I had a lunch with a friend at No.1 Beef Noodle House, a place I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve been here a couple times for bubble tea, but never had their food.

Given that their name is No.1 Beef Noodle House, I should try their beef noodle, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. I ended up getting a Spicy Fish hotpot that came with steamed rice and a couple side dishes.

The spicy fish hotpot had fish filets, cabbage and bean sprouts. The soup itself wasn’t spicy to me, and it has a tiny tongue numbing effect. The seasoning and herbs they used to gave the soup a strong flavor, but I really wished it was a lot spicier.

I was somewhat unsatisfied with this dish. To go with my lunch, I ordered a Taro Coconut milk tea. From the sound of it, this would be right up my alley. Taro is one of my favor bubble tea flavors, and I just love coconut. The bubble tea was kind of a let down. It was just taro milk tea with coconut jelly. I really wished they would incorporate coconut into the milk tea as well, that would make a killer bubble tea drink.

Half way through my unsatisfying meal, I was already thinking about ordering a Condensed Milk Toast and so I did. This condensed milk toast had lots and lots of condensed milk, yum; and lots and lots of butter (so fattening!). It was soooo soo buttery and moist that the bread was half soaked. Not going to say it wasn’t good, it was a slap in your face, feel very guilty as you eat it kind of ‘good’.

My friend ordered a Pork chop meal, which also came with steamed rice and a couple side dishes. The deep fried pork cutlet had crispy batter, and it was lightly seasoned. I liked it, I thought it was better than my spicy fish hotpot.

I thought the food were was just OK, their bubble teas didn’t impress me either.  But, I will be back to try their beef noodle just to see if it lives up to its restaurant name.

No.1 Beef Noodle House
4741 Willingdon Ave Burnaby, BC
(604) 438-6648

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Alishan is another Taiwanese cafe in the Kingsway-Burnaby area similar to Bubble World, but this place strongly advertises that they don’t use MSG. The place gets busy during lunch time so we went at about 11:45 in the morning. By the end of our meal there was a line up outside waiting to get in.

I ordered a Beef Noodle with wide noodles, while my brother ordered the calamari and salt & pepper chicken nuggets. Like many of these types of places, they don’t care about serving the table at the same time. They just serve it whenever its ready, which is actually quite annoying. I received my food a good 15 minutes after my brother got his. He was even more like WTF? than I was because he was trying to eat really slow while I waited for my food.

I didn’t enjoy my noodle soup either, it wasn’t worth the wait. The broth was like a really thin tomato soup. It had a good amount of beef chunks, as well as many other vegetables. The beef wasn’t super tender, and had some harder tendony like pieces too which I’m not a fan of. I’m not sure why I ordered the wide noodles, but these noodles were super wide (about an inch wide) and didn’t have the best texture. I didn’t finish. I think I should stick to ordering TBN at the well known TBN places.

My brother’s food wasn’t much better. Their breading had a real lack of seasoning and were very bland. I guess that’s from the lack of MSG? Or maybe just lack of seasoning. The squid needed a sauce or something, or to be seasoned properly. The chicken was the same thing, as it had the same breading. His dish was served with rice, tofu, and vegetables.

The one good thing from the restaurant was that they served us with a nice sweet tea to go along with our food.

The service was really slow because it was packed. It took almost 10 minutes before we were asked what we wanted to order, and another 5 minutes to get the bill after we asked, and even more time to get our change. I thought it was going to be a quick meal, but there was a lot of wait time.

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Alishan Restaurant
4500 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

(604) 436-9026

I’ve never actually eaten at a Bubble World. I usually just go there for the taro slush bubble tea and get it to go. However this time, I went to their Burnaby location for lunch with my brother.

I ordered the Taiwanese Pork Thick Soup with Rice. I really didn’t know what to expect. It was a really thick soup with vegetables and what seemed like a little bit of pork. It came with a bowl of rice on the side. The broth was pretty nice, very thick, and slightly spicy or peppery. It was very rich but wasn’t overly salty. At first I thought I got ripped off because I initially counted only like 4 small pieces of pork. There was quite a bit of cabbage. However, the deeper I got into my bowl, I was able to find more pork. It was fairly cheap at only $6. It kept me warm because I was freezing and litterally shivering for 5 minutes after I got inside  from the short 2 minute walk over.

