Deeeelish

Acme Cafe

2010-12-12T02:21:00.000-08:00

I love trying new things, and with the abundance of restaurants in Vancouver, I don't often repeat a restaurant.. so the fact that I have been to Acme Cafe 3 times this year really says a lot..

Located on Hastings, this little cafe looks a little out of place next to the model stripper shoes store, sketchy ass country bar across the street (where a friend of a friend got stabbed at..), and save on meats to the left. Walking in, you are greeted warmly by the staff into a room of brown and white booths and circular bar seating. with pies and other delectable goods placed by the cashier, you already know this will be a good meal.

The first time I was here it was after a massive hike and I needed somethin to refuel. I ordered the turkey sandwich with the broccoli slaw and chips. I fell in love. Cranberry sauce + turkey is my weakness. but what I hate the most is either -super mushy turkey or too much cranberry sauce, not enough turkey. Well neither happened and it was a great sandwich for 12 dollars. It came with a broccoli slaw that I really liked because I liked the raisins, giving it a sweet component I don't usually expect in a slaw, and the chips were very crisp. It was great. Friend decided to eat a sandwich he made prior to our trek . whatever, his loss. The cafe was still relatively new, and there weren't a lot of customers on that day.

The second time I came here, it was very packed, I had to wait about 10 minutes for a booth. Wanting to try something new, I ordered the meatloaf sandwich with the lovely slaw and chips. Friend had the mac and cheese and we both liked our meals. We also ordered a piece of apple pie to share since I've heard raves about it.. unfortunately we weren't a fan because it was cold :(

The 3rd time we came here was before the game where chicity absolutely schooled the canucks (I am a hawks fan). Everything by rogers arena was packed (for obvious reasons) but luckily acme only had a few occupied seats. Ordered the good ol turkey sandwich and I remembered why I liked it so much all over again. friend had the roast beef sandwich and cheddar broccoli soup that was finished in less than 15 minutes. jesus. I think he liked it. maybe.

I really like this cafe, and if ever I am in the area again, I will most likely come back and try something new- like the shrimp and guac sandwich or tuna :) I like the color tones and service has always been warm and friendly every time I've been here. I've recommended this little cafe to many others, and they've all had nothing but good things to say. I guess 12 dollars for a sandwich meal is a bit steep, but everything is made from scratch and quality is great in my opinion. and with 7 dollar crappy ass on the go sandwiches (I am looking at you starbucks) being sold nowadays, I think acme is fine. I really like the abundance of "new"er restaurants popping up around gastown- meat & bread and calabash bistro are also must-trys if you haven't yet :)

L'Abattoir & Pair Bistro

2010-10-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

So sorry for the lack of posts.. So I've been back in Vancouver for a couple months now and have been eating out more than ever.. which completely goes against my "stop eating out after chi" promise but I just can't help it.. too many restaurants..too much good food! I promise more posts.. both from chi and van soon :)

L'Abattoir is a relatively new restaurant (well, in my books anyways). Located in Gastown, it is adding to the abundance of foodie choices with Cork & Fin, The Diamond, Boneta, Irish Heather...etc

Room is 2 floors, with the bottom being the bar serving up some unique and fresh cocktails. There is also a room in the back that seems more secluded and private. We sat upstairs overlooking the bar. I usually try not to eat the bread served at restaurants but L'Abattoir offers 3 different breads that I couldn't help but devour it all. oi.

I ordered the duck, friend had a salad. I loved my dish. Duck was perfectly cooked and the sauces/garnishes went very well with it. The salad was unique and extremely fresh. For dessert, I asked Paul, the gm, to surprise us. He picked the chocolate dessert which was very very decadent. Dinner was great, couldn't have asked for any better. Though a friend of mine recently went and recommended the scallops and wings, and the tapioca dessert.. which I will have to get next time I go. Service was great and accommodating. I was very happy.

I went to Pair Bistro this past week. It has been on my to go list for quite some time now but it's a bit far for me .. I am so glad we went though , this restaurant embodies "pacific northwest" to a t. The restaurant is decorated with Native American art and proudly boasts the use of locally grown ingredients from all over BC.. from Chilliwack cornbread, to Wapiti Elk, to Kettle Valley Lamb.. it was quite refreshing.

I had the peace region bison ribs which were very tender accompanied with cornbread and salad. The blackberry sauce was different but added a sweet component to the usual smokey flavor of bbq sauce.. I like. The cornbread was soft and crumbly, while the radish slaw was extremely fresh. Friend had the shellfish medley from Cortes island which were very beautiful and tasteful. What a neighborhood gem, it's a must try for locals/tourists alike.

Cupcake Insanity [Chicago]

2010-08-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

As I wrote before, I had almost 30 fricking cupcakes in Chicago. That's basically like one cupcake a day for a month! gosh! I am home and luckily I only gained 2 pounds. I thought I had gained at least 10. Anyways, here is a compiled list of the cupcake madness I went on in Chicity. I think I m only missing like 4 places. Get ready to freaking drool if you love cupcakes.

The first one I ever went to was Swedish Bakery in Andersonville. I really didn't mean to buy a cupcake here but that was what the worker there recommended me getting. Now this is a nice little bakery.. but I didn't find there goods to be very traditional.. especially if you are recommending the red velvet and chocolate cupcakes to me and not having any fresh cinnamon rolls around. The cupcake was large, but it wasn't very good in my opinion. it was rather sugary.

I went to Sugar Bliss Cupcake Boutique located in the loop after lunch at elephant & castle one day(whyyy did I go there, when they are in vancouver. ugh). It is rather new and filled with beautifully decorated cupcakes. They also have mini ones if you can't have the whole thing. They have a good selection of cupcakes, unforunately the pretty flowers they decorated on my cupcakes fell off when I got home :( They weren't bad, not super good.. but this started my cupcake craze..

I found More which was only 2 blocks from my apt. They don't have a ton of selections at the counter, but here, it is quality over quantity. The cupcakes are a bit more expensive but you can find some very different unique cupcakes here.. including Blt, lemongrass, etc etc. On the day I was there, I chose the white chocolate and chocolate marshmallow. What can I say? they were both HEAVENLY. I really wanted to come back here and try the rest of the flavors.. but there were too many other cupcake stores.. on to the next one!

Everyone in Chicago raves about Molly's Cupcakes. Everyone I talk to asks if I've been here so I knew this had to be a to-go place for me. Stepping inside, I see them hard at work making a batch of frosting for their cupcakes and I was already smiling. The place is extremely cozy serving all kinds of cupcakes. Delicious! I really liked that they had incoporated real fruits in the cupcakes, and the frosting on all 3 were absolutely to die for.

Another popular recommendation I received was Sweet Mandy B's. The shop is really cute but I personally found the cupcakes to be rather normal and nothing out of the ordinary..

We decided to have a picnic at the contemporary arts musuem one tuesday because they have jazz in the back. I brought the cupcakes and I decided to try out Swirlz. She was extremely gracious and kind but the cupcakes was a complete letdown. It was expensive and they were nothing amazing. Especially the "surprise" one which wasn't much of a surprise at all..

Sensational Bites is located by Southport. It is an extremely cute store with lots of delectable goodies. I got 3 cupcakes- red velvet (my staple), cookies & cream, and strawberry lemonade . unforunately, they didn't wow me like the first couple places I went to.. :( A week after, my friends tell me of a place called Southport Bakery and Cafe where, they only serve vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, but they are SO good people line up for them and there is a limit to how many each can buy. Dang, I wish I had stopped by there..

The day Sprinkles Cupcakes opened, I heard there were lineups down the street, for blocks, for this place. I was going to stop by after work, but in fear of the lines, went to Hershey's Chocolates down the street instead. The cupcakes are SO cute, with chocolate bar sticking out. I also got a smores bar, and I think of all the cupcakes I've had, these here at Hersheys were by far the sweetest!! Every bite was sugar.

I made a point to go to Phoebe's Cupcakes and got ABSOLUTELY lost and ended up giving up on this place and going for banh mi instead, but the banh mi I wanted to go to was extremely sketch so I wandered to Cupcake store after an hour.. and I am really glad I tried this place. Though I haven't heard much raves or reviews for them, This has got to be hands down my favorite cupcake store in Chicago. The cupcake was So fluffy, So moist, So Perfect! I was in love.

I finally stopped by Sprinkles at 4pm, and the line up was a little more bearable. Funny I actually tried to go to Sprinkles back in LA but we got lost and went to Spago instead (I get lost quite often, it adds to my adventure). I bought 4 cupcakes here just to see what the hype was about. They were pretty good. Very moist cupcakes, but I don't know if I would line up for blocks for this place..

Fox & Obel is a supermarket that supposedly has great cupcakes too. They are MASSIVE! I had to eat it with a fork but it was alright. The Last place I tried was Sarah's Pastries & Candies located near More and Sprinkles. Their selection of cupcakes is not as large, but I got a vanilla buttercream.. and it sure lived up to it's name. the frosting was EXTREMELY buttery.. felt like I was eating butter..

I also bought some cupcakes from Twisted Baker the last day for my coworkers. I also heard great things from here so I hope they liked them!

And to top it all off, here's a giant massive cupcake I decorated when I shadowed the pastry chef for a day at one of our restaurants. gawwgeous. hahah

Table fifty-two [chicago]

2010-08-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

Oh my god I've had 26 cupcakes in the last 2 months..and counting.. I don't even know why, I never even eat Cupcakes in vancouver!? major cupcake post to come..

I've never had southern home cooking before and always wanted to. Good ol fried chicken with a side of buttery mashed potatoes.. that's all I really know and how can you go wrong really? I don't know much about this type of food but if it's anyone who was going to cook me some southern food, who else better than Art Smith. I don't remember much about him from Top Chef, just that he was really happy jolly guy.. :)

The restaurant off elm street did not fit in to its surroundings. It was a small white building with touches of green and the number 52 on the front. next to this was a empty grass ridden lot, and a ton of tall apartments. On the corner was a Popeyes and an old man selling knock off handbags. Walking into the restaurant, we were transported to a whole different world.

Dark with sunlight coming in from the windows, the white and green with the wood fire oven in the back created an extremely cozy atmosphere. The plates were absolutely gorgeous and the room was also decorated with paintings of singers with upbeat music playing in the back. Right when we sat down, we had about 3 different waiters serve us water, deviled eggs, and goat cheese biscuit to start. It was a little overwhelming at first, seeing all these staff running around, but they all flowed with each other.. that's a weird thing to say, but the service all worked together and it was really attentive.

We ordered the duo crab cake to start for 16 dollars, and I had the salmon, friends had fried chicken and sweet potatoes and cornbread, and the other had the fish of the day.. which was striped bass I believe.

The deviled egg was very creamy, a nice little appy to start, and the goat cheese biscuit was soft and cheesy. That was nice, since I have grown a fondness for goat cheese..Last week, I sat in on a cheese tasting and sampled at least 30 AMAZING cheeses (mostly goat), and wow.. talk about mega cheese overload coming from a girl who usually buys the cheapest mixed cheese at superstore. I felt so fat after I walked for 3 hours.

Our crab cake was alright.. a little expensive for what we ordered.. but they were good nonetheless. I don't have much to say about this one, but I guess I could have done without. Our mains arrive and my salmon was SOO delicious. I asked for medium rare and it was perfectly cooked. Perfect! it was like butter, the fish. and the blueberry sauce added the sweetness it needed and the vegetables that came along were soo fresh it was amazing. Friends had no complaints on their dishes.. I will comment the sweet potatoes were a little too sweet (syrupy) for me but the cornbread was HEAVEN. it was sweet, warm, crumbly.. yum!!

Dishes were swooped away and we were presented by the desserts menu. The pecan pie and hummingbird cake looked great, but alas no room in my little belly. We were given little marshmallow sweet potato pie that was a nice little after thought to our dinner.

My friend, who was from Texas, had no complaints to this dinner. She said the dishes all reminded her of southern home cooking, and the fried chicken was quite good, but not as good as her mothers :)

The ambience, service, food, all transported me to a different time and place..it's rare to find a restaurant that good, but I think art smith did it for me. Good way to end my Chicago summer, home soon..

Jam [Chicago]

2010-07-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

I am honestly in love with brunch here in Chicago. Not only are there restaurants that specialize ONLY in the art of breakfast food, not only do they serve large portions, but they also like to put twists and creativity in their dishes.. and they do it well.

After finding out about Jam, we quickly planned it into our weekend to go first thing in the morning (to beat the rush). This cash only byob is subtly located on Damen St in Ukrainian Village. Being such a beautiful day, we decided to sit outside on their lovely rather big patio. It had a backyard vibe because of all the plants and their dog and cat on the side.

The menu is small but filled with breakfast favorites with a unique twist you would not expect. Egg Sandwich with pork cheek, ricotta, and green apple ketchup.. Pork Loin with poached egg, rice grits, and cumin spiced carrot puree.. There is definitely nothing bland or boring about this menu!
We decided to order a half order of the Malted Custard french toast (with macerated fig & Quince, citrus cream, and pink peppercorn) to start, and I had the eggs benny (with pork belly, and pea hollandaise), and friend had the buckwheat crepe with braised lamb and hazelnut-sage glaze. Under the direction of Chef Jeffrey Mauro, who has worked at Charlie Trotter's and North Pond, our waitress assures us we cannot go wrong with whatever we get. She was right :)

To start, we got a amuse bouche of a snicker doodle cupcake. A nice sweet bite to start. I love amuse bouches :) Our french toast was perfect size for us since I am not a big fan of them. It was soft with a burst of custard flavor, going well with the fig & quince. The only thing that was offputting about this dish was the peppercorn.. which I did not like at all.

Our mains come and this has to be the prettiest eggs benny I have ever seen. The pork belly went fantastic with it and I loved how the sauces were on the side so it didn't overload my eggs benny. The lamb crepe was soft and flavorful, but could prove to be a little too heavy for a breakfast.

Service was prompt with our water glasses filled at all times. Having overheard our convo about where else to eat, our waitress gets the sous chef in training to give us some recommendations on diner joints (since we hinted how much we love them). The only downside I think, is that they don't have business cards (weird). Other than that, make sure you try Jam for brunch! :)

Glenn's Diner [Chicago]

2010-07-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

Last Summer, I had cable. and not just cable, I had up to channel 59 (I don't usually have cable, I just need ninjavideos and in my case right now, hulu :]). I really didn't care for all these channels, except one- the food network. Because I didn't really have internet last summer (what a pain), I would fall asleep watching channel 52. One of the shows I frequently watched was Diner Drive ins and Dives. Man, that show is a godsend. Greasy, oily, deep fried, meaty, massive portions, etc of food, how can you not like it?? So imagine my excitedness when I had a chance to go to Glenn's Diner.. one episode I actually vividly remember watching (because I remember the cereal boxes ha).

Located right at Montrose station, this little diner is known for serving 16 fresh fish daily. Inside, outside seating, either way you choose, you still get to see the chalkboard written fish specials of the day. We decided to share a crab cakes to start followed by Rainbow Trout for me and Mahi Mahi for friend. The crab cakes weren't bad, they were filled with crab meat but they weren't very big. Apparently Hugo Frog's has the best crab cakes. I will have to check it out soon :)

Our mains arrive and they look SO good. Not only was the piece of fish massive, but it was very fresh as well. My rainbow trout with pecan sauce went so perfectly together. Served with asparagus and potatoes, I finished up every last bite of it. It was made so well. My friend's mahi mahi, however, was overcooked :( How unfortunate. it looked nice though.

Service was great, and the desserts looked good but we were too full to eat on. Now I have to try Kuma's Corner and Depot Diner from the show :) Link to the Clip

Yolk [chicago]

2010-07-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

I am basically IN LOVE with Chicago. This city has it all.. shopping, tall buildings, beach, and obv the food. Last morning after tanning on the beach (which is 5 minutes from us, as opposed to 40 minutes before in Van), we were craving breakfast food so I suggested Yolk. The place was raved about and the menu sounded DELICIOUS.. might I add it was also extremely close to where we live. Score.

Turning onto Wells St, we see a giant mass of people. Ah crap, there's a massive lineup. But I must say, the people at Yolk are extremely efficient and the table turnovers is quick and fast. Although they quoted us 30-45 minutes, names were called every 1-2 minutes so they were making it down the list of names quickly. Yes, it did take the quoted time.. but what did we expect on July 4th weekend.

We kept busy during this time by deciding on what to eat.. since the menu was quite large and I honestly wanted EVERYTHING. I was craving fruits and wanted Granola but my friend told me she would hit me if I waited for 45 minutes for some fruit and granola. She has a point. So after basically drooling over the guy who sat by the window's dish of something that looked like veggie omelette, I decided on getting the green garden omelette that came with fruit/potato and pancake/toast for 9.99. Friend got the scrambler for 7.99 that came with the same sides. Other things I wanted to try a lot were the tour de france (sample of the 3 french breads for 9.99) and the eggs benny (supposedly best in the whole chi?) and obv.. the yogurt and granola. :(

Finally having our name called, we quickly ordered. The restaurant is pretty large and food was bustling out the kitchen at record speed and my gosh, there was a LOT of food. We finally got our order and WOW it was MASSIVE. For a side of fruits, I honestly expected those stupid fruit salads of melons, pineapple, and grapes in small portions.. but they gave us a watermelon slice, a bunch of grapes, 3 orange rounds and a pineapple slice (which I was CRAVING). I was impressed. The omelette was huge as well absolutely filled with veggies such as asparagus, tomato, mushroom, etc with sour cream and cheese on top. Man if I was hungover, this would have been HEAVEN. It was still pretty good but I was soo full I couldn't finish it all, the omlette was also a little too runny/watery for my liking.

Loved it, well worth the wait. I can't wait to try Lou Mitchell's and Ann Sather now. more chicago posts to come.. and vancouver too :)

Current Raves

2010-05-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

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.

Le Gavroche

2010-05-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

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!

Translyvania Flavor, Perogy Place, Ukrainian Village

2010-05-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

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.

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 :)

Irish heather

2010-05-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

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 :)

$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.)

Nook + House of Dosas

2010-04-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

My live feed widget told me someone googled "I don't know maybe some yummy food" and got to my site. LOL Anyways..

Nook is a small italian restaurant on Denman Street. The sign really caught my eye awhile back but due

to my long list of restaurants I already had to go to, it wasn't on my priority list until a reader of mine suggested to me I should try it out. I usually see a line up to this place so on one night when it looked like no wait, I decided it was an opportune time =)

The restaurant is quaint and dark inside with specials written on chalkboards by the bar (and I think in the back as well). Their menu isn't very big but boasts some of italian favorites such as pizzas and pastas.

We ordered spaghetti bolognese and magherita pizza to share. The pizza was a little oily but it was really delicious. This place is quaint and lovely. The only thing is the seating is a little cramped

I love House of Dosas. This is a 24 hour indian restaurant located on Kingsway. It is not exactly the prettiest of restaurants but it serves up some mean dosas and other indian cuisines. I've never had a dosa, but saw it on No Reservations one time (which is atm the only thing I watch on youtube). Basically it is an Indian pancake filled with ingredients of your choice. There were various choices but since we had no idea what to get, we asked for a recommendation in which the server suggested the Lamb Palak. Excellent. We ordered that and a Beef curry. The is dosa is friggin humongous and I am glad we were sharing. On the outer it looks boring and plain, but inside is FILLED with lamb and spices. It was delicioussss . I actually want one right now as I type.. The beef curry was also quite good. I like this because I liked how nicely it was presented and liked how it came with naan AND rice :) great!

I think I might just have to come back here again very very soon (cash only)

and some sweet taro pies from Hong Kong.. love love love love

Sake Maki, Samurai Sushi, Bentei Sushi

2010-03-29T23:22:00.000-07:00

Deeeelish is gonna go green for two months starting april. Meaning less restaurant eating and more greens and organic and etc. Oh dear, this is gonna be hard Well.. I think I'll survive. The only part that's killing me is knowing no cheesecake and fried food.. My 2 weaknesses (I know.. fried food wtf but seriously.. Fried anything is amazing). Oi.

