Downtown Archives - Page 20 of 22

In Downtown

Fairmont Lobby Lounge: Carvery Luncheon

March 19, 2011

I bought a Social Shopper coupon for a Carvery Luncheon at the Lobby Lounge at the Fairmont Pacific Rim. The deal is good for $20 for 2 Carvery lunch sets ($40 value).

The Lobby lounge is located on the first floor of the Fairmont Pacific Rim. As you can tell by the name, it is located near the lobby. It is an open space and has lots of comfy chairs…VERY comfy chairs. It’s a great place to have a few drinks, appies and have a good chat or a meeting.

For a drink, I was feeling like a non-alcoholic drink, so I ordered the Flower Pot ($8). It’s not a tea or anything, it’s just a soda. It was really good and refreshing, but $8 was quite steep ..but it is the Fairmont, so its expected.

The carvery meats used in the sandwich is cut in the dining room, if you sit close enough, you can see them cutting the prime rib and doing their thing.

The Carvery Luncheon ($20) comes with choice of soup or salad, fries, prime rib burger and condiments on the side.

We could choose from a tomato and garden soup or Caesar salad. Flo said the soup was pretty average and nothing too spectacular. I chose the Caesar salad, lightly dressed, cheese on top and has 2 crouton things on the side. I enjoyed it!

Both choices are healthy alternatives and you can’t really go wrong.

The fries that come with the luncheon were very poorly made. It was not crispy and they were very limp. It seemed like the frozen fries you would get at the grocery store and make at home. We were both very disappointed since we expected more from the Fairmont.

The main item of the luncheon is the prime rib sandwich. Comes in a nice toasted bun, super tender prime rib slices, and a bit of sauce. You can also add a bit of stuff to your sandwich. The is mustard, horseradish, pickles, hot peppers, pickled onions, and beef juice.

You can spread the horeseradish and mustard into the sandwich or dip it as you go. Many endless possibilities of how you want to go about eating it.

If you don’t want to use your hands to eat this, you can use your knife and fork. I found that the best way to go about it was to cut the sandwich in half so you can dip it into the sauces.

Overall, great luncheon for the Social Shopper deal (Saving 50%!). If you don’t have the coupon, you can order this during lunch time for $20 per person. The service was very poor in my opinion. We made a reservation but there was no one at the Lobby Lounge entrance to lead us to the reserved table, so we just walked in and seated ourselves. We waited a long while till a server came to greet us.

Even though you use the coupon, there is a social shopper gratuity added onto the bill so you do have to pay about $8.

We Rate Lobby Lounge at Fairmont Pacific Rim:

Address:

1038 Canada Pl
Vancouver, BC

Website:

http://www.fairmont.com/pacificrim/GuestServices/Restaurants/LobbyLoungeandPatio.htm

In Bar and Grill

ShuRaku Sake Bar and Bistro

March 14, 2011

Another wonderful day for a lunch in Downtown Vancouver and I decided to check out ShuRaku. Apparently I’ve been here before..about a year ago for dinner, but I keep forgetting every time I pass by.

ShuRaku specializes in contemporary Japanese cuisine. Their lunch menu has several set meals between $9 to $15.

Their interior is very modern. They also have a wide selection of sake and other alcoholic beverage. They have a very large menu of different sake choices. (DUH, they are a sake bar). Since I was going to lunch, I really didn’t need to be suffering from the “asian glow”and going back to work would be awkward. Perhaps another time for dinner.

I started off by ordering a pot of tea of Sencha Green Tea (about $2/$3). Tea is not free, but there are about 5 or 6 teas to choose from. The pot that comes with the tea is quite heavy, you will be really getting an arm work out.

It’s like a double whammy of healthiness… arm workout + 0 calorie drink!

I ordered the Karaage Nanban Chicken Set ($9.95). It has deep fried chicken with sweet and sour Nanban sauce. The set also came with salad, rice and miso soup.

