February 2011

In Food for Thought

Aero: Feel what bubbles?!

February 28, 2011

I recently have been eating a lot of Aero and I could not help but notice their slogan ” let the bubbles melt”. Honestly, I have spent many years wanting to believe it is true. Halloween after Halloween it just comes in those big packs of Nestle…or in my big sack of candy…yes, 22 and still going trick or treating! I wear a helmet to conceal my age.

When I crack open an Aero bar, I do see all the tiny tiny bubbles in the chocolate, but I don’t feel the bubbles. I have experimented by leaving the Aero in my mouth, but it just melt into a blob of chocolate and no bubbly feelings are felt. After countless times trying to figure out which way is the perfect way to to have the bubbles exposed to your tongue and just press down so it forces the air pockets to I can feel “the bubbles melt”.

I read stories where people feel the bubbles going down their throat when they swallow it…and I am left scratching my head to figure how thats possible. Perhaps people have hyped up this candy bar as a kid and I think the bubbles should feel like fizz. It has puzzled me for 20+ years. Either way, it still has a good taste. I strangely prefer the mint ones over the original one.

What are your thoughts on Aero and can you really feel the bubbles melt?

In American

Swiss Chalet Home Delivery Service

February 28, 2011

It’s weird how M can find so many commercials of food when he doesn’t even have a TV. Sure enough, he saw this and wanted to order Swiss Chalet online. Since we were already going out to run errands, we decided to order online and go into the restaurant to pick it up.

We set our order to be picked up at 9pm. There were even special parking spots for people who were just picking up. They were spots closest to the door! Since we fought off the snow storm and ended up a few minutes early, we had to wait a little bit for our meal to be ready.

After talking to the waitress about her day, it seems like the online service is actually working! Their kitchen was so swamped getting out all the online orders. Perhaps it was a snowy day and people wanted take out.

Since our order was about 10 mins late, they have us complementary pop as we waited. Very nice touch! M commented it was perhaps the most “homey” type of restaurant he has ever seen in Canada. He liked the service, but I just looked at him funny because it’s just a chain restaurant….nothing too homey about it. I guess what he was trying to say was how the staff really supported each other and were super friendly.

After zooming past all the stuck cars on the hills, we were back home. Snow Tires and 4 wheel drive for the win! We came back in one piece and had food.

I ordered the Roasted chicken and shrimp dinner ($10.99). It came with a multigrain bun, mixed vegetables, roasted chicken thigh, 5 pieces of shrimp and a container of sauce.

The chicken was very tender and juicy when I cut in. Since it was just one thigh, I really wasn’t full from the chicken. The shrimp was pretty bad, it was drenched in oil in the container and it did not holdt a lot of flavour to it.

M ordered double leg meal ($9.99). It came with the multigrain bun, mashed potatoes + gravy and 2 chicken thighs.

Mashed potatoes were thick and tasted very good.The chicken legs were very juicy, tender and the skin was superb with the special sauce.

The sauce that came with the meal was really delicious! It was like a mixture of gravy and BBQ sauce. We gobbled up most of both our sauces with out chicken. Addictive sauce!

Words of Wisdom:

The comfort of Swiss Chalet at home
Easy online ordering system
Delivery

We rate Swiss Chalet:

Address:

3860 Lougheed Hwy
Burnaby, BC

Website:
www.swisschalet.com

In Downtown

Babylon Cafe

February 27, 2011

I had no idea where to eat, so I walked around Robson Street and Babylon Cafe caught my eye. I was introduced to Babylong Cafe a few years ago by a friend. The place at first looked uber sketch but all the negative perceptions about this place disappeared.

A few year later, I am back to devour their amazing falafels and shawarma.

The exterior is pretty shady looking, but there is usually a line up during peak hours.

The interior of Babylon Cafe is really small. About 4 or 5 customers can stand inside to make their order. Babylon Cafe on Robson is a strictly To Go.

There are a lot of other ingredients you can add to your wrap, you just gotta add a bit of money to it.