I have passed Saki Maki NUMEROUSSS times on the drive. That sign they have out front always caught my eye.. Because I love sushi rolls so much. I finally got a chance to try. The room is rather dark (what's with dark sushi restaurants?) so I sat by the window. The menu has everything.. But I was here for the rolls and that's what I got. We got the gomae roll and a sushi roll which the name escapes me.. The gomae roll had yam tempura on top stuffed with gomae inside. The other sushi roll was mango/avocado on top with purple yam in the middle. I recall rolls not being the cheapest but they were really good. I think one of the biggest factors is the sauce. Whether or not it goes with the roll and how much they put on. Most of my past encounters, sushi restaurants would always go crazy with the sauce so much that the sushi roll is basically drenched in it. Yuck. I liked this place because they didn't go overboard with it. As you can see with the purple yam sushi roll, there is only a dollop of japanese mayo on each! I really liked both of the rolls because they also didn't skimp out on ingredients. The service was really nice as well.. he even instructed me how long I should wait to eat my leftovers haha. Try this place if you're on the drive!

A friend of mine suggested me to go try out Samurai Sushi on Davie and that I did. It is a very tiny tiny sushi restaurant serving inexpensive combos, lunches, etc. I found the restaurant to be quite dark especially during lunch time. My friend wasn't hungry so he just watched me eat (happens quite often hah) . Although we were occupying a 4 person table, the waitress didn't get mad or anything that I was the only one eating . Upon looking at the sushi chef, he didn't look of asian descent. Which is rare. My friend turned around and said puerto rican. Ummmm.. Lol maybe it is the lighting and he is just really dark. But who am I to say who can do what. A cacausian sushi chef from london once emailed me to ask where he should apply to work in vancouver. So if you can roll up a mean sushi, more power to ya. There also seems to be quite a few workers too. It's interesting to see restaurants that are basically the same sizes yet one has only one waitress (post below) and another has like 4

The dish was alright. It came out really fast and it was satisfying for a lunch. The rolls were quite big and beef teriyaki wasn't so bad. It's good for a quick cheap lunch.. but I prefer kadoya up the block more.

I tried out Bentei Sushi even with its disastrous review just because it is so close to me and I walk past this place every day and night and see people inside. Only one lady is working up front (owner?) and she is really efficient. She is non stop running around and able to tend to everyones needs. Props. I wanted to try some different things so we ordered the baked roll, the lion king roll, and gyozas. The Gyozas were alright.. Except the oil had that taste that it was oil used from last day.. Yuck.. The baked roll.. Was very different. I really didn't know what to expect.. Baked? In the oven?? Sushi?? It was weird.. There were too much sauce and the salmon on top was obviously not raw anymore, it was cooked.. I don't know.. This was just weird. I don't even know how they thought of this.. but points for creativity. The lion king roll was a sushi roll with a piece of yam tempura on top. Once again, the tempura had the bad oil taste but the roll itself was okay. Although I didn't try a box, everyone around me was getting them and they finished every scrap of it. So maybe it is alright.. just skip the fried stuff here.

Capstone + Hub

2010-03-23T23:28:00.000-07:00

Afterwards, we headed on over to Capstone for some chocolate fondue like the old days. :) I don't necessarily LOVE this place, but it holds sentimental value to me and my friends (lots and lots of fondue trips back in first year :D) I also don't like ice cream but I really wanted to try the ice cream ball fondue. It was really neat with the toppings as well.

Hub in Yaletown took over what used to be Browns. My friend and I were both absolutely starving and we decided on the closest restaurant to the skytrain. Inside, it still looks like Browns.. Dark spacious sports bar. I ordered the Linguine Carbonera and friend had the Teriyaki Bowl. My Linguine was nice, but very very cheesy and the teriyaki bowl was alright with wayyy too much onions. Mehhh.

Chau + Gramercy Grill

2010-03-12T00:12:00.000-08:00

I know I have restaurants dating back to last year I haven't posted about yet, but I think if I wait another 6 months to blog these two, it won't be as relevant.

After the infamous gold medal hockey game, it became the topic of choice for the following week, and the usual first question after "did you see that goal by crosby???" would be where did you watch the game?? Even though I am an avid hockey fan, going to a pub at 8am or live city did not appeal to me. People I know not only went at that time (or earlier), they proceeded to drink as well. Sorry, drinking was farrrr from what I was thinking about doing on a Sunday morning since I was still recovering from my Saturday night. I ended up waking up WAY late so my friends went off to look for a decent place to sit and watch the game.. They were late as well and ended up finding a spot at Chau, far down robson. As I was hurrying to get there, i saw soo many people standing on streets just watching the tvs, amazing!! I love this spirit. I think I also passed Victor Kraatz but I am horrible with famous people. (One time I saw Pat Quinn and we stared at each other only to have me go back into the car to tell my NON hockey fan friend that pat quinn was right there instead of saying hi to him. God. I think he heard me too).

ANYWAYS, I've been to Chau once before to share a pho bo because we thought the name was funny. We found the price too expensive for a bowl of pho. But just finding a place to sit and watch the game was already good enough for me. We ordered spring rolls as an appy and even though my picture below looks like there's barely any, this is about halfway through the spring rolls (we were hungry), and they were quite nice. I ordered the lemongrass chicken lunch bowl with taro spring rolls, friends had the vegetarian bowl, and the beef stew. I believe food was all around 10-12 dollars.. The food looked really pretty and they were pretty large size lunch bowls. They were decent with I think the only critique being that the beef dish was too salty.. At the end, my friend couldn't eat anymore..

What a STRESSFUL game with honestly the best ending ever. Man, Zach Parise.. He's one of my fave players in the nhl, but WHY.. You sent canada into a temporary moment of depression. It's okay. I am good. After the game we went down and high fived/shouted/waved flags all the way around vancouver (yes I was also prepared to riot). Even though I had a midterm the next day.. Why would a professor be so cruel!

And for all those that say they hate kesler because he supposedly said he "hates" canadians or because he played with so much grit for usa, think about CANADIANS and what WE say about AMERICANS . He just loves his country and wants to bring home the gold just like Crosby, Toews, Luongo, and everyone else does for Canada. But honestly, Kesler and Demitra needs to play the way they did in the olympics for the canucks.. I want another one of these epic games/craziness downtown for the playoffs :)

The game between Slovakia and Canada, I believe I watched this at the Gramercy Grill. Now, one might think why didn't you go to a bar to watch the game. This restaurant is not necessarily a neighbourhood spot for NEITHER my friend nor myself, why? Once again, it's the damn foodie nature in me.. And the exploitation of knowing my friend drives hahaha. So a place where transit is not as accessible and a new place I have never tried? Why not the gramercy grill! We got a seat right in front of the tv, prime spot. Me and my friend had a plan.. We were going to eat appetizer first period, main second, and dessert/drinks third. Funny how everyone around also had the exact same plan. One of the longest dinners I've ever had coming from someone who eats quite fast. During 2nd period we even thought about leaving before if we knew canada was going to win. Phewf glad we didn't.

We ordered the carpaccio to start and it was actually really good. It was flavourful and went really well with the bread they offered. Alas, as much as I wanted to scarf it all down, I had to nibble/eat every 5 minutes. OI VEY. The complimentary bread basket was yummy and also a time staller. I especially liked the corn bread.

The main, I had the spaghetti and meatballs, friend had the duck dish. The spaghetti dish is MASSIVE! WOW. You see, I also have really bad pics for this dinner because I wanted to test out my iphone capabilities as a camera, and I also didn't feel like flash taking pics since I was in the line of sight for everyone watching the game. I am a really secretive foodie taker.. Blink and you'll miss me taking it.. That is, if I don't shake and blur it up Ugh. The meatballs were friggin humongo. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. A lot of people around me ordered this dish so I am guessing it's a popular one. I found it to be just okay. I liked the duck my friend had more, cooked perfectly and very very good.

For dessert, I craved creme brulee and friend had the cheesecake. They were both decent desserts. For the final few minutes, the whole restaurant stopped eating and just started yelling at the tv. Just a tense moment, oh demitra.. It's okay that you almost scored, just score now on the Canucks and stop getting injured :) I like the ambience of the restaurant, definitely a good try if you are in the area.

Rhizome Cafe, Central City Brewing + Club Ilia

2010-03-03T23:55:00.000-08:00

Oi.. I briefly mentioned a new restaurant in gastown (not mentioning it again so it won't get more views on this site) and people are coming to my website from google expecting a review on them (same with sushiwa in van)... makes me wanna go there so i CAN review it and people won't feel disappointed.. :/

I went to Rhizome cafe for brunch one sunny morning. There was a line up for seats but we got a table after 15 minutes. The room is quite spacious and had a casual laid back feel. I believe there are lots of events that goes on at this cafe so they would be great to check out one day.

They have a pretty decent selection of food choices including the good ol' norms such as eggs benny, omelettes, and pancakes. However, the thing that makes this place special is the fact that they use healthy foods and some that you might not usually find in a usual breakfast joint. Stuff such as Kamut-banana pancakes, or Breakfast polenta, or even the golden miso tofu scramble. Wow. I decided to have the Eggs Rhizomedict which were eggs benny with squash sauce, spinach and peppers, while my friend had the Pumpkin seed pesto tofu scramble. They come with a choice of roots or salad (are roots just potatoes? I can't tell the difference if it isn't?), or both. And the scramble came with corn muffins. The server asked us if we were running late or if it was okay if food took awhile to come out. We had no problem with time since we were hoping to catch up from a long overdue brunch date so we told them it was fine to wait. I thought this was a very nice gesture, to let us know the food will take awhile.. Since I am quite an impatient person.. after 15-20 minutes, stare downs at my waitresses and the chefs might ensue.

The food comes and wow it is beautiful! The colors were amazing and everything looked great. And the food really doesn't disappoint. I found my eggs benny to be perfect with the squash sauce, and apparently the tofu scramble was nothing to complain about. If you are looking for a good brunch spot, definitely give rhizome cafe a try :)

Central City Brewing company is located at Surrey Central in the same mall as SFU Surrey. It is a nice, one of the higher class pubs with all sorts of food and specials (although I find the prices a little more expensive). I've been here many years ago for a hockey game which led to a nice burger and some random shots. After class one day, we decided to venture here for some drinks food and hockey game. They have televisions situated at different parts of the restaurant so you can see a screen wherever you were sitting with a large one in the back. I had the wings with maui glaze.. Half off special, friend had cheesy bread with meat sauce. The wings were tasty (sweet and teriyaki like) and there were ample amount of wings. While the cheesy bread were nice as well. Decent meal, great game (because we won), good times.

We were low on time but I wanted something good to eat over Subway, so we went to Club Ilia at Cornerstone for lunch. Located right next to Himalayan and Renaissance, the place is stylish and a perfect addition to the community. We told them we had little time and they made sure to rush everything. Service was prompt and nice. Food took a while to get out, but the pizza probably took awhile to bake. I had to carbonara pizza with Caesar Salad for 9.99 (lunch special). The salad was good and the pizza was decent.. Too much onions for me personally. Had the rest wrapped up and off we went to class with 10 minutes to spare. They have decent drink specials as well. Damnit, why did they open a year after I stopped living here (same with nesters).

Barefoot Kitchen, Bowl of Stars, the Diamond

2010-02-23T02:02:00.000-08:00

Barefoot kitchen is a japanese restaurant situated on Davie Street. Upon entering, we were greeted with smiles and enthusiastic welcomes from the waitress and the chef. We sat down by the window and promptly given our menus filled with pictures of the food. I ordered the hamburg and karaage set and friend had the mackeral set. They both came with a soup. I chose corn and she had miso. I really liked the corn soup, it was very very tasty. The set was very big and filling. It also came with a little potato salad as well. I finished all the food and had no complaints. When we were leaving she hastily ran over to open the door for us. She was so cute and kind! I like this restaurant. It doesn't serve THE best food around, but it sure satisfies.

We went to Bowl of Stars accidentally for dessert. We just kept driving and driving and vetoing various other places for dessert that we landed here.. To get a sweet drink. I got the Lychee slush with coconut jelly ( i was low fat coconut jelly but ran out hahahah who am I kidding with getting low fat), and friend got blueberry slush with pearls. They also say they have free wifi but upon asking, they didn't really know the password.. And the password they gave me didn't work :( (I know,.. How lame am I tryin to use wifi when I am hanging with a friend.. But I just got a new phone and wanted to test it out). The drinks were both really good but gave me massive brain freezes. It got a little too sweet at the end for me and the pearls in his drink were not cooked! The restaurant was very quiet but very bright. I think they are known for noodles here , so I would like to try that out one day.

We went over to the Diamond one night for dessert and drinks. I would never have known this place existed if I wasn't such a foodie (aka crazy about trying new restaurants...cork and fin anyone?). Yes I looked up and I saw the Diamond, but I had no idea where the door was. oi. Anyways, I wanted to try this place out because of their unique cocktails and drinks, but when I pointed this restaurant out to several friends, they never shared the same enthusiasm as me. I guess from the outside, it doesn't exactly boast the best decor (or even any), but inside is a totally different story. It is a fun room with great music and happy and trendy customers. The menu is just a piece of paper with a few selections of food. We found it too cute (the drawings) and had to order the duck noodles even though we had a pretty large meal beforehand. We also ordered a tapioca dessert. I can't believe we got suckered into ordering food from pictures that aren't even real. I don't recall what drinks we ordered but they were quite good.

The duck noodles was loaded with veggies and not enough duck. It was just adequate. The dessert was actually quite big and tasty..but the top part was just too sour. We ate around the top layer. I like the ambience of the room, the food was just o-k, but the drinks were quite enjoyable. I also found there was quite a wait for the food, especially the dessert. Furthermore, a possible downside might be if you sit in the middle, it could get a little uncomfortable for the person sitting on the inside because there's no back to rest on. The group next to me changed seats because of it.

Waazubee + Seasons

2010-02-11T22:43:00.001-08:00

Waazubee Cafe is located along Commercial Drive and has a bunch of burgers, sandwiches, and appys to share. The room is pretty large with an open kitchen. We ordered the trio of hummus to share and I had the chicken sandwich and friend had the burger. The hummus was alright..we both enjoyed it but I love hummus. I went through a bag of pita bread + hummus in sweden in one day. I know, disgusting. But i think it's better than eating a whole cheesecake in one sitting like my friend did =P Then she went on a 600 calorie/day diet.. God, insanity.

Our mains came and they both looked delicious but I had NOO idea how to eat it without making an absolute mess. I guess that it was good I was facing the wall or else I would have looked barbaric. The burger was GIGANTIC. I tried it but could barely eat it and instead just took a bite of the bun. Oi. Friend said if there were any "the" perfect burger, he might have found it here.. But then he went on to say, minus the onions, more tomatoes, lettuce back in, and less mayo. LOL so basically, a different burger but this one came close. He was referring to the meat patty mostly and how it wasn't too big that it's dry and meaty but not too small that you feel ripped off for getting a burger. My sandwich was lovely, but I ended up taking most of it home because the fries and hummus filled me up. Overall, we had a lovely time here.

What better way to spend family christmas brunch then at Seasons in the Park. It is a beautiful restaurant situated in Queen E Park. Valet parking is 3.50 but if you park yourself, it's only a dollar for 2 hours I think. So don't be lazy and just park yourself. The restaurant reminded me a lot of Horizons on Burnaby Mountain Park. The view is nice.. But I just came back from Europe, so I wasn't as stunned by it as I could have been half a year ago. They have a nice selection of omlettes, benedicts, french toast, crab cakes, etc etc. I ordered the sweet potato hash, mother had eggs benedict with salmon, and father had steak and eggs. Everything was great. Steak was cooked perfectly, the scrambled eggs with that was okay. The Sweet potato hash was really good, I enjoyed it and it was a nice brunch. Prices are a bit expensive but it's a lovely place for special occasions.

Happy olympics everyone! party hardy.

Joeys + Riz

2010-02-03T22:28:00.000-08:00

I met up with a friend downtown for dinner at Joey's at Bentall Center. I am not a major fan of chain restaurants, but I wanted to watch the game and it was between Joeys or cactus and friend liked Joeys more. There's nothing wrong with Joeys. It is always a fancy room with ample seating and various menu choices. Also the most beautiful bathroom in their Broadway location. But I've never had a good meal here except maybe a dessert encounter.

We sat down at the bar and ordered the calamari to share and I had the lobster grilled cheese. .. Once the game started, my friend moved over to sit next to me and we began to find it SUPER difficult to watch.. Because the bar has about 5 TVs all playing the game and we realized we couldn't stay focused on one screen without looking at the other. "why does the one on the left of the one I am watching look brighter and livelier? When they are all playing the SAME GODDAMN GAME. My friend ended up watching the farthest left TV even though there's a perfectly good one right in front of him. OI. Then friend informs there's a larger projector playing the game in the other room. So we quickly upped and moved there.. Only that he forgot to Mention/realize that yes the screen is bigger and theres just one screen, but there's NO SOUND. We watched the rest of the game with loud pumping music in the background. UGH

The food was a huge let down. Calamari was absolutely disgusting with the fried parts falling right off. The Lobster grilled cheese was hella buttery and greasy and too rich for me. And we also lost badly to a crap team (cbj), which just pissed us off even more. No more Joeys, unless I have to pee and I am on Broadway.. Just kidding, :P

Now that I moved again (I am somewhat a nomad), I get to try new places in my neighbourhood! I went to Riz on Broadway and Renfrew located in a small plaza with mr sub and a mexican restaurant (which seemed fairly busy so I just might have to try it one day)l. We ordered the unagi roll, cheese roll, and a lunch box. The owners are cantonese and they have a good amount of customers for a Monday Afternoon which included both sit in and take out. The menu had a bunch of different things as well.

Food came out pretty fast which was good because I thought I was gonna be late. The unagi roll was alright, nothing spectacular.. The lunch box was also normal, quite solid for a lunch box because everything was adequate. But the cheese roll was just gross. Then again what the hell was I thinking ordering sushi with MELTED CHEESE on TOP. Inside was beef teriyaki and it came with salsa sauce.. So it was like a mexican sushi roll.. Except gross as hell. OI. I ended up eating HELLA fast because I thought I was gonna be late (like.. Stuffing everything in my face.. others staring at me) only to be early by 45 min so ended up playing toobz on my iphone. I love that game, and unblock me.. But I am currently stuck on puzzle 9. ugh. Riz is a great sushi place alternative to Bentei nearby which has such a bad rating on urbanspoon (I always see so many people there so I don't know why it is rated 43%.. I'll take one for the team and find out one day).

Lux, Cafe Barcelona, Whineo's

2010-01-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

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.

Sun Sui Wah + Copa Cafe

2010-01-19T01:13:00.000-08:00

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

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

Milestones, Old Spaghetti factory, Hi

2010-01-12T01:06:00.000-08:00

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 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.

Finch's, Simbas, Pourhouse

2009-12-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

I am now homee in bc for another 4 months (maybe more, maybe not, who knows?) I thought I could battle jet lag as if it never happened but holy hell I felt soo sick by the 2nd-3rd days. On the 2nd day being back, I went downtown and met up with a friend for a quick coffee and sandwich bite at Finch's on W Pender. The cafe is famous for their ever so fresh sandwiches so I knew I had to try one (even though they were a tad expensive at around 7-8 bucks). I ordered the Smoked applewood cheddar, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, dijon mayo sandwich on baguette for around 8 dollars. The sandwich was lovely, I liked the presentation of it and will probably come back another time to try a different one.

