Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Lux, Cafe Barcelona, Whineo's

Lux at Caprice on Urbanspoon I've been meaning to try Lux at Caprice for some time now but it never worked out! So when my friend from the valley came to visit me, I thought it would be a great time to try again. The restaurant is quite stylish, dark, and great for parties.

We ordered a flat bread to share and I had lamb (medium well) and she had the gnocchi. Food took half hour to get out.. With all of it coming out at the same time??? Why didn't we get our flat bread first? Oi. My lamb was medium RARE, not WELL. But since food took awhile and we needed to go elsewhere, I ate it. Everything was alright... Nothing too spectacular.. Just found the wait to be a little too much.. Same with ordering drinks.. but the ambience is great I think. We ended up telling our cabbie we had 5 min to our nxt destination and he proceeded to blast the Jay Z song on the radio and dancing to it as if he was some gangster and drove hella fast. Lol, awesome. And he made it there with one minute to spare :) I hope to encounter you again one day mr cabbie man, and not the ones who throws the map at me and tell me to direct them or tell me to show them money first. Bastards.

We went to Cafe Barcelona one night after realizing circa and lux were unavailable. The restaurant is very quaint and bustling with a ton of people. We ordered a pitcher of sangria to share (yum) and ordered the spanish omelette on tomato bread, pepper and cheese dish, and a cheese and quince paste dish to share (with the cheese + quince a highly recommended dish). I also got myself one croquette which ended up having very very little pieces of ham and way too rich for me. The omelette dish was delicious (even though my friend didn't want to get it :P) Everything went well together and was quite filling but the other two dishes were not good.. The cheese and quince paste was 9 bucks.. Serious?? For a second I thought we were supposed to dip the cheese/quince into the pepper dish. Neither of us were fans and left. Although we met a lovely man named James who was so friendly and talkative to us. Hope to see you one day again! Maybe we will run into you at the Cellar checking out the hot Gotti looking bartender? Hahahaha :)

Since I was still hungry as hell and needed some carbs in my body in preparation for a long night of drinking, we went to Whineno's so I could order a Spaghetti and Meatballs. Friend had the deconstructed cheesecake. I've been here one time but never ate here. I think I was offered a free drink from some random here the last time I was here. The room is nice but fairly dark. I personally enjoy Sip more but I've been there to eat so I wanted to try new things. My spaghetti dish wasn't very good unforunately. The meatballs were hella dry and whole thing was rather bland. Maybe I have been spoiled with swedish meatballs and can't go back, but they were not good at all. The cheesecake was fine though. We were in a hurry again off I went with spaghetti breath and smell. Lovely.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Sun Sui Wah + Copa Cafe

Sun Sui Wah (Vancouver) on Urbanspoon I've never blogged about Sun Sui Wah ever even though I claim it to be my one of my favorite Dim Sum place. I came here recently and it was hustling and bustling with a ton of people (it always is). The room is pretty large and they used to have carts pushing out dim sum, but now they are an ordering place. We finally got sat down after half an hour and quickly began ordering. The roasted squab was 10.80 so we ordered that. I know pigeon is not a thing many people like (all my friends cringe when I tell them I eat it) but I absolutely LOVE squab. I eat it every chance I get even though it's probably about 3000 calories. It's so delicious. Even though the promoted squab was small, it was sooo good. Mmm. If you haven't tried it, DO SO

We ordered spring roll, meat balls, siu mai, chinese bbq buns, beef rolls, ham sui gok, taro cake, and dou fu fa. Everything was just adequate, with the taro cake being cooked wayyy too long. It was hella dry. I think that this place has either gone downhill for the prices of the food or just had an off day from the crazy amount of customers. I know that there are better dim sum joints in vancouver but I've grown up eating at Sun Sui Wah, it's hard to not like a place you loved for so long! Will I come back anytime soon, probs not. Will I keep recommending it to others? Probably.. With a side caution that I might be bias and an extra suggestion to Golden Phoenix

