Two Beakers Archives - Page 2 of 12

In American

Be Our Guest: Beauty & The Beast Themed Restaurant

July 23, 2016

Be Our Guest is one of the most highly sought after restaurants in Magic Kingdom at Disney World. Getting dinner reservations is nearly impossible unless you book well in advance. We got our travel agent to book it for us so we were guaranteed a spot.

As a huge Beauty & the Beast fan, I had to dine here.

Stepping inside the Beast’s enchanted castle was definitely a dream come true.

How can you not swoon over being here and having a glimpse of Disney magic? I was super happy to have dinner here.

When it was out reservation time, we went up to the front booths to check in, but they were about 30 minutes behind, so we waited outside until they told us we could go past the main gates.

Once we got to the main gate, we waited a little bit more until they called out names to head on inside.

Through these large beast statues are the 3 different dining areas.

The Grand Ballroom

The Grand Ballroom is iconic with its high, domed ceiling, chandeliers and snow-laced Gothic arches brings us back to the moment when Belle and Beast have their dance.

I ended up dining in the ballroom and the entire time, I was just in awe.

The West Wing

The West Wing is Beast’s mysterious West Wing study—if you dare—and perhaps you’ll even spy his enchanted rose. Its a dark room and its’ pretty cool to be in.

The beast!

The Castle Gallery

The Castle Gallery has pictures of Belle and Beast as well as large statues of them dancing in the centre of the room.

Dinner Service

No matter which room you are dining in, all 3 have the same menu. With the Disney Dining Plan, we get 1 non-alcoholic drink, 1 entree, and 1 dessert.

I went with unsweetened iced tea as that seemed to be my favourite drink in the Disney Parks. It’s refillable too. M went with a Coke.

As we waited for our entrees to arrive, bread and butter arrives at the table. Pretty standard and nothing that exciting.

Entrees

Grilled Strip Steak with herb butter and pommes frites is what M ordered. The steak was very tough even though it was ordered as a medium rare. The gristle and fat was made this steak very unappetizing and hard to cut through.

It was so bad that they just took it off the bill since they saw we didn’t enjoy it at all.

Roasted Lamb Chop served with potato pave, artichokes, tomato salsa, and a lamb demi-glace. It came with 3 pieces of lamb and it all tasted ok. The potato pave was really good.

Dessert

When it is time for dessert, they roll out the carts and you can choose which dessert you want.

Chocolate Cream Puff is filled with chocolate mousse topped with whipped cream and chocolate. M felt like the dessert got a bit dry as it sat in the display case.

The “Grey Stuff” has a chocolate shell, cookie creme topped Lumiere’s special “grey stuff”. It just tastes like cookies n creme

Before you leave, don’t forget to take a picture of the Beast and also post in front of this glass window. We missed the beast since he was taking a break.

Overall, the restaurant looked amazing, but the food was pretty subpar. If you are a big Beauty & the Beast fan, Be Our Guest is a must since you’ll be able to see a lot of iconic items from the movie.

We rate Be Our Guest:

Address:
1365 North Monorail Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL

Website:
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/magic-kingdom/be-our-guest-restaurant/

In Cafe

Scorpio’s M: Dessert in Richmond

July 20, 2016

Scorpio’s M Dessert is a little shop hidden on Alexandra Road. They specialize in homemade shaved ice desserts.

There is little to no parking in this plaza as most of the spots are reserved for other restaurants and businesses in the plaza.

We were invited by ChineseBites to give a few of their signature items a try.

Interior

The interior is very nice and reminds me of a shop that should be serving high tea. Randomly there are so odd items that seem like they shouldn’t belong, like a bunch of Chinese looking shelves.

Drinks

Mango soda was a drink that the majority of the people at our table ordered. Refreshing, but it was a bit sweet. Could have been a bit more fizzy too.

Papaya Milk was pretty good as it uses real papaya.

Milk Tea was very artificial tasting and seems like it was made from powder. Very sweet and was not very good.

Pancake Series

The pancakes are wrapped up like cheese burgers and are pretty good. It comes with 1 piece per order, but its definitely enough for 2 people to share one.

Mango Pancake has a piece of ripe mango and whipped cream inside the crepe pancake. I really enjoyed it and it was definitely a treat.

Durian Pancake has the similar component and a good amount of durian. Durian is very pungent to some people and to other its an amazing fruit. Half of the table despised it and the other half was on team durian.

Homemade Shaved Ice

Mango, Kiwi, and rice ball with homemade shaved ice. Topped with fresh mango and kiwis, but the milky shaved ice was more like soup.