When I arrived at about 1pm, a line began to start forming, there was probably 7 people in line waiting and the line was indeed going out the door. With all the delicious meat roasting in their shop, it is no wonder the smell of all the meat attracts visitors.

It is hand sized, so you can walk and eat at the same time. They also give you enough napkins in case you are a bit messy eating the wrap.

I ordered the Chicken Shawarma Wrap ($5.95). Inside this wrap is tabouleh, tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, hummas, and a mound of juicy chicken.

For $6, I really did enjoy it, the different vegetables, tabouleh and the pickles really gave this wrap a good crunch to go along with the savory chicken. Since, I had no where else to eat it, I went to Starbucks and grabbed at tea. Everyone else there was drinking a coffee and on their laptops. I could see the man infront of me trying to figure out what I was eating.

After eating this, I was not super full, but I was satisfied with the taste.

Words of Wisdom:

Generous amount of Meat
Under $10
To Go Style

We Rate Babylon Cafe:

Address:

708 Robson St
Vancouver, BC

In Fast Food

Burger King’s New Jalapeno & Cheddar Stuffed Steakhouse

February 27, 2011

I have no idea how M ever finds out about these new burgers at fast food joints.

Burger King has released their new Jalapeño & Cheddar BK Stuffed Steakhouse Sandwich in January. How this sandwich differs from theres is that the jalapenos and cheddar are integrated into the meat patty, so every bite you will get a bit of jalapeno and cheddar.

It kinda looks like a veggie patty, but it is far from it.

The Jalapeno & Cheddar BK Stuffed Steakhouse Combo ($7ish) comes with the usual sandwich, drink and fries…but i substituted the fries with onion rings for $0.20 more.

When I first opened the wrapper, you could definitely smell the aroma of the burger.

Its a decent size but it’s not too small either. The burger was horribly put together with too much sauce, small bits of lettuce, 1 tomato and the patty. The person that made it had very poor consistency, out of the 2 burgers we ordered, this one looked somewhat decent. M’s burger just looked like a piece of meat between 2 buns. (I wish I had a photo to show you)

Their poblano sauce is just a spicy mayo sauce that kinda tasted like thousand island dressing.

The patty is just their regular charbroiled patty with embedded cheddar and jalapeno bits. Having the embedded jalapeno and cheddar dulls the taste of the charbroiled classic taste of Burger King sandwiches. A pro about having the ingredients in the patty is that it won’t fall out of the sandwich easily.

It has a decent taste and it can get a bit spicy if you do take your time and taste in all the flavours.

FYI, I hate the onion rings…they should not even be called onion rings, there are no visible onions in there. There’s so much breading that it just makes these onion rings bland.

Overall, it was an ok sandwich, not extremely amazing or anything. I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to order this.

In Cafe

Penang Delight Cafe

February 26, 2011

Every time I pass by Penang to go to Kimura, it seems like it is really packed. Plus the photos online looked very delicious.

Since it was time for dinner with ConsultingGirl, I suggested we try this place out.

Penang is located on Rupert and 22nd. They specialize in Malaysian cuisine.

The interior looks really nice and cozy. They even have some really cute decorations on the wall such as little crabs, coconuts and other decor. This place tends to be packed on weekends, so if you are going with more than 4 people, do make a reservation.

When we went it was busy at first but then it really died down around 8:30pm.

We started with the beef satay ($5.95). It came with 4 skewers of beef and I think peanut sauce. I did not like this dish very much because the beef was a bit tough. I really imagined these be a bit more larger and tender.

It was also hard to dip the skewer in the sauce dish, so you will need to use your utensils to spread it onto the skewer.

The satay at Thai House Royal are so much better.

The next appetizer was the Penang Shrimp ($4.95). It is deep fried marinated pork in shrimp in a bean curd wrap. There were other ingredients in here as well, such as water chestnut and cucumbers. There was also a sweet sauce to go a long with it.

This is was pretty good, I liked the change of the wrapper so it’s not the usual wonton wrapper. This gives the roll more of a crunch and a nutty flavour. The addition of the water chestnuts gives it more texture and i love the crunchiness.

