Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Rangoli


One of the restaurants that is on my go to list is Vij's. Too bad it wasn't open when we were walking on Granville so we settled for its more casual sister restaurant Rangoli. It looked super busy but we quickly got a table because an older couple decided to take off from the noise level. since we were still young and hip we could take the noise (ha. sorry. I actaully sometimes gets headaches when I walk into Aritzia or Sirens.. music so crazy).

The menu was short and simple, we ordered a jackfruit curry with goat meat to share because it sounded the most unique and very delicious. Coconut salad? Jackfruit Curry? How can you go wrong! Everyone's dish came out and they looked so cute as well. The curry+rice was pretty good. The jackfruit turned out tasteless and having a weird texture.. We had the toughest time deciphering what this was.. I thought it was boiled cabbage. The coconut salad had no coconut taste.. what a downer. And the naan bread were kinda soggy, greasy?

I think the reason I like this restaurant is because of the presentation of the food and reputation of this place, which is not a good way of evaluating a restaurant. but my pretentious side is sold. I still prefer Bombay Bhel best. and Himalayan Peak worst (UGH@$&^@$*&)

Rangoli on Urbanspoon

Smoking Dog Bistro


For dinner, we decided to try out Smoking Dog Bistro because we had a coupon from the entertainment book. I've never really heard much about this place and when I told my roomie today, she laughed at me (thought the name was funny).

The place had a weird vibe..I wasn't sure if it was fine dining or casual.. because there were candles on the tables, dimly lit lights, and classy wine glasses.. in the making of a fine dining restaurant. Then you look at the tables and the chairs and how close everyone were in seating and etc and it has the feel of a casual place. Whatever.. anyways

We ordered the steak and lamb shank. It took half an hour for the food to come out. I definitely got rather impatient.. my lamb was ok. It wasn't bad but I think there was so much of it that I got really sick of it after awhile. The steak had wayy too much pepper on it. Every taste was pepper. gross.

This place is quite a fars way for me to get to, I don't think I'll be coming back anytime soon.

Smoking Dog Bistro on Urbanspoon

Kishu Sky


omgosh I haven't had Japanese in such a long time and I have been craving it like crazy! We passed by Kishu Sky on W 1st so we went in for some quick sushi rolls. They have enticing pictures on the side as we walked in so we already knew what we wanted. The rolls were very cheap.. about 4.95-7.95 I think. We ordered the Mango and the caterpillar. They came pretty fast

The mango one was yummy, because the mango slice was very sweet. The Caterpillar one wasn't very good. You can tell the avocado has gone border line bad but they tried to cover it up with a shitload of sesame seeds. The rolls themselves were not very stuffed, The ingredients inside were very scarce. The eel inside the caterpillar roll was very very dry.

I think the people that own the place were vietnamese. Weird, I've never seen vietnamese people own a sushi restaurant. They also have a happy hour which is 40% off after 7 pm. wow, almost 50% off!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Ouisi Bistro


I just found a super easy way of getting to Kitsilano. Before, I thought I had to transfer wayy too many times so I just stuck with downtown vancouver and never even thought about dabbling towards the yuppie side. Wait yaletown is pretty yuppie too.. I take it back then, sorta not really.

We walked on granville and was about to be tempted by primo's mexican on w 12th but decided on new orleans instead at Ouisi Bistro. They were jam packed with people so we opted for sitting at the bar. I've never sat at the bar for dinner before, I never know how to feel with having someone standing right there as I ate, but I guess it wasn't so bad.

It was pretty dark inside but there was a jazzy vibe with it all, that was quite enjoyable. I ordered the jambalaya and my friend ordered the duck gumbo. I've heard of these two dishes soo many times (especially in disneyland.. felt like every restaurant served it..along with churros). I've never had them nor seen them so I thought this would be a good time to try somethingnew.

Our food came and apparently the duck gumbo was absolutely delicious. The Jambalaya ok until the spiciness began to kick in. I guess I should have known better that cajun spices and jambalayas are normally spicy. I have a super low spice tolerance level and my mouth felt like it was on fire. damn.

I took it to go and I offered it to a homeless, which turned it down. So I gave it to another "homeless", to which afterwards my friend told me wasn't one. shit. well he accepted it!


