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.

Lunchtime Special!


Here's a rapid fire triple play special for all you lucky folks!

Three restaurants, Three meals, Three reviews!

First meal!

A few of my coworkers head out for lunch almost everyday (bad Camilla!), and are always tempting me with some tasty lunches out (I normally pack my own). I finally gave in and decided join them. On a nasty rainy day, the options are pretty limited to Boston Pizza (I barely consider this to be food, and shame on anyone who actually CHOOSES to dine here on purpose!), or Denny's (which I do like!). But another option is the Seoul House Royal Korean restaurant! A traditional Korean restaurant close to my office.

I ordered the Korean braised shortribs and Sweet beef bone soup with Potato noodles

I love braised shortribs! It is my Kryptonite! Korean cuisine has some of the best out there! It's also nice to get them on the bone! I've already ranted about this before, but some restaurants out there serve so called boneless shortribs. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS! It's normally just some cheap cut of beef that is simply labeled "shortrib", kinda like how "Red Snapper" is on some restaurant menu's out there, when in fact it's just some cheap whitefish. Shortribs should always be served bone on! OK Rant over.

The shortribs were tender and tasty, with a nice thick sauce. The bone soup was full of meat but lacking in the noodle category. A very mild and gentle flavour. But here's the kicker, all this was for $13 and it comes with the Korean side dishes! I think I'll be heading out with my coworkers a bit more often!

Second meal!

Gloucester Restaurant on Cambie. A popular local HK style cafe. I must admit this wasn't for lunch but a latenight meal with Debbie. Hainese Chicken with flavoured rice.

Chicken was good, but served ice cold. I don't like ice cold chicken. The rice was cooked perfectly and really flavourful, a lot of places out there, will serve the rice soggy and mushy, but this rice was darn good! Chicken had some great flavour too, if only it was served warm!

Third meal!

Full Ramen (yes, that is the name), a proper Japanese Ramen restaurant in of all places... Surrey!!

I was shocked when I saw this. So Debbie and I decided to immediately give it a try!

The restaurant is actually Chinese owned and run, but the Ramen is authentic Japanese flavour and style.
I ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen...

And it was good! The broth had that nice creamy pork bone flavour, with the proper amount of salt. Served with some tasty "Chasu" pork, Fish cake, Softboiled egg, Bamboo shoots, etc. I was happy with my meal, and will be coming back to this restaurant soon! It only opened a week ago so they are still getting their legs under them, so service was a little slow. But I'm happy to say Surrey finally has a proper Ramen restaurant! Hurray for Surrey!

Neptune Seafood Restaurant


Dim Sum Time! In of all places Surrey!

The Neptune Seafood restaurant in Surrey has been opened for a few months now, and we decided to finally give it another try, we've been there before, but was right after the grand opening and we wanted to let them settle in (weekend afternoons can be insanely busy).

As I'm sure most of you have tried Dim Sum before, I will spare you the more common dishes, and focus on the unusual ones.

We start off with the Tenderloin beef with Eggplant

I'm a sucker for Chinese tenderloin beef, and this is no exception. The beef was tender and cooked well with a nice sauce. Debbie says it tasted a bit fishy, but tasted good to me.

Next up the the Mushroom & Truffle oil dumpling

This is Debbie's favourite menu item here. It's a mushroom medley with a good dose of truffle oil. I love the taste of truffle and this is a great mushroom dish.

Deep Fried Tilapia wrapped in noodles and topped with wasabi mayo

Greasy. It has a nice crunch but those noodles absorbed all the oil! The fish is perfectly cooked, but is rather bland inside the noodle wrapping. The wasabi mayo is tasty though.

Golden Fried Egg Tofu

This dish cost $8!!! More than the fish or the beef and everything else. Moving on...

Truffle Mushroom tart

Sound familiar? Same filling as the dumpling, but in pastry form! I like this version better (puff pastry = yum!), but the pastry was a little undercooked. Overall is a great dish when cooked properly.

Neptune restaurant has improved a bit since we first came here, the dim sum menu has expanded to double the original size, but is missing some of my favourite dishes (Steamed Chicken rice hotpot and Fried Sticky rice are my fav's). The restaurant is a beautiful place to go for dim sum, but is still missing a few things on the menu, we will be back, the restaurant finally reaching it's stride.