The next dish was the Kari Ayam ($7.95), which is dark meat chicken with potatoes stewed in red curry, lemon grass and coconut milk. We were really unimpressed with this dish because it was mostly potatoes and chicken. This dish also got very very cold very fast.

After we had the first bowl, we went to get more and it was pretty cold by then. Not warm, but actually cold. Maybe it’s not their fault since is was a cold day.

Even if the dish didn’t get cold, I would probably not order this again.

The next dish was the Curry Chicken Laksa ($8.95). In has shredded chicken with rice noodle, bean sprouts, fried tofu in a coconut curry broth. This was a pretty good dish and had this subtle taste and i think it was saffron or some other asian spice.

The shredded chicken was very very shredded, it took us a while to figure out it this was a veggie dish or not. Sure enough, we did find it. If you do want more chicken pieces perhaps getting the Hainanese chicken version of this dish. You can also get beef or fish ball versions as well.

I ordered the Soy Milk with Grass Jelly ($2.50). I thought it was supposed to be a cool drink but turns out it is just soy milk and grass jelly. It was also very small too. 4 gulps and it was gone. This is something pretty basic which you can make yourself.

I actually ordered this drink and wanted it at the beginning of the meal but after reminding the waitress, they brought it at the end of the meal.

Overall, the taste of the food was so-so, not the best but decent.

In the end, ConsultingGirl and I got a very weird vibe from this place. One hour before closing, they started cleaning up the restaurant, putting the chairs up onto the tables and cleaning the floors. We kept thinking they were closing and felt like they were trying to get us out. The weird thing was they were still accepting new customers. We were super puzzled.

Words of Wisdom:

Free parking on adjacent streets
Authentic malaysian cuisine
Slightly expensive for this type of cuisine

We rate Penang Delight Cafe:

Address:

3885 Rupert St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.penangdelight.com

In Food for Thought

Orbitz: the Forgotten Drink With Balls

February 26, 2011

You must already be confused, isn’t Orbitz a travel agency, to answer that question it is. But, a long time ago, there was a drink with the same name.

In 1997, Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp. introduced a non carbonated fruity drink called Obitz. The unique thing about Orbitz is that they have tiny little balls floating inside. They came in several flavours such as:

Raspberry Citrus (introductory flavor)
Blueberry Melon Strawberry (introductory flavor)
Pineapple Banana Cherry Coconut (introductory flavor)
Vanilla Orange (introductory flavor)
Black Currant Berry (introduced later)
Charlie Brown Chocolate (introduced later)

When I was about 10 years old, I remember me and my sister would bother my mom at the local market to buy us Orbitz. I honestly had no idea what it was, but it was really cool shaking the bottle to see the little balls move up and down.

You could probably say it was like a lava lamp that you would never have to plug in. Even if you left it there to sit in your room, it looked super cool.

The drink did not stay in the market very long due to horrible reviews and low sales.

As a kid I only liked it because of the look. The taste on the other hand was very questionable. Reminded me of medicine. Perhaps it would have been better if it was a carbonated beverage.

As of today, if you do still have an old bottle of this drink it is now a collectors item. People have been selling there drink of Ebay for $10 – $20.

This is probably the most memorable drink I have ever had as a kid. Do you have any favorite discontinued drinks from your childhood?

In Downtown

Sushi Zero One

February 26, 2011

I am running out of options to eat near the office, so when I asked for suggestions on twitter @nicolb suggested I try Sushi Zero One. Since she does know her food, I decided to check this place out.

I swear I walked around the block 2 times but it’s hard to spot since there at 3 sushi restaurants on the block. Since i really did not want to admit defeat, so I decided to look for the store address on the iphone.

Luckly I did find it, it was not as I expected the restaurant to look like. It is very small and has limited seating, most people take out instead of sit there. I was so glad I went by myself because there was only 1 seat left.

Sushi Zero One does have a vast menu of items, there were so many that I had no idea where to look since there was a few items on the board, other items on the wall, a normal menu and a board with daily specials.

I felt a bit overwhelmed by the choices, but I just stick to the daily special…it must be good since it’s on the special menu.

