Chinese Archives - Page 14 of 14

In Cafe

Boss Restaurant

December 23, 2010

The Boss Restaurant is located in Metrotown near Zellers. When you are walking around the mall and you are craving chinese food, this is where most people go.

There are always lineups during peak hours…huge groups of people can be seen around the outside of the restaurant….thats how you know its packed. The Boss undergone renovation last year and looks a lot more amazing than before!

We arrived at about 5pm and they told us it’s going to be a while till we got a table. There were 4 of us…and when we looked through the windows we saw tons of booths empty… half the restaurant was empty…so…I wonder what happened!

Since TaiwaneseGirl and KoreanGirl decided to go do some more shopping, we decided to wait. It took us only 10 mins to get a table. But, half our group left..so CanuckGirl and I sat there looking at the menus and playing with our Iphones.

The interior.

As we waited, we both got tea. with my meal, I ordered a coffee and tea mix ($3.50). Basically it’s milk tea but with some coffee in it. It was good but I always hate how there is always so much ice. Did you know, when there is ice in your drink, you get less liquid? True Story!

CanuckGirl ordered the dried oyster and century egg and pork congee ($5.95). It was on one of their specials. It was good congee and very flavourful. When the dish arrives at the table, it smells amazing due to the sesame oil drizzles on top. Everything was blended well together. One thing CanuckGirl hated was the ginger.

I did the same thing too, but I had the drink with it. The only thing I didn’t like about mine was how there wasn’t enough century egg. I love those gross looking black eggs. I grew up with them, so I don’t think they are weird at all.

When TaiwaneseGirl and KoreanGIrl arrived, they ordered the breakfast special ($5). It came with congee of the day and your choice 1 of 4 dishes.

The congee of the day was Clam Congee.

KoreanGirl had the fried noodles and TaiwaneseGirl had the radish cakes.

Overall, the food was decent. A bit on the pricey side for the food you get compared to other HK Style Cafes. I only really come here for the convenience of the location.

Words of Wisdom:

Tons of Parking
Long waits during peak hours
Usually have set meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Can’t go wrong with congee

We rate the Boss Restaurant:

They are located at:

4720 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

In Chinese

Excellent Tofu & Snack Ltd

December 19, 2010

Excellent Tofu and Snack LTD. looks pretty sketchy from the outside but they make some amazing tofu dessert. Perfect for a snack or after dinner dessert….or if you are a tofu fanatic…you would just come here anytime.

The inside looks like a typically crappy asian place. Plain decor, but if you can put that all aside, you should have an amazing tofu experience.

Their menu has pictures so you know what you are going to get.

They also have another menu with english and chinese, but I avoided it because I was afraid I would order the wrong thing. Sometimes I wish I could read Chinese.

SFUPretender and FinanceGirl both got the Soy Pudding with pearls ($3.50). It was basically tofu pudding topped with a good amount of pearls. You can sweeten up with their syrups – liquid sugar or liquid ginger sugar. If you are unsure which one you prefer, try it before you pour it all over your tofu dessert.

The syrups can be found in these tubes around the restaurant.

I ordered the tofu pudding with mixed fruit with light milk ($4). The fruits are the typical fruit that come from cans and are preserved in syrup.

I love this place because they make all their tofu from scratch and it smells heavenly! When I was walking to the washroom, you can really smell the soy beans.

Words of Wisdom:

Parking in the parking lot, but it’s usually full during peak hours. Alternative parking at Aberdeen Mall or Parker Place.
Tofu dessert is a must!
Really inexpensive, should cost you less than $5
They also sell a variety of soy drinks and soy desserts to go.

We rate Excellent Tofu & Snack LTD. :

They are located at:

160-4231 Hazelbridge Way
Richmond, BC

In Chinese

No. 1 Beef Noodle House

November 27, 2010

No. 1 Beef Noodle House is located near Moscrop Secondary School. I really love going to this place with friends for some snacks or late night chit chat/ gossip sessions. Once, we actually spent about 4 hours there just eating and chatting.

