Last week I had a great dinner at Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen on commercial Dr.

The 4 of us shared a bunch of appetizers and sushi rolls. My favorite appetizers of the night were the Toro Tataki and the miso eggplants.

The fatty seared tuna was topped with lots of green onions and garlic flakes. The ponzo sauce was light and made the dish really refreshing. The eggplant was grilled perfectly and glazed with sweet caramelized miso crust. I really liked the fact that they cut out the meaty part of the eggplant and utilized the shell of the eggplant as a bowl. It’s both easy to eat, and pretty at the same time.

Speaking of pretty, we were all so wowed by the presentation of the sushi rolls we ordered. Everything came on a big plate and it was decorated with daikon flowers, daikon lamp, and some edible sticks (don’t really know what it is) that made the plate so fun and 3-D. It was really like a sushi theme park on a plate, because each section of the plate was decorated differently. It was hard not to take a picture of it before you eat.

As for the sushi, they were delicious. I loved the spider roll that was rolled in a thin sheet of daikon. It had the mix of crunchy deep fried soft shell crab and creamy avocado with the refreshness of the daikon, really tasty.

My next favorite was the Mamenoki roll. This vegetarian roll was wrapped in avocado. On the inside, there were edamame, carrots, and cornflakes. It’s my first time having edamame in a roll, and I liked it a lot.

Another special roll I ordered was the Salmon Oshi Sushi. It was salmon battera with cream and jalapeño on the top. Another thin slice of salmon is sandwiched in between the rice. Each piece of the sushi was flavorful enough that you don’t need soy sauce with it!

Finally, we finished off the meal with home made black sesame and yuzu ice creams. Black sesame at a Japanese restaurant is almost always a must for me, and this one didn’t disappoint. I was impressed that it was home made.

It’s really nice to see a sushi restaurant that is fun and creative with their food in Vancouver. Besides from the fresh and tasty food, the plating won a lot of bonus points from us. It’s an instant favorite sushi joint for me for sure.

Note: Closed Mondays. Restaurant is tiny, reservations would be wise. One thing we found really weird was that to get more tea, the waitress takes away our cups instead of bringing a pot of tea to our table. It was a little distracting because it kept us concerned if she was going to return each of our cups to the right person.

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Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen
2054 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC V5N
(604) 255-5550

Last week before I went to see the Canucks game, Dee and I grabbed a quick dinner at Verace Pizzeria.

The restaurant is very conveniently located at stadium station, right beside the T&T supermarket. Honestly, I have walked by this pizzeria, and never knew it existed until now.

We both shared a Funghi Pizza and a Caprese salad.

The caprese salad was a traditional said with sliced tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was a nice salad except I wish there was a bit more seasoning on the tomato and the mozzarella.

The funghi had a mix of crimini, portabella, oyster mushrooms, as well as some fresh oregano and olive oil on the top. This pizza had a nice thin, over baked crust which I really liked. The mushrooms were delicious however it didn’t seem like there was a lot of cheese and the extra olive oil made the pizza slightly greasy.

I wish I could’ve tried more pizzas, probably at the next Canucks game I go to since it’s literally 1 minute away from the stadium. It’s good place to get fresh pizzas in gastown.

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Verace Pizzeria Napoletana and Enoteca
189 Keefer Pl
Vancouver, BC V6B6L4

Giant Sashimi!

Samurai Sushi is probably one of the first sushi restaurants that started the giant sushi trend. My friends and I came for dinner because we haven’t been in a while.

On the table we had a full order of Salmon Sashimi, chopped scallop, spicy salmon, negitoro, dynamite and unagi rolls. Those are just my friend’s orders, I had a Chirashi don with a side of tako yaki because it was on special that day.

The Chirashi don was very filling. It had an array of sashimi such as salmon, tuna, saba, red snapper, shrimp, octopus and scallops. Between the seafood and the rice, there were some pickled shitaki mushrooms and some sweet Japanese rice seasoning. This was really nice because not a lot of Japanese restaurants do this.

Giant Sashimi, giant sushi! This is probably one of the best places to get your sashimi cravings fixed, because a full order of a salmon sashimi is pretty much equivalent of half of the salmon itself. And as for the rolls, they will definitely fill a super hungry stomach because not only are they big and tasty, they also contain a lot of rice.

Dinner at Samurai Sushi is always satisfying. I’ve been here numerous times over the past few years, and I’ve never left disappointed.

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Samurai Sushi
1108 Davie St
Vancouver, BC V6E

Vancouver

Last week, the manager of Palki Indian Restaurant on Commercial Drive invited us to their restaurant to taste some of their dishes.  The front of the restaurant is a bit dark, and may be a bit hard to notice (they are planning to update the front facade though). The interior looks really good, maybe because they have a nice purple colour on the walls, similar to our MePlusFood purple.

Anyways, upon entering, we were quickly greeted by our server. Our friend was running a little bit late, so we browsed through the menu, and chatted with our very knowledgable server. He offered us some Mango Lasii, which is a house-made yogurt drink. It was delicious, and definitely recommend ordering it. It was a thinner yogurt, with mango syrup mixed in. It was very refreshing, and will help with the very flavourful and spicy food. We were also given some Papadum to start. It was very crisp, and had a lot of spices mixed in. Very flavourful as well.

For our meal, we had a couple of things that we wanted to try, but also asked our server for some recommendations. For sure, we wanted Paneer Pakora (our favourite!), Garlic Naan, and Channa Masala. The rest we left up to our server to give us some recommendations. We ended up getting a sample platter with Vegetable Pakora, Vegetable Samosas, and Chicken Pakora, Cilantro and Onion Naan, Butter Chicken (because we asked for their most popular dish), Channa Masala and Lamb Rogan Josh. We all asked for all our dishes to be “hot”.

This is definitely the best Paneer Pakora that I’ve had. It was fried in a spicy batter, and also stuffed with a bit of herbs. The batter was crisp, slightly airy, and very flavourful, and the paneer had a nice texture. Dipping it in the green sauce was awesome. If you haven’t had Paneer Pakora, you should definitely try it. Paneer is a type of cheese, that is kind of similar to a tofu texture. It doesn’t have that much flavour on its own, but when paired with the right ingredients (like it is here), it’s awesome! I thought the vegetable pakora was packed with flavours too, and the samosa was pretty good too. Really good with the tamarind sauce. My least favourite of the appetizers was the chicken pakora because I felt it was a bit dry and not as tender.

Our mains came out on metal serving bowls, with a candle underneath to keep it warm. We noticed that Palki used quite a bit of ginger in their dishes. My favourite of the three was the Butter Chicken. Chicken was tender, and the sauce goes really good with the rice, or sopped up with the naan. The Lamb Rogan Josh was my next favourite. I thought this had a bit too much ginger flavour though. The Channa Masala was my least favourite because I’m not a big fan of chick peas. My friend who eats it regularly said it was cooked well though, and he approves it. We asked for our meal to be hot (in terms of spicy). It didn’t hit me right away, but after a few bites then I could feel the heat. At first I was like, this wasn’t so bad, but then it gets to you after some time. It still wasn’t killer spicy, but it does have a nice heat.  The garlic and cilantro and onion naans were good too. Perfect for dipping into the really saucy dishes, but also full of flavour on their own.

For dessert, we had Kheer, and Gulab Jamun. Our favourite was definitely the Gulab Jamun. It was crazy sweet, as it’s kind of like a fried donut sitting in a very sugary syrup. It does help to clear your taste buds from all the spices. Our server said that Indian desserts are usually very sweet because of that reason. Our Indian friend said that the Kheer  (rice pudding) was decent, but one friend didn’t like it at all.

Our main server was awesome, and very accommodating. When he brought out each dish, he explained what it was, and some details on how its prepared. He kept us well informed because most of us don’t really know what goes into the preparation of Indian cuisine. I’m starting to like it more and more now, and need to venture out and try more than just Butter Chicken.

They have another location in North Vancouver which was opened 12 years ago by Bhupinder Mroke. The Commercial Drive location is newer, but still seems pretty popular locally. The North Vancouver location is really close to the Lions Gate hospital on 116 15th St East, North Vancouver.

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Palki Indian Restaurant
1130 Commercial Dr.
Vancouver, BC

(604) 215-1130

http://www.palkirestaurant.com

The cool guys at VANEATS is offering another awesome Dining Pass, and we were able to get a taste of Kindle with Kin at Kin Reso Bar on Robson.