My brother ordered the sweet and sour chicken nuggets with rice. This was kind of strange because it was loaded with peas, corn, and carrot – basically what you would get in a bag of frozen vegetables. The chicken weren’t really in the shape of nuggets as you would expect. They were more thin strips of lightly floured chicken. Not very crunchy, but well seasoned. It was doused with a sweet and sour sauce loaded with pineapples and the frozen vegetables. Overall my brother wished it didn’t have so much of the sauce because it just drowned the meat. He would’ve liked less sauce for sure. When my brother was done, there was still enough sauce to cover a thick layer of the serving plate.

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Bubble World
4300 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

(604) 434-5551

http://bubbleworld.ca/

Traditional Chinese BBQ House was one of those places where you drive by all the time but never noticed and you’d never visit unless someone points it out and takes you there.

This small restaurant specializes in bbq skewers. To be honest, they had the worst English menus I have ever seen in a Chinese restaurant.

Seriously, there were items like ‘man made’, ‘cucumber garl’, ‘asparagus in’, ‘lotoswurzel’..etc. Good thing we had someone at our table that can read Chinese.

We ordered some Lamb BBQ skewers, a Spicy Fish Hotpot, and bbq chicken wings.

The lamb skewers came with tiny pieces of lamb meat that was packed with spices. The lamb was tender and moist but it was covered with dried powdered spices. It was a good snack to eat with some beer.

The BBQ chicken wings was one my favorite dish here. The wings were really juicy, the marinate really got into the meat, and they had nice amount of spiciness.

The Spicy Fish Hotpot was also really nice. It was very spicy, and tongue numbing. It had a lot of fish fillets in it along with bean sprouts and cabbages.

We also ordered a couple side dishes to share. And just out of curiosity, we ordered the lotoswurzel. It turned out to be blanched lotus root slices with some seasoning. It was not bad.

The other side dish we ordered was really good, but it also had a really offensive English name. It was a black Chinese fungus salad, it was served chilled, and had really nice dressing. I liked it a lot. If you are going to visit this place, this would be the item with the name: “____’s ear” on the menu.

Overall they had pretty decent food. And again, not a place I’d visit unless someone takes me. It was a fun experience, I’d go back again.

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Traditional Chinese BBQ House
3141 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC V5R
(604) 569-3141

Like most people, I consciously avoid mall food, but these 2 places were way better than I expected.

I have since recommend these 2 places to my friends and for those who asks for authentic Taiwanese beef noodles.

Favor Eat World’s Taiwanese beef noodles

***** (5/5)

These are the best beef noodles.  Yes, the beef noodles were better than beefy beef‘s noodles! After the first visit, I brought Dee to check them out. I’ve had their original Beef Noodles and Half Tendon Beef Noodles. The broth for both noodles were the same. They had some bok choy, carrots and green onions. The broth was the best, very flavorful, and not too greasy.

The noodles were perfectly cooked and the beef briskets were super tender. If you like tendon, the half tendon noodles comes with large tendon pieces. Really really authentic beef noodles. I don’t think I will go anywhere else for Taiwanese beef noodles unless they are better than Favor Eat World’s.

Wang’s Shanghai Cuisine

***½~ (3.5/5)

Wang’s Shanghai Cuisine is located right beside Favor Eat World. I was told to try their Xiao Long Bao, so I got an order of it to go with my beef noodles. One order of XLB comes with 5 buns and they cost $4. The XLBs were really fresh and super juicy. The pork filling tasted fresh, and had nice subtle seasoning. They were good XLBs considering they are in a food court.

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Last week, Beipas came to visit me for lunch, and decided to skip out on Pittsburg Restaurant because of the low ratings on Urban Spoon. We had TBN, and XLB’s at the food court in Crystal Mall instead. This time though, I brought my brother and his wife to Pittsburg because we didn’t want to eat at the Crystal Mall food court.

Pittsburg Restaurant is part of Crystal Mall, but is accessible from outside along Kingsway. It’s a Hong Kong style cafe with quite a weird mix of Asian food, and their takes on Western and Italian food. I’ve only been to a few of these in my life, but there are plenty of them around. Once seated, we were given about 5 different menus each. I have no clue why, but they have a huge selection. Way too big. Why not at least have them in one book? I’m not sure if some of them were lunch specials, or specials for the day or what.

