Random Items from Random Restaurants

Hello Folks! I haven't been to many interesting restaurants lately, so I'd figure I'll show off some of the interesting items I've eaten so far this month from a random assortment of restaurants.

So instead of one interesting restaurant review, you'll get four of them!

Let's get started!

PappaRoti

Here is the iconic PappaRoti coffee bun, it comes from Malaysia and is a popular throughout Asia and parts of the Middle east.

Good but not great. It is a a simple sweet bready bun with a crisp light caramel topping, inside is a semi-melted cube of salted butter. You can also order it with sides of Nutella, Whipped cream, Cream cheese, etc, but I think the butter inside is good enough. Think of it as a sort of Chinese Pineapple bun. It's a nice late night dessert that's not too rich (the place is pretty busy).


Chinese Lobster with Noodles

If your idea of a Chinese meal is Sweet and sour pork, with Chicken Chow Mein & Fried rice. Please move on. This article isn't for you. What you see here is something special. This is Chinese Lobster with noodles, I happened to be a Western Lake Chinese Seafood restaurant at the time, but you can order this from most decent Chinese restaurants.

It is Sauteed Lobster in a Soy/Ginger sauce which is them poured onto a crispy noodle base. This is a dish to die for, and one of my favourite Chinese dishes out there. If you are ever at  decent restaurant with some friends this is a dish to order and share!


Best Pizza in Vancouver?

Feel free to argue with me. But everyone who knows me, knows that my favourite Pizza in the world is the Wild Mushroom & Truffle cheese pizza from Serious Pie in Seattle. But it's a bit far to drive from Vancouver, so here's the closest competitor in town, Famoso Neapolitan Pizza.

This is their Roasted Mushroom, Parmesan crema, Caramelized Onion pizza, and all I can say is that its damned good! Crispy crust, sweet onions and tasty cheese! What else could you ask for? It's no Serious Pie, but it's a pretty good alternative!


Waffles Anyone?

I'm normally not a fan of waffles, I find them chewy, heavy, and I'm just not that impressed with them.

OK. You have my attention now. Nero Waffles, this is their Bresilienne waffle, it's a crispy waffle (not chewy) topped with Ice cream, whipped cream, caramel, roasted hazelnut crumble, a perfect dessert to share (especially since it's probably about 5000 calories!), one warning though, the place is tiny and very busy. I strongly recommend getting one of there outside tables.

Anyways folks, enjoy the rest of summer!

My Shanti

You'd think living in Surrey there would be a plethora of tasty and wonderful Indian cuisine.

Sadly no.

There definitely is a plethora of Indian restaurants, but would I consider them all tasty... No.
I like to consider all the Indian restaurants around me to be the equivalent of all those cheap Chinese restaurants that serve exactly the same thing. Sweet & Sour Pork, Chicken fried rice, and Chicken chow mein. Perfectly fine, but nothing to differentiate it from each other. All the Indian restaurants seem to serve the exact same thing.

Then I found out that Vikram Vij has opened up a new restaurant in Surrey! This really excites me as we love going to Vij's, and find his Indian food to be the best in town. Time for a happy dance!

Now I understand that Vij's food isn't traditional Indian cuisine, but boy is it tasty!

First thing we get once we sit down is some free deep fried things...

I'm going to assume these are chick pea flour chips, they look like prawn chips, but less tasty. But there free!

Onto the appetizer!

We ordered the Udiapuri Chaat

This is a salad consisting of fried eggplant, sweet potato, spinach, and many sauces. It's also vegan. Guess what? We loved this dish! This mix of flavours is amazing. We can't wait to order this again. Did I mention it's VEGAN!?!?!

Debbie ordered the Chicken Biryani

I like to think of Biryani as a Indian version of a casserole, filled with Rice, Chicken & sauce. Yum! The dish is very rich, and comes with an amazing Cashew cream sauce, the only issue I had is that it's just chicken breast in this dish, we need to move past boneless, skinless chicken breast.

