Sunday, May 30, 2010

Current Raves

Goodbye Vancouver! I am jetting off to chicago for 2 months. I might make some sporadic posts (since there are a gazillion restaurants I never posted about) and there might be some chicity eats reviewed. Anyways, have a great summer vancityfoodies!

here are just some quick posts about some restaurants I've been to recently :)

After hiking butzen lake, we stopped at Rehanah's Roti and it was PERFECT. We were tired and these massive rotis really hit the spot. I got the beef roti which was FILLED with huge chunks of beef and potatoes. delicious. The only thing is they are a bit on the pricey side

We stopped by La Brasserie for lunch one day and both ordered the special- the rabbit sandwich. The price wasn't bad (think it was 11ish?) and it was really really good. We enjoyed it a lot and I want to come back here for dinner one night.

Before rollerblading, we picked up some banh mi's from One Saigon in Downtown. They have daily specials and luckily that day, it was 2 banh mi's for a special price. These subs are delicous. They have so much filling and bread was crunchy. Maybe I was starving but I quite liked them. I went to Tung Hing recently and I did not like..

Bo Laksa King has been raved about by quite possibly everyone in the blogosphere. It is located in a small supermarket and their "kitchen" is extremely minimal but the food is delicious. I don't know much about laksa or burmese food so who better to bring with me then my burmese friend :P she raved about bo laksa and ranted about the crappy ass burmese laksa at bowl of stars. there you go. Authenticity: check.

JAMBO GRILL! Awesome. though they gave us beef instead of chicken, this place is awesome if you are hungry and craving meat.
                    

Locus.. friend said it: I think this would a better place at night. Gotta admit- they got some good sangria, but 12 bucks for 5 prawns? uhh.. give me more alcohol.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Le Gavroche

Le Gavroche on Urbanspoon Who knew skipping class one day would lead me to fancy dining of steak and lobster at le gavroche! I guess it's a good thing I don't scrub it out when I go to school :) After being pestered every 2 minutes to leave class leave class, I finally hopped on a bus to meet a friend dt in search of some grub.. who needs to learn about npv when I got free food waiting?? (don't worry I am not majoring in finance, I will not be dealing with your money one day haha). We walked on over to Oru only to discover there was a private function! UGH we almost got pooped on by a bird too walking here. (hence why I always dodge birds when I am walking.. it's actually quite a funny sight I've been told) having absolutely no idea where to go.. since market was veto-ed and I wanted something worthwhile, I suggested possibly Le Gavroche. Now if you have read my bio, you would know that I don't memorize addresses and usually just walk until I 'hit' the restaurant (1 in 4 this fails.. I am willing to take the chance). However, Le Gavroche was a bit different since I have honestly only seen this restaurant ONCE and it was also by mindless wandering around (yes I tend to walk a lot.. though not so much anymore after a 4 hr 8k walk I recently did out of the blue in sandals.. we then realized, once you start walking in Stanley Park by the water, there really is no way to cut through/walk back once you have reached halfway. oi).


I knew the GENERAL direction of the restaurant but really had no clue where it was HAH. after 15 minutes of me assuring friend we are walking in the 'general' direction, he got fed up and finally checked good ol' iphone. good thing he did hah because this 'general' direction I was heading in really was very GENERAL. as in.. a few streets down not quite at all.. hah.

We finally saw the restaurant, being oh so happy since we had been looking to find a restaurant to eat for some time now, I ran on over only to drop my iphone on the cold hard concrete ground :( to this day, i have only had this phone for 5 months, and I have dropped on ground, dropped and KICKED by some passerby, and dropped in a puddle.. as you can see, I am not allowed to have nice things.

We walked in and it immediately reminded me of Lupo (never got a chance to write a review so I'll sum up lupo in a sentence: Quaint restaurant serving delicious food served by gracious/lovely people). I think it is the whole house thing going on, really adds to the ambience. Anyways, we walked upstairs and were greeted warmly by three of the servers. The restaurant is very very small with the majority of tables occupied. We sat down and were given the menus, with their current 3 course special feature of lobster (I think it was 35 dollars?). YUM. YUM YUM. I friggin love lobster. My parents used to buy lobster from T&T steam it and we'd each eat one accompanied by butter- mmMmM

I ordered the lamb sweetbread and lobster, steak and lobster, and a creme brulee. Friend got lobster consomme, lobster thermadour, and pecan pie for dessert. mmm I don't think I have any complaints about anything. Everything was really really really good. I think my steak was a little too much on the raw side (moo moo) but I don't have major complaints nor did friend since we finished everything. During our time at the restaurant, there were no table turnovers and we were the last ones in and the last ones out the door. Nonetheless the service was so gracious and nice they never once rushed us out the door even when they were cleaning up ready to close up into the night. I wonder if this restaurant only serves one round of customers a night.. I sure hope they stay profitable because I would hate to see this restaurant close due to big chain bullies. Le Gavroche is perfect for romantic dates or special events.. or you know, random thursday dinner for uni students; one with a backpack the other with colorful striped mittens :P :) Thank you for the lovely dinner, I'll be back!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Translyvania Flavor, Perogy Place, Ukrainian Village

Wow sorry to be completely mia recently!