Strawberry and black sticky rice with homemade shaved ice had a similar feel to the other desserts. Definitely one of the more filling desserts because of the black sticky rice.

Green Tea Shaved Ice with Grass Jelly was decent, but I really didn’t like the chunky texture of the shaved ice.

Mango and basil seed with mango homemade shaved ice had the fresh mango up top, but the foundation of the desserts – the shaved ice really ruined all the desserts.

Overall, we didn’t like any of Scorpio’s M’s shaved ice desserts. The only item that was good were the mango and durian pancakes. They were huge

With so much competition in the area for shaved ice, the icy texture of shaved ice was so 10 years ago. We are seeing more and more shaved ice places having smoother product with a better consistency.

We rate Scorpio’s M:

Address:
1200-8580 Alexandra Road, Richmond

In Richmond

Coco Hut: Hainanese Chicken in Richmond

July 19, 2016

Coco Hut is a restaurant in Richmond with Hainanese chicken and roti. A few of us met up before an event to see how their Hainanese chicken compares to other places in town. They are located in Union Plaza across from Bubble World.

The interior is pretty small, so there aren’t too many tables here. Since we came on a weekday early in the evening, it wasn’t full yet.

Roti comes with 2 pieces per order, but we got 4 to each person at the table could have on to themselves. Good taste and I like how its slightly crisp on the exterior.

BBQ Satay has your option of pork, beef or chicken. All the satays were overcooked and very dry. It is also served with a peanut sauce and pickled veggies.

Coco Hut Special Fried Rice was decent too. It looked like it had eggs, veggies and the rice all put together.

Single order of Hainanese Chicken with rice and soup. This is what a majority of us ordered and its affordable as its around $7.

This item is what most people get when they are here. The chicken is boneless, soft and tender. I did find there was quite a bit of fat and jelly around the skin.

Decent, but it still doesn’t compare to some other places in town.

Overall, the food is decent, but it wasn’t anything special. With so many options in Richmond, I prefer Prata Man, which is a few minutes away.

We Rate Coco Hut:

Address:
Union Square, 1118-8328 Capstan Way,
Richmond, BC

In Italian

The Old Spaghetti Factory: Riverport Richmond Review

July 6, 2016

The Old Spaghetti Factory is right across from the SilverCity movie theatre. We decided to come here for a quick dinner. We thought we had ample time since it was 50 minutes before the movie. You definitely need at least an hour to dine here.

Complimentary Bread that arrives at the tables is a Italian Sourdough Bread with Whipped Garlic and Plain Butter. A nice way to fill up before waiting for the dishes to arrive.

Clam Chowder is New England style with bacon. Pretty basic and there’s really not much to it.

Crisp Green Salad is the side for the gluten-free menu option. Very simple spinach salad.

Minestrone Soup wasn’t very interesting either, but I got a side to go with my salad, which was interesting.

Cheesy Baked Tomato Chicken Pasta has sautéed chicken breast tossed with gluten free penne in al fresca marinara sauce and baked with mozzarella. My sister thought it was ok. Nothing too special about it, but it would be better if there was a bit more sauce.

Lasagna has layer upon layers of pasta, meat sauce and mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan cheeses. M enjoyed it as it was meaty and cheesy.

Caesar Salad was what I ordered. I just came back from vacation and really needed a big bowl of salad. It did the trick but I felt it was a bit heavy on the dressing. The dressing was very garlicky and potent.

Overall, the food was mediocre but when you see the food options near the theatre, there really isn’t much.

We rate The Old Spaghetti Factory:

Address:
110-14200 Entertainment Boulevard,
Richmond, BC

Website:
http://www.oldspaghettifactory.ca/

In Bubble Tea

Shiny Tea: Bubble Tea in Crystal Mall

July 5, 2016

Shiny Tea is a new Bubble Tea shop established in Taiwan back in 2005 and have now opened their second location in Canada inside Crystal Mall in South Burnaby. They have over 360 shops around the world in countries such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Macao, Australia, and most recently, in L.A. and New York.

Their other location is in Richmond, but since I live in Burnaby, this location is more convenient for me to visit.

White Pearl Tea (Original) has Taiwan-style milk tea with sweet potato balls. It got it in a large size and half sweet. Even at the original sweetness, it isn’t very sweet at all. So, having it half sweet was pretty bland. I also noticed the tea taste wasn’t strong at all, it was mostly a milk taste. Even at 50% sweetness, I should be able to taste more of the tea flavour.

Panda Milk Tea is a small size was what Amy ordered. She wasn’t impressed with the drink either.