The karaage was boneless and under the fried exterior was juicy succulent meat inside. One of the better karrage’s I have had this whole week! The salad was mostly mixed greens with a nice citrus sauce. There is really not much to say about the miso soup and the rice since those taste pretty much the same as other restaurants.

Words of Wisdom:

Great atmosphere
Lunch sets
Lots of variety of alcohol

We Rate ShuRaku Sake Bar and Bistro:

Address:

833 Granville St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.shuraku.net

In Downtown

Freshii

March 9, 2011

I saw Freshii on Twitter and it sounded like a nice healthy and fresh place to eat at for lunch. They offer freshly made salads, noodles, wraps, burritos, soups and even breakfast. They have a very simple and clean look on the exterior and interior. During lunch time it was pretty busy, some people ate in, some people did take out.

At first I was very confused how to order, lots of different options! You start by picking up a clip board in the middle of the room and jot down your name and what to order. You can either choose any of the specialty items, or you can customize your own.

I found the configuration on the room to be quite confusing, you would have to fill in your paper, go to the back of the restaurant to give them your paper, go to another counter, pay and then wait for your name to be called to get your food. I didn’t really want to waste paper, so perhaps next time, I will do online ordering.

Since I don’t like to think for myself sometimes, I decided to create a chef selected salads. You do have the option of making your own salad, but I was feeling not too picky.

I ordered the Freshii Cobb Salad ($9.89). For that price, you do get quite a big salad! Definitely worth the price. In this salad, there was mixed greens, romaine, roasted chicken, avocado, smoked bacon, diced tomatoes, sweet corn, blue cheese, and topped with dijon mustard dressing.

The ingredients tasted fresh and the combination worked well together except for the blue cheese. I thought I would be adventurous today, but nope still don’t like blue cheese. It really has a pungent sharp taste which really disgusts me. If you don’t like blue cheese, try asking them to replace it with some other cheese or get another type of salad.

You are able to choose the amount of dressing you want on your salad, I went with regular but still felt there was a bit too much. Next time, I will choose the 1/2 amount of dressing. It’s really up to personal preferences.

Word of Wisdom:

Online Ordering form
Fresh customizable salads
Most items under $10
To go or eat in

We rate Freshii :

Address:

870 West Cordova Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.freshii.com

In Cafe

Giovane Cafe

March 6, 2011

FloYVR keeps telling me about Giovane Cafe, so we just had to head there for lunch. For those people who pass by the Pacific Rim Fairmont, it’s the restaurant will the cool looking “g”. Don’t deny that you have taken pictures beside it. (I’ve seen your display pictures..and it’s quite cute).

I pass by this place a lot too, but I was amazing at how large it was inside. Lots of seating! Giovane Cafe specializes in italian inspired foods such as pizzas, soups, and panini’s. They also have fresh coffee, cakes, pastries, breads and cookies.

To order, you need to go to the back of the restaurant to look at the menu and see what you want to order. They even have a large variety of specialty drinks and the usual drinks like pop and water.

Like I said, all of their food is italian inspired, thus the abundance of different panini’s, pizzas, and salads. They also have calzones but I didn’t take a picture of that.

After thinking for a long time, I ordered the Funghi Misto Bosco pizza ($10). I had truffled mushrooms, tellegio, leeks, and thyme. It really did take me a long time to decide to choose this. The staff told me the Funghi had a lot of flavour and tasted really good. Since I do like mushrooms, I got it.

After sinking my teeth into this pizza, the flavour from the leeks and the truffled mushrooms made it a very savory pizza. The dough was nice and thin and crunchy on the edges. The only thing I wish could have been better would be having the center of the dough be more crispy because I felt when i picked up each slice, it would flop around.

FloYVR had the special pizza ($10). I am not sure if this has a name but it was the special of the day.

Most of the pizza’s are reheated in their ovens before serving, and her pizza was not very warm, so she had to go back to get it to a better temperature to fully enjoy the pizza.

If you can’t finish your whole pizza, they give you a small cute pizza box for it. Imagine bringing this back to your office and making your coworkers jealous. haahaha.