Ouisi Bistro on Urbanspoon

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Bistrot Pastis + Noodle Box + Picnic

Bistro Pastis on Urbanspoon We decided to have brunch at this French Restaurant today. It was a very small restaurant which gave off a very cozy and warm vibe. or maybe it was the fireplace I noticed mixed with the warm tone color of the walls. Anyways, I loved it

I had the salmon eggs benny and my friend had the eggs and ham crepe with fries. The eggs were poached perfectly. but the english muffin was a little too tough for my liking. The ham and eggs crepe was apparently good, but it lacked color for a poor presentation (haha minor detail). The food here was adequate. I am still hooked on the ambience of the place. so pretty. The only little downside was the slow service. Maybe it was because they didn't want to rush us (which is a good thing) but we were putting on our jackets, took out our wallets, and looked at her dead in the eyes, and she just walked off.. Oh well, it is a minor downside. I really like this place, I'll probably be back :)

Afterwards we went to Noodle Box and shared a Kids box haha. My friend in victoria always goes to the Noodle Box and calls me while she decided on which noodles she wanted. The place was jam packed with a consistent flow of people. The kid's box contains egg noodles with veggies and supposed "light" soya sauce. I found it to be way too salty and couldn't eat after two bites. I thought it was another personal preference since I practically cut out salt from my life, but my friend found it to be too salty as well. oh well.

Picnic on UrbanspoonFor dessert, we headed to granville to Picnic which is next to (or attached to) Meinhardt Fine Foods. We shared a raspberry cheesecake. Upon inspection, there was a rather bruised raspberry that looked off. It was mold! so we took it off, and there was mold on the cheesecake! gross. We got a new one that was mold free. but dang, if one was like that.. how long do they keep them out for .. :|

The cheesecake was pretty yummy but well, I like anything cheesecake :) Inside looked like a cafeteria. I guess it would be a good place to grab a quick lunch.. but still, the mold we found kinda turned me off from this place.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Little Billy's Steakhouse


Me and my two best friends haven't gone out and dined in such a long time. We used to go downtown so much but it's been a chaotic month with school and midterms/assignments/papers. Tonight we had plans on going to Sfinaki on Hastings but they were abruptly demolished when the bus stopped from a pretty brutal looking car crash. Being a nice civilian, the bus driver got out and began helping and told all of us to take the next bus that was coming within minutes. Being such a good samaratan, he should at least moved the bus maybe to an off road. The roads there are already filled with lots of traffic, with the added crash and the long bus, they were even more conjested. My friends were dying of hunger and were eyeing socrates/little billy's that was a block down. I didn't want to go to socrates again because I had been once, so I agreed on little billy's

Inside, it is very small yet very cozy. Everyone seems to know each other and they seemed pretty booked. Nonetheless they gave us a table and we ordered a few dishes. We shared a lamb chops while my vegetarian friend had the mac and cheese. I don't like mac and cheese but apparently it was very good. The lamb chops were pretty yummy, so was the rice. The bread was not and neither were the potatoes (too lemony) the vegetables seemed really old too.

The manager seemed very outgoing and apparently went to every table and asked them about their dinners, cept ours. We were pretty pissed. Just because we are 3 teenage/young adult girls doesn't mean we are not supposed to be here. A little "how was dinner tonight?" would be fine. We were paying and honestly he was just standing there behind us and it got a little awkward too.

Whatever, the place is super close to us and we had a satisfying meal tonight.


Little Billy's Steak House on Urbanspoon

Monday, October 20, 2008

Red Star Restaurant

I remember in Hong Kong, we'd always go to may sum with my grandparents and relatives on saturday mornings. We'd get the usual ha gow siu mai cha siu bao. Nothing can beat that!

My parents are leaving for hong kong for a month (jealous) so we had lunch before they left. My father loves banh mi(?), those vietnamese subs so we were going to go au petit cafe but there was a lineup outside. dang. So we went to Red Star for good ol dimsum... even though they were most likely going to endure much better dim sum for the next 4 weeks.. hah. Maybe we should have went to .. [fill in the blank with something vancouver has that hk doesn't] .. ... milestones..? I don't know . anyways..

I wanted to be adventurous today since every time I go to dimsum, I order the usual things and never try anything different. Aside from some staples (I must have my siu mai and jung joo gai), I decided to pick absolutely random things. After testing out my chinese skills on the all chinese ordering sheet, I thought I did pretty damn well until the waitor brought over some 3 bowls of rice and cha siu (bbq pork). oh fuck, did I accidentally mistaken the daikon cakes for rice and pork. no no, he brought it to the wrong table. phewf!

The next thing comes and it's this bowl of gray goop. this time, I did mistaken the daikon cakes.. for.. well.. daikon cakes. I wanted to order pan fried daikon cakes, but instead I got freaking steamed. It tasted like goop but oh well, divided by three people, it was only two quick bites :)

We ordered this dumpling that has a shitload of stuff inside. Apparently it's really hard to make because soup is inside the dumpling (uh.. reminiscient of siu long bao? apparently it's different and harder than those). Anyways, there's like mushroom, shrimp, shark fin, gone yiu choo in this dumpling. The sharkfin wasn't like small either, it was a huge piece. I think it was real..