One of the specials were sashimi don ($9.50) with 3 types of fish – wild salmon, albacore tuna and saba.

The don consisted of rice, dried seaweed, pea sprouts, sashimi, and ginger + wasabi. If you dont’ like wasabi, you can take it out and put it in your sauce dish to mix it with soy sauce.

I liked how the don was simple and fresh, the only negative thing I can say about it is that I found that their cutting skills for the sashimi was quite poor, you can tell by the image that there is a bit of the grey skin still on the fish.

It also came with a miso soup.

Words of Wisdom:

Online ordering form
Limited seating
Free delivery
Large menu
Cheap and fresh

We Rate Sushi Zero One:

Address:

559 W Pender St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.sushizeroone.com

In North Burnaby

Mountain Shadow Pub

February 25, 2011

If you go to Simon Fraser University on the Burnaby Campus, I am sure you have heard about Mountain Shadow Pub. It is just 3 bus stops away and it’s were you go when you want to party, watch the game, or even devour some cheap lunch/dinner.

Mountain Shadow has a lot of weekly specials. My favorite days to come here are Tuesday and Wednesday because it’s WINGS NIGHT! What more could university students want? Cheap food, alcohol, and great company.

I started off relaxing with a pint of Stella Artois (~$7). Stella Artois is a European lager from Belgium. It is golden in color and has an exceptional clarity. The crisp, refreshing flavour of Stella pairs well with flavoured food such as wings. The bitterness cuts through sauces.

Even though the wings are 25 cents per wing, you have to order then in pounds rather than ordering 3 of this and 3 of that.

I ordered one pound of Salt and Pepper ($3) and a pound of hot ($3). I prefer these over the other choices – Honey Garlic, BBQ, Thai, and Teriyaki because those are heavily drenched in sauces and do make your hands very sticky and super dirty.

All the wings are prepared by frying them in the deep frier and then putting their sauces and/or spice onto the wings. Most places that do have the 25 cent wings deal tend to have very tiny sizes for the wings and drumettes. As for the sizes at Mountain Shadow, the sizes were decent, a woman can get really full by have 2 pounds of wings.

The salt and pepper was seasoned well, so there was not too much salt.

The hot was not extremely hot, if you can deal with a little bit of hot, you should be alright. What I usually do to cut down the amount of hotness in my mouth, is to eat one salt & pepper wing, then a hot, and then salt & pepper, and then hot again. This way, the amount of hot does not accumulate.

Words of Wisdom:

Reservations are best on game days for large groups
25 cent wings on Tues and Wed
Lots of free parking
Not a place to take your family – mostly a university scene
Located in a residential area
Student Club fundraising events on Fri/Sat Night

We Rate Mountain Shadow Pub:

Address:

7174 Barnet Rd
Burnaby, BC

Website:
www.shadowpub.com

In Downtown

Guu Garden

February 25, 2011

Since I found out the other Guu location – Guu Garden offered lunch, I really had to try it out to see how it compared.

After walking aimlessly around the building, I stumbled upon this sign near some stairs in the rear. If I missed the sight of this sign, I’d probably have no idea where to find Guu. I thought Google maps tricked me into going to this deserted place. (Most of the building was under construction besides Guu Garden & Relish.

When I made my way to the restaurant I was greeted with a welcoming “irrashaimase”, which means Welcome in Japanese.

Since it was me, myself and I…I just decided to sit on the bar. Ya… the awesomeness of being a loner! Woot.

Their menu definitely had more choices than Guu on Thurlow. From bento boxes to the favorite izakaya dishes!

I first ordered the Tuna Tataki ($6.50). For lunch they served it with 4 pieces of tuna. It is lightly seared on the outside and garnishes with garlic chips, green onions and ponzu sauce. The quality of the tuna was delicious and had a good texture.

It was a tad expensive for lunch compared to what I had next…

Guu Garden has some amazing bento boxes for lunch! $10 Rice Burger bento Box!

The bento box came with a choice of 3 burger – Kobe Beef, tuna fillet, and pork tenderloin. Each bento box comes with miso soup and 4 sides to accompany the dish.