Overall, we both didn’t like the drink. With so much competition for Bubble Tea in Burnaby and Vancouver, this doesn’t hit the mark. Its very bland and doesn’t have much tea flavour, plus the pearls were not cooked well. I wouldn’t come back.

We rate Shiny Tea:

Address:
4500 Kingsway, Suite 2210,
Burnaby, Vancouver, BC

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShinyTea.Vancouver/

In South Burnaby

Victory Seafood Restaurant: All Day Dim Sum

June 23, 2016

Victory Seafood Restaurant is located on the 2nd level of Crystal Mall close to the food court. They serve dim sum into the late afternoon.

What I love about dim sum is that the dishes can range from very tame like shrimp dumplings to chicken feet and braised stomach.

I came here with ChineseBites to try 37 items off their menu to see what they offer. I’ve been to Crystal Mall a lot but I’ve never stopped here before.

They have a private room available if you are in huge groups.

They have all the classic dim sum items. Of course we had too many items, but if you wonder how many dishes to order, the rule of thumb is 2-3 dishes per person.

Steamed Rice Rolls

Plain rice roll was too plain for me after eating all the other steamed rice roll dishes. So, grab some soy sauce and XO sauce.

Steamed rice roll with Chinese donut and pork floss is another classic item. Paired with soy sauce and then sesame sauce and hoisin sauce on the side. Another classic dim sum dish.

Steamed rice roll with deep fried fish paste is another item similar to above, but it has the different filling inside.

Steamed rice rolls with mushrooms is a great item too. You can’t go wrong with any of these steamed rice roll dishes.

Steamed Shrimp rice roll another good one is the shrimp version. As a shrimp lover, I always try to get this dish at dim sum.

Steamed rice roll with beef, needle mushrooms, and parsley. Another good items and I like the added texture from the other ingredients.

Steamed Red Rice Roll with Shrimp looks pretty crazy. The red rice roll really tasted like nothing. The shrimp inside is deep-fried was similar to the other shrimp dishes.

Steamed baskets galore

One of the essential items of dim sum is seeing the steamed bamboo baskets overflowing the table. We had so many that they had to be stacked on top of each other.

Steamed pork ribs with black beans, taro and garlic.

Steamed chicken feet in black bean sauce was ok, but I don’t normally order this item if I’m with M since he’s so squeamish about seating odd parts of animals.

Steamed Pork Buns or Xiao Long Bao were mediocre. It wasn’t very juicy inside and the skin was a bit thick.

Steamed Pork Buns come in 3 pieces in a basket and easily split among more people.

Steamed beef tendon and tripe in Chu Hau sauce is another dish that isn’t for everyone. To me, tendon is more like jelly.

Steamed Shrimp, Mushroom, & Mixed Vegetable Dumpling comes with 3 pieces to a basket. I like the mix of veggies in this.

Steamed sticky rice bun was really filling. I didn’t like it.

Steamed Bean Curd Wraps with Mushroom in Abalone Sauce is pretty good. Can’t go wrong with it.

Siu Mai or steamed pork and shrimp dumplings is an item that you need to order. Most tables will order this. The shrimp and meat mixture is wrapped in a wheat flour wrapper than then topped with tobiko.

Steamed Sticky Rice or lo mai gai has 3 pieces with the stick rice inside with a savoury filling.

Meatball are served over tofu skin. It is paired with a Worcestershire sauce. These ones tasted ok, but the colour looked a bit off.

Steamed pork stomach and preserved vegetables in black bean sauce. Not a dish for everyone. The taste I thought was surprisingly good and tender.

Other Dim Sum items

BBQ Pork Pastry comes with 3 pieces to an order. The exterior is somewhat crisp and butter with the pork filling inside.

Baked Pineapple Buns with BBQ Pork is an amazing invention. The best of both worlds.

Deep fried shrimp spring rolls was pretty good. It comes out crispy, but if you leave it too long it goes a bit limp. When going to dim sum, I love all the shrimp items.

Deep Fried Shrimp gyoza was kinda similar to the deep fried spring roll, but in a wonton wrapper.

Panfried Chinese pancake with leeks was ok, but i didn’t really take a liking to it.

Deep fried glutinous rice dumpling with pork and dried shrimp in the centre.

Pan Fried Radish & Taro Cake was pretty plain on its own. You can ask for soy sauce or their XO sauce to use with it.

Smoked Salmon with fruit salad tart with mayo was pretty bad. I always found this flvour combination pretty weird. Some restaurants have pulled it off pretty well, but Victory Seafood doesn’t make it tasty. Best to avoid this dish.