With this $25 dining pass, you’d get a 6 course meal for 2 including:

1. Beef La Lot, rolls grilled minced beef, star anise, black pepper, roasted peanuts & jicama
2. Beef Short Ribs, marinated and barbequed in 17-spices
3. Prawn & Thai Basil Rice Paper Roll, with cucumber, vermicelli, lettuce, crispy shallots & crispy noodle center
4. Seafood Salad, with shrimp, scallop, asparagus, mango, grape tomato, rau ram sauce
5. Chicken Chay Curry, mild spicy yellow curry broth, coconut milk, vegetables & tofu
6. Lemongrass Ginger Creme Brulee, lemongrass, coconut, ginger, pineapple chutney

This was our first visit to Kin Resto Bar, and we had an awesome meal. My favorites from the dining pass menu were Prawn & Thai Basil Rice Paper Roll, Beef Short Ribs and Seafood Salad.

I liked the Prawn & Thai basil roll a lot, the crispy noodle was a surprise, but it added a nice texture to the roll.  The Beef Short Ribs had really nice bbq charred flavor and the meat was tender.

The Chicken Chay Curry came in a light coconut milk sauce. There were a lot of ingredients in this curry including brocoli, cauliflower, Vietnamese ham, carrots, tofu, and grilled chicken was served on top.

The seafood salad was the best. The portion size was for more than 2 people in my opinion. It had very nicely cooked scallops and shrimp. The asparagus was grilled. There were nice mangoes that added a sweetness to the salad. The dressing was light and sweet.

Aside from the dining pass, we also ordered other things from the regular menu.  There are a couple things that I absolutely loved and they were the Beef Carpaccio and Taro & Lotus Root Chips.

I am a picky beef carpaccio eater, but this beef carpaccio won me over with its sweet, and citrusy dressing. It was really good with cilantro, onion and garlic toppings. There was a lot of ingredients, but it was very light. This is a must order.

The Taro & Lotus Root Chips came with a spicy cheesy sauce. The chips were freshly fried but not greasy, I’d eat this over potato chips any day.

Knowing this was a Vietnamese restaurant, we just had to try their pho. I think this was the least successful dish of the light, and it’s mostly because we found the broth to be extremely salty and that the broth could be a little hotter.

Besides the pho, I really liked their food. Everything was light, fresh and also very flavorful.  Their lychee mojito is a great drink to go with all the dishes.

As for the dining pass, it’s a sweet deal. $25 is definitely worth all the food.

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Kin Resto Bar
1500 Robson St
Vancouver, BC V6G

Before the Jay-Z and Kanye West Watch the Throne concert on Saturday, we decided to eat at Chill Winston first. We’ve been there a couple times but only for drinks. I’ve been wanting to eat there for a long time though. We started off with drinks, and they have some funky names for drinks. One that stood out was Spooning Jesus.

Someone tweeted the Jack Poutine, so we for sure had to get that. For our mains, I decided on the Elk Sirloin ($20) because I’ve never had elk before, while my friends ordered the Duck! Salad ($15), Pork Belly ($17), and Wabbit Confit ($19). The Elk was a bit different. It was a really thick cut of meat, and cooked to medium rare. At first the Elk was really good, nice and meaty, but there was an after taste that I thought was a little bit gamey, but also tasted hints of liver (which I don’t like). I found myself using as much sweet blueberry sauce and potato as I could with each bite to reduce the effects of the after taste. I don’t know if I’d order elk again. The Wabbit Confit! is a rabbit leg, which was bigger than we expected. It was served with carrots, and pearl onions in a brandy sauce along with bread. My friend said it was a bit over cooked.

The other two mains were delicious though. There were 3 large pieces of pork belly served with brown butter, squash, and roasted mushrooms. Wow was this thing tender. I thought being such a thick piece, that it would have some meat to it that you would have to chew, but there was literally none of that. You put it in your mouth and it just melts away. It was so good. The duck salad was probably even better than that. My friend said it was the best salad she’s ever had, and wanted to have more, and even keep going back for that duck salad. It was that good. I agree. I tried a piece of the duck breast and it was like heaven. It didn’t have your typical duck flavour, it was just so tender and moist, and the dressing went so well with it. It was served with some mixed greens, walnuts and crispy shallots. So good and a must have. The Jack Poutine was a poutine served with a Jack Daniels demi glace. The cheese was really stringy, and the gravy didn’t have that strong of a JD flavour to it. I enjoyed it.

For dessert we ordered a Brown Butter Cheesecake ($8), and also the Chocolate Fondant ($5). I wasn’t very fond of either dessert. The brown butter cheese cake came wrapped in a pineapple sea salt….fruit roll up type thing. I enjoyed the cookie/graham cracker chunks and whip cream on the side more than the actual cheese cake. The pineapple flavour and texture threw me off. I also didn’t enjoy the chocolate fondant which came swimming in a london fog foam. Wasn’t my type of chocolate dish.

This is a good place to hang out and have a few drinks. Their cocktail and beer list is really good. The food is pretty good too. Make sure to get the Pork Belly or the Duck! Salad.

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Chill Winston
3 Alexander St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 288-9575

http://chillwinston.ca

I was at Penang Delight Cafe to have dinner with a few friends a couple weeks ago, getting some Malaysian and coconuty food.

This place is right next door to Kimura Japanese Restaurant and both restaurants are super busy all the time, so don’t think you can just walk next door if one doesn’t work out, make a reservation.

We started the dinner with some Roti Canai, and Tofu in Chili sauce. The roti canai’s sauce was very different from the ones I had in Malaysia, I guess different regions make difference sauces. The roti itself was nice so I can’t complain too much. As for the tofu, it was deep fried tofu cubes in sweet chili sauce, I really liked it.

One of the mains I wanted was the Hainan Chicken with Rice Balls, but when we ordered it, the waiter kept insisting that this dish is for kids because of the rice balls. It took me about 4 tries to convince him that this is what I really wanted. Why can’t adults have rice balls? Anyway, The chicken was very nice and it was served on top of a soy sauce based sauce. I am guessing since it’s ‘for children’ they also deboned the chicken so you can have it all in one bite.

The other dish I really wanted to try was the Coconut Curry with Eggplants and Fish.  It came in a clay pot, besides eggplants and fish, it also had other veggies such as okra. The curry had a very strong taste and is meant to eat with some rice, but even with rice, it was still a bit salty.

We also shared a bowl of Laksa that came in both vermicelli noodles and yellow noodles, kind of weird they mixed both noodles in. It was a tasty laksa with a very rich coconuty soup.

We finished off the meal with some Steamed Coconut Cake. This was highly recommended by the waiter, and he said if we didn’t like it, we don’t have to pay; there goes 5 bucks to the restaurant. It was delicious.

Some of them were too salty for me, for example the fried noodles we had. I ordered a glass of lychee juice to go with my meal, it was a very sweet drink with about 6 lychees in it. It went very nice with my food, but some of the lychees were still frozen.

I’d come back to this place, but probably stick to just a couple dishes since they tend to be heavy in flavors.

Penang Delight Cafe
3885 Rupert St
Vancouver, BC V5R
(604) 566-9898

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Ever since I saw someone blog about the Braised Short Rib and Bone Marrow mashed potatoes, I had to try out the Flying Pig. Two ingredients that get me every time all in the same dish. It’s been in Yaletown for quite a few months now, and me and a friend finally went last Friday after shopping at the Canucks store during their Customer Appreciation days. The Flying Pig was pretty busy, but we were able to get the last open table.

Nothing on the appetizers list really stood out for me, so we went straight to mains. I ordered the Red Wine Braised Short Rib with Bone Marrow Mashed Potatoes ($19), and a side of Brussels Sprouts ($5). My friend ordered the Mussels and Fries which was on special that day ($15). I was really happy with my short rib, though it wasn’t served piping hot. It was just warm. The short rib was delicious and very tender, easily shredded with the fork. The red wine sauce was poured in to add more moisture, and was good as a gravy that you can dip your mash into. The mash potatoes were delicious as well with hints of marrow already in the mash, but don’t forget to scoop the other marrow from inside the bone too and mix it in. It was awesome, very buttery along with the extra “God’s butter”. The brussel sprouts weren’t very good though. It was served with lemon, parmesan, and capers. All I could taste was salt though. Way too salty and didn’t enjoy it at all.