Then I went to Simbas on Denman for dinner. I was greeted by the owner, but he didn't seem very friendly to me.. =[. The restaurant had nice decorative art around and a few awards he has won displayed in the back. There were many groups of people out to dine. We sat in the back and ordered the chicken in coconut curry and lamb in spinach and spices and ugali (african maize meal) and naan bread. We had a coupon that we had to present when we first came in. I wonder, would the quantity/quality be better if my coupon wasn't presented? i don't know. anyways, the chicken in coconut curry had great taste, but I did not like the lamb. I found the taste to be too overpowering for me but I really wanted to eat lamb, so I just ended up scraping all the spices off. The ugali was different and went well with both dishes, but I liked the naan bread more :)

Afterwards, I was feeling a little sick and wanted tea, so we walked and walked and walked allll the way to the pourhouse.. The restuarant, formerly flux, was very posh and dark inside. I felt a little scrubby but whatevs. the only other thing I see open was black frog and I am pretty sure a shot of jager will not cure my sick feeling (although it would make me feel warmer from walking from effing denman to gastown).. and a customer is a customer riiight? The restaurant has a throw back feel to it (well, at least to me). I liked the ambience and the room, with an open kitchen in the back. I think there's a table right next to the kitchen.. secluded from the rest of the dining area.. I don't know if this is an actual table or not but it seemed kinda weird!! The servers were super friendly and talkative, points.
Anyways, we ordered peppermint tea and an apple cobbler for two to share. It comes out piping hot with a side of ice cream. yummy, no complaints. There were a ton of groups and parties going on, but I also think it would be a lovely place for a date. I'll probably come back one day for food =) At the end we saw that they were throwing an nye party with 20s theme. Maybe that's where I got the throwback feel from, it coulddd be fun! but I remember it was pretty expensive.. just like every other goddamn vancouver event going on that night. maybe I am just bitter because I was one of those suckers who paid for an overpriced thing when all I really need was a bottle of riesling, friends, and david guetta and could have had a great night too. lesson learned kids.

Happy happy new year everyone! Hope 2010 will bring even better food than 2009!!!

Neptune Wonton Noodle

2009-12-24T05:39:00.000-08:00

After a hellish plane ride back from heathrow (sitting on a plane for 4 hours waiting for them to de-ice it and not knowing when they were done), the only places left opened at around midnight were neptune wonton noodle or number 9. I had been to neptune before and recall having good congee and so we ventured over there for a late night snack (they are open until 2 and it's cash only)

The room was pretty big, and still had a large amount of people eating. We ordered sweet and sour pork, curry fish balls and pork intestines(?), congee, and squid balls with noodles. I liked the congee, it had a lot of ingredients in it. The sweet and sour pork had too many fatty pieces, and the curry fish balls dish was just o-kay..

At the end it was a decent meal for a decent price, I am not raving but just happy to be eating chinese food again without having to pay over 10 bucks for one dish.

Look at this beauty

2009-12-14T14:45:00.000-08:00

ICA had no more turkey breast. so a huge turkey leg it is! hahaha with delicious scalloped potatoes and stuffing. I believe the turkey was 30 sek, which is around 4 bucks.. me and my american friend wanted to recreate some sort of north american christmas dinner.. only to result in scalloped potatoes, stuffing, and turkey leg that looked like it was from the flintstones. amazing.

Alright, here's another European update.. featuring mostly christmas food. I am in LOVE with christmas markets at the moment. They are the most beautiful thing ever.

BUDAPEST (my 2nd favorite country)
Look at this AMAZING hot chocolate. it was SOO thick and I felt like I was drinking a chocolate bar. WOW
Christmas Market selling goose legs and sausages. The goose legs were deliciousss

A Chimney cake.. very popular but it was very large and doughy! Good for a group!

ANGELHOLM, SWEDEN
Very very saucy but delicious nonetheless. We had this before we saw Rogle play against Skelleftea.. Modo was sold out unfortunately :(

TALLINN, ESTONIA
This was from a supermarket.. costing me 32 kroons which was around 3 bucks! The lemonade was yummy.

PRAGUE
Goulash soup in a bread bowl.. this was after walking around a very cold and rainy day.. so it was good.. although it was too heavy for me. I demolished the bread bowl.. although I am not so sure if we were supposed to eat it..

The Full monty at an irish pub.. which was suitable for 4 and more people, but it was just 3 of us.. 2 guys and me. We did pretty well at finishing it.. only leaving the fries around. It was damnnn good. It was steak bites, really tender ribs, fries, fried mushroom caps, fried jalapeno bites, and fried shrimp and chicken wings.. mmm..

A bohemian meal.. that I didn't enjoy but got because I wanted to be authentic. It was smoked meats, pork, bacon, cabbage, potatoes, and bread..
KRAKOW, POLAND
A traditional polish meal apparently.. deep fried pork chop, bacon, and cabbage. it was alright. the pork was such a hugeee piece!
At the christmas markets.. we thought it was fried dough and some sweet dessert.. but it was cheese..

Oświęcim, POLAND
Perogies! I wish I got meat inside instead of potato and cheese..

BERLIN, GERMANY
Dumplings! very yummy, but got too rich at the end, the sauce.. and my pretty christmas souvenir mug :)

A sausage and bun :) I don't know why the sausage has to be bigger than the bun but it was good.

Home, Sweden
I recently discovered Cafe Mondo and I wish I found this over Coffee break because this sandwich was DELICIOUS. It is chicken and bacon baguette.. the sauce was sooo good..

A traditional Christmas Dinner in Swedish.. Christmas ham with mustard, cocktail sausages, Jannson's temptation (potato with onions anchovies), cabbage, and kottbullar... everything was so salty and not good :( For appys we had bread+ cheese, hard boiled egg, beetroot salad, and 3 types of herring.. which my friend kept making gagging noises at me for eating, but watever.. swedes eat it, it can't hurt me. And for dessert we had rice pudding and gingerbread cookies. yums

hejda!

Update

2009-11-10T11:15:00.001-08:00

ah! I miss Vancouver food SOO MUCH. hell I didn't realize how much I miss free TAP water until now!
I miss cheap SUSHI.. Chinese food.. MEXICAN.. etc etc.. hell even RAMEN (which i don't like ). ahhh!! all I eat here are pasta salads and sandwiches and recently this lasagna that is starting to make me want to puke from all the cheesiness and oh ya this grilled chicken for 3 dollars canadian that I devour in 3 seconds. it's really fatty and salty.. but it hits the spot hah

I've been reminiscing with looking at my old flickr pics and these are the things I miss in Vancouver: Phnom Penh and their chicken wings and curry!, Pulled pork sandwich from Burgers etc, Amazing sushi rolls from Sagano and Tomoya, Bi bam bap from ANYWHERE, oatmeal from elixir, brunch from cafe medina, hashbrowns from deacon's, dumplings from cafe kathmandu, calamari from earls, Homely chinese dinners from Deer Garden, late night chinese from Ho yuen kee, Banh Mi from Carolina Deli, dumplings from lin's, che lung bao from Richmond public market, Chip and guac from Lolitas, Gyros from Sfinaki, Butter Chicken from Sitar, Wu gok from Sun Sui Wah, ..

the only thing I surpringly don't really miss atm are desserts.. because of the chocolate overload I am going through this week.

Don't get me wrong, I am sure Europe boasts some of the most fantastic, most delicious food in the world, but I am too poor to take advantage of this. and living in a university town eliminates most of those choices.

Having said that, the chocolates has been fantastic. I've recently picked up Daim Chocolate bar and Ballerina cookies. omfg. SOOO Good. I think they are both sold in IKEAs and I have been absolutely addicted to them. This is how i am gonna get fat. lovely. Before I leave, I am gonna buy cartons of the ballerina cookies and ship it home (because I am not sure if those are in ikea..).
edit* I just went to willys and picked up 3 more daim chocolate bars, I almost went crazy and picked up daim in long package and daim in bite sizes. oi.

Okay, I'll show you some pictures of what i've been eating when I travel.. given, most of my travels consisted of sandwiches I never took pics of.. so it MAY look like I eat lavishly, it's only like.. twice on a trip.. VERY LARGE pic post. :) get ready to drool.

BELGIUM (Brussels/Brugge)
Famous Mussels.. but they were very small and not juicy :(

Belgian Chocolates! I bought some home. Couldn't eat any there due to being sick and chocolate made me cough harder :(

Belgian Waffle. great!

Belgian Fries.. massive amount of mayo there!

LUXEMBOURG (my favorite country)
lovely pastries
HONG KONG (I know.. I am in europe wteff was I doing in Hk.. my brother got married)
My favorite breakfast- hk congee (tang jai jook) with chinese donut (both types) and little bananas. yum!

The toilet restaurant! hah! too bad it was not good.

AMSTERDAM
Dutch pancakes

A Whole Chicken! hah! I love this picture

STOCKHOLM
it was cold pasta..

COPENHAGEN
Pancake with ice cream. yum.

LONDON
Bangers and mash.. really salty.

HELSINGOR (Hamlet's Castle)
Delicious food

ALMHULT (the first ever IKEA)
Delicious!!! except the cinnamon bun was a little hard.

My Town

A sushi restaurant.. the chicken satay was drenched in sauce

Pasta Salad.. my addiction. This is from Coffee break. 55 kroners. great deal I think, if you take away, you also get a free drink :)

More pics, of course, on my flickr :)

Mistral

2009-10-13T02:27:00.000-07:00

For the last meal I had in Vancouver before I left to Europe, I chose to go to mistral. It was not only the last vancity meal for a while, but also my birthday meal! which I will be sharing with my family and relatives. I decided on Mistral because I have read nothing but great reviews on them and they have affordable set lunch menus as well. It was probably one of the best meals. My relatives/parents do not usually eat french cuisine, so this was a bit of a risk to go here, but whatever, it was my birthday lunch.

The restaurant is relatively small and ran by a lovely french couple that greeted us warmly from upon entering. Not only do they have a set three course lunch menu ranging from 19 to 24 dollars, they also have a la carte menu to order from. I decided to order off the menu and had the sablefish with mussels. Also had a martini, even though I was hungover and tired. It was very good.

There were a lot of food, and I'll just say that Everything was delicious. I don't think one single plate had a flaw. We were all content and finished every scrap of food on each plate. Everyone was boasting about how the french onion soup was flavorful, steak cooked perfectly, etc etc. The sablefish was cooked perfectly and it had amazing taste. All the desserts were beautiful and delicious. Here are some of the plates we had, if you want to see the rest, they are on my flickr.
After this meal, I think this has become one of my favorites in Vancouver. Thank you so much for the meal and the warm service. I will definitely come back one day.

Afghan Horseman, Kakurenbou, Edge, Ebisu

2009-10-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

Afghan Horseman has been on my go to list since I began to eat out in vancouver. Things always came up that caused me to postpone going here, but I knew knew knew I had to come here before I left. As the days before I left came closer and closer, I realized there were many people I still had to say bye to. So going to Afghan Horseman was actually right after my turkey sandwich at White spot, so I was pretty full..

but that did not stop us from ordering the Afghan Horseman Platter, to share with one other friend. We also ordered a drink for two, which we drank from a huge bowl with long straws. But I accidentally knocked my friend's straw out and had the whole drink to myself :D I was tipsy, so it was good times.

First came the appetizer, which was humus and a salad with some pita bread. Delicious delicious. Then the main dish was Boneless Chicken Breast Shish Kebab, Lamb Shish Kebab, Lamb Shoulder, Baked Rice, Baked Eggplant, Dolmah (cabbage roll), Pakawra, & Chaka. *yes I took that right off the website, because I don't remember what I ate 2 months ago*

Since I was bloody full from disgusting white spot, I only ate some bits of the food and I can comment that the rice and potatoes were very very very good! Man, reminiscing about this is making me drool.. because the last couple days, I've been eating not so fresh pasta salads and a shit of a lot free hamburgers. The lamb shoulder and lamb shish kebab (too full for the chicken) were very tender and flavorful.

Now I wish I could go back in time and eat everything else, yes I am also very hungry atm.

The restaurant is nice, the servers are also very nice, asking us how we found the restaurant and if we have been there before blahblah. I will definitely come back again.

The night before my birthday/leaving day, I went to Kakurenbou for a quick dinner because zakkushi was too busy. Kakurenbou is an izakaya restaurant near Robson street. It was pretty full, so we sat at the bar and ordered a couple of dishes. Everything sounded great but prices were pretty high... we ordered the croquette and chips, chicken karrage, a mexican pizza (which was just tortilla with cheese and onions on top I believe), and horse sashimi.. I have never tried, and was excited to. The food came surprisingly fast. Horse sashimi was first, and it was very small. The sashimi tasted a little like beef, but with a more buttery taste. The mexican pizza was not very good at all. it was bland and just very oniony. The karaage was very plain, and the croquette and chips also very plain. Croquette was bland.
I think that peresonally, everything sounded better on the menu, but the food fell short of amazing.

Afterwards, I headed over to Edge to have final drinks/dinner with some others. The restaurant is pretty spacious, we sat outside where the heaters were. friends ordered a flat bread that was apparently very good. I had a couple yummy martinis. Usually I find them too strong, but they aren't here at all. The server was really nice, except I think he was making fun of my accent (when I say words with am/an, I say it very country/hick like.. like d-eaann-ce.. so I ordered a jammy jam (or in my case, a jeammy jeaaaamm) and he came over and either talked JUST LIKE me or was mocking me. It's not my fault, I don't know where this accent came from. haha.
I recommend this restaurant for pre drinks/dinner before clubbing.

Finally, I met up with some other friends at speakeasy and went off to ebisu for some drinks and late night snacks. Since it was my birthday at midnight, we had shot for shots and a slice of chocolate cake, which came and they blared a birthday song on the speakers.. which was actually a little embarassing. We also ordered some yummy yam fries and another fried food I cannot remember. I have actually blogged about ebisu wayyyy too much.. need to try other places..

Coco et Olive, Deacon's Corner, White Spot

2009-09-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

Coco et Olive Fine foods is located on Broadway close to ubc area. It is a quaint little restaurant full of homemade quiches, soups, sandwiches, and desserts. Upon Arrival, the place had a few seats left, but as I waited for my friend, the room filled up super quick. Finally, there was only one table left outside that we had to bring chairs from inside out.

You order and pay inside first then you sit down. Looking at the menu, I decided to order the tomato and garlic quiche, and a fruit tart. Only to have the server look at me quizzically.. fruit..ta-rt? she pointed at random cake, only to have me point at the menu behind her. She quickly asks another man only to have him look at me quizzically as well. Am I being weird for ordering off the menu? After asking the baker/cook, we find out there's no more fruit tarts left.. :( So I ordered bread pudding instead.

My friend ordered the lemongrass soup and some dessert, only to have quizzical looks given to him once again. so had a lonely macaroon.

We sat down and the food arrives. Although my quiche looked ugly, it was very tasty. I also liked my cake. The lemongrass soup was definitely different. We were expecting vietnamese tastes, but it was very lemony. The macaroon was hard.

I like this place, it would be great for lunch. Just maybe look at what is on the counter and on the shelves to order, not from the menu.

Deacon's Corner is a diner in Gastown by Alibi Room. I had ventured here once before only to find the place way too packed and I was way too hungry to wait. After watching many diners drive ins and dives, I was itching to go to a diner and glad I had a chance to before I left.
I ordered the biscuits and sausages and friend had the french toast. The biscuits and sausage came with hashbrowns, which were honestly, the best hashbrowns I've ever had. I usually leave them untouched at IHOP but I ate every last scrap of it. I don't even know why because they are just potatoes, but my god, they were delicious. The biscuits with the sauce and sausages were delicious too, but just a little too filling for me after a couple bites. The hashbrowns were my highlight.

There were a ton of french toast on that plate. The fruit compote that came along with it was the highlight of that dish.

Overall, I really like this place for breakfast and everyone should try it out! the owners also own Cobre up the street, which is another one of my favorites and another place all vancouverites should try =)

I don't usually go to chain restaurants but I went to Whitespot because it was close to the school and transit. The last time I went, I shared the "mountain" cream puffs which unforuntately did not compare to the picture shown on the menu. We were expecting a mountain, and got 6 sad little cream puffs. grrr.

Here, I ordered the turkey sandwich because, it had stuffing turkey and cranberry sauce. Although I don't celebrate thanksgiving, I LOVE turkey stuffing and cranberry sauce. This sandwich to me was obviously the winner. Unforunately, it tasted like absolute crap. I don't remember much of this sandwich because it was unmemorable and I think I was forcing myself to finish it up at the end. I think it was all the damn gravy sauce, made the whole sandwich extremely disgusting. Friends had fish and chips, club sandwich, and burger, which were also all neutral.

DB Bistro Moderne

2009-09-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

A random night turned into going to DB Bistro Moderne over on Broadway/Kitsilano side. We sat outside, and I didn't get a chance to see the room very well. It was during one of the heatwave humid days in August, but nonetheless, sitting outside wasn't so bad. I wanted to people watch. haha. and obviously, the lighting was much better.

We ordered an appetizer, a tarte flambe. For some dumb reason, I thought it was something with fire and tableside. But nah, it's actually thin bread with toppings. For ours, it was onions, bacon and fromage blanc. It was very crispy and nice, the bread. However, I found the onions to be a little overpowering..

For main, I ordered the peasant tortellini and friend had the halibut. We got complimentary bread that was very cold. I didn't touch it. Fyi, for the tortellini, there is an appetizer version and main. Even though I ordered the main, it was still pretty small!!! It was a little salty but the ingredients were so fresh. I can't believe how much of a difference fresh ingredients really does make. Every single bite was great. The Halibut was supposedly very good too. I had one of the potatoes croquette things (the circular things) and yummy. Too bad we were both very very full, or else dessert would have been ordered.

The service was very nice and she wasn't intrusive but did try to converse with us. The only downside was when wind swept leaves and other things from trees into my tortellini. boo.

Han Ju Tofu Hot Pot, Boston, Flo Tea House, + Alleluia Cafe

2009-09-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

Before I left, I went to many asian places.. so here is a condensed review of all of them at once! This is definitely more of a piccy post so get ready to drool. haha

Han Ju Tofu hot pot is a small shop attached to Crystal mall. The room itself is very minimal and bare. The food is based on tofu hot pots and some rice dishes. There are some pictures of them on the menu. We ordered the seafood hotpot and a korean bbq rice dish. Wow, oily much?? the rice was just all oil. It obviously tasted good, but most likely not good for me. The hot pot was adequate.. nothing special. I think I prefer the ones at Sasaya bistro more on Royal oak.. I guess this place is good if you are in the vicinity and need a quick/cheap eat.

Boston is a relatively big, more upper scale hk cafe in Richmond. When we went, there were a ton of people inside. We managed to get a seat pretty quickly. The menu was pretty big with various chinese/western chinese dishes. They also have mini stone grills. I don't remember how much, but they did seem a little expensive. I just got a mini stone grill for lamb chops and we also ordered noodles and laksa. The stone grill came with a bun and lobster bisque. The bisque was nice, but nothing amazing. The bun was warm and soft. The mini stone grill came with vegetables and spaghetti (covered in lots of oil). The lamb chops were okay, but there were only two pieces. The noodles were surprisingly tasty. I like this hk cafe, give it a try if you are in richmond.

Flo tea house is down granville street by The place. Inside is very spacious with lots of seating. There are many many drinks to choose from. Sometimes there are so many choices I don't even know which one to choose. I personally don't like ordering drinks at restaurants because then I have to pee (esp before an hour long car ride) but when I see such a large drinks menu, I can never resist. For food, we ordered the noodles and a portugese chicken. Damn did the noodles come in a large enough bowl. The food was fair for a hk diner. The noodles weren't that great but the chicken was fine. I think I was more impressed by the ambience of the restaurant and their drinks menu than the food..

Alleluia Cafe.. I've been here many years ago when it was under different management. The restaurant was very packed when we went and we were seated after about 10 minutes. They have mix and match meals where you can choose two different food with a side and a sauce. I had the beef short ribs with chicken wings and yam fries and a sauce that I don't remember. We also ordered the beef brisket noodles that came surprisingly fast. the beef brisket was tender and the noodles were very good. My mix and match was just ok. I found the beef short ribs to be too fatty and chicken wings too small. The yam fries weren't very good either.