I ordered the Calicut Beef Shortribs

What more can I ask for, Braised Shortribs in a Saffron, Coconut cream sauce. First and foremost they used proper shortrib cut, not the cheaper chuck cuts that they use at other restaurants, the sauce is rich and creamy with great flavour. Amazing!

An Indian dinner isn't complete without a nice piece of Naan bread

Just look at that bread! Perfect piece of Naan bread! The only issue here is that at Vij's the rice and naan are free with your meal and unlimited. Here the rice and naan are completely separate and costs extra. I'm not sure if they are unlimited, but probably not :-(

Here are some of the condiments that came with our meal. The cashew cream sauce, pickled veg, and a yogurt sauce

Almond Pistachio fudge in Coconut cream

Swing and a miss! This was just some coconut fudge in a bland sauce... Really underwhelming, bland, and not worth the $8!! it cost. Save your cash and get something else!

Overall this was another wonderful meal we've had at one of Vij's restaurant. The prices are slightly cheaper than Vij's, but once you add the rice and naan it will be about the same price, in fact probably a little more expensive! But the meal is totally worth it. As with his restaurants there are no reservations taken or accepted and it is on a first come, first serve basis. The place is very busy, so get there early!

Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar


These days my family wants to try all sorts of high end restaurants. Funny thing is when I was a kid all we ate was Chinese food at Chinese restaurants, now they want to try everything! Of course I'm the one paying now... My poor wallet.

On with the food!

Bread!

Well, try not to focus on the bread (which was fresh and warm!), but focus on the condiments. The bread was served with Nori (roasted seaweed) butter, and a Carrot puree hummus (we loved this!). Both were amazing with the bread. I think we ended up eating more bread than we should of as I noticed a table next to us was forced to eat toast squares instead of these warm buns.

Kurobota Pork cheeks with Cauliflower couscous & lemon caper butter

It looks like fried schnitzels, but wow it was tasty, it was a braised pork cheek that is then deep fried. My wife doesn't normally crave fried food, but she loved it, the pork was very tender and flavourful and she gobbled up the cauliflower. In fact my whole family enjoyed sampling this. A real winner!

From the Raw bar I ordered a Crab (with real crab! Not that shredded fish paste you get in a cheap California roll), smoked salmon, and roasted Unagi roll. Called the "Stamina Roll", with a single piece of Toro Nigiri.

The roll was tasty and loaded with fresh crab meat and a sweet soy dizzle, but was a little too pricey for my liking. The roll was $19 alone and the single Toro Nigiri piece was $5.50. Very tasty but not worth the price.


Sablefish with a Miso glaze, Edamame, Quinoa, Shiitake mushrooms, and a dashi broth

Perfectly cooked piece of fish, with a lovely broth. It was amazing. The only issue for me is that I wish restaurants wouldn't always serve this in an Asian method. Everywhere I go Sablefish is always served with a miso glaze! I wish it was cooked another way. Tasty, but always seems to be cooked the same way.


Scallops with a Wild rice cake, caramelized endive and a citrus butter sauce

Look at these giant scallops! Cooked to a lovely medium rare and amazing! But the rest of the dish is ho hum at best. The wild rice cake was dry and boring, no real flavour. Just starchy rice flavour, Yay... I don't eat endive very often (if at all) and it didn't have any discernable flavour at all. So overall I'd say you should actually just order grilled scallops on the side (available as an extra with all dishes). Stick with that instead

Dessert

We ordered a Chocolate lava cake (yum but available everywhere), and a Chocolate Creme brule with Cinnamon chocolate ice cream and flambé banana's (super yum!) , they also gave us some complementary Walnut financiers (a nice way to finish the meal).


We've been to this restaurant several times and have always enjoyed ourselves. It is a serious splurge restaurant for special occasions only. A Happy Birthday for my mum!

Les Faux Bourgeois

Belated Mothers day dinner!

Sorry for the long delay, there has been a illness in my family.

