October 2010

In Event

Bakers Market Vancouver

October 4, 2010

The sweetest event in Vancouver is BACK! The Bakers Market brings together bakers and foodies from the Lower Mainland to share their love of baked goods. Even for the first day, the expected attendance was supposed to be around 200 – 300, but by 12pm it was clear that there were way more than 300. After talking to a few of the vendors and taking a look at their fabulous creations, I was in LOVE with the Bakers Market.

Claude Goergen of backer was at the Bakers Market showcasing her organic creations! There were even flour free pastries made out of Almond Meal. She even sold organic coffee and tea. I tried the green tea!

You can visit her website at: http://www.simplybeautifulbaking.com/

Amanda of Buttercup Cake Design was there as well showcasing her amazing designs. What I really loved about her booth was everything was white and yellow. She clearly branded all of her products.

You can visit her website at: http://www.buttercupcakedesign.com/

I was really excited when I saw Damien from Damien’s Belgium Waffles at the Bakers Market! I have always wanted to visit his shop in Steveston but I never make it in time. I bought 10 of his waffles ($18.50). There were Matcha, Vanilla, Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, White Chocolate, Cinnamon, and Maple. I gave them to my family and they said they were good. At his shop, there are more flavours even chai tea waffle.

Check out his website: www.damienswaffles.ca

Fur Elise made me think of a very very cute bakery. They were there selling a variety of pastries.

Check out their site: http://pastryforelise.wordpress.com/

The Ivy Oven owned and operated by a mother- daughter duo sells organic baked goods! I tried their chocolate brownie ($2) and wow I was speechless when I ate it! It was really rich and chocolaty. They even gave out samples of their cookies too.

Check out their website: http://theivyoven.wordpress.com/

Chef Kev, a pastry chef was there with a variety of his cookies. I don’t usually like ginger but I took a gamble at trying his ginger cookie. Even though he warned me I may not like it, I tried it anyways. It was good and it really did have a strong ginger taste but it worked really well in the form of a cookie.

Check out his website: http://www.chefkev.com/

Rachael Tang AKA Miss Bakeaholic was there showing off her addiction to baking.

Check out her twitter: http://twitter.com/MissBakeaholic

Sweety Pie was showing off her pie miniatures. Sometimes you really don’t need a whole pie to satisfy your sweet tooth. Just a bite or two will do the trick!

Check out her website: http://www.sweetypie.ca/

Sweet Delight provided vegans an alternative to satisfy their sweet tooth. They had cupcakes, cookies, and bread.

Check out her website: http://www.veganvixensunite.com/

Cadys Cakes and Bakes specialize in cupcakes and cakes! I tried a bit of their cupcakes and there were nice and moist!

Want more info about them? E-mail them at cadycakes@gmail.com

Overall, I really loved this market. They showcase so many local bakers and a majority of them run their operations right at home! It shows that you don’t need a shop to share your love of baking. The bakers markets gives those people the opportunity to share their love of baking with the local community.

This event goes on for several weeks so DO NOT miss out on it! A big thanks to Connie, founder of Bakers Market for creating this event and exposing us to the amazing entrepreneurs!

They are located at :

408 East Kent Avenue South
Vancouver, BC
V5X 2X7

Unit 115 – Enter through the back door

Website: http://www.bakersmarket.com/

In Downtown

Bonchaz Bakery Cafe

October 4, 2010

Going to school right beside BonChaz, it was obvious I had to try it out! Going to school at 8:30am and then going to work right after makes DesignGirl a very grumpy girl. To kick off a long day, I went off to BonChaz to try a few treats.

They are open pretty early, so I was really happy!! Walking in, it was obviously empty, but there were a lot of people popping in to grab a bun and hopping on the bus. I sat there for a while going on the internet and just chilling because they have free wifi.

Their menu is pretty small.

To start my day, I had a London Fog ($2.95) (Early Grey Tea Latte) and an Original BonChaz ($1.25)(Sea Salt and Butter). At first I didn’t know there was a filling to the BonChaz until I was wondering why there was a salty butter taste to it. Then I looked up at the menu and figured it out.

