Monday, September 29, 2008

Yew York+ Abigail's Party

We went to Yew York and shared a chicken souvlaki wrap. We said no onions, and honestly 2 seconds after, she tells the cook to make a wrap and doesn't say no onions. Honestly, 2 . seconds. after. No one else was at the restaurant either, so how the hell is her memory THAT bad. Anyways, onions came in it. we were starving we just picked it off.

It was ok. the fries were tasteless and the wrap was meh. The place is really small and seating a little comfortable (in my opinion).

Abigail's Party on Urbanspoon After we headed to Abigail's party and I was super uncomfortable because my number one phobia is fruitflies/gnats flying around. There were about 2-3 that kept flying around us and I got so tense. ..
The place is really small and everyone seems to know each other. We had the duck confit quesadilla and it was soooooo grosss. I couldn't even eat it after 2 bites. It was just so salty and ughh ew. We wanted to leave really bad but we had this coupon that says get 1 menu item and the 2nd one is free. so we decided to get a dessert, since after all, it WILL be free right..

the dessert was o-k. nothing to rave about. The bill came and they said the coupon won't work because it was only for entree.. What the fuck? first it just says 1 MENU item and the 2 MENU item is free. So i pointed this out to her and she's like ya but they have to be around the same value and stuff.
What???
um, we are asking you to take off the dessert, which is 7 dollars. Is that not actually beneficial for you instead of asking you to take of a main which is around 12-13 dollars? She didn't really make sense nor do I think she knew what she was talking about. But I honestly just wanted to get out of there and didn't feel like making a commotion

I was going to go to a sushi place after but I was pretty fuming, so went home instead.
Obviously I am never going to Abigail's Party again.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've been seeing this Neiman Marcus recipe circulating around A LOT recently so I decided to give it a try. They sure were soft inside, but still not as good as I hoped :(

Next recipe I try, I am gonna take my time and really really try to make it good.. freezing dough, patting it down in nice circle,etc

ps I was studying when I made them. I really didn't feel like learning about expats.

If you want to try Here it is

Golden Phoenix

Before going home, we decided to try out Golden Phoenix for dimsum. They had some pretty different dimsums and I was feeling a little adventurous (ha..ha.. meaning no ha gow siu mai cha siu bao.. we always say it all together cuz they are the staple!) We had the dou miu ha gow (veggies+shrimp dumpling), there weren't enough dou miu but good. The drunken chicken (ok I am translating right from chinese so I don't even know if that's what it's called but juay gai).. I didn't eat it, but apparently it was quite bland. We had wu gok (my favorite) which was an absolute let down. Too much taro I think, making it very.. (tai lau? does that make sense?). Also had jee ma yong which were yummy, egg tarts (ok boring egg tarts but I got them because they didn't look very flakey and I like nonflakey eggtarts.. and yes I know that is not authentic :p). and oh ya this really random duck/chicken/taro wrapped in egg. This was pretty weird. I just ate everything separately.

Food came out really fast and there was always something around. It is relatively cheap and the service was pretty good too. If I were to have dimsum again, I'll probably be back :)

Golden Phoenix Chinese Seafood on Urbanspoon

Bouzyos

It has been AGES since I had greek food so I was super excited to go to Bouzyos this past Thursday. Inside was cute and had a nice ambiance. The service was ok, it took awhile for them to come over and take our orders though. I ordered the Lamb Souvlaki (16 bucks??) and my friend ordered the lamb and chicken. The food took a while to get out. and it came With the bread. Hum.. why would I want to eat bread when my food is already here :(
Anyways, the lamb was really rubbery to eat..but the chicken was pretty tender. the one sole potato looked so sad.. it was ok and the rice was yummy (you can't go wrong with rice though?).
16 bucks for souvlaki seems a tad big expensive. Thank god I had a coupon. The next Greek place I shall try is Sfinaki.. I've heard good things.

Bouzyos on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Asian Food

Last week, I went to Ken's Chinese Restaurant, which is across from Dai Tung. The place is freaking bright as hell and the menu is very very extensive.. with some questionable food. The place had a really asian feel to it, so noodles/rice/asian fare food is the norm. But then there were chicken wings, lamb chops, spaghetti, western fare... I started feeling sketch. Ok, I know that westerinzed food is common at HK cafes, but this one had a REALLY asian feel to it! Nonetheless, I ordered a western combo because I didn't feel like asian. We also ordered half a chicken and beef noodles.

