Au Petit Cafe

siu siu ga feh oak :).. I've always wanted to come here after reading all those rave reviews about this place. The parking really sucks as the streets are always full of cars but we ended up parking behind the restaurant.. There's very little room and we weren't sure if we were allowed but one of the workers said it was fine. We walked through the tiny kitchen into the tiny restaurant. They had quite a fair bit of workers for such a small restaurant! Everything seemed relatively clean as well.. but I guess the kitchen was so small they had to resort to cutting up their vegetables outside!

We quickly got a seat and ordered the special banh mi, meat balls+ rare beef pho, lemongrass chicken, and beef brisket curry with bread to dip. Everything came really fast and everything was really small. The banh mi was kinda cold.. it was not spicy at all.. For someone who has almost no tolerance for spicy foods, I didn't even taste a hint of spiciness.. did they forget the hot peppers?? the pho and lemongrass chicken were standard vietnamese food. The curry was sweet.. a little too sweet for us.. I think I still like phnom penh curry best =) The bread was really crunchy and delicious. We were in and out pretty quick since there was a lineup beginning to form and I didn't want to dwadle. Everything came to 26 dollars, so it's pretty cheap. The service was standard. They were pretty smiley, so that was a good thing.

It's pretty far for me to get here, but I am glad I've tried.. I don't think I'll be back for awhile.

Phnom Penh pt 2

Like I wrote in my last post, I had just finished eating brunch at Provence 1-2 hours after when I met my parents for dinner. I honestly didn't care where we went so we decided on Phnom Penh. My mother has been aching to come back for their delicious chicken wings. I was too full to object to anything. They could have suggested mui garden and I would have said yes (I hate that place)

We grabbed a good parking spot (and 1 dollar = 1 hour parking? yay!) and the restaurant was quite empty. This is why I love eating at 5? hahahahaa. People think I m crazy and possibly a grandma in disguise but not only is there a short wait time, but theres also more time to digest before you sleep! and also maybe because I was used to having 5:30 night classes.

We ordered a noodles dish, the chicken wings, and a chicken curry with bread. I felt like dipping bread in curry .. mmmm.

The chicken wings were very very yummy. I know it's fatty so I sacrificed my health for my parents and ate all the wing tips (more fat in those! :P). The noodles was pretty good too apparently. it was the two different types of noodles dish. It didn't look as big as last time.. oh well. The curry came and we asked for the bread. She looks at us for a bit and goes ok wait a sec. I mean, after all, I just got the curry for the bread to dip it in.. After 5 min, another guy comes over to tell us there was no bread left.. :S We go.. uh.. ok.. what are we spose to do. he goes: do you want rice? us: well I guess we'll have to? He goes back.. and then another guy comes over and says "so you dont want the curry anymore?" uh wtf?

I don't want to be rude, but I m not sure if the guy tat informed us that they had no bread is slow, do not understand canto, or stupid, or actually has something wrong.. because if you read my last post about phnom penh and how there was confusion with the shrimp dish, it's the same person!! I mean, once i might understand due to confusion.. but twice?? wtfrick.

We explained it to the 3rd server and my father used a rather harsh tone to do so as well.. so the 3rd server brings us free rice and apologizes for everything. I had some even though I was about 99.9% full. The curry was spicy but a spicy that I could handle. They used yams in the curry instead of potatoes which was a good surprise. The chicken was apparently very tender as well. We took the rest to go. Then we also got a free dessert for all the trouble.. It wasn't very good but it was a good gesture? good tip :) (that is also my new years resolution-- to be more generous.. unless the server really pissed me off).

As we were leaving, we saw a table of older caucasian people in fine clothing having bottles of red wine with their dinner. i found that a little amusing but maybe it was just to me.. sorry. side note- my parents made me drink red wine with chinese hot pot.. what a weird expreience that was for me.

Spices

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

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

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

Sunday

I went to Tomo today at east broadway and the service was pretty bad. she's very non responsive and slow, never cracks a smile, nor does really anything! I tried to be friendly and smile and be super nice and she was just a robot (and this is coming from me- ice queen herself.. long story). The place was dead empty and it was like around 1pm. Whatever so we ordered unagi don, chirashi don, ebi mayo, salmon mango roll, and chicken yaki soba.
everything was forgettable, only the roll was good..but this is because it was a simple cali roll with mango/salmon on top- which in my book, makes any roll good. Aiya. I am never coming back here again. a couple years ago, these people we know from the states came to vancouver and said specifically they had to go to Tomo because it was highly praised. really???

I was still tad hungry afterwards so I got a bbq chicken viet sub from Carolina Deli next door. This is because I am very curious to what a viet sub tastes like. and I must say, I am a fan! even with the hot sauce on it, it was very good! I think it was the crispiness of the french bread mmmm.

That night my parents wanted to go to Tsim Chai Noodles in Richmond (obv stopped by the public market to get some che lung bao :P) they had the wonton soup and beef noodles. I sat there because I was too full from the che lung bao. haha. they said the place gone downhill since the last time they were there (a year ago?) I wish I could recommend where to get good noodles and wontons but I never eat this stuff.. aiya. the only thing I can probably give my two cents is cheesecake.. haha

Josephines + Pho Tan

My usual weekly dinner with my parents, we chose to go to Pin pin but it was closed! Super Happiness was next block so we went, I passed the back kitchen and was grossed out by the chicken hanging by the sink. We switched to Rekados closed, so we went to Josephine's. Inside, it was like a fast food place. you order and then you sit down and eat.

Everyone there was philipino. None of the servers were helpful, they were just there to take your orders. No one explained anything nor cared to help us out. We even asked one question 3 times and got this mumbled heavily accented answer that we didn't even understand. We ended up getting 2 fish dishes and the pork hocks.

The fish were "sang" (in canto) so I couldn't eat it. The pork hock was ok. My mother couldn't eat anything either. It was too gross.

So we ended up going to Pho Tan instead for Pho and Lemongrass chicken and lamb curry. Not really good, but so must fucking better than josephine's. fuck. I need to go with a flip friend to a flip restaurant but all my flip friends are so whitewashed. gah.

Phnom Penh

I've read about this place A LOT and it surprises me that I've never seen it .. I used to go to chinatown.. a lot.. :|

We had the Butter Beef, Chicken Wings, Papaya Salad, Beef noodle soup, sugar cane wrapped in shrimp and taro tapioca dessert.

The papaya salad was spicy and not my cup of tea. The chicken wings were good, a little sweet and tasty - but so fatty :( beef noodle soup was o-k.. I am not a huge fan of noodles but I think I've had better. The butter beef was surprisingly good since I am not a huge fan of raw beef (or beef carpaccio) The shrimp was So not worth it. It cost 16 dollars for 4 tiny shrimps and we could barely taste the shrimp. I've had better. We thought we ordered the small order (even when the server said it was the small order) and then charges us for the regular size. We even asked him and he just looks at us and goes oh sorry. we were like watever, he's a young boy.. it's ok. The taro dessert was really good though because there was lots of taro.




I think I would like to come back one day and try the lemongrass chicken and a moo shake.