anchored by the maitake gomae. The Red Crab stacks tamago salad and red crab on crisp milk bread with tiny fried crabs as garnish, a towering and generous bite. The real hero, though, is the Wagyu Sliders: soft King's Hawaiian rolls filled with melt-in-your-mouth Carrara wagyu tsukune and "secret sauce." The optional foie gras upgrade is bougie and worth it.

Worth ordering again on a second visit: the Ume (umeshu, sochu, lemon, honeydew, burlesque bitters, egg white, and soda) and the Suika, a clarified Hokkaido milk cocktail that reads almost like a watermelon margarita. The menu staple that both previous visitors and the bartender recommend as a must-try is the Ibérico Pork Coppa — seasoned five spices and served with apple kimchi and mustard tare.