My next door neighbor is from poland and she would occasionally invite us over and cook eastern european food for us. Last time, she made homemade perogies and cabbage rolls.. They were soo delicious I was hooked. I was never a real big fan of perogies because of a really bad experience but then I had them in Oświęcim and Krakow and realized that my bad experience was probably due to the fact that I bought them frozen from a small valley farm. Authentic is the way to go!

Ever since the gracious dinner from my neighbor, I've been craving said perogies, cabbage rolls, schnitzels..all that good stuff.. So a visit to Translyvania Flavor was obviously in order! This was a restaurant I had wanted to go to numerous times but no one would come with me.. ughhh . whyyy!!

Okay, I guess it had to do with the fact that from the outside, the restaurant is pretty hidden except for a little glowing sign on the side. It doesn't look like anything special and that sushi place next door takes most of the focus away. and I guess when I say the name of the restaurant, most of my friends are like huh? why can't we just go to normal places like milestones and moxies. UGH be adventurous guys! So I finally found a friend who was up to try some european food. Although he was thinking more like swiss swedish (though the only swedish place I can think of in van is ikea..), but I think he was pleasantly surprised.

Transylvania Flavour on Urbanspoon The restaurant is operated by a family and we were greeted kindly by both at the door. The restaurant looked a little dark so we opted to sit by the window (i need the best lighting I can get for a p+s camera). Presented with our menus, there were numerous choices to choose from including borscht goulash and schnitzels. There were also several specials of the day to choose from. friend got one of them (grilled platter of various meats) while I obviously ordered the cabbage rolls and perogies.. what I was craving for a couple months now.


Perogies were yummyy. There was a bit of a sauce overload, but I quite liked the red pepper sauce so I just scraped most of the sauce off. no biggy. The Cabbage roll had too much saurekraut on top but it was tender with the right amount of filling inside. The meat platter was just a selection of various grilled meats. Some of them was a little chewy and not too good, so we weren't huge fans.. For dessert, she told us the special was a custard cake made by her mother. Although the fried doughnuts sounded tempting, the custard cake was the way to go! It was definitely something I've never had before. The custard part was bouncy and different but it was good.. though it got a little filling at the end. It was a large piece!!
I genuinely enjoyed this restaurant and I recommend everyone to try it out as well!!

I went to Granville Island one sunny day and went on over to Perogy Place. The place was ran by asians ..which was already a red light to how good the food would be.. We ended up just getting one cabbage roll to share because it was Massive. Upon cutting inside, it was FILLED with rice. The cabbage wasn't tender and I wasn't a fan of rice filled cabbage roll. This place was a thumbs down for me.

Couple days ago, we went on over to Ukrainian Village for a shared lunch to give us some energy for pre biking (Great times, cept I fell off and now have a huge bruise..glad it's raining the next couple days at least). The restaurant is quite small and homey with a ton of cactus plants by the window. During lunch time they have a specials menu and we just ordered the 5 perogy and cabbage roll to share. There was only one waitress and she was really nice.. I thought she was not going to be pleased at us for sharing one thing, but she didn't mind :) The food came quickly and the perogies were okay. We had a selection of saurekraut, potato, and cheese I believe. We both thought they were nothing special..Seemed like the ones bought at superstore.. We found the cabbage roll also to just be good but nothing greattt. I think I was spoiled by my neighbor's homemade ones so it'll be hard to compare. I guess it was filling though, I wouldn't be opposed to come back and try the other items on the menu. Lots of people were stopping by to look at the menu and quickly coming in. I guess Ukrainian food is a hit after all :)

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Irish heather

My friend DL was kind enough to write this for me.. hell it's even better than what I could have written.. I need to outsource more :)

Irish Heather on Urbanspoon $15.00 for a set meal plus a chance to talk with friendly strangers! These were two things that came to mind when preparing to experience Irish Heather’s Long Table Series in Gastown. Surrounded by Irish décor (including a giant U2 poster), the table extended from one side of the room to the other. But like any other social gathering, each group kept to their own, even padding their personal space with an empty seat or two. We sat in the middle, open to the elements. The evening started off with a round of introductions… from the corporate sponsors. The Orchard Hill representative talked about the 5 kinds of apples that were in tonight’s cider and how awesome Orchard Hill was. The Mobio guy talked about how awesome the Mobio app was and if you were already fortunate enough to own an iPhone then you could get a discount for paying tonight’s meal with it.


The meal came out shortly after: roast suckling pig with apple-rosemary sauce atop braised cabbage and mashed potatoes. The pork was as tender as butter, delicately spiced to bring out the citric nuances of the cider… is what a food critic would write, which I am not. I had confused the term ‘suckling’ with ‘succulent’ – but thankfully, we had a stranger sitting next to us that was kind enough to describe his experience with 300-pound pig farmers and their daily intake of suckling baby pigs… mmm. Conversation continued from there and it turned out to be a pleasant experience partnered with a delicious meal! The Long Table Series is interesting way to bring ‘supper to the table’ and even better with good company.


*My Edit: and we also shared a delectable sticky toffee pudding. Yum! Also, while I found the mobio app to be a great concept and while I DID have an iphone, I opted not to use it just because I found it a hassle to put in my credit card info etc into my phone just for ONE meal.. to get a 5 dollar off a meal next time.. Maybe if mobio caught on and more restaurants/services began to use it, I’ll conform.. until then.. my iphone will be littered with useless apps I bought while half asleep (pedometer that tells me I burned 41000 calories in 45 min anyone? God.)