We ordered pan fried daikon strips/prawn cake things, ma lai gao with wu tou in between each layer, Chinese doughnut in rice rolls (not new but yummy), and desserts. I got yeung chee gum lo (this grapefruit/pomelo/mango/sago dessert) which was too sweet for me,dou fu fa (yummy), and these shark mold things with leen yong inside. ok I THINK it's leen yong anyways, It's in those dessert buns you get after Chinese dinners, I don't know.

So at the end, it cost around the same as a place like sun sui wah. It's kind of out of the way, so I don't think I'd come back..

Next door is this bakery called La Patisserie. they sell individual slices of cakes but instead of the same old mango, chocolate, strawberry, mousse, cakes, they sell coconut/lychee/pomelo/etc cakes. They were .50 cents more than the ones from T&T but I think they are worth it! I got the coconut mango with black rice, black forest [my fave], and mango/pomelo cake. They were all so different and delicious! Except black forest.. that was a downer because instead of real cherries, they used jelly.. yuck

Red Star Seafood on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Bavaria

Reminscing about my childhood days, I remember going to the Bavaria and eating steak and lobster. (to have one of these as a childhood memory was basically foreshadow that I would eventually take pictures and blog about food). The place was always so dim and old but their food was reasonably priced and delicious. I hadn't been back in about 10-12 years but I had a coupon so we decided to go here one night.
They renovated the whole place to look more trendy and upscale, even with the hobos sitting outside on their bench drinking.
The service was a little snooty seeing us two teenage girls as opposed to their regular older, you-can-tell-they-have-money type of customers. Nonetheless, we got seated prompty even amidst all the reserved sign on nearly all the tables. We were served a "goulash" with bread in the beginning. The 'goulash' tasted microwaved chunkys. ew.
We ordered a calamari dinner and baby back ribs.
The ribs were too tender (maybe to cater to their older older crowd which occupied many of the tables). and the calamari were nicely fried but the tzatiki was really bland.
As we were eating, we saw some teenager with a skateboard coming in and going to the kitchen. I didn't need to see that the 'chef' preparing my food tonight would be younger than me.

I don't think I'll be back, I would rather like to hold onto my old memories and look back on it instead of dabbing into them in the present. Don't change what's already good right ?

Monday, October 13, 2008

Rekados

Rekados is this contemporary philipino restaurant on Main street. The parking here is an absolute dread but the restaurant itself has pretty colors and very friendly waitresses. They would say the name of the dish they were giving us, then pause and smile as if to wait for us to ooh and ahh at the food they were presenting to us. After every thank you, there would be a very happy you're welcome :) in response.

We ordered a salad thing, tilapia, pork hocks, and mussels. All the dishes looked so nice. The tilapia was pretty good, so was the pork hocks, the mussels had a really good sauce to go with the rice but the salad thing was really really gross. For dessert, we ordered the creme caramel and toffee cake but they were just adequate.. We could have gone without.

The place filled up really quickly with many philipino families, so that's good to see (like seeing koreans at korean restaurants, chinese at dim sum restaurants, etc). The drinks looked beautiful and many tables had hot pots. We should have ordered one..


Rekados on Urbanspoon

Friday, October 10, 2008

Spices

After going to Gloucester Cafe a few weeks back, I noticed Spices next door. It is a tiny viet restaurant ran by family. The decor is beautiful for a vietnamese restaurant. The little pepper lights hanging down the ceiling with the red walls give off a very cozy ambience.
There is only one woman working the front and one man in the back. Even so, they are super efficient! Food came out relatively fast (except dessert which was understandable) and she was always hustling and bustling around helping everyone.

We just wanted to try a little bit of everything so We ordered a combo, beef pho, lemongrass chicken wings, chicken pot rice, and deep fried banana+ice cream. The combo consisted of 1 sugarcane shrimp, vermicelli, spring roll, and viet spring roll, and beef brochette. Everything was just o-k, nothing really stood out for me. The beef pho seemed to be lacking beef but it was pretty big. Afterwards, I felt thirsty from the MSG. The chicken pot rice sounds Chinese but there were some vietnamese influence. It was worth the money. The chicken wings were crispy but I prefer the ones from phnom penh more. Lastly the deep fried banana ice cream was adequate.