Giovane Cafe also has a coffee/pastry bar area in the front where you can grab something quick to go. Since FloYVR had a 2 for 1 coupon for a drink from their tweet up, we used it!

Since we had to try their desserts, we chose to share the Mini Emerald Green Apple, Caramel Almond ($7). This was a very unique dessert, we really had no idea what to expect. In between the green apple mousse were layers of green apple pieces and a caramel almond layer. It may seem like a very odd combination but it worked really well together. It was not very sweet either, so if you fear sweet things, you should be ok with this dessert.

Words of Wisdom:

Busiest days: Thurs & Fri
Amazing desserts
A bit on the pricey side since it’s located in the Fairmont

We Rate Giovane Cafe:

Address:

1038 Canada Pl
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.giovanecafe.com

In Bar and Grill

Wings on Granville

March 6, 2011

It was TaiwaneseGirl’s Birthday, so she quickly put together a small party at Wings on Granville.

The only time we could make a reservation was 6pm or before. I guess it’s a policy. Good thing we did make reservations because it was quite full. There were other large groups as well.

They usually show Hockey games, but the day we went was not a Canucks game, so the place was not jam packed. If you are coming here for a Canucks game, there is a HUGE screen in the back of the restaurant.

No birthday party is complete without a pitcher of beer. Goes well with wings!

I was trying to be healthy and ordered the greek salad entree size ($8.99). In this salad were bell peppers, red onions, cucumbers,black olives, feta cheese and tomatoes. It is also served with garlic toast. It was an ok greek salad was not the best. I really like my greek salads to have a bit more balsamic vinegar in it.

KoreanGirl and TaiwaneseGirl both had 2 pounds of wings ($14.39). Thats what 2 pounds looks like. Kinda expensive!

M, InsecureGirl and FragileBoy shared a plate of 5lb wings ($33.95). You get 5 flavours of your choice and 3 dipping sauces with some vegetable sticks. When looking at the plate, it really did not look like 5 pounds. Since all the wings are piled onto the plate, you really have no idea if it is 5 pounds unless you happen to carry a scale in your purse.

You also have no idea what each flavour is since they mostly look the same. The waiter just brought it to the table without explaining what was what.

The only day where it is really worth having wings is Sundays where it is $0.25 each. You essentially save about $3 per pound.

We all decided to share the Wings Shared Platter ($20). It had Wings, dry ribs, crispy wontons, spring rolls, potato skins, chippers, pita bread, veggies, served with tzatziki sauce.

Even though there was a lot of variety in this platter, the quality was not that great, pretty average. It’s still a good dish to order if you are sharing with your friends.

Words of Wisdom:

Wings special on Sundays
Famous for their wings (duh)
Reservations before 6pm
Good place to watch the game

We Rate Wings onGranville:

Address:

1162 Granville St
Vancouver, BC

Website:
www.greatwings.ca

In Downtown

Fumiyoshi Seafood & Sushi

March 5, 2011

On my way to lunch, I could feel the showers beginning again, it was that weird day were there were “140km” winds (It totally wasn’t…darn those weather people). There were random periods of heavy rains and then BAM it was sunny and then it turned rainy again.

I was originally going to eat somewhere else, but I just decided to go to Fumiyoshi since it was a block away.

There is lots of room inside if you want to come in with a bunch of people. Most of the seating are booths and 4 people tables.

Since I was craving Fried chicken, I decided to get an order of Chicken Karrage ($3). I have to admit, this is the most failed chicken karrage I have ever seen and tasted. It was not a chicken wing or drumette. These pieces were the joints of chicken bones, so you don’t get a large amount of meat since most of it is just cartilage.

For my main, I ordered their bento boxes. It was $10.99. There was chicken teriyaki, yam rolls, green salad and vermicelli rice wrap. Miso soup comes with it as well.

The miso soup tasted good and refreshing. The green salad was mostly iceberg lettuce and it did not seem very fresh at all. The yam roll was ok as well, the yam roll was more of a yam tempura roll. The vermicelli rice wrap was a bit soggy on the outside and affected the structure of the wrap. It started falling apart.