Taro Dumplings also know as wu gok has a crispy and wispy exterior of deep fried taro and inside is a savoury pork filling. Definitely a favourite item when eating dim sum.

Deep fried lotus root cakes wasn’t very exiting.

Pan Fried Shanghai Dumplings were ok, but a bit dry.

Claypot items

Rice with chicken and black fungus was good but the rice was pretty dry. I would just eat the items on top.

Rice with Spare Ribs and Chicken Feet gave me a similar feeling with the dish above. The rice was dry.

Mixed Meat and Shrimp Dumplings in Cordyceps Flower Broth was pretty good.

Essential Egg Tarts

Egg Tarts is a good way to finish the meal. Flakey exterior and sweet egg mixture in the middle.

I always have to make sure I have a can of coke to drink to wash down some of the grease for some dishes.

With all the dishes we tried, there’s only a handful of dishes I would order. The quality is ok, but there are so many other options close by.

We rate Victory Seafood Restaurant:

Address: Crystal Mall, 4500 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC

Website: http://victoryseafoodrestaurant.com/

In Bubble Tea

Duotian Fish Soup Noodles Restaurant: Taiwanese + HK Style Cafe

April 10, 2016

Duotian Fish Noodles Restaurant is a mix of Hong Kong Style Cafe and Taiwanese Cafe. They are located in the plaza on 1st Avenue where T&T is located. They specialize in fish soup noodles, rice hot pots, Western dishes and hot pot meals.

I was invited to attend as part of ChineseBites to try a variety of items off their menu.

The seats inside have large booth and smaller tables.

Complimentary tea arrives in these metal cups. The handle seems to be made of plastic since the color has rubbed off.

One of their popular options is creating your own noodle soup with all these customizable options.’

You can choose your soup base, toppings, type of noodles, drinks and any extra items on the side.

One the reverse side, you can customize your congee or rice hot pots.

Laksa with rice noodles, BBQ pork and sliced beef brisket. Not bad at all, but there are a few other places in town that do customizable laksa a lot better, but if you don’t want to travel far, this will do.

For our customizable Rice Hot Pot, we got salty fish with pork and chicken with octopus. It is topped with bok choy to give it a bit of color.

When we dug in, it was pretty good. The combination of the meat and the salty fish worked really well.

Grabbing an Iced Milk Tea or Ice Coffee Tea mix is classic for Hong Kong style cafes. Both very good! We asked them to make it with less sugar. You will need to stir it a bit more to incorporate all the ingredients.

Iced Lemon Tea is another popular choice too. You have to take your straw and spoon to crush up the lemon slices to get more flavour out of it.

The bubble tea on the other hand wasn’t as good. The pearls were hard and could have used more time cooking.

Baked Spaghetti with meat sauce is one of my go to dishes at these types of cafes. All that meat sauce and cheese covering each strand of spaghetti.

Butter Biscuit toast was ok, but I felt the topping was too sweet. I wouldn’t be able to eat an entire slice by myself. Each of us had a quarter of the toast and it was enough to quell our sweet tooth.

Deep fried fish cake was ok. It had a slight sweetness to them.

Baked pork chop on rice with tomatoes bacon sauce was delicious. You can’t go wrong with pork chops and cheesy sauce.

Deep Fried Chicken Nuggets is a classic item to order. Crisp on the outside and a good amount of salt and pepper.

Yang Chow Fried Rice was a bit bland and sub par. The rice was hard and the texture was off.

Congee with sliced beef and fish balls. We wanted the BBQ quick but it was already sold out.

The first few tastes of the congee, it tasted burnt and there really isn’t a way to mask it.

It also comes with a pan-fried green onion cake as part of the congee combo.

Overall, the dishes were definitely a hit and miss. The most basic dishes weren’t executed well like congee and fried rice. The baked Western dishes and noodle soup dishes were decent.

We Rate Duotian Fish Soup Noodles Restaurant:

Address:
#212 – 2800 E. 1st Ave.
Vancouver, BC

Website:
http://duotian.ca/

In Cafe

Choco Coo Cafe: Dessert Shop in Coquitlam

March 11, 2016

Choco Coo is a Belgium chocolate and French dessert shop in Coquitlam right by Sushi California. I came here earlier in the afternoon to grab a drink but it was completely filled by people studying. Everyone looked pretty cozy, so it would have been a 1 hour+ wait for a table to open up. Also, the parking in the little plaza is crazy.

