OMNOMics

And the Hiatus Sets In

2011-01-04T22:17:00.000-08:00

As it predictably was going to.

I apologize to everyone who kept coming back every now and then while I continually failed to write anything. I thought I would at least be courteous enough to post and make it official-- I can't keep up with regular blogging anymore (as life would inevitably have it). Thank you all for reading when I was out and about taking pictures of this and that, I sincerely appreciate it. And while I still enjoy frequenting what Vancouver (and the GVRD... and food in general) has to offer, unless I have a camera on hand with me, I don't believe there will be anymore extensive posts.

I hoped to keep this short and sweet, and hopefully this is short enough. There may always be more pictures every now and then-- I just posted another that I had in my drafts for quite a while, but as of now, this is an indefinite hiatus.

Much and many thank yous,
xx
Yen

Ninkazu

2011-01-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

Blah. blah, Japanese food, blah blah blah starving, blah blah all-you-can-eat, blah. You won't read this anyways so just look at the excessive amount of food you can get here. We just came back from Victoria, we were hungry, and this place is known for pretty good ayce. The service was sparse, but huge credit to all of them for being able to keep such a busy place afloat, and everyone generally happy. Huge credit.

They run a line through the order to verify that they've entered it in, and to have something to reference to if customers start complaining. Good idea. Anyways, the food was ayce food quality, but I'm really not that picky in these sort of situations. I liked the food, I enjoyed it. Maybe not the best quality, but shut up. If you really cared about quality you wouldn't come here. Stare at the food now. We'll start with appies:

Gomae, sunomono and unagi fried rice.

Sushi/Sashimi: Salmon, tuna, korean sauce salmon, clam, octopus, saba, chopped scallop cone, spicy salmon cone, rolls that I cannot remember the names of, tuna tetaki, beef tetaki, inari, abalone sushi, masago, shark fin sushi, tamago, ebi, unagi, oysters..

Cooked foods: Gama, chicken teriyaki, beef shortribs, beef teriyaki, pork, shioyaki, motoyaki, Portuguese motoyaki, chicken karrage, tonkatsu, deep fried spring roll.. something. ebi and yam tempura.

Yea there were little quips here and there on how good this and that were, but on average I liked everything. And there's really no reason to speak about every
single dish...

Victoria Mini-Trip: Red Fish Blue Fish + Joes Seafood Bar

2010-11-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

Bahahah.

It's been almost a month since I last updated.

...

I do apologize;; Life has been flipped on it's head-- In a good way, but flipped none the less.

But we can thank Ben of Chowtimes for this blogpost though; His new blogroll made me realize how long I had been neglecting all of this!

Haha, at any rate... I did, I did, I really did want to try more restaurants than I did when in Victoria, but we all just got so caught up with this one particular place, Red Fish Blue Fish.

I had read about the place in a few tourist fliers, and while those fliers cannot often be trusted, we decided to try our luck anyways. The lineup was long, which was a good sign, and the wait by the water was enjoyable enough.

I should really write right after I eat.. I can't remember all the specifics tastes of these tacones, but my god. These were amazing. Huge pieces of salmon in the BBQ Wild Salmon Tacone -- sweet smoked chili adobo, pea shoots, lemon pickled onions (1 $5, 2 for $9). Flavourful, moist.

But the BBQ Qualicum Bay Scallop Tacone --Golden shallot aioli, pea shoots, pelmon pickled onions (1 $7, 2 for $12), was definitely the star. Those scallops were huge. Almost the size of my palm, I swear (granted my hands are rather small... But still). They were juicy, nicely seared, meaty but not tough... Both the salmon and scallop tacone had a nice grill on them, giving the wrap and enjoyable crunch, but still flexible enough to hold everything together.

Their BBQ Wild Salmon Sandwich --Dill`d dijonaisse, organic greens, pickled cucumbers ($9) was also a good pick. That fillet of salmon was gigantic, covered the nicely toasted portuguese bun entirely-- and then some. We were barely expecting much salmon, let alone a whole fillet.

Finally, the BBQ Fanny Bay Oyster Sandwich -- golden shallot aioli, tartar, tempura dill pickle, lemon pickled onions ($10) was a success as well. And I don't even like oysters. These were meaty, but bbq'd so that I didn't wretch at the usually slimy feel that turns me off so much. While not my favourite (personal preference and immature tastebuds.. I'm sorry.), with those three very nice pieces of oysters, this was done very well.

Across the way, Joes Seafood Bar has a takeout window to try to give Red Fish Blue Fish a run for their money. The rest of my family wasn't willing to give up stomach space to give this one a try, but I decided, hey. Why not.

I ordered the Blackened Local Queen Charlotte Halibut Taco. I remember that the price was somewhere equivalent to Red Fish Blue Fish, and at least for the one taco I tried, this definitely cannot compete. You could barely taste or see any halibut among the oversauced and overzealous amount of jalapeno cilantro mayo. Complete and utter disaster. I promptly gave up eating this and enjoyed the rest of my Red Fish Blue Fish meal.

Next time I'm Victoria, I'm definitely heading over to Red Fish Blue Fish again.

Victoria Mini-Trip: JBI Cafe (Colonial Cafe?)

2010-10-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

Time for breakfast! The place we were staying at had a cafe connected to it, and we decided to drop by to see how things were. Welcome to JBI Cafe.

The menu was simple and straight-forward, so we went right on ahead with their Mediterranean Skillet. Two decently poached eggs over onions, feta, green peppers, tomatoes, and a whole mess of other this and that's that I cannot quite remember. I remember enjoying this though, and if they pulled off a nicely runny poached egg, that's good enough for me.
The toast was half rye half whole wheat, and heavily buttered (should I sigh happily or be concerned of a heart attack? Either way. Simple, yummy.)

We also ordered two pieces of french toast, which really amounted to something more like 5 pieces when we received it. These pieces of toast were huge. That piece you see there is as long as my forearm. But oh so sweet, and fluffy and eggy, complete with crispy edges. While I prefer a crispier french toast (although the edges were done well enough for me), my sister loved the pillow...iness... of the texture.

Finally, my brother had a standard eggs bacon and hashbrowns with toast. A good solid standard. Nothing special or extraordinary, but it did it's job.

Overall, I thought breakfast here was nice. Nothing to blow you away, but that's not it's intent anyways. Service was a nice refresher (especially compared to the night we had previously), coffee was kept full and stomachs were happy.

Victoria Mini-Trip: Tibetan Kitchen Cafe

2010-09-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

I urge everyone who feels the need to comment on their own experiences at this eatery to read the entirety of this blog post first. Comments that have been left appear to overlook a number of points that address non-issues, and create false assumptions.

Furthermore, I am not here to personally attack the Tibetan Kitchen. Reading the blog post will clarify this.

First night in Victoria, and we were starving. Walked around a bit, hoping to avoid tourist traps, and ended up here, Tibetan Kitchen Cafe.
Before I go on, I have no experience with specifically Tibetan food. Did I know if what I ate was authentic or not? Nope. So I'm simply going on how I thought it tasted, and how I thought the experience at the restaurant was. Alright? Super.
That being said... I'm a little hesitant to write this. I'd hate to knock a humble eatery. I better be careful on how I continue.

As we walked into the restaurant, the place was quiet. However, we were told that they were super busy...? Staffed by the waitress, the waiter/manager, and one kitchen staff, I didn't know how this should be taken. The food on the menu didn't appear to look like it required much prep (and therefore a heavily staffed kitchen), and a good waitress can handle four tables by herself no problem (especially small ones). We were also told that due to the orders, the kitchen could be expected to take a half hour before food arrived.

We decided to sit anyways... and were placed a table with two full alcoholic drinks already placed there from the previous customers. My guess, from what the waitress was warning us and the drinks, was that the previous customers got fed up and left..

But they sat us down, offered some complimentary flat bread and a sweet/spicy cranberry (?) chutney down, and offered us drinks apologetically, as if they knew the food would be taking a while (drinks as compensation...? and more on this later). The flatbread, while simple, was addicting with the chutney. I wish there was more.

We placed out order, and the food came in good timing (surprise surprise. Is this waitress trying to sabotage the restaurant?) Lamb Curry --served with brown/white rice, naan, and lentil soup.

The dish in itself was pretty good. I liked the curry. Spicy, nice chunks of tender lamb. The naan, while not like any naan I know, had a nice texture. The lentil soup was a lukewarm mediocre.

Good dish overall. However, we were served with one set of cutlery on the table, and we required three others. When we asked for some, she rushed off, and didn't return until we asked again a while later, plate of food still sitting on the table. The cutlery was a short ways away across from our table.... If we had realized this earlier, we would have grabbed them ourselves. As we didn't, I still question why she didn't just turn around and grab them instead of whatever else she was doing... Also followed by a bitingly sarcastic "Is there anything else I can get you??"
Yea. Maybe a spoon. That none of us have. For soup.

Sha-Palei --hand rolled Tibetan pita pocket stuffed with ground beef, mushrooms, spinach, bell peppers and shredded cheese. Pan fried and gently baked.

While my sister had commented that this was far too oily, causing a soggy skin, I still enjoyed how the pita pocket tasted over-all, especially the spiced ground beef stuffing.

Technically this is not a big deal, but brown rice had been requested. The dish arrived with white rice. Waitress not quite on top of her game?

Momos. Ordered because the name sounds like something out of a children's cartoon when I read it on the tourist ad. Honestly, after going online later and reading good things about these dumplings, I don't know what to say. There were a lot of heavy spices in the previous dishes, possibly masking the momo's own flavour (and therefore this is possibly a very incorrect statement)... but we thought that while the skin was done nicely, overall they were boring and rather tasteless.

This photo was taken mid-eating, but I guess the presentation wasn't far off. Then again, it's a stir-fry, so I won't comment. Beef Shepta-- Seasoned with ginger and garlic, stir fried beef or chicken with mushrooms and bell peppers served on a bed of your choice of brown or white fried rice or egg noodles. (Does this sound very cantonese to anyone else?)

At any rate.. From where we were sitting, we could hear the waitress and kitchen argue with each other.. it wasn't pretty. Something along the lines of the kitchen getting frustrated with the wait staff forgetting to specify orders or mixing them up.
Relevant because we had ordered chicken. And the argument/mix up resulted in overcooked beef (I don't blame the kitchen. I don't. I believe the kitchen fought admirably. If the food got the attention it deserved instead of having to divide the attention between fixing wait staff mistakes, I believe this could have been good).

That being said, I will not comment on this dish.

At the end of the night, after watching the waitress try to tag the drinks onto our bill by the computer that she had also been using to use Facebook, the manager came by to graciously comp our drinks. After they had offered drinks multiple times as if to comp the long wait time that they had warned about. (This may have not been the intention, and I'm not asking for free drinks. But when you are the wait-staff, shouldn't there be some tact in conducting oneself with the customer?)

07/10/2010 update: (I have recently been notified that the Facebook page on the computer screen is there for the owner of the restaurant to check comments on their Facebook page, which they use as their website. The waitress plays no hand in this issue. Furthermore, the bill is written by hand, not on a POS system, which I had forgotten while writing this blog post).

So I wrote it. And I feel like a douchebag. I didn't think the food was bad. And I believe given a better night, with non-incompetent waitstaff, the food could excel, but our night here was simply not very good. I mean, we had a laugh looking back at it, and enjoyed the rest of the evening because of it. But that's not really something you want your restaurant to do for its customers.

Anyways.
I'll stop now.
I wish the kitchen luck. Because the waitress that served us that night was simply terrible.

Victoria Mini-Trip: The Dining Room

2010-09-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

Impromptu weekend trip to the island? Yes please.
Oh, I know I already apologized, but another reason it took a while to update was because I was busy ~~being bored to death on foot on an island inhabited by people waiting to die~~, enjoying the beautiful scenery that is Victoria (And while I am not entirely joking about the striked through sentence, I did truly have a good time).

While there,we visited Butchart Gardens, which has a few eateries located within the Park. While we could have saved some money and gone for the more Cafeteria Style Eatery, there was also a beautiful little place called The Dining Room serving Tea Time throughout the afternoon. So of course I had to try..

Picture unrelated. Just pretty. And our view--...semi-related.

We had to wait for a time before we were seated, despite the fact that there were empty tables around, but due to its location, there are probably always reservations.. and then abrupt cancellations of reservations. And they handled it well. So kudos.

Our tea took a while to arrive, but due to the large amount of water in the pots, my thoughts is that they did this to let it steep properly (as opposed to neglect. . ?) Mine was called Teaberry Blend -- black ceylon tea, flavored with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and currants. Others at our table were the Earl Grey, Rose Congou, and Mixed Greens (which had 20% gunpowder in it apparently..!)
Nice teas. The way they are described on the menu definitely hypes, but thats partly what tea time is I believe. The story/atmosphere of it all.

Our first course was a Seasonal Berry Trifle -- layers of sponge cake and seasonal berry compote. Finished with chantilly cream. I thought it was light and sweet (Not artificial-buttercream-on-your-cupcakes sweet. Just light and airy sweet. A good sweet.) I only wish the sponge and berries were more evenly distributed, as opposed to a clump on the side. But what do you do, mix it.

Shortly after we all finished our trifles, our three tiered tray arrived! Savories, Sweets and Scones.

This was my first tea-time I should mention... But how warm should the savories be when they arrive? We were told to eat these first, as they are best eaten warm, but they weren't very when we ate them.. They weren't bad, and I appreciated the good service.. But I'm just curious.

Sandwich bread was a little stale, but I enjoyed the roasted vegetable and cheese quiche (under the sausage roll).

Second layer, sweets. Loved the blueberry with lemon cream tart. The poppyseed loaf was a little stale..

And if you were wondering what was in the little box, here is a wonderfully taken blurry photo. A Grand Marnier Truffle. Loved the ganache centre and crispy corn-flake outer.

Finally, Ginger Scones served with Whipped Vanilla Devon Style Cream and Strawberry Jam. We thought the jam was overly sweet, but the 'devon-style' cream had lemony notes and was very nice. The scones were stale in our opinion.. But tasted alright.

For $26.65/person, this is definitely far too expensive for out liking.. And felt a little strange, as this was our first try at a tea time at a restaurant. The sugar also got to our heads and the tea left us feeling heavy...
Still, I won't say I didn't like it, and anything that I said in the previous sentence is not a shot at the restaurant, but moreso to the fact that we can't take our tea times.. (sob.)

The goodies did fall a little flat here and there where they were stale, but everything was beautiful, peaceful, and along with the view, enjoyable. If you're going to Butchart Gardens, you won't have your best tea time here, but you'll certainly have your prettiest.

Tsui Woo Chinese Restaurant

2010-09-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

I know; I've been emotionally neglecting my blog (and by extension all you fine folks), so apologies. I just finished moving, and am particularly enjoying my new place (a certain gentleman being partly responsible for this, hello).

AT any rate. This was quite a while ago, so we'll try to remember what exactly was what. Tsui Woo Chinese Restaurant. My aunt wanted some peking/beijing duck. Despite China recently, I was completely game.

Let's jump right to the food shall we? In a word, I liked it. Can I remember how it was exactly? Nope. But they gave a lot of sauce (and even more after we asked), I don't recall unappealing fat stuck to the duck skin, and the skin itself was crispy.

If I were to complain, I'd go for the wrapper, which was a little older/gummier. But I didn't say that. Because really, I still liked it quite a bit.

You know, one thing I really noticed when I was on the trip was that they didn't serve this part with the duck meal. I had grown up always having the two served together. This is the second part of the duck, the diced up meat with lettuce wrap.

Carrots and duck and celery, crispy rice noodles and who-knows-what-other-veggies, this mix is savory, and is oh so great with the fresh crisp lettuce.

This was a bok-choy veggie dish topped with large pieces of bean curd, and mushrooms. Sure, doesn't look or sound the most appealing, but the bean curd tasted really good. Crisp outer skin but smooth layered texture within.

Chicken cooked chinese style, you know;; this has never caught on with me. It's not that it's bad, it's just that I never like how the skin turns out-- and if you like this dish, what exactly is it about a slimy skin that you actually like?

Taro root and fish. It's too bad the taro they used was old, it wasn't sweet, had a harder texture, and as a result took away from the nicely done fish.

And to add a carb element to our dinner, we went for mantou (fried and steamed) instead of rice! Which I say is an improvement. Because fried mantou is good. And we already know this. (Except when they're done too long in colder oil, and yea. These were a little oil logged.. stillgood!)

Finally, because this was a set meal, they ended us off with a tapioca pudding. The set meal we ordered doesn't usually come with a tapioca pudding, but they made an exception because apparently this belonged to another table and they didn't want this dessert (before they served it out.. I'm hoping). Unfortunately, because of this, I believe this dessert was sitting for a little bit and the crust topping wasn't very fresh. Too bad on the texture, because I liked how it tasted.

Overall standard meal, and a nice night. Even the service deviated from the typical stereotypical chinese service, and wasn't bad at all. Not bad at all.

Finch's Tea & Coffee House

2010-08-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Sandwich should be a foodgroup.
If there was any logic in that sentence, I misplaced it.

Say hello to Finch's Tea & Coffee House. A quaint, dated little nook. A proverbial ray of sunshine on the border of the dingy and chic parts of Gastown.

Beautiful decor, beautiful menu, the only thing that stopped me from committing myself to traveling here every day to take in everything Finch's had to offer was the fact that it was ridiculously small and ridiculously busy. Try getting a spot to sit and relax here. (Okay, I was able to, but I felt really bad for taking up space needlessly while others stood and waited).

I placed my order, and waited, sharing a table for the first few minutes with another gentleman finishing up his lunch (crowded). It did take a little longer to come my way, but I was in no rush and the wait wasn't unwarranted by any means. The place was absolutely abuzz. My sandwich, the Fresh Apple -- applewood smokekd cheddar, apple, grapes and walnuts with a white balsamic glaze ($8.75), was one of the specials they had posted for the day, and along with my (blackplease) coffee, this was absolutely charming. Let's get a closer look shall we?

The presentation is beautiful. Look how carefully they layer the cheese and apples. The fruit is fresh, the cheese is smooth, the mix just works.

I was not the biggest fan of the baguette though. It was the traditional french baguette, with that wonderful crisp crust (hard enough to slice the top of your mouth), and substantial bready interior (served cold).
I shouldn't be complaining really. It was a french baguette, done correctly, and done well-- so this is on all account about personal taste. I would have loved these toppings and presentation on, say, a viet sub baguette, or a warm baguette, or a lighter baguette, anything.

I could also say that, minus the presentation, you could probably whip up something similar on your own.

BUT. Does a well accomplished chef say s/he'll stop going to dinner parties because he can probably out-cook his hosts? No. Because that would make him/her an asshole. It's more than simply the food, it's the atmosphere, it's the enjoyment you get from visiting, and I very much enjoyed myself.

In short, I would say visit Finch's. It may be your thing, it may not (and with the premium pricing, for some, it may really be not). But it's got a good thing going, a nice little variety (soups, baguettes, salads, cheeseplates, multitude of teas), and it is worth at least a try.

The Foundation

2010-08-18T21:48:00.000-07:00

So this isn't the entrance sign to The Foundation, but I thought it was a more intriguing picture-- at least intriguing enough for me to forget taking a photo of the front;; so shoot me. It had been a long day, and I was hungry-- We were heading off to the nightmarket later that night, and I needed a little somethingsomething to hold me over before devouring redbean sweet treats.

It didn't take long to be seated (But it -did- take a while to actually be acknowledged of existence. I guess it comes with the atmosphere they want to give off.). We were taken further into the restaurant, where it was sweltering, so I was very glad when they plopped down the large jar of water. I've heard a few comments where people find this crude, but I'm thinking they just need to be kicked off their high horses, because I think it works.

Busy, with a nonchalant attitude, it seems like if you want service, you go and -get- yourself some service. We had to flag down our waitress, but she was nice enough.

The first dish we ordered was the Sesame Society. Carrots, tofu, cauliflower, broccoli, chickpeas, zucchini, raw and cooked spinach, sesame seeds (of course), all on top of a bed of quinoa. Vegetables were fresh, but the accompanying sauce was very strong. Slightly peanut-y, with a very strong dash of salt. The first few bites were pretty good, but the overwhelming sauce eventually took its toll. If I was to have veggies swimming in sauce, I'd have them swimming in the sauce from The Naam.

The other dish we shared was the Persistent Pnut Burger -- quinoa, chickpeas, roast onions, spicy peanut patty, served with a mixed greens salad topped with a mango sauce, sesame seeds, and pumpkin seeds, and a raw red cabbage salad. The burger as a whole was alright, some would consider it far too dry, but I didn't mind (call it.. the feeling of 'health'. I like that;). There wasn't much spiciness to it like the menu had described, and it's definitely not a good ol' fashioned grease slathered beef burger, but yea. I'd have it again.
The mango sauce was also sweet, tangy, and I made me like the dish a bit more.
However, the raw red cabbage side was just. Not good. Raw red cabbage.. Just think about that;; Maybe it's an acquired taste, who knows, but the sourness just wasn't for me.

I felt that The Foundation was unapologetic and aggressive, complete with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. And you know what, I kind of liked that about them. If I want vegetarian food again, I think I prefer what Naam has to offer (then again, I only tried a couple of dishes on both sides), but if you think you can put up being here enough to like it, you might just feel right at home here.

The Greedy Pig

2010-08-17T06:19:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't like great deals? Save money, have the satisfaction of receiving something you wanted for a lesser price.. it's a great thing I tell you.

Which is why I was so cheerful when I walked into The Greedy Pig the other day. Armed with a $25 coupon (I paid $12), I was very ready.

I was actually expecting a larger selection of drinks on the menu since the place seemed to run more along the lines of a bar/lounge and their food menu wasn't extensive. No worries though. Just placing the comment.

Especially because they were more than happy to make me a custom drink out of, you guessed it. Baileys. Consisting of baileys, blackberry liquor and stoli, I liked it, except for the fact that the fruitiness hit me with the asian flush. I think. Maybe after two sips?
Youwishyouwereascoolasme;;

My friend on the other hand grabbed himself the 1516 Bavarian Lager.

The Cheese and Butcher's Plate ($19) accompanied our drinks. They write a list of the available selection up by the bar, and you choose any five meats or cheeses. Personally, I think this was quite a bit pricey for what it was, but I thought there was good quality in the selection (I thought the cuts on this plate were better and of greater quality than what was presented in the charcuterie plate at Alibi)
Starting from the top left and going clockwise: Guiness cheese, kalamata olive paste, Idon'tactuallyknowsomesortofsalami..?, cognac pate, coppa (cured pork shoulder butt), olives, apricot jelly, garlic in balsamic vinegar, apples, and brie.
They were served with bread and crostini, neither of which were fancy in any way, but they did their part and we had refills : )

It really wasn't necessary and I actually had most of it packed to go, but this was the Ratatouille ($9) (I wasn't expecting the cheese+butcher plate to fill me like it did). Night was really starting to come in so the photo is rather blurry, very sorry;; Solid, but not outstanding. I felt that there wasn't enough herb undertones, but the vegetables came piping hot and had a great texture. Loved the chewy buttery bread that it came with, and I actually used it for the remaining cheese/butcher plate.

My friends main was the Crispy Duck Confit ($15). Personally, we thought the portion was a tad small and completely average. The flavours of the salad garnishes didn't compliment the saltiness or the crispier/chewier texture of the duck.

So while the I won't say the food blew me away, I had a lot of fun here at The Greedy Pig. The service was great, it was a nice evening, and I love this places character. Maybe I wouldn't have been too happy if my $25 coupon didn't cover my costs (and it -just- covered my costs), but beer labeled as health drinks? Oh Greedy Pig, I dig your attitude, yes I do.

Let Me Cook for You? [UPDATED 01/09/2010]

2010-08-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Update01/09/2010: And the Baked Good Will Be:

We're making a Mille-feuille!
Oh Alex;;

What exactly do I need to make a mille-feuille that I don't already have in the house? I don't know. But I'll find a way to buy something (because that's difficult, eheh;;)
I will be purchasing cookware that can be used for the dessert, and practical for where I will be moving into in the Fall.

Thank you to everyone for the suggestions and for playing along with me : )
Alex, will be receiving some mille-feuille as soon as I fail creating it a couple of times, and get the recipe correct, and if he would so wish to have some (email.email.email).
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Hullo my small (and possibly non-existent...) audience!

I have a proposition for you, it involves you dictating me on a post, would you like to listen in?

Now I realize that the majority of my posts are related to the restaurants in Vancouver (and it's surrounding cities), but as the toolbar on the right shows, I do occasionally post recipes (which you can conveniently sift away using the toolbar if you feel oh so inclined).

So I was surprised when I was approached with an offer to receive and review cookware from Le Creuset!

Hello lovely looking colourful cookware~

In light of the fact that I will soon be moving to a new place this fall when the school semester begins again, I will be in need a few this and thats to be able to aid myself in the ongoing venture of not starving.

So. The Important Part: I wanted this to still be related to the blog. I realize the majority of you are probably here to look at the restaurants instead of the occasional recipes (hence the "sift" option in the right hand toolbar) but shh, SO! If you are oh so interested in seeing something made and posted here, please comment. Pizza? Moaar pie? How about a layer cake? I will randomly draw a suggestion, and then proceed to gather up a recipe, and use+review the cookware these fine people will provide.

So the decision is up to you! Comment below and let me know!

ps. - I'd actually like to bake something up.. and then give the tangible product to the individual who gets drawn (If they are in the Vancouver/GVRD area).. I don't know how much that would appeal to anyone though.. Yes?No? I swear there is no poison in my pantry;; If you would like?

pps/disclaimer - I do not profess to be an excellent cook/baker/anything. But I do want to do something for the individuals that come and stop by to take a look at what I'm eating from time to time. I appreciate it! I really do~

Browns Social House (Port Moody)

2010-08-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

For my friends birthday, she wanted to go to somewhere that definitely would check her ID, be able to legally flaunt and drink her cocktail in the establishment, and have something absolutely girly.
Without leaving the tri-cities area, I couldn't think of very many options.
And I don't really know how anyone would really find those requirements appealing ... ("check my ID! CHECK MY ID DAMNIT I'M FINALLY LEGAL"), but hey. To each their own.

So without really much of an idea of where we were heading, we drove around until we spotted Browns Social House in Port Moody. I'm thinking.. 'Hey. It's a chain, which means they'll possible care enough to check ID, have a small selection of drinks to cover everyones palate, why not.' Knowing my friends fickleness when it comes to food and new experiences, I thought this would be a good bet. In we went.

At the moment, I think it'd be safe to say that there is a "phobia" against chain/franchised restaurants.Some pretentious problem among self-labeled "foodies".. (And at times, I've been guilty as well. A group of friends want to eat at. say. East Side Mario's, when I'd rather be trying out the new local joint down the street.. etcetc).
But determined to stay open minded this time, we took our seats, took in the atmosphere, and ordered some drinks.

This was their Peach Fuzz Bellini. Very sweet, not too strong on the alcohol, my friend enjoyed this very much.

My current addiction to Baileys had me requesting them to mix up something involving the wonderful creamy alcohol. Didn't care with what, didn't care how, as long as there was Baileys. They mixed up some Van Gogh Espresso with Baileys for me, and I've got to say I liked it very much. Not a lot of it, but (at least for my pitiful alcohol tolerance) potent.

For our mains, because they have pizza on special on Sundays (any one for $9) my friend gave the Grilled Pineapple Pizza -- spicy capicola, grape tomatoes, cilantro, banana peppers, mozzarella a try. Despite how the toppings are described, this pizza failed to inspire interest for me. Not that it was bad.. However, the crust was rather bland (but I also prefer thincrust, so that may have been a factor in my dislike), the toppings, despite the slight spicy kick, were all rather underwhelming.
Edible, and nothing inherently wrong with it, but trust me when I say I'd rather go grab a frozen pizza from the supermarket..

My dish that night was the Low Carb Spa Bowl with Tahitian Albacore Tuna ($17).
--You can stop laughing now;;
In my defense I had ate not long before this, and really wasn't feeling like eating. anything;; really. But to be a good sport, I went ahead and got something.
I actually thought this was better than the pizza, and really.. pretty good actually; The 'cowgirl salad', consisted of candied walnuts, dates, corn, soybeans, and feta (They claim that this dish is 360cal. I highly highly doubt this.). Tasty and sweet (highly doubt the calorie count).
The tuna was seared with a nice crust, and also held some sweet notes.
the braised cabbage (in my previously experiences it has been done sickly sweet, syrupy.. and just plain bad) was not overwhelming and was complimented nicely by the blue cheese.

Our server was polite, our night was pleasant, I can safely say I had a pretty nice dinner here. While the food isn't anything spectacular, this chain restaurant definitely does it's job. If you're not up for whacking your tastebuds with a new experience, this eatery is a safe place to go for a nice night.

Coconut Tarts

2010-08-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

Yummy, flaky, light, creamy, coconut goodness. Lovely.

Coconut tarts. The result of not having tart pans, and wanting to make tarts. Used the pie crust recipe I used on the apple pie I had made, picked off a recipe at random for the coconut custard, and because I decided they looked too much like eggtarts, I threw on some coconut.

I had actually made three types of tarts before this (egg, strawberry, coconut), but this one was definitely the winner of the three. A little something something to impress (and show-off) to guests. And to horde for yourself;

I used a muffin pan for the tart shells (although I really do wish I had tart pans and what not..)
Anyways, without further ado!

Coconut Tarts (makes roughly 18)

Ingredients

Coconut Filling:
1 can (14 ounces) coconut milk
1 cup whole milk (used skim milk, was absolutely fine)
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (I used sweetened, and was -very- generous aka. hello two cups of coconut, with this. Turned out great)
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3/8 teaspoon salt
5 large egg yolks
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Tart Shells:

2 tablespoons plain yogurt
>2 tablespoons ice water (the less liquid you use, the better)
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold diced unsalted butter
1/2 cup cold diced crisco
2 teaspoons lemon juice

extra sweetened coconut for topping (I used at least an extra cup)

Directions

Filling:
1.Pour milk, coconut milk, shredded coconut, 1/2 cup of sugar and salt in a medium (whatismediumanyways..) sized pot with the stove on medium high heat. Let the mixture come to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk 1 tablespoon of sugar, 5 egg yolks and cornstarch together, mixing thoroughly.
3. Add this egg yolk mixture gradually into the milk mixture, constantly whisking to ensure that the egg mixture incorporates with the milk mixture (as opposed to being cooked by the heat before it can mix..likeIdid..)
4. Continue to whisk on the stove until the mixture has thickened, it begins to boil, and becomes a custard consistency (1-3minutes?)
5. Take pot off the stove, mix in butter and vanilla
6. Immediately cover with saran wrap to avoid a skin forming on the top of the custard. Cool and refrigerate (at least 3-4 hours).

Crust:
1. Stir 1 cup of flour sugar and salt together in a large bowl
2. cut in pieces of butter until butter is dime sized.
3. add shortening, and cut into mixture until dime sized.
4. stir in remaining flour
5. Gradually mix in yogurt + all lemon juice (sparingly).
6. Incorporate liquids by squeezing flour against side of bowl. You want the dough to come together with as little manipulation as possible. Only continue to add water as necessary until dough forms, and dry crumbs are still seen on the bottom of the bowl.
7. Flatten slightly and wrap in saran wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Assembly:

1. Roll out pie crust on floured surface, using a floured rolling pin (Don't worry too much about how you roll it out, you're fitting them into muffin tins anyways. Does not have to be a pretty circle by any means)
2. Roughly cut dough out into circular pieces (don't need to make it perfect, you'll be shaping it into the muffin tin anyways) and fit into the muffin tin. Patch and shape until you are happy with the tart shells appearance.
3. Freeze for about an hour.
4. Preheat oven to 375F
5. Fill tarts with custard (Do not fill completely to the top, the filling will rise just slightly)
6. Let tarts bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the tops just start to brown.
Optional: Take the tarts out after 12~ minutes, and waste a lot of tin foil to place over the tart shell edges, so they don't turn completely brown while they're baking for the remaining time...

7. Toast up shredded coconut topping while the tarts are baking (watch them carefully! It took my toaster oven 5 minutes to toast, and the first few times I attempted this I burned a cup and a half of coconut to black.. ... greatcookiknow.)

8. Pull out tarts, let them cool for 10 minutes. Top with toasted shredded coconut.

Salmon House on the Hill

2010-08-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

My friend is back to work! No more lounging around the house all day playing video games, you! I was really excited for him, mostly because he will be working at a fairly prestigious Vancouver restaurant, preparing amazing food. And I will have to come surprise drop in on him at some point and make him sweat.

Anyways, to celebrate his last Friday free (Pretty much ever. Hullo unlife of a chef.), we visited The Salmon House on the Hill!. He had an old friend there that recommended it, so we decided, why not?

The restaurant is really quite pretty. Tastefully adorned with Native artwork here and there, and a great area to look out from. Unfortunately, from our seat, it was a little too low to see the water.. But still quite tranquil!

We ended up talking with my friend's friend for a little while, and therefore our waiter had a little bit of difficulty serving us (Hate that. So much. I feel for the guy). Still, he did an excellent job, and when we were finally looking at the menu, he promptly stopped by to ensure we got our drinks and knew what was recommended on the menu.

I don't know if this is a temporary special, but they have a 3 course menu for $50 promotion at the moment. And by a 3 course menu, what it really is, is there regular menu. Doesn't matter what you order on it, you can get 3 dishes for $50. It's a good deal, no? Unlike those set course menus, which usually feature something you're not completely keen on.

My friend had the Gewurztraminer, 2008, Red Rooster. Now, my experience with wine is limited. And when I have had some, it's usually been overly sour/rancid in taste.. This however, I thought was excellent. Not too tart, drier but lightly fruity. ...Do I even know what I'm talking about?
Um. (My once over lesson with wine has my pride saying yes, but....)
We'll just say I liked it.

Friend also mentioned something about the amount of saliva you produce directly correlates with how dry or sweet you like your wine. The less saliva you produce, the more sensitive you are to the sourness or sweetness of wine. I may be misquoting, but interesting, hm?

The complimentary bread was served warm (You can throw your authentic "the-french-serve-it-cold" snubbing away, warm bread still tastes better), and instead of butter, was served with a white bean with lemon puree, alongside some olive oil. I try to keep my hands away from the breadbasket, so I can have more room for the ordered dishes, but I loved the dip. Light, creamy, makes me feel better because it wasn't butter~.... (and probably with just as much fat content... if not more; haha)

We were started off with a small amuse bouche. Shrimp served with a small wonton wrapper(?), cilantro, and a puree (of sorts.. I really wish I paid more attention to what the waiter said. He explained it all nice and well, but I was busy looking at how cute the dish was). Refreshing and light in taste. Great way to start off.

Friend's starter was the Salmon House Sampler -- Alder-Grilled BC Salmon, Tomato Ginger Chutney, Candied Salmon Spring Roll, Hoisin Aioli, Smoked Salmon Terrine, Caper Emulsion ($16) .
My friend and I have a little competition going on. Once we order our individual dishes, we have to decide who ordered the better dish in each category... frivolous fun~
But anyways, he won. Hands down. The grilled salmon was light and sweet. The spring roll too was very sweet with a nice crunch to the spring roll. His favourite was the salmon terrine, which, with its creamcheese was more savoury (not warm.. just savoury.. um. umami?). Great flavour pairings, jerk gets 1-0, haha.

My appetizer was the Braised 'BC' Rabbit & Pheasant Tortellini -- B.C. Morel's, Fresh Fava Bean, Truffle Accent, Poached Quail Egg, 'House-Pickled Pearl Onion & Carrot ($15). Friend's friend in the kitchen had told us they were making the tortellini right as we were talking, so I really needed to give it a try. I didn't read the menu closely enough, so I initially thought the quail egg was creme fresh! Imagine my surprise;;

The flavour pairings and overall dish were excellent. The waiter was very courteous in explaining that each element of the dish should be eaten together in each bite to get the most out of the dish. He was very right. The saltiness of the sauce, paired great with the subtlety of the ground rabbit and pheasant (No, not gamey like you would think;), and the meatiness of the mushrooms. A very warm dish, without being overwhelming.

