Monday, April 27, 2009

Shiro+Yuji's

My oven is self cleaning at the moment (ya I know it's 1 in the morning.. I didn't know it was going to take 3 freaking hours.. first time doing it). so I might as well recap on two more restaurants I've recently been to..

I've wanted to go to Shiro on Cambie for quite some time now but everytime I went, it was closed :( but I finally got to try this place out last week :)

The restaurant is pretty small with the sushi bar right in the middle. The menu is not overloaded with crazy random rolls, everything is straightforward and the norm. Looking around, it seems like people come here to eat the lunch boxes. There were many various types of boxes, each with things such as tempura, sushi rolls, sashimi, udon, katsu, etc etc.

We ordered the unagi don, chicken teriyaki roll, and a sushi box. The unagi don was okay. The unagi was a little mushy.. The chicken teriyaki roll fell apart when I picked it up... or parts of it stuck to other rolls when I picked it up.. oi. And the sushi box.. the salad was really sad.. a couple pieces of broccoli and a tomato slice and tofu.. the sushi, once again, fell apart. and the main was rice wrapped in tofu I am guessing. In picture it looked like chicken karrage so that was what I was expecting! why didn't I bother reading the description :( The sashimi looked not fresh and the tuna tasted funny... sour.. so we sent it back and the sushi chef cut us new pieces of tuna that looked fresher. He wasn't mad or pissed about it, he even smiled and apologized.

My favorite part was that they gave us a small packet of pockys with the bill. Although I don't eat pockys (When i was reallyyy young, I heard it gives you cancer so I never ate one again. I was so young and naive. Who knew that everything causes cancer), it was better than the usual mint.


Yuji's Japanese Tapas on Urbanspoon I went to Yuji's last week after the army and navy shoe sale (It was hella cheap I know but people buying 43 pairs and basket fulls? crazyyy). I am pretty good at directions and can usually walk around and hit my desired destination.. so I usually don't memorize addresses. For some reasons I totally forgot where Yuji's was and got it mixed up with another sushi restaurant. bahhh. Thank god my friend is smarter than me and got there on time so I got my reservation points :). The room is small but very sophisticated and classy. The waitresses are all very nice, except some wear WAYYYY too much makeup. There weren't many people there, and we went around 6:00.. Most people seem to be sitting at the sushi bar.

The menu sounded delicious. I wanted to order everything in that menu.. damn so hard to choose. I chose Sweet potato fries, mexican roll, papaya roll, masugo +avo crepe, kobe beef, and I think that's it..

The food came SUPER fast. Wow, impressive. like 5 minutes after we ordered, the food came out. And man was it ever delicious. The mexican roll was differnet, it was chicken and rice and some other stuff wrapped in corn tortilla with salsa dipping sauce. It was probably my least favorite dish.. but still eat-worthy. For the price (6 bucks maybe?) there were only 4 pieces..
The papaya roll was soo good. It was rolled PERFECTLY! It didn't fall apart, the rice to filling ratio was perfect, and it looked like sushi (not too small and mushed or crazy big etc). and I love fruit in my sushi so it was yummy. too bad that there were only 5 pieces.

The crepe also looked a little like sushi, but once I put it all in my mouth, it just melted. I think there was too much avocado.. but still, it was good . The kobe beef was okay. I am not a huge fan of kobe beef but it was alright for 12 bucks.

My favorite were the fries. They were basically tempura but they were perfectly fried. the batter didn't fall apart nor were there too much batter. It was seasoned with salt and had ketchup and some other dipping sauces. It was soooo delicious. I ate so many.

I think I love Yuji's. What a great meal. Too bad everything is in such small portions..

Saturday, April 25, 2009

North Burnaby Wonton House + Bubble World

North Burnaby Wonton House on Urbanspoon I went to North Burnaby Wonton House near Hong Sushi and Socrates for lunch one day. Apparently Michael Buble ventures here a lot. My friend saw him once but had no idea who he was.. but yet he was more excited to see tony parsons one time. Lol..

The restaurant is medium sized ran by a family. We sat by the window and were given one menu with the lunch specials. They were normal stuff- chow mein, noodles, rice, sweet+sour pork, etc. I had the gong chow ngau hor (stir fried noodles?) friend had the ho fun (noodles with beef). I don't think the lady said even one word to us. While we were ordering, she was on the phone and did one head nod to acknowledge us. The specials were around 5.95 I think. It comes with a soup.