She was so nice and helped us decide on what to order. We also told her we parked in the back so when we left, she told us to walk through the kitchen so we didn't have to walk the whole way around. The kitchen was relatively clean and the one chef was very nice as well. Even though I think everything was just adequate, I think I'll probably be back again because the service/ambience was so lovely :) I would love to try those viet subs at lunchtime one day


Spices on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Plan B

We were craving some dessert and wine on a Monday night so we decided to try out Plan B (since they had half off wine specials). I've been here once before and i thoroughly enjoyed everything and planned on coming again.. This time, I definitely do not have the same sentiments.

We arrive and the service was super nice and happy so we thought excellent this will be a good night. We sat down and ordered a bottle of riesling and a sablefish plate. The whole menu is designed so everything are "share plates". Sablefish for 15 bucks, we thought this will be a good (esp since it's a pain to cook fish in our apt b/c of bad ventilation :( ). we patiently waited for our food, drinking our delicious wine.. getting hungrier by the minute... Then she comes over and tells us she forgot to put the order in for the fish, and didn't realize until after she asked the kitchen where the fish was.. omg. The place wasn't busy and you forgot ONE order. I actually started getting hunger pains and felt weak (I hadn't eaten much the whole day). The sablefish comes and it's this dinky thing meant to be shared??? we each took 2 bites and it was done. The foam thing is just weird and the panna cotta/sablefish tasted off. Needless to say, we hated this and I was still starving.

So we ordered fries which came out MUCH faster. I did not like the seasoning on it, but I had to stuff my face because really bad hunger pains.

Lastly, we ordered the stilton cheesecake which was delicious but so freaking small. The rhubarb was super sour though. Towards the end of the night, we never saw her and she never came over to ask us how everything was. I couldn't even finish my wine because my stomach needed food, not alcohol. and I didn't feel like ordering another 15 dollar weird ass thing that would not fulfill my appetite.

I was still weak and had to get a burger from mcdonalds, that 4 dollar mcchicken was better than the whole 45 dollar meal combined.

No.. we are not coming back again.

Plan B Lounge & Eatery on Urbanspoon

Monday, October 6, 2008

Seoul Doogbaegi

When people say korean food, I automatically think about korean bbq. That was basically what I thought all koreans ate (and kimchi and rice) up till a year ago when I ventured into a korean restaurant in koreatown (end of robson) and ate a disgusting seafood pancake. This is also a pretty ignorant comment since my best friend for like 8 years and counting is korean...but she's practically white like me. and it doesn't really help when another good korean friend of mine always answers me he is eating korean bbq whenever I ask him what he is eating for dinner.

Anyways, tonight before going back to school, me and my family decided to try a real authentic korean restaurant. After the disaster at Joesphines, I was a little weary about going into a restaurant where chinese/english was not the predominant language. Nonetheless, I've seen all these pictures of the rice in a clay pot with an egg on top and I really wanted to try it (bi bam bap)

The restaurant is simple with beautiful food pictures all around the room. Everyone was korean ranging from young to old. There was only one server who did basically everything (besides cooking).. she was pretty efficient I must say.

We ordered bi bam bap, chicken ginseng soup, and bbq beef. The little side dishes came and the potatoes were delicious! omgosh I ate all of it within a minutes. They were so tender with a subtle sweetness to it. yummy.

The bi bam bap came with a soup first. Then she whisks my empty potato bowl and goes off to help other customers. The bi bam bap was pretty bland and I love it that way. I basically cut out salt from my life (when I can control it) and I don't really use any dip sauces in anything (Soy, hot, etc) so my taste has been towards blander things. After mixing the egg yolk into the rice and veggies, it was so delicious I could have eaten the whole thing.

She quickly comes back with the bbq beef and another delicious bowl of potatoes! :) I didn't even have to ask her and she just got it. how nice. The bbq beef was a little too saucy for me.

Then the ginseng chicken soup came. it wasn't very authentic apparently and the inside of the chicken was ice cold. well, at least she apologized, took it back and reheated it...
Although I don't think I'll be coming back here.. I enjoyed the bi bam bap and potatoes :)

Seoul Doogbaegi on Urbanspoon

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Cranberry Pound Cake


Look how pretty it is! I love my bundt pan. This time I didn't reduce any ingredients because I wanted a nice cake and it worked! :) The cake itself was pretty yummy. I thought it was too sweet but others thought it wasn't sweet enough (umm.. 3cups sugar guys..)

Recipe Here I don't know why mine is dark, oh well, still pretty.

I haven't gone out to eat in friggin ages. how do I know? because I actually have moolah and am considering splurging on a pair of ankle boots or an overpriced sweater from ax

I have 6 agonizing midterms in oct/nov and shitload of proj/assignments. fun times. but this week there will be more restaurant pics/reviews.. I guarantee it :D