The Mussels and Fries came with very large plump mussels in a white wine butter sauce. This was also too salty for my friend, and she had to use some of the bread to help with that. The fries were cut really thin and small (shoe string?). It was a bit inconsistent with some fries nice and crisp, but others were under cooked and kind of raw.

I kind of wanted to get the Mac and Cheese, but it also came with short rib and may be kind of dumb to get short rib with more short rib… though it probably would’ve been a better choice than the brussels sprouts. I’d come back for my dish though.

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The Flying Pig
1168 Hamilton Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 568-1344

http://www.theflyingpigvan.com/

Each year for MePlusFood’s anniversary we have a fancy team dinner. Last year it was at Chambar, and this year we chose the fairly new Black+Blue restaurant by the Glowbal Group. I was happy to see Beef Wellington on the menu, something that I’ve been looking to try for a long time. Blame Gordon Ramsey. This space is gorgeous, with huge glass windows on the front, and very nice decor. Once you step into the restaurant, you can see a huge glass meat locker with tons of meat. There are two floors, with the second floor having a wide open space in the middle. The restaurant was packed on that Monday evening.

There were quite a few appetizers that I wanted to try. I chose the Foie Gras, while my friend picked one of my other choices, the Steak Tartare. Beipas ordered a Caesar Salad, and our other friend had  French Onion soup. Glowbal’s goal for this restaurant is to go back to the original steakhouses, where they would make and serve some of the food table side. Here at Black+Blue they made Beipas’ Caesar Salad right in front of her. The salad was very fresh and crisp and creamy, and not overly dressed, though a tiny bit salty. She still enjoyed it. The French Onion Soup was one of the better soups she’s had, but it was also a tiny bit salty for her liking. I preferred the Steak Tartare which came with a fresh quail egg, fried capers, and seasoned crostini. The steak was in nice little chunks, and the seasoning was perfect. Loved the texture of the meat, and extra pop from the fried capers. The Foie Gras was pan seared, and served with poached apricots, and syrup on a toasted brioche. The foie gras pretty much melted in your mouth, and had a buttery texture. The apricot complimented it nicely.

For our mains, I had the Beef Wellington of course. My friends ordered the Prime Rib, and the PEI Blue Ribbon Bone-in Rib Eye, and Tenderloin. My beef wellington was really good. Most of the puff pastry was still crisp and airy, but did get a little bit soggy because it was sitting in the jus. The steak was cooked a bit past medium, but it was still tender. It was really well complimented by the chopped up mushrooms inside the pastry. The rib eye was delicious and very fatty, actually a bit too fatty for Beipas. It was very tender melt in your mouth fatty though, just too much for her. The Prime Rib was a little disappointing though. The steak was a bit dry, and the yorkshire pudding was also not as airy and crispy as it should be. The steaks also came with 4 difference sauces. The chimichurri was hands down the best. It was delicious.

When you order your steaks, you should order some sides too. There was a bunch I wanted to try, so I did most of the ordering. We got the cream corn, B+B Blue Cheese Bread,  Mac & Cheese, Loaded Baked Potato, and Potato Cakes. My favourite side was definitely the cream corn. It’s nothing like canned cream corn, that’s for sure. It was very creamy, corn still had a good texture, and the crisp jalepeno give it a perfect chilli flavour. Not very spicy. The Blue Cheese Bread too. It was a bit doughy, and kind of had a similar texture to Asian bread. The blue cheese wasn’t too overpowering. The Mac & Cheese is not what you’d expect. It was shaped into sticks, and then breaded and fried. I would’ve preferred a tomato sauce, or something not also creamy to add some contrast. For the potato cakes, I was hoping for much more. It was a bit to plain for me, I was hoping for something like a latke, or something similar to the potato cake I had at Wayfarer in Cannon Beach. This was disappointing.

For dessert, there were a couple I wanted to try. We actually got complimentary desserts (possibly because I tweeted that I was coming). I requested that one of them be the Butter Cake that everyone talks about. It was hyped a lot, but for my first taste, I thought it lived up to the hype though I could see how it could be better. The butter cake had a thick semi-hard outer crust, and the inside pretty moist. It was stuffed with caramel which I wasn’t expecting, and definitely an added plus for me. It was also topped with some cream, and a crisp caramel/toffee chip. My friend who had it before said it was better when she had it before because the crust wasn’t as hard/tough, and it was moister. Either way I still enjoyed it, and would not hesitate ordering it again. The other dessert was the Bananas Foster which was made table side by our server. It’s a really good show with huge 4 foot flames. Besides the show, I didn’t enjoy it that much, after all, it is just a creamy caramel sauce and cooked bananas with some whipped cream and some pecans.

Our meal was over 3 hours long, and our appetizers came about 1 hour into the dinner. Time flew though, and we were having fun. Definitely didn’t feel like a long wait. Our wait staff was very knowledgable, and really knew the menu and types of steaks well. I’d come back for sure, to try more of the appetizers and maybe a wagyu steak, and of course the butter cake. All things in though, it does make for an expensive meal. Make sure to be with good company, because you’re most likely in for a long meal.

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Black + Blue
1032 Alberni St
Vancouver, BC

604-637-0777

http://www.glowbalgroup.com/blackblue/ 

• Bruschetta, classic made with tomatoes, parmesan, extra virgin olive oil, basil, balsamic reduction, mozzarella and goat cheese

Choose any TWO of the following four dishes:

• The Grill Salad, six oz N.Y. steak on grilled vegetables, spring mix and tossed together with a balsamic reduction
• Warm Seafood Spinach, scallops, prawns, baby shrimp, baby spinach, mandarin oranges and mushrooms, layered with goat cheese and roasted almonds
• Ako Salad, grilled chicken breast, English cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, peppers, feta cheese and rice along with a balsamic vinaigrette
• Fiesta Salad, romaine lettuce, corn, black beans, avocado, blackened chicken, salsa, nacho cheese, sour cream and a cilantro mint dressing

The 3 bruschetta was made on a thicker bread. The toppings were great, and I really enjoyed the toppings. I really like bruschetta with the fresh tomatoes and cheese along with the balsamic reduction. Tasted awesome, especially with goat cheese which is one of my favourite cheeses. It made it different from other bruschettas because it added another layer of flavour. I wish they used a different bread though, something a bit thinner, because the thicker cut was truly a mouth full, and didn’t keep its crunch all the way through.

For our salads, we chose the Grill Salad and Fiesta Salad. Beipas had the Grill Salad before and said it was pretty good. This time, we both agreed that the Fiesta Salad was our favourite. I’m a big fan of taco salads, and this one comes really close to one (sans the taco bowl). The cilantro mint dressing was very light. The lettuce was fresh and crisp, and comes with really good ingredients. The corn, black beans, and salsa add a nice mix of flavours and textures. Of course our favourite avocado added a nice soft, creamy butteriness to our bites, and the blackened chicken wasn’t too dry, and overall well done. I wished for a bit more chicken though.

The Grill Steak came with grilled vegetables and a 6 oz. NY steak on a spring mix with a balsamic reduction. The roasted vegetables included are red, yellow, and orange peppers, asparagus, and tomatoes. The steak was cooked to order (medium rare), and sliced. I’m not really used to warm salads, but the grilled vegetables had a nice char, and went really well with the balsamic reduction. I liked the Fiesta Salad more, because I like fresh salads.

Overall the meal would have cost us $42.97, but you get it all for only $25. Hurricane Grill is at a really good location, right by the False Creek water in Yaletown. So if you are looking for a good deal and pretty good food, and want to check out the False Creek marina, you should grab this dining package from VANEATS. You can also order additional food, which of course isn’t included in the package, and I believe they are still a Canucks Preferred Restaurant so if you have one of those Canuck discount cards, I think they can still be used here.

We also ordered a plate of Nachos for $14.99, because I thought I would be hungry still, as it was a pretty late dinner, and my last meal was about 8 hours before. The nachos came as a huge tower, and while we were eating it, Beipas said it was like playing Jenga! It looks good presentation wise, but not so practical. It was really messy and we tried really hard to not make it topple over or lose too many ingredients. Other than the presentation, I did like the nachos though, and it can definitely feed a lot of people. The multi-coloured tortilla chips was topped with green onions, jalepenos, olives, tomatoes, and a mix of grated cheeses and served with a mild salsa, and sour cream. The cheese was melted throughout, and how could you really go wrong with nachos. It was really good. I just wish I had more people to share it with.

