A Quickie! The Roaming Dragon


Was at the Farmers Market at Kits, and a couple of food trucks were there. Most are overpriced, and this truck is no exception!

Pork Belly slider, and Miso marinated fried Ling Cod. The Slider was $5!!! And not for a full sized burger, but a small slider...Hence the name!

The Ling Cod was $6... Which actually isn't too bad. We liked it so much, I ended up getting another order!

Did I mention that both items are pretty darn tasty!! Get them! Despite the cost both items are worth completely it.

Canelé de Bordeaux, and my attempt at making them


I've decided to take on a new baking challenge! One time at a local cafe we happened upon this unusual dessert called a Canelé, a small French pastry with a soft and tender custard center and a dark, thick caramelized crust (basically think of it as a Creme Brule cake).

Of course it turns out to be more difficult to make, than to buy!

The ingredients are just flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, etc. You also need to wait 24-48 hours before baking! And there is one odd in ingredient...

Wax... Bees wax that is



You need to baste the inside of your baking molds with a wax and butter mixture, but this helps the mahogany crust form. But be warned, cooking with wax is extremely messy!

 

Here is a lovely silicon baking tray I picked up ($9 at the Gourmet Warehouse), before I start baking

 

...And here are the failures that came out soon after. They taste good, but they shouldn't look like this! So saggy...

 

 

Luckily I also purchased two tin baking molds ($3 a piece) to try (the professionals prefer metal/copper baking molds). But I only purchased two.

 

And here is my successful attempt!

 

 

Here's a cross section, looks and tastes good!

 

And the comparison... No contest here!

 

 

Moral of the story, try not using the cheapest option. You sometimes get what you paid for.

 

 

 

Surrey's First ever proper Chinese restaurant!


Let me be blunt, Surrey has easily the worst Chinese restaurants in all of BC. Most are simply "Chop Suey" houses that specialize in the three item combo with a soda, it's especially bad since most of the restaurants here are forced to serve this...turd cuisine, as it is what pays the bills.

We have lived here for almost eight years and during that time we have found mediocre Chinese food at best.


Until now....Well sorta...


A few weeks ago the Neptune group opened up the Neptune Seafood Restaurant (fine dining) & Neptune Wonton House (casual dining), to our excitement! Both restaurants look gorgeous and are right next to each other. We have only been to the Neptune Wonton house so far so I'll focus on their food.

"Low Mein" with Spicy Pork pork sauce, first thing I thought when I saw this dish was... They used the wrong type of noodle, it's supposed to be a thin noodle, but no big woop. Overall was alright, and the portion size was gigantic, We'll try something else next time.

Empress Chicken, basically steamed marinated chicken. This was a great dish and easily the best dish I've had here, served warm (I hate ice cold chicken!!!) and was very good, I will order again for sure!

Spicy fried eggplant, Debbie ordered this one and she enjoyed it, another solid dish.

Stir fried pork cheek and with green beans, another simple dish, it was well done and not too salty, we'll order this again.

One dish not pictured, was the Malaysian Pork rib & Tofu Hotpot, and simply put... It was AWFUL. Extremely salty, pork wasn't fresh, the ribs were the cheapest cartilage pieces. We would never order it again. We told the waitress and they took the dish away and said sorry... But no refund or any attempt to replace the dish. Now one thing I should mention is that this is actually normal behavior at most Chinese restaurants, I don't really take offense to this reaction from them, but please be warned.

Overall a decent meal, but nothing mind blowing. Still this is easily the best Chinese restaurant in Surrey and we've already gone five times in a month!

Service is a little slow at the moment and there are some obvious growing pains right now as it has only been opened for a few weeks (they forgot to pack one of our dishes). I'm sure their going to hit their stride soon. Both restaurants are busy and afternoon dim sum is always PACKED with people (Dim Sum reservations are a must).

Overall I say go. Unless you like Chop Suey... :-P

Dinner at Chef Ben's House


An old friend of mine has moved back to town and invited us to dinner at his place. Did I mention that he worked for Mario Batali?....You know the fat pony tailed guy in the orange crocs?

He made us an Italian feast! Please forgive us for using of foam plates... :-(

We started out with some tasty pork meatballs & Foccacia bread, a bit salty but very nice.

Then came my favourite dish of the night, handmade Cavatelli pasta with a chicken and homemade (!!!) Guanciale (Pork cheek bacon) cream sauce. This pasta was amazing!

Next came the Oxtail ragu with handmade Garganelli! I love oxtail! Oxtail is so under appreciated! This is Batali's own recipe!

After this we took a break from the food, and we all went back to arguing about sports...

After an hour or so later he went back into the kitchen and made us some (again) homemade Gnocchi with the chicken & guanciale cream sauce from above, very good Gnocchi, but I loved the Cavatelli so much more!

For dessert he made us freshly baked chocolate lava cake. Yum!

 

Look at all the chocolate flowing out!

 

I'm kinda kicking myself as I missed taking photo's of his Blue Curacao skinless ravioli (What Ferran Adria invented!), and for lack of a better description a whipped ice cream from a dispenser, which was a great finisher.

Overall a great meal and evening, thanks Ben!

An Normal Nights Dinner


Nothing Fancy tonight, but needed to cook as we've been eating out a lot lately. The overall cost of this entire meal was probably about $15, so it pays to stay home and cook!


Sauteed Broccolini with Garlic & black pepper. This is more of a dish for Debbie!

Some Linguine in creamy tomato sauce with spicy sausage.

Marinated pork belly, pan fried until tasty!

We have enough for both our breakfasts and lunches! Which in turn can allow us to go out and eat again!

Hooray for cooking!

Back to Tamarind Hill


I love the new bridge, it shortens my daily journey from 70+ minutes a day down to 35+ minutes a day. But I hate the tolls! So on weekends we will avoid the Port Mann bridge if possible and use the dangerously fun Patullo Bridge!

So back to Tamarind Hill! I figure you would like to see some better images as the last time it was very dark!

Roti Canai! All this for $6, best Roti deal in town!

Hainanese Chicken, at bit pricey at $16, but I like it!

Ginger & Sweet Soy glazed Sablefish, very very tasty!

Stop reading and go there already!

A New Bakery!


New to me at least! Sorry for the delay folks I've been a bit pre-occupied as of late. Here's a quicky!

One day on our way to Granville Island, we happened to stumble onto Beaucoup Bakery & Cafe, now normally most coffee shops have some relatively low quality baked goods that are brought in or made in house, and simply are not very good.

This place is the exception!

Here's the box...neato.

Inside is a small but tasty Eclair, and Apricot and Hazlenut Chocolate bar, and an Almond Fruit tart with a mini Macaron on top!

In the other box with have a really tasty Valhrona Chocolate Chunk cookie (amazing!), a really rich Brioche with almond paste, and a Roll.... I forget what it's called but it's good, trust me!

I give this place a very strong recommendation, everything to my knowledge is made in house, which is very impressive for a small coffee shop!

Next time I might even try the coffee!