On another late night after school, M, InsecureGIrl and I went to No. 1 Beef Noodle House for a quick bite.

There are lots of seats here. Most of the time I have no problem getting a seat. On the other hand…parking is a different story…it’s very hard to get a parking spot during peak hours. You may have to park a few blocks away.

I started off with the Salt and Peppery Chicken. It was nice and crunchy and well seasoned.

M was in a meaty mode and had the taiwanese sausage. It was basically BBQ Pork sausage. You can get this at any asian butcher shop. Yummy…….

M then had the Curry. It came with 2 sides. He said the curry was well made and spicy. I can’t remember what type of curry he had but it looks like salt and peppery chicken covered in curry.

InsucureGirl and I both chose the Wonton soup. I was not particularly really super hungry, so this was a good option. I have had this about 6 times now. I know, it’s a lot but i really enjoy it. The broth is really good and the added vegetables and seaweed is a plus. The wontons were pretty average and could have been a bit better.

Words of Wisdom:

Good late night hangout
Cash Only
Parking is hard to find
If you get bored, you can spot all the typos in the menu

We rate No. 1 Beef Noodle House:

They are located at:

4741 Willingdon Ave
Burnaby, BC

In Chinese

Prince Chinese Seafood

October 9, 2010

After watching the SFU Business Convocation Ceremony, it was off to the Prince Chinese Seafood for some Dim Sum with parents and grandfather.

I always get nervous going to this place because there is never parking available. Luckly, today I found a spot in the back.

For a Thursday afternoon, this place was super packed! I had to weave through a whole bunch of tables before I got to my table.

As usual, I left the ordering of the items to the parents and requested some tofu curd and shrimp dumplings.

Deep Fried Tofu in Peppery Salt ($4.95) is the best fried tofu I have ever had. It was fried really nicely and the inside was soft. The peppery salt with Jalapenos added an extra kick to the dish.

Pan Fried Leather Jacket in Maggie Sauce ($6.75) blew all our minds. Along with the nice crunchy flavour of the fish, the sweet soy sauce work really well with the dish. My dad loved it so much he ate half the plate.

Steamed Spareribs in garlic sauce ($3.75) did not impress me very much. it was quite boring and the garlic sauce wasn’t strong at all.

Steamed Eel with Black bean Sauce ($4.25) was the strangest dish I have ever had. I don’t think I enjoyed the texture of the eel. It tasted like eating fat.

Rice Rolls with beef and chinese parsley ($3.95), it was not as good as other chinese restaurants.

Steamed Beef Tripe with 5 spices ($3.75), I usually avoid this dish because i chew it so much it starts to taste like chemicals. Surprisingly, I just ate it for fun and I didn’t have the same experience with this dish. The 5 spices worked well!

Steamed prawns with spinach dumpling ($3.95), this was just average, nothing special. I expected something different

Stuffed Bean curd in superior broths ($3.75) was my favorite dish. I just really love bean curd in sauce.

After we ate all that food, we waited for our last dish to come but for the longest time it didn’t, so we asked one of the managers to check up on it and she told us it takes 30 minutes to prepare steamed rice with spareribs and chicken. She said it would be coming out shortly. We waited and waited but nothing came. So we asked one of the other waiters to check up on the order but apparently it was never inputted in the machine in the first place. At that point we were just pissed off cause they made us wait for food that was never coming. During the time we waited, another table ordered and finished their meal. Thats pretty bad service that they gave us.

I’ve had decent experiences here before, but this time it was just very bad.

Words of Wisdom

No pushing carts, so you can’t really see what you are ordering. Perhaps look up pictures of food they have before ordering if you do not know chinese food very well
Service is pretty bad, so be prepare to be flagging down servers
Best to arrive around 10am or 10:30am for a good spot without waiting too long in line

The Prince Chinese Seafood has a lot of good sides and bad sides to them. I found that a lot of the food was a hit or a miss. Some items can be quite bland while other dishes are AMAZING.