But on with the show!

This restaurant has been on my radar for a while now, and finally decided to take the plunge, my family and I drive by this restaurant constantly but this is our first time dining here.

On with the food pics! Unfortunately I didn't take as many as I normally do.

My sister ordered the Onion tart

This was good, full of caramelized onion and crispy bacon topped with fresh ricotta cheese, very tasty. A lot of bacon!

Salad Niçoise

A tad salty, but the tuna and dressing really enriched this dish, my wife enjoyed it as did I.

Queue de Boeuf
Braised Oxtail ragu on a bed of mashed potatoes surrounded by a moat of rich sauce.

I hate to say it, but this dish was a bit disappointing. It is good, but the oxtail could of been any type of stew beef, and really didn't have much flavour to it, beefy but not enough body to the sauce. Overall it's good, but I'm sure there are better items on the menu.

Moules Marinières
Mussels in a white wine sauce with garlic, shallots, cream and served with fries

I'm not a mussel person, but my aunt enjoyed the dish. The fries are crispy and served with a homemade garlic aioli. Yum!

Ruby Trout with potatoes in a tarragon butter sauce

The trout was cooked perfectly, very moist with some nice fingerling potatoes. A real winner here!

Duck Confit

A little dry, but the duck was tasty. My dad complained there was too much salad, and not enough duck!

Ha!

I unfortunately didn't get a picture of dessert, but we had a really amazing Creme brule, and a tasty Dark Chocolate mousse. Definitely order dessert!

This restaurant gets very high ratings from everyone I know, and I can say that I enjoyed the meal too, but I feel the Salade de Fruits is a better option. Prices are amazing here (almost every main is under $20), and great quality. But I feel that my meal could of been better. I will come again for sure, and try a different main course next time. Hopefully with better luck!

An Izakaya!

I sometimes bemoan the fact that there aren't too many great places to dine at near my office (sadly, right below my office is Boston Pizza...), but I am wrong, there are many great places to eat, you just need to find them.

Case in point.

Suika

It's part of the same Izakaya brand as Kingyo on Denman (one of my favs), let's jump in!

Here are some lunch photo's I took on one of my department lunches

Starting off with the appetizer...

A 30 ounce Prime Rib steak!

We saw this on the menu and decided to share it amongst the table, it's a large 30 ounce Ribeye steak, simply grilled and served whole. I got slicing duties (the knife was a little dull though). It is good, but is served "Blue Rare", which was a little too under cooked for me, I normally enjoy my steak medium rare, and this one could of been cooked longer.

We also ordered a Chicken Karage

Simple fried boneless chicken, always tasty everywhere I go!

As for my main I ordered a Hambagu Steak with a demi glace sauce (bubbling in a stone bowl)

This is a Japanese version of "Salisbury steak", except about 10 times better! The sauce is rich and compliments the burger steak perfectly, the only issue is I wished they gave more rice! It's necessary to enjoy that wonderful sauce!

This is a great place for lunch, and beats Boston pizza any day. Same price too, if not a little cheaper!

Epic Meal Time! The King Crab Feast

As I promised!

Like Christmas this happens once a year, it is King Crab season where the price of crab finally drops down to merely "expensive" status as opposed to "are you crazy!!?!?" status. The season is quite short and normally lasts only 2-4 weeks. Last year I convinced my coworkers about partaking in a crab feast and they obliged, it went over so well that we decided to make it an annual event!

After a team effort of calling around, we settled on going to Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant, it had a reasonable price of $28 per lb (off season this rises to $35-$40 per lb). If you are one of those people who buys the frozen King crab legs at the grocery store and think that it is the same, you are simply a fool. Get your friends together a save up a little for a feast. It is worth it!

Let the feast begin!

A typical King Crab meal is not only a single dish, it is 3-4 dishes, each cooked in a different way. First the service staff will come out with the crab to show to the table...let the pictures begin!

