One Tasty Sandwich


Meat & Bread. A simple name and a simple idea, when done wrong you get Bologna on white bread, when done right you get this...

Roasted Pork belly & loin, with Salsa Verde and topped with Crispy Crackling. Served on a toasted warm Ciabatta bun.

Here's another angle, they have one person cutting fresh roasted Porchetta's all day long and making fresh sandwiches. The lunch lineup can be up to 25 minutes long, but it is worth it.

Need I say more?

Craving a Shanghai Feast


We're out to celebrate our friend's birthday, and to enjoy a Chinese feast. We wanted to get King Crab, but were about a month late! The prices are now at $30lb!! Only a month ago they were down to $15lb!!! Oh well, there's always next year...

But not to worry! We had lots of other foods, this is a feast after all!

Dishes come fast and furious




We started with Fried thread buns with condensed milk, if your new to this, these are buns made of a bread dough, but rolled into tiny noodles and wrapped with fresh dough, and fried till crisp. A guilty pleasure!






Next is the Kung Pao Chicken, and this is the only place I order this, nobody seems to get this right. It's tasty and spicy. Not pictured is the Mapo Tofu (the photo was really blurry, my bad), which our friend Jackie gobbled up!






Seared Sablefish with a ground pork sauce on top of green beans, I know it's a weird combo, but it work!

Right next is the Spicy eggplant and pork (pork is in every dish!)








Shanghai noodles, probably the simplest dish of the night but one of my favourites. The noodles are hand pulled, and are a lot better than your typical noodle dish. Unfortunately the only disappointing dish of the night was the Sweet & Sour Rock cod. The fish wasn't very fresh, and the sauce was just too overpowering. At $32, I would order something else.

Then comes the house specialty, the steamed pork dumplings, known as Xiao Long Bao. These are made in front of the house. The handmade rolled dumpling skins are stuffed with a pork mixture and cold jellied broth (doesn't sound tasty yet) then steamed. What comes out is simply amazing! The dough is very thin (almost translucent), the pork is perfectly cooked with this warm broth surrounding the inside of the dumpling. A must have at any good Shanghai restaurant.

The surprise of the night. Simple fried prawns with a homemade mayonnaise and candied walnuts. This was the best dish of the night. Period. Everyone was shocked at how tasty, this deceptively simple dish was. Must order again!

Overall another good meal, and one of our regular haunts. It gets very busy and parking is a pain in the ass! So get there early!

Best Thai in the Fraser Valley


In some ways I think this is one of the best Thai restaurants in the Province!

In the Fraser valley it is very difficult to find a decent asian restaurant. There are plenty of Chop Suey (!?!?) places, but very few good asian places. So I'm happy that Debbie found Sticky Rice Thai restaurant located in the South Surrey/Cloverdale border on 152nd St.

http://www.stickyrice.ca/home

All main dishes can be ordered in a single person combo (rice & salad), or a full sized family entree to share. The single combo is more than enough for one.

First we start out with a tasty Thai iced tea (if a Thai restaurant doesn't serve this, you shouldn't be eating there!)

We ordered a tasty spicy version of Pad See Ew (fried rice noodles), be warned it has a bite!

Debbie had the Massaman Curry with chicken, basically a sweet red curry with cashews & onion. Very nice!

I ordered my personal favourite, the House Grilled beef with Sticky rice, and comes with a very tasty Papaya salad (Debbie quickly ate it up!)

We have been to this restaurant many times, and I think it's easily the best Thai restaurant in the Fraser Valley, and I think it could give some Vancouver Thai restaurants a run for their money! If your in the area you should give it a try!

Get the beef!

Truffles! Truffles! Truffles!


I could never afford fresh ones, and I wouldn't even know where to buy them. So I took a leap of faith and bought a jar of preserved ones from France (sealed in their own juice & salt). I bought them at Lonsdale Quay for $25.

Look at them in all their glorious....lumpiness? They look like something Nibbler pooped out! Like a giant Rabbit turd.

Or a Mummy's testicle.

But looks can be deceiving! I've had one freshly shaved over pasta, and they are simply indescribable, and I love them so! Here's an awesome Truffle/Chocolate shaver I found at a local gourmet food shop (only $11).

As I had to rush through the cooking process, I couldn't take any action photo's, but here is the final product; Linguine simply cooked in Extra Virgin olive oil, Salted butter, freshly grated Peccorino, and finally an entire shaved truffle (don't worry I still have four left!).

Unfortunately the Truffle was very weak in both bouquet and flavour compared to a fresh one, still good, but no comparison to a freshly shaved one. I'll use my next truffle for Mashed potatoes or Risotto!

Bubble Waffles!

Asian Bubble Waffles that is. I love these things, There also easy to get, you can buy them at most bubble tea places around town.

But what I don't like is paying $3-5, for what amounts to a large waffle (Belgium ones do nothing for me).

One day I was wandering around Williams Sonoma (ridiculously expensive place!) and stumbled onto an Asian bubble waffle pan (made in the USA of all places!), luckily the pan wasn't too pricey.

Now onto my Waffle attempt!

The recipe is pretty complicated, took about 45 minutes to make, but the results are worth it. Send me a note if you want the recipe.

Here I am pouring the batter, it is harder than it looks! That guy at the Nightmarket makes it look so easy! It can get messy if you've never done this before.

 

The finished product (my first try, be nice!), it tastes great fresh and hot! Well worth the hassle!

It tastes great and only cost me about $3-5 for a waffle...Wait what!?!?

Maple. Bacon. Apple Fritter.


Served hot and fresh at 49th Parallel.


Enough said...

I like Comfort Food


Was craving Mac & Cheese after seeing something of the food channel (avoid when hungry!).

We ended up trying Burgoo (which means meat stew!).

Started off with a Strawberry lemonade, pretty good, nice and sweet but not too tart.

Had some fresh Cheese & Parsley Biscuits, nice a toasty!

Debbie had the Hungarian Beef Ghoulash with Potato dumplings, she thought it was ok, same for me, I just wish they used a better cut of beef (Preferably Brisket or Shortrib), I think they use shank.

As I've actually been to Hungary and had real Ghoulash, this is average at best.

I ordered Mac & Cheese with Bacon! This was great! At first I thought it was a little small, but it's VERY rich! So get your excercise done before ordering this! Yum!

Overall it was a good meal, nothing spectacular but a good place for comfort food. I'll order the grilled cheese next time!

Off to bed!

Ukrainian Comfort Food!


Saturday we had the joy of getting our taxes done (thanks Christine!)

We wanted to try a new restaurant (at least new to us) and decided on The Ukrainian Village Restaurant (perogies are always yummy!)

We ordered a bunch of things to try.

Debbie got the gigantic Ukrainian dinner platter, a good 3lbs of food, all of it tasty (the cabbage rolls are stuffed solid, she could only finish 1/2 of one!).

 

We ordered some very yummy meat Pelmeni to share. There are at least 20 pieces in the bowl. Very good and full flavoured. I'd order it again in a heartbeat. Best dish we ordered this night.

 

Our friend Christine ordered the Chicken Schnitzel, mashed potatoes with a pepper sauce, and you know what? It was really good! The chicken is flavourful and juicy (surprisingly!) and she gobbled up the whole thing (our friend normally just picks at her food).

 



I ordered the Chicken with Paprika sauce over dumplings...Basically stewed chicken on steamed bread... Tastes about as good as it sounds, bland and boring. Meh. Avoid.

 

 

Overall a nice surprise, the service is a little...gruff, but a nice rare homestyle restaurant in the middle of downtown Izakaya-ville! Give the Pelmeni a try!

 

 

Tomorrow is King Crab night!