The next day, I took M after his class to grab a Chocolate Truffle BonChaz. ($1.75) He said it was very good and not too sweet but satisfied his sweet tooth. It came fresh from the over so it looked very pretty.

If you need to take it to go, you can find instructions to reheat AND where the origins of Bonchaz came from.

I have tried 3/5 flavours, Original, Chocolate and Green Tea. I think my favorite is the Chocolate Truffle!

BonChaz is a nice little cafe to do a bit of work and have a snack. They have pastries, sandwiches, tarts, soups, coffee, and tea. I don’t think you can find such pastries anywhere else.

We rate BonChaz:

Check out their Facebook page: http://www.bonchaz.ca/

In Chinese

Fortune House Seafood

October 3, 2010

Fortune House Seafood restaurant always has long line-ups during the weekends during the afternoon. Even if you have a reservation, you have to wait a bit. I guess this is typical of popular dim sum locations.

The interior décor is really nice but it can get a bit noisy with all the people in the restaurant. Flagging down servers is a bit hard too, so most of the time we had to refill our own teapots since we sat right by the area where they keep the hot water.

The setting was ok, but just make sure all your items are clean. Sometimes they are not.

Steamed shrimp and pea tip dumplings were good since I really love shrimp.

Chilled mango pudding is the cutest dish! it comes in a shape of a fish. Even though it looks good, the taste was just alright.

Chilled sweetened black sesame flour rolls brings me back to the days when me and my sister would call them “film” because it resembled film rolls your put in the camera. The days before digital cameras. One thing we really didn’t like from this was that when you unravel the film, it was a bit thick.

Egg tarts were every flakey, you can tell they used a lot of butter.

Steamed Prawn Rice Rolls. Hey it’s shrimp again! Yummy! The beef rice roll is pretty good too.

Steamed BBQ pork Buns

Steamed pork, shrimp and mushroom dumping also known as Sui Mai. I didn’t like this one compared to other places because it seemed very oily.

Steamed Chinese doughnut rice rolls are always my favorite! it comes with peanut sauce and Sweet Soy Sauce.

BBQ Pork Pinapple Buns are always so cool to eat. It looks like a normal pineapple bun but hidden inside is pork.

Radish cake

Steamed cake (Ma lai go)

Sticky Rice

Pot Noodle of Yong Chow ( I think…at least thats what my mother tells me). This dish was unique, I like the texture of the noodles.

Stir Fry Beef Rice Noodle. It was good but i felt the slices of beef were very uneven. I got this HUGE piece and my sister got a small piece.

Overall, 12 of us were satisfied with the meal. I am not exactly sure how much each item is or what the total bill came out to be because as asians we like to fight over the bill. I know for sure it was more than $100. From past experience it was about 5 or 7 per dish depending if they count it as a small dim sum dish, or Medium or large. It usually says it on the menu.

Words of Wisdom:

Make reservations if going for Dim Sum
If you can’t read Chinese, there is an english menu
Lots of parking, closest parking is to park near Urban Behaviour/Zara area.

Fortune House Seafood is a very popular Dim Sum restaurant to go to but it can get really really busy. Make reservations ahead of time.

The price is a bit expensive compared to other chinese restaurants in Vancouver. I think it’s really popular due to the location since it is in Metrotown.

We rate Fortune Seafood House:

Visit their website: http://www.fortunehouserestaurant.com/

In Japanese

Applause

October 3, 2010

As a huge fan of Japanese food, I love to go to new places to try different dishes that are out of the ordinary…or has a good menu selection.

At Oak Street, there is a small restaurant called “Applause”. I assure you, your taste buds will be applauding after the meal. My taste buds were just excited!

If you go in large groups, reservation is key! Since it is maybe the only Japanese restaurant in Marpole, it tends to get busy.

They event have low sodium soy sauce for the people who are very health conscious.