This monster was 15.5lbs! Probably the biggest King Crab I've ever eaten.

The first course is steamed King Crab legs with garlic, butter, and scallions.
Platter 1

Platter 2

Sometimes simple is truly best. The crab (as you can see) is full of meat, and incredibly sweet and delicious, yet simply cooked, it's amazing and beats Dungeoness crab any day!

Next up is the Deep Fried Knuckles with chili and garlic.

Another wow dish, the Knuckles are full of meat and coated with a light batter with chilies and garlic. Simply amazing!

The third dish is Baked King Crab fried rice served in the shell.

Now to be perfectly honest, this dish doesn't contain much crab at all, normally just the leftover bits of meat (no guts, they are not edible and I believe are actually toxic). More of a show than go, but this was incredibly tasty! The fried rice was perfect and the baked cheesy top had shrimp & crab on it. A huge serving, as there was at least 1/3rd of the rice available at the end. Loved this dish.

We of course ordered a lot of traditional chinese dishes, but I only wanted to focus on the crab. The restaurant and clean and friendly, the food amazing. I would strongly recommend you come here and try their wares. The Crab speaks for itself, it was amazing and every part of it was eaten. In the end the crab by itself cost $415 dollars alone (overall 15 dishes of food came out to $64 per head), so I recommend saving your pennies now, you won't regret it!

Slow Week.

Sorry folks, I haven't eaten anything too interesting lately, so here's something small to hold you over!

Giant Walnut Macaron from Beaucoup Bakery on Fir St. Very tasty stuff!

King Crab meal next week, I'll have pictures!

Sushi Night!


You notice that Sushi in Vancouver is abundant & cheap? There are probably as many sushi restaurants out there as there are Starbucks! But not all sushi is made the same, some places don't even use the proper fish. If the only time you eat sushi is "of all you can eat", then this review isn't for you. If your favourite sushi item is "Spicy Tuna", then this review isn't for you. If you don't know what "Escolar" is (trust me, you don't want to know), then this review isn't for you. Etc Etc.

If you enjoy a well marbled piece of Toro and don't mind paying for it, read on...

Debbie and I happened to be in Port Coquitlam for some shopping and were craving some good sushi. Unfortunately living in Surrey there aren't many good choices out there, luckily a co-worker of mine recommended this place to me a few months ago and we've been enjoying it every time were out this way.

Sushi Kamizato

The first thing you'll notice is the place is tiny, there is maybe room for about 20 people overall. 2nd thing is the hard rock & heavy metal music playing in the background and rock posters in the back of the restaurant. The chef has a thing for hair metal. This is gonna be fun!

A lot of the stuff is off menu, or specials, the menu changes quite often.

We start out with Tuna Boconcini Meatballs...

You still there? Please don't leave! I normally consider cooked tuna to be a sin against nature! But this was chopped tuna with a ball of melted mozzarella inside, then deep fried and comes with a spicy & sweet sauce. We wanted to try something different, and it was tasty! Honestly!

Tuna Four ways

This is amazing, it is proper tuna served four ways, Lightly Fried "Karage" style, Spicy, Lightly seared "Tataki" style, and Raw with sweet soy. This is an amazing dish with many different flavours. We happened to be sitting at the bar and got to watch the head sushi chef make this. Simply amazing! This is an off menu item, you need to ask the server for this.

We then got a couple of Maki rolls, the Born 2B Wild veggie roll, a seared Aburi California roll, and a simple Salmon and tuna maki roll.

The veggie roll has grilled eggplant, zucchini, artichokes, topped with fried garlic and balsamic mayo, Debbie really enjoyed this. I hate to admit this but I do enjoy the occasional California roll, and this one was filled with imitation crab & chopped shrimp, topped with a spicy mayo and seared. Pretty darn good for a california roll, I'd order this again.

Special Tempura platter

This was another special, it is skewered prawn wrapped around a scallop and fried! Served with yam fries and a sweet and spicy sauce. I love scallops and prawns! Especially served tempura style! Simple and good. Yum!