Everything was ok. Even the lamb chops were good. I am still weary though. I don't know why?? Maybe it's because I just saw Kitchen Nightmares yesterday and I read a blog post about worst things found in food (crawling cockroaches? omg) so I am a little uneased.. but like my father says, what you don't know can't hurt you.
The next day I went to get my haircut so I was around Metrotown/BCIT area. We went to No 1 Beef noodle house. It was jam packed with people but the food was quite bland/adequate.

Tonight I met up with a old friend that I hadn't seen in a year (finally got himself out of the valley). We went to Black Tuna and I have to say, it was a huge let down. The place was super empty and it looked really drab as well. The menu was quite unimaginative and the food was bland. The unagi was grilled nicely but the rice was too hard. We also had the chicken karaage that tasted super off and the skin was really weird.. like it was fried for too long. We should have went to Yoshi.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Picnic

Tuesday was SOOO gorgeous in Vancouver. We could not waste possibly the last nicest day of the year on studying coped in our apartment. So we packed up a couple books and went down to English Bay for some tanning and reading. We passed raincity grill and decided to try their halibut and chips takeout (we've always wanted to try but no opportunity). my friend went over to the cupcakes store and got a couple cupcakes and a lamb souvlaki donair from the med grill. All in all, it cost us less than 20 dollars for lunch.

The halibut and chips is a really cute idea since it came with colelsaw and water in a cute brown bag. The fries were too salty in my opinion and the coleslaw was too oniony.

The cupcakes were yummyy and the donair wasn't so good. I've had better. I thought it would be better because I've been here before for a lamb platter and it was delicious.. but then again I was drunk and had the munchies so that might have been it.

All in all, it was a cute day.. glad to have spent the last nice day having a cute picnic on english bay :)

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Gloucester Cafe

When I was a kid, I absolutely ADORED Gloucester Cafe on Cambie. I would come here with my parents all the time for baked pork chop with rice. mmm. It was probably one of the more cleaner hk cafes in vancouver and thats always good in my books.

I went through a phase where I hated hk/chinese dishes but now that I have regained my appreciation for my own country's food, I was happy to go back to gloucester after many many years.

The waitresses were super friendly and talkative. There were many food choices ranging from 6 dollars to 32 (those were the combo deluxe dinners I think). Many of the dishes came with a free hot beverage (your usual hk fare drinks).

We had the laksa with chicken, stir fried noodles, and pork chop with rice :) . Everything was adequate and decent and came out pretty fast. I haven't been to any hk cafes in van that can compare to the ones from hk (obviously.) but gloucester is pretty decent. It's more westernized than other ones, and it's not as good as I remembered from my childhood, but the dishes are still ok :)

Off topic: Next door is Spices, I can't wait to check that one out! and across the street is Dadeos, I wonder if it's exactly like the one from Edmonton

Cafe Gloucester on Urbanspoon

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Bogarts+Cactus Club+ Hakkasan

After class, I was starving so we went off to Bogarts and I ordered a steak. I rarely ever order steak just for myself (it's so meaty and usually really exp) so ya i was pretty freaking hungry. The steak was ok. I think they overseasoned a bit. The place was pretty empty and the food took quite a while to get out (or I was just extra impatient that day). The place wasn't memorable enough for me to want to come back...


I am not a fan of chain restaurants. Unless I was with a group of people or needing to get drunk, I don't usually venture to earls or milestones for dinner or a date.
Unforunately, I was starving and around Metrotown area with no where to go except chain places (Well I wanted to go to Kiss yo mama but I had no idea where it was). We ended up going to Cactus Club and I had the cajun chicken sandwich. I don't like Burgers because I find them kinda fatty and really difficult to eat. There's just so much filling inside a burger and so many calories. However, a sandwich just sounds a little healthier and better created. (I know, my connotation with sandwiches and burgers are weird but that's how i feel!) So when I got a burger, I wasn't very pleased. I ended up only eating half and taking the rest back for takeout.

The next day, I went to hakkasan in Richmond. It's around the industrial areas .. which is a bit weird for a restaurant! The place was nice and clean. The waitresses were all very friendly and courteous, but a little fake in my opinion. I just wanted to try the hakka burger (I know it's a burger) but the creative thing about this burger is that it uses steamed bun (man tou) instead of regular buns, and the filling inside is like unagi. So it was kinda cool. However, it was freaking HARD to eat! the bun soaked up the condiments inside so it made it reallyy soggy and then difficult to hold up and eat. Everything fell out AS I ate, so I had to discard my lettuce and tomato to make it work. I ended up eating it with a fork and chopsticks because it wasn't working with hands. It sure was tasty though.
We also ordered a chicken and rice which was SOOO salty.