The green tea comes in little ceramic cups, be careful because it’s hot!

To accompany any japanese meal, sake seems fit to have during a meal. The bigger bottle is a large and the smaller one is a small.

Nasu Dengasku (eggplant baked in Miso Sauce). We had to order 4 of these for a table of 11. This was probably one of my favorite dishes. Its mushy in the middle and chewy when you eat the skin.

Hamachi Kama ( BBQ Salmon Cheek) was delicate and made to perfection. It was not dry or over cooked.

Kakimotoyaki ( baked oyster with house dressing). Out of ALL the japanese places I have been to, Imma let you finish reading this post, but APPLAUSE HAD THE BEST MOTOYAKI OF ALL TIME. For about $3, these are really LARGE oysters and the sauce is on a thin layer on top of the oyster rather than the whole oyster meat drowning in the sauce.

Salmon (Wild Sockeye Salmon), Toro (Tuna Belly), and Tuna (Albacore). Unlike some places, these were perfectly thawed and not icy at all. Very amazed by the selection of fish they use! The salmon is so bright!

Uni (Sea urchin) nigiri, tobiko (little orange eggs) nigiri, and chopped scallop nigiri.

Catepiller roll (tobiko, avicado ontop of unagi roll), Chopped scallop roll, and Negitoro ( minced tuna wth green onion).

Spider roll (softshll crab, avocado and cucumber)

California roll (imitation crab avacado and cucumber) and Kappa (cucumber)

Yakisoba (pan fried noodles, checkn and baby shrimp

Shrimp tempura

Ramen

Applause have items on the menu other than sushi that will blow your mind. When making reservations or planning a large party, they are very accommodating. For my sister’s birthday, they even made her party a special $25 set menu. If you want to try something new, try out their appetizers because you will not be disappointed. For everything we ordered it all came out to be around $250 for 20 something dishes!

We rate applause:

Visit their website: www.applauserestaurant.ca

In Chinese

Sun Sui Wah

October 2, 2010

When the whole family gets together, what is the first thing you want to do? If the answer is going out for FOOD, that is RIGHT!

My relatives and I headed out to Sun Sui Wah on Main Street to have some awesome afternoon tea. They have free parking underground so finding a parking spot was not problem at all. Taking the elevator up from the parking lot, we walked into the restaurant and saw the pretty décor. On one of the walls was a traditional dragon and bird panel. On the ceiling, there was a long white fabric draping down. It was neat to look at and it opened up the space for more light.

We sat down and our place setting consisted on Chopsticks, teacup, bowl, and saucers. All normal. Looking at the vast menu, I had no idea what I was doing, so I sat there and waited for the oldies to order food. They ordered off a Chinese menu with no English, so I have no idea what something’s are called, but I hope you enjoy the photos.

The first dish that came was roasted squab. This is one of their signature dishes for Sun Sui Wah.

The second dish was a cold cut platter. It contained 7 spice beef, tofu curds, red clam, jelly fish, and fried imitation crab.

The third was Fresh lobster and crab sauteed with superior stock.

The fourth dish was Shark’s fin soup with fish maw and crab meat.

The fifth dish was Pan fried e-fu noodles. This came in a bigger bowl but the server split it up amongst the people at the table.

The sixth dish was Sauteed prawns and scallops with vegetables.

The seventh dish was fish in a sweet and sour sauce. I was not a big fan of the dish because I have never seen fish with sweet and sour sauce.

For dessert, we ordered baked tapioca.

The next dessert we have is mango pudding. This mango pudding has bits of real mango inside and topped with evaporated milk.

The mango pillows were really unique. I have never seen them at any other restaurant before. It is basically a piece of mango and whipping cream wrapped in a crepe skin.

Overall Sun Sui Wah is a really nice Chinese restaurant for Dim Sum or a large family dinner. Being a bit more expensive than normal chinese restaurants, Sun Sui Wah does offer nice decor and better quality food.

We rate Sun Sui Wah: