The delicious irony of Ping’s Café comes in layers. The first hits you when you walk through the door. The interior is sleek and spanking-new, in stark contrast to the façade, which is so dilapidated that one could walk right past the restaurant, assuming it’s out of business. But Ping’s has been open on Main Street since mid April, serving up a style of Japanese food that’s new to many in Vancouver.

Ping’s specializes in yoshoku, which is Japanese-style western food. The American and European dishes on which yoshoku is based are so Japanized that they’re virtually unrecognizable, and thus uniquely Japanese.

For several years, I lived near Osaka, where yoshoku was as prevalent as sushi. Neighbourhood and chain restaurants served not hamburgers but “hamburg steak”—Salisbury steak topped with grated daikon and ponzu sauce and eaten with rice. Other examples include tonkatsu pork cutlets; a rice-stuffed omelette; and creamy croquettes. Yoshoku tends to be heavy and authentically western in its comparatively large portions, and is adored by schoolkids.

Josh Olson describes Ping’s yoshoku as “home style” food. Olson, who is half Japanese, owns Ping’s with his aunt, Hiroko Yamamoto. But although Ping’s serves yoshoku dishes, the atmosphere isn’t one bit family restaurant.

Olson says the name was borrowed from a Chinese restaurant located in the same spot in the 1980s. Behind the iron skeleton of an awning, the original, crumbling red-and-white Ping’s sign still hangs. Olson doesn’t plan to fix it. “We wanted to have contrast between the outside and inside,” he says in a phone interview.

The frosted-glass window gives away nothing. Behind a heather-grey curtain, soft, pleated grey felt covers the banquettes, which face blond wooden chairs over slate-grey tables. The bar wall cradles wine bottles through Jetsons-style cutouts. Bulbs hang from the ceiling in funky black-and-white clusters.

The vibe is hip yet laid-back. Water arrives in green wine bottles, and service is friendly and unpretentious. The holy trinity of Kirin, Asahi, and Sapporo awaits.

Plates meant for sharing include prawn gyoza and “Mama’s potato salad”. Ping fries are laced with Japanese mayo and “secret” yoshoku sauce. Entrées include ebi furai (fried breaded prawns), “hambagoo” (their take on Salisbury steak), and miso cod.

After our food arrived promptly, we realized that this wasn’t standard yoshoku but an artful, nostalgic take on it. Portions were dainty rather than hearty and were served on charming, homespun, mismatched vintage dishes. (Think ’70s brown-rimmed, floral stoneware plates and gilded-china tea saucers.)

The deep-fried items all arrived piping hot and perfectly cooked, without a trace of grease. The pumpkin croquette shattered to a sweet, creamy interior. On both of my visits, the tori karaage, served with grated daikon, was exceptional, with a light, crunchy batter around juicy chicken—no doubt the result of expert timing on the part of chef Shige Yamawaki, who hails from Nagoya.

The Ping Dinner ($19) consisted of two thin, palm-sized tonkatsu cutlets, two ebi furai, and a small hambagoo. The tonkatsu’s panko breading came potato-chip crisp, although, as with the karaage, I yearned for more than just a drizzle of sauce. The hambagoo was tasty but slightly mushy. A scoop of potato salad, which tasted thoroughly western, and another of pea-studded rice, rounded out the plate.

Other dishes we enjoyed included nanban saba, but it’s not for everyone. With chunks of deep-fried, marinated mackerel mixed with celery and onion, it tasted like a riff on Scandinavian pickled herring. Very yoshoku fusion, but you’ve got to like strong flavours.

The Bang Bang Chicken Salad, a pretty mound of shredded carrot, daikon, and chicken, has more universal appeal, garnished with curlicues of deep-fried wonton skins, with a gomae-miso dressing. I preferred the kimpira salad, however, made of julienned burdock, carrot, and sesame seeds. The flaming, razor-thin shards of bird chilies—uncharacteristic of a Japanese salad, and not mentioned in the menu—booted the dish into high gear. It was the perfect beer snack (although we wished there was more of it).

The food at Ping’s strikes me as more satisfying for grazers than those seeking a full meal, which is why I wouldn’t call it standard yoshoku fare. Appetizers are reasonable at $5 to $6 each; mains run $15 to $19.

There’s no dessert on offer yet, but Olson promises it’s in the works. Partner Yamamoto is also a co-owner of Steeps Tea Lounge, so some kind of matcha takeoff seems likely.