****~ (4/5)

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

****~ (4/5)

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