Unfortunately, execution wise, the tortellini shells were quite hard and thick around the edges. I think I may accredit that to the fact they were just making them, and the floor was already bustling with tables. May have been in a rush. It's too bad; And the poached quail egg was done until the centre was no longer liquid at all;; A shame, those small little things that affect a dish. Still, it didn't take too much away, and I licked this up.

With the appetizers neatly tucked away, it was time for the mains. This was my friends dish, the Grilled 'Kettle Ridge' Beef Tenderloin -- Honey Braised Apple & Yukon Gold Potato Ragout, Wild Mushroom, Pearl Onion, Foie Gras Butter ($35). I only had a small bite of this, so while I thought it was pretty decent, I didn't get to really take it in. He said he enjoyed it though.

Technically I guess it was done very well. Perfectly medium rare, nice crisp chips, well done veggies. But it personally didn't wow me. Not to say it was bad in any way. What probably happened was that I was completely overwhelmed by...:

This! Pan Seared 'Queen Charlotte' Halibut -- 'Twice Cooked' Potato Medallions, Braised Baby Beets, Braised Leek & Truffle Butter, Preserved Meyer Lemon ($32).
Wow. Just wow. Again the waiter was professional and explained how the dish's flavour pairings worked as a whole, indicating that the lemons, while not too sour, held a sweetness and acidity that should be eaten with every bite of the halibut/ And this -definitely- is a must.must.must. The way the flavours came together was perfect. While the halibut itself (being a lean fish), was a tad dry, once you combined it with the other elements of the dish, it definitely was perfection. Light halibut, sweet lemon, rich braised leeks (the leeks! The leeks! My gosh. I didn't know they were done in truffle butter until putting this post together now, but while I was eating I just couldn't get over how wonderfully rich and creamy they were while still being true to their natural flavour). The beets and potato medallions were standard, but well cooked (and we all know I appreciate a well cooked veg). Outstanding.
For those keeping count, that's 1-1 now. My dish won.

Finally, stuffed full with our mains, it was time to whip out the second stomach. The Fraser Valleys' Straberry and Rhubarb Tart -- elderflower and lemon sorbet, crystallized mint, clear caramel ($10) was my friends dessert. While the tart shell was far too tough on it's own, it lended it's part to the overall dish. The custard and fruit was fresh, light, tart, and paired nicely with the very well done lemon sorbet. The touch of crystallized mint really made a huge difference.

To finish off the night's sweet note, he also paired it with the recommended Pentage Estate, 'Late Harvest'. The recommendation was perfect. It went with the dessert very well.
And as a sidenote, I apologies for the blurry picture. I was too much in a rush to get to my dessert....

The Chocolate Duo -- chocolate pecan tart, expresso(?) gelato, served with a coconut mousse. ($10)! While the sides of my tart were rather dry and crusted (not pleasant), the inside was moist, and worked really well with the gelato. The touch of floral sweetness in the drizzled sauce was a nice extra touch. Along with the coconut mousse, this was absolutely decadent.

To pair it off, I went with the Salmon House Coffee -- frangelico and kahlua ($6). Sugar rim. Yummy. And I'm a fan of any coffee flavoured drink so I was a very happy girl.
Now, we hit a sort of dilemma at this point. Hands down my drink was better, and marginally my dessert was as well. However, if we're considering the drink and dessert as a pairing, we would have to say he won by a margin. My drink and dessert just didn't compliment each other (and that was my fault, because no one ever said they did. We just assumed chocolate and coffee. You can't really go wrong).
So. Final score? 1.5-1.5. And I'm sticking to it D

Great night. Attentive, informative, pleasant and professional service. Good food. Great view. Whats not to like? Sure, it comes out on the pricier side of things, but you're not doing this every night are you?
Thank you so much for the great dinner : ).

Triple Chocolate Brownie Cookies

2010-08-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

These cookies.
Make them. Eat them.
Don't have chocolate?
Go get some.

In fact. Make them in bulk. Freeze them. And always eat them freshly baked. These are the epitome of melted fudge chocolate goodness. Complete with a light crispy outer, with literally a molten centre.
Chocolate lava cakes? Do not even hold a candle to this delicacy.
AND THEY'RE RIDICULOUSLY EASY TO MAKE TOO.
Granted they're not the most visually appealing, but that's also the result of my inability to camera.
Yes, I just verb'd camera.
And verb.
wut.

Triple Chocolate Brownie CookiesOriginal recipe to be found on Cookie Madness

Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 ounces dark chocolate chips (At least 60%)
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or a combination of semisweet and dark chocolate)
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup (at least!) chopped and toasted walnuts

Recipe
1.   Toast up walnuts. Watch carefully so they do not burn. Let cool and place to the side.
2.   Melt butter in large microwave-safe mixing bowl.
3.   Add 2 ounces of chocolate and stir in well.
4.   Microwave for another 30 seconds, and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth. Let this cool for 5 minutes

5.   With electric mixer, beat sugar into melted chocolate mixture.
6.   Beat in eggs one at a time, and then add vanilla.
7.   Increase mixer speed to high and beat for 1.5min~, until batter has fluffed up and appears lighter in colour.

8.   In a separate bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt together.
9.   Gradually stir dry mixture into wet until fully incorporated together.
10.   Stir in semisweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and toasted walnuts.
11.   Chill batter for at least an hour. Batter should be firm enough to shape firmly.

12.   Preheat oven to 350F.
13.   Grease cookie pan/Line pan with parchment paper.
14.   Scoop up large two-tablespoon sized mounds, and arrange on cookie sheets, a few inches apart from each other.
15.   Bake for 8-10 minutes. Take them out of the oven and leave on the cookie sheet to cool for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Looking like ordinary, run of the mill cookies, no? Little mounds of not too aesthetically appealing goodies.

And then you take a bite and DELICIOUSLY SMOOTH MELTED CHOCOLATE EVERYWUR.

O Rawbar Grill and Lounge

2010-08-07T08:32:00.000-07:00

For the longest time now, this has been a ping pong match in my mind. Do I post. Do I not post? How exactly should I post? What kind of disclaimers in the post.. You see. O Rawbar Grill and Lounge and I have personal relations, although how specifically, I suppose is not the smartest thing to say.
Long story short, there's almost no way for me to give non-bias opinion on this restaurant. And vise-versa, if I were to try to serve up a heavy-handed opinion to make up for my bias, I may run into some troubles.

However, at the same time, my questions were something along the lines of, why shouldn't I blog about Oraw? It's a restaurant. I've been to this restaurant as a customer. And I'm here to post pictures about food from restaurants I frequent and remark if I liked eating there or not. Simple.

I haven't been asked to write anything. In fact, I feel like I will be getting in trouble by writing ._. I will keep my writing to a minimum and I won't comment on how I felt about the food to avoid any unnecessary biases, but if you still find issue in this post, simply do not click the read more button : ).

So the restaurant was previously Anducci's, but has had quite an overhaul since then. There are stairs at the very end of that hall that lead to a second floor lounge area for parties.

Picture grabbed off Urbanspoon, photo taken from Sherman. I hope you don't mind Sherman!
This is the Sampler to start each table off. Consists of roasted garlic, seaweed salad, and deep fried sweet potato strings.

And just some miso soup to start the night off. I'm always fond of miso soup when it comes with an abundant amount of green onions and tofu. Not so much a fan of the seaweed, but my palette is still in the process of developing into something more refined than a toddler's.

We wanted to try some of their more creative rolls tonight, so we started off with the Lobster Roll --Filled with tempura lobster and tempura bean, avocado, cucumber, and topped with mango and roe.
As a note, all the sushi and maki is done in brown rice. It can be requested in white.

Next to come was the Clams -- served in a garlic sake broth. I'm not a shellfish type of girl, but I'm learning to appreciate them more and more. I enjoyed this, but left most of it to the rest of the diners, as they definitely would appreciate this more.

The clams are served with a buttered piece of bread. We asked for extra (comes at an extra charge).

Hot Roll -- cucumber, real crab, avacado, scallop, jalapeno pepper, topped with cheese, smoked salmon, roe, and baked. Slightly spicy, but not over the top.

Viper Roll -- avacado, real crab, cucumber, topped with unagi, twice wrapped in seaweed, topped with unagi sauce and served on a flaming platter.
The inside is cool (temperature wise), the unagi is hot. You can grab the sushi while the plate is still flaming (and is recommended), and I don't think there is any bias in saying a flaming plate is pretty awesome.

Crispy Prawns -- panko breaded, served with a sweet chili sauce.

Spicy Tuna Karaage -- served with a ponzu sauce

There you have it. O Raw. Stripped down to the pictures. I'll shut my mouth now : x.

Golden Phoenix Chinese Restaurant

2010-08-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

This bad photo streak really has to end. Really; I'm going to tell you guys right now, all these photos. Are terrible. I'm sorry for the eyesore. We arrived at this lunch late, and some dishes had already arrived when we came to visit the Golden Phoenix Seafood Restaurant. Not wanting to disturb the lunch too much, I snapped pictures as quick as I could;;
But enough about my failures, let's take a look at the restaurant, yus?

Golden Phoenix seems to be one of the few places around here that still uses the pushcart system. It made me smile. Oh the nostalgic pang~

Shrimp spring rolls. One of the number of dishes that was already on the table. Despite the time it spent cooling down, the wrapper was still crisp, although the shrimp was nothing special in my opinion.

Deep fried prawns. Another dish that had been sitting a while on the table. Standard, although an old standby favourite.

Shrimp croquette -- served with a sweet and sour sauce (?). Here as well when we got there. Uhg; we have such a terrible tendency to be late to get togethers. Again, standard; shrimp filling had that overdone feel that most chinese restaurants seem to do their shrimp to, but I liked these. What can I say. Breaded. Sweet.

Aand Deep Fried Squid, which was also on the table when we arrived. I think it's safe of you to assume that yes, the squid was a gummy texture. A combination of fast chinese style restaurants, push-cart dimsum, and sitting dishes is bound to give overdone seafood; To their credit, it still held deep-fried crispness.

After trying out the dishes that were already set out on the table, we decided to order a bit more. Starting with the Sui Mai, this was average of a chinese dim sum restaurant. However, I noticed that it was, like the dishes that were already on the table, only slightly warm. I was willing to believe that the dishes on the table had cooled down, but with the next few dishes also being lukewarm, I'm decided that the fault laid on the pushcart style of serving.

Har gow. Standard. Again with the pushcart system, only mildly warm.

Chicken Ginger Soup. It has an interesting flavour, pungent with ginger, and abundant in chicken and golgi berries (I think? wolfberries? Those orange seedlike pods floating there?). Not quite my cup of tea, and I can't say I have this often, but I won't say it was bad (mostly because I can't).

Tripe, I did not try this; Now, it's not to say I won't eat tripe. It's just that I was much more inclined to save stomach room for these following dishes..:

Mexican Bun topped Cha Siu Bao<3. If this is ever on a dimsum menu at any restaurant, you'll be sure that I'll order it. Although the topping was abundantly topped with sugar, there was very little filling within the bun, which was rather disappointing..

Sticky Rice Ball -- black sesame seed filling. Another favourite of mine!

Again, pretty standard. However, again due to the pushcart system, it had been out for quite a while, and all the filling seemed to simply sink and coagulate at the bottom of the sesame ball..

Butter Milk Buns. Yes, we ordered a lot of sweet dishes that day, that'd be my fault. But that'd be the appeal of the pushcart system! They pass by, you see an old favourite, and you've just got to get it~.

I was actually expecting it to have a more liquid filling; but the style of making this dish differs I believe from place to place.. (I think;;). Still fairly alright, although perhaps having it go around the room a few times in a pushcart left the filling a little drier than preferred.

The last dessert dish we grabbed was the Tapioca Pudding. I just love the crumble topping! Sugary goodness, mm.

It had an abundant amount of red bean filling to accompany, and I enjoyed that very much. I swear, if it had actually come out fresh and warm, it would be very good.

All in all I feel that this restaurant for dim-sum is nothing greater than average. I have heard their dinners are a lot better, but unless you want to come here to feel the nostalgic pushcart atmosphere (and hey. It can be fun.), I'd say stick to their dinner menu. Being near the kitchen entrance, I saw some of the same dishes (by which I mean the same very plate) come in and out multiple times throughout the whole meal, so you know there are definitely going to be some plates that just won't be all too fresh.. Still, they do an alright job, just no wow factor;;

Bite-sized China Update: The right way to lamb.

2010-07-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Before you either:
a) Roll your eyes wondering why I'd be posting about mediocre looking food from China again (I thought we had stopped with this nonsense, you)
b) Run away screaming at the sight of the horrific photo
Let me explain.

I was originally done with posting about China. I had a few more places that I had taken photos of, but they were not very appetizing, poorly shot, and rather repetitive. However, then I remembered this particular dinner, which I swear was both the most amazing lamb I had ever tasted, and the most memorable dinner of the trip. Must be posted. Work with me here.

We were spending a weekend at a on the borders of Beijing rural village. The most advanced piece of technology we had available was a karaoke machine (apparently, no matter how rural, Chinese people require a karaoke machine. You could hear [poor] singing all throughout the night. joyful;;). But despite this, this was one of my favourite parts of the trip. You see, despite the fact that we were sharing housing with creatures such as these:

Running around the village and experiencing the lifestyle was amazing. And on top of that, the people who ran the rooms that we were staying in served us the most amazing dinner. They had spent the day roasted a whole lamb on a BBQ and spit, and the results were this:

A whole lamb, and many side dishes including:
-tomatoes with sugar
- spinach
- winter melon soup
- salad
- potatoes and beans
- leeks and cucumbers
- sweet potato.
- eggs and chives
- a bread-like wrap (at least I think so.. I was too busy eating. Didn't get a chance to take a picture. You'll understand why in a second).

This was more than enough to serve the 14 of us eating there that night. In fact, I believe you would need double the amount of people to finish all that was on the table that night.

The lamb was moist, yet had an amazingly seasoned and smokey outer crust. Medium rare, flavourful, tender, I could go on and on and on. BUT. The most enjoyable aspect of this meal was how we were to go at this whole lamb. You see, for utensils, we were given but one thing:

Plastic gloves. Plastic gloves, and one knife. Yes, we were told to just grab at this whole BBQ'd lamb, and yes, we enjoyed it with vigour. After this point, there was no way I was going to spend my time taking any more pictures. The lamb was waiting.

This was an amazing meal, and I urge you to try this at some point. This wasn't a 'true' rural village per se, but apparently a "tourist" rural village. If you are ever to take a trip to China (or Asia in general, I'm sure it's not only China that does this sort of trip), try heading off to a village and getting a meal like this. You will not regret it. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. And a little unsanitary. But more practice for your immune system doesn't hurt, yea?

Alibi Room

2010-07-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

Friend of mine has been patiently waiting for me to finally sit my ass down and write about the Alibi Room, so many apologies to him. And his anticipation is well founded, we had a great time at this restaurant (restaurant? pub? bar? eatery? gastropub? I don't know?), and on a beautiful summer evening, with an open patio and drinks, how could you not?

When we arrived the restaurant was abuzz and filling fast. We sat at the counter for a few drinks before being seated at a table for food. No worries, we didn't mind at all.

Actually, we had initially planned to sit in their downstairs area, so that we could have a table and be served food faster. However, I do not recommend this, as they do not serve their Frat Bat -- Your choice of any 4 beers on their list ($8) in the basement area, and frankly, it looks like a very depressing cave. Once the sun has set and the daylight stops filtering ominously down through the stairs entrance, perhaps it gets a little better, but before that, not so much.

At any rate, the frat bat! My two accompanying partners in crime ordered these. I, on the other hand relating to alcohol as well as a child to choking hazards, decided to stick with the only drink I seem to be able to enjoy without a) asian flushing, b) having an allergic reaction, c) having a headache before the happy. Baileys! And really, who needs a picture of a 1/8 filled cup of Baileys, where there is more ice than alcohol, and is possible 200% overpriced (Goodbye $5).

And because the frat bats were not my drinks, no, I can't tell you what each of the beers were. However, I did take sips of all of them and can report that they were all fairly good (as far as my ill equipped standards of beers go). I specifically remember trying a chocolate porter, which held a strong chocolate aftertaste that I quite enjoyed. The cherry beer also had a clear fruity taste.
My friends report that one or two of the selection seemed quite average, but solid overall. I would think the frat bat is a good deal if you're looking to try a new variety.

As for the food, we decided to grab some tapas. Here we have the Charcuterie plate -- berkshire pork country pate, salami, smoked ham, roasted duck, warm breads & house condiments.
There were specific names for the four proteins on the plate that night, written on a board near the doorway. I believe they change them up time to time, and I forgot the names of the ones we were served.
However, this was decent. We enjoyed eating it simply because it deviated from what we usually order. The pate seemed a little dry to me personally, but what do I know. The roasted duck felt a little gelatinous.. But I ate it all in vigour, so now I'm just being picky. Liked this.

Smoked Sablefish brandade -- with radish salad. I liked this one better than the charcuterie plate. Room temperature creamy dip, served with crispy crostini. Yum. Yum.

And along with those, a bucket a fries served with ketchup and garlic vinegar. The fries were crispy. Standard, enjoyable, etcetc. But it was the housemade ketchup, which was tangy, spicy and aromatic that made these special to me. The garlic vinegar didn't hold as much as a punch next to the ketchup, but it did its job as well.

Finally, one of my accomplices didn't find this was enough for him, and so he ordered for himself what I believe was a BBQ Pork Belly sandwich -- with beer braised onions, jalapeno 'slaw & fries. Wow. Fatty flavourful pork on a crisped bun, and lots of onion to go around. I only had a bite, so I can't say if the beer braised onions held any credibility, but the bite I had was great, and he seemed to love it.