I really didn’t like Fumiyoshi even though it was at a decent price. There are tons of other sushi restaurants on the same block that I would rather go to.

Words of Wisdom:

Large menu
Most items under $15
Has Japanese and Vietnamese items on their menu

We rate Fumiyoshi Seafood & Sushi:

Address:

538 W Pender St
Vancouver, BC

In Cafe

Mamak Malaysian Cafe

March 1, 2011

My coworker and I were craving something delicious near our office. After scouring the internet for places that were close by … or somewhat close by, we decided to check out Mamak Malaysia Cafe.

I’ve heard great things from other local bloggers – Chow Times and There is Always Room and how their food was to die for. Maybe not literally die, but so good that it’ll keep you coming back for more.

Mamak is located at Pub 340, it is super weird looking on the outside. If you arrive and feel super super confused, don’t be! They have a nice big sign on the outside window. Once you see this you are in the right place.

If you somehow manage to miss the sign in the front, walk inside look to your left and should be able to see the kitchen.

You can sit anywhere you want, but I would suggest not walking straight since thats more of the pub area. If you want to be cozy, then sit in the dining area on your immediate right.

I started off with the Roti Canai ($2.50). It comes with Mamak’s home-made roti served with authentic curry dip and spicy sambal sauce! It came with a knife too to cut the roti to share. Since my coworked didn’t want to try, it I really didn’t know what to do with the knife …except to think of an ingenious way to murder someone with the knife.

Anyways… the roti was very crispy and flaky …perfection! Dipping it into the sambal sauce was like heaven. This is the best roti I have ever had! Like… EVER. Please go order this!

For my main, I had the Malaysia Laksa ($8.50). It has rice noodle in curry coconut milk soup with chicken, shrimp, egg and fish-cake. I think there was tofu and green beans in that too. The tofu puffs really soaked up the the flavour of the soup, so when you put it into your mouth and chew it, you can taste all the flavour in the soup. Yum!

The sizes of the chicken in the Laksa was the size of a finger, yet again delicious. I am usually not a noodle person…even finishing a bowl of ramen is tough, but because of the thin rice noodles, I could finish this all!

I was talking to their waitress and they said Laksa was one of their most favorite dish of their customers…people would come in over and over again ordering this very dish. I mean, it’s cool to have a favorite dish, but why not just have a goal of eating the entire menu?

I will definitely be back for some more! Charles, the owner of Mamak even talked to each table individually to have a little chit chats with them. You can tell he really holds a passion for what he does. When he came to our table he asked us how the food was, if we worked around here and how we heard of Mamak. I just said we worked a few blocks away and I heard about it because I blog about food and saw lots of reviews. I think I was nervous or something because I didn’t tell him which blog I was from..hehe opps. I told you I’m shy!

Words of Wisdom:

Under $10 for lunch
Well made malaysia cuisine
Roti Canai is a must!

We rate Mamak Malaysia Cafe:

Address:

340 Cambie Street
Vancouver, BC

Website:
mamak.ca

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 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 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 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 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 Downtown

Italian Kitchen

February 13, 2011

Italian Kitchen is part of the Glowbal Group which bring Vancouver amazing restaurants such as Coast, Sanifir, Trattoria, and Society. They take pride in all of their restaurants, so visitors will not leave unsatisfied.

FinanceGirl and I were looking for a place to go for lunch and since Ramen was a bit too far to walk to from our offices, we chose Italian Kitchen.

It was my first time in any of the Glowbal Restaurants, so I was super excited to hear what all the hype was about.

The interior is really nice and chique. THe waitresses were really nice as well.

Their kitchen is open and near the dining area, so you can see the chefs whip up your meals.

Like any italian restaurant, they had the usual pasta, pizza, panini’s, and cheeses and meats.

Since we both wanted to try everything, we just decided to split everything.

We first ordered the Lamb Sausage Pizza ($15.50). It has peppered goat’s cheese, wild mushrooms, with a free range egg .

