Shaughnessy Restaurant

Me and my friend went for brunch at Shaughnessy Restaurant in the VanDusen Gardens after a hellish night of drinking (I swear I am getting too old for this..). I've never been to Vandusen gardens but I heard it's nice. I didn't really get a great look today from the snow/rain.. (ughhhh) So, inside is kind of small and antiquey but the servers are all really nice and courteous. Nothing super obtrusive (like twisted fork. frick) but still if you wanted to have a convo with them, you could? Anyways,

I ordered the eggs benedict (I need to stop ordering this) and my friend ordered the crab stuffed croissant. After a couple minutes, piping hot blueberry scones were served to us.. but I don't taste the blueberry?

The food came right after, it was ..eh. Apparently the croissant was good (it looked good too might I add) but I didn't really like the hollandaise sauce for the eggs benny. it was a little sour? I don't know, the potatoes were kinda dry and I didn't like the ketchup (i think it was chili ketchup). Maybe I am just sick of eggs benny, I swear next time I'll order something more adventourus.

Afterwards, we sat there forever and he never came to give us our bill. Even when my friend apparently had eye contact with him, and we had our jackets on, he never came over..so we had to go up.. but it's ok, just one little damper to the breakfast service, it can be overlooked.

ps The washrooms are freaking tiny. i am asian so obv I am not that big, but I could barely move in the stall?? but maybe it was from these big ass snow boots i was wearing.. i needed them because I ended up walking up half a snowy mountain as future would play out (another story for another time)

Provence Marinaside

After a surprisingly calm nye night, me and my roomie went out for brunch. Last year, we were very tired (aka hungover) and went to ihop where she forgot her money, and I only had 10 bucks for my meal and a upass.. and we had to wait an hour for someone to bail us out. OI. Thank god this time was much better.

I wasn't hungover but just slow. haha.all my movements today were in slow mo, but it was ok because the streets and stores were all very slow. We tried to go to medina cafe but it was closed so we opted for provence marinaside. I've been there once before and had a very good eggs benny. I also remember the omlette had a great amount of lobster+crab.

We had to wait awhile for our seats.. by this point we were starving because we hadn't eaten and it was nearing 3 in the afternoon. Not only that, but I had made plans to have dinner with my parents at 5. I was basically having two meals one right after the other!

When we finally sat down, I ordered the eggs two ways with veal sausage, and she ordered the croque monsiour eggs benny. The server was unobtrusive and nice. She wasn't talkative and very to the point. We both agreed it was good service because we didn't feel like making small talk.. not even to each other LOL. when the food came, we basically just scarfed it down in silence.. we were hungryyy

I hope my taste was not distorted by my hunger. I was honestly at a point where I could eat waffles and pancakes and it would have been delicious (my two most hated breakfast food) but The eggs two ways was good for 13 dollars. I had my eggs sunny side up. The veal sausage was different but a good different? It was tough but tasty (it was better than that apples+chicken sausage I had in cali..). The potatoes were dry but I liked the fruits. The whole meal was quite satisfying. Apparently the eggs benny was also really good =) Sure as hell beats Ihop! (side note: i honestly don't understand the appeal of that place anymore.. we used to go all the time after a crazy night. sure it's somewhat close to us, but it's actually not that cheap and the food isn't that good. I'd rather take a bit longer and eat some better brunch).

We left and slowly made our way to robson/pacific center.. where my kind roomie decided to use her 100 dollar starbucks card (christmas pressie.. what a weird one!) to buy me a peppermint white chocolate coffee. It was yummy. I think I've only had starbucks 3 times before that. Sorry, this is one MNE that will never win my heart. but dang I was craving something warm and wanted to look a little yuppie to fit into yaletown. =p

So.cial/Beard Papa

The first time I went to so.cial, we ended up having drinks downstairs at the bar and small bites.. It probably wasn't the best impression of so.cial since we never got a taste of the food or the atmosphere upstairs but I quite enjoyed it since the bartender also made us free shots for no reason :)

Even though it was a stormy rainy morning, we made our way to so.cial for brunch. We were actually going to go to chill winston but at one point when I was tugging on my umbrella to keep it from inverting and battling against the wind, even Steamworks next door to the waterfront station looked appealing. I just wanted to get out of the rain!!

Inside so.cial it was very quiet and only about two three tables were filled. I wasn't very impressed with white paper on the tables.. I know various restaurants do this but it seems very cheap :S
My friend wasn't very hungry so she had a caesar salad and I had the eggs benny. The complimentary scones that came were very delicious! they were soft warm and tasted very good with the jam .. mm

The eggs benny was ok, the potato wedges weren't as soft as I hoped for and the english muffin was too hard. Overall, it was adequate. The bacon and poached egg was yummy.

The only downside is the window is right next to the staircase downstairs. As we ate, there was the same semi creepy random that walked downstairs and stared at us repeatedly.