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Hurricane Grill
1137 Marinaside Cres
Vancouver, BC

www.thehurricangrill.ca

Last week my friend and I had quite a food filled day, we both felt like eating something light for dinner and preferably vegetarian. We ended up at Nuba on East 3rd Ave.

We sat at the bar because we didn’t want to wait for a table, and decided to just get a couple things for dinner. We ordered a couple things to share: Chicken Shish Tawook and Vegan Meshwi.

These dishes were quite small for entrees. The Chicken Shish Tawook had 2 chicken breast skewers and it’s served on top of a bed of hummus and avocado, as well as some picked vegetables. The chicken was very nice. It was juicy and had nice bbq char on them. It really enjoyed the green chutney it came with as well.

I loved the Vegan Meshwi. It had 2 skewers of grilled onions, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and red peppers. I especially enjoyed the cherry tomatoes, they were sweet, juicy, with a bit of tanginess. These skewers were served on top of a bed of hummus and taboulleh. There was a nice balance of heartiness (grilled vegetables) and freshness (taboulleh) in this dish.

Their bold flavours and their portion control made me leave the place feeling completely satisfied, yet not overly stuffed. Great place to check out.

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Nuba
146 3rd Ave E
Vancouver, BC V5T1C8

On the day I visited The Mac Shack‘s media event, I arrived early and starving. I decided to get some snacks at Tokyo Thyme, a couple stores down after a quick search on Yelp.

This Japanese owned restaurant has some interesting and unique Japanese dishes. I managed to only order a few appetizers with Dee, but trust me, I wanted to have a full blown meal right then and there.

We started with Agedashi Tofu.  My favorite thing about it was the sauce because you can taste its authenticity, it’s sweet yet light. My only issue with this tofu dish was that the tofu wasn’t crispy.

Next stop was very fancy, elegant looking and tasty Tuna Stack.

It was chopped red and white tuna with avocado, mountain potato, nori and green onions (raw quail egg can be added for an extra 50 cents). It came with some nori sheets and a bowl of rice. The way to eat it is to break the pretty tuna stack and really mix everything together, then take a sheet of nori and make your own bite sized sushi with the rice and tuna.

This tuna stack was so yummy. I had asked what the sauce at the bottom of the tuna dish was.  ”Secret sauce” was the answer I got from the owner. Everything was fresh, had a really nice texture, and the secret awesome sauce just binds everything together.

Our last two appetizers were Baked Eggplant and a Shitaki Tama Q roll.

The baked eggplant was glazed with special miso, it was buttery, sweet and had a crispy sugar glaze at the top of the eggplant, a really nice dish.

Shitaki Tama Q roll was a vegetarian roll with shitaki mushroom, tamago, avocado and cucumber.  For a vegetarian roll, this was very well done. It was tasty and the avocado gave really it a nice creamy texture.

After these appetizers, I planned to come back for a proper full meal. I brought a couple friends with me a couple days later to go for lunch here with me.

For lunch I started with a half order of the House Special Sunomono.  This was not a noodle in sour soup kind of sunomono. I remembered my Japanese friend told me that a sunomono is basically any vegetable prepared cold and somewhat pickled. This house special sunomono had smoked salmon, crab, prawn, avocado, mountain potato, and everything was wrapped in cucumber ribbon. The rolls were sitting on top of a sour sauce with some cooked seaweed. This was extremely tasty, refreshing and not to mention, pretty cooking! I really got to taste each ingredient as I chewed, I absolutely loved it.

My Chirashi don arrived shortly after I finished my sunomono, and again, this was a very fancy, pretty looking dish. I liked the fact that some of the sashimi like octopus and saba came with their own seasoning on top to compliment the seafood. I also really liked the fact that there wasn’t a huge amount of unseasoned steamed rice underneath. The rice was topped with very thin slices of shiso, nori, and daikon, all together they had nice texture, and the shiso made the rice taste minty and refreshing.

This was definitely a hidden gem in Vancouver. Everything was prepared carefully, beautifully and was tasty. If you want something different and authentic, this is the place to check out. I love this place.

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Tokyo Thyme
5405 West Blvd
Vancouver, BC V6M
(604) 263-3262

My favorite mac and cheese dishes of the night were: classic and lobster.

The Classic was the first one I tried. It was just simply creamy, cheesy and comforting; what a mac and cheese is supposed to be.

The lobster mac was the one I looked forward to all night, it consisted of oyster mushrooms, truffle oil, dill, and of course, lobster. It was nice eating the pasta alone with the sauce, there was a distinct seafood taste. It got a lot better once I had a piece of the perfectly cooked lobster. A tad more truffle oil and lobster would be extra nice.

Other crowd favorite mac and cheeses were the meaty ones such as Bacon cheeseburger, Ultimate, and the Brooklyn.

Most of the mac and cheeses are cooked in cream sauce, and some were in red such as their Veggie mac. I love vegetables, but this was my least favorite. It lacked the creamy, cheesy characteristics of a mac and cheese because it was in a red sauce and there was hardly any cheese. It reminded me more of a baked pasta rather than a mac and cheese.

One dish I wasn’t expecting was the Mac and Grilled Cheese. Take a regular fixing of a turkey sandwich but add a layer of classic mac and cheese it in. It was a hit among many, including myself. There’s a crispy texture of buttery toast with some saltiness from the turkey and pesto, and then add on the creamy mac and cheese, all in one bite. Such a guilty pleasure.

The Squished was one of the desserts we got to try, and it was awesome. It was a ice cream sandwich with vanilla bean gelato and raspberry sauce squished between 2 double chocolate cookies. It was a delicious dessert with a fun name, I enjoyed this very very much.

Back to the mac and cheese, I really like the choice of cavatappi as their only pasta for all their mac and cheeses. It’s a fun pasta to eat, and it holds the sauces well. All of the noodles I tried were cooked perfectly al dente.

I have read other food blogger’s previous experience at the Mac Shack and most of them were negative. I think at this media event, they really showed that they listened to all their customers feedback and improved on a lot of the dishes. Although I have no previous experience to reference to, based on my first visit this night, I’d visit them again.

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The Mac Shack
5395 West Boulevard
Vancouver, BC V6M
(604) 267-4225

Italian Kitchen is one of the last few Glowbal Group restaurants that MePlusFood hasn’t been to yet. We just need to go to Coast and the newly opened Black and Blue. This is the more expensive version of their other Italian restaurant, Trattoria, on West 4th, with Pastas ranging from about $16 – 25.

When I saw the menu, there were quite a few things that I wanted to try. However, we settled on trying the Pasta Platter, to try to taste as much as we can, without spending tons of money. Our platter came with – (their famous) Spaghetti and spicy Kobe Meatballs with Truffle Cream, Braised Veal Cannelloni with Wild Mushroom Cream, Pappardelle with Lamb Sausage, Cabbage Potatoes, and Rigatoni Pomodoro.

Everyone that I know loves the Kobe meatballs at Glowbal Grill, but I’ve never actually tried a lot of it. My brother orders it almost every time he goes to Glowbal, and so does one of our other friends. They also serve the Rigatoni Pomodoro at Glowbal as well. Anyway, I definitely wasn’t disappointed with the Kobe Meatballs and Spaghetti. Meatballs were large, meaty, and airy. There was definitely some spice to it, but I wouldn’t call it spicy. I think the Spaghetti was amazing though. The truffle cream is to die for and is one of the best sauces I’ve ever tasted. It does come with a high price tag though, as it’s $25, the most expensive pasta on the menu. This was definitely my favourite.

My next favourite was the Pappardelle with Lamb Sausage. The pasta was wide, and cooked right to al dente. I really liked the sauce and enjoyed the lamb sausage. The noodles were cooked perfectly. Beipas really liked this pasta and sauce, but wasn’t a big fan of the lamb sausage. She’s not a big fan of lamb though. The Rigatoni Pomodoro was next. It’s basically just rigatoni with a simple tomato and basil sauce. I though the rigatoni could have been cooked a tiny bit longer, because it was still a bit firmer than I like. The tomato sauce was delicious and comforting. My least favourite was the Braised Veal Canenelloni. It was like pulled veal with mushroom cream sauce wrapped in a pasta sheet. The veal didn’t have enough flavour for me, and the mushroom cream didn’t add much to it. I prefer my cannelloni to be cheesier with lots of ricotta and spinach.