I got my combo with the Tuna Fillet Cutlet with tartar sauce. It is a good take on the traditional burger. The fillet was nice and golden brown on the outside. Once you take a bite of the sandwich, you can hear the *crunch* when you bit into the fillet.

I wasn’t particularly fond of this, after I saw this, I really wish I ordered the Kobe Beef version on the sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a good burger but it didn’t suit my taste. I’m not a big fan of deep fried items.

The miso soup was delicious like most places, but it was a different since they added puff tofu into the miso soup. It added texture into the soup.

This was a cold potato type of thing. I usually dont like potatoes but this was not too starchy tasting.

Next side dish were tempura green beans. It was not too oily and seasoned with salt and pepper.

This shrimp salad was very very good. It had greens, avocado, shrimp, and a few other ingredients. The sauce that they had on it was very interesting and tasted like wasabi but it was not too overwhelming. It did not give you the weird nose stingy sensation

Almond tofu pudding with lychee was by far the best part of the meal and the perfect ending. I love tofu dessert so, I am really biased towards it because I could eat a whole tub full of this.

Words of Wisdom:

Amazing $10 bento lunch
Hard to locate the restaurant

We Rate Guu Garden:

Address:

M101-888 Nelson Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.guu-izakaya.com

In Fast Food

Wendy’s New Asiago Ranch Chicken Club Sandwich

February 24, 2011

Wendy’s just launched their new asiago ranch chicken club sandwich. I didn’t know they released a new sandwich until M gave me an earful about how the sandwich has such amazing ingredients. All I could do was give him a weird look and he made me promise him that we would go get it after school.

Surely enough, I kept to this promise and went to get this sandwich with him.

The sandwich comes in 3 different variations – grilled, homestyle or spicy. Each sandwich also contains strips of applewood smoked bacon, asiago cheese, ranch sauce, lettuce, and tomatoes. This sandwich can range from 470 – 660 calories depending on the style of chicken you get.

We went to the drive through to get it since eating in at Wendy’s during the late night is quite depressing, it screams “I have no life”. We only got one Spicy Asiago Ranch Chicken Club combo ($8.95). Medium coke, Sea Salt fries, and the sandwich.

The sandwich obviously does not look like their advertisement but is decent. The spicy chicken fillet is plump, tender, juicy and adds a bit of a kick. The spiciness is not over powering at all, it is fairly mild and won’t make you cry or scream for water.

Since this sandwich does carry a bit of salt content in the chicken breading and bacon, the fresh tomatoes and lettuce balances it out. The asiago has a nutty sharp taste. Even though there are different flavours, they do not compete against each other, this is probably the mix of ingredients and how you can still taste each ingredient distinctly. The bun is soft and houses the ingredients well.

Overall, pretty good sandwich!

In Burnaby Cariboo-Lougheed

Jugo Juice

February 23, 2011

NailPolishFanatic and I were at Lougheed Mall and were just walking around catching up and saw Jugo Juice, so we decided to get some instead of going to Starbucks for coffee. Trying to be healthy you know?

Jugo Juice has a new location in at Lougheed Mall. They have chains all over the Lower Mainland…and at almost every mall.

Don’t get this place confused with Booster Juice because I always make the same mistake. They sell very similar things – smoothies, juices and some snacks.

Like all the Jugo Juices, they have drinks with the most weirdest names like – Mango Magic, Berry Binge, Banana Buzz….etc…etc. You kinda get the idea what your drink will taste like assuming you can read their menu with their small font.

I ordered the Watermelon Wiggle, I thought it had a cool name that almost made me giggle. I really did not take a liking to the Watermelon Wiggle. Even though it does have Watermelon in it, the taste was very sweet and almost tasted like candy because of the nectar in the smoothie. I really don’t prefer drinks here because I never liked the taste of the smoothies I have gotten.

When I was watching them make it, they put in prepackaged frozen fruits, nectar and ice to make the drink.