So, I returned later in the evening at around 9pm. It was about a 20 minute wait till a table opened up, but that was ok because I was determined to come here.

The space is very nice and hip. Lovely textures of wood and greenery.

Also, of course a chalkboard. They even have a happy hour special if you come between 1 – 4pm. A dessert and hot chocolate/ice teas are $8.95. Also 2 dessert and 2 hot chocolate/iced teas are $16.95.

You save a few bucks which is nice.

There are lots of cakes to choose from.

I started with an iced milk tea. I find that a good indicator of a café is if they can master a decent milk tea.The first few sips, I felt that it was lacking much flavour like it had too much milk or water.

I do like that it’s served in a double walled Bodum cup, so it stays cold for longer.

They have a bunch of hot or iced teas on their menu. Most of their teas are from TWG Tea.

Fresh Strawberry Cake looks beautiful with the layers of whipped cream, strawberries, and sponge cake. We thought the cake was ok as the sponge cake was a tad dry.

Mont Blanc looks like a person waving its arms around. It has pureed, sweetened chestnuts topped with powdered sugar and hazelnuts. In the centre, there is a piece of cake inside. The dessert was ok.

Overall, it’s nice to have this new cafe in the area as there aren’t too many hip cafes in the area. Plus, Koreans love cafes and coffee. With the teas and cake we ordered, we didn’t really enjoy it as much.

It’s pretty busy here and turnover isn’t very high. So, there may be a wait.

We Rate Choco Coo Cafe:

Address:
501 North Road, Metro Vancouver, Coquitlam

Website:
http://www.chococoo.ca/

In Kid Friendly

White Spot: New Comfort Foods Menu

January 20, 2016

Once in a while, I will let M choose a restaurant he wants to go for dinner and I’m not allowed to veto his decision. He wanted to go to White Spot to try their Macaroni & Cheese Bigger Burger. I didn’t mind since it was so close to home and you can’t go wrong with burgers.

Macaroni & Cheese Fritters is made with aged white Cheddar macaroni & cheese. Each plate has 5 crispy panko breaded fritters with Sriracha ketchup. There could have been more Sriracha ketchup for the dish, but it really just tasted like ketchup. The server even gave us a whole bottle of extra ketchup.

The inside of the fritter was nice and gooey. No complaints here.

Macaroni & Cheese Bigger Burger with Island Farms Sea Salt Caramel Ice Cream ($15.99) has a 6 oz beef burger with macaroni & cheese, a slice of crispy cheddar cheese, sautéed onions, bacon, Sriracha ketchup, and mayo. Island Farms Sea Salt Caramel Ice Cream for dessert.

M substituted the fries/salad with zoosticks. The ice cream also never arrived with this dish.

The burger is magnificent and the crispy slice of cheddar is awesome with the bacon. We just wished there was some more mac and cheese inside it. It’s not comfort unless the mac and cheese falls out of the burger.

Chipotle Mango Pork Chop ($15.99) has a tender chargrilled bone-in pork chop served with sweet potato mash, roasted broccoli & chipotle mango sauce. The sauce was drenched over the pork chop, so all you can see is the bone. I have no idea how chared it was. It was tender, which was good. The sweet potato mash was pretty sweet, so I wish I substituted it for something else. Perhaps normal mashed potatoes.

When we got the bill, we realized they forgot to give us ice cream that accompanied the mac and cheese bigger burger, so we reminded the server about it and asked for it to go. He then took our bill away and gave us a new one with the ice cream.

Afterwards, we realized they charged us extra for the ice cream. It was pretty annoying, but I didn’t realized this until we left the restaurant. If I knew it would cost us extra, I wouldn’t have wanted it.
Overall, there’s really nothing comforting about the comfort menu. If you were to come here, just stick with the burgers.

We Rate White Spot:

Address:
6500 Hastings Street, Burnaby

Website:
https://www.whitespot.ca/menu/promo/comfort

In Chinatown

Ramen Butcher: Tsukemen

January 6, 2016

Another lunch visit to Ramen Butcher means trying something new on the menu with my coworkers. The space is nice and its never too crowded during lunch as most people head to Phnom Penh. This area has definitely changed a lot. The Menya Kouji group has opened up The Ramen Butcher and they own over 150 ramen shop locations around the world.

Such a cute drawing of a pig and its different cuts of meat.

The tall window really give this place a lot of natural light.

Tsukenmen is a Japanese noodle dish consisting of ramen which is eaten after dipping in a separate bowl of soup. When I saw this new item on the menu, I had to give it a try. Seeing that this restaurant has changed a few items on their menu since their opening, I thought I would give it a try.