And to wrap up the night, another serving of beer. Did you believe those small cups earlier would really be enough? This was a tall glass of what they called "The (Back?)Hand of God". Potent (at least for me). Still not what I would consider my cup of tea, but he liked it.

Overall I had a great night. I ended up paying $25 on my end (which could be considered pretty pricey, considering the amount of food.. and my 1/8 a cup of a drink), but for all you're given-- solid service, solid food, great drinks, I don't mind.

Recipe: Apple Pie

2010-07-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

I was so excited! I completed my first pie, and it tasted amazing. Whenever I go off and attempt to bake something new, I spend far too long reading tips and steps, trying to combine what I think are the best of multiple recipes to come up with what I would believe the best. In this case, it was also my first time created a pie crust, so even more time was spent reading up for that as well.

The reading paid off. This pie crust was super flaky, not a gummy/thick/tough spot to be seen anywhere. It was done by hand, as I don't own a stand-mixer, but the time was well spent. My combination of apples consisted of:

McIntosh - For their sweetness and softness when baked. To create the 'filling' texture, as opposed to straight up pieces of apple within a pie shell.

Golden Delicious - For their sweetness and prominence. They also hold their shape.

Fuji - Because they're my favourite apple in general, and I thought the tartness spiciness would make a good contrast to the other two apples.

I used eight small apples for a 9inch pie dish. Half of which were peeled, and the other half with skin on. A little bit of texture, a little bit of hold, a little bit of contrast of flavour, but not too much.

I also toasted up some walnuts and pecans to throw in, but this ended up being a mistake. The nuts became too soft within the pie, and didn't hold their nuttiness like I wanted them to. Will opt out nuts next time.
These were the tips that I found especially useful when I baked my pie. Take a look! They're useful, truly, truly.

Butter and flour the pan to ensure the pie will come out once baked.
preheat the oven for at least 20 minutes before baking (ensure that the oven is hot)
Refrigerate everything (including the flour, the sugar, the bowl you’re going to mix with, the rolling pin, the cutlery you’ll use.. etcetc)
When making pie dough, it's easier to pre-cut the butter/shortening and refrigerating before actually beginning the crust (saving time when actually creating the crust, keeping the butter/shortening cold)
1 teaspoon lemon juice/vinegar for each cup of flour in pie dough recipe for more tender pastry dough. [Detract the amount of liquid used from the water you will use later in the recipe]
Using plain yogurt in place of water leads to a flakier crust
If dough cracks when rolling out once has spent time refrigerating, let dough warm
Roll 1inch larger than pie pan. (11”)
Use kitchen shears to trim away excess pie dough
Refrigerate crust for at least an hour after placing in pie pan
Prevent the crust from becoming soggy by brushing the unbaked shell with a beaten egg white (or graham cracker crumbs) before placing in apples
Don’t stretch dough over (will create gummy crust)
Before baking sprinkle with sugar for sparkle
Prevent piecrust edges from over browning by covering them with strips of aluminum foil after the first 15 minutes of baking
Bake pies for 20-30 minutes on the bottom rack, and then switch to the center rack for the remaining time. (ensure a baked bottom crust)

Apple Pie (9-inch pan):
Ingredients:

Crust:
2 tablespoons ice water (less liquid is better)
2 tablespoons plain yogurt (less liquid is better)
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup cold pieces of butter
½ cup cold pieces of Crisco
2 teaspoon lemon juice

Filling:
1 tablespoon lemon juice
6-8 Small Apples (I used 8 and got a domed top)
     - 2 McIntosh
     - 2 Granny Smith
     - 2 Golden Delicious
     - 2 Fuji
2/3 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 tablespoons cornstarch
Graham cracker crumbs (to sprinkle on bottom of crust)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375F

Crust:
1. Stir 1 cup of flour sugar and salt together in a large bowl
2. cut in pieces of butter until butter is dime sized.
3. add shortening, and cut into mixture until dime sized.
4. stir in remaining flour
5. Sprinkle in half the amount of water/yogurt + all lemon juice (sparingly).
6. Incorporate water and mixture by squeezing flour against side of bowl. You want the dough to come together with as little manipulation as possible. Only continue to add liquid as necessary until dough forms, and dry crumbs are still seen on the bottom of the bowl.
7. Separate into two balls (one slightly larger than the other to roll the pie top and bottom). Flatten slightly
8. Wrap in saran wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Filling:
1. Peel half of your apples (optional. I only peeled half because I wanted some texture and held shape, but not on all of them)
2. Cut into wedges and toss into large bowl with lemon juice, as to keep them from browning.
3. Pour sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch into apples and mix thoroughly.

Assembly:
1. Take out bottom (smaller) pie dough ball, and place on floured surface (to prevent sticking)
2. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough to fit your pie pan (if the edges are rough, don't worry too much). Frequently lift your dough slightly and turn 45degrees to roll out a circular shape and to keep the dough from sticking.
3 . Fit into pan (if this has taken a long amount of time, you may want to refrigerate again until hard).

4. Sprinkle graham crackers on bottom (another option would be to throw on a egg wash consisting of lightly beaten egg whites)
5. Fill with apple mixture
6. Take out other ball of dough from fridge and roll out to fit over the top of the pie
7. Slice of excess crust and crimp down edges (my crimping was by all means a complete failure. But thats alright)
8. Brush down top with egg wash.
9. Bake for 45minutes or until top crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling.

Essential: Serve with icecream. Do ett.

Ramies Greek Restaurant

2010-07-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

Surprise surprise, my brother wanted to treat us spontaneously to a dinner. He had been here previously, and wanted us to give it a try. Ramies Greek Restaurant, near metrotown.
The menu appeared pretty standard for a Greek restaurant, although they did have a section of bbq's that you could order. It personally sounded a little strange to me, and I really did want to try some just to see how they came out, but opted for the Combo Platter - Chicken souvlakia, prawns, scallops, keftedes, dolmathes, calamari, served with greek salad, rice pilaf, roast potatoes, tzatziki and pita. ($43.95). Variety and quantity, yum. And hopefully quality as well.

The pita came first. Served fresh, the pita looked quite pretty. Unfortunately, I prefer my pita's more crisp, and while this pita had a lightly crisped topped, the inner was extremely fluffy. I give them credit for getting that kind of texture, and I'm sure some would love this type of texture, but just not for me. I would have also really liked for the tzatziki sauce to come along with the pita (because I enjoy using it as a dip with the pita), but no harm done at all.

Greek salad was next. A plentiful amount of feta cheese, nice fresh pieces of cucumber, tomatoes and green onions, olives, not overwhelmed by olive oil. Simple, refreshing, very nice.

Aand, the tzatziki, sauce, which was definitely not devoid of flavour. Tzatziki has got to be one of my favourite types of dips.

Not too soon after, the main aspect of our Combo Platter arrived, and yes, this was a big plate!
I was very impressed by the platter. I rarely opt for chicken when visiting Greek restaurants, just because the preparation usually ends up causing the chicken to be dry. However, the souvlakia was tender, albeit not the most flavourful. Not bad, not bad at all.
Not seen in this pictures (and my apologies that I took it so poorly), are the keftedes' (greek meatballs) on the other side of the plate. Which is too bad because I really enjoyed them. Essentially a mini beef patty, they had a nice crust developed on the outside of the meat, and very moist within.
The calamari was also done very well, with a thin crispy batter encasing fresh wonderfully done squid. No rubbery texture detected in the slightest.

I was very surprised by the scallop+prawn combination. Don't they look cute? While I felt that the shrimp tasted a tad overdone, I still enjoyed it.

Finally, the dolmathes, which were filled with ground beef and rice. Subtle in flavour, and enjoyable to eat.

The platter is quite a large serving, and they choose to serve the carbs on the side. Unfortunately, all of the above were rather lacking in flavour. Really too bad, but at least I didn't detect any mushier textures.

We paid an extra $1 for more tzatziki, there just wasn't enough for the amount we use. Possibly average pricing, bordering on a little bit more than average, but service was polite and we were well attended for, despite the fact that there were two other large parties in the restaurant. Solid food and clean ambiance, I like this place.

Recipe: Strawberry Walnut Loaf

2010-07-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last recipe post. To be honest I've been a little reluctant to post them, just because taking pictures of all the steps slows down everything, and I'm always afraid I'll be dropping the camera into the batter. However, I do like taking pictures of the end products, which is why I'm posting up this Strawberry walnut loaf.

This loaf is more like cake honestly, but I'm not complaining. Make sure to go heavy on the strawberries and walnuts. I personally believe you can't have too much in this recipe.

I also noticed in the end product that I was looking for more strawberry flavour. I think I read someone suggesting to blend in the same amount of strawberry juice/pulp into the batter. Try it if you'd like to take a look at this recipe?

[Original recipe from Joy of Baking. No I do not come up with these things. I'm not that talented;]

Strawberry Walnut Loaf:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter
3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (120 ml) sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 cup (55 grams) toasted walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped (I doubled this)
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh strawberries (Perhaps add strawberry juice/pulp for added strawberry flavour)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place the oven rack in the middle position.

2. Butter and flour the bottom and sides of an 8-cup loaf pan (9 x 5 x 3 inch) (23 x 13 x 8 cm).

3. Toast walnuts (approx 8 minutes), and chop

4. Beat butter until softened, add sugar and beat until light and fluffy

5. Add eggs one at a time, beating them in after each addition.

6. Add vanilla extract

7. In a separate bowl, sift and mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon

8. Gradually add the flour mixture into the batter (in three additions is recommended), alternating between the flour mixture and the sour cream/plain yogurt.

9. Fold in strawberries and walnuts

10. Bake for approx. and hour, or until top is golden brown and a toothpick can be pushed into the centre of the loaf, and come out clean.

God I wish my kitchen had better lighting.
I suggest cutting the bread thick, as it's texture makes it more difficult to cut without making a mess.
Enjoy!

La Taqueria Taco Shop

2010-07-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

Guess who finally took a little trip down to La Taqueria Taco Shop? That's right~
Okay. Not quite. While I did come down here, it was my friend who was picking up something to eat. 3:30pm, Had my lunch, not ready to eat anything else. So, didn't really eat here. Which is a shame because I really. really wanted to try.

And look at all the optionsss.

Really liked the set up, casual. Add as much sauce as you please. Anyways, because I only had a bite of one of the tacos (and it was absolutely great), I can't really make any comments, but I can say that the tacos my friend ordered were...:

(Starting bottom left, clockwise) Asada (grilled aaa flank steak), Pollo Con Mole (maple hills chicken with chocolate mole sauce), Beef Fajita (grilled canadian beef with onion and peppers), and al pastor (pork marinated in achiote chile and pineapple). Anyways, I was informed they were delicious. But I don't really know myself. So instead I'll just shut my mouth and you can all stare at (hopefully) delicious pictures. Enjoy!

Ah. And this one, which was the the Pescado (grilled seasonal fish with pico de gallo). Tuna (?). He ordered this after the initial plate.

DB Bistro

2010-07-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

I know. Haven't posted in. Well. Forever. I have no excuse. I've been back for a while. This has been on the backburner for a least a week, so I guess I should finally post it up. A friend of mine wanted to treat me to a welcome back dinner, how could I refuse? DB Bistro, after passing it so many times in transit, visiting both Mistral and Thomas Haas (to the restaurants right and left), and walking past it multiple times, I was finally going to pay it a visit.

They still have their three course meals going on, I really wanted to give it a go, and it seems like a great deal, but we had some other plans already in mind. They also have daily specials, which also ended up being a deciding factor in ordering individually.

A few different types of bread. Not much to speak on, except that I did fancy the garlic loaf (not seen in picture)

They started us off with an amuse-bouche, nothing overly complicated. Salmon, cucumber, and I believe chives... (??), nice, refreshing, and a great way to start off.

This was the daily special that the waiter let us know about. Deboned quail served upon a heirloom tomato salad. personally, I didn't enjoy the texture of the quail skin, which was cooked to rather rubbery.. But the tomato's tasted wonderful with all the other elements combined.

-This- however, is what we came here for. The Top Sirloin Burger Filled with Braised Short Ribs, Black Truffle Served on a Toasted Parmesan Bun, Pommes Frites ($28) [yes I copied that off the website...]. Because it is still spot prawn season, we got a spot prawn to try out as well, and split the burger for both of us.

Wow, I really enjoyed this. The patty was moist, the parmesan bun complimented the ingredients, and while it was messy, I found a way to eat it quite comfortably with my hands, haha;

No I do not have an expansive encyclopedia knowledge of food, and so I can't say that the black truffle was a star in this burger, mostly because I wouldn't have known if it was there or not. I will however say that I felt there was something that gave the burger a lot more punch, much like spices would.
My friend however, who knows what a black truffle truly tastes like, said that it was evident in the burger.

I'm almost sure we were given twice the amount of fries because we notified them that we were going to share the burger (therefore they served two individual dishes with half a burger on each plate).... if you're ever looking for more fries ; D

spot prawn didn't wow me, but after the dredged oil logged food I've been eating, I still enjoyed it muchly.

Condiments to go along with the burger.. horseradish aoili, mustard..(?), ketchup. We loved the aioli, used it all up.

And despite the fact that we were completely stuffed, we needed a dessert~

Pick Me Up Sundae Chocolate Cremeux, Bailey's Ice Cream, Biscotti, Mocha Foam ($10).

I'm not a huge fan of mousse/pudding/cremeux textures generally. I guess this wasn't really an exception, but along with the biscotti cookie and icecream, I couldn't say no to this. With just the slight hint of coffee, and chocolaty goodness, I did like. Presentation was wonderful as well.

Our other dessert didn't work as well for me. My fault, I'm always rooting for the apple dessert, but I found this to be a bit bland, uninteresting, complete with a slightly soggy crust...

All in all, a enjoyable night. Our server kept us informed and taken care of (although am I the only one who is not a fan of being overly upsold..?)

Bite-sized China Update: Icecream Bars. Everywur.

2010-06-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

So I was considering typing something of interest within this post.
And then I realized, none of these icecream bars exist here.
So instead, here you go. Stare at pictures of strange icecream treats. I know I enjoyed them +5. I'll type a comment or two.

The centre is cookie/crunchy textured. Favourite.

Berry, syrup centre. Not as good. It was the marketing, I tell you.

See? All along the subway stations.

Continuing to try treats based on weak marketing ploys..

Read bean icecream treat. Would have been very good if the bread was not as soggy.

Always trust cookies and cream to make a great sweet treat.

And coffee.

But not so much cheese, mind you.

Bite-Sized China Update: Peking Duck

2010-06-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

So initially when I was heading into Beijing, the thought of Peking Duck did not even cross my mind. Really; what was I thinking. Coming to Beijing and not having duck?
Luckily, classmates did remember, and organized a classier dinner for all of us at Da Dong. Apparently a very well renown restaurant to eat this particular dish at.
(Translated: Big Dong. I will say no more. Please laugh, snicker, roll eyes, or scowl accordingly.)

I've noticed a lot of the more expensive restaurants around here are ridiculously large. I've rarely seen them even half full. I feel that it's quite a waste, but perhaps for the prestige. Who knows. Or it was a slow night, what do I know.

The place was gorgeous, and full of businessmen and suits. Our large, multicultural student group in t-shirts and summer clothing stood out like sore thumbs I'm thinking.

In fact, it's so "high-class" that they charge you for the duck condiments. 8yuan each. And it's mandatory if you order the duck. And each individual needs to order one.
Say wut.

At any rate, I can't tell you what all of the condiments were, but there was green onion, hoisin, sugar, ground garlic and cucumber.

Shortly after ordering, they come out to present us with the whole roast duck before proceeding to cut it into shareable pieces.

And yes, it was absolutely wonderful. Crispy skin, and I know some people enjoy very fatty duck, but I prefer mine lean, so this was perfect. There wasn't much in the way of seasoning, and I'm not sure if it's even supposed to be prepared that way, but with the condiments, I enjoyed it.

The wraps were very well done. Moist and fresh, they came apart easily, not like the older ones that may stick together, and are ultimately not as tasty.

They also served another type of 'vessel' to hold the duck in. This was airy, light and crispy. The sesame seeds made it very interesting, although I think I would still prefer the traditional wrap.

Wrap prepping....

Wrap biting!

And the optional other puff vessel... Although I really did enjoy the textural contrast from the wrap, this was mainly the reason why I did not enjoy it as much. It was harder to disperse the ingredients throughout the puff...
Okay. Maybe my inadequate ability, but if that's the case, I'll just stick the wraps. : P

We also ordered a number of smaller dishes including chicken with almonds (sweet and great to use with the wraps once we ran out of duck)..

Dragon bean! This would be the first time I've ever seen this type of vegetable. It had a texture similar to a bell pepper, save for the outer skin which was less elastic in bite than a bell pepper. Mild flavour and very interesting to eat.

Braised tofu and broccoli. I was overjoyed to see broccoli. It's as if it doesn't exist here. Unfortunately it was rather plain. The tofu however was served with xo sauce (holding a good amount of scallop), and was plated in such a way that it was fun to eat... Fun to eat. Heh. Such a kid : )

They finished us off with complimentary lychee, which was plated beautifully, and tasted sweet and fresh. The fog you see under the dish rose up onto the table as we went for the fruits.

And a complimentary strawberry sherbet as well. Although nothing special, and maybe a little overly artificially sweet, it was appreciated and devoured.

There were eleven of us in total, and none of us were full. Bill in Canadian would be about $126. So $12 each. Although this would be considered a good deal back home, this was completely overpriced here. You definitely pay for the ambiance. Quality-wise, there was no slip, but at the same time, I could find an equally (if not better) good duck at another restaurant. Case and point, restaurant number 2:

My second trip for kaoya was at a restaurant very near to the school, eaten with my language tutor partner.

Was started off with glutinous rice filled sweet lotus root. Definitely.. Interesting; Do you see the coloured sprinkles on top? This was not my cup of tea. The syrup wasn't overly sweet, but there was something about it that clashed with the lotus root. And other than a water down sickly sweetness, there wasn't much to this dish. Interesting though.