We rate Prince Chinese Seafood:

They are located at:

2881 Grandview Hwy
Vancouver, BC V5M

In Chinese

Poke’m

October 8, 2010

Poke’m Food Cart is spelled like Pokemon but with no “o” or “n”. Without all the hotdog carts in Downtown Vancouver, it’s time to forget sausages and go for the balls!

Poke’m has a very vibrant green cart on the corner of Robson and Hornby street. Serving up all types of balls, one would surely be amazed by their exotic sauces.

Drinks!

I got the combo ($7) so I chose the cuttlefish balls with Japanese sauce and chicken balls with Korean sauce.

I really didn’t like the Korean sauce because it had pork floss and it’s more Chinese than Korean. If they wanted it to be more Korean, they would have had Kimchi sauce or some type of Kimchi in it.

Overall, it is a smart concept to have a ball place but you can make it at home for way way cheaper! For $7 for 8 pieces of balls…. That’s almost $1 per ball!

We rate Poke’m:

In Chinese

Copa Cafe

October 8, 2010

Copa Café has several locations in Vancouver. I love Chinese café food, and I could probably eat it everyday if given the chance.

Wandering to the Best Buy on Cambie, M and I really wanted some good food. Using my trusty UrbanSpoon App on my Iphone, I searched up Copa Café on South Cambie.

What is great about this location is that there is parking at the back of the restaurant! No worries about parallel parking or paying for meters! Who doesn’t love FREE parking?

As we walked in from the back entrance, M was very creeped out because the back of the restaurant never looks good. AS we walked into the restaurant we were surprised about the interior it was really nice and modern!

Looking at the menu, there were so many choices for lunch! There were SO many…just look at the pictures… pretty decent price too.

After looking over the menu over …and over and over again…M decided to get the baked pork chop on rice ($7.95) and a jumbo coffee/tea mix (ying yeung)(+$1.50). M liked the baked pork chop because the pork cutlet had no bone and was already cut! Inside there were also mushrooms incorporated into this dish, which he thought it was unique because other places don’t include mushrooms. Clearly, he has had a lot of baked pork chops in his lifetime. The jumbo ying yeung was HUGE! If you look at the image, it towers over the little cup of tea.

I got the BBQ duck in noodle soup ($7.95). I was really craving meat and BBQ duck is to DIE FOR. They put in some good duck parts into the dish. I wish I asked for some hot sauce to go along with this because the noodles were a bit bland. The vegetables in the dish was really fresh and perfectly cooked. I also followed M and got the jumbo coffee/tea mix.

Head over to Copa Cafe if you are looking for Hong Kong style cafe food. Most items are under $10 for a lunch set meal.

We rate Copa Cafe:

Visit Copa Cafe at:

South Cambie Street
4030 Cambie St
Vancouver, BC V5Z

In Chinese

Fortune House Seafood

October 3, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steamed BBQ pork Buns

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

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

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

Radish cake

Steamed cake (Ma lai go)

Sticky Rice

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

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

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

Words of Wisdom:

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

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

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

We rate Fortune Seafood House:

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

In Chinese

Sun Sui Wah

October 2, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sixth dish was Sauteed prawns and scallops with vegetables.

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

For dessert, we ordered baked tapioca.

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

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

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

We rate Sun Sui Wah:

Check out their website: http://www.sunsuiwah.com/

In Chinese

Roaming Dragon

September 19, 2010

I heard about Roaming Dragon through Twitter when they followed Foodology. They had some very nice branding, so I decided I should try it since it’s pretty close to where I work.

Roaming Dragon specializes in Pan Asian Cuisine and ARE ON WHEELS. If you stand on West Georgia and Thurlow intersection, look out for the red truck because that is the sign of the Roaming Dragon Truck!

When I saw it, I was so excited because there was a long line up and face it, the truck is really cool compared to the other street carts.

The menu had 5 different items – Fried Rice Ball, Chicken Karrage, Korean Tacos, Soba noodle Salad, Duck Salad and Pork Belly Sliders. These are $6 each, 2 for $10 or 3 for $15. They also have a drink menu to quench your thirst!

You order by going to the window and tell them your order, before you order; you can look at their display to see what the food looks like. They are small portions, so you probably want to order more than one to get full unless you just want a snack.