Tsukemen ($11.55) has a bowl of their house cold thick noodle and then their bowl of their special dipping soup. The noodles seems a bit overcooked and a bit thick for my liking. They stuck together a lot more than I would have liked.

The egg and the pork were delicious. Look at that beauty. The only thing that bothered me about the taste was the strong fish meal taste. It was warmed in the menu, but it was pretty darn fishy.

I would still prefer Taishoken’s Tsukemen a lot more. If you come here, definitely get Ramen Butcher’s other ramen.

We Rate The Ramen Butcher:

Address:
223 E Georgia St
Vancouver BC

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/theramenbutcher/

In Buffet

Country Meadows Golf Course: Holiday Buffet

December 25, 2015

Country Meadows Golf Course in Richmond on No. 6 Road offers a Christmas Lunch Buffet during the holidays for $19.99, which also includes tea or coffee.

My mom heard about it on the radio and thought the whole family should give it a try. I tried looking on their website for more information, but there is no information about it. I had to give them a call to confirm that they had holiday lunch buffet.

The interior was beautifully decorated with a lot of Christmas items. There’s a huge tree right in the lobby.

The main dining area wasvery nice as it has floor to ceiling windows so a lot of natural light can come inside. It looks like it would be a very nice wedding venue too.

The buffet area wasn’t that large, so at peak times, there would be a bit of a wait.

There is bread, an assortment of salads, noodles, salmon, chicken, turkey, vegetables, pasta, mashed potatoes, and dessert. Not a large selection but it was ok for lunch.

My first plate had a little bit of everything on it. Most items were subpar and I left like a majority of the proteins were overcooked.

Don’t forget to grab seconds. Get your moneys worth.

The dessert table consisted of 5 items – chocolate cake, egg nog cheese cake, fruit, brownies, and nanaimo bars.

Of course we tried a bit of everything. Their cheesecakes were very good

Can’t go wrong with all the fruits.

I ended the lunch with hot green tea. They serve Tazo teas here.

Overall, it was definitely a cheaper buffet lunch in the Metro Vancouver area. You will get full, but the quality is definitely lacking. Since all the food is cooked in big batches, that tends to happen when its a buffet. They also have their regular menu available.

We Rate Country Meadows Golf Course:

Address:
8400 Number 6 Road, Richmond

Website:
http://www.countrymeadowsgolfcourse.ca/

In Cafe

Pearl House Restaurant: Taiwanese Food in South Burnaby

December 18, 2015

Pearl House Restaurant in South Burnaby in the Edmonds area specializing in casual Taiwanese food. I came here with a few friends for a quick lunch before going to the mall. I haven’t heard too much about this place, but I always love trying new places.

The interior is bright and has tables configured for groups of 2’s and 4’s. There is one larger table near the back for big groups.

Deep Fried Boneless Chicken Leg on Rice comes with 3 side dishes on the plate – marinated cucumbers, tofu and seaweed. A good portion for the price.

When digging in, I realized they gave me the one with bone, but I let that slide since the service was already bad here. If I sent it back, it would take sometime for them to correct the dish. I was hungry in the morning, so I didn’t want not eat. The skin was very crispy and tasted good.

We also ordered the marinated pork ear slice and Wontons in chili sauce as appetizers, but it felt a bit below average. I forgot to take pictures, but the pork ear slice just had way too much green onion in it. The wontons in chili sauce tasted quite bland and not very spicy either.

My other friends ordered a noodle dish and another rice dish, but this place doesn’t compare to other Taiwanese cafes.

Overall, the food we had was all below average. There wasn’t any dish that would make us come back to have more. The service was poor and our waiter was a bit unhygienic when touching our plates and cups.

We Rate Pearl House Restaurant:

Address:
7152 Sperling, Burnaby

In Canadian

Char 631: Steakhouse in Coquitlam

December 16, 2015

Char631 is located in the Ramada on Lougheed Hwy in Coquitlam. I came here with a Socialshopper deal for a dinner which included an appetizer, 2 entrees and 1 dessert for $39. M and I came right after work, so it wasn’t too busy here.

There is ample space for your car in the parking lot. It seemed like a few people who were dining here were already staying in the hotel.

The interior has an Italian feel to the place due to the red and white checkered napkins. There’s a lounge on the right side and then there is the main dining area. I liked the look of the chalk board menu.

Calamari has a smoked lemon tartar sauce. There is a grilled lemon that your can squeeze all over the calamari. The squid was tender and had a nice crust around it.

