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?

Dining in Bellingham!

These days Debbie and I do a lot of cross border shopping in Bellingham, we normally end up with a huge purchase of Soy milk, Cheese, Chicken & Convenience food. We do a lot of shopping, but rarely do we ever actually eat in Bellingham.

We finally decided to try one of the local restaurants that was recommended on the Urbanspoon website. We decided to give D'anna's Cafe Italiano a try. First thing we noticed was that the place is busy! (A very good sign!) There is a sign up sheet for a table at the front as the staff is extremely busy serving food.

Once we sat down I could see from my seat a man making fresh sheets of pasta for fresh ravioli's. This is a very good sign!

First thing we get is a complimentary Salad & Foccacia bread.

A nice way to start a meal, the little salads are made fresh (a non stop stream of servers coming out of the kitchen carrying little plates of salad!), a bit too much balsamic vinegar, but a nice start. The Foccacia is really good though, served warm and there are literally non stop trays of fresh bread coming out of the kitchen.

Debbie ordered the Gnocchi tossed with pine nuts, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes light garlic olive oil. Served with more yummy warm foccacia bread.

Sadly, this dish was bland city. The Gnocchi are made fresh in the restaurant, but were a bit on the soggy & mushy side, and didn't have any sear on them. Very boring and bland.

I ordered the special Seared duck breasts with blackcurrant sauce, it comes with fettuccine Alfredo, and more yummy bread!

When I ordered this, I was initially worried I'd get one small duck breast and some pasta, but was excited to see two big duck breasts on the plate! Only in America! The duck was nicely cooked, though the blackcurrant sauce was too sweet. The pasta had nice al dente chew to it and the sauce wasn't too rich.
Overall a great dish!

In the end the meal was hit & miss, but we can say we honestly enjoyed it and will be coming back someday. Hopefully the dollar will rise up a little by then!

New Year's Dinner Out


Happy New Year's folks!

Debbie and I were a little tired of cooking this holiday season, and wanted to go out for a nice dinner. It also happened to be new year's eve. We thought we'd try a new restaurant in town, called Forage. It's one of those "Sustainable Dining" restaurants, basically a place that gets their ingredients from within 100 miles of the restaurant and everything must be sustainable. Now I can appreciate the idea, but it can come off as a bit preachy to me, but that's just my own opinion.

Now onto the food!

Forage is a small plates restaurant and everything is meant to be shared, so we ended up ordering five dishes to share, and not just because we were hungry!

We start off with the snack sized Gnocchi in brown butter.

A very simple dish of handmade Gnocchi cooked in a brown butter and finished with parmesan cheese. The Gnocchi were freshly made and were nice a fluffy with a great seared texture, very small but the dish is $6 which is pretty reasonable for this type of restaurant.

Prawn, Pork and Seafood chowder, topped with a quail egg.

This is their award winning dish, and I loved it!The chowder is really creamy with a strong salmon and prawn flavour. It is very rich and full of spot prawn and salmon bits. One warning though, this dish is pretty tiny. The bowl reminds me of a bowl I would of eaten in when I was a toddler! But you must order this!

Smoked Sablefish, winter mushroom broth, gnocchi, lamb bacon & Brussel sprouts

The fish is cooked perfectly and the dish is tasty, but was a bit too salty for our liking. Salty broth with salty mushrooms and very salty lamb bacon. The Brussel sprouts help with the salt. The fish is darn tasty though, and the dish looks beautiful.

Coho Salmon, Beet risotto, Chantarelle mushrooms, Nasturtium

I didn't want to order this dish. At first glance I thought I was right. The salmon looks overcooked. But I was wrong! This is a great and tasty dish. The salmon has a lovely wood grilled flavour, the risotto is creamy with a nice sweet taste. The Nasturtium... I have no idea what the leaves were, and tasted of nothing. Supposedly a pansy flower leaf... Interesting. I would order this dish again.

Pepper Braised Bison cheek, charred onion, 64 degree egg, Fettucine, Bone Marrow crouton, Watercress.

Easily the best dish of the night! The Bison cheek was amazing, with great flavour and texture, the Fettucine was handmade and had a nice al dente bite to it, the egg made everything extremely rich, and the croutons were beefy and amazing! We got the last available order of this dish, so order it quickly. It's a must try!

Overall this was a wonderful meal, it reminded me of the old restaurant "Ensemble" before they closed down. The meal is pretty pricey though, so its great for a special occasion.