NailPolishFanatic had the Mango Magic, it was way better than the watermelon wiggle but it was not the best tasting drink, but still decent. I think it was the nectar that made this drink more sweet than it needed to be.

Yes, Jugo Juice does have cool sounding drinks, but most of the flavours are hit and miss. Do you have a favorite? If you do, let me know so I can give them another chance. For the time being, I think I will stick with Booster Juice…or I can settle with Orange Julius.

We Rate Jugo Juice:

Address:

9855 Austin Rd. (upstairs mall)
Burnaby, BC

Website:
www.jugojuice.com

In Cafe

Cafe Artigiano

February 23, 2011

Cafe Artigiano serves up some of the better coffees in Vancouver. They serve italian-style coffee and are famous for their award winning latte art.

They are a coffee shop chain that have locations all around the Lower Mainland. Cafe Artigiano use to be owned by the Piccolo Family in 1999, but a few years ago they sold it to Earl’s owner – Willlie Mounzer. Even though it has changed ownership, the expansion of Cafe Artigiano has not slowed down. They have even opened locations in Victoria.

All their locations have a similar look and have a warm feeling. There a lots of tables to sit and chit chat. People also like to study or have meetings here. Their menu is located up on top of the wall for drinks.

If you have some thing else in mind that is not on their menu, you can always ask them to make you a custom drink.

Besides coffee and tea, they also sell soup, sandwiches and other pastries.

I ordered a medium Latte. By far, this is 103933 times better than Starbucks. It has a bold and strong taste to it. This will wake you up for the day ahead. What I love most about Cafe Artigiano is their latte art! I think it’s quite unique that they take their time to do latte art on all their drinks.

We rate Cafe Artigiano:

Address:

574 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.caffeartigiano.com

Other posts on Cafe Artigiano:

In Dessert

CheeseCake Etc. Take Out

February 22, 2011

PinappleBun sent me on a trek to grab some take out from CheeseCake Etc. The last time I went here, it was about a year or so ago. A lot has changed since then, their shop use to just be one restaurant but now it has expanded and has an additional dining area. CheeseCake Etc sells NY style cheese cake, which basically there is no graham cracker base.

Looking at their menu, they do not have a large selection of cheesecake. Mostly drinks and a few combinations of desserts and bread.

I came here just for a whole cheesecake to take out. There are not a lot of options…just the original cheesecake ($26), chocolate cheesecake ($31) and a tub of strawberry sauce ($7). I asked the cashier how many slices a whole cheese cake has, and he answered saying about 8. I did bit of calculations and realized it’s not a bad deal at all! You save about $11.

We got the original cheesecake and the tub of strawberry sauce ($33). You have to keep this frozen on order to get a nice looking slice from the cake. If it is half thawed, it will give you can ugly looking slice.

The cheesecake us good with strawberries, it gives you more of a sweet taste and other textures.

If you don’t have a large appetite, you will probably cut smaller pieces and get more than 8 slices.It’s been a few days and we still have this still in our fridge! Cheesecake for breakfast…lunch or dinner. haha.

Words of Wisdom:

Pay parking on adjacent roads
Lots of seating
Good simple cheesecake
Limited choices on menu

We rate CheeseCake Etc. :

Address:

2141 Granville St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.cheesecakeetc.com

In Japanese

Kingsway Sushi

February 21, 2011

Kingsway Sushi is an all you can eat sushi joint on Kingsway and Boundary. They are owned by Top Gun Group who also own Richmond Sushi, Top Gun J&C, Top Gun Hot Pot, and Garden City Hot Pot.

They have all you can eat for Lunch, Dinner and Late Night. They have special types of menus for lunch and Dinner depending it you want a wider selection of items to choose from.

They do have an ala carte menu but it is not worth the price since your meal would end up pretty close to what you would be paying for all you can eat. A week day normal dinner cost us $21.95 per person.

On a Thursday night, all the tables were full! Surprising since it was a weekday. This place is one of the better All You Can Eat restaurants in Burnaby. All the other ones at Metrotown can’t compare.

They have lots of different items on their regular menu, I didn’t take a picture of all the food we ordered but here are just a few.