8oz USDA Prime Striploin Steak with potatoes, roasted vegetables and a mushroom gravy. M thought this was ok, good presentation, but the quality of the steak wasn’t very good.

It was cooked to medium rare, but the quality really wasn’t there.

Seared Wild Salmon with vegetable risotto and a citrus beurre sauce. At first glance, it looks delicious, but the salmon was overcooked, so it was hard and not very moist. The vegetable risotto was good.

Chocolate Cake is served with a berry compote and whipped cream. The presentation was pretty bad and the taste wasn’t as appealing either.

Overall, it was quiet when we arrived and remained throughout the dinner. The service was mediocre and there seemed to be some issues with the kitchen. We overheard other tables getting their steak overcooked when it should have been medium. For us, they got us the wrong dessert, but quickly fixed the mistake. Even with the deal, I wouldn’t return. I just felt like the food was missing the extra punch of flavour. Especially when you’re eating out, it should taste better than what you can cook at home.

Disclaimer: I was provided a SocialShopper voucher to dine here. Although the meal was complimentary, the views and opinions expressed are entirely our own.

We rate Char 631:

Address:
631 Lougheed Highway, Coquitlam

Website:
http://www.dellacasarestaurants.com/char631.html

In Downtown

Sanuki Udon: Udon Bar on Robson Street

October 24, 2015

Sanuki Udon is another new udon bar to pop up in Vancouver. Located right on Robson street in Downtown Vancouver, they serve up fresh handmade udon with different broths and toppings. No MSG or preservatives are used.

The restaurant is quite small and has a few seats. The space is set up like a cafeteria where you just go down station by station to craft your udon meal.

When you’re lining up to order, you can see their 5 steps to dining here.

Take a tray and select one of 6 udon options and size
Select tempura and onigiri to compliment the udon
Enjoy additional complimentary condiments
Slurp and enjoy
Return tray

They have 6 kinds of udon bowls:

Kitsune Udon
Niku Udon
Pork Kimchi Udon
Curry Udon
Kaku Udon
Zaru Udon

They all come in 2 sizes, regular and large.

The noodles are heated up in the vat of water before putting it into the bowl.

In goes the broth.

They grab meat from a big container and put it into the bowl.

Once you get your bowl of udon ready, you can sprinkle on green onions and tempura bits free of charge.

Closer to the cashier, you will see woven baskets filled with different types of tempura. There weren’t a lot of tempura in the basket making it seem like the leftover bits.

Curry Udon seemed watery and lacked the depth of taste. After a while, the tempura bits I put on top got soggy and melded together to form a clumpy mass. I felt like I could make a better version at home.

The tempura was still crisp. I got the sweet potato tempura, yam tempura, and chikuwa tempura. Decent taste, but it was pretty average.

It’s an interesting concept for an udon bar, but the broth and tempura weren’t enticing enough. It felt like cafeteria udon where it’s slapped together for efficiency. I still prefer ramen over udon.

I wasn’t impressed with the taste and the other people I was dining with felt that it was lacking as well. Definitely room for improvement.

We Rate Sanuki Udon:

Address:
1226 Robson Street, Vancouver

Website:
http://sanukiudon.ca/

In Cafe

Ridia Garden: Lunch at Bentall Centre

September 8, 2015

Scouring for a place to eat lunch is getting quite difficult since I’ve been to a majority of the restaurants in Downtown Vancouver. It was a rainy day, so we decided to go down under into the Bentall Towers but then we realized there’s a good amount of shops and restaurants down there.

One place that caught my eye was Ridia Garden, at first I thought it was a sushi restaurant because of the word ‘garden’. Taking a closer look at the menu, they have Korean dishes as well as a lot of Western food like salad, sandwiches, mac and cheese, and lasagna.

They have a lot of seating inside, so it is quite suitable for bringing a group of coworkers.

Kimchi Fried Rice with Daily Soup was a large portion for lunch. The kimchi fried rice was ok, but it fell a bit flat. It definitely needed a bit more love to it. Perhaps a bit of beef to go with it. Or a fried egg would be amazing.

Japchae is Korean dish made of sweet potato noodles with veggies and beef. It was a large size too, so Mags had to take half of it back to the office. The noodles and the beef seemed a bit disjointed and you know they were cooked separately.

Overall, the food is acceptable, but not the best. The price is great for the portion.

We Rate Ridia Garden:

Address:
Bentall 2
206-555 Burrard Street, Vancouver

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ridia-Garden/256712691106578

In Chinese

Bao Down: Fusion Steamed Buns in Gastown

September 2, 2015

Bao Down is located in Gastown and they specialize in steamed bun (bao) sandwiches. Just imagine an asian taco. I came here with BusanGirl to catch up since we haven’t seen each other in a little while. Bao Down has been on my to-eat list for a while, so I thought it was a great time to take a visit.