Anyways, after about 15 minutes of looking through the menus and getting confused, I decided to get the pork chops ($10). But wait, in fine print, it comes with either rice, potatoes, or spaghetti, and also a creamy soup or a tomato soup. I chose spaghetti and a tomato soup. I also added a lemon ice tea for another $1, and a French Toast for $5.25. My tomato soup was a very thin broth with some carrots, celery, and cabbage, and some other things that I wasn’t sure of that had a weird taste. It also came with a little bun that was very light and airy.

I wish these restaurants knew how to give you food in the proper order, but my French Toast came next (I consider this to be more of a dessert). I had to eat it because it sucks once it gets cold. The French toast was really good, and stuffed with Kaya. What is kaya? I don’t know. When I asked the server to explain, she just said kaya again. Oh well, as long as it’s not peanut butter like at Cattle Cafe, then I’m happy. It was good, and filled with a thick, sweet filling. The toast was crisp on the outside and soft in the inside. Not quite as good as the one at Number 9 though, but still pretty good with the butter and honey. As for my main, I was a bit surprised to see that “spaghetti” literally meant spaghetti. No sauce. But I think it was oiled a bit so it wasn’t completely plain. The pork chops were fried perfectly too, though not much flavour besides that of a fried pork chop. It came with a plum sauce and some corn. I think this was a decent meal for $10. Wish there was some sort of sauce on my spaghetti though. I’m not used to eating it plain.

My brother ordered the salmon with a champagne ($12) sauce with spaghetti and the cream soup. His cream soup was a lot thicker than mine, but didn’t really have anything in it. The salmon came in a yellow lemony champagne sauce with spaghetti and some zucchini. He didn’t like the sauce very much because he said it was too lemony, and there was way too much of it. He did like the salmon though, and wished it wasn’t swimming in the sauce. My sister-in-law ordered a baked spaghetti bolognese ($7.50) which is what she was craving that day, and heard no complaints. I think they said that the spaghetti was a bit sweeter than traditional spaghetti bolognese.

Overall it was better than I expected, and would come back for lunch. There’s so much to try in the menu, but some of the pasta with an Asian twist may be a bit weird for me. I guess it won’t hurt to try it at least once though.

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Pittsburg Restaurant
4500 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

(604) 438-6263

My first visit to Cattle Cafe was pretty disappointing. The menu has a lot of dishes, most of them interesting for a Chinese restaurant. I was really considering making my own noodle combo where you can pick your base, the noodle, and two toppings. Unfortunately I was running late, so I had to call my friends to order for me, so I just order something that I could remember – the Pork in a Creamy Onion Bacon Demi-Glaze with Rice ($8.75) with a taro bubble tea (extra $2) and some French Toast. I think it’s a pretty good deal if you can add a bubble tea to your meal for only $2.

My pork dish wasn’t really what I was expecting, as there was no bacon.. or onions. What I got was a big serving of rice, with two fried pork chops and a brown gravy. The pork was very tender and juicy, but a lot of it was because it was pretty oily. The gravy was very thick, I guess because of all the corn starch they added, I could taste a bit of the onion, but not much of a bacon flavour.

Now for the biggest disappointment was the french toast. It looked really good when it came out. A bunch of little french toasts with a nice slab of butter on each one. I was very lucky that my friends tried this before me, because instead of custard in the middle, it was peanut butter. Yup, peanut butter. Who the hell puts peanut butter in french toast? When my friends took the first bite, they said it was a bit strange. It was salty. They weren’t sure what made it weird, but they said it tasted kind of like a McChicken (their words). Probably because it had some salty protein, and deep fried in the same oil as all the other meat.

My friends ordered the soups, and their orders got a bit screwed up as they mixed up the toppings with the soup bases. Despirte the mix up, they said overall it was pretty good, but the laksa didn’t have nearly enough coconut flavour. It was also really spicy. They also didn’t get their drinks til near the end of their meal.

To me, a lot of the dishes were strange as I was looking through their menu online, and they are truly strange. Don’t expect anything to be what you imagined it, especially the french toast. A really disappointing first visit to Cattle Cafe, but I would still come back, because it does have potential, and I think it was just an off day.