Sorry for the lack of quality pictures. It was so dark in there, my camera couldn’t even focus, so we were manual focussing in the dark. I probably should have turned my auto focus assist lamp on, but didn’t want to ruin the mood inside the restaurant. Our service was really good too. Next time there are a few appetizers that I want to try, especially the bone marrow beef tartare!

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Italian Kitchen
1037 Alberni St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 687-2858

theitaliankitchen.ca

I was first introduced to Thierry Patisserie by a friend. She was telling me that this french pastry shop has amazing macaron and how they have real fruit inside some of the fruit flavoured  macarons such as blackberry and raspberry.

I have visited Thierry a number of times since then, and each time especially for their macarons. About half of those times I walked away with disappointment because they’d be all sold out or they’d only have the flavours I have already tried.

Out of all the times I’ve been I managed to try their pistachio, coffee, lemon, passion fruit, ginger bread and raspberry macarons. Honestly, these were really good macarons. It’s the texture that I liked the most. They outside was crunch when you bite into it, but the inside was soft and chewy. I really dig the chewy texture.

Flavour wise, some of them were really sweet, like passion fruit while the ginger bread (it was special of the day) had more subtle taste. The raspberry one had real raspberry inside, pretty cool.

They have pretty good coffee there. I’d usually get an americano or a latte.  One time my friend and I shared a hazelnut liquid chocolate, think of it as a very very dense hot chocolate. I think it’s ok to sip this chocolate while eating none sweet pastries, otherwise it really just be too sweet.

This place was opened a couple months ago and it is still seriously busy all the time. If you don’t think you like macarons, you have to come try them out at this place, they will change your mind.

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Thierry Patisserie
1059 Alberni Street
Vancouver, BC V6E
(604) 608-6870

So there’s a new restaurant in Vancouver that specializes american cheesesteak sandwich, cool! Not sure why this is a novelty for me, probably from watching too much food tv but I was excited about The American Cheesesteak Co.

I have no idea what an authentic american cheesesteak sandwich is supposed to taste like, but from watching tv I ordered a small classic with (fried onions) and provolone cheese. I also placed a small order of onion rings.

A small order of the sandwich is quite large. There was so much beef, so much cheese and so much guilty grease. The first bite was amazing. The bread was nicely toasted, beef was tender, fried onion was sweet and the cheese just binds everything together. The sandwich however quickly became one dimensional when I was about half way through the sandwich. It became too much of the same taste since it didn’t really have any sauce. I started eating with some hot sauce which helped a bit.

By the time I finished half of the sandwich, I also wished that I’d have my onion rings so I can switch between beef and onion rings.  I thought they forgot about my order, but they were just slow. The rings didn’t come until I was nearly done the sandwich.

An small order of onion rings was also quite large. There was plenty for sharing between 2-3 people. The onion rings were cut thin, and the batter was really nice and crispy.

My friend got the New Yorker, which had mushrooms, tomato, lettuce, garlic mayo and peppers. This sandwich is ginormous, definitely a messy one to eat. He enjoyed the sandwich in general but he did find a little piece of bone just as he finished up the sandwich – not a good last impression.

This is a perfect place for meat lovers and those who are looking for something extra greasy to munch on after a night around town (they do open late). The place has really clean and bar-like decoration. I started to think of it as a fancy-fast food joint, very casual, modern, but you’ll also walk out with fried onion and beef smell.

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The American Cheesesteak Co.
781 Davie St
Vancouver, BC V6Z2S7
(604) 681-0130

To be honest, I have not heard about Prestons until now, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Upon arriving the restaurant, this lounge like restaurant gave me a clue that it probably specializes in west coast cousine.

There were 10 items on the tasting menu, and to my surprise, there were quite a lot of Asian influenced dishes.

With probably over 100 people showed up at the tasting event, there was a stationary food section, there were also waiters and waitresses walking around with trays of food. It was a little bit hectic with all that people, getting food was a bit hard. Some of the dishes I sampled were: shrimp gyoza, eggplant slider, chicken karaage, and crab cakes.

The things I tried were simple and straight forward. The chicken karaage were served in a cute chinese take out box. The sizes of the chicken were more like popcorn chicken. It was sweet and spicy, and the crunchy cabbage slaw was a good compliment.

The eggplant sliders were very well done. The eggplant patty was meaty, it doesn’t taste like a vegetarian slider at all.

I was a fun event as I got to catchup with other food bloggers as well. If the event organizer wanted us to know that Prestons is a fun, upbeat place to share food and have drinks with friends, they certainly have achieved it. Thank you Prestons and @GoPopcorn for having us there!

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Prestons
1177 West Pender Street
Vancouver, BC V6E
(604) 673-2173

There menu consists of appetizers, pastas, mains and flat breads. We got to try many of the appetizers. We were given Vongole in Brado, prosciutto melone, malanzane arrosto, insalata Sofia, calamari Livornese, caprese Napolean, and a funghi selvatico flatbread.

The prosciutto melone, insalata Sofia, and caprese Napolean were served together. My favourite of the bunch was the prosciutto melone, which was just cantaloupe wrapped with some prosciutto, some arugula, some shaved cheese, and balsamic vinegar. Nice balance of flavours.

Next would be the caprese Napolean which was just tomato and boconcini cheese stacked, hence making it a Napolean. The insalata Sofia, a marinated artichoke served whole (but of course with the outer leaves removed). This was actually my first time eating an artichoke like that. Pretty tasty. It was also served with some salad that had very nice crispy pancetta.

The vongole  in brado were clams in a garlic and white wine broth. The malanzane arrosto was basically an eggplant parmesan. It had some marinara sauce and smoked mozarella. I think it could’ve used a bit more cheese and maybe a crisper top. The calamari Livornese was served in a broth with tomatoes, olives, and garlic. The flatbread was one of the better dishes because I love mushrooms. The flatbread had just the right amount of cheese.

For our mains our group of 4 ordered the Duck Risotto, the Snapper with Linguini, Lamb Osso Buco, and I ordered the Pappardelle.

Pappardelle is a wider egg pasta, usually hand cut and more rustic. It came with a mushroom ragu, smoked mozzarella, and truffle oil. The sauce was really good. Rich and creamy with good meaty chunks of mushroom – just what I was looking for. The noodles however were well past done, and quite soft. The middle was actually very mushy and clumped.

Beipas’ snapper was seasoned well but quite salty. The linguini was just tossed in some olive oil, so it was a bit bland. Eating the fish and the noodles together balanced out the saltiness, but not when they’re own their own. The broccolini was a bitter.

The idea behind the duck risotto was nice, but wasn’t well executed. I liked how the duck had a crisp skin, but was cooked a bit too long. The risotto was a bit soggy, and not really creamy. It  had a strong acidic/bitter taste. It tasted like wine wasn’t cooked out long enough, but the others were saying it was too strong of an orangey flavour.

The Lamb Osso Bucco was huge. It was served with gnocchi. The lamb was easily taken off the bone. I liked it. The gnocchi was good too, but I prefer it to be pan fried and a bit crisp.

You can also order platters here where they give you a couple different mains, in smaller portions, on a single plate. If there are more of you, you can try out even more. They also seem to have specials each day that aren’t on the menu.

We were given three desserts to end off the night – a apple pie/cake, a chocolate torte, and the highly touted tirimisu.

The apple pie/cake was the one I was most excited for, but I didn’t enjoy it. The dough in the pie/cake seemed a bit raw, and not flakey like I’m used to in a pie. But then it was also a cake, so, I’m not sure what I was supposed to expect. I didn’t like the texture. The torte, well, I’m not that into really rich chocolate. This one was a bit firmer, but it also had a cherry sauce that I wasn’t very fond of.

The tiramisu was good though as Ronald guaranteed it as the best on the continent! Again, not that big of a tirmisu fan, but it was quite light and airy. The coffee flavour wasn’t too strong, so it would definitely go well with a nice cup of coffee to end the meal.