The space was quite nice with infused water too! We ended up eating outside since it was a nice day.

Two Worlds Collide Steamed Bao ($6) has star anise and ginger braised pork belly, chicharon and crispy pork belly with hoi sin glaze, carrots, daikon, scallions and Korean spicy sauce.

The bun came out barely warm. I thought that it was weird that it wasn’t hot. The ingredients that make up this bao is fusion as you wouldn’t normally have chicharon and Korean spicy sauce remotely close to each other. The flavour was ok, but because the bao wasn’t hot, it made eating the whole eating process unpleasurable.

Bao Chicka Bao Bao Steamed Bao ($6) has fried lemongrass and garlic marinated free range chicken breast, crispy garlic, palm sugar and fish sauce glaze, fresh cilantro, garlic scape mayo, pickled carrots and scallions. This bao was slightly warmer than the previous one, but still not hot enough to fully enjoy.

Since they did use chicken breast, the meat was dry so it reminded me of a chicken strip in a bao.

Kimchi Fries (Small – $5) has housemade double fried kennebec potato fries, crispy pork belly, sweet soy, crispy garlic, bean sprouts, garlic scape mayo and scallions. This is so loaded! I can’t even imagine what the large size looks like.

The fries were very crisp and super enjoyable since its double fried. It keeps its crispyness for a long time. There are big pieces of pork belly too.

Grilled Cheese and Kimchi Sandwich ($10) Smoked applewood cheddar, kimchi and miso mayo. This missed the mark of what a grilled cheese should look and taste like. There was barely any cheese in it. We mostly tasted the kimchi and a bit of the mayo. In a sense, you could call this a kimchi sandwich.

Seafood Chowder was their soup of the day. It has a good amount of seafood inside and had a delicious creamy taste, but it was also not very hot.

I’m usually not that picky, but a majority of the food wasn’t very hot when it came out. I know I didn’t take a long time taking pictures as I’m usually pretty quick.

Overall, interesting concept and unique menu items, but the taste fell flat a bit and most items we not warm enough. The only item I really liked was the Kimchi fries.

We Rate Bao Down:

Address:
12 Powell Street, Vancouver

Website:
http://baodown.ninja/

In British Columbia

Melt Town Grilled Cheese and Poutine Truck

September 1, 2015

A few weeks ago, I was at the Squamish Music Festival to see Drake perform. Besides seeing all the other performances, we had to eat. They had this huge area with different booths and food trucks. Lots to choose from and there were a few places that the line ups were super long. It reminded me of the PNE or some sort of carnival.

Melt Town Grilled Cheese and Poutine was one of the many trucks there. Their parent company – Tin Lizzy is one of Canada’s Largest special events Concession companies. They also have a fleet of over 10 food trailers/trucks professionally built to provide food for large amount of people.

I gravitated to this truck since I was cravings some grilled cheese. They had many varieties but I had to go with the classic. Can’t go wrong with that.

Classic grilled cheese ($7) was oozing with the crispy cheese on the edges. They also give you a tomato dipping sauce. I loved the crunchy cheese bits around the sides. Probably the most enjoyable part about the sandwich.

I didn’t like the bread as I felt like it needed more crispiness and butter on the bread. If the cheese is crispy, I don’t see why they can’t make the bread crazy delicious.

We rate Melt Town Grilled Cheese:

Location:
Varies

Website:
http://www.melttowngrilledcheese.com/

In Cafe

Scent of a Sandwich: Lunch in Chinatown

July 25, 2015

Scent of a Sandwich is located close to Main St and Hastings St. This place always catches my eye because it’s one of the only places near my office to send mail. My coworker and I thought we should try this place out as we were quite curious about it.

They started off as a catering company, but now has a store to serve sandwiches to the Downtown Eastside community. They roast their meats in-house, source local ingredients and bake fresh bread.

There are a few seats inside, but when we were here, most people were taking it to go.

They usually have 1 feature sandwich of the day you can order, or else you can build you own sandwich.

We decided to keep it simple and get the special. They have a bunch of different types of bread you can choose from.

Chicken and Brie on Whole Wheat Sourdough was what I ordered and I had it to go. It was a busy day at work, so I needed a grab and go type of meal. The is the sliced up chicken, brie, spinach and mayo. Then they put it into a panini grill to get the brie nice and melted.