It's a cute place, I'll probably be back one day...

We also walked down to Beard Papa on Denman st for these supposed world famous cream puffs. Inside, they share the space with St Germain Bakery. which is nice to know because I am always looking for a chinese cake shop downtown!
The cream puffs are gigantic! for 1.84, I think it is a good price. I think it's funny they wrote only 223 calories in one cream puff! as if it's a total healthy steal. I am sorry, but I usually eat 223 calories for my breakfast in total, not one dessert cream puff. :|
Anyways, we each got a regular flavored one and decided to sit down and eat it- which is probably the best thing to do because I probably looked like a savage eating them. They are definitely not date food. The cream puff was very light and flaky but not as sweet as I thought it would be- which is a good thing! If it was any sweeter, I would have definitely not been able to finish it. It was very yummy :)

Fets Bar And Grill

We went to Commercial Drive hoping for tio pepe but it was closed. We ended up goin to Fets Bar and Grill. I had the Dutch Harbor Benny (Crab cake+poached eggs... 2 of my fave things together, must be good!) and my friend had the chicken taco because she wanted some mexican food.

Food came, my eggs were poached fine, but there was soo much sauce and the crab cake was absolutely disgusting mush. The potatoes it came with were bland and oily. No taste watsoever.

The chicken taco was worse. It looked gross and tasted just as gross. I had a taste and it was really sweet.. my friend had one and couldn't have another. She doesn't complain about food a lot usually but she had to admit this was one of the worst times she had eating food in a long long time. (mine was josephines last week).

Both of ours cost 12 dollars, you can get a much more amazing eggs benny at Joe Fortes for 12.50. My friend was so hungry she went to Veras and had a burger after.

Please don't come here, the food was horrible, and the other menu items do not sound that appetizing either. Just go to Havana or Stellas nearby instead.

Loving this weather!

Yesterday we all made a trip downtown to get some sun. It was absolutely Gorgeous yesterday! I was so glad to wear my sundress instead of jeans, boots, and sweater :D We went for brunch at Joe Fortes. We all had the eggs benedict which was really good. The salad wasn't that great though, could've done without.
After, we walked around and shopped and watched some breakdancers in front of the art gallery. Had a drink at moxies and then walked to English Bay to meet up with others. I Love Vancouver vibe so much. I didn't realize it until yesterday. It's so chill and laid back. it's not rush rush and hectic. I absolutely Love it. After, we went to the seawall and walked/sat around. Very beautiful.
Then two of us went to Ebisu because Guu was too busy. We had the pork gyoza, katsu don, and Unachee roll. I didn't like the filling of the gyoza, the rolls weren't good (I don't like cream cheese in my rolls i guess) and the katsu don, i can't judge because I didn't eat it. I just ate a piece of the pork cutlet and it was a lot of fat. The first time I came here, I loved this place. but I have grown tired of it. If I really need a quick izakaya/japanese fixing, I might try to go to Kamei Royale more.. even if the menus are quite similar.

Then we met up with a couple more people and headed to Foggs and Suds. They specialize mostly on beers..so I was just gonna opt for a smoothie. We received no service for half an hour. the people came after us got service before us! so we just left. That was retarded. We ended up going to Bread garden.. which was a disappointment because I wanted a smoothie and they were out of yogurt. I just had a cranberry juice...on a saturday night. I think this is the first weekend in a long time where I didn't get drunk/clubbed. I am not complaining but it was a little different. hah.

More Restaurant Hopping

Ok this past weekend, me and a friend went to Fiddlehead Joes for brunch. The place was very cute and chill. Definitely a great neighborhood location! The music was old school and didn't really work with the place, but somehow I liked it just because I don't usually hear any other restaurants playing Otis Redding and Billy Joel anymore. The only turn off was the gladiator movie (was it ben hur..??) playing on the TV. that was a little strange. I had the Pancetta Benedict. It was o-k. The pancetta was too salty.
We then crossed the bridge and headed to Cactus Club on W Broadway. My friend told me this was the test kitchen and Feenie works there creating new menus and such. One look at the menu though was exactly like the old ones :( I was sad but we just shared the dessert trio. This is how much I love cactus club desserts- I just had the strawberry cheesecake there yesterday (see post below)
We then headed to Joeys on Broadway for a drink.. Oh my god. Even if you don't like Joeys, just freaking go to see the bathroom. it is 2 floors! The damn washroom looked better than my house! so sad. dang, if no one opened the doors for me to enter the restaurant, this would totally be my new bathroom pitstop (right now it's either pan pacific or hyatt). Too bad I didn't check out the Burard Joeys' bathroom.. that time I was honestly just trying to get the heck outta there after being hit on by drunk old men. sick.

The dinner place we decided for was Fuel. I made a reservation for 5:30 and this was the first time a reservation place phoned me for confirmation. Maybe it's because they thought it was just too dang early hah I dno. but we went around 5:28-5:30 and they were still prepping and all the chefs were gathered around discussing still! haha We stood outside the door staring in, and the maitre d stares back at us. None of us open the door and i just start saying "are you open? are you open?" and i even mouthed are you open.. thinking he could read lips or hear me haha I feel so stupid he opened the door and was just like I guess we are! They weren't mad or pissed we came so early so that made us feel better. However, they sat us by the bathroom and I was pissed about that. The food was really good . I had the salmon. I think I might come back one day, and I don't say that often since I go to so many restaurants.

The last place we finally checked out was Alibi Room. The place is so off course and I don't think you would know it unless you were actually looking for it. We sat at the side and shared yam fries (ya right after a dinner! we are crazy). They had no desserts so we settled and surprisingly, we finished all the fries! the seating was really uncomfortable and I wasn't too impressed. It's more a loud group beer drinking place. I would love to go with all my friends, cept they aren't very adventurous in trying places and it is in a weird location for us. I don't know if I will come back to this place, I wasn't too impressed.

Also on Thursday I went to Westender Korean Restaurant. They only had pork belly and no menus. It was the first time I tried Soju. It was good. I didn't like the food too much though because I don't like kimchi and I don't like spicy. But honestly what the fuck, a restaurant with no menu and only serving pork belly? preposterous.

For mothers day, my family and I went to Shanghai Chinese Bistro for Dimsum. umm. I'll just say I wasn't impressed.

back to school= restaurant hopping

Yay after being sick and stranded in nowheresville, I have moved into my new place and back to restaurant hopping in vancouver. One day we got bored of downtown and decided to take a nice little stroll down Burrard Bridge and lo and behold.. kitsilano! I know that sounds really retarded but I honestly had no idea where the bridge was leading me since I never ever go to south granville/kits .. ever.We walked to W 4th ave and then W Broadway and granville. It was really nice and the restaurants were great. ok lets start! :)

I FINALLY tried raincity grill.. It's probably one of the first restaurants I saw and wanted to try. We had brunch there.. the service was really slow and we just had complimentary bread (good) and museli (simple but the cheapest). I really liked the presentation, even though I was eating boring plain museli, it was really cute the way they presented it. The only problem I have is the waitor was very unattentive and it took WAY too long for service (meaning to get him to take our plates away and get our bill) esp cuz we planned on going to more restaurants and couldn't stay there for too long. I did like this place, I would love to come back here again for more brunch

The next place was Kadoya because we were at an awkward time and everything was closed :( We had a rainbow roll, which was just california roll with colored masago on top. I would love to come back again and eat different, more unique rolls.
We ended up walking across Burrard Bridge and going to Kits and then walking down W 4th and then W Broadway to Granville. man I was sooo tired after, we went to Red Door.. I have seen this place forEVER. Ever since i was little and going to Shabusen across from red door, I always wondered what that place with the red squiggly line was. I was so glad to finally have gone. We just had calamari. it wasn't very good.. the best calamari is still earls :)

We went to Bin 942 after for mashed potatoes. It's funny, I've tried going to Bin 941 so many times but it never worked out and i end up going to 942 before 941 :P We caught the bus and went back to West End. We tried Toratatsu next for some skin free chicken karaage. The place was ok if the service was a little better. We tried to catch their attention for the bill and I swear he saw us but still didn't come over :@ Next was Gyoza King for the cheapest gyozas. There was the hottest guy there but I had to leave so no eye flirting since we kept lookin at each other at wrong times :( I would love to come back here again, the food is cheap and there's a great variety.

Lastly we went to Indigo for dessert. We got the Bits and Bots and it sounded really good but it was just o-k.. It was def chocolate overload but it was o-k..

mmm Breakfast

I went to restuarant 62 back in my hometown. The place was d-e-a-d. We were basically the only table there on sunday at 12-1pm. Even so, they had to sit us in a secluded far away spot. I had an omelette (my first time eating one) and my friend had a sandwich. The sandwich tasted like something I could eat at the cafe at school and my friend said it tasted like quiznos. My omlette looked like a pizza. It had a crust! The salad was disgusting, both caesar and mixed greens. Thank god the prices were below 15 or else I would feel ripped off. I had high hopes for this place because the chef used to work for Glowbal I think and another restuarant. But I was disappointed. The only upside were the salt and pepper shakers.. which my friend stole.. i wish I took one now.


I also baked some christmas cookies. I've never baked cookies from scratch before (I am more of a meal making person, not pastry..) It was a little hard, I think the recipe was a little off because I ended up kneading my cookie dough a lot and adding mass amounts of flour just to make sure the dough stayed together. that's already a warning sign. But I recently bought these heart cut outs from Daiso for 2 dollars and I was excited to use them!



Look at the pretty cakes from T&T! They looked better than they tasted though :(