Hello!

2009-08-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hej Hej! I am now in the land of ikea, H&M, and volvos! It is truly truly beautiful here and I have just been trying to enjoy every moment of it. Lots of bicycles and little cars.. Lots of walking in the middle of the streets and cobblestones!! This quaint little town is a definite change from the tall buildings and traffic filled streets of Vancouver!

Unfortunately, I have not taken any pictures whatsoever of my food here in Sweden, because all I have been eating are falaffels (who knew there were so many middle eastern places in this town??) and pasta..

I think I am definitely getting a culture shock here, I am not used to any of these street names and they just look like jibberish to me. I mean, althelgona kyrkog. ... really?? really???? or filippavagen. My goodness. The first day, I think I took the bus all the way to another town. What a stressful time. But I am sort of determined to master this language.. so hopefully I'll get it!

I went to London and it was very nice. Suntanned in front of westminster abbey with big ben telling me the time. no biggie. just a normal day. haha ;) The food was okay- since I was on a budget (like.. 8 dollars or less), I really had to look for the cheap eats. which I will write about soon

Copenhagen is beautiful. The people are stunning, I don't understand how this is possible. Something in the water? The town is a little small, and language just as confusing but nonetheless astonishing.

Alright, I am off to explore again. this was just a quick update.. and when I have real time, I shall finish my vancouver foodie escapades (the list on the left)! Hejda!

Nikko Sushi + Restaurant 62 + sagano pics

2009-08-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

I was talking to my father about the asian restaurants in abby, and it's funny how we somehow know the owners (or old owner) one way or another (Except flaming wok and some japanese restaurants.. apparently no one knows flaming wok. weird). what a little little town.

Anyways, we went to Nikko Sushi, where my father used to know the previous owners until they sold it to a group of korean individuals who also own other japanese restuarants in abby. it is a very tiny sushi restaurant near near master lee (where all 80% abby kids has been to to learn tkd. yes, I was one of them HAHA)

The restuarant is very very small and dark. a little stuffy as well, but had a good amount of customers. The whole place was ran by ladies and there were featured rolls all over the restaurant. I decided on ordering the takoyaki, doubld crunch dynamite roll, calamari roll, and las vegas roll. They definitely had some innovative sushi. I really liked it.

The takoyaki was soft with a little squid in the middle. Very good. The rolls were crazy! First came the calamari roll.. although it wasn't rolled very good, the ingredients inside was ample. I've never had fried squid in my sushi but it was delicious. Next was the double crunch dynamite roll.. that said it was deep fried. I thought they were just going to fry a bit of the outer or something, but no no. the whole sushi was actually deep fried in tempura batter. insane. inside tasted like a normal dynamite roll.. but honestly, the WHOLE thing deep fried?? that takes it to a whole other level. The las vegas roll featured sashimi and yam tempura inside. Very good as well. The last two rolls had hot sauce served with it. REALLY SPICY!

I think this place is my 2nd fave in abby, I still like Sagano more.. which I went to recently again. Before Sagano, was a chinese restaurant that my parents knew the owners of, that didn't do so stellar due to the location. Surprisingly, my parents don't know the sagano owners (know the waitress) but my best friend does. it's not even 6 degrees of separation, it's like 2 degrees of separation with all restaurants in the valley.

Anyways, we ordered bc ball (takoyaki without squid) but nikko was better. and the panda roll (with crab meat on TOP of the sushi) and another roll that I don't remember the name of, but very good because it had eggplant, tomato, and some other stuff! the oyako don wasn't very good though. Also, this restaurant's kitchen is Exceptionally Clean. I have never seen such a spotless kitchen. It's amazing.

My friend from richmond came and I thought we should try restaurant 62.. if only I could find it. Honestly, I've never had to give directions in the valley and let's just say we spent 40 min driving into farmlands and Marshall Road with him questioning whether or not I was actually from abby. lol. oops.

I've been to r62 once before I didn't like. It was for brunch and my omelette looked like a freaking pizza. But I decided to go here, because he vetoed goin to penang.. thinking it's too bizarre how a restaurant can be both szchewan and malaysian at the same time LOL I don't know. I wanted to try though.

The restaurant is very beautiful. A little dark, but sophisticated. There is an open kitchen you have to walk through to get to the dining area. I ordered the 62 sampler (of tiger prawns, tuna, and lamb chops). friend had duck. The duck was very good. it was tender and seared perfectly. The sampler was just o-k.. for 28 dollars, i don't know if it's worth it? there were just 2 prawns, the fish was okay, and the lamb was too tough. The mashed potatoes was really good though.. I also appreciated how all the ingredients were fresh, it definitely does make things better.

The restaurant is great for dates, and many people were dressed up. Wow, didn't I feel like a scrub. Since I thought we were gonna go to Penang! oi!

Ponchos + Don Guacamole's

2009-08-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to go Ponchos. From the outside, it looks a little dodgy and old.. nothin spectacular.. but inside is a warm vibrant room full of music laughing and good times. There were a lot of spanish chatters so I m guessing it is authentic? there is a mexican singer in the back strumming his guitar. We sat down and ordered some nachos becaus we were starvinggg. There were loaded with sour cream, salsa, cheese, and meats. it was delicious, but the bottom nachos had nothing on them and were extremely soggy :(

we then ordered the beef faijtas and taquitoes to share. the food took quite a while to get out. The beef for the fajitas were very tough.. but the taquitoes were very tasty. Overall I found the food to be just o-kay. We also ordered the churros that was absolute sugar overload!!!

The margeritas are very delicious and they also have a coffee drink worth around 8-9 dollars that is made tableside. If this is too expensive, you can just enjoy the show when others order it :)

As the night went on, the singer began playing a song many of us knew (the name escapes me) and the waitresses began to distribute instruments like mini drums, rattlers, etc, to join in. The owner was just making noises with a whisk and a bowl! The restaurant isn't very big so it was very cozy and brought the whole restaurant together. It was fun and I loved it! The food isn't very good, but I think the entertainment turns ponchos into a to go restaurant.

ps damas is girl's bathroom. at least they are single washrooms. so it was not as embarrassing peeing in the guy's washroom by accident.

Don Guacamole's on the other hand was just not good. There's a lot of people here, but thankfully we got a table quickly. After salsa & agave, I love horchata and had to order another one. We also ordered the flautas and flan. This complimentary chips with dips came.. the dips were all very spicy =(
The flautas was described as 6 crispy mini tacos, but they were 3 longgg taquitoes that were very hard to eat. They were also extremely bland with no taste whatsoever! The flan was sweet and o-kay. The flan at Bandidas was much much better. I don't like this place.. bland food.

Burgoo (main/lonsdale) and Lattitude

2009-08-06T21:31:00.001-07:00

I just found out that there used to be a restaurant on kingsway called pho bich nga. HAHAHA. too bad I didn't get to go before they shut down.

Burgoo is seriously the home of comfort food. Slow cooked meats, hearty bowls of soup and sandwiches, bread pudding.. biscuits.. mashed potatoes.. need I say more?? I've always wanted to come here but everytime I attempted, it was extremely busy. so I went at 5. that should do it.

We sat outside to people watch (or really, watch the couple sitting in their car at bo kong until the restaurant opened :D something that I have done recently), and ordered the biscuits, a kentucky burgoo, and irish stew. The biscuits were soft and warm and went great with our dishes. However, I found the kentucky burgoo too bitter.. too much garlic?? or something. The taste would be better if it was seasoned lighter. I also realized I don't like okra.. for a while I thought someone spat in my food. ...

So I didn't really have a great experience at Burgoo and have basically sort of written it off, until I ventured to North Van and we were looking for a plae to eat. It was, once again, like 5:30ish so lots of places were empty. Gutso is too expensive.. district looked really empty.. raglans looked cool and casual, but I wanted to sit outside and it was all occupied, and anatoli had a private function (although the waiter and chef there are definitely very friendly.. :D) so we settled on Burgoo.. as long as we didn't order the kentucky. The restuarant is smaller but had the same rustic feel. We sat outside again (I hate sitting inside.. bad lighting and usually dark), and shared the strong lemonade. it was so good! You can taste the alcohol, but it was so thirst quenching that I finished a glass in like 2 minutes. and moved onto the second one.. and the next one.. if alcohol didn't make me pee so much and I didn't have to sit through a 2 1/2 hour musical right after, I would have drank the whole pitcher.. anyways..

we ordered the foundumental (?) fondue. it came with apples, bread, grapes, and tomatoes. While my friend loved it with the bread, I found the bread to be a littly stale.. I think I like it when they toasted the bread, instead of serving it normal. so I ate mostly the apples.

We shared a butter chicken, that was very flavourful. I didn't know what to expect ordering an indian dish, but it was a good choice. There were ample amounts of chicken and potatoes and it had a great sauce. Definitely a filling meal for the two of us!

So.. I thinkI have come to the conclusion that Burgoo is a good place to go, if you order the right things :)

After Burgoo on Main, we ventured to Latittude to share a few desserts.. the passionfruit mousse and a panna cotta.. the mousse was wayyy too sweet. I couldn't even eat it after the first few bites, it sure was pretty though.

This next 6 days is going to be CRAZY for me (exams/packing/farewells), so if I am slow, I am sorry! I will hopefully get 1-2 more posts in!!

Zipang and Sushi Oyama

2009-08-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

I saw zipang sushi when I was at shaktea awhile back.. Wanted to go in, but they were closed after my tea :( have been aching to go back, and glad I tried it!

The room is quite small but the decor is really nice. Not the usual japanese restaurant, it's more modern. The menu has a bunch of good stuff, I wanted to order everything.. since friend gave me absolute power to order =D Ended up only getting the kiwi roll, chicken karaage roll, a roll that has a name that I can't remember, and a modern jap pizza. I was going to get pook okonomiyaki because I was naive enough to think it was something different, some kooky jap. thing but it was just a typo for pork .

The rolls were very pretty, but I only liked the two on the right. The kiwi roll was way too sour. Hell I don't even like Kiwi, but I am tryin to make myself eat them because of the massive amount of vitamin C in it. and I thought I would grow accustomed to the taste (like I have done for blueberries). but no dice.

The roll in the middle was very creamy but I liked it like that! It was different, but a good different. The creaminess worked well with the unagi inside. yum, I ate all that and made friend eat the rest of kiwi roll hah. although he too winced at the sourness hah. The chicken karaage was surprisngly good too. but how can you go wrong with chicken karaage.

The modern okonomiyaki was a "pizza" made with noodles as a base. The first bite was very tasty and good, but the 3rd/4th bite was extremely filling.

The service is nice, but a little weird. I don't think she understood us or she just had a really weird personality. friend got there before me and wanted tea and she went "ooOOh First TIME!!" huh? when he reenacted this for me I was like w/e you're being dramatic, but then for takeout she goes "oOooOO .. ho ho ho... pack? oOoOO" and makes a face at me..? and then we left a tip and she goes "ooOOo Tip?..." and I thought she was going to complain about the tip (even though it was a good tip) then proceeds to go "oooOOoh!!" we left the restaurant going what.. the..fuck. nice lady, but a bit weird..

Oh ya, and the single washroom has a huge mirror with a big chair in front of it.. umm? do people like sitting in bathrooms over the restaurant?

I moved out of Burnaby and as a last dine near my neighborhood, I went to Sushi Oyama. I've passed by it several times and thought it looked intriguing for a Japanese restaurant to be in a big house setting. My feelings of eating in a house setting restaurant has ranged from cold and awkward (hart house) to cozy and lovely (old mac grill). So I didn't really know what to expect when i went inside. Although I must say I really liked how the patio was set up to dine outside.
We sat inside, near the sushi bar, but I found the booth to be quite cramped. and if you are a tall person, you will have to crouch down to eat.. something I despise (le merrackech)

The room is pretty big with ample seating, I think the sushi bar is big too, because there was another one on the other side of where we were sitting. On our side, there were 3 sushi chefs, I wonder if there were 3 on the other side too? quite a lot of staff then!

Is this restaurant affiliated with sushi town in any way? because they have very similar names of rolls (awesome roll.. mangodoise roll...) We ordered the potato croquette, oyama roll, tonkatsu, and dragon roll. The potato croquette was soft with a nice crispy outer crust..but I preferred the one I had at sushi town in coquitlam much more. The rolls were nice and beautifully presented, but the tonkatsu was a major letdown. The pork cutlets were deep fried wayyy too long, and it turned out extremely dry. yuck.

I started seeing 4 flies and knew it was time to get going. The food was average, and the prices were acceptable. I guess if you are in the neighborhood and wants some decent sushi, this would be a nice place to go. Although I find the location to be weird, we were there around 4 and they seemed to have good business.

Cafe Kathmandu + Bandidas Taqueria

2009-07-30T23:52:00.001-07:00

I went to Cafe Kathmandu a few weeks back. The restaurant is full of beautiful art and paintings exemplifying the nepali region. We got there pretty early.. 5pm, and the restaurant doesn't get packed until around 6-7.

When you come here, I have heard you must try the momos. but I forgot this, and ordered the deep fried dumplings instead. Nonetheless, they were really good! They were crunchy on the outside but soft and full of ingredients inside. It also came with three dips, unfortunately I do not remember them anymore, except that one of them was extremely spicy :(

Then we shared a large plate of goat curry that came with rice and roti, dhal, and side veggies. It was very filling for the two of us. The goat was very tasty, but the dish was a little too spicy for me :(:(

Afterwards, we headed next door to Bandidas for dessert. The room is very minimal but crowded. They serve up mexican food but we just ordered some brownies and the flan. The brownies were a little too bitter for my taste, but the flan was very sweet, rich, and tasty. Too bad after a few bites, it was too rich for me.. The service is nice and they did not hurry us at all (something I hate at restaurants). They also feature beautiful photographs around the room. my friend's exhibition of photographs he has taken in the Middle East will be featured this Saturday at Bandidas.. so go and check it out !

Ma's + Gingeri + Golden Phoenix

2009-07-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

sooo someone told me how there's this restaurant very close to where I live that serves food that has been already served already... which is already quite disgusting... but then a waitress once tried to advise customers not to order something because it was recooked food, the owners heard.. yelled at her, hit her, and fired her... wtfuck!! I am not going to name the restaurant but seriously, that is pretty despicable. I think that reserving food, although as dirty as it is, is sorta common in small restaurants in China, but I guess I never would have thought in Van.. If this was true (I dno why two diff ppl would lie) I hope health inspection has found out.

Anyways,
My mother told me that if I like shanghai cuisine so much, I should go try Ma's. I broke my toe 3 weeks ago (really dumb accident...no comment) so it ruined my plans of going to la bodega :(:(:( but a girls gotta eat, so I hopped on over to Ma's. and when I say hop, i really do literally mean hopping into the restaurant mere hours after being at the friggin hospital. talk about dedication to eat :P

They serve halal cuisine, so there are no pork dishes on the menu. The restuarant looks like a normal asian restaurant with pictures of dishes posted around the room. There were about 5 flies flying around next to me.. so we asked them to close the door and turn on the AC to get rid of them. then I asked my father where they would go, and he said to a place w/o AC.. which is the kitchen.. where all the food is.. oi.

We ordered the beef roll ups, a crepe and lamb dish, beef pastry, and a noodle dish. Everything was just o-kay. except the beef pastry one. Although it was very oily and fatty, it was quite yummy. There were a lot of ingredients inside. For dessert we ordered deep fried taro and seasame balls and they were veryyy good. Although filling, they were piping hot and soft. yum

Gingeri is a Chinese seafood restaurant in Richmond Landsdowne Mall.. I am not a big fan of large dim sum restaurants due to the fact that there is obvious favoritism towards close clientele there. Maybe I am just bitter because I have no connections (haha) but I don't think it's right that I made reservations and still waiting for a freaking table when I see so many opened, and then a "close customer" walks in and beelines through the damn line and gets one of the tables. we said somethin to the hostess and she just shrugged and said sorry. oi. There was another frustrated group next to us but they somehow argued their way into getting a table.

The food was okay. Waited so long I didn't even care anymore. Here are some dessert we had. no I am not coming back.

On the other hand, I went to Golden Phoenix a couple weeks back on a weekday. I've been here before and I liked their innovative dim sums. Since it was a weekday, it was extremely quiet but they were very very attentive and kind. I was a little hard to serve that day because I wasn't feeling well but they brought over so much water and tea and sympathetized with me which was nice. We would ask if they had something and they would quickly make it and we accidentally ordered something and didn't want it and they said no problem and quickly cancelled it.

These are baked bbq pork buns and they were very very good. Sweet and soft with piping hot bbq pork inside. Delicious.

Salade de fruits cafe

2009-07-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

A great little french spot on W 7th, offering up delicious brunch at this quaint place. Tons of bugs in front of the entrance. friend had to wack them away so I could run in (this fear is getting outta hand man).

We sat on outside and presented a door handle looking menu.. everything in french. Time to put my french 11 (99% might i add :P) to the test. I figured out poulet and ouefs and that was it haha.. we asked the server a ton of questions, but he was nice and answered (and repeated) everything patiently :) there's eggs benny, chicken, fish, lamb, mussels, crepes, etc.. a lot of vairous food for a brunch! I chose the crepes with cheese and chicken, and friend had the eggs benny with sausage. We also had a nice french cassis cocktail drink. Service was nice, everyone spoke french .. how authentic :)

My crepe was really good. I didn't have high expectations for it because I've never had a savory crepe before, but the crepe was soft and there was a ton of filling. It was just really tasty. Eggs benny was good too, cept the sausage was a little dry.

It's a hidden little gem that provides very yummy brunch. try it out some time :)

Tentatsu, Hiroshi's, and Sakura Sushi

2009-07-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

man no internet really sucks, i hate you telus

Tentatsu is a japanese restaurant on busy hastings st. There is always a large group of people waiting for the bus in front, which attracts me to stare at the restaurant whenever my bus stops there to load people on. I guess this accidental marketing worked because I really wanted to try it ever since.

They have a large menu with lunch boxes, but we opted for menu items.. we ordered the chicken karaage, a sushi roll, a piece of saba, and unagi don.

The sushi roll was nice. it had scallops on top with tempura prawn and avo inside. The unagi don was quite large and filling, the saba was grilled nicely, but the karaage was a let down. Although the chicken was perfect (juicy and not dry) but the taste was too salty for me..and tasted a little like KFC fried chicken. Service is nice, food comes out fairly quick and it is fine.. this is an adequate sushi spot :)

Hiroshi's Sushi Creations is a very tiny mom and pop store on Oak st. They are only opened on Weekdays until 8pm. I've read very good reviews on them and their innovative rolls and decided to give it a try. Their menu is not very big but they sure have some different things. We only ordered sushi rolls: energy roll, refresh, ebi cheese, and tropical.
The energy roll had pumpkin tuna with garlic lime sauce, refresh with cilantro, tuna, and lemon mustard, tropical had avo and mango sauce, and ebi cheese was cheese ebi and lemon mayo.
The ingredients were very fresh but I found the energy and refresh to be too sour for me :( but other than that it was pretty good. (I liked pumpkin in sushi :D)

It seems like a local negihborhood gem.. serving fresh sushi and jap food at good prices :)

Finally I stumbled onto Sakura Sushi when I was in Langely. I didn't realize there were So many sushi restaurants there until now! We chose Sakura because we parked closest to it . haha. No one inside was a little wearysome, but nevertheless a try. We had a sushi box and a sakura sushi (had unagi cream cheese I believe..?). The sushi box is pictured here. I really enjoyed how they have ebi su included :) The gyoza was a little dry, and the chicken teriyaki was really bland. The sushi was fine. The sakura sushi had good flavor, but it was veryyy mushy.