I loved this pizza because it was thin, crispy and had so much flavour. The pizza was cut up into 4 slices and had even toppings on each piece.

Next we had the Lobster and Crab Monte Cristo Sandwich ($14.50). It also contained egg and parmesan battered bread. It was a delicious sandwich but you could tell it was quite oily. Best eaten with a knife and fork if you don’t want oily hands.

It also came with a daily soup which was a potato and bacon soup. It really tasted like a baked potato

Overall, I really enjoyed the food at Italian Kitchen, it was a bit pricy for what we ordered at lunch, but I would consider coming back to either try out the To Go option or try out their other lunch specials.

Words of Wisdom:

Amazing decor and ambiance
Pricey
They have cheaper To Go options
Pizza is AMAZING

We Rate Italian Kitchen:

Website: www.theitaliankitchen.ca

Address:

1037 Alberni St
Vancouver, BC

In Bar and Grill

Bon Chaz 1 Year Anniversary

February 13, 2011

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Previous BonChaz Posts: Visit #1

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BonChaz was celebrating their one year anniversary last week by giving away free BonChaz to all their customers. They decked out the restaurant by putting up lots of balloons.

Since I work pretty close by, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to stop by for lunch.

You can choose from any BonChaz for free. I ordered the Banana Walnut BonChaz. I know some people hate banana but I love them in desserts and pastries. The inner of the BonChaz has the banana fillings and its SO Good!

If you don’t know what a BonChaz is, it’s a coffee bun type of pastry. Crunchy on the top and filled in the center with a nice sweet filling.

Since I didn’t want to take the BonChaz and go back to work. I ordered their Avacado and Brie Sandwich with a Curry Chicken soup (About $8). It is served on very soft bread and stuffed with tomatoes, cucumber, mayo, brie and avocados.

At first glance, you would expect you would taste more bread than filling, but this was not the case! They were quite generous with the brie and avocados, so it was nicely distributed throughout the sandwich and not cut too thin.

It was just perfect!

They had 2 types of daily soups but I chose the curry chicken. Had good sizable pieces of chicken and very good consistency.

And that was my fantastic lunch! Happy 1 Year BonChaz and I expect many great things from your team in the upcoming years!

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 Downtown

Dae Ji

February 8, 2011

I went to Dae Ji during lunch and the hamburg steaks just looked pretty good. Dae Ji, serves up korean Pork cutlet and many other dishes. It is very popular amongst international students. BCIT, SFU, and a bunch of language school are only a few blocks away.

The interior is very orange and not too bad looking inside. The kitchen is an open kitchen, so you can watch the cooks cook up your meal.

THe menu isn’t too large, but there’s everything you need to be happy for a lunch.

I ordered the hamburg Steak ($8.50). Hamburg Steak is basically hamburger patties without the bread and fillings.

The dish came with 2 patties smothered in gravy and ketchup. There is also rice, macaroni, coleslaw and pickled radish.

The steaks were very moist and delicious, but the ketchup was a bit too sweet to go with the steak. it’s just a personal opinion, some people love it with ketchup.

As for the sides…the coleslaw and macaroni were really bland.

Words of Wisdom:

A block away from Granville Skytrain
Pay Parking on street
All items are under $10, very cheap

We Rate Dae Ji:

Address:

519 Dunsmuir Street
Vancouver, BC

In Bar and Grill

Yew Restaurant + Bar

February 4, 2011

A Year ago, PhotographyGirl and I went here for Dineout and loved it. Since I never came here for lunch, I wanted to try it out.

Yew is located at the Four Seasons Hotel in Downtown Vancouver. It has really gorgeous interior. I would say it would be pretty good for a business lunch or a nice date.

The lunch menu is pretty straight forward, you have your appies, mains, and then dessert. Most people are pressed for time during lunch…so you probably don’t want to order all 3 if you have a 1 hour lunch. There’s a lot to choose from on the menu, but since I was on my diet, I was limited in choices…. 🙁

I started off with a coke. Even comes with refills!

