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!