There were people coming in and out as we ate. My noodles were greasy as hell. But that's how it is I guess. The ho fun was okay. apparently it was left over from the night before (you can tell from how the noodles look? i dno) . I could only eat half of my dish and got the rest packed up to eat for dinner. I don't know, it was normal food. meh.

We went to bubble world in Coquitlam after because I wanted something sweet. I think I've only been to bubble world once and it was at school because someone coerced me to. I don't like bubble tea.. those pearls are too chewy for me. but I went hoping to get something without pearls. I saw the tofu dessert (dou fu fa) and knew I was getting that. I thought it was going to be a dessert but no no it was gonna be drinkable!! He used a whole tofu dessert and mixed it with the usual syrup stuff you put on tofu dessert as the drink part. Needless to say, this was Hella sweet. but delicious. I drank it in 1 minute. It's definitely not something I can have everyday (sugar overload?) but it was a good treat.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Lobby Lounge at Shangri La

For my mother's birthday, I decided to treat her to the chi spa at shangri la . So eating at the lobby lounge was obviously the ideal thing to do. I find Shangri La to be such a beautiful place, great attention to detail, and impossible to find errors. Customer Satisfaction is obviously number one on their list and you can definitely tell with the greeting of an employee every 10 steps.

Lobby Lounge is a beautiful room with extremely comfortable seating and food served morning-afternoon-dinner. We ordered the set lunches of 3 dishes for 22 dollars each. I had the yam fries, shepherd's pie, and cheesecake. Mother had the soup, halibut, and tart.

The food came a good time. My yam fries were very good because I love yams and fries :) the soup was apparently just okay.. reminscient of canned soup.. The shepherd's pie was extremely tasty but I was sooo full from the fries I couldn't finish it. So I decided to take it to go. The halibut was on the dry side, but had a delicious sauce. The cheesecake was normal, and the tart was okay, the shell was extremely hard.

As we were eating, water began dripping into the room.. at first it was just a little, but then it built up and buckets had to be retrieved to get the water. This happened at the window next to us, and then the other window on the other side of us began dripping water in too! I don't know, I was extremely surprised since I didn't think this place could go any wrong haha.

Another thing, the room was extremely spacious with a lot of tables not filled up. Maybe it is a policy but they sat customers right next to each other. I mean there were three tables, we sat on the far right. and then they sit these other individuals in the center tables, leaving the left ones unoccupied. I don't know. It was just a little uncomfortable seeing as how many unoccupied tables there were (there was one talbe sitting on the other side, so I don't know why they couldn't sit people near them as well). If the place was hella busy, I would understand, but I don't feel like being stared at by the people next to me and evesdropping on our converstaion (they went silent and stared at us as we spoke .).

Last thing, So I got my shepherd's pie packed up, and it was a little liquidy.. They should have used more of a soup container instead of a square cardboard box. Needless to say, I opened it up and it was just goop. How is that even edible? I threw it out :(

I like this place, but there were some things I wasn't too pleased with.. meh.

Lobby Lounge at Shangri-La Hotel on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Unwine'd and Marcello

Last wkd, me and my friend ventured to unwine'd once again for dinner. I've been here a couple times only to be served okay food. Since we had a coupon, we thought this would be a good choice. I generally like the ambience of the room. It has a nice bar and eating area with tv at the bar for ppl to watch the game. There's also a patio. The menu was short and the food sounded just okay. We ordered two appetizers. the sablefish+crab fritters for 14 dollars and ricotta cheese gnochi for 15 dollars. Since we just ate at wallflower last night for food that didn't even cost up to 14 bucks.. the prices were a little inflated for us..

The fritters come and they are sooo freaking dinky. They were NOT worth 14 dollars!!! They were really salty and the middle was just a buncha fennel. I don't like fennel so I just ate 3 tiny little salty fritters. The gnochi comes which looks more like a dish.. except they tasted funny.. me and friend both agreed. We definitely liked the mushroom and asparagus that came along wayy more. they were very tasty. We also ordered a dessert.. apple and peanut crumble (I Think) with honey ice cream. The crumble was really dry imo. i wasn't a fan.

For someone who doesn't like to repeat a restaurant so much since Vancouver has such a wide variety of restaurants. I am still confused as to why I've been here 3 times.