Seared Salmon Toro Nigiri

My favourite dish of the night, It is the fatty salmon belly lightly seared and topped with sea salt. I absolutely loved this dish. Sometimes the best dishes are the simplest and this is no exception.

Overall this is a fantastic restaurant, and very busy (make a reservation). The staff are friendly and the classic rock music (and hair metal) playing in the background are a nice change of pace with very good eats! It also is very reasonably priced, and it shows that food doesn't have to be expensive to be good.

My Kryponite!


All you lucky readers out there know that I love Beef Shortribs. Well here you go.

On one of our trips out of Surrey (via the Patullo Bridge of course!) we got hungry, so we decided to stop by one of our favourite local places.

Wang Ga Ma

It is a little traditional Korean restaurant in the North Rd area right across the parking lot of the local H-Mart. My mom introduced us to it a few years ago, and we've been heading there ever since for the occasional comfort food meal.

Most people I know when you mention Korean food immediately think of Korean BBQ, well this is more of a traditional Korean restaurant, featuring hot stone bowls of boiling stews served with kimchi and rice. A very "stick to your ribs" meal.

Let's get started!

Once you order your food you are immediately given a free plate of Kimchi, it's a big freak'n plate of it. I'm not a big fan but Debbie really enjoys the spicy radish part. You even get to cut it yourself.

Here is a Dol Sot Bi Bim Bap, which is a hot stone bowl with rice, meat, a lot of pickled veggies and a fresh fried egg.

I'm surprised how much I enjoy this, since it's covered in veggies, but the crispy rice, the egg and the spicy sauce go really well with each other.

Now the pièce de résistance!

Tada!

The Beef Rib stew, with braised bone on shortribs, potatoes, carrots with mung bean noodles underneath with a rich bubbling sweet soy broth. This is easily one of the best deals in town! It is $22 for a good 3lbs of meat and veggies. The meat is tender and full of flavour and fall off the bone. It's amazing and with a bowl of rice heavenly!

You still here? Why are you not running out to eat this! Shame on you!

A Rare Dinner out on a Wednesday night

My family and I were decided to head out for dinner on Wednesday night of all days. Normally we'd head out for a Chinese meal, but my aunt wasn't in the mood. So the hunt for a western restaurant begun. This is harder than it sounds as my dad is picky about western restaurants.

But after much discussion and debate, we decided to give Fable a try, and the results are below...

We ordered a bunch of appies to start with

The Canned Tuna, slow cooked Tuna in oil, potatoes and Lemon, served with crustini

Wow. This dish is amazing! The Tuna is tender and melt in your mouth, it must of been confit at a very low temperature as it still had a nice raw texture and yet was still very fresh! I would order this again in a heartbeat!

Duck liver mousse, served with crustini

A special on the menu, great tasting Pâté, very smooth with a nice berry aspic on top.

Butternut Squash soup with sweet apple fritters

The soup was nice and creamy and very rich, the apple fritters were... strange. They were served iced cold, and were too sweet for my tastes. The soup was delicious though and a great starter.

Spaghetti and Duck Meatballs

Simply put BEST DISH of the night. WOW! Fresh made Tagliatelle with a breaded fried Duck meatball filled with warm Mushroom duck broth (kinda like a Xiao Long Bao) topped with a Parmesan foam. When you cut into the meatball the sauce pours out and mixed with the foam. YUM!!! I cannot state in words how amazing this dish was. I cannot wait to order this again!

Steak Frites

Perfectly cooked Hanger steak with steak fries, brocollini, and mushrooms. A nice dish, the steak feels like it was sous vide before grilling and was very tender, the fries are triple cooked and very crispy.

Mushroom Risotto

The only miss of the night, all three people who ordered this thought the flavours were a little light and the rice was a bit watery. We'll order something else next time.