In the end, there are a lot of dishes I would try on the menu. Lots of good ideas, however, it seemed like the execution of many of the dishes weren’t up to par. The owners and hosts are kind and welcoming, so I hope they can improve, and be more consistent in their dishes.

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Cosca
1118 Denman Street
Vancouver, BC
(604) 683-8485

A couple weeks ago our good friend Mike had his birthday dinner at Suika Izakaya. We had a great time at Suika for Mike’s birthday, and we sampled quite a few dishes.

We started out with some  really fresh sashimi included salmon, toro and  mackerel. All of the fish got the perfect bit size and were really nice and delicious.

We also ordered a negitoro battera, a pressed sushi with negitoro, avocado and homemade seaweed sauce. We ordered it because some dude called it ‘the game changer’ on foursquare. This roll was not to the point of amazing, but it was definitely good. The flavors were subtle, but the buttery tuna belly was present, it was a nice roll.

In terms of none seafood items, one of the highlight of the night was their Chinese poutine. Fries, cheese curd, and chinese minced meat sauce, sure why not! It was actually not bad, meat sauce was kind of sweet, it was a weird combination, but it kind of worked. It is strange how they’d make a Chinese poutine in a Japanese restaurant though.

Another surprise dish of the night was their Tokyo Ox-tail Ramen. This soy sauce soup based ramen was one of my favorite. The soup wasn’t overly salty, the noodles were cooked well and it’s got a good amount of oxtail. It’s unique and it’s super yummy. An izakaya that does really well on ramen, this is what I would call ‘the game changer’.

We finished off the meal with some green tea and red bean mochi ice cream. This dessert was awesome. The mochi wasn’t too hard or too chewly. My favorite was the red bean ice cream, which to me kind of tasted like taro ice cream.

This place has got great food and great staff. Our waitress did a really good job waiting on us. This is a favorite izakaya outside of the downtown bubble for many people and mine too.

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Suika
1626 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6J
(604) 730-1678

I first saw 7 Sweet Sins when I went to a Canucks game last year, and finally tried it out this week. They have lots of desserts in their display case, and they have ice cream served on the other half of the counter. Many of the desserts look good and they had a wide variety from tarts, cheesecakes, regular cakes, mousses, and many more.

I chose a Caramel Apple Cheesecake, and my friend had a Bailey’s Chocolate Mousse. I also had a hot chocolate.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I get tricked every time I see the word caramel. Apple and cheesecake isn’t a really good mix. The cheesecake on its own would be good. It had cooked apples on top with crumbled graham crackers, and drizzled with a bit of caramel. The caramel was thick in consistency, but in thin strips. The cheesecake had a nice consistency and not too sweet. I wish the crust was a bit firmer. But overall it was a pretty light dessert. The main thing is that apple isn’t typically a topping for cheesecake. Give me a berry topping any time.

The Bailey’s Mousse had two layers and topped with a lot of chocolate shavings. The Mousse was very strong in Bailey’s flavour. My friend didn’t really like it, and neither did I. It was way too strong and overpowered the rest of the dessert. Each dessert is around $5.

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7 Sweet Sins
683 Abbott Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 569-0909

http://7sweetsins.com/

I know most of you already know that Save On Meats was just recently resurrected after years of being closed. They have a meat shop on one side, and a diner on the other. It’s really retro serving good, hand-made meals for pretty cheap prices. Guy Fieri of FoodTV showcased Save On Meats this past summer on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and we are eagerly awaiting the episode to air. A friend and I decided to check it out, because we needed to eat quickly and near the Tinseltown area. We looked at the menu and we were hungry, and really tempted to order a lot of items.

We settled on ordering Ribs with Mashed Potatoes ($11), “the” burger with fries ($6), and a grilled cheese with coleslaw ($5). There were many other things we wanted to try like pancakes  (you can order breakfast all day!), rueben sandwich, as well as their special for the day which was a steak sandwich with a cilantro butter.

I started off with the grilled cheese. Nothing really spectacular, very standard. It was just melted cheese on a nicely grilled piece of bread. It was really buttery, but it was just cheddar cheese. I like mixes of cheeses, and the cheese to be really gooey and melted. The coleslaw was very lightly dressed. It was fresh, and the cabbage was really crisp, but I could really taste the bitterness of the purple cabbage.

The burger was topped with tomato, lettuce, bacon and cheddar with a home-made dill pickle skewered on top. It was really juicy, the bacon was crisp, and not really anything you can complain about for $6. Really good freshly made burger and pretty good fries for $6 is a good deal. It won’t blow you away though.

The ribs were tender, and easily fell off the bone but the sauce they used was a bit too sour for my liking.

This place really has the good old school diner feel. From the design of their menus, to the overall decor in the restaurant. They serve lots of old school dishes and even milkshakes and floats. The servers were kind and informative and always making sure everything was OK. The food is cheap too. Nothing that I tried was really spectacular but I guess their big claim to fame is their nostalgic feel and their good, honest, cheap food.

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Save On Meats
43 W Hastings St
Vancouver, BC
(604) 569-3568
saveonmeats.ca

I’ve tried out Fritz European Fry House twice in the past few months. The first time, was after a quick snack over at the Roll Factory (and before an awesome meal at Gotham Steakhouse) at about 6:30PM. My friend wanted some and I agreed to share a large poutine with smoked meat on top ($9.50). Maybe because I wasn’t super hungry and wanting to save space for an expensive meal at Gotham, but the poutine was good, but not amazing. I liked that the fries were crispy and airy in the middle. The cheese curds were quite large, and melted with the hot gravy. There was pretty decent chunks of Montreal smoked meat. When we went, it wasn’t busy at all, and maybe us and 2 other people grabbed some poutine. It took quite a while to get our food. I guess at this time it’s not busy at all, so he doesn’t have fries sitting around, so everything is fresh. Problem is you have to wait. We waited about 10 minutes.

The second time was just last week after a night out drinking. There was quite a long line up at 1AM. This is always a busy spot when you go out clubbing, you’ll always see a line going out of the shop. We waited about 15 minutes in line to place our order, but only had to wait about 2 minutes for our regular Jumbo poutine to come. This time it tasted amazing! It was just the crispy carbs and salty gravy that I needed after a bunch of alcohol. I loved the gooey cheese with the fries and gravy this time. I couldn’t get enough. I could see why this is such a popular place to eat late at night.

This is definitely different from La Belle Patate. They use cheese curds, but not the squeaky kind. I don’t really like the styrofoam container it’s served in. It’s hard to eat out of because it’s kind of narrow and it’s hard to dig in and get all of the fries, cheese, and gravy. The good thing is that, it’s easier to hold while your standing outside and eating. The price is also a factor, as it’s quite expensive, $11 for a bucket of poutine. I also noticed that they have quite a few toppings to choose from, and they also have dips which I’d like to try.

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Fritz European Fry House
718 Davie St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 684-0811

www.fritzeuropeanfryhouse.com

Last week I visited The Whip to grab a beer and catch up with friends from school. On a Thursday night, this place was bumpin’! We had 8 people, and weren’t able to get a table inside the restaurant, so we took over the patio.

Judging by the menu, this was kind of a fancy pub. The burgers averaged $13, and more if you want to substitute fries with yam fries our poutine. The entrees were the same, around $14 and up.

I ordered a Turkey burger with poutine, while most others ordered The Whip Burger.

I thought my turkey burger was just OK. It was moist, but the patty tasted a little bland, it needed a bit more herb action or an awesome aioli to lift up the flavours. They had a cranberry aioli in the burger, it gave the burger a strange light sour taste.

The poutine on the other hand, was amazing. I’m not quite sure if it was because I haven’t had poutine in a while, but this one was GOOD. The gravy’s got just enough saltiness, fries were crispy and soft, and they didn’t cheap out on the amount of cheese curds. Really solid poutine.

If you don’t want poutine or yam fries, their regular fries totally kicks ass too. Actually, I should say, the garlicky mayonaise that came with the fries totally kicks ass. Not sure what they put in it, but it was garlicky and so tasty. I could eat a lot of fries with that magic mayo.

The Whip burger was a beef burger with edam and cheddar cheese. Everyone seemed to enjoyed it, I’m sure it was better than my turkey burger.