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Cattle Cafe
4885 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

(604) 430-8686

My friend brought me to Lao Shan Dong (aka LSD) last night. It was my first actual Taiwanese Beef Noodle experience, and I’d say I was pleasantly surprised. I’d normally be a pho guy, and have realized that I’m not much of a ramen lover. Anyways, we got there and there was some covered parking, though it was packed at 7PM when we got there. It’s quite tight in that parking lot.

We were seated immediately and placed our order. We ordered some pickled cucumbers to start, which were brought out immediately. It’s pre-prepared, and just placed on a plate. It’s actually a good appetizer as it made me ready for my upcoming meal. It seemed to make my mouth water and salivate a bit more. It was lightly vinegary, and a bit garlicky. The cucumbers itself are pretty ugly and look kind of mushy, but it was good, and not as mushy as it looks. I’d say the vinegar is kind of like sunomono dressing (I could be wrong as I don’t eat this much).

I also ordered the spicy beef flank noodle soup Large. My friend ordered the dumpling soup, normal, large with 15 dumplings so that I could try it too. My soup came out first. It was a pretty big bowl, but I wasn’t expecting how much food that was actually in it. There were TONS of noodles, and a good amount of beef. The broth, although pretty red, wasn’t spicy at all. It had a little bit more flavour than the regular broth, but really wasn’t spicy. Don’t be scared to order it. The noodles were different than any other soup noodle that I’ve tried, but that’s a good thing. The noodles are a bit thicker, and rounder too, not too hard, and not mushy, just the right texture. I definitely like this more than ramen. Now, one thing that I didn’t really like was the inconsistent meat. Some of it was so tender and soft and good, but other pieces were harder and dryer. I wish it was all the tender soft beef flank.

Overall, it was a bit pricier than a bowl of Pho. I think my large soup was $8.75, but it filled me up more than a bowl of Pho. I wasn’t able to finish my bowl, but I was also eating my friends dumplings. Still, I’d probably be OK just ordering a small bowl for $6.95.

The dumplings that came with my friends soup were really good too. They were just steamed or boiled, and not fried. I think they were pork dumplings. The skin wasn’t too thin or thick, just right for soup, and it was soft. The meat mixture inside had a really good flavour too.

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Law Shan Dong
4887 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

(604) 439-9588

http://www.laoshandong.com

Chill Restaurant and Lounge is a fairly new Taiwanese restaurant in Burnaby. I went there for lunch last week, it was an pretty awesome restaurant.

Chill has mostly tapas on their menu, and I wanted to try a lot of them. I ended up with the Chill Roll, Beef Roll, and Golden Sand Shrimp.

The Golden Sand Shrimp came first. It was deep fried shrimp with garlic and spicy seasoning on top. It was really good, flavorful and very appetizing. It was the type of dish that you could eat alone with a couple bowl of steamed rice.

The Chill Roll was really refreshing. It was cucumbers wrapped in thinly sliced pork and drizzled with garlic soy sauce.  The pork was fatty, but it didn’t taste greasy. This would be a really good dish to get in the summer.

As I have stated in my review for Beefy Beef, I love beef rolls. So, surprise, I got the beef roll here. The beef roll was very different from Beefy Beef’s, but it was one of the better ones I’ve had. The pastry was really thin and crispy. There was a lot of green onions in it, the roll was served cold. They were good but I was having a hard time breaking the green onions with one bite. Not bad.

The waitress was really nice and helpful with selecting dishes. She also tried to sell me alcoholic bubble tea for lunch, it’s too bad I had to go back to work, otherwise I totally would’ve tried it.

I found the food here to be a bit pricey. The 3 tapas I got were around 5 dollars each, along with a drink, I had a $20 dollar lunch. Yikes! Sharing is a good concept to follow when you come here.

This place was really modern, clean, and the chairs were really comfortable. And the bathroom was really nice. I liked this place a lot, and I need to return to try their other dishes, such as the alcoholic bubble tea. They also have live bands performing at nights, very interesting for a Chinese restaurant, and great concept!

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Chill Restaurant and Lounge
5507 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC V5H
(604) 436-3088
www.mychill.ca