This however, I liked very much. Egg yolk battered, fried pumpkin. This was both a sweet, salty, crispy and soft treat, all at the same time. Think yam fries.. But better. And with a softer centre, and more dimensions of flavour. I truly wish you could all try this. I have not seen this back home in Vancouver. I mourn. Hah.hah....eh;

Finally, the main course, peking duck. They gave us two plates of this for 68rmb. Compare that to the 198rmb from the previous restaurant, and this one is a steal. In fact, I'm thinking from anywhere, this would be a steal. And did I mention it was wonderful? I actually believe this one was of better quality than the more expensive restaurant. More tender, crispier skin...

And although the wrap quality itself wasn't a fresh or moist as the wrap from the more expensive restaurant, I am by no means complaining.

If you haven't tried Kaoya/Peking Duck back in Vancouver, I urge you to give it a try. Not only is it a fun get-together, it's also delicious.

As a side-note, these two restaurants both served delicious duck, however, I believe I could get very similar in Vancouver. If memory serves me correctly, I've had just as good duck back home at some point in my life..
But do not quote me on this; Perhaps I'll try some more duck when I get back to Vancouver.

Yus. Felt guilty about not touching my blog for so long. I hope this makes up for a little bit!

Bite-Sized China Update: Malls you wish existed in Vancouver

2010-05-29T19:10:00.000-07:00

There's a district named Xidan a few subway stops away from the school we are at in Beijing that features a whole street-length full of malls. You could spend days and not be able to get through all these malls. Me and a friend decided we'd take a day to thoroughly waste our time through one.

Why does the topic of malls come up here? Because four of the floors of this mall were dedicated solely towards food. That's right. Four full floors.

Their directory solely for the food floors. Look at it. Just look at it.
omnomnom...

This bakery seems to be all over the place, and I adore it very much. Very cute.

I would take more pictures, but I was stopped by the shopkeepers. Too bad, some pretty stuff. Although I'm pretty sure not too different from back home.

This place however, you'd have trouble finding in Vancouver. If you've ever been to a Taiwanese Cafe/something of the sort, you've probably seen the thick slices of dessert toast. This was exactly that. Made to order and with much variety (Peanut butter... chocolate... plain.. there was definitely more but I've forgotten..)

We ended up with the thick chocolate toast. As much as I like the idea, the thick cuts of toast didn't really appeal to me. While I was expecting a dessert level of sweet toasty bread, and a crisp outer texture and pillowy inner, what I got was. well. A plain heavy thick cut piece of toast with watery chocolate flavouring. And it wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd order it again.
Or I'd get peanut butter.
Are the ones back home like this as well?

Fun to eat though.

Another little dessert we can get back in Vancouver. In truth, I've never tried/ordered shaved ice before (gasp, I know.) But I do have seen and have been told what they taste like back home.

So that being said, this strawberry shaved ice was absolutely amazing. Sure, it's not much to look at, without toppings or anything else that might put it over the top, but in it's simplicity you've got something akin to a pillow of layered airy ice-cream. The layers are so thin they're almost translucent, and despite how big it looked, the two of us easily devoured this.

Apologies for the terrible photo, but this place sold jacket potatoes. And as with most asian flavours, there were some fairly interesting combinations... curry, "vegetarian"... I wish I were allowed to take a picture of the menu.

And so this is the one we ordered. A nice hot, fresh baked potato stuffed with a tuna, carrot and corn mix. It surprised me that the mix was cold, but its coolness and the sweetness contrasted well with the hot potato. Also devoured (and although not exclusive to Beijing, it was great)

And finally, this was from one of the restaurants within the mall. Most have the menus featured outside, so we took a look. "Stir-fried wikipedia with pimientos". It was too much, I needed to try to get a photo. Got heck for it, and a very rude server tried to shoo us away, but I present this photo, just for you..;

Anyways, I know there wasn't much eaten on this occasion, but I just wanted to post about the sheer amount of variety of food and amount in this mall. Ridiculous. Loved it. A few more spontaneous photos taken while no one was looking. : )

Bite-Sized China Update: Dorm Side Go-To's

2010-05-26T03:33:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to the anon who left the comment about updating. I send you my love, chocolates, and maybe some flowers (if the postage is reasonable). I said I wouldn't be doing much updating during my time here, because I wanted to maximize my time on exploring Beijing, but at the moment we're somewhere between passed out from walking the Forbidden Palace all day, and prepping for Peking Duck tonight. Thus, here I am. : )

Just a small post on my go to's late at night when we don't want to step into a restaurant. These stalls are just outside my dorm room (the gate in the picture above), and make me ten types of happy.

Say hello to the 1kuai skewer stop. I have not been able to find a cheaper decent skewer anywhere else so far. For those that need a conversion, 6.5kuai = $1. Thus. a skewer here is about 15cents Canadian. The lady running the stall here was the first shopkeeper I attempted broken Chinese with, she holds a special place in my heart along with anon ; D.

You pick your skewers, give it to the person on the grill, they douse it in oil (oil and refined carbs. I think this is what China lives off of), cook it, slather it in some wonderful spicy sauce and seasoning, and then you devour them. Yus.

Top left hand corner to right bottom left: chives, breaded chicken and pork skin, spicy rice cake, mantou, rice cake, mushroom, cilantro wrapped in fried bean curd (not shown is enoki mushroom wrapped bean curd), squid (tentacles and body), chicken, pork, chicken wings, eggplant, green peppers.

My apologies for not taking a picture of the finished skewers myself, this picture is courtesy of my roommate, who is showing off the chicken, squid, eggplant, and enoki wrapped bean curd skewers. 15 CENTS. 60 CENTS TOTAL. FOR A LIGHT DINNER (okay. This highly varies for some people, but you can go and pick yourself up 50cent burger if you really want as well.)

As for how they taste, fresh and amazing. I can't comment on the sanitation (questionable at best), but as long as you ignore that, the sauce + the way they grill these up just can't be beat.

I'm sure most of you foodies are familiar with this sight already. Unappetizing stick of meat. But you can't deny that whenever they use this, it usually comes out tasting good. So what are they doing with the pork here?

Making asianized burgers for 3.50 kuai (54cents Canadian). A perfectly steamed, soft white bun reminiscent of the bun of a steamed cha siu bao, these have become my favourite quick lunch before heading off again and devouring more goodies.

It is filled with pork, lettuce and onions. They ask if you want a sweet sauce, soy sauce, and a spicy sesame sauce. Made quick and to order, the guys that work this station (beside the skewer shop), look like jerk-offs, but they have my affection as well anyways.

The bun is light and soft, the pork has that outer seared crust effect, but is tender in taste, and the sauce and bun in combination makes this better than any cha siu bao I have ever tasted. Not that this can be labeled a cha siu bao, but you get the idea.

My apologies for the less than amazing photo, but it's hard juggling so many things at the same time. If I get a better photo I'll do an edit.

Finally, because I've been having trouble finding something not doused in oil, or served with 90% white bread/carb/thing, carved pineapple, which is wonderfully popular here. I can't remember the price for this, but you can buy 1/4 of one on a skewer for 1-1.5kuai. It's great, refreshing, and with the coming heat, absolutely amazing.
And cute. Did I mention cute?
I called the pineapple cute, yes.

So my favourite 30second-walk food stalls : ) I'm hesitant to be putting out all the pictures I've been taking, because as we've been going along the trip, a friend of mine has been egging me on the time I take on these food photos.
I throw a quip in his face.

But I have been trying to take many pictures! From mall snacks, to more street vendors, to scorpions, expensive looking $7 dinners, dumplings 16 ways, and more! (allthisandmorecanbeyoursforsixpaymentsof$9.95..)

But really, I hope you'll find this post enjoyable. Another say. 3.5 weeks, and I'm back to rehashing restaurants in Vancouver. So. Does anyone have any requests while I'm here? Anything to yell at me for? Should I keep running my mouth?

Anyways, once again. Thank you to that individual out there for showing some love.

La Grotta Del Formaggio + Dolce Amore + Chinese food in China

2010-05-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

Okay fine. I didn't get to update the last place I went to the day before I left for China, and since it's finally the weekend and I have some time in the morning, I guess I'll write a little something something. La Grotta Del Formaggio, meeting up with Kevin from 604Foodtography to make up for flaking out on him when I got sick;

Really, we were supposed to be going out to grab some pupusas, but both being rather uninformed (I don't think anyone reads information anymore ._. Just a theory), we didn't realize that it was open only in the afternoon. Alright. That's fine. Lets grab a sandwich. The sandwich shop also sells a multitude of specialty cheese and imported European snacks.

It's a make you own sandwich set-up, with good prices. : )

With many fresh and quality preserved veggie ingredients.

preparing....

Sandwich! Consisting of Montreal style smoked meat, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and all the preserved veggies. Neither of us were extremely hungry, and we wanted to try other this and thats as well, so we ended up splitting a half focaccia (if you're reading, pronounce this for me, right now. Go on. Try it. Because both of us got it wrong when ordering. Ah. The educated.... : 3)
I wish they had more places to sit outside. Unfortunately, all the spots were taken, and a bum was occupying the only nearby bench. Thus, we walked over to TimmyHo's, I grabbed my obligatory coffee (off topic: I have not grabbed one coffee over here in China. Be proud of me.), and we sat down to eat our sandwich.

I wish we had eaten it straight off the grill. Because of the wait time, it was a little softer/damper. Not the eateries fault. I know it's been said that this place makes the most amazing sandwiches, and I really wish my personal tastes could agree. But really.. I thought the preserved veggies and smoked meat in combination were too salty for my tastes. I really much preferred the sandwich I bought from Mario's, which now that I think about it, was really quite good....
However, this wasn't bad by any means, and I hope you don't read it that way. It just wasn't to my personal tastes ._.

Of course, mandatory dessert (look up: being female). I got the hazelnut gelato...

And Kevin went for "Lime-etta".

Hazelnut beats out lime any day ; D.
My apologies, I don't remember the gelato shop we stopped at, but I did enjoy it.
You can be assured though that it wasn't the gelato shop beside La Grotta though, as they denied us any seating, although we had stated we'd buy icecream after, and there were many free spots outside. Take that!
..ahah..hah; hah.

This is what I sound like when I write at 6am in the morning.
Naw. But I really shouldn't hold that against them. I understand why;;

Anyways, it was a very nice way to say goodbye to Vancouver, and thank you to Kevin for bringing me out : )

edit: My bad. Kevin very kindly found out that the gelato shop we visited is called "Dolce Amore". Very nice tasting gelato.

La Grotta Del Formaggio:

Food:
If you're a fan of heavily salted preserved vegetables, you will love this sandwich.
Decent bread
Lots of variety in what you can create
Service:
The woman at the station was very patient with us, despite our indecision
Atmosphere:
n/a?
Great lunch spot on a sunny day.. if you can find a spot to sit.

Also: Special bonus picture that I don't wish to make an extra post for, because it's really not a very good picture. This is Beijing Jiaotong University Canteen food. : ) I know the picture doesn't do any justice, but this meal is huge. Huge. See where all the strange fried looking meat is? Among them is a rather large egg. So think of an egg, and then think of the scale. All this was 8rmb. In Canadian that's $1.23. Okay, so it's about the equivalent in tastes with something from maybe a food court chinese place, but I'm not complaining. : )

Also, a fancy large dinner at a restaurant equivalent to say... Sun Sui Wah, but with hardcore service is $6.38 Canadian.

Food is cheap here to say the least, and you all should be jealous. ; D

I could upload more China food if you guys would like? : ) Maybe some street food?

La Brasserie

2010-05-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

So. Funny story. We're heading over to a restaurant to sample their DOV menu, along West 16th via transit for sort of an early Mothers Day celebration (Because none of us will be in the same country come Sunday), when my mom (the whole reason we're going out to eat in the first place... although I personally don't need much of an excuse to go out to eat) gets caught up in some bank business and we have to cancel the whole reservation because there was a time limit on it, and there was no way we'd make it there with enough time.

So the bus heads all the way to UBC. We twiddle our thumbs annoyed and waiting. Decide to head over downtown to where she is. She's still not finished. Oi. Great planning.

Anyways, tl;dr: poor planning and scheduling lands us downtown, and we decide to visit La Brasserie.

It's a fairly small eatery, and that's just how I like it. Not overly fancy but classy at the same time.

Likewise, the menu is precise, and they feature specials every day of the week. The day we went, the special was calf's liver.. I really wish we had ordered it. Alas; there were other entrees we wanted to sample.

After ordering, the complimentary bread was set down. Crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, served with both butter and a chicken and pork rilette. The rilette had the texture somewhere between pate and canned tuna (I by no means say that negatively.. I'm just trying to describe the texture), and it was surprisingly light. We ate every bit of that. Much enjoyed.

Next was our onion tart ($9) appetizer. While I may have preferred it to be served hotter, that is my only complaint, because this was good. Flaky and buttery pastry crust supporting thick pieces of pork distributed throughout a plentiful amount of onions, topped with very cool and refreshing creme fraiche. Paired with a endive salad lightly tossed with olive oil? Mmm.

For entrees, my mom had the "Mussels and Frites" in a saffron broth, substituting the frites with steamed veggies ($18 + $2 for the veggies). I'm learning to appreciate seafood a lot more than I did when I was younger, and these mussels tasted nice.

Unfortunately, I can't really give accurate comparisons, so don't quote me on this, but I think they were on the small side. My sister, who is a seafood fanatic, agrees that these were quite small (but again I'd rather you judge yourself...)

However, they were plump, and with the complementing saffron sauce, turned our well enough.

One thing I want to note though, is that when they do vegetables, they do them great. As an avid veggies person, I thought these were done pretty much perfectly. Parsnips, brussel sprouts, mushrooms (okay. not a vegetable. But no one told the the side vegetables order that.), carrots, and fiddleheads (fiddleheads! I've never had fiddleheads. Yum. Fiddleheads). Thoroughly cooked, yet still holding that crisp bite characteristic of all vegetables. They look simple, and yea, they are. But I don't like dolled up vegetables anyways (slathering marshmallow fluff on yams, which are naturally sweet already? No thanks..), the natural sweetness of vegetables was highlighted, and that was more than perfect enough for me.

Even my family, who aren't a fan of brussel sprouts, thought they were done well here.
And since I'm the only one in my family who likes brussel sprouts, I had a ball "telling them so".
BRUSSEL SPROUTS CAN TASTE GOOD TOO. TELL YOUR KIDS.

Okay. Enough about the vegetables. My brother had the "Free Run Rotisserie Chicken" pommes frites, caramelized garlic jus ($21). It's a good sized portion, served with a side of red cabbage. It was done well; had nice crispy skin, contrasted by the sweet red cabbage, and surprisingly wasn't overwhelmed by the garlic jus (which added just enough hint of garlic to make it evident, despite all the cloves you see).
But, I can't help but feel that even with all the checkmarks, I could get a whole rotisserie chicken at. say Superstore. For $13~, and it'd taste better....
I know. Call me horribly unrefined. Alright. But At least I think it's true... ;___; And if you've ever had a rotisserie chicken from Superstore (Safeway.. Save On.. name a grocery store), you'll know those chickens are actually fairly good.

This is why I don't usually order chicken at restaurants ._.

I forgot to snap a picture of the fries before we had at them, so no this isn't the full portion, and it's a terrible picture, but just letting you all know it was here too. Nice and crispy. Maybe too much salt for my liking, but nice and crispy none the less.

The whole reason we (okay not we, more like "I") chose La Brasserie after we canceled at the other restaurant, was because I came here before for their Arctic Char. It was both my first time there, and my first time trying Arctic Char. Instant love. The one I had the first time had seared until crispy skin on one side, and just buttery wonderful throughout.

This time, my sister ordered the dish. There was no skin on the fillet (edit. Because as I have been sold, they have been serving halibut now), and it wasn't as moist as the first time I tried the dish (edit. not arctic char this time..0, but was still seared excellently. Firm in texture, but still delicate in taste.

I also enjoyed the cauliflower puree that was paired with the fish. I won't rave on anymore, as you've heard me speak enough about veggies, but you can be assured that I liked this as well.

And finally, my dish, "Braised Lamb Cheeks -- celery root puree, caramelized begetables, rosemary jus" ($20), topped with parsnip chips. Definitely the winner of the night. I think I might have believed the first bite to be a little salty, but perhaps I just got too much sauce, without anything to balance it out.

The lamb was so tender, I didn't require a knife for the dish. The parsnip chips and celery root puree were a more neutral taste which balanced out the saltiness of the jus nicely, yet provided interesting textural contrast.

And the vegetables.. Well. You've heard me say enough on those. : )

We finished off the night with a chocolate torte ($8), topped with vanilla bean cream(?) and a coffee sauce ... but I really wish we hadn't. The tart itself was on the dry side, and unlike the fresh flaky crust of the onion tart, the crust on the chocolate torte was not great. The texture and taste of the chocolate torte reminded me of a dry "two-bite brownie" that you can buy in grocery stores. And by all means, those two-bite brownies are good... and when you got a bite of the vanilla cream (which was nicely cooled and lightly sweetened), and the coffee sauce (on the side) along with the tart, it became more enjoyable, but I guess I was expecting more from the dessert.

I won't say it was bad, but I just wish it highlighted how much I enjoyed the night.

A little pricey for the portion size (When my family finishes everything, you know that the portion size is normal-- not American sized.. : P I joke..), but ultimately a very enjoyable dinner.

Our waiter (manager?) was also a treat to talk we liked him quite a bit. However, I'm pretty sure we were supposed to be taken care of by another waitress (female name on the bill), and our water glasses ran a bit low into the night.. Not a huge deal though, as the restaurant is small enough to flag someone down if you really need something.

A nice place to drink and chat and grab some good food, another like on my list : )

La Brasserie:

Food:
Veggies are amazing
Skillfully prepared
A little pricey for the portion (save for the chicken..)
Atmosphere:
Small, yet classy
Service:
Our server was wonderful (or at least the server that came to us most frequently..)