I went to Marcello for lunch today. We ordered a pasta and pizza to share. Talk about delicious greasy filling goodness!! The pasta was spaghetti and spaghetti sauce and clams. yumm.. There were a sufficient portion of clams, they dish was 14 bucks. There was so much oil .. The pizza was yummy it was salami baking cheese with tomato sauce. I loved the crust.. it was flat and tasty. I dno if I was just extremely hungry, but it was a great satisfying meal

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Wall Flower Modern Diner and Crave

Wallflower Modern Diner on Urbanspoon We went down to main st in search of something 'hearty' and 'filling'. The first restaurant I saw was Wall Flower and was it ever a good one to fufill wat we were craving. The menu featured food such as chicken pot pie, grandma's fried chicken, halibut and chips, turkey dinner. If this isn't hearty I don't know what is. I was on the edge of getting the turkey dinner, epitome of what a hearty meal is, when I settled for grandma's chicken instead. friend got the fish and chips. We also ordered a fruity cocktail to start. The food here is reasonably priced, with the most expensive dish to be around 14 bucks I believe.

The music selection was very random but my type of music =) Seating was good in a small room, and the walls were covered in flowers. pretty. The outside wasn't very eye catchin though. Almost missed the restaurant.

The fried chicken was okay, the mashed potatoes were very good. The fish and chips.. was just one piece of fish in a sea of fries. it was okay. I think I would like to come back.. cheap and filling.. what more can you ask for?

We headed down the road for some dessert. Passed a man peeing right onto a busy section of main street. .. ................... we went to Crave and had a pina colada cheesecake to share. The room was very quiet. but the service was good. The room was comfty and looked great for a date. the cheesecake was okay. I've had better though.. but I would love to come back for a meal =) I loved the bar area. It was small but I think it was very nicely set up.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Chinese + Indian (Bo Kong, Bombay Bhel, Chili Pepper House)

CHINESE: For my mother's birthday, she chose to go to Bo Kong Vegetarian place on Main st. My parents had been before with a big group and loved it. They found the food to be extremely inventive and delicious.

Bo Kong Vegetarian Restaurant (Main) on Urbanspoon The restaurant is bustling with people, I realized most of them were caucasian.. but maybe it was the time we were eating at ? (5ish). The server was really nice, found it funny his name tag said man. (yaya i know that man is a chinese name but still :P). We ordered an orange dish which I found to be Extremely delicious! The sauce was very tasty and the veggie made into meat had good texture. That was my favorite dish. The rest were meh-- eggplant, taro+pork, and some 'meat' platter. The cheese rice was quite something. You have to pre order it and whoa. When it came, it was just a mountain of cheese. Inside is filled with rice and taro and other stuff. As much as I love cheese, this was too cheesy for me. Oh and I also had a very tasty and great noodles dish


Cool restaurant, try it sometime (All bo kong food pics and more can be found on my flickr)


CHINESE-INDIAN: Tonight I went to Chili Pepper House, this place has one of the worst parking lot ever. Definitely need some amazing parking skills since backing in is needed. or else you'd have to back up to go out. If it was me driving, I'd probably park on the streets and walk.. i have horrible parking skills (kinda off topic but humorous: my friend is soo bad at driving she got pulled over cuz the police officer thought she was drunk LOL She was driving like she was intoxicated when she wasn't, she was just trying to drive properly). We didn't know what to order so the lady worker asked us what we liked and suggested a bunch of dishes. There's a lot of people at this restaurant-- ranging from indian, to chinese, to caucasian. We got the pakora combo (chicken and veggie) with chutney. the Chutney was too spicy for me so I ate it plain so I got more flavor and it was too salty for me. Although the chicken one was pretty tasty. The beef dish was okay, and the rice dish was normal. Everyone ordered dessert after (ice cream with wafer, or fried banana/pineapple). I was so tempted but I held back. I have to go dress shopping.