Duck Breast

Seared duck breast with Perogies and a mustard sauerkraut, the duck was very tender and flavourful, but the skin wasn't seared enough so the it was very fatty. The perogies were nice but on the menu it was supposed to be Spatzle (I love Spatzle!), the sauerkraut was very good though and not too sour. A good dish in need of better attention.

Daily Sweet bites

A Peppercorn Macaron, Gluten free chocolate cake, and Tiramisu cream puff. The Macaron was very hard and dry, the chocolate cake was nice, and the cream puff had a nice coffee taste to it but a little mushy. Overall a miss. I make better macarons myself.

S'Mores!

Peanut butter ice cream, chocolate brownie and toasted marshmallow & Meringue. A great way to end the night, a simple messy dessert, that is packed full of goodies and flavours. Yum!

Overall this is a great restaurant (people were still coming it past 10PM!) and is very busy. I'm deaming of the Duck meatballs while I'm typing this!

Dine Out Vancouver 2014!

It's that time of year again! Time for Dine out Vancouver, where the local restaurants in town have three course set menu's for either $18, $28, & $38. A lot of high end restaurants that participate in Dine Out, and it allows you to enjoy some higher end fair for a very reasonable price.

I've had varying levels of success with Dine Out, I find a lot of restaurants do the bare minimum by offering a very basic menu consisting of a basic meat dish, a basic fish dish, and a vegetarian option. But I digress, all restaurants do have very high costs to survive so I'm sure I'm talking out of my ass, anyways...

Onto Chicha restaurant!

While we were perusing the Dine Out website we noticed Chicha, a local Peruvian restaurant, on the menu they had a grand total of three appies, 11 main items (choice of two each) and two desserts (no Guinea pig though, boo!). We quickly made a reservation and off we went!

My pictures are absolute rubbish this time (didn't use flash, didn't want to disturb other diners).

First the Appy's
I had the Seafood chowder and Debbie had the Quinoa salad

The chowder was creamy, and full of fresh fish with a nice spicy after finish, a great start!
Debbie's Quinoa salad was astounding! It's a simple Mango & Quinoa salad with a Jalapeno pepper sauce two ways. This is a rare treat indeed, a really tasty salad!

The Mains

Papas Rellenos (Potato Croquettes) stuffed with ground beef & and pickled onion salad

Tasty and simple, and very filling. Reminded me of a Empanada but instead of pastry it is wrapped in whipped potato.

Veraduras Causa, Beetroot whipped potato with Lima Bean puree and chili yam chips

Carb city! The only photo taken with a flash. The whipped potato was smooth and very sweet, served cool. Debbie enjoyed this, but it's pretty small and is more an appetizer size.

Veraduras Novoandinas, Quinoa, cauliflower, spinach, zucchini, and corn fritters with passion fruit sauce

Tiny, bland and mushy. All those ingredients and this is what you get!? A crispy on the outside and mushy tasteless inside? Serious miss. The sauce is good though.

Lomo Saltado, Flat iron steak, kennebec fries, red onion, peppers, tomato wok fried with soy sauce, garlic, and aji amarillo chili

Translated. A meat Poutine with no cheese that's how I can best describe it. Tasty but nothing particularily special. Very large and filling, but I wonder what it would be like with some cheese!

Dessert

Spiced Aji Chili Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding with Peruvian dulce de leche, and pisco raspberry sauce

I love bread pudding, and this was really nice. Very chocolaty with a nice spicy aftertasty. Dulce de leche is amazing!

Lucuma, white chocolate, and lime frozen torte with passion fruit and raspberry sauce

Tart, tart, tart! So unbelievably tart! The crust is nice, but wow this was really sour and tart. Not for us.

After reading the review you must figure that we weren't happy with the restaurant, but on the contrary, the individual parts were greater than the sum! We can't wait to go back to this restaurant! The salad was amazing and some of the other non Dineout menu items sound great. Just avoid the Quinoa fritter and get the Quinoa salad!

I like the Vegetarian dish... Who'd a funk it?