Aside from the food, our waiter really sucked. He got our orders wrong twice and both times he had confirmed our orders with us before he left. First he got my friend a vegetarian burger instead of a beef burger, it kind of sucked because now our friend has to watch us eat while he waits for his burger again. The second time he got us regular fries when we asked for yam fries, they re-fired a side of yam fries for us but by the time it got to our table, we were already full.

My overall impression was, good food, nice space, I would go back again to grab drinks with friends.

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The Whip
209 E 6th Ave
Vancouver, BC V5T
(604) 874-4687

Samba Brazilian Steakhouse is a place I’ve been wanting to go to for a long time. It’s an All You Can Eat meat restaurant where servers come around with meat on a skewer and slice the meat directly onto your plate. There was a Groupon for it and I quickly purchased one. For some reason it took me until the very last week to use it. Of course so did a lot of other people, as many people there were trying to use up their Groupon before they expired. Someone even tried to offered one to me, but I already had one. This made for a less than memorable service. After being seated, we were told how it works. You are each given a card, where you put the green side up if you want to keep eating, red side up to stop.

There’s also a buffet for you to stock up on carbs and other Brazilian dishes because all that would be coming around is meat. So that’s where we started off. They had quite a few dishes and sides there – salads, pastas, tortilla chips, guacomole, fish, potatoes, meat balls, onion rings, and rice to name a few. The thing that bugged me was that there were no labels up to tell you what each dish was. I recalled our server say there was fish pasta.. did she mean fish and pasta? or pasta with fish in it? I wasn’t sure. For people with allergies, I wish they would put up labels for each dish out there.

As for the meats, it took quite a while for them to roll around – 2 or 3 would come within a few minutes of each other, then there would be a long delay of about 10-15 minutes before we saw meat again. Being my first time, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t ask for a ton of meat on my plate because I thought they would be coming along with meat more frequently. Next time I will though. That being said though, pretty much all of the meat that we had was really good – tender and juicy and nicely charred. We were served – Lamb, (really fatty) Pork, two different cuts of beef, chicken, chicken wrapped in bacon, and sausage. My favourites were probably the lamb, tri-tip steak and the bacon wrapped chicken. They cut from huge slabs of meat, so not all of the pieces are perfect though. Make sure to have a good look, and then tell the server where you want your food cut from.

I’d probably have to go again. The $29 for the dinner definitely wasn’t worth it because of the service from this experience, but lunch is only $13. I’ll probably be going back when I’m craving a ton of meat. Thankfully the Groupon deal is done, so hopefully it won’t be so busy and disorganized. I confirmed with the manager that they weren’t expecting this many people there, so they were understaffed due to everyone trying to redeem their Groupon last minute.

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Samba Brazilian Steak House
1122 Alberni St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 696-9888

www.thaihouse.com/samba/

I went to grab dinner at Well Tea‘s downtown location last week. It was my first time visiting this multi-location bubble tea and Taiwanese restaurant.

I decided to order 2 common Taiwanese street foods from the menu, because there are no better way to test the authentic of Taiwanese food than seeing if they got the street foods right. I ordered the Pork in Thick Soup and the Noodles with meat sauce.

The noodles came first, the meat sauce gave off a real nice aroma. After mixing the sauce and the noodles together, I had my first bite, and it was a disappointment. The meat sauce had ground pork and small pieces of tofu, and it was stewed in soy sauce. It tasted really one dimensional, salty.

Next came the pork in thick soup. The portion size of this soup was large. It had a lot of ingredients in it, carrots, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, pork, wood ear..etc. It looked authentic, but taste wise, it’s not even close. It’s missing the distintive flavor that makes the soup ‘pork in thick soup’. Other than tasting nothing like it’s supposed to taste, it’s not bad in general.

My friend ordered a Seafood hotpot.  It came with a bowl of steamed rice. Not sure if it’s just seafood hot pot that does this, but he had to ask the waitress to light up the flame underneath the clay pot twice. There was a lot of waiting for the soup to get warm, and the soup never reached boiling point, and the ingredients in it were barely lukewarm.

Food wasn’t great, definitely not on my recommendation list for Taiwanese food.

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Whenever Wheel comes back for a visit from Seattle, we’d always visit an all you can eat Japanese restaurant to get his sushi fix. This time we tried E Bei Sushi on Oak and 41st. One of our friends suggested E Bei because of it’s $13 all you can eat price, and that there was unlimited sashimi.

The $13 late night all you can eat starts at 9.30pm. We got there around that time and there was already a huge line up outside of the restaurant, luckily the hostest pulled some magic and we only had to wait for about 5 minutes.

Sashimi! It was what I have been waiting all day for, but when I got the order sheet, it clearly stated 1 order of 6 piece salmon or tuna sashimi for an extra $1.50. What? What a disappointment!! I’d like to believe I was misinformed by my friend, but it also could be likely that they just took sashimi off for late night all you can eat, who knows. It was a bummer, because all I really wanted was sashimi.

I got my sashimi ‘fix’ from salmon, tuna and tai sushi. Like most AYCE restaurants, you can expect sushi here with thin slices of fish and a big ball of rice. They were not bad, just too much rice per sushi. When I eat a piece as is with out taking any rice off, I could barely taste the fish.

The spicy salmon and tuna sushi cones and their sushi rolls were not bad either. But again, lots of rice and very little of the ‘expensive stuff’.

Other none sushi things I enjoyed were the spicy agedashi tofu and the chicken wings.  Compared to the regular agedashi tofu here, the spicy version was way better. The deep friend tofu were drenched in a lot of spicy sauce. It smelled really spicy, but it tasted sweet with a hint of spiciness.

The chicken wings came out hot with crispy skin and juicy meat. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to come here and have all you can chicken wings for $13 here.

We only ordered 2 rounds of food, and on the second round some of the items just conveniently came less than we what ordered. All you can eat sushi without any sashimi is just not satisfying. I don’t get the big deal about this place, even at $13.

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Last week before we head to Blink 182′s concert we grab a quick bite to eat at Charm Modern Thai.

I didn’t have a good experience on my first visit to Charm Modern Thai a year ago, but words out that they have a new head chef, and with recent positive reviews from other bloggers, I was willing to give them a try again. Also their  2 for 1 appetizer happy hour everyday from 5pm – 6pm, worked out perfect with our concert schedule.

To take advantage of the happy hour we ordered 5 appetizers that included Duck Sticks, Beef Short Ribs, Chicken Wings and Tiger Prawn Satay from their specials menu. I listed 4, but that’s only because the duck sticks were so delicious that we decided to place another order of it shortly after we finished our first.

My favorite appetizer would have to be the Tiger Prawn Satay. 3 fat skewered and grilled prawns came with peanut sauce and a sweet thai sauce. The presentation just screams eat me. The prawns had really nice charred flavor from the grill, very very delicious. This is a what I would come back for.

Another item off their special menu was the Fish Filet. It was deep fried fish filets topped with sweet and sour sauce with garlic, onion, basil, green onions and other herbs. I liked this quite a lot too. Most of the flavors came from the toppings and the flavors were really bold. This was something new for me in terms of thai cuisine.

We also had Chicken Pad Thai and Chicken Panang Curry for mains. Both were really good, you can’t really go wrong with coconut milk based curries, we pretty much cleaned the plates.

The food was much better from my last visit.  We were all happy with our meal this time around.

2 for 1 appetizers at happy hour is a pretty good deal, but you’d just have to remember to get your orders in early as our would-have-been 6th appetizer didn’t make the 6pm mark. I’m glad they picked 5pm to start their happy hour, it’s a reasonable time to as opposed to 3pm or 4pm; because really, who has the time to leave the office at 3pm just for a happy hour snack?

I will be back for those tiger prawns again, and also one of their signature dishes like green tea chicken and pineapple beef.

Charm Modern Thai
1269 Hamilton St
Vancouver, BC V6B
(604) 688-9339

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Monday night is the worst night for eating out, luckily East is East isn’t one of the many restaurants that closes on Mondays.

It was my first time visiting East is East, I am not very familiar with Indian food besides butter chicken, so I decided to get the Silk Route Feast.

The Silk Route Feast was pretty much an all you can eat. You get 2 dishes to start with, and you can order more through out your meal. It also came with Afghani rice, naan, dhal soup, salad and boulani.