The bread came and it was a sour dough? I think and some crunchy bread sticks.

I ordered the Ahi Tuna Wrap ($18) which came with a salad and I added on the daily soup ($6).

Inside the Ahi Tuna Wraps were Daikon, Asian Pear, Cilantro, on Vietnamese Rice Paper. Really nice and had sizable chunks of tuna. For $18 for 3 pieces of wrap and a salad … I didn’t think it was worth the price…but at least it was healthy.

I also added on a side soup since the waitress described it so exquisitely. I can remember what was in it, but it had real crab in it too!

PhotographyGirl ordered the starter version on the daily soup ($8) and the Pear Salad ($10).

The salad has Grilled Bosc Pear, Baby Spinach & Frisee Salad, Blue Cheese. She found the presentation not as well as it could have been.

Words of Wisdom:

Great for DineOut Vancouver option or any regular meal
Reservations are recommended
Have good breakfast
Free Coffee in the morning!
Outstanding soups

We Rate Yew:

Website: http://www.yewrestaurant.com/

Address:

791 W Georgia St
Vancouver, BC

In Dineout

DineOut: Aqua Riva

February 3, 2011

Since the old gang was back together in Vancouver, going out to Dineout seemed right. We left all the planning to ConsultingGirl and she brought everyone together.

We chose to go check out Aqua Riva. Aqua Riva is located beside the Waterfront convention centre. The dine out was $28 for 3 courses.

We just had water since we got reservations for 5 people at 8:30pm. Since we all had to work or go to school the next morning, we just didn’t get any additional drinks.

2 types of bread came to our table, Focaccia bread and french bread? It also came with salsa and butter. Salsa was my choice of topping on bread…..yum!

LabRat and I started off with the Baby green salad with Smoked Wild Salmon. On top of the greens, there is white and green asparagus. THe sauce used was a sherry Dijon Vinaigrette. I liked it and the salmon was really really good!

PharmacyBoy got the Manhattan Seafood Chowder. In addition to the seafood was chorizo and saffron. He was quite disappointed by the chowder because it was a tomato sauce rather than the traditional white cream sauce in chowders.

ConsultantGirl and SpongeBobGirl ordered the Sesame Crusted Scallops. The scallops are served with spinach and couscous salad. Around it is a orange and sesame vinaigrette.

SpongebobGirl and I both ordered the Wood Grilled Rib Eye. The steak was done medium rare. It comes with Cajun jumbo fries, Salsa verde and a peppercorn sauce.

PharmacyBoy and LabRat ordered the Orachiette pasta with grilled prawns. Shittake Mushrooms, spinach, chilies, and pesto cream sauce.

ConsultingGirl ordered the GInger potato crusted wild salmon. There is a grilled asparagus risotto, corn + blackbean salsa and basil butter sauce.

For dessert there was Apple and cranberry crisp.

There was also the Banana Chocolate Mousse Cake.

No one could really decide which one was the better dessert since we all had different tastes. Since it was only limited to 2 choices of dessert, we didn’t feel that Aqua Riva had any extraordinary desserts.

Words of Wisdom:

Parking at Convention Centre for $9 all night
Decent dineout but not the best for the $28 range

We Rate Aqua Riva:

Website: www.aquariva.com

Address:

200 Granville St
Vancouver, BC

In Downtown

A & W (Chubby Chicken)

January 31, 2011

They other day I had a huge craving for their chicken strips, so I headed over to the A&W for their chicken strips.

While looking at their menu, I accidentally ordered the 3 piece chubby chicken meal. I found it super strange how may meal ended up to be over $10.

When I got it, I totally didn’t mind because I have never tried their Chubby chicken before. The combo came with 3 pieces of chubby chicken fries, a coke and a small macaroni salad. I tried changing the fries into a salad but they could not substitute it from something else. The outside was seasoned ok, but the meat was pretty dry. Compared to other chain chicken restaurants, Church’s Chicken is SO much better and cheaper.