Marble Slab Creamery [Coquitlam]

2010-05-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

I very suddenly came down with a very bad cold/sore throat early this week, which completely killed my appetite. Between sleeping for hours on end I've been zapping up canned soup. :3 So unfortunately, I don't really have a big post for any of you, I'm sorry..
However! The day before the cold hit full on, I did meet my friend who came back from Toronto at the Marble Slab Creamery. Haha, like a kid in a candy store, he was so excited;

Although its a small tucked away place, I liked the atmosphere. Upbeat. Cute. You can either go for a premix that they name beforehand, or mix your own. You pick your icecream,

Pick your topping...

And you cone.. (These were up for display purposes only. They've got fresh ones.. Actually, even though it wasn't busy with only another two people in the shop, they were making a fresh batch)

And they mix it up for you~
The "marble slab" I guess differentiates this icecream shop from others around here (but I know a lot of icecream shops are doing this now.. and other than being able to mix the topping on a cold surface, this really just seems gimmicky to me..)

My friend had ordered the Almond Joy.

And this is the final product.
It was good, crispy cone, nice amount of coconut throughout, and quite a large portion for one scoop. Yea, it's a good place to stop for icecream, no doubt. I stuck to some tea, as I really wasn't feeling well enough for anything really.. but had a few bites of this and it was good.

As for the "freshest icecream" business.. The icecream tasted great, as icecream should, yes. But the difference wasn't huge for me.. I don't know, should it be? And should it warrant a higher price-tag?

Head.. starting to pound. Going to stop now.. oi. But tell me your favourite mixings! I want to come back to actually get myself a cone some time. : )

Marble Slab Creamery:

Food:
good ice-cream
A little pricey
does anyone else feel that this concept is a little bit gimmicky?
Service:
The guy behind the counter was great, exchanged a little small talk, funny guy.
Was patient with our indecision (I can imagine how frustrating it can be, especially when busy. Customers debating with themselves and their companions and speaking with the mixer at the same time, not sure if who they're talking to or when they've decided..)
Atmosphere:
Cute (thanks for the franchise decor)
They've got a few tables for sit-in as well

Mistral French Bistro [Dine Out Vancouver]

2010-05-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

After trying the $18 DOV Hidden menu, I wanted to give a $28 DOV menu a try. And since my friend was craving French Food, we settled on Mistral French Bistro. Truth be told, I've never been to a purely French restaurant in Vancouver before. This would be a first. But I truly fell in love with this place the moment I set my eyes on it. It's really quite beautiful. Put me in a great mood.

We arrived a bit earlier than other diners, and it was a lot quieter initially than I thought it would be, probably due to hockey. I had actually read that the game started at 9pm, which is why I reserved the time I did, only to realize that I had read the eastern time.. Bwah! No hockey for us. Hopefully the food would make up for it.

Since there were three of us, we had a chance to try every part of the DOV menu, great! They started us off with some warm crusty bread and whipped light butter.

Then it was the "Marinated and slightly seared salmon, beet salad with green onions", our first appetizer.

I love when salmon is prepared seared/rare/tataki style. All too often, when salmon is cooked to well done, it'll just flake apart and die. This salmon was just warmed through, lightly seared, and wasn't texturally unappetizing in any way. Really a quality cut of salmon.

Since they advertised green onions as part of the elements of this dish, I was expecting a little more of them, but no worries.

And there was just enough cream sauce to cover the beets (which were cooked until softened, but still had a little bite), which I thought paired well with the salmon both taste wise and texturally.

The capers did wonders as well in bringing everything together.

The second appetizer was the "Warm Goat Cheese salad on crouton, mixed organic greens and prosciutto". I apologize for the terrible picture, the greens almost completely hide the two enormous rounds of goat cheese. And yea, these were two truly large portions. I was expecting it crumpled, but instead they came on two very crunchy croutons, topped with kalamata olive puree.

While this was our least favourite of the three dishes, I still thought the quality of the ingredients were very good. The prosciutto had a wonderful marbling, was slightly moist, and not over-salted by the prosciutto process.

While both my eating companions hate goat cheese and think it tastes like plasticine, they had to admit that, put together with the rest of the dish (as it should be!), it was alright. Because I loved goat cheese, I loved it.

And the greens were just lightly tossed in olive oil, not drenched in sauce. Major plus.

The "Organic Green pea soup, fresh mint foam" was our favourite of the three appetizers. A thick soup, yet not heavy, with a airy mint cream foam that just paired so nicely with the soup. Usually, I don't think much of soups at restaurants because it seems like you can get soup easily (and have it taste good) from a can. This however, would be worth paying for.

On top of that, we couldn't even finish half of this. Don't let the picture fool you, there was quite a bit of soup.

Moving on to mains now, this was the "Coq au vin – red wine Chicken stew with fresh Fettuccini pasta", served with carrots, pearl onions, squash and mushrooms. Wow. The first thing I noticed upon taking a bite of this dish was the red wine. It's definitely there. Not any of that cop out "we'll tack this name on it and you won't taste it at all" business. It's pretty strong. Excellent. My friend made a joke on how the wine "swaddles" the underside of your tongue with it's after taste... as a good thing. Although how he came to that description, I have no idea... haha;

The chicken was tender and moist (even the breast pieces!), and was well executed. And while the fettuccini was only average, the red wine and the chicken made this a good dish. While my terribly underaged palette has yet to truly appreciate wine, if you like wine, you'll like this.

"Fresh Ling Cod with Ratatouille, capers and olives, potato crisps". While the main part of this dish, the ling cod, was only average as the texture was not as buttery as it could have been, I thought both the ratatouille and the potato crisps made this dish wonderful. The slight acidity of the ratatouille paired well with the cod, and the potato crisps were impossibly thin and crispy. I don't even like potato chips, and these were great.

I don't think any of us that night had a favourite main, but if we had to choose, it'd be a tie between the cod, and this, the "Grilled AAA Alberta New York steak, creamy green peppercorn sauce, house fries".

The fries were thick cut, fluffy potato goodness. They could have done better with a little more crisping, but now I'm just being picky. I liked them. Especially dipped in the peppercorn sauce. It really reminded me of poutine, especially because the peppercorn sauce was as salty as it was.. Just add cheese curds, and bam.

The steak itself was thin, so it was not as rare as I would have preferred, but they still did a good job.

And~ For the desserts. "Mistral Mousse au Chocolat". Wow, this was a fairly hefty mousse. Personally, I've never really enjoyed mousse, and I prefer lighter desserts, so this was definitely was not to my tastes. That being said, I still ate a large amount of it, just because it was that good.

"Fresh strawberries and pineapple in sirop, lemon sorbet". While I liked this, there was nothing impressive with this dessert. The lemon sorbet was far too frozen to actually scoop, and I didn't feel the sirop added anything to the fruit.
But. I like fruit. : ) So I liked this. A lot.

Finally, the "Warm Belgian Waffle, vanilla ice cream, dark chocolate sauce", definitely the winner of the night. : ) While the belgian waffle was on the chewier side (many prefer crispier), I didn't mind this at all. They also added pearl sugar to this dessert, which gave it an added textural element. Topped with the almond slivers, I adored this.

Not a bad price, not a bad price at all.

Especially considering all that we had to take home!

The service was attentive throughout the whole evening, despite the fact that the restaurant was packed half-way through our meal. They constantly replaced cutlery so that we would have fresh silverware, and because we indicated that we would all be sharing the dishes, they kept our plates fresh as well.

And they put up with us wanting to pack up everything throughout the night. : P

Thumbs up. I like this place. : ) Will be back!

Mistral French Bistro:

Food:
I thought the DOV menu was amazing (beats out Hidden. For sure.. Then again, it should, as it is the $28 menu)
quality ingredients
While small parts may have been just a tad lacking, dishes as a whole were stellar.
Atmosphere:
The atmosphere alone makes me want to come back here for coffee and a lunch.
Clean lines, natural lighting, a little bit tight on space, but I personally don't mind.
Service:
Amazingly attentive
Packed dishes away all through the meal (as we didn't want to become overly full off appetizers and mains alone).

Tim Hortons [Coquitlam, on Barnet]

2010-05-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

I was running errands, it was about 3 in the afternoon, I hadn't had lunch, and I was in dire need of a coffee. Solution? A quick stop at Tim Hortons to get my fix before running off again. After all their advertising on their new "soft buns" that I had been hearing, I wanted to give it a try. I had actually liked their sandwiches before with the harder baguettes, so I wanted to compare. And as a plus, I enjoy their coffee.

I ordered a Turkey and Bacon Club ($4.69) on whole wheat toasted softbun.

After my initial bite, I decided that, yea, I definitely liked the baguettes they used to serve better. The crunch and texture they used to have before added to the sandwich, these buns were no better than sandwich bread from the grocery store.. In terms of the taste of the sandwich, I do really liked their honey mustard sauce that they put on these sandwiches.. but they kind of skimped out on the sauce in my sandwich. Too bad, because it's the only thing that makes these sandwiches special to me..

My friend had the Toasted Chicken Club, and if you're going to have to get a sandwich here, I'd recommend this one. Back when they had the harder baguettes, this one was my favourite, and I actually thought it tasted pretty good.

Unlike my sandwich, this one had a plentiful amount of honey mustard sauce, and the chicken breast made the sandwich more substantial--which it needs now that they've replaced the bread.
I'd talk about the soup too, except there's not much to talk about. It was soup, and it was just fine.

I also like the fact that they serve bacon that isn't fried to a crisp, but that's just my personal preference.

The veggies they use also were very fresh.

Has anyone else tried both sandwiches? Which bread did you prefer more?

I want them to bring the hard-crust baguettes back ;_;... you?

Tim Hortons (Coquitlam, on Barnet):

Food:
Preferred their hard-crust baguettes
Have stopped by for late night desserts, not bad
Service:
nice enough to let me change my sandwich order while they were dealing with other customers
Atmosphere:
n/a (although I'd suggest visiting a Tim Hortons in the middle of the night with some buddies.. just because. : ) )

Hidden [Dine Out Vancouver]

2010-05-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

Why hello Dine Out Vancouver, I don't think we have previously met, It's nice to finally meet you : )
That's right. I've never gone to a DOV event before, so when Kevin from 604Foodtography invited me to go try out Hidden, I was more than happy to be able to check it out. Chicken and Waffles? Chicken and Waffles you say? And Beavertails?
Love.
Oh. And it was awesome meeting Kevin for the first time too. Anyways~

Hidden is located within the Westin Grand Hotel, and since I suddenly become completely disoriented every time I enter downtown, it took me much longer than necessary to find. Thus Kevin arrived before myself, and I was left feeling quite silly. Haha. I'm guessing we both read the menu a dozen times, because we were ready to order quite quickly after determining how we'd get to sample the most amount of dishes.

I started off with the Beets and blues Salad -- with roasted chioga beets, crumbled blue cheese, grapefruit and toasted pumpkin seeds. From previous experiences with beets (specifically me ruining them in the cooking process...haha;;), I had learned to be wary of their taste. However, I enjoyed this salad. The acidity of the grapefruit, the creamy blue cheest, the pop of the seeds. I also had never tried yellow beets before, so that was interesting.

The second appie, the Pacific Poutine --with halibut cheeks, qualicum cheese curds, yukon golds and lemon hollandaise, was average I thought. It had a very strong fish smell when it arrived at the table, but the halibut still tasted alright (overdone? maybe? ah well?). The fries were fried too long, and as consequence ended up being soggy with a strong aftertaste.. but put all the elements together, and it was alright.

For mains, chicken and waffles -- fried chicken breast and cheddar waffles with apple/jack gravy. I really liked this. Again, it wasn't so much the individual elements (which were really quite average), but it put together. The waffle was savoury and the apple/jack gravy tied the three together nicely. It did however carry the same strong aroma as the poutine before it.. so while the smell was a little off, I liked the taste.

Fluffy cheddar waffle. Did I pick out cheddar flavour? Nope. Am I highly experienced with foods and flavours? Nada. Did I then probably skip over the cheddar flavour due to all the other notes that were going on? Probably. But did it taste good? Yes.

And even enjoyed the fried chicken breast, which I don't usually due to the breast being dry. The thickness of the gravy helped this though, and with the crispy skin, turned out nicely.

I personally thought my main was less impressive. Smoked and Seared Albacore Tuna -- gorgonzola stuffed tater tots, kalamata coulis and sunchoke chips. Smoked and seared tuna... was really.. quite chewy and salty.... With more salt from the kalamata coulis (it doesn't really help that I'm not a fan of olives though..). The tater tots were really quite doughy (although no where near as bad as the potato dumplings at the Alpen Club)... But again, with all the elements pout together, it was okay. Much preferred the chicken and waffles though.

And just a cross-section picture of the tater tot. It's neutral taste to balance out the salt. : )

Ordered some coffee while we waited for my most anticipated part of the meal...

Dessert! This was the Cinnamom Dusted Beavertail -- Canadian whiskey caramel sauce, house made lemon-sour cream ice cream. Much love for this.

While the beavertail itself was much like a luke-warm dry piece of bread doused in cinnamon sugar (not the wonderfully doughy warm pull-apart oily mess of wonderful that comes from Playlands food stalls or Beavertails), the lemon sour-cream icecream was just lovely, and in turn made all of this just lovely.

The Root Beer, Hazelnut and Maple Icecream Parfait was the other dessert of the night. I liked the sweetness of this. The crunch of the hazelnuts, the sweetness of the fruit and the icecream together made it enjoyable. Would still place the beavertail above this though.

Was very pretty though...

So, while I personally feel that the individual elements of every dish were only prepared average, how everything came together made for a decent night. Although it always helps when you have good company, so.

Hidden:

Food:
Average, but elements come together nicely
Service:
We came in quite early for dinner, and it's easy to be attentive when the restaurant is not busy. Still, easy or not, it was very good.
Atmosphere:
I like the lounge atmosphere

Sage Bistro (Take Two. April Menu)

2010-04-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

A previous review on Sage Bistro's older menu can be found here

Uhg. I know. Another post on Sage Bistro? Ehgck. But hear me out, Sage Bistro changes up their menu pretty much monthly, so this visit includes a different variety of foods. Also, I wanted to use my meal card one last time to feel like I'm getting an expensive free meal. : )...

Again, it was a beautiful day, with a beautiful view, and terrible lighting, making it impossible to take a good picture of the restaurant.

Like I said earlier, they change up their menu's more or less monthly/seasonally. This menu definitely held undertones of Spring with fruit, lighter seafoods, and Spring veggies, whereas the previous menu I tried was heartier. I prefer lighter dishes, so this was an appreciated change.

Even the bread was better. Instead of the plain white, there were cranberries and walnuts baked into the slices.

Being here a couple of times, and never trying any of their drinks, i decided I what they created was actually any good or not. I had heard that their coffee had tasted like an oil slick... So opted for the latte instead. The latte was light, and the cream used didn't taste overwhelming. Light and warm and foamy. I'm not a coffee connoisseur by any means, but I believe this was pretty decent.

To start off, my mom and I (who was helping me pack. Thank God or it'd take all day), shared the soup of the day, Red Pepper and Tomato Soup ($6). This soup was quite thick, and when you took a sip, you could feel a bit of heat in the back of your throat, the way a tomato based soup usually does. It was quite strong in flavour.

And while it was alright by itself, it tasted amazing dipped with bread.

For my main, I decided to go for the pan-roasted dried fruit filled pork tenderloin ($17). While I wanted to try the lamb, I always have lamb, and this sounded like something a bit different and unique. Overall, I liked this dish. The veggies were done very well, and the flavours came together very nicely. However, the pork tenderloin (as almost all pork tenderloins come out), was really quite dry.

Luckily, the fruit stuffing and the oil based sauce balanced it out. I believe the dried fruit consisted of prunes and green and red raisins, and their sweetness paired very nicely to the pork.

Mom had picked the winning dish of the day though. Pan-seared Steel-head ($17). Wow. Like the veggies on my dish, done excellently, and the fish. The fish. While, probably due to the pan searing, the edges were dry (which I actually like...), the centre was moist and wonderful. For $17,definitely recommended.

What made this dish so much better than my own though was the cream based sauce. Usually I don't like creams because they are heavy and overwhelm other flavours. However, this cream was light (I'm using the word light too much), and paired with all the elements of the dish perfectly. Loved it with the fish. Loved it with the potatoes. Loved it with the asparagus. I stopped eating from my dish to dip the pork in the cream sauce ._.;

They also had dessert, but none of it really appealed to us. However, we did see other tables order them, and despite the underwhelming description, they do look pretty. I should have tried one.. Ah well.

So while Sage Bistro has been a tad of a disappointment in the past, they really impressed me this time. I guess it goes to show it really depends on the menu that they currently have. Their menu is online always, so I'd suggest checking the menu before you make the trek to UBC to find out if Sage is worth it or not.

Sage Bistro:

Food:
Seasonal (or monthly?) menus, causing many hit and misses
This trip was impressive
Still can be considered a bit pricey, but hit a good dish, and its worth it.

Atmosphere:
beautiful location/seating/environment (and yes. you are paying for that)
A little difficult to find on campus
Service:

Our waitress this time was dealing with two parties of at least 10, and a couple of tables of two. She upselled like crazy, but didn't make it pushy. ...God I wish I could waitress that well. Think of the tips.
: P

Blue Chip Cookies

2010-04-29T22:31:00.000-07:00

I guess we'll consider this my UBC first year end celebratory post. : ) Featuring the best cookies you can get on campus, and arguably in Vancouver, Blue Chip Cookies.

Blue Chip Cookies is a coffee shop within the Student Union Building on campus. It's definitely not sit down eatery, but a great place to stop by for a coffee and a treat before rushing off to go about your business. They serve a number of different baked treats and drinks. You can tell which ones are the most popular by how many there are in the lineup (as seen above.) But they're constantly replenishing the supply.

As a little treat for finally getting around to getting back on campus and packing my million-and-one trinkets, I decided to get some cookies to share. The one above is the Brazil Crunch. A white chocolate and macadamia nut cookie ($1.75). And yes that is a giant white chocolate chunk that they place on top of the cookie before baking. And yes it is wonderful. And yes they're so fresh that the chocolate sometimes won't be quite set and cooled when you buy them. :3

These cookies are so crisp that you hear them when you take a bite out of the edges, but wonderfully fluffy within. They are a sweeter type of cookie, so if you're not into sweets, this will not be your cup of tea (especially with the white chocolate), but otherwise you must try these. There is a plentiful amount of white chocolate within the batter as well (not just on top) to keep your tastebuds happy. I would personally want more macadamia nuts, but hey. Still wonderful.