Grub + Sweet Revenge

2009-07-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

Grub is a tiny little restaurant on Main that isn't too hard to miss because they have a really big GRUB sign on the front. The restaurant was very busy and seemed quite kid friendly as well (crayons, coloring paper things, the ability to store a stroller in the back).. The menu is full of pizza, salad, and appetizers while the side is the fresh list of better mains. I felt like a pizza so I ordered one with sausages. friend had duck salad.. we waited patiently.. which felt like actually quite a while.. hummmmmm

My pizza was quite delicious, soft, and fresh, with enough pieces, although I only ate two and got the rest packed up. The salad was good too apparently, although it looked bland to me.. They really cater well to your needs. friend wanted it with no lactose ingredients and they made sure of it. great :)

Then we headed over to Sweet revenge and sat outside. friend going through a cutting out lactose for a week experiment. boy did we choose a bad week to hang out. Unfortunately the only thing on the menu with no lactose was the fruit plate. Man, it must suck to be lactose intolerant!!! The menu had a wide variety of things I wanted to try (pies, cheesecakes, chocolate cakes, bread pudding).. but I chose the white chocolate cheesecake because it was noted to be a favorite. There is a minimum charge of 6 dollars here ps. but he let it go for us, because my friend didn't want to get fruit.... The cheesecake was very very good. It was flourless and had a creamy soft texture that almost felt like it melted in your mouth. Too bad it is a little small. The man (I think he is the owner) wasn't very warm. You know, you can smile..

Then we were walking and past Nyala, a restaurant I am hoping to go to. They have flamenco dancing on Saturdays. The owner comes out and tries to persuade us to go inside. He was a nice man and I felt bad for him.. It was karoke night and he wanted us to go in and sing and eat, but there was only one other customer inside.. We promised we'd be back on a Saturday and he told us we could flamenco dance as well. lol. ya.. we'll see mister

Sasaya + Kreation

2009-07-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sasaya is an Asian restaurant near where I live. I always walk past to the skytrain and 'glance at the pictures on the window'... when in fact I was just checking to make sure my hair wasn't looking crazy (please, everyone does it. don't lie.) The place has chinese writings and has chinese dishes.. but they also have korean hot pots, and japanese curry, and my friend told me this place used to be taiwanese..

The place is pretty minimal, looks kinda like a cafeteria. They have a fairly big menu and pictures as well. We ordered a korean bbq beef, rice, and hotpot, and meatballs. The meatballs come and they are just 4 boring meatballs you put in hot pot at home with some bland soup. This was 4 something. omg, rip off.

The korean bbq dinner was quite big actually. When I saw it, I was a little turned off because the mini hot pot looked like it had nothing. But as I dug in, it was pretty deep filled with shrimp, egg, vermicelli, vegetables, and some other things I believe. The beef was a little dry, and although there were a lot of food in the hot pot, it was a bit bland. I guess this would be a filling dinner, but not something I would enjoy.

I wanted to try Kreation cakes, so I went to buy some. The place is quite easy to miss since their store is sorta dark and the sign is small. The room quaint but they have a selection of small cakes and cookies to buy. The prices are quite expensive, but the cakes are pretty unique. I bought the blueberry tart, caramel lamington, and raspberry cheesecake. I am sure the names were more intricate than that but I don't remember it anymore! Unforunately, the only one I didn't mind was the blueberry one. The caramel was way sweet and so was the cheesecake :( I prefer la patiserrie near Red Star Seafood Restaurant.

lastly, look at the size of this pizza! it's so gigantic!! it's a 18" Costco pizza for around 13 dollars. Hella cheap! It wasn't very good, but damnnn!! Side note: Ah beetz sell 18" pizzas for around 16-25 dollars. I reallyy wanna try this place because apparently they are the only authentic ny pizza in bc.. but it seems like everytime I've tried to go there. their machine is broken or they ran out of dough.. Here's an article on them

Maurya + Raga

2009-07-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

I have heard relatively good things about Maurya so I decided to go for Father's day. There's a couple of free parking in the back and it is right next door to Bogarts. The restaurant itself is very spacious with high ceilings and mansion-like feel.
We ordered the butter chicken, chicken chettinand, and lamb palak. They were all around 12-14. We also ordered some rice and naan. One of the meals (I think it was the chicken one) came with veggies and rice as well. We were also given complimentary papad to start. Although the dishes looked small, the plates were pretty deep so there were a lot of food! Everything was really delicious, although I still loved the butter chicken the most. All dishes had ample pieces of meat and they were very tender. The only thing I didn't like was the naan, it was too crispy for me (I like doughier naan more). We also ordered 2 dessets: kheer (rice pudding) and ras malai (cheese patties in milk) for 6.95..
I don't think they were worth it.. they were small and nothing amazing. Just sweet.
Even so, I thought the main dishes were very good!

Last week I went to Raga near Tojo's. The servers were very very nice. I think there was a man sleeping in the back.. because we didn't see anyone.. then after awhile, this man popped up and just sat there.. then we didn't see him again. LOL Complimentary papad was also given.

We ordered the Lamb Korma and Butter Chicken with naan and rice (they are not included). The mains were 14 dollars.. a little expensive!!
I found the sweetness of the lamb korma a bit strange for me, so I ate more of the butter chicken. There was a good buttery taste . and the naan was very doughy here- yum. The dishes weren't as big as Maurya I don't think, but still adequate.. This restaurant is pretty good.. although a little expensive.. but the service was very good =]

Hons + The Place

2009-07-02T19:42:00.001-07:00

random note: there's this side app that tells me how people are getting to my site .. LOL to someone googling "yuppie am i a" and getting to my post.

I went to Hons on the weekend right when it opened. We thought we were too early, but there were a few others bustling in at the same time as us. Unfortunately their kitchen wasn't set up and we, along with others, had to wait a bit to get our food. The other table was in a hurry and even asked to get their dishes (that haven't arrived to their tables) taken to go because they had no time for sit down and eat. I understand that they *just* opened, but if you aren't ready to be opened, then maybe don't say you're open yet?

We ordered the pan fried noodles (cheong fun), duck and wonton noodles (what was I thinking? at 9 in the morning), and tang jai congee with chinese donut. Everything was adequate Hon's Chinese food. I don't have much to say, so on with the pictures :)

After the delicious time I had at Lin's many months ago, I wanted to try the Place, the tiny shanghai restaurant on the far end of Granville. The restaurant itself is small with a very high ceiling. There was only one big table occupied when we got there, but as dinner rolled on, people slowly trickled in. We ordered the beef rolls, xlb, beef noodles, and something that I absolutely cannot remember what it was.. I think it was chicken.... or beef..

Anyways, so the beef rolls were okay but damn, nothing compares to Long's.. I don't know why they are so good there. but one thing I must rave about is how juicy and plump those xlb were! I don't think I've even seen anything as nice as them. yum!! The beef noodles were good too.. very tasty, and the chicken possibly beef dish tasted great wrapped in little crepes. It is also great with rice, as I found out for dinner the next day =)

For dessert, we had deep fried sweet potato and a sesame cake dessert. I liked the seasame one, very tasty

So I went to the washroom here, and obv I didn't have much of any expectations. I went to wash my hands and the sink had a tube connected to this machine next to the it. uhhh what the freaking hell. After I randomly pressed some red and blue buttons on the machine, water came pouring out in the machine inside. (like a freaking washing machine). umm why is their sink the washing machine???? Like I am pretty sure that was a washing clothes machine used as a sink now. this is probably one of the more random encounters I've had with washrooms. but at least I was smart enough to figure this out =) =p

Flying Tiger + Maenam

2009-06-28T21:35:00.001-07:00

I went to Flying tiger a couple weeks ago. It is further along West 4th near Milestones and past Topanga Cafe. They specialize in asian street food such as roti canai, satays, duck crepe, noodles,etc. I was real excited to try this place since I've always wanted to come and it definitely met all my expectations.

The room is rather small with only three (?) tables out on the patio. So we sat on the side next to the open kitchen, where only three people cooked all night long. It was cool because I got to see all the dishes that were coming out :)

We ordered the roti, satay, and chaat masala. The roti canai was different from the usual, it was flakier and sweet I believe.. (this is what happens when you blog about a place you tried 2-3 weeks ago, you briefly remember the taste.. but I am so lazy to post it right after i try =[ ) but anyways it was still good, especially with the curry dipping sauce.

Next was Chicken Satay. They were okay. We didn't rave about it but it wasn't disgusting. they were just okay. Finally was the Chaat Masala which I really liked. You take the bread and then you fill it up with all the fillings on the plate. There were raisin chutney (my fave), yogurt cucumber, dhaal, vegetables, and mint chutney (?). It was a little hard to fill everything into it but it was pretty delicious. The various flavors at once. Although, I personally didn't like the mint and vegetables, I loaded it up mostly with dhaal and raisin :) crap I am drooling thinking about it.

Then we ordered the sticky rice dessert that comes with mango jackfruit and ice cream. ewww it was so not good. We couldn't even finish it :(

The prices were a little high (12 for satay, 14 for chaat, and 7 for roti) but the food was very tasty and delicoius that I think van foodies should try it out if they haven't done so yet =) (cept the dessert. blech).

I also went to Maenam last week for a quick dinner. and it sure was quick, because I think we at in record time (because we were thinking we were gonna get ticketed for where we parked. bleh).
Maenam used to be Gastropod, but now has become a thai restaurant. Right when I walked in, I was welcomed by two flies flying in the middle of the restaurant. gross. I know I comment on this a lot,but damn I can't STAND it!!!

We ordered the 3 flavor fish (sweet sour and salty, 17 dollars) and pad thai (13 dollars). I didn't feel like rice but it would most likely have made the meal better. The flavors were overpowering. The fish was quite tasty and it was cooked perfectly but there was almost too much taste.. and the pad thai was just SUPER flavorful. wayy too sweet. If they dialled down the spices and stuff, I think the meal would have been excellent.

Las Margaritas + Sophie's

2009-06-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

After Salsa & Agave, I had been craving mexican food and really wanted to go to Las Margaritas. Most of my friends rave about it and decided I shall try it out as well. We sat on the patio and started looking at their extensiveee menu of food. We wanted to share a nachos and decided to share the cheapest one, without bothering to look at the description. I ordered the enchilada and friend had the vegetarian enchilada and a pina colada.

The nachos come and it was this dinky 8 pieces nachos. For 6 bucks, this isn't worth it. Damn, lesson learned. read the description (I always just scan it and see a word I like like cranberry or duck or apple, and I am sold. yes, it's horrible because I sometimes end up getting something completely not what I had in mind... aka last year- beso- chicken with a ball of cheese on top. ewww). Even though it was small, it was sooo filling since it was loaded with cheese adn guacamole. delicious fatty goodness.

Our food arrived and I was pretty full at this point. Upon scanning the whole patio and my food, it seems like every dish looked just the same. rice, beans, and some sort of tortilla filled thing loaded with cheese guac and sour cream. Maybe this is what Mexican food is? I don't know authentic mexican food, I didn't even like mexican food until 2 years ago.
The rice was really good, I hated the beans. It was weird texture for me and I was too full from the nachos that I got the enchilada packed up. The next day I ate it.. it was a little dry inside (maybe from microwaved). The place has a nice patio to people watch. and if you love cheese, this is a great place to go haha

Then we headed over to Sophie's for apple pie, because I heard it was pretty good. For around 6 dollars, it's hugeee. but umm lets just say we prefer regular apple pie. the crust is not the normal doughy pie crust, it's like pastry like I guess. Gosh I don't know my terms, forgive me. Just look at the picture haha

Cafe Medina + others

2009-06-24T19:04:00.001-07:00

I went for brunch at Cafe Medina awhile ago. This place sure is busy and crowded on the weekends. The room isn't very big but it was cozy. I ordered the tortilla and friend had the tagine. I wanted to try everything on the menu, they all sounded delicious!

The food was nicely presented and sure was filling. My tortilla didn't look that big, but it was filled with a bunch of delicious ingredients.. I can't remember much of it anymore but I vaguely remember eating sausage, shrimp, other vegetables, etc.. The Tagine looked great as well. I saw someone with hard boiled egg and some bread etc, and it looked sooo good. Then the people right next to us saw our food and said they wanted what we ordered. maybe that's why they want everyone to be so close together :P so everyone can order everything :P:)
Afterwards, we ordered a couple waffles. They were around 3 dollars and you can choose from a list of toppings. We chose lavender chocolate and fruit compote. Both were very delicious!
I think I found a new fave brunch place. Although they hurried us out at the end, we were taking our sweet ass time. sorry.

We ventured over to Salsa & Agave hoping to have a margarita before our biking adventures (hey, why not. it'll make it more exciting). They weren't licensed but the owner offered some juices instead. I didn't know which one to choose (between a milky flavored one and a fruity one) so she gave us some samples. Both were delicious so we ordered one of each. We also got free chips and salsa. I really wanted to order food but damn I was full. We had to stall because we were waiting for our country friend to figure her way from stadium skytrain to salsa. which took her about 45 minutes. oi. Even though we didn't really order anything and took up one of their tables, they never once rushed us and was always extremely kind and happy towards us. :D If only I had enough time for repeat restaurants (2 months left..)
Biking was fun, except I ended up with a lot of bruises because I don't know how to start a bike (what the hell is wrong with me).

So we had a crazy big foodie event at our house few weeks ago, a couple pics to show the food =)

Pictures

2009-06-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

haven't had internet for awhile.. finally posted a bunch of food piccys from the past 2-3 weeks
check it out on Flickr

posts to follow later :)

Yoshi + Kobe Steakhouse

2009-06-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

Couple weeks ago, I went to Yoshi on Denman for Lunch. I always see this place but never been after hearing it's a bit more on the expensive side.. but since it was lunch, it should be affordable!

You have to walk upstairs, and right when I walked up, two flies were flying like crazy right there. frick it's giving me shivers thinking about it. Normally for a normal person, this is whatever, but my biggest fear are flying gnats/flies or a bunch of those fruitflies flying in one swarm during mating season or watever. UGH . this is probably gonna be the worst post I've done.. thinking about it..

So we sat down by the window, and as we were tryin to have a conversation, I just kept noticing fly after fly flying around.. at one point, we counted there were SEVEN flies. WTF. I am freaking the hell out at this point. Isn't this a health hazard too?? like seven flies already buzzing around where I am sitting... how many are in the kitchen then?

I ordered Combo C (salmon, sushi, miso soup, tofu, and vegetables), and they ordered a grilled fish combo, and a Combo B (sashimi, sushi, udon, and chicken). The food came, and mine.. the tofu was really soggy and the salmon tasted like jerky.. the others were okay apparently. The box sure looked pretty but it was a little expensive i believe (13 bucks if I remember? ).

then when we were leaving, I walked into more flies. you must think i m neurotic but think of it this way, if your biggest fear were clowns.. just think of how next to you were clowns eating dinner, or spiders.. the place crawling with spiders etc. Mine just happens to be flies. it's really the same thing...

I went to Kobe steakhouse for my dad's birthday. A couple of my friends told me this is great.. If there's any bigger tourist trap in vancouver besides Stonegrill, this place must be it. I have passed this place a million times and naive me thought kobe place would serve kobe beef, my dad's favorite. damnit.

I honestly have NO idea how the food or anything can justify the prices for this place. The place has a bar downstairs, that they make you sit in for at least a couple minutes before they take you upstairs. Upstairs is dark and has 4(?) teppanyaki stations. I think there are more, but I am not sure. So for the menu I ordered the chicken and beef combo, mother ordered the shrimp + chicken, and father had the ultimate. Me and my mother's were both 40 something and my fathers was 60.

The chef was really nice guy, but there were no children at our table so he didn't get as much oohs and ahhs and claps as the tables around. he said it was his first day on the job.. at first I believed him, until I heard the dude next station say it was his first day too. right.

So the ultimate consisted of everything (chicken shrimp scallops beef lobster). nothing stood out. it was bland and boring, and quality wise did not live up to the price. What a rip off. I should have treated him to omakase at tojo's instead.

La Buca + Aphrodite's

2009-06-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Taking the advantage of someone with a car :P I decided to go to Bistrot Bistro for dinner. Since he is never on time, I cancelled and opted for La Buca instead. Although bistrot is still on my to go list, I am soooo glad I went to la buca.

With the same owners as L'altro buca (formely known as parkside) and pied-a-tierre (also on my list), I knew I was in for a great dinner judging by the reputation these restaurants have in Vancouver. La Buca is a very tiny restuarant situated on Macdonald. Easily missed from the outside (we drove right past it and took major slowing down 2nd try to find it), inside ambience is cozy and filled with frequent and close clientele (only assuming.. since I saw a lot of hugging/greetings going on during my dinner). We were lucky to get a table quickly as more and more ppl bustled in afterwards.

The menu had ample amount of pasta ranging from 17-30 dollars. We were served breadsticks to begin with which was nice to munch on. I ordered the Balzano Tagliatelle and he had the ravioli.

When the food arrived, I was like uh oh because I don't like pasta of this nature, but then one bite and omg. The pasta had the perfect texture and the sauce was sooo delicious and you can definitely tell these were fresh ingredients they were using with it (asparagus and speck). I never really placed too much importance on how fresh ingredients are in my meals, but wow, it really makes a difference!! I almost forgot I was only going to eat half (I try to take out half of everything I eat now..) and almost finished up the whole plate. The ravioli was also very good, but I was in love with my dish more :P :) Only thing I guess is that it was a little oily..

I was reading the website and how the owners believe that every neighborhood should have a perfect place to dine, and that's what la buca exemplies. Now I wish I lived in Kitsilano. I really need to try pied a tierre!!

Afterwards, we went to Aphrodite's Organic Cafe and Pie Shop for pie ( I LOVE PIE. I always crave it haha). They boasts that they have 14 (?) various organic pies each made with organic ingredients.. they cost around 6-7 dollars I believe. We had the apple and blackberry apple.

Apple was delicious! Blackberry apple was good too, but the original apple was the best. I love the crust, it was soft and what a crust on a pie should be like (unlike another place I will blog about later..)

Top Shanghai + Honolulu Cafe + The Boss

2009-06-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

My brother left last sunday after a short trip over here. For the final meal, I decided to go to Top Shanghai.. I haven't read particularly good critiques about this place but Gingeri was busy and we felt like shanghai cuisine.

When we went there it was around 5, and they said we had to leave by 6:30. The room was rather quiet and thought she was just saying that and didn't really mean it. At 5:30, people began coming in like droves. holy crap, this place gets busy. and is she ever intense when she is booking reservations. wow .

Pictures of various dishes are on the walls so you can just look and choose what you like. We chose the honey beef with buns because it looked good in picture. We also had the beef roll ups, chicken wonton soup, pork cheeks (?), green onion pancake, and xiao long bao. They have a very extensive list of food in the menu.

The beef roll ups (I don't know what it is called so I am just going to keep calling it this), wasn't very good.. not enough filling and too much onions. The best I've ever had is still at Long's. The pork cheeks were apparently bigger than usually served. The green onion pancakes were ok. a little too oily, xiao long bao were mediocore. my favorite was the honey beef and buns. Too bad there weren't enough buns, but you would put the beef in the buns and eat it. They were delicious and juicy with really great sauce. The chicken wonton soup wasn't bad at first nice big wontons and veggies etc. until my brother stopped, and asked if we would stop eating if he had told us there was a bug in his soup. but it wasn't a bug that could be ignored. it was a huge black bug hidden within his vegetable. ... .. Gross.
what a wasted dish. They took it away and told us to order something else..
We ordered two desserts: fried banana and fried sweet potato. They took a while to come out.. probably because the restaurant was jam packed by 6 now.
The fried banana was okay. but the sweet potato was very good. It was soft and tasty. yum.

I don't think I'll be back though. The meal had some highlights, but the bug kinda killed it for me.

I went to honolulu cafe for breakfast before class one day. They have these combos for 5.95 with a tea/coffee (or one dish for 4.95). They have a western side and a chinese side. Western being eggs, omeletes, toast, spaghetti, noodles, etc. and chinese being congee.

I chose the chicken spaghetti in soup and french toast, eggs, and ham. friend had the fish congee with chinese donut.