Edamame beans

Beef Tataki / Beef Sashimi

If you eat a lot of this, you will probably get your moneys worth since on the Ala Carte menu the tataki is 8 pieces for $8.95…

Miso Soup

Different types of rolls

Wild Salmon Sushi

Mango Pudding

The service is pretty good, since everything is electronic there is no delay. As we finished giving the waitress our list of items for the first round of ordering, our food came right away! The hot items take a bit longer to arrive compared to already prepared items like the mango pudding and beef tataki.

The food is so – so, but most all you can eats in Vancouver aren’t spectacular .

Words of Wisdom:

Very fast service
Large variety in menu
There is usually a line up if you don’t have reservations
Closed on Tuesdays
2 hour limit
Free Parking underground

We Rate Kingsway Sushi:

Address:

3665 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC

Website:

www.topgungroup.com/KS.html

In Food for Thought

Food-aholic

February 21, 2011

Are you a Food-aholic? Do you follow most local food blogs in Vancouver? What happens when you run out of blogs to read?

When I am bored…I go on my Iphone to look at photos or read about food…twitter about food…review food…anything to do with food. This is not to say I am a food addict…I do have a social life as well. But a majority of the time it does revolve around food. Someone will say “What do you want to do”? I reply back “umm…well we could just go eat”.

Wait a minute … perhaps I am a food addict. Ok, I’ll stop denying the fact. I DesignGirl am a food-aholic / Food Addict / whatever you call it. Acceptance is the first step to recovery right? (but do I really want to be cured of this delicious disease?) No.

Well, in the meantime, I will share with you a few blogs which I absolutely adore. They are great for those days when you are just super bored and want to look at some amazing food pictures or food news.

TasteSpotting – Images with delicious food and recipes

Food Porn Daily – Images of delicious food

Food Network Humor – Articles and images making fun of Food Network personalities

Epic Meal Time – Videos of guys making crazy meals with….BACON with over 10,000 calories

This Is Why You’re Fat – Images of gross food people make

Food Gawker – Similar to FoodSpotting

Foodspotting – People share images of food around Vancouver

In Downtown

Lully’s Sandwich Bar

February 20, 2011

I posed a question on Twitter “Need suggestions for lunch in Downtown. Any good places that are not the “usual” places to eat at?”, I got a few replies back from the amazing followers! Since it was a nice sunny day in downtown Vancouver, I just had to try out Lully’s Sandwich Bar.

I actually pass by a few times a week and I always feel guilty that I don’t stop and say hi. Keep in mind, I am a very shy timid girl and at times socially awkward! This is why I will be that girl in networking events near the food tables just eating..and eating…and eating. It’s a bad habit, but I’m slowly working on my confidence.

Lully’s Sandwich bar is located outside Granville station. My first thought when I saw this cart was “I wonder who’s Lully, is there really a Lully?”. At this food cart, there are no people named Lully. 2 local entrepreneurs decided to bring Lully’s Sandwich Bar – a famous Victoria Restaurant, here to Vancouver!

Who are these entrepreneurs I am speaking of? They are the Ip brothers of PanDa Fresh Bakery! They have taken a hiatus from running the big yellow bus to start up their new idea of selling Montreal smoked meats in Vancouver. Since they are both from Montreal and hold a deep connection to where they were from, they jumped at the idea of opening a new cart.

No news on whether the PanDa Fresh Bakery will be back, but hopefully it will be back once summer comes around. The reason why they put PanDa Fresh Bakery on hold because of the location and the weather.

Now lets talk about their food. Looking at their menu, it was really hard to choose what I wanted since I was not super hungry. 2 different sizes of sandwich to choose from. So, I asked Michael Ip how big the jumbo and the regular sizes were. After looking at a few images, I really wanted to chow down on the Jumbo since i’ve never had such a massive sandwich.

The Jumbo Old Fashioned Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich ($10) was stacked with so much meat. I was watching him build this and he kept piling more and more meat on the sandwich. In total there was 12 oz of meat with mustard on a 2 slices of bread.

Once the sandwich was cut in half, you can see how large this sandwich really is!