The second we got was the Marbelous cookie ($1.75). Probably the most popular of the cookies (and in close second, the Brazil Crunch). Honestly, when I compared the two, I liked the Brazil Crunch better due to the nuts. However, they both taste very similar with the very sweet white chocolate.

Again, amazingly crispy around the edges, and practically a pillow with white chips dispersed within.

I personally think they can be too sweet when there's nothing to contrast, but pair it with a nice strong coffee, and these are amazing. : ) Summers almost here. Make it a day trip and come give these a try.

Blue Chip Cookies

Food:
Great cookies and coffee
A little above average in price
Have yet to receive a cookie that was not fresh and still cooling from baking.
Service:
When busy with morning coffee lineups (or afternoon coffee lineups.. or just lineups.. because there always seems to be lineups), service doesn't really exist. But they make sure they get to you
Atmosphere:
It's.. busy.
n/a

Kimbab Cheonguk

2010-04-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

First off, I wanted to apologize for the lack of posts this past week. It's not that I didn't want to, just that between forcefeeding myself accounting (because it's ever so fun..) and finishing up some last minute course work, there wasn't much time to go out to eat, let alone blog about it... I promise, a million posts now. You won't even be able to keep up I'll be writing so much uselessness. :3

Anyways, with the ending of exams, I met up with a friend from SFU I haven't seen in at least a year. Our schedules never work out with each others, but with the semester finally ending, we thought it'd be a good chance to catch up before summer activities ate away at our time. So we headed over to Kimbab Cheonguk, per her recommendation, and grabbed some korean food. : ) As far as I'm aware, there's not english title/name shown on the restaurant front. Just korean.. But the awning is bright, and hard to miss if you're looking for the place.

Now Kimbab Cheonguk is rather small, and save for the korean pronunciation of the dishes written in english, doesn't give much in terms of description for dishes. Beyond kim bab (korean sushi rolls), my friend had very little clue as to what to order either. Haha; that's alright. I'd just play the "I'm not korean" card, and ask as many questions in english as possible. It's also nice that they've got big bright pictures on the side of the wall so you get an idea of what you're ordering. And can point at whatever you think you want to try.

Since the menu is rather small, it makes it easier to order too; haha
However, I didn't spend too much time looking at the menu, but instead at this..:

No. Not the right. To the right. Effeminate popstars are great, but with my stomach growing I was looking at the printed out special they had on the wall. I asked my friend what it was; she shrugged her shoulders. I asked the server, and she could only give me a name: albap. Huh. Well then. I guess we'd just order it and find out!
Oh, I should note that while the server didn't speak much english, server was prompt and nice.

After we ordered, they set us up with a kettle of... soup. Mmhm. Kettle of soup. And let me tell you, this was very good soup. Savoury and warm. Great for the rainy day.

They set us up with everything pretty quickly. Although there is only one side dish, pickled daikon, they refill that when you ask.

Bugolgi kim bab (left), and tuna kim bab (right). Both $3.50. It's a pretty great price for such a large amount, yea?

However, this was definitely a premade roll. Luckily, the seaweed hadn't gone to gummy unchewable rubber in that time, but it wasn't the freshest either. Still-- for the price, this was great. My only wish would be that the filling (specifically the meat/fish component) was dispersed more evenly throughout the roll. If you compare this picture to the one above it with the end pieces, you get an idea. It was kind of like that all the way through. Some had lots of meat/fish, others almost none.

Albap ($8~?). This was definitely the star of the night. More than large enough for the both of us, it consisted of yellow daikon, seaweed, tobiko, carrots, tuna, and... cheese? That's right. cheese. Or at least something equivalent to cheese. There are two sauces to the left (red and beige. Spicy and. Sweet and spicy), which you incorporate with the dish as per your desire (aka. we dumped the pot in. Okay not really... but close), and when we mixed the contents together there seemed to be a substance that melted to resemble cheese and stick the components of the bowl together. Perhaps it was the sauce that had a cheese-like component in it? I'm not sure. But I'm almost sure it was cheese. Either way, no matter what it was, trust me. It was good. Really. Really. good, despite how strange it sounds.
(Also, I apologize for using the Japanese names for all the ingredients in the dish.. I'd say the korean. If I knew what the korean was.. This is what I get for working at a japanese restaurant...;; sorry! Would someone like to tell me the korean names for the components?)

I liked the slight sweetness of the beige sauce over the spiciness of the red one (which tasted very similar to the sauce they use in kimchi), but they both were very flavourful.

And this is definitely the first stone bowl rice dish (bibimbap,albap,anybapreally..) that has actually crisped up my rice. Seriously. Completely crisped up, wherever it touched the bowl. The crisped rice is the best part of this dish, and I've finally found a place that can actually do it right.

Also, if anyone is wondering, the only difference between bibimbap and albap is the fact that albap has roe in it.

I wish I could show you more, but at that point I realized I had forgot to put my memory card back into my camera, so I couldn't take anymore pictures. You can be assured though that we finished this dish right up.

In all, I had a great night catching up with a friend and eating away at foods I didn't know the names of. Which my friend made a note of because I said bibimbap with all the 'b' sound, and no 'p'. That's right. Despite how it's written in english, it's pronounced with more of a p... and yes she wasted no time in teasing me about my pronunciation. Haha~ Make note ladies and gents.

And with a bill of $15 for two with leftovers, it's a great price. I urge you to check it out? Even if you're not korean, just point at stuff... And pronounce your b's with more p. You'll be fine. : P

Kimbab Cheonguk

Food:
Great value $
homestyle korean food
Simple, yet comforting
Service:
Prompt, polite, nice
Limited english, depending on the server
Atmosphere:

The lighting + setup remind me of a cold dorm room.... But they place trinkets and posters here and there to give it a homier feel

Top Gun Hot Pot (Crystal Mall)

2010-04-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

(Hi all. I've altered my post formats slightly.. Better, worse? Would you like them to go back, or are the bigger pictures friendlier on those stressed out eyes?)

An aunt that had been living in London for the last handful of years came to visit : ), and so we decided to all go out for lunch. Honestly, I'm not too sure why we settled on Top Gun. I personally am not a fan of the Top Gun Group, but I'm thinking it had something to do with the convenient location.

The first thing I noticed when we walked in were the tea leaves they had shown at the front of the restaurant. Usually the higher class (or pretending to be higher class) Chinese restaurants make a big deal of the tea... probably so they can charge you for it ; D The white porcelain jar to the far right is what you place the tea leaves and water in before pouring it into your tea cup.

We were seated promptly, as we had come a little before 12. The servers were quick to give us our tea, which was nice since I down the stuff.

See? I ordered chrysanthemum, which seems very hard to come by in the grocery stores..

All filled up and wonderfully fragrant. I enjoy my teas very much. There was a pot of water that was kept hot with the hot-pot stove in the middle of the table. The servers kept the pot full of water (even after we had finished our meals). Unfortunately, I was no good at using the tea jar to pour tea into my cup... As you can see.. :

And that was only after my first attempt! Hah. By half way through the lunch I had a tea soaked napkin and a very wet paper placemat... Quite embarrassing actually... Oh dear;

The waiters however were very attentive. They brought a plate of extra napkins without even being asked.

So, on to what we ate.. You'd think we'd come to a hot-pot restaurant for hot-pot, right? Wrong~ It's far too hot for hot-pot right now.
Instead, I went straight for the dim sum menu because of this little dish here:

Baked char siu bao (with pineapple bun topping). ($5~). Honestly, this was the only reason I had no problem with visiting Top Gun. They came rather fast, so I'm assuming they have these prepared beforehand, and then warm them up for you before serving. These in general are amazing to me, regardless of where they come from. The topping was sugary and crisp. Sweet upon sweet~

The quality of the filling inside definitely did not live up to the class that Top Gun is trying to run in. I definitely believe Kirin had better quality and more filling with larger pieces of pork. However, the filling in itself was fine. This was my favourite dish of the day.

Next, fried squid. The picture doesn't quite capture it, but they had dumped far too much spicy powder on some of the squid. Luckily, I like spicy : ). This was average, with the squid too gummy, but the frying done well.

The next dish was a more fusion cantonese dish. Deep fried fish paste and seaweed roll ($5~). Save for the sesame seed topping, this did not appeal to me at all. The fish paste was rather tasteless... as was.. well. all of it was tasteless really. Quite the miss.

Har gao ($5~). Standard.

Steamed riceroll with scallop and cilantro ($5.50). I usually like this dish, but the soysauce did nothing for the taste, and at least in my piece I got no scallops...

Deep fried pork and tofu skin wrap ($5~). I rather liked this, really.. but that's probably because it was deep fried~ haha.. Crispy tofu skin wrapped around a just seasoned enough ground pork with flecks of carrot, mushroom and shrimp.

And to finish off our meals, steamed salty egg yolk bun ($5?~). Don't be fooled by the title, these are really quite sweet. At the beginning of the meal, the server asked if we would like to be served this with our meal, or at the end as a dessert. Small questions and gestures like that make good service I find. : )

I liked these as well, and it helped that they didn't come to the table scorching hot (which really makes the filling quite difficult to eat).

After we had finished the servers brought over some toothpicks, and cleared away our dishes. Again, kudos on the good service. I felt bad that we took up a table for so long, as there was a considerable crowd as we were leaving the restaurant.

In the end, Top Gun is really just a middle of the road Chinese food joint, trying to tote themselves as something more. Still, the food was good enough, and the service was rather good (By any standards). But if someone ever brought me back, I'd just fill myself up with bbq pork buns and salty egg yolk buns~

Top Gun Hot Pot (Crystal Mall)

Food:
Average, with some definite misses on the dim sum
Have not tried the hot pot, but have heard the same
Pricey for what you get
Service:
Excellent and observative
good by any standards (not just Chinese restaurants)
Atmosphere:

Clean and casual

Recipe: Rocky Mountain-Chip Cookies

2010-04-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

Look at these cookies. Look at them.

Okay. So our relatives and their on again off again contact invite us over for a family lunch, and I say. Well. That's rather nice. I'll bring some baking! I was divided between trying a new challenging recipe that could be considered amazing if executed properly, or keeping everyone happy and safe and making cookies.. As there are finals that need to be studying for, I went the easier root this time. Who doesn't like a good cookie~ I spent at least an hour sifting through "the best chocolate chip cookies" recipes, without much satisfaction. I was going to attempt winging it, taking the best suggestions I saw from each recipe, and then throwing it together, but then I found an old yellowed recipe printout of a cookie recipe given to me from a childhood friends nanny. Hah. Why not. It was printed out already, I wouldn't have to follow a recipe while looking at my laptop.

How they turned out so wonderful, I simply do not know. But the combination of quick oats and walnuts give it an excellent texture against the chocolate. On top of that I added some dark chocolate chunks on top of the chips. Nice.

These cookies has nice crispy outer, and get chewier as you bit into them. The chewy is contrasted by bites of walnuts. Not too sweet, yet just sweet enough.

If I would change anything, perhaps more walnuts. But that's really your call.

Rocky Mountain-Chip Cookies:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup margarine, room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups quick-cooking oats
300g package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (toasted optional)

Directions:

Optional first step: Chop up and toast the walnuts. Watch carefully so they do not burn.

1. Preheat oven at 350 F. Beat margarine, butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy.

2. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

3. Add milk and vanilla. Beat until blended.

4. In separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Incorporate into butter mixture, mixing as you go.

5. Stir in oats. Fold in chocolate chips and walnuts.

6. Cover and refrigerate dough for at least one hour.

(I recommend overnight)

7. Shape generous tablespoon sized balls, (If larger, increase the time by a couple of minutes), and flatten slightly into rounded disks. Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets.

8. Bake in 350F oven for about 10minutes, or just until edges are slightly browned.

(I rotated the pan halfway through time to promote even baking, and leaved them in a few minutes longer than the 10 minute suggestion. I tried 10 minutes, and the cookies were fine, but a little pale).

9. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least three minutes before transporting to a wire rack to cool.

10. Devour. Best eaten right after cooled. Gooey chocolate. Yus.

OM NOM NOM.

Lin Chinese Cuisine

2010-04-17T22:17:00.000-07:00

Guess who had to deal with a room full of impatient Chinese people all morning~ Don't we all love getting our passports and visas figured out?

Well. truthfully, I've never had to deal with those matters before, so I guess the experience is good. I'm currently working out the details of an exchange trip to China!

But that's not what I'm supposed to be rambling away about, huh. What was important was what was after figuring those documents out-- because it was lunch time!

Lin Chinese Cuisine recently won some award for something or other.. I forgot where I read it, and I forgot what they won for, but I knew they were a shanghai dimsum joint, and that was reason enough to visit when I realized it was nearby the Chinese visa application office.

When we walked in the two or so servers were too busy to even greet us, and understandably so. It was a pretty large area for only two waitresses. I felt rather bad for them. However, we walked our way over to where one of the waitresses were, and they directed us to sit wherever we wanted.;;

It took a little bit of time, but the waitresses were very apologetic and we understood fine. They even took the time to clear a table that we really wished to sit at.

First to come was the beef wrap ($5). It was mostly dough, and very little beef. I'm hoping they meant for it to be chewy, because that's exactly what it was. The dough was just cooked. None of that crispy beef roll goodness that I prefer. It also lacked the extra dimension green onions bring. Fortunately there was no absence of hoisin sauce, or I would have been rather unhappy..

Look at that;; All dough. Little beef. No green onions.

It's a good thing our next dish, the xiao long bao ($5), were a success. Filled with a plentiful amount of broth and encased in a super thin skin, these were a lot better than the first xiao long bao's I blogged about at Countryside Chinese Restaurant. The flavours were wonderfully subtle, which was contrasted by this soysauce:

The pungent soysauce had strips of garlic within it. Mm.

I tackled these dumpling by biting a hole, sipping out the soup, and then going in for the rest ; D See the thinness of the skin? It was great.

Red Bean Pastry ($5). Oh so flaky crust, how I adore you.The outer flaked nicely (and was lovingly lard laden).

And inside, the dough was soft and chewy. Almost a mochi like texture.
Now I'm not sure if this was intentional, and could be a sign of poor preperation... but I personally liked the contrast of texture in the dough. My eating partner though? Not so much. She thought it was due to poor prep.

I'm starting to see a trend here. Lin works with really subtle flavours. The red bean paste was not sugar laden like other red bean pastes I've had. While I personally like going over my sugar intake when I eat these things, others might prefer the subtlety. Don't get me wrong, it was still wonderful, but it's personal preference when it comes to the amount of sugar you like. My sister for example loved this.

The pastry could have also done with perhaps a little more red bean, but that's just me being greedy.. hehe;

And I didn't realize it when I first bit into the pastry, but underneath it was crusted with sesame seeds. Yum. The texture, the pop of the seed. Great.

Finally, our last dish to come was the daikon pastry. These pastries were huge spheres, and I ordered it per other food bloggers recommendation. The pastry was even flakier than the red bean pastry, and was made fresh, so was piping hot.

Again, the inner dough was a mochi texture, and just barely baked. And again, I liked this. The daikon filling had that bite of fresh vegetables, and was dispersed with small pieces of peas and ham. There weren't enough pieces of peas and ham for them to make a substantial difference to the filling, but the daikon itself was fine.

Again, my eating partner didn't like the subtlety of the filling. She felt that it couldnt' stand up against the pastry shell... And perhaps that's true. But the texture in itself made it great.

Average bill, for fresh, flaky, mochi-textured, and juicy food. Not bad. Not bad at all. I Like : )

Lin Chinese Cuisine:

Food:
Seem to prepare dishes with the intention of being doughier (with the exception of the flaky outers of the pastries)
Subtle flavours
Average price
How much you enjoy the food depends largely on personal preference;

Atmosphere:
Busy, older chinese joint.
Clean (enough)
Service:
Was understaffed and very busy when I went
Recognize what customer service is though (in comparison to other Chinese restaurants..)

Ba Le Deli & Bakery

2010-04-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

After my very first experience with banh mi, it was no surprise that a few days later, I was craving it again. It was some time between lunch and dinner, and none of us were very hungry-- except I needed to get more banh mi D< And so, with that in mind. I suggested Ba Le Deli & Bakery on Kingsway. We were in Burnaby at the time, and I figured. Hey. Kingsway seems near by.

And then I forgot Kingsway goes all the way out to Vancouver;; My bad.

No worries though. The more time spent away from having to write a final paper for class, the better, right? We stepped into the humble sandwich shop and took a look around. Clean, simple.

We decided to share three subs among the four of us, again. Not too hungry. I noticed this little dessert on the front counter after we ordered. Maybe a sweet wild rice with coconut and peanut sauce? I really wish I was hungry, simply so I could try that..

If you know anything about Ba Le, you'll also know they bake their own breads. That's a lot of bread they get through in a day, huh.

Anywho, then came our subs. My apologies for not taking a "disected" pic. So you don't really get to see what it what. This however was the beef sandwich ($3.50). Great price~ There were decent chunks of beef throughout the sub, and the sauce was spicy enough to stay on your tongue a good while after you bit into it. Unfortunately, the cilantro, nor any of the veggies really.. stood out like they had for me at Viet Sub. Not as fresh maybe? And as for the sub as a whole, it only sat okay with me.

Secondly, the Grilled Pork Sub ($3.50). The pork was actually marinated to be a slightly sweet and savoury I found, but still presented itself as a light sandwich, and banh mi's do. I was expecting chunks of pork in the same way they presented the beef in the beef sub, but instead the pork seemed to be tenderized down to almost (but not quite) a ground texture. It was better this way I decided.
The veggies once again did not add to the overall sub as I wished them to do, but I did prefer this sub over the other two.
I'm just looking over my photos again.. the cilantro really doesn't look all that fresh.. hm.

Finally, their special sub ($3.25). Two types of cold cuts and a pate layer, although I'm not exactly sure what kind of cold cuts they use.. This sandwich was the most subtle in flavour, and personally, I was not a fan. The veggies actually carried through in this one, but that may have only been because the cold cuts couldn't present enough flavour on their own. The pate was evident in some bites, but not all-- I think it would have faired better if they were more generous with the pate serving. My least liked of the three.

Overall, not a bad experience. I haven't mentioned the bread, but you can trust me when I say that we left a loafs worth of crumbs on that table by the time we were done~ So yea. good.

But compared to my first sub at Viet Subs? I definitely prefer Viet Subs, and I'm going to attribute that to the sauce that they use in their subs. It differentiates the sandwich, gives it a one up on places like Ba Le. But maybe my expectations were too high for Ba Le. Who knows. All I know is I walked out with just a tinge of disappointment.

So yes. Not Bad. But the next time I get a sub craving, I'm heading down to robson... (or maybe I'll try Au Petitie?)

Ba Le Deli & Bakery:

Food:
Solid sandwiches
light. Don't expect a full meal unless you're an extremely light eater (...like me;;)
I personally prefer Viet Subs on Robson
CHEAP ~
Service:
Polite at the till
Standard loud asian ladies talking back and forth in the back.
Atmosphere:
Simple clean sandwich shop
Not meant for sit down.

Market By Jean-Georges

2010-04-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

You'll have to forgive me for putting this post off for so long. Our trip to Market By Jean-Georges was a small family birthday dinner, gone horribly wrong after a particular argument. I'm probably not going to do Market justice, but it was how I was feeling at the same. it's really too bad...

The restaurant was really quite beautiful. This is a shot of their patio overlooking the street.

Honestly, I don't really know what I should write about... save for the food of course. Most of the dinner was a wreck, although by no fault of the restaurant. The waiter actually has my sympathies. There was much glaring and silence going on between the family. I wonder what the waiter was thinking! haha;;

I really wasn't in the mood to eat, really. But we were here; and it was my 19th birthday. So more out of obligation than anything else, I ordered a lychee raspberry bellini. I don't drink alcohol often-- as I happen to be a super light-weight;; But I do have a drink every now and then. So it was very surprising when I found out from this experience that I am in fact allergic to alcohol!
It's rather unfortunate, haha~
But the drink itself was enjoyable. I don't think I tasted my lychee, but the rasberry was there. And the alcohol was definitely evident. I'm pretty sure this little drink was responsible for the rest of the night, as I wasn't feeling as terrible by the end.

Of course, there was the complimentary bread that everyone speaks of. From the reviews, I really was expecting something akin to a rock; but it wasn't bad. It came before my drink, so munching on bread calmed us all down a bit I'm thinking. It was room-temperature bread. Nothing special, but baked well I guess. I thought it was cute how waiters carried stacks of them around on trays, handing them out to tables as they ordered.

At this point I had to leave the table for a moment, lest a full out fist fight break loose in the refined ambiance of the restaurants ; D.

And bam! When I got back, all our dishes were there. Service was relatively fast I found, which was a pleasant surprise.
This was the Sablefish - Miso-Yuzu Glaze Baby Bok Choy, Sriracha ($28). I don't know if my experience with the food will equate to how the food actually was, I really was feeling rather unhappy that night. I didn't like how they paired the spicier sriracha with the delicate sablefish. The sablefish was also charred pretty badly. That being said, it was still an alright eat. I've had more tender sablefish for cheaper at other places, but hey; I like sablefish. I'll eat it almost anywhere.
The bok choy actually was what impressed me. I always like a well done side, and these veggies were light and crisp in texture. The glaze was subtle, yet emphasized the bok choy to give it a dimension of richness. The same thing butter does for food, the glaze did for the bok choy.

Parmesan Crusted Organic Chicken - White Asparagus, Lemon Sauce ($21). My brother's dish. Regardless of my emotions prior to walking into Market, I'm pretty sure this was a miss. It wasn't that it was horribly done in any way.. but.. it tasted like chicken. The crust didn't add much dimension to the meat, and asparagus were.. well asparagus. The lemon sauce did nothing for me.

Pacific Halibut - Sautéed Spinach, Sweet Garlic Lemon Broth ($26). This was alright. I really want to say more, but I can't. My thoughts really weren't there like I wanted them to. I can't say there was anything wrong with this dish though.

Slowly Cooked Arctic Char - Julienne Vegetables, Basil Vinaigrette ($26). It seems like the fattiest fish will always be the most well received. This was the case for the arctic char. Very nicely done. However, the first time I tried arctic char, it was at La Brasserie, and I have to say, they delivered it much better (Like butter, and the crust they got on the skin was amazing too), at a lower cost. So overall just alright. The mashed potatoes were creamy and whipped lightly though, which was a perfect match to the fish.

Finished off the night with a Rhubarb and Strawberry Crisp Honey Ice Cream ($8). I've never tried rhubarb before, and it held a tartness to it that was nice. However, the crisp was just barely.. crisp. I think I rather have my favourite morning cereal. It would give me a better crisp than the topping on this dessert. The honey icecream though had that touch of honey flavour, but not overwhelmingly so. The caramel brittle accompanied the icecream nicely.

Overall an underwhelming night. Nothing was bad, but I didn't feel wow either. This may have been largely due to the mood the whole family felt before walking in, but I still stand by my analysis of the arctic char and sablefish. Sherman from Sherman's food adventures actually suggested I go for the tasting menu, and I really think I should have. But at that time I really was feeling too off my usual composure and not hungry enough to even think about it.

On the up side, the servers handled this strange situation very well, and by the end of the night the alcohol got me smiling again. : ) Despite my allergic reaction to it;;;;;

Market By jean-Georges:

Food:
Great considering the price
Was expecting more.. but don't listen to me, we all walked in there after a terrible argument. Just look at the pretty pictures. : )
Service:
professional, handled a strange situation very well
Gave us ample time for ordering and knew when to come in and check up on us
Kept water glasses full at all times
Atmosphere:
Very nice decor
Perhaps its the acoustics from the way the walls are shaped around the booths, but it gets very loud in there.

Vancouver Alpen Club (Deutsches Haus)

2010-04-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

First bloggers dinner! I have to say, walking in I was quite anxious-- a big meet with new individuals, and also the youngest, I hoped that I'd be able to enjoy the night and get to know people. Honestly I was there more for the people than the food. The bloggers in attendance?

(the above was copied off Kim's blog.. haha;; thanks Kim : P) I only really got to meet Kim, Sherman, Anita, Jenny, Jessica and Mark, and Joyce, as the table was really too long to have a conversation with everyone. But it was nice meeting everyone anyways!

The Alpen Club had a throwback family style feel to it. Nothing fancy, but rustic and warm.

Albeit a little warn down... Hello hole in the roof. Apparently there was a sighting of a ... rodent from the other side of the table as well, but I can't confirm this as I was on the other side.

We joked about the obscene amount of butter to bread ratio that was provided. The butter was set on the table before we sat down, but then even more came with the bread basket. I wonder how long the butter sits there on the table....

The bread was cold and soft. Standard piece of bread.

Lots of beer was involved on the other end of the table as well~ Although not so much on ours..

A number of the bloggers ordered schnitzel dishes as well. Unfortunately I have no idea how these were, so you'll have to see what they say. : )

The rest of us however shared a number of Festplattes (a huge order of various types of proteins, serves 4). ($80). Let's take a look at the components, shall we? (again. courtesy of Kim. Because I forgot what was what;; haha)

Mashed potatoes. Not much flavour, and could have been softer/creamier, but edible

Red cabbage - not too flavourful, but I actually liked this.

Potato Dumplings - hands down, the worst dish of the night. Tasted like oily luke-warm rubber. Potato? Don't make me laugh. The batter was probably overmixed, causing it to be far too glutinous.

Bratwurst - my favourite protein of the night. It had spices that differentiated it from the other meats (as opposed to rather dull other meats).

Leberkase - The German Spam.

Schnitzel - crispy, and I liked the shallots. But overall no wow to it. I know others have mentioned that they didn't find it dry... and while perhaps it wasn't, it wasn't flavourful either. As German food is supposed to be apparently?

Kassler - Honestly, after my initial try of this, I left it alone. I rather eat the bratwurst. Tastes like... pork. And that's it. Simple.

Ham Hock - this was huge. And rather unappetizing looking. As it was braised, the skin had a rather gelatinous and unappealing presentation (hair remaining on bumpy follicles and all). It was also very fatty, which, while is the nature of ham hock, did not quite appeal to me. Fortunately it was braised well, and as you went further into the hock, the meat became more enjoyably tender, carrying a beautiful pink hue. However, taste wise.. well. We couldn't say much more than "it tastes like ham hock". Again. There wasn't much more to it.

Mustard - apparently the only thing that is used to flavour German food.....

.__.;;

Underneath all the meats was also some sauerkraut, which, although was cooked well apparently from our German food blogger, was also not my cup of tea. No flavour.

For $20, I personally was not impressed. Yes, all the components were done as they were supposed to be done (as per our German blogger's expertise), however, just because something is done traditionally, does not automatically entitle it to be good and/or liked. I'm sure that others that are used to German cuisine may find this enjoyable, but I personally like 1. some balance in my meals (not just a load of pork) 2. some flavour in my meals (besides the taste of..pork).

Finally, we finished up with some desserts. On the left is apple strudel and while I really wanted to try this, we ended up sharing icecream crepes instead, as the other bloggers all got the apple strudel. I was disappointed personally. Even if the crepe was crispy, the premelted icecream ensured that it wouldnt' be a pleasant eat. Yes. the icecream was melted even before it got to the table.

In terms of service, I actually feel a little sorry for our waitress. From other bloggers, they felt the service was not too great. And while I can agree that drinks came slowly, the bill was sorted horribly, and the ordering system was handled pretty poorly, I can say that when it comes to a party this big, one waitress can feel very overwhelmed. If customers are discussing amongst themselves on what to get, the waitress may find it difficult to pick up when they're actually deciding, and when they're still discussing with each other. So the waitress has my sympathies. Service wasn't great, but perhaps they're not used to such parties. So I give them the benefit of the doubt, and am going to assume that their service is usually better. They at the very least kept my glass of water full, although I can't speak for everyone else.

Overall, the food disappointed me, and the waitress, while having my sympathies, also created a 20minutes line up at the cash register. You'd think a place that is meant for larger parties would be able to handle the cash handling a little better. Yet, I still had a great night meeting all the bloggers and talking. : ) So. Success? I guess?

Vancouver Alpen Club (Deutsches Haus)

Food:
Tastes like.. German food (and apparently that equals horribly plain)
horrible potato dumplings
Dessert was a disappointed, despite how pretty it looked
If you like pork though, in any form, this may be for you.

Service:
Under these circumstances, was not served very well. But how many waitresses are used to this sort of situation?
Handled the bill poorly
At least kept my glass full (even if the glass took a while to actually get there. But again. With large parties, these type of things happen.)
Atmosphere:
Homey rustic.
Located underneath the community centre building, so it may cause some initial confusion when trying to find out where to enter.

Mario's Coffee Express, Mix the Bakery, Viet Sub Vietnamese Cuisine

2010-04-09T19:16:00.000-07:00

It's a 3 in 1 sandwich special!
One thing everyone should know about me is I love a good sandwich. More than burgers (which just leave you feeling heavy), more than pizza (which seem to be nothing but screwups around here)-- sandwiches are where it's at. It's very difficult to mess up a sandwich.

And since I decided to go out and about and away from campus as much as possible for the past week or so, I've also been picking up sandwiches everywhere I go. Thus, my 3 in 1 sandwich special.

Lets save the best for last, and go in the order I visited these eateries, yus?

Mario's Coffee Express

I'm going to keep it short and sweet. Mostly because I want to get to the really good stuff.
So, Mario's Coffee Express first. Hm. What can I say. Honestly, I only stopped by there because it was beside the place we were getting our hair done (by our, I refer to my sister and I). They have a sign claiming the best coffee, and while I can't hardly judge the coffee, as I 1. am more of a tea person and 2. didn't have any, I can talk about their sandwiches.

Fresca Vegetarian Panini -- Marinated grilled vegetables, artichokes, seasonal greens, swiss cheese, feta cheese may and basil pesto ... $8.95, for this? Really? The sandwich was tiny. Hearty;; but tiny. To give a comparison... my hand is larger.
And I'm 5'0 asian girl. So.
And if you look at the menu above, it says add a $1 to share... what does that even mean? You pay an extra dollar for them to cut it in half?
I mean, it was good. Like I said, it's very hard to screw up a sandwich. Especially when there is a plentiful amount of cheese. Too bad they couldn't get all the cheese to really melt;; Lots of artichokes were good though. Bread that had a nice crust on the outside which kept even after cooling, dense and chewy on the inside which was also good, but really not worth the cash.
The owner was nice though. We chatted about ungodly work hours. Apparently he gets there at 5:30am to get there to open! Oh my..

Mix the Bakery

I've been passing by Mix the Bakery time and time again, always at the wrong moment. I would have just eaten lunch, or it would be closed.. and for whatever the reason, despite it being as close as it is to UBC, I just hadn't tried it until now.

So I was very happy when I found a day off to go grab a sandwich here. Really. I loved the atmosphere of this place. And I really. really. wanted to love their food. I ordered the Chimayo Chicken sandwich -- chicken breast, jack cheese, tomato, spinach, avocado, cilantro mayo on sourdough.(6.95) as per the cashiers recommendation. Larger and cheaper than the sandwich at Mario's. But in terms of taste? I think I rather go for Mario's.

It's not that this was bad... The sourdough bread was very nicely crispy, there was a hearty amount of chicken breast (although the chicken itself was a little tasteless), wonderfully melted amount of cheese (unlike Mario's)... but perhaps it was personal taste. I wasn't a fan of their chili mayo. It just didn't strike well with me. Nothing special. I think I would have rather tried their Turkey sandwich, as I was craving a sweet note, and the cranberries in the bread would have hit it... alas. Maybe next time.
I also would have preferred more vegetables.
And-- do you see the half of the sandwich underneath the top one? There were no grill marks. It was crispy, but no grill marks. I wonder how that happens;; The other side of that same sandwich had grill marks, so I found it a little strange.. On top of that, compared to other pictures I've seen, mine was under grilled D: I did not like this..

So overall good, but as with Mario's, disappointed. I'll want to go back to try the turkey sandwich and some of the their baked goods though.

Viet Sub Vietnamese Cuisine

Okay. I lied. I want to talk a lot about this one. Forget short and sweet. The previous two were short and sweet. This one gets words.
Why? Because this little eatery here was like a bloody enlightenment. Yes it was, yes it was.
Previous to my visit to Viet Sub Vietnamese Cuisine, I had never tried a banh mi. The other food bloggers always went on and on about them, but I personally didn't find the pictures especially appetizing. It was just a sub. Whats so special? And the ingredient assortment? Huh.

Yet, the recommendations for banh mi stuck in my mind, especially for this one place on Robson.
When I was walking towards the Downtown library to get some research done, I walked right by this place at first. I mean, it looks dingy and completely unassuming, does it not? But then I paused. I remembered the mention of a Banh Mi shop on Robson. I stopped. I took a double take. Took a step back to see the awning, looked up, and bam!

*cue sound of angels and music and all that jazz*.. Okay, so it's a bad picture, but suiting, no? Like I said, it was an enlightenment.

I rushed in. The place was tiny. But I wasted no time, I knew what I wanted to order. In hindsight, I probably should have taken a look at the specials board. But there was no time. ENLIGHTENMENT WAS WAITING.
The man at the till appeared very kindly, and gave a friendly smile when he saw me taking pictures. I guess he's familiar with the food bloggers and critics;; haha... I ordered the BBQ Sub --pork, beef, chicken, meat ball ($4.25), and waited for my first taste of banh mi.

Before I go on, I also want to mention that they served very hot tea while I was waiting in my cramped little corner of the restaurant. Despite the fact that there is almost no obligation to tip because it's not quite a sit down eatery, I found the service here genuine and nice, even during the lunch rush. Would almost go back for the service alone.

But, no need to depend on the service to get me back, because wow. This sandwich.
Wow.
Let me break it down:

bread: crispy crispy outside that gave way to a flurry of crumbs on my first bite, airy inside. Not too dense.
vegetables: fresh, bright, heavenly. Onions, daikon, carrots, cilantro. While I'm sure this is standard for every banh mi, these veggies had a real crunch.
meat: okay. So I couldn't tell one meat from the other. I was too busy wolfing it down. But it brought in a good heartiness. Perhaps there could have been a little more.
sauce: I think this is what really made the sub special. I know it's been described as a bbq sauce, but I felt that it carried the flavour of peanut... am I crazy? No matter, it really differentiated the sub from any other sandwiches I've tried. And I'm sure it does the same against other banh mi's.

I'd also like to mention that this sandwich proves that sandwiches can still taste amazing without cheese. Yes they can.

The man that was at the till was heading outside for a moment, asked me how it was and advised me to try it with the sauce on the counter. When I asked him what it was, he only said it was a special mix of four sauces and smiled. So I gave it a try. I was only meaning to try it once (saucing everything up is not the healthiest thing to do), but the combination of sweet and savoury had me reaching for the bottle multiple times (hm. or was it sweet and savoury? Honestly, I was enjoying myself too much. All I know is it was good).
Went through this sandwich way too fast. I wish I could describe it more. The brightness of the cilantro, the savouryness of the sauce. Alas, before I could really analyze it, the sandwich was gone D: I only wish there was more filling so I would have been forced to slow down.

So, banh mi virgin no longer, and I understand now. This sandwich is special.
I saw banh mi being sold at TNT before this, and wanted to give them a try, but I'm glad I waited. Where you get these subs is important. It's the freshness of the ingredients, the warmth and crispyness of the bread.
Maybe I'm overemphasizing how good this sub was. Perhaps the other banh mi shops (au petit cafe?) serve better ones. I wouldn't know.
I do know however that this sandwich tasted good. Especially in comparison to the other two sandwiches I had that week.

So if you have not tried a banh mi yet, I urge you to go get one.