The spaghetti was clear and had a good taste. chicken was weird, but I didn't expect much. I had this taken to go because the toast et al was enough for me! the ham was really oily.. so were the eggs. The french toast is not like the usual western style, it's asian style. I think they take two pieces of bread with butter (or condensed milk in between) and then deep fry it. I haven't had this version in a LONG time but it was tasty and yummy. not something I can eat a lot but good nonetheless.

The congee was tasteless. The restaurant is pretty big with usual cha chan teng service etc.

I also went to The Boss in Chinatown for breakfast last weekend. They have a more extensive menu with a breakfast combo as well. I had the luncheon meat+ egg macaroni and they had the breakfast combo. It was sausage, eggs, a bun, and beef noodles. Also comes with tea/coffee.

Maybe I don't know enough about cha chan tengs, but I personally prefer The Boss over many others I have been to. Although some ppl find the prices more expensive, but you usually can't go wrong with the food they serve. They aren't particularly amazing, but they can satisfy.

If you have any recommendations on cha chan tengs, I would love to hear as I am slowly craving these type of restaurants once again.. (and mexican restaurants but I already have an extensive to go list for those atm :D)

Makoto + Sushi Town

2009-06-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

today was such a sunny day. so I was wearing my sunglasses, but they were so tinted that I walked right into a sprinkler... on a busy street. omg. fml I was wearing a white dress today.

anyways.
Makoto is a small japanese restaurant that is close to where I live. I've seen great reviews and even better pictures of sushi from this place. Since I am a sucker for crazy weird rolls (I know it's not authentic, but they make for a good picture!!), I knew I had to go here one day.

We got there pretty early, the room is small with a sushi bar at the back. There's a huge plant on the right of the entrance. I had to side step the plant to get to where I sat. unless they didn't want people to walk that side.. oops. (random but that reminds me of the time I saw a construction sign at coal harbour saying no walking and I disregarded it because I thought the 'construction man' was a homeless and he was walking there . oops. no one said anythin!)

Anyways, the menu was pretty sufficient with rolls, teriyaki, tempura, appys, combos, etc etc. Nothing was extremely expensive. I believe the most expensive was only 13 dollars. We decided to order just rolls- so we got the volcano roll (spicy scallops?), dragon roll (unagi), and the paradise roll (mango).

The paradise roll came and it was just cali with mango on top. the mango was very sweet so I really liked it. The volcano roll came next and wow. pretty! It tasted like what I would assume a volcano roll tasted like (wow what a weird description..) I mean that like it wasn't refreshing, it was warm and had a bit of kick from the spicy scallops. different, not my fave, but still good.

The last roll took a while to come but the chef was probably busy creating this masterpiece. Although the rolls itself were small (the middle one was hollowed out!), it sure was pretty! but I've had better dragon rolls. but for the price (i believe 9.75?) it wasn't too bad.

If I ever have time or if I don't feel like walking a mile (I am exaggerating.. sort of) to elsewhere, I will definitely come back =) also, they do not accept credit card..

I also went to Sushi Town in Coquitlam last week. They have a sushi town on Hastings that I have ventured last semester. This sushi town, I believe, used to be a noodle shop. The room is very very big and it sure filled up fast! During the time we were there, people were bustling in very quickly and every table were ordering at large amounts! This place must be a bang for your buck (is that the saying? I don't even know haha). We ordered a potato croquette, double dragon roll (I think that's what it was called), the spider roll, and a seafood udon.

The potato croquette was very yummy. It had a thin crunchy outer and soft warm inner filled with potatoey goodness. The rolls weren't very good though... I found the dragon roll to be extremely mushy .. both the avocado and unagi was really mushy.. The spider roll had lack of crab. or it was there but it was very chewy. The seafood udon was pretty good. Lots of seafood! :)

Burger Heaven + Estea

2009-05-31T20:58:00.000-07:00

I went to Burger Heaven last week. I have read great reviews so I decided it was worthy of a try. Although I am not much of a burger person (I don't know how to eat it without looking like a barbarian) I was tempted to try one of the more unique burgers. Aside from the normal beef burgers, they also provide ostrich, kangaroo, and elk burgers. If I didn't try one of those, I also wanted to try a hawaiian burger (pineapple and some other stuff.. yummy)

The place isn't too big but it seems like it has a long history. With all the pictures around the room, you can tell that they have had a lot of business for a very very long time. While we were there, the tables were constantly filled. I had the elk burger and friend had kangaroo. It comes with a salad and either potato or yam wedges. I think the burger was around 15-16 dollars?

So the meal comes and it looks pretty hearty. The salad seemed very fresh and the yam wedges were very delicious. I didn't find the burger *that* big. Like, it was manageable haha. The elk burger came with a pear and apple chutney. It was nice, but I found the elk patty to be really dry.

Then we went to Estea for drinks. The room is really large and looked pretty comfortable. I saw a lot watermelon and papaya and other fruits lined up.. so the stuff is definitely fresh!. I tried to order a tofu drink.. they had none. then i tried to order the pineapple drink.. they have none. then the papaya drink.. none. omfg. so I settled for a boring watermelon/orange.

friend had this bubble tea drink.. the pearls were still brown!!! they were not even done cooking yet. My drink was ok..
I'd like to come back one day for food, and hopefully they would have the drink I want! although they were rather pricey (5.75?)

*side note, I used my brother's nice camera..omgosh i m missing out on so much. the pictures look so professional. pictures up later. it's been a hectic couple weeks! and it's gonna get worse. bah.

Phnom Penh + Sagano (picture post)

2009-05-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

I went to Phnom Penh again because my brother is back and we wanted to take him somewhere that was unique and delicious (since hk is full of cheap good food). I don't really feel like blogging about this place since I already have so I'll just put up the pics and maybe some side notes. enjoyy
yummy 9 layer dessert cake. Homemade and as waitress says : made with care and heart.
Vietnamese spring rolls that I wasn't too fond of
beef luc loc and rice. VERY oily. but delicious.
Curry and bread. not enough sweet potatoes like last time =(

also had pho and chicken wings but I've already taken pics of those so I didn't feel like repeat.

I also went back to my fave jap restaurant a while ago. It was good to see they had more business. Here's wat we had..
Ebi Su ..although I actually ordered ebi gyoza.
Seafood Udon: the seafood not fresh and scarce.
Snow White Roll.. didn't really like the coconut

Paradise Roll. DELICIOUS! I now love gomae

Slickety Jim's + True Confections

2009-05-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was sooo nice, it made me so happy. I was smiling the entire time for no reason haha. It's so true that there's a correlation between the weather and your mood. I remember 4(?) years ago when we had that record setting rainfall in the valley and I was sooo grumpy for no reason. People would ask me wat's wrong and I'd say it's the weather. then they thought I was being dumb and mocked me but it's TRUE!

Anyways.. we went to main to go shopping and stopped by slickety Jim's Chat and Chew. I've read mixed reviews about this place but it was the first place the bus arrived to and we were starving. The decor is really funky with a ton of pictures and clocks, and art, and clowns. it was really cool, but I wasn't fond of them clowns.

There weren't a lot of seats but somehow it still worked out, even when there was a group of 6 waiting behind me. No one had to wait a long time. The menu is pretty long with a ton of various breakfast items. They have quite a lot of eggs benny. So I decided to go for the bomb and a bull. It was eggs benny with proscuitto and gryerye cheese (?). Friend got the daily special which was spinach chorizo sausage and some other cheeses. They were both 9.75 and came with potatoes.
You can have the poached eggs soft medium or hard. We both chose medium

The food came at a good time and was pretty good and satisfying. Although I found mine a little salty due to proscuitto and cheese. The special was very good apparently. The eggs were poached perfectly. I loved the potatoes. They were seasoned lightly (so not salty at all) and they were cooked perfectly. I hate places that undercook potatoes.

All in all it was a good start to our day. The service was really nice and laid back. cool

Then it was so sunny we changed our plans to go lie on the beach at english bay. We stopped by true confections first for a piece of cake. We shared a pina colada cheesecake that took FOREVER to come. I saw it sitting there on the counter for 20 minutes. I have no idea where the service was. So I went and was about to take it and then she came out and apologized and changed the piece for a new one because she also realized it's been sittin out for awhile. ugh.
It was really rich and it was just okay.

More Sun TODAY! I'll actually be genuinely smiling today at work.. although I will be inside... .. :(

Greek Islands + the Keg (abby)

2009-05-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

the last time I went to greek islands, I was in elementary school and it was for a birthday party. I just recall not liking greek food so I decided to order the lobster. and the birthday girl's dad was paying for us. Yes, now I feel bad.

A couple weeks ago, we had tried to go there for lunch.. but we walked in and realized they weren't open (why were the doors unlocked?? ) oops, we ran back out.

Last night we tried once more, although I wanted to go to Restaurant 62. It was very busy but we got a table quickly. Their entrees range from 15-30 dollars... with the most expensive dishes being steaks or lobsters. I ordered the greek ribs for 19 dollars and my friend had the beef souvlaki for 16. They came with a soup (lemon rice soup that was not very good), caesar salad (too much dressing), pita bread (warm, soft, and delicious), potatoes, veggies, and rice. It was actually a lot of food!

the beef souvlaki was pretty normal. beef was cooked nicely. The ribs were very tender, however it was too salty. I wasn't a huge fan of it.. and thought I should have stuck with my normal lamb souvlaki instead.. Oh, we also ordered a kalamari appetizer to share for 8 dollars. It was rather small though, but the pieces were fried quite nicely.

Afterwards, we went to the Keg for desserts. This is another place I hadn't been to since elementary school. It has changed a lot! I ordered the apple crumble and friend had the billy miner pie (some chocolate ice cream pie). The desserts were very delicious! the pie was hugeee. my apple crumble was very warm and tasted great with the ice cream. The apples were a little sour but no biggy. the pie was moussey and light. yumm..

Diva at the Met + Au Wing Kee

2009-05-12T11:04:00.001-07:00

I had to work on Mother's day so instead, I decided to have brunch with my mother at Diva because the food sounded good and I've always wanted to eat here. The other times I've been here were for drinks and dessert.. where we accidentally undertipped the super nice bartender.. so we went again to over tip to compensate. haha

When we walked in, I felt ignored,the bartender saw me (also a server) but after she looked at me, she didn't even say hi, she just went on to serve others. Yes she saw me, because I smiled at her and was about to be taken to our table, but she just turned away after. leaving me feeling like an idiot for smiling. We stood for a good 3 minutes before she finally spoke to us again. not a hi, but just "are you here for brunch". great service..?

When we finally sat down, I ordered the french toast and my mother ordered the salmon omelette. When he asked me what version I wanted (blueberry or banana), I asked him which one was better . and he just histitantly said the banana one. For such an award winning dish, I would have thought there would be more enthusiam or preference. Gee I don't know, a "oh the banana/blueberry is very delicious." etc. would have been nice.

We got our food, and he just left without much else and no we never saw him much again. Instead of french toast, I received pancakes. wtf. I didn't feel like waiting around to get my real order, nor was my server anywhere to be seen anways, so I didn't say anything, and since these were 'award winning', I might as well try it. I have no idea how it was award winning. The batter was still a little mushy, and you can probably get the same, if not better pancakes, elsewhere. The omelette was apparently okay, except the salmon was dry.
The egg part was really pretty.

When we got our bill, I decided to sit for a little longer, but right when I opened the thing to look at the bill, 5 seconds he was back to take my credit card. So... we don't see you much for our whole meal, yet you are so hurried to take our bill and get us on our way? The room wasn't even full! there were what, 4 other tables?

god.

I went to Au Wing Kee in Burnaby for a quick dinner. The room is typical chinese restaurant.. not overly clean but sufficient. They have lunch time specials and normal chinese food like congee, noodles, and rice. I saw curry fish ball and I had to get it. As well, we got tang jai congee + chinese donut, beef brisket curry + rice, and wonton mein. One of them was a special and came with a soup.

The curry fish ball were not the ones that are usually used :( I don't like this kind.. it was too smooth. The curry was okay tasting. It had flavor and a kick of spiciness. but I prefer deer garden/mui garden's curry much more. The beef brisket curry was cold and tasted funny.
I ate mostly the congee because I ordered it, even though it was probably one of the worst teng jai congee's I've ever eaten. It was extremely liquidy ('hei') like barely any rice, and the various ingredients inside were a little weird tasting at times. The chinese donut was fine. We took most things to go.

Even so, there were many people still coming in for dinner. My parents love the au wing kee in vancouver, so I don't know. Maybe it was an off night. I need to go to a place with decent service and great food soon.. ugh.

Blowfish

2009-05-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

Blowfish is a relatively new japanese restaurant by playland. I've seen it sooo many times on the bus dt and it really caught my eye. The orange sign and the name and hte fish logo. I knew I had to try it one day.. We went there a couple days ago and I think I had too high of expectations.

I was SOO excited to go here, I don't know why. I think it's because I looked at their website and their pictures and the blog posts gave me an impression that this place would be dedicated, excited about their business, and mixed with delicious food.

The room is very very small. It seems more like a take out place with the minimal decoration and cramped room.. We sat down and there was another table there as well. The service was in my opinion pretty awful. She wasn't rude, but she was hella rushed and didn't seem to want to serve us. She never smiled and she gave one word answers to us the entire time. Didn't look at us when she talked either.

We ordered the saba shiro roll (mint leaf and fish), house roll (crab meat, shrimp, salmon, etc), U&T roll (unagi avocado), and the chicken curry dish. We waited for a bit, and then before we got our first roll order, she then tells us they had no chicken curry left .. gee that took a while. and she began telling me at least 5 steps away. so before she even got to our table, she was spewing "sorry we have no more chicken curry left" I didn't even know she was talking to me in the beginning!

so we ordered the dragon roll instead.. another unagi avocado type roll..
The rolls were nice with sufficient filling. Although the saba one was really really disgusting, neither of us could finish it. It was like salty and minty at once.. weird taste. The two special rolls (U&T and dragon) had great sauce and were delicious.. but I usually love everything with unagi in it!

oh and lastly, I had the 1.75 mango cheesecake... it was okay.

I guess I should have tried other food such as udon or teriyaki or rice bowls, but mehh I felt like sushi. but to me, it is just mediocore, and service just made it worse =( Oh and also, I saw on their website that if you spend over 10 dollars, you get a stamp. and with 10 stamps, you get a free dinner box. For 30 dollars worth of food I didn't even get one stamp =(

oh I went to irish heather yesterday.. my friend's phone ran out of batteries so she waited 15 minutes for me =S but the owner was really nice and gave her a glass of water to wait and when I was only a few steps away, he even opened the door for me and knew I was the friend waiting. Too bad the room was full, so he took us to Whiskey Shebeen (?) place. It was a little stuffy but it was okay after. The place is smaller and more casual barsy like. We sat at the bar and had a couple drinks and fries. Our friend was also meeting us so the owner said he'll tell her to come here when she gets here. She didn't get here until half an hour after and she couldn't find it, so she walked back and forth over and over again until he went outside and asked her if she was our friend. lol. he was really nice, he came over after awhile and asked us how everything was. I would love to come back one day for food at irish heather =)

i m missing so much (misc post)

2009-05-07T00:04:00.001-07:00

have you ever seen diners drive ins and dives?
I recently got tv and channels up to 60 so all i've been doing is watching foodtv when I have time. and that show is amazing. Maybe I am just hungry right now but I mean, homemade bagels! famous cheese skirt burger! yumm!

I need to do some type of american road trip and hit up all these diners.. ahhhh.

to make this post semi vancouver related- everyone should hit up pinkys on Mondays for 50% off their entire food menu!! also Db is presenting a 20 dollar burger combo on game days

I haven't eaten out much recently. it's just been work/school/foodtv/sleep haha. but here's a picture of some lovely coconut cupcakes I made a while back

Shiro+Yuji's

2009-04-27T18:14:00.001-07:00

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.

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..

North Burnaby Wonton House + Bubble World

2009-04-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

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.

Lobby Lounge at Shangri La

2009-04-23T23:28:00.001-07:00

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.

Unwine'd and Marcello

2009-04-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

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

Wall Flower Modern Diner and Crave

2009-04-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2009-04-19T22:43:00.001-07:00

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.

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: 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 :)

Japanese (Shuraku, Sushiwa, Ebisu)

2009-04-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

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 :)

I m alive.

2009-04-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

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

Space Lounge, Asakusa, Mura

2009-03-31T00:07:00.000-07:00

current thought : ugh man I hate getting rick rolled.

I went to space lounge a couple nights ago. The construction down granville has made it really hard for people to walk down further than cellar. I've heard about this place quite a bit but never actually been. We went there for drinks and dessert.. ordered sangria and cheesecake. The room is really cool, it looks like a great place to have a party. There's horoscope things posted all around the room, but hard to read. The waitor was really friendly, and I was in a talkative mood so we had a nice chat throughout.

The sangria was pretty tasty.. until I wanted a pineapple, so I took it and ate it and I got a piece of blonde hair... ughhhhh.. The cheesecake was really good with raspberry coulis. The drink was 26 and cheesecake 7. The room gets better as the night goes on. Will probably check it out again another time.

I went to Asakusa today for a quick dinner. The room is very small with pictures of sushi all around the room. There is a tv on the side, and two sushi chefs at the back. The waitresses are horrible, they don't even ANSWER me. I would order and she would honeslty say Nothing. not even a okay, or yes, or uhhuh. just. *silence*.

We ordered the dragonfly roll, house roll, and philadelphia roll. The food comes and I wasn't very impressed. As large as the rolls were, they didn't seem very fresh. The cooked bbq salmon was very dry and gross, and nothing tasted good. blah. I won't be back.

I went to Mura a couple weeks back in the valley. This place was very clean and fresh. I am honestly beginning to think that the valley has better sushi restaurant than downtown. (:o). We ordered a unagi don and a crunch combo (20 pcs). Although the crunch combo was just adequate, the unagi don wasn't so bad. The place gets busy as lunch hour comes. The sushi chef was also the server. he was very efficient and nice. What a nice little place.

Szechwan + Rainflower Restaurant

2009-03-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

Looking for a place to have lunch today with the family, I came across 5 choices. I decided to settle on RainFlower Restaurant because it was new and sounded like it was worth a try (urbanspoon 100%). but then I accidentally memorized the wrong address and went to Szechwan instead (urbanspoon 0%). fml.

The restaurant is filled with ancient chinese furniture. There is also a very small tv showcasing szchwan food or szcheuan places. (as you can see I can't spell this word, I've already spelt it 3 different ways in the last 2 paragraphs) The servers speak both mandarin and canto adn there are many menus filled with colorful pictures of the dishes. We ordered the dan dan noodles, korean buns, and pork gyozas.

The man kep coughin the ENTIRE time we were there, and he never covered his mouth. One time as he walked past us, he turned his head and coughed AT me. wtf!!! (side note, one time I was in the library on the computers and the girl next to me turns her head at me and sneezes. ... ... My face was just :| and the guy across me just stares :| at me too. gross. and no one was next to her OTHER side. bitch.)

The dan dan noodles I ordered at little spicy was VERY spicy. oi. for me i guess. but it was very tasty, the bottom was just all hot sauce. ahhhh.. The buns were not good, the filling inside was weird, and the pork gyozas were just normal.. We also ordered the deep fried sweet potatoes as dessert. They had no taste but eh.

I vaguely remembered a map I saw for rainflower so we went that way and finally found it. it's across from Sea Harbor (a place where hk celebs go apparently? we saw one, I forget his name). It's right next to Yaohan and I think used to be some sports store. Inside, the front is just a big space with one couch on the side. This is definitely refreshing to the other dim sum restaurants with the small waiting areas in the front. Inside was very very spacious and filled with people at equal distance (I hate being squished). There's a pretty chandelier hanging from the top of the ceiling. The dim sum here is ordered on a little paper booklet given. The food is around 3-5 dollars I think? with Chef Specials around 6-8. There are some pricier dishes as well (for rice and noodles).

We ordered the siu mai, sticky rice, radish and carrot pastry, and a dessert. The siu mai were pretty good, not very big though. The sticky rice was on the dry side unforunately. I wasn't a big fan of the pastry nor the dessert.

The place is comparable to sun sui wah (upscale spacious room) but I think I like sun sui wah's food more, but rainflower's room better. The waitors were okay. There were a lot of close customers. They got the better treatment (obv in any chinese restaurant). I need to make some inner connections.

Eh! Restaurant

2009-03-28T01:21:00.000-07:00

Eh is a restaurant tailored to international students in Vancouver. I stumbled onto it randomly on urbanspoon looking for a place to eat close to burrard. It looked pretty cool so I decided to check it out. My friend got there earlier than me and he could not find the place. Then I started thinking about when I was on Alberni and how I have never seen the place either.. is this some international secret??

then I got there and looked up and I saw it. lol

It's on the 2nd floor of some building by Kobe Steakhouse. We got up there and the room is quite nice. It's very spacious, but the windows are tinted so you can't look outside.. There's a bunch of books lined on the counter. We sat down and she gave us one menu to share. Were they running out of menus? At least it was only one page. The food isn't expensive, around 6-10 dollars I think? There were food such as burgers, fish, honey garlic chicken, wraps, korean bbq stuff. I ordered the lemon snapper for 7.95 and my friend ordered a burger.

The food comes and mine looked reallyy gross.. the lemon snapper had no taste and extremely rubbery. I didn't even bother eating the top part because it just fell off. Also included broccoli and jasmine rice. It didn't help that my plate kept spinning at I ate. wtf. so I stuck a napkin underneath and all was well... but I didn't do that until 3/4 of the way done my meal. The burger was apparently good. It was neat they used foccacia bread as the bun.

meh to eh, it must be some hangout thing for int'l students.

Little Billy's Revisited

2009-03-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

This is probably the most hilarious thing I've seen recently (well.. the evil look baby is the funniest) but I've watched it like 10 times now HAAH. it's so catchy. I love pharrell williams (he tried to get a big mac even tho it was 6 in the morning so he started dancing and singing but then they just leave LOL)

ok anyways, yesterday we tried to go to de dutch but we got there at 2:31, and it closes at 2:30. fml. so we went to little billy's for lunch because nothing else sounded good.
The place was empty (obv, it was almost 3), the service was super nice and friendly. she was chatty and personable but not like too intrusive. Although there were a couple dirty utensils/glasses, they were replaced. I had the lasagna and friend had soup/sandwich they were both 9 dollars.

The lasagna was good, cept it was really dinky compared to the salad. like really really small.. I don't like eating salads at restaurants so i was wishing I changed it to fries or smth. friend said it was a normal sandwich but the soup was very very good- well seasoned.

We also had a piece of cheesecake for 8 dollars. it was too dense for friend, but I liked it =) although, it got a little filling after awhile.

I like how there's a higher class restaurant at this part of town, it gives hope to the rest of burnaby lol. jk

Pasta Polo, Taste nice, Ikea

2009-03-22T01:01:00.000-07:00

yaaaa school is almost over. wat a freaking hectic crazy semester its been but I won't bore you with the details.. on with the food!

I went to Pasta Polo last week. The room is really spacious and it seems to be a family style restaurant. They have some pretty realistic lemon/olives above the bar- or at least we think so! the big lemon had all the ridges in it and errthing! (that's my gangster way of saying everything.. keep that in mind. hah)

They have a pretty extensive menu but at lunch they have specials for 9.95 I think. I ordered the Chicken lasagna with fries and friend ordered chicken canneloni with broccoli and cheddar soup. They didn't charge extra for the soup! score (It was supposed to be salad).

The food took a bit of a time to get out.. but it was semi worth the wait. The food was very good, well to me anyways haha .. or I was just real hungry. it was a little filling/hearty but that's what happens with pasta and cheese right. The also have a relatively good list of desserts for 6.95? ya I think so..

A couple days back, me and a friend headed to Taste Nice Caribbean in Surrey because it was the only restaurant I could find close to a skytrain and surrey. Personally to me, I don't find Surrey ghetto, but that's just because I am from an even more ghetto place. At least Surrey has a skytrain to connect them to Vancouver. I have to take a freaking train.. then a bus!
Anyways... is it true that Kiss yo Mama is closing?? this restaurant has been like one of the first restaurants I've always wanted to try since I started to like eating out.. We just never had the time to go check it out =(

The restaurant had a very laid back feel.. there was only one other table filled, and they were older Jamaican ladies.. so we thought it would be good and authentic. The service was really nice, tryin to start conversations.. but too bad all their curry were sold out. We had to resort for jerk chicken. I also ordered a Jamaican patty. Oh ya, and my friend had a Ting, jamaican's leading soda. They ran out of some other soda.

The jamaican patty was okay.. nothing special, the jerk chicken was pretty flavorful I guess. Spicy and full of chicken and potatoes. My jamaican prof brought beef, chicken, and vegetarian patties for class and they were soo much better than these ones. She said it's in this little shop in Shaungnessy ran by a Jamaican man. They were very flavorful and a little spicy, but very good. Maybe try that out, I forget the name tho

When we were leaving to pay, we wanted to pay separately but then the lady just goes "aren't you going to pay for her? " in her boisterious jamaican voice and stands there. thank god he's a good friend of mine but it was just so direct.. got a little offensive too. and most likely awkward if it was someone I was just okay friends with. I think it's because I am asian, our cultures are so different so witnessing people who are more direct and vocal in things like that makes me uncomfortable. eh..

I've always wanted to go to IKEA for food since I've heard about how cheap it was. Before going home, I stopped by here for a quick dinner. It's basically just a food court. I just had a swedish meatballs and fries for 2.99 .. umm it was good for its price haha. and then the almond cake for 2.49 I think and that was really yummy, almond and crunchy and delicious. The garlic bread for 50 cents was standard. I just didn't like the blueberry drink. The food here isn't sensational but it sure is good for its price!!
I can't wait to go to Sweden. 5 more months!!!!!

Food Court

2009-03-18T01:28:00.000-07:00

I used to never eat at food court unless it's of dire circumstance. However, I have been running around like crazy and the only thing around is the food court.. not only that but I have to live a frugal life atm so maybe the food here might be okay. Furthermore, you never know what you can discover at Food courts.. just stay away from the normal timmys and burger king, there might be some good food..maybe??

I went to Crystal Mall Food Court today because I needed something super quick- like 20 minutes quick. as many ppl have noted, this is the most cracked out parking lot ever. The worst is the tiny space to go up/down floors. It's a wonder there hasn't been as many car accidents! Then the slanted parking spaces.. one time it took my mother 50 tries because she backed in and she couldn't back in slanted. What a nightmare that was. I guess I could have helped her, since my parking is always slanted haha. I hate parking.

I was there rather early and not everything was opened yet. I don't really eat early (I am a night owl.. unless I have to wake up at like the crack of dawn, then I just don't sleep period- jk..not really) so nothing was really appetizing to me. I settled on xiao long baos for 3.75. Took like 15 minutes.. gah. my father was nice enough to drive me again (I didn't want to take the train) and he got the bbq duck with noodles and also a curry fish balls for me knowing it's my favorite =D frick, I wish I ordered what he got because my xlb wasn't great. It was dry and no juice inside. The curry fish balls were obv yummy and the noodles looked good...

A couple hours later of work, I went to metro to grab somethin to go to rush back to class, I went to Izumi Sushi for a katsu don for around 6 bucks. As I was carrying it away, the sauce leaked out. fml. So i quickly sat down and ate it. omg. this is the worst food court meal, worse than stupid tiki ming! The katsu was inedible!! it was soo dry, falling apart, and tasted funny. It had a little pink to it too which was a little weird. All I could was the rice. UGH. UGH. like honestly, can they serve this mess????

Shanghai Wonderful + Michele Cake Shop

2009-03-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

After the really delicious meal at Long's, I wanted my next asian meal to be of shanghai cuisine. I've always seen shanghai wonderful since it is quite noticeable with the blue and yellow and the large chinese character displayed prominently on the front of the restaurant.

We didn't made a reservation and had to wait awhile, 20 minutes? The place is really busy with a large flow of people, but the waiting area is sooo cramped it's horrible. We finally got a seat and it was a secluded booth. It was good seating although the service was nonexistant. We had to wave everyone down and even then it was a little difficult.

We ordered the pork noodles, xiao long bao, beef rolls, sticky rice siu mai, and this dish that I can't remember the name to. ugh, it's reminscent of elastic rubber bands and served as a cold appetizer. I think the famous dish at this restaurant is the duck, so try it when you come. They also have a long list of desserts and other dishes such as rice and noodles and chinese doughnut and soy milk.

The beef rolls were filled with ingredients and not enough sauce. So it tasted like subway to me (beef and cucumbers), it was fresh at least. The xiao long bao were juicy and full of soup but the soup was a little salty for me. The pork noodles was nice except the pork was fried really badly, the fried part was falling off.. there were a lot of pork pieces though. The sticky rice siu mai were ok.. nothing to boast about. All in all, the food at Long's was 100x better.

It cost around 31 dollars incl tips+tax. relatively same prices as long's. The only thing I liked more at Shanghai was the ambience, but other than that.. I'll opt for Long's Noodle House instead

Afterwards, we stopped over at Michele Bake shop near the Richmond Public Market. The shop is relatively small with a ton of mousse cakes and cheesecakes. I bought mocha, blueberry, and mango mousse cake to go. Together they cost a bit over 8 dollars.. a little expensive? They were pretty good, not super sweet, but not super tasty either.. I think my favorite cake shop is La Patisserie on 41 (? I think it was)

Quick post: Tiki Ming (Oakridge)

2009-03-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

you know what's embarassing.. sitting on the skytrain and realizing it's the wrong one after 10 minutes (thank god there was maintenance) and having to stand on the other side while having everyone watch you from the skytrain.
You know what else is embarassing.. getting off at a bus stop, walking a block, only to find out the bus also stops there and everyone gets off there and have seen you walking the one block and is now crossing the street together. oi!

I had to go to oakridge today to get a blood test.. I was early and hungry so I went to the food court.. I settled on tiki ming, the chinese place because no one was there and I just wanted something fast. sweet and sour pork + rice, can't go wrong with that at usual Manchuwok. but YUCK. YUCK. the worst I've ever had. rice was so gross and so much sauce and fat and .. ughhhh!!!!! it wasn't even filling. should have settled for a damn burger. there's a line up for A&W for a reason.

There's also a sweets/cake shop in the middle- I didn't get the name but they some REALLY nice/cute cheesecakes, black forest cakes, etc. I saw the black forest cake and I was mesmerized for 5 minutes. So tempted to buy but the commute is way too long for it to look edible when I got home..

after I got my blood test, I was a little weak so i thought a piece of gum could help me, cept it was sugar free gum and then I gave myself an unintended papercut on papers in my bag rummaging for the gum. fml.

i have to get ready to drink my worries away.

Green Basil

2009-03-10T20:59:00.001-07:00

I went there last summer I think and found the food reminscent of Manchuwok.. but maybe that's what happens when you order sweet and sour chicken with pineapple. Anything sweet and sour usually reminds me of manchuwok. After stupid traffic jam and early morning, I didn't have enough time to try out Makoto (next week!) and I remembered how fast my food came from Green Basil so I decided to try this again. My father was kind enough to drive me to metrotown area (from the valley!!!) because I had something to do, so I decided to take him to this cheap thai restaurant. We were the first ones there, which was good, to beat the lunch hour rush!

When I first went in, the people in the kitchen was Extremely loud! Like Fighting Loud. but I don't think they were but the tone/attitude sure sounded like it.. but cantonese sounds pretty brute tho. (side note- afterhours club bathroom, 2 asian women speaking really sharply/loudly/crazy canto but they were just having a convo, but my caucasian friend thought they were fighting oi. cuz to her it sounded like BITCHIMGONNAKNOCKHERTOTHEGROUNDWHOREFACE but she was actually saying wear these sunglasses! can you do my makeup first? then lets go out and dance.. lol..)

ANYWAYS, we ordered a pad thai and coconut curry with chicken. The soup came like 2 seconds after, it was really really sour.. then the springs roll/salad that I didn't like.. the mains came like 2 minutes after. The curry was surpringly really good! I could have eaten the whole thing! It was sweet and I loved all the ingredients used-- it was like pineapple, potato, yams, mmm! thinking about it is making me drool. Why do I like curry so much? it's like a weakness of mine.. that and fried food. such weird weaknesses.

The pad thai, I didn't eat because I was wayyy too full but my dad said the noodles weren't cooked completely. ehh. The guy next to me came and went, I swear in 15 minutes. We stayed there for less than an hour. that is how fast the food comes out here. They even have water lined up in 3 long rows ready for the lunch hour ppl.

The food is around 6.95-9 (if you order a chef special). Go here if you don't want food court yet want a super super fast meal.. and curry! mmm!!

Long's Noodle House

2009-03-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

Note: I realized one of my more popular posts is the one about Tojo's. It wasn't much of a post before so I edited it to be more thorough =) Read Here

Today for lunch, after a couple of unsuccessful closed thai restaurants, we went to Long's Noodle House next to Au Petit Cafe on Main St. On the outside, it's pretty hard to see and usually overshadowed by the popular success of the viet restaurant next door.

Inside is very clean and quaint. There's not of tables but sufficient. There were always a hustle bustle of people coming in and out, some close customers, others just here for a quick lunch. We sat in the back and ordered a couple of dishes- pork noodles, xiao long bao, green onion pancake, beef+herbs rolls, and a fish dish that the waitress recommended.

The noodles were very good- the broth wasn't salty and quite clear, the noodles were thin and delicate. The pork was very tasty. The green onion pancakes didn't have enough onions, it wasn't very good. even the waitress agreed. The beef rolls were the best I thought. They were extremely flavorful.. I ate a lot of them. The xiao long bao were delicate and filled with soup. yumm. I didn't really like the fish dish too much, It was made with another Chinese vegetable herb thing, I don't remember the name. The fish was very smooth ("whact") but obviously it was smooth from the all the oil they used :|

Finally we ordered the sweet pastry dish, It was very delicious.. but one of them had a long white hair in it :| ewuck...

The waitress was so nice and extremely efficient. She was the only one working and she attended to everyone and talked to everyone. She also recommended the drunken chicken for next time. yes I'll prolly come for a next time. The bill came to around 34 not incl tip yet. not bad

This place is great, I think I might actually enjoy here moreso than au petit..

Frogstone Grill

2009-03-05T22:17:00.000-08:00

We were going to go to Pasta Polo but after being stuck in the right lane and pasta polo being on the left, we decided to go to Frogstone Grill across the road. It is in a small plaza mall where sushi town and a noodle shop is located. Frogstone Grill is a pretty spacious restaurant with a separate lounge and dining area. There are a lot of frogs everywhere. John Mayer was playing softly in the background.

We were seated and the menu was normal restaurant food- salad, appies, ribs, burgers, sandwiches, and pastas. We ordered the cheese dunkers, BBQ "ribbets", and the peanut butter pie.

The cheese dunkers consisted of a strips of pita bread with a bowl of cheese. I didn't really imagine this but it was okay. The piat breads were seasoned nicely and the cheese wasn't bad. But we filled up on this really easily and couldn't finish it up. The ribbits were definitely not what we imagined. We thought they were little tiny ribs, but instead they were normal sized strips of ribs slathered in BBQ sauce . it was okay. The main hit was definitely the peanut butter pie. it was delicious! I love peanut butter, and it was extremely soft and tasted great with the ice cream yum!

In total the bill came to around 27 dollars.

Kura Japanese

2009-03-03T14:37:00.000-08:00

I went to Kura in the little mall by Metrotown Yesterday. Outside, it is semi easy to miss as it looks like all the other stores next to it. But inside is a whole different story. It was extremely spacious and it had a dark cave feel inside. I really liked the ambience :) The seating was interesting, with two person tables in the middle sitting on a diagonal and the seats had cool bendy back rest.. but there was absolutely no room! I ate my meal with my jacket and purse on my lap :(

We ordered the unagi don and kyoto and rainbow roll. They have a lot of sashimi and carpaccio. but I needed a quick lunch and wanted something different as well. The rolls were around 8.95 and the unagi don was 10 i think. There were two servers.. I think they need one more because the place was extremely packed! they were running around like crazy but they were so cute. Everything they said was exaggerated it reminded me of the servers at Kamei Royale. I don't know how to explain but like she came over with our packed up lunch and she wa slike "oooOoOoOo leeeffttoohhhhverrrrrrsss ooOoooO" LOL and I swear she did that with everything, it was really cute! haha

The unagi don was pretty good, lots of pieces of unagi. The rolls were o-k. Nothing compares to Sagano Sushi, but they were nicely assembled and presented. I didn't know the rainbow roll had wasabi dressing covered on top. I couldn't eat anymore of it after one bite. If you like wasabi, this is for you! The ingredients didn't seem very fresh.. but they were adequate.

This place seems extremely popular for lunch, so try to come here after the lunch rush.. try to avoid the washroom.. it's really dingy and I think it was also used as storage so I was kinda creeped out that there might be someone behind the cabinets (obv I don't think there were...)

Paradise Vegetarian Restaurant

2009-02-28T10:59:00.000-08:00

non foodie note: is there a bug going around? I think I caught it :( sniffling and sneezing and feverin here.. :( it's ok, I just found out I am studying abroad in fall! Crossing my fingers it's CBS although lund would be fine too =) gotta start saving up money... ack

I went to paradise vegetarian restaurant on 10th st in Burnaby. It's in a little plaza mall and it's really hard to see. It was dark and the sign wasn't very noticeable/bright. The room is very small and clean. The place closes nightly at 9pm.. rather early.. but up until 9pm, it was very busy.

There's only one waitress and I think three women in the back. They speak cantonese. The waitress is very peaceful and calm..pretty nice woman too. We ordered a pho, combo, and curry fried rice. Since it is a vegetarian restuarant, all the meat are veggie imitation meat.

The food took an exceptionally long time to come, but I think it's due to the insufficient amount of workers. But it's ok, it added to the cozy ambience I guess.

The combo 3 included spring roll (surprisingly very good) skewers of bbq chicken and beef I think?(they tasted the same to me) and a viet roll. the Viet roll was refreshing and yummy. I wasn't too fond of the meats though. It reminded me of the vegetarian food I ate when I was young in HK after I went to the cemetary. (After I went to "bai sun", we would go to a restaurant in the cemetary to eat "jai"). The memory is not a good one so I wasn't too fond of the connotation.

Same goes to the pho..It had this sweeter smell which reminded me of the same HK memories that I didn't like. so I couldn't eat it anymore. The tofu and meat balls were good. The curry fried rice was pretty good though. it was spicy, but a spicy I could handle. We also ordered the chi cheesecake for 3.50 at the end. It had no taste, not even the berry compote on top...

The restaurant itself isn't too bad. I am sure many people enjoys this restaurant. It's interesting to try a vegetarian viet restaurant. but aside from personal pref, the place was just adequate.. it wasn't exceptionally bad nor exceptionally good. it was just..okay.

sorry for such a boring review, I need to go lie down

Asahi-Ya

2009-02-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

Asahi-Ya is a small japanese restaurant on Robson. There's a prominent green sign out front that is hard to miss. I went there over a year ago and wasn't too impressed by the food.. but I thought because I shared a small sushi combo, I didn't really get a taste of the other dishes... hum...

I went again today and ordered a udon combo for 8.50 It has udon (pork,beef, or chicken), bbq salmon, and 4 pieces of california rolls. The food came relatively fast but I was soooo unimpressed. The salmon had raw parts and it wasn't very meaty (a lot of boney parts).. it didn't seem very fresh either. The cali rolls, even though they were normal cali rolls, but I 've had better. the crab meat looked a little weird but maybe it's just me. I thought imitation crab meat is supposed to be whitish color with pink outer, but these were all pink? The udon was ok. nothing to rave about though.. a little salty I guess.