Once you order, you wait on the left and wait for your name to be called.

We ordered the Japanese Chicken Karrage, Korean Short Rib Tacos, and Roaming Dragon Fried Rice Balls.

TaiwaneseGirl had the Chicken Karrage, and they are quite different from what you would find at a Japanese restaurant. This chicken is basically marinated chicken, then fried and covered in passion fruit and plum sugar sauce. At first it looked really cool and nicely put together. The taste was very interesting because the chicken was sweet due to the sauce. TaiwaneseGirl didn’t like sweet flavour of it. I tried a bit of it and the texture was alright but the sauce made the chicken feel colder. TaiwaneseGirl commented that the dish tasted very non-asian.

CanuckGirl had the Korean Short Rib Tacos, which contained braised Korean short ribs, mushrooms, spinach, carrots and kimchi. We all agreed the tacos were pretty good and it did have the asian taste to them unlike the chicken karrage. The meat was tender and had flavour to it!

I had the Roaming Dragon Fried Rice Balls, it was better than I expected! It has Chinese sausage, dried shrimp, chicken, bamboo shoots, mustard greens, and rice. Then its breaded and fried. After, it’s topped with Curry and Teriyaki Sauce. The balls come on skewers so its easy to each with minimal mess. I did enjoy this a lot and if I passed by the street again, I would pick it up.

3 smalls dishes for $16.30 is quite steep especially for such small portions.

Try Roaming Dragon out if you pass by, but if you are looking for a large meal, this is probably not the place to go. The Fried Rice balls are worth trying!

We rate Roaming Dragon:

Check out their website: www.roamingdragon.com

In Chinese

Chinese Skewer King

September 19, 2010

I saw Chinese Skewer King on my way to work and I thought it was the funniest thing because they abbreviate is as CSK, which is my friends SFU e-mail name.

On our street food vendor adventure, we decided to stop by after going to Roaming Dragon. You can’t miss this place because it is super red and yellow.

They had a few types of skewers – pork, lamb, tofu and vegetable. I wish there was chicken or beef but I guess it’s a bit harder to cook. They were almost sold out by 12:30pm so we just hurried and got lamb. We could even choose the degree of spicy we wanted on our skewer. I love having options, make me feel involved with the food I get to eat. We order “a little bit spicy” for ours.

The 3 skewers came out to be around $5. I guess if you compare it to HK or any other asian country, this is obvious expensive. I am waiting for the day when Vancouver will have $1 or $2 skewers. But with inflation, I doubt that will happen.

They gave us the skewers in a brown bag and then an extra Styrofoam container…really a waste of resources…especially in Vancouver where it’s all sustainable and stuff…lies…

I found the skewers to be very tasty and I couldn’t figure out what spices were on the meat, but TaiwaneseGirl said it was some asian spice. Our choice of “ a little bit spicy” worked for me, but apparently not for CanuckGirl, she got a large granule of spice and basically felt like her tongue was all numb and ON FIRE.

Overall I think the taste of the skewers were nice an authentic and asian. I would go again if I pass by! For $2.50 per skewer, it’s a bit expensive but where else downtown can you find skewers for $2.50? If you are in the area, stop by!

We rate Chinese Skewer King:

Check out their website: http://www.chineseskewerking.ca/

In Chinese

E. Tea

September 19, 2010

E. Tea is probably my favorite place to grab a snack when it’s late at night…or when you want to use credit card/ debit card at a bubble tea place.

BebeYeovil was super hungry and wanted some food because her parents left her all home alone. So, we went out to E. Tea.

We walked in, sat down and took a look at their menu. They basically have the typical types of food and drinks you would encounter at a bubble tea place.

BebeYeovil ordered a Taro Toast and Beef Roll.

I ordered Chrysanthemum Black Tea. What I like about E. Tea is that they use real leaves to make this drink rather than just syrup.

I go here frequently, but I would not say this is a great BBT place to go to. The food is decent and on par with Bubble World, some drinks on the menu are slightly below average because of the powder and syrup the use. I am a big advocate of fresh ingredients.