INDIAN: Bombay Bhel on Urbanspoon My absolute favorite indian place in Vancouver is Bombay Bhel. Although I haven't been to too many, after discussion with many others, they also agree that Bombay Bhel is delicious. Last time I came here, I had the curry and rice and she gave me naan as well it was sooo good, friend had chicken wings and fries I think and it was delicoius. I came here one day because it was close to apt hunting. I ordered a lamb curry with naan bread and friend ordered the vegetarian platter: An assorted traditional platter of rice, dal, raita, papadum, rice pudding. I think there's more but I don't remember what they were. My lamb curry was tasty with enough spiciness for me. The naan bread is soo good here. mmm. My friend didn't like the vegetarian platter so much.. but I dno.. she usually eats lasagna and grilled cheese or mac + cheese so I dno if I can take her opinion :P I got a bit of taste of hers and I found it perfectly fine.. the rice pudding was very good actually. Anyways, we went to pay and I think my friend was talking about junos and then the waitress just starts talking about how she almost could go to britney spears but couldn't and all this stuff. We were like..??
then we left, and she chased us down 2 blocks because my friend forgot her jacket. wow! dedication! you are amzing waitress lady. When people left things at my ex sushi restaurant, I don't think I would ever run after them. but that's also because.. everyone drives in abby.. I am not running down the streets just to return a pair of sunglasses.

see what I did there, I linked two different cuisines together :D anyways up next: lobby lounge, unwine'd, crave, wall flower. I finished school and I am on my eating craze again. but after that one time when I ate at freaking 12 restaurants.. I can't even finish a small plate anymore.. I think that day really ruined me. oi.

ps 200th post. wow. meaning 200+ restuarants I've been to in the last couple years. I've wasted so much money on the food industry.. it's all good :)

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Japanese (Shuraku, Sushiwa, Ebisu)

Sooo last friday what turned out to be a random hanging out in burnaby turned into going downtown just for shuraku for me . My friend was full from the crappy indian place nearby so we bussed it downtown so that he can sit there and watch me eat haha.

The room is very nice and upscale. We sat by the door, and everytime someone walked in, the door would cause a mini earthquake. it got really annoying. Since we sat in the front, I didn't get a great look at the main dining area, but it looked really nice.. from afar.. (but you know how it goes, hot from afar, far from hot.. sorry I shouldn't use the way I judge people to compare a room)

I ordered a sakura roll because it sounded really cool, it was around 11 bucks? My friend ordered a tea for 2.50 I think. It was just tea..

The roll was decribed as unagi rolls (I think) wrapped in pink something with corn on top and yam fries. How cool is that? It came, and it was sooo small but very very tasty each bite. I could taste evey flavor, but there was too much wasabi.. it got too spicy for my nose (that sounds weird but it was like "gong bei") the yam fries were really good. but damn 11 bucks for these tiny rolls? oii..

Throughout the semester, we made friends with some europeans and thought that we should take them to a good restaurant to let them see what vancouver has to offer.. We wanted to go to Guu but it was too busy, so we settled for Ebisu..... ... I personally wouldn't have chosen this because of 2 previous semi okay experiences but it turned out to be a good time nonetheless :)

We ordered the tiger mayo, chicken karrage, calamari, dynamite roll, beef sashimi, and a unagi combo. The tiger mayo was very good.. lightly battered with very big shrimps inside. The chicken karrage was a bit too big for me (the size of the pieces), the calamari was reallyyyy small! the beef sashimi was pretty good, lots of onions on the bottom though. The unagi was yummy too. The one thing I like about Ebisu are the drinks, they aren't too sweet and I can actually taste the alcohol (unlike guu). Although we had one food mixup, everything went rather smoothly. I think Ebisu is back in my good books again hahaha.

Or maybe it's because ordering without looking at the prices= better selections of food hahaha

I went back to the valley and went to a restaurant called Sushiwa. It is korean and japanese fare in a very small but homey feeling restaurant. The seating here is extremely uncomfortable because I am tiny and sitting in the booth is really uncomfortable (it's too high and too big). We ordered the bibambap, tiger roll (ebi+salmon with unagi inside), and yam tempura roll. The rolls were wayy too dry, it needed some sauces.. and the bi bam bap was adequate. The people here are very nice but I don't really like it..

Okay. next post: bo kong and bombay behl :)

Sunday, April 5, 2009

I m alive.

I m deathly sick and will most likely not update this site for another couple weeks. sorry. I have no time to go out and eat anyways.

funny though, I went to stupid oakridge again and to my happy surprise, that crap tiki ming I blogged about a month back is now closed and reopening as another chinese restaurant. good luck, I hope you don't serve any more crappy ass sweet and sour pork.

random note: couple days ago this guy in a car next to me thought I was smiling at him and started smiling back at me. I was actually smiling at a resturant LOL. you know you're a foodie when.. you get happy when you discover a restaurant you hadn't seen before but heard about. hahhaahahaha. oops. ohhh annapurna =)

to leave it off, here's a pic of some steak rolls I made.. mm delicious