For the price I paid, I could have had a much better lunch elsewhere. I don't usually give places two chances, so I don't know why I came back here again. but I doubt I'll ever come back anymore.

Gastown..+1

2009-02-22T05:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday for brunch, we tried out two chefs and a table. I try not to go anywhere further than Alibi room..but this restaurant is a block or two from it.. thinking it is a saturday morning, nothing sketchy could happen right??

This restaurant definitely sticks out from its surroundings.. (in a good way). The restaurant is rather quaint with an open kitchen. We sat by the window and watched the interesting scenery (nice rustic broken window apartments across the street).

The restaurant reminds me of urban outfitters..lol like the decor and stuff.. the water had a strong detergent taste.. yuckk. I ordered the oatmeal and she the monte andres breakfast. My oatmeal (8) was standard and comforting (I really like oatmeal+granola at the moment). I was reminiscing and I realized the granola oatmeal thing from Elixir was actually really good. Anyways, the monte andres (10) was good. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn't because after we got the food, the whole staff stared at us... .. I would love to come back for dinner one day. in the summer.. when the sun is still out ..with a male.. for protection.

We headed to Sitar Indian restaurant near that sketchy gross pizza joint (although it has satisfied my drunken hunger many times). I've passed by Sitar many times and thought it looked tacky. but I was craving some indian food so we shared a butter chicken meal for 13.95. We got free papad in the beginning which was crispy and tasty. The meal had a small bowl of butter chicken with LOTS of pieces of chicken, a plate full of rice, and 2 pieces of big naan bread (2.25). Now THIS is a meal!!! damn heavenly bites.. what a horrible meal that was (google search my post on that restaurant.. and don't go to it). The butter chicken was delicious. It wasn't extremely spicy but extremely tasty. The only set back was I thought the naan bread was a little too sweet. I've had better. but it was a satisying meal and I wouldn't mind coming back.

We then went to Afro Canadian. Upon walking in, I felt uncomfortable just because obv we stuck out like sore thumbs. We sat down and the owner came and explained the restuarant and menus to us. he was really nice and cheerful.. a bit more comforting in a room where everyone just stared at us. I guess they don't usually get two asians walking in for a meal. He checked in on us multiple times throughout the meal and seemed eager to give us an authentic ethiopian/african meal. :)

Every dish is served on Injera with rice and salad. We ordered a vegetable (lentil) and a jerk chicken. Injera is a ethiopian bread.. it's thin like a crepe with a slightly sour taste to it. Anyways, the two dishes are served on it and we are supposed to rip the injera and eat it with the chicken/lentil. The jerk chicken, although spicy, was really tasty. I especially liked the sauce with the rice. we didn't really like the lentil... but anyways, the meal is HUGE. I think it could have served at least 4 of us. It cost us 16 not incl tax.

Finally we went to La Bretagne Creperie.. It is a small restaurant off Robson. We ordered the Peach melba crepe to share (peaches, raspberry sauce, ice cream, and whipped cream for 8.95). It was delicious! We finished it off in record time. It had a lot of filling and I found the ice cream inside to be very refreshing (i don't eat ice cream). yum!

wow, I think this is the first time that I liked all restaurants I went to. Good times. I have to do work now :(

Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts

2009-02-19T23:27:00.000-08:00

ok, I wrote a while back that there was an ongoing 2 for 1 deal here on weekdays for feb. For a 3 course meal, it is 24 at lunch and 36 (?) for dinner...for two people :D The only downside here is that the chefs are students who are learning.. but I don't really think that is a downside.. as long as the food is tasty and good right?

We were a tad late and sat at a table in the middle. It's not super spacious but I liked that there were windows at the kitchen, so I could see them making the chocolate cake =).. I ordered the scallops/mahimahi/dessert of the day and friend ordered soup/cornishhen/chocolatecake and then we were served the bread.. which were literally piping hot.. with steam coming up! They were really good with soft butter. mm..... but then we waited half an hour for our appetizers. . . . . .

The appies were good. My scallops wasn't too bad.. very nice. Then we waited for what seemed like another half hour for our main.. oi!! When we initially got there, we had 1 hour 2 min (I thought it was 102 min oops) in the meter. . before we even got to the main, we had to go refil it! UGH! I was getting impatient because I had to go to stupid meetings, and at the rate that my food was served, I was going to be late. What irked me more was when other people sat down, and they were served the appy 15 min (yes, I timed because they ordered when we went to refill the meter). wtfrick

So we had to wait for the mains for quite some time.. almost as if they were catching my mahi mahi in the ocean as we waited (jk... ). it's ok, we had quite stimulating conversations.. about the price of my shirt..and huppies.. lol.. when it came, my mahimahi was extremely bland. not just okay bland- but extremely bland. like no taste bland. so I tried to slather the mahi mahi in the sauce, but the sauce had no taste. wat's going on... I usually like food without s/p so that I can actually taste the natural flavors- but there were absolutley NO flavors. like.. it tasted like paper?? the cous cous was the best part of this dish. The hen was apparently dry.

We finally spoke up about being in a hurry (well, in the beginning I wasn't) and our dessert came in record speed. (thank you). This was the best part of my meal (aside from the bread). I ordered this risotto chocolate wrapped in wonton wrappers and deep fried (I think). mm It was good :) a little hard to eat (Think I needed a knife). Apparently the chocolate cake was extremely rich.

Another thing is that the tip is added (15 percent) which is fine.. but it actually came to 30% because it was 15% of two prix fixe meals, not just 1 (the price that I paid for). ehh.. this is just an fyi.

There's also a pastry shop outside selling extremely cheap pastries for 3.00 . good deal.

Xiang, Take Sushi, Pearl Drops Teahouse

2009-02-18T22:12:00.000-08:00

I went to Xiang today because it was close to somewhere I needed to be... I've read a couple posts where people commented on how this is a edge/sketchy burnaby area... is it? I don't know, it seemed quite cheerful today when I was there.. I have to be around this area more for the next couple months, so hopefully it's not that bad. besides, I've been through worse (after clubbing-sketchy hastings-waiting for bus).

Xiang is hunan cuisine which is known for its spiciness.. which is probably the worst choice of restaurant for me. But I wanted to try it and it was conviently there.. I would have went to Kiss yo mama, because I have been tryin to go here for over a year now but it hasn't worked out.. grr!!

Xiang is a clean restaurant with two servers working.. they were extremely polite and efficient. First walking in, I got a little sketched because people staring .. uch.. We ordered a green onion pancake and a lamb+onion on rice. The rice dish was surprisingly good. It wasn't salty and had great taste. The green onion pancake however.. did not have enough onions.. so I felt like I was just eating a doughy pancake :( The meal cost about 15 dollars. They have decent lunch specials for 5.99. They only accept Cash.

Later, I met up with a friend and went to Take Sushi on Hastings next to Vita Bella. We ordered the Sunshine roll and take roll.. each around 8 bucks. The sushi chef was sweating and wiping himself with his shirt while making our rolls.. that was a little displeasing to watch.. I noticed but the table next to me commented on it. I saw many people get the sushi boxes that looked like a pretty good satisfying meal. The rolls were ok. They were a little small but full of ingredients. They were pretty good.

We went over to Pearl Drops Teahouse nearby. They specialize in various drinks and bubbleteas and teas. I am strictly a water gal.. I don't usually drink anything else cept green tea or occasionally orange juice (100%). I don't like bubbleteas at all so obv this place never appealed to me. But I was craving for dessert! and my friend was still hungry. She had the ramen with pork/kimchi and we also shared a matcha upside down cream cheese

that cream cheese was delicious. It reminded me of those cheesecake mousse from Metro .. soooo good! It was 5.00 the ramen was ok. We also got a drink .. passion fruit slush I think. I only had 3 sips of it.. it was extremely seedy. Side note- that door is hella hard to open/close. I watched these two women try to open it and couldn't and began staring at me inside as if to ask me/pondering how the hell i got in ha! but then we had difficulty leaving..

Ginza, Sagano, After Thoughts (the valley)

2009-02-16T11:09:00.000-08:00

I went back to my absolute favorite sushi restaurant again a couple days ago. It was another delicious meal. We ordered the stanley park roll (yams), flamingo (chicken+chicken sausage), and vancouver (avo and unagi) rolls, and unagi don and a lunch sushi box (cali roll, tempura, salad, and katsu+rice).

The rolls here are so delicious and they are all around 8.50 for 8 pieces. They are rolled nicely (do not fall apart), not a lot of rice, and a lot of filling inside. I hate it when the special rolls all taste like cali roll. like another sushi restaurant I mentioned in the past, where I swear they all tasted like cali rolls except they had extremely small pieces of bacon or unagi inside.

I loved the flamingo roll. It was different since I`ve never had chicken and chicken sausage in mine.. yum. I really want to try a couple others- they have one that is tomato, prawn tempura, and potato.. interesting.

The unagi don had thinly sliced unagi. the Lunch box was ok, the katsu was fried very nicely.
The restaurant itself is extremely clean and they use the freshest ingredients.

It`s such a shame that not a lot of people know about this place (or maybe it`s good that it`s still a gem). but I really hope they don`t go out of business. I mean, last time I came here for dinner, we were the only table. and couple days ago there was only us and one other guy there. If you`re ever in the valley- definitely try sagano! They still have the buy 2 get 1 roll free.. such a great deal!!

I also went to Ginza Sushi in PoCo this past wkd. The place is dark and small and there was only one waitress working. They offer regular or jumbo sized rolls. We had the jumbo and they are freaking humongous. I had the crunchy roll (cunchy flakes and cali roll), and the canucks roll (chicken+beef terryaki and unagi). The crunch roll was ok because it tasted like cali roll (they were supposed to have shrimp tempura but it was only on the ends..) but the canucks roll was not good because there were just way too much meat and filling inside. it fell apart extremely easily. We also had a chirashi don.. eh. I`ve had better. The hokkigai tasted a little funny.
This meal cost 40 dollars, and the one above was 45... the one above was soo much more worth it.

Today I went to After Thoughts for dessert. I had the pumpkin cheesecake for 5 dollars and friend had the vancouver cheesecake also for 5. they were ok. For the size, I think they were worth more like 3.50

Ebo, Mui Garden

2009-02-15T10:51:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to ebo before my class. It is located in the grand villa casino by the Willngdon Exit. There are palm trees around it :) made me happy. Anyways, the casino is really nice adn Ebo is very very beautiful. They specialize in Japinese Western cuisine. Too bad I didn`t get to try it since we were there around 2:30 and only the lounge was open.

We got the calamari and naan bread to share. I can`t begin to explain how pretty this restaurant it. It was spacious yet full of tables. The colors and decor were really pretty.
The was food looked good and tasted really delicious. Calarmai was fried nicely and the naan bread was fluffy and soft, with good dips to go with it.

Our server was pretty nice, but she was gone afterwhile. but it`s ok, another server came over a lot filling out water and asking if everything was good (we got 3 people (the other being bartender) asking us if everything was ok in the span of 10 min). At the end the 2nd server came over with the bartender and introduced the bartender to us (emphasizing this point..sorry no thanks, i've been drunk for classes before and it's not that fun) and I think he started hitting on me.. kept lingering around.. asking my name.. saying he knows me from somewhere.. introducing himself again.. ehh..

I went to Mui garden on North Rd also last week for a quick dinner. I was never a big fan of this place, but I went anyways because I was too braindead to care where I was going for a quick bite. We ordered noodles, lamb curry+rice, pork satays, and half a chicken, and roti canai. Everything was standard. The curry here is pretty good, satays a bit salty, Roti a little too doughy but the dipping sauce was good. Service here is normal, not extremely polite but extremely efficient.

Campagnolo, Sura, Chau, Chicco

2009-02-09T01:38:00.000-08:00

Going to Campagnolo was a complete accident. We were going down Main st to go downtown and decided to stop by. I am not a fan of this street..since one time I walked from Hastings all the way to the main st skytrain station because I thought I was meeting my friend there, but it was actually stadium. doh. and the sketchy people kept blatantly staring and saying things to me. ugh.

It is a small, quaint restaurant that I would definitely overlooked if I wasn't searching for it, but inside was a very nice clean room. There weren't a lot of tables filled but I think we were there at a weird time again (2 maybe?). The prices were very good but we had no idea what anything meant. haha. We just ordered the Crispy Ceci and panna cotta... at the same time. I am so used to eating random meals at random times I can take on savory and sweet together. and I wanted to go shop, so no time to waste!!

The crispy ceci were a bowl of chickpeas with some green leafy vegetable. I actually didn't mind this dish, they tasted like KFC chicken to me for some reason and I liked it because chickpeas are healthy =) but honestly, the panna cotta was my fave. It was so delicious. My friend liked the texture but I loved the milky taste. It was rich, but not SUPER rich.. I don't know but it was really goooddd. Apparently they have a bar in the back as well- I guess I shall come back one day.

We went to Sura for a quick bite after. There were only 2 tables filled and we felt like people watching again so we sat by the window. The music was really weird and actually began to annoy us after awhile. It was like On a loop- same thing over and over again. it reminded me of mario brothers but slower and more annoying.. on a loop. OI. The food took FOREVER to get out.. even when there were no other customers there (the rest already had food) and there were at least like 3 chefs inside.

We just had the Japchae rice.. which is just glass noodles. the ban chee (?) and soup came at the same time. umm the meal is ok. I guess it would be filling for one person but damn was it ever spicy.

We went next door to Chicco right after for a piece of japanese cheesecake. The worker man kept staring at me and smiling so I thought I was supposed to order but then right when I was doing so, he looked off. Oops, the real cashier lady probably thought I was shouting out an order to the worker when i was supposed to be telling her.. oh well. the cake was 4.50, and it tasted like pound cake.. but with cheese. We finished it in 4 bites each. It was nice. The room itself is very small and I think most of the people there were canto. The rest of the desserts looked very good. We might come back one day for something different.

Right after, we went to Chau (we are crazy). We wanted Pho bo because it sounded funny (fo bo fo bo!). The room is nice, the music was a little like sura. annoying. The waitress was a little fake- reminded me of aritizia workers. We had the pho bo which was just a regular bowl of pho for 11 dollars!! geez. Too expensive and nothing amazing.

even though I don't have midterms this semester, I have too many papers and projects and things I need to sort out- I don't think I will be updating for awhile now.

Elixir, Sandbar

2009-02-08T17:08:00.000-08:00

omg I saw Pat Quinn. hahaha.
this is the first time I've actually noticed and recognized someone. the Last time I did I thought he was colin farrell, and it turned out he was just some random. He was wearing a Skate Canada jacket and that's why I know for sure it was him. He stared at me and stopped for awhile too..but instead of saying hi, I just ducked back into the car to tell my NON hockey caring friend that Pat Quinn is right there. stupid! I think he heard me haha.. oops (yes I am a hockey fan. go habs)

He went to Glowbal I think, and I went to Elixir because I thought there was a 3 course brunch for 20 dollars. I've been to Elixir once (or opus bar I guess) and had a glass of wine, but my wine glass was REALLY dirty and I decided never to go back again. I got there at 10:30 so I think it was still breakfast. damnit! Since we parked at those expensive meters, we had to eat a one course breakfast in less than an hour. gah oh well. We were seated in a tiny little room, with all the other tables. I don't understand it, there were SOO many spacious seats outside, but no. they cramp everyone into the small room. When I first went in, I didn't even know it was open because I didn't see anyone.

I don't really like breakfast and eggs benedict too much atm so I wanted to order something different- so I had the oatmeal for 8 dollars. She had the parisenne breakfast (?) for 12. My oatmeal was pretty good- because I haven't had it for a very long time, but her breakfast was just bread, chocolate-strawberry jam, cheese that tasted like cream cheese, and fruit. She wasn't too pleased with the price of her dish. meh. That's how I feel about elixir- meh.

We went to granville island to get our pyschic readings (i needed guidance ok.) and it was horrible (I should be a nun..?), so I was fuming and needed to restaurant hop so we went to Sandbar. It is very big and spacious. The open kitchen is very nice and I heard upstairs is nicer than downstairs. Our server was really tall. oi. but he was nice. We just ordered a wok squid to share. It was SUPER garlicy. Whoa! I didn't like it. I had two and coerced my friend to eat the rest. yuck.

Afghan was closed (damnit!!!) so we went to Robson-- will continue later. I need to eat brunch downtown more often now.

Mon Bella

2009-02-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere that there was 2 for 1 brunch at Mon Bella so obv I was going. My parents don't eat "west coast" food, but I told them this was a good deal, so they agreed for our sunday lunch. My roomie came along since we have one extra meal. The resturant is small and quite cute, execpt they have this crazy weird poster hanging.. the man looks like he's in pain and he was in my vision the entire meal. They also played kanye and top 40 music- for some reason I felt kinda weird listening to it.

My parents don't like speaking english (wtf) so I ordered for them. The food took over half an hour to come out and there was no bread for us to munch on while waiting. I had the croque madame, they had the frittata and a salmon eggs benny. my friend had the mushroom omelette.

The food was o-k, they really loved the salmon benny, but my croque madame was really salty. It could have been the cheese but then I ate a lone piece of egg and it tasted like salt overload. gross. The mashed potatoes that came with it was good. The good thing was that the eggs were very big. The meal cost 25 dollars.

Afterwards, I lied down in the car all the way home to abby. I really don't want to eat for two weeks. and I am going to go run 10 miles. (I wrote this last sunday.. fasting and running never happened)

edit- to Rob Issac, talk about hate! I never even said I didn't like this restaurant. if you don`t like what I write, then please don`t read this. I am sorry you got offended and decided to call me 13 and racist. calm down, it's the internet. My parents prefer Asian cuisine over West Coast, it's a personal choice. and sorry I don't have 19-25000 to spend on food, since because that must mean I am not allowed to eat out and voice my thoughts and feelings. I guess since I am 13, I should just eat at Mcdonalds right. If you really have a problem with me, then let me know.

Heavenly Bites, Turkish Donair, Sushi Town

2009-02-05T23:12:00.000-08:00

Heavenly Bites and Turkish Donair are across from Burgers etc and Sfinaki, two very very good restaurants. Upon entering Heavenly bites (Indian restaurant), there were no one. The restaurant's website looked very promising so I was eager to try this place out. We ordered the special chicken curry on rice for 6.95. The server/cashier man was super nice and smiley.. Then my friend ordered me to go over next door to get a turkish donair.. which if you haven't realized from my previous posts, something I've wanted to try for quite a while now.

It is a quaint restaurant with a couple of tables and two TVs. one man is working and he's a man. LOL sorry, I had "pretty cheerful: written there to describe but then after reading and reminiscing, i realized he wasn't that cheerful, he was just sorta loud and kinda talkative to break the silence..and I don't know the word to describe it. I ordered the hawaiian roll with no onions for 4.93 I think. It consisted of lamb lettuce and pineapples. Anyways.. back to the curry.

I come back to see a sad bowl of curry with little rice. um.. for 7.50 incl tax?? this is NOT worth it. I know I know we shared a single meal, but if I had eaten this alone, I would not be full (well I think it's been established that I eat a lot but still) There were no naan bread or anything, just a half cup of rice with a small bowl of curry with a couple pieces of chicken. omg.

We were semi fuming but the donair was very good. It was refreshing from the lettuce and pineapple.. it worked well together and it was quite delicious. We were gonna go for pizza at domenicos.. but it was closed so we opted for sushi town. more like youngin town (I did not come up with this stupid name, my friend did). but she makes a point. we were there around 2-3, and I guess high school just finished and it was full of them. The place itself is a little shabby looking but adequate. There's like 5 sushi chefs . wow haha. The food is pretty cheap, we just ordered two rolls- awesome and mangodoise rolls for around 4-6 dollars I think.

They tasted like california rolls but with a little somethin different on top. They were good, and we left before more little kids could pile in and subject ourselves to tween gossip and mindless swearing. God I sound like I am 40. I should go sleep now, it's past my bedtime (jk, but seriously.. early class tmrw.)