The have wifi too…the password is their phone number.

If you are looking for a cheap BBT place for drinks and food, E. Tea may be your place to go. For under $10, you can get a decent meal.

We rate E. Tea:

E. Tea is located on:

Renfrew-Collingwood
3281 East 22nd Ave.
Vancouver, BC V5M

In Chinese

East No. 1 Seafood Restaurant

September 12, 2010

Since I apparently like late night snacking, East No. 1 Seafood Restaurant seemed like a good place to get our Chinese food cravings fulfilled.

M liked their sweet and sour pork, so he insisted we go. Even though this place is usually for dim sum…we just took a gamble and went for evening dinner.

Unlike the weekend afternoons, this place was pretty empty compared to the super packed weekends where asian people are fighting over the last egg tart.

We started off the meal accidently ordering the house soup, which had corn and meat in it. It was really nice and refreshing and came out to be ~$10 and served about 4 people. Not bad, but I’m sure if you know how to make soup, it would be a fraction of the price. I should get my mother to make more soup.

Next we had the best sweet and sour pork in Vancouver… M and FragileBoy are the advocates of this claim. I clearly did not believe them until I tried for myself, the meat was really well fried but I wish there was more meat and less vegetables. Overall really nice!

Next we had the Yan Su Fried Rice, nothing too special about it since it tasted liked typical fried rice with shrimp. I love shrimp, so it easy for me to like it right away.

Also, we had a chicken fried noodle, which was amazing since I love crispy noodle. I actually eat it for the texture of the crunch noodle rather than what’s on top. The noodles were so crunchy so when you put it in your mouth you can hear the noodles go crunch.

Lastly, we had the spicy green beans, which was nice and spicy. What I didn’t like about the dish was that the beans were a bit soggy and it was not very crunch when you bit it. Compared to some other Chinese places, this dish didn’t make me like it.

At the end of our meal they gave us sesame balls, and red bean/wild rice soup. It was a nice end to the meal and I did enjoy the sesame balls and the soup. Made the meal a bit more enjoyable.

If you love Chinese food and want some place cheap to eat at in Vancouver. Try out East no. 1 Seafood Restaurant! They also do dim sum!

We rate East no. 1 Seafood Restaurant:

They are located at:

2800 E 1st Ave
Vancouver, BC

In Chinese

Sha Lin Noodle House

August 13, 2010

I started going to Sha Lin Noodles House after I saw it on an episode of “$40 a day” by Rachael Ray. I thought if Rachael Ray went there it should be amazing.

What I really enjoy about Sha Lin Noodles for their food since it tastes very clean unlike Pho places. They have a variety of different noodles, which you can choose from (Dragging, cutting, broad, etc). If you are lucky, you can even watch the chef make the noodles!

We both ordered the Dragging noodles with chicken and vegetables soup (Told you Indecisive Girl is indecisive). The noodles were cooked perfectly and had enough chicken and vegetables to go along with it. Adding a bit of chili sauce to the dish is pretty good too if you love an extra kick in your dish. I could finish the whole bowl and I was even tempted to drink the soup too. It was good to be at a restaurant where they do not put MSG into their food.

On the side we had Fried Bun, which came with condensed milk. It was really crispy on the outside and the inside was just so nice and fluffy. Definitely worth a try! But when you order it don’t eat it right away because it’s hot.

The interior of the restaurant is like a typical Chinese restaurant where it’s quite bland and feels slightly unsanitary. When Indecisive Girl and I were there, they took all the hot chili pepper sauce from all the tables and put it in a big giant bowl. They then cleaned all the containers and refilled it. If you plan to use the chili sauce, imagine kissing hundreds of people’s food.

If you are ever craving hand-crafted noodles with no MSG, check out Sha Lin Noodles. But beware of the Chili Sauce.

It’s a great place to go if you really want a cheap meal under $10.

We rate Sha Lin Noodle House:

Check out their location:

548 West Broadway

Vancouver, V5L 1E9

(604) 873-1816