Copa Cafe on Urbanspoon I made a visit to Copa Cafe on Cambie with my family. I like the chef on the signs so I came here already liking the restaurant. Thus I was easily swayed to like this place as long as food is adequate (I am so bias sometimes. Gah). We sat down and I was overwhelmed by all the choices. But I picked the lamb chop and bbq short ribs with gravy sauce and mashed potatoes for 18.98. Also changed the soup to a lobster bisque (I only ate leftovers that morning, I wanted good food). My parents ordered a rice dish and the pork and crab cakes combo for 15 I believe. The set meals also came with a warm dinner bun and a drink. The lobster bisque was very very sad. The bits and pieces of lobster were very small and few. But I finished it because I was so hungry. The rice came first and it was very very tasty, I like. My meal looked overwhelming but came out short. The short ribs were very fatty and the lamb chops were like rare/medium rare instead of medium. My mashed potato was really dense and loaded with sauce. Euck. The pork dish, I only tried the crab cakes which were very rich and "laou", meaning you can't eat too much of it without feeling full/sick. I also LOVE crab cakes so this was a downer. The meal was a let down, except the take out bag, which is a bright yellow recycable bag with the chef on it. So cute. Will I come back? No. But I like your marketing. If I am your target audience, it worked

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Milestones, Old Spaghetti factory, Hi

Back home, I went to Milestones for dessert because I was dressed too scrubby for The Keg and my friend was dressed too nice for Red Robins. Gah. Milestones seemed like a good medium since RAIN had an EMPTY parking lot. I do wanna try the place, but come on people.. Go there. Milestones has a pretty good list of desserts, whether you want chocolate, ice cream, cheesecake, apple, etc etc. I felt like something different and ordered the ginger caramel cinnamon fritter thing. I am sure that is not the name but hell it was very long and along those lines. My friend had *the* cookie. THE cookie was around 6-7 bucks so it better be some damn good cookie. My dessert was very good, had a little cinnamon spicy kick to it that I enjoyed. THE cookie was good in the beginning, but got a little too rich since it was like chocolate overload. Which isn't a bad thing sometimes. Believe me, I went through 2 packages of ballerina cookies in 3 days couple months ago combined with 2 daim chocolate bars. If you don't know what they are, please make a trip to Ikea and pick up some. Words cannot describe how great they are. And you know what else is great? Pizza flavored rice cakes. Come on Canada, get with it.

I also checked out the old spaghetti factory EVEN though I've heard shit things about them from numerous people. I always see the big sign when I come home from the highway and I don't care how bad it is, it's just pasta. How bad can it be??? The room was pretty big and we were promptly served bread after we sat down. It's sourdough served with butter and garlic butter. It's alright. Here, the pasta come with bread, choice of soup or salad, and ice cream..all for around 11-15 bucks. I had the tortellini baked with cheese (added .99) and friend had penne with chicken. We both had soup that I found was really gross. It tasted bad. The pasta wasn't that bad though. I mean, it wasn't AMAZING but they were sufficient. Ice cream was also okay. I think for the price, it is a good meal for the family. Will I come back? Probably not. Since I already eat relatively similar tortellini stuff at home a la safeway.


Hi Lunch Box on Urbanspoon Hi Lunch Box is a place I've tried to go to once before only to realize it was closed. There are a ton of sushi restaurants nearby.. Midori..GrEAT bistro..and I saw 2 more across the street. Sushi places are dominating abby! Anyways, the room is very small but decked out in Japanese decorations. There was only one other customer inside and he seemed like a close customer. Another group of guests came while we were eating and I believe they were friends with the owners. The menu is pretty plain, with the normal sushi, sashimi, udon, rice bowls, combo sets, etc. We ordered a lunch box (chicken teriyaki, gyoza, sushi, cali roll, salad), unagi roll (even though I said don, but it's alright), and a crazy boy roll (deep fried cali roll). Unagi roll came first and it had wayyy too much sauce all over it.. Kinda killed the roll for me, even though it had good taste. The Crazy Boy, was too spicy so I didn't eat it much.. Although it looked nice. The lunch box A.. The chicken teriyaki pieces were falling apart and once again was drenched in teriyaki sauce. Like the rice were sitting in heaps of the sauce that it was inedible. The gyoza also fell apart when we tried to pick it up.. It wasn't a very good box.. The owner was a lovely lovely lady who told us the sushi chef was new and he recently came from a japanese restaurant in Vancouver (I asked which one but they both couldn't say it in English or didn't remember). She seemed really kind and I really wanted to like this restaurant but the meal we had was not good.. Maybe they had an off day. It sure beats the inflated prices at grEAT.