I am not an expert when it comes to eating Montreal smoked meat sandwiches. All I know is that this sandwich is simple and good to honest just gives you a homey feeling. Not complicated and only has 3 ingredients – bread, mustard and meat.

Eating it needs a bit of a strategy since theres so much meat in this sandwich, what I did was to eat one half at a time and keep it in the wrapper so no precious meat falls on the floor. The meat was tender and easy to bite into. I enjoyed it because it was something new that I have never tried before.

Some may say this sandwich is too simple and not worth the $10. But everyone is entitled to their personal opinions.

We Rate Lullu’s Sandwich Bar:

Address:

650 Granville St.
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.lullyssandwichbar.com

In Cafe

Golden Oscar Cafe & Restaurant (Visit #2)

February 20, 2011

Visit #1

Another visit to Golden Oscars on Rupert Street with a bunch of people before heading out to Boss Night Club to check out an event. Since Oscars can usually accomodate a medium sized group of people, we headed over here..plus it’s cheap!

Golden Oscars is a Hong Kong style cafe, so you can find most of the usual items to be in the menu….fried rice, noodles, congee…etc.

I felt thirsty…very thirsty…perhaps it was from my lack of carbs for a while. Apparently it makes you very very dehydrated.
I started off my meal by ordering the Grilled Chicken Steak and Pork Chop on Rice meal ($8.99).

I ordered a cold milk tea with the meal. It came with a small canister of sugar water to add to the milk. I was a little bit distracted and poured a bit too much sugar into my milk tea. Not the best idea since it became super sweet.

I would recommend most people to just to add it in gradually until it’s the right sweetness for you.

The soup that comes with this meal is the usual creamed corn and ham soup. Nothing too special about this, jut normal soup.

What can I really say about the Grilled Chicken Steak and Pork Chop on Rice that I haven’t said in the last visit? There wasn’t anything different except I wish I had more meat. hahaha. No, seriously, I think the portion sizes have gotten a bit smaller in the past few years. Or, my appetite for meat is really large. The chicken and pork chop were both very tender and smelled amazing due to the gravy sauce they have poured on top of both steaks.

This dish also somes with a very very small side of steamed corn, carrots and broccoli. It is very minimal and for a women that likes her vegetables, it really was tiny.

M got his all time favorite dish, baked pork chop. He got the full sized plate rather than the dinner set. It comes with 2 large pieces of baked pork chop rather than just one.

A lot of baked pork chops are different, some come with out bones and some come with bones. Unfortunately Golden Oscars makes them with bones, so I would suggest you ask for an extra plate and cut up all the pork chops and removing the bone before digging into the meal. It makes it easier to eat…. and way less messy.

I do find it very hilarious every time I visit a HK Cafe because I can’t speak Chinese. I can only listen to Chinese but I just can’t speak, it’s super weird but thats what happens when you neglect speaking the language for many years. The waitresses always approach the table speaking Cantonese and i’ll only point at the menu and speak english. I always wonder what they think of me…

Words of Wisdom:

Free parking in parking lot or residential areas
Large Portions at decent prices
Very busy during peak hours

We rate Golden Oscar Cafe & Restaurant:

Address:

3868 Rupert St
Vancouver, BC

In Food for Thought

What came first? Cereal or Milk?

February 19, 2011

Today it was my first time eating cereal in a long long long LONG time. I got my bowl, milk and cereal ready. As I picked up the box I thought to myself “What do I put in first? Cereal or the milk?”.

I vaguely remember being a kid pouring in the milk first and not having enough cereal in my bowl to have a good even ratio. It really made me start wondering “how many people do put cereal first…or milk”! Everyone must have their own opinions about it and why they put that ingredient in first.

After thinking for about 30 seconds, I concluded that I should put in the cereal first so I don’t waste any milk. My love for Honey Nut Cheerios are greater than milk. If I really wanted to drink a lot of milk, I’ll pour myself a glass.

A question I pose to you all ” How do you prepare cereal? Do you put the cereal in first? or the milk?”. Any favorite cereals?