I tried almost every items in the list of dishes you’re allow to order. There was a good amount of vegetarian dishes including Aloo Gobi, spinach paneer, mango butternut squash, and Afghan eggplant. My favorite was the Afghan eggplant, it was the most flavorful, and the only vegetarian dish that came out hot, while the rest came out lukewarm.

As for the meats, we tried chicken masala, wild salmon, minced beef kabab, and both of their lamb dishes. Compared to the vegetarian options, the meats were totally winning. They were much more flavorful, and again, they came out hot as opposed to lukewarm. The chicken masala, and the minced beef kabab were our favorites, but the must get dish here would  have to be the wild salmon.

At $19 for the Silk Route Feast, it is a little pricy for all you can eat. All the dishes came out in small metal bowls, and for the meats, you’d probably only fish out 3-4 pieces of meat in each dish. The good thing about this combo is the variety.

Even though the portion size seem small, they were surprisingly filling. One of my favorite thing on the meal was the boulani (a.k.a the triangle thingy on the plate). It was very thin pancakes with green onions and potatoes in side. It was super tasty with the dhal soup.

Overall, the food was tasty. The atmosphere was very mellow. I’d bring my friends back.

East is East
3243 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6K
(604) 734-5881

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Once again we have another new ramen joint in Vancouver. I actually visited Ramen Jinya twice. The first time I was there to grab a quick bite, and a week later I visited it again with my ramen obsessed friend.

I didn’t have my camera the first time, just went purely for a quick dinner. Looking at their menu, it seems like they specializes in tonkotsu broth, so I ordered a shoyu tonkotsu ramen. I liked the shoyu tonkotsu quite a bit, it wasn’t as good as Ramen Santouka‘s but it was better than most other places.

The shoyu ramen came with bamboo shoots, spinach, and some fried onions. The best thing in the bowl of noodles were the 2 pieces of chashu. They were fatty, tender and had this really awesome bbq charred flavor. On this visit, my rating for Ramen Jinya was 3.5/5

I came back here a week later for lunch this time with 3 other friends. This time I tried the miso tonkotsu ramen while my friends tried their shoyu and shio tonkotsu.

The miso broth was a lot darker, richer and saltier than their shoyu broth. I remembered the broth being very thick and also very fatty. I thought it was just how the miso was, but my friend’s shoyu broth was also very thick. It was different from what I had the week earlier.

Another thing I noticed right off the bat was their noodles. They were different from my last visit’s, they were different from my friend’s shoyu and shio ramen’s noodles. Miso tonkontsu ramen just gets different and thicker noodles here than others, not sure why that is.

Unlike my first visit, this I was rather disappointed with their ramen this time. The broth was just way too thick and salty. The chasu was still the best thing in the bowl, but it wasn’t as good as last time. It also came with some spinach, but unlike shoyu or shio ramens, it didn’t have the bamboo shoots nor the fried onions.

My friends were also disappointed with their ramens. The shio ramen was a really light ramen, it came with thinner noodles, but it was lacking some flavor in my ramen-fiend friend’s opinion. Other than the ramen itself, she ordered a half boiled egg on the side. She was also extremely appalled when it came fully cooked that she had to send it back. It turns out that that’s just how they prepare their eggs, they were all fully cooked.

So, two different visits, one good, one disappointed. It seems like they’re struggling with consistency. On my first visit, I’d recommend it to others for sure, on my second, not so much.

It’s got a great location that caters to the yaletown neighbourhood. I hope they’ll find their consistency soon before someone else plants a another ramen place in yaletown.

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 Ramen Jinya
270 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC V6B

I think Joey is currently my favourite franchise restaurant – more than Cactus Club, Milestones, Moxies, Earls, etc. I went to the Joey in Coquitlam a few months ago for the first time in almost a decade, and had a really good time. I went to Joey on Burrard after a friends shower to kill time downtown. I don’t know what took me so long to go. I went with two friends, one of whom works at the Joey on Broadway, so I had some inside tips.

I ordered the Italian Flatbread and Spaghetti with Kobe Meatballs, with a side of Crispy Mash because I got to have it. My friends ordered the Lobster Ravioli, and Baja Fish Tacos. The flat bread was nice and crisp and topped with tomatoes, salami, and olives. The salami added a good amount of pepperiness, it was really good quality meat. I like the mix of the ingredients and added a nice balance with the pepper, and salty/sour from the olives.

The Spaghetti and meatballs were delicious as well. The meat balls were huge, and very airy. Nice texture and very good flavour. I really enjoyed how it was very airy, and not dense. That and the meatballs were huge. The spaghetti sauce was really tasty too and the spaghetti was cooked perfectly. The crispy mash was just as good this time, but I just wish the toppings were evenly spread on top.

The awesome tip that my friend gave me was to order a beer with the lemon slush. Not sure what it’s called, but it’s really good if beer isn’t your thing. It’s sweeter and also more refreshing. And even if you like beer, it’s still really good!

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Joey
820 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 683-5639

www.joeyrestaurants.com

Last week I was treated to a breakfast at Little Nest, a cafe just off commercial street. First time visiting this place I immediately noticed the homeyness of this place. It was like I stepped into someone else’s kitchen, a very hipster kitchen that is. The the next thing I noticed was the number moms dining there with their toddlers, this was a very family friendly cafe.

For my breakfast I decided to get a latte and the Little Nest Breakfast. I ordered this breakfast with scrambled eggs and it came with baguettes, fried polenta, and a bed of sautéed  mushrooms with pesto sauce.

The dish looked really appealing, and it was really tasty. I enjoyed everything. From the way it was presented, the dish was split into 2 sides, the side with the eggs and the baguette and the super yummy side with polenta and mushrooms.

The polenta had a really nice crust on the outside, and it was just mild enough to compliment the spinach pesto and mushrooms. There were also caramelized pearl onions as well as goat cheese on top. Although the eggs and baggues were good, the polenta side definitely out-shined the eggs and the baguettes.

My friend ordered the Eggs of the Day, which had eggs, baguette and a side of tuna salad. The salad was cold, and it was really refreshing. It had baby greens, green beans, and tuna. It was really nicely dressed, and the green bean still had a nice crunch.

I was there on a weekday and the place was already busy, I can’t imagine what it is like on weekends. I loved my breakfast here, everything was fresh and tasty. I’d definitely come back, but only on a weekday.

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Little Nest
1716 Charles St
Vancouver, BC V5L
(604) 251-9994

This visit has been a LONG time coming. I first visited Boneta during a cocktail tour with Vancouver Food Tour. This was tops on my list of places to go to, and some how it took me almost a year to finally dine here. It seemed like an awesome place to dine, with a really cool vibe. Maybe I was waiting for too special of an occasion. Oh well, we finally made it, and I’ll forego the drama and build up and just tell you right now that it was worth it, and is definitely a favourite for me and my friends that went. Definitely had a great meal at Boneta.

The menu has changed from what I had remembered, and there weren’t as many things that I wanted to try. We just came from the Bombay Sapphire Speakeasy over at Guilt & Company, and just wanted to eat a bit. We skipped the appetizers this time (I remember there being a bunch of appies that I wanted to try on their old menu), and went straight for the entrees. I ordered the Braised Beef, while my friends ordered the Steelhead Trout, and the Gnocchi.

My braised beef was awesome. Tender, and easily shredded with a fork, with bits of melt in your mouth fat. Just the way I love it. It was served with a rich bordelaise sauce, and perfectly cooked potatoes, carrots, and little onions. It’s the best braised beef I’ve had in a long time, and it was a decent sized piece. Everything was perfect about this dish for me.

The steelhead trout was a hit too. My picky friend was in love with it. It was served with truffled mascarpone ravioli, saffron vegetables, and a star anise jus (foam?). He didn’t want to share it. The gnocchi was pretty good too. Beipas would’ve prefered it to be fried and a bit crispy, and it was a bit salty. The gnocchi was served with some smoked sablefish, bacon and a lemon hollandaise sauce. Picky friend liked it too!

To finish off the night, we ordered the rhubarb, vanilla bean & mascarpone trifle, and the Petit-Fours. My friends are addicted to rhubarb and mascarpone right now (see Lola and the Steelhead Trout dish). My favourite was the trifle which was layered with the rhubarb, and vanilla bean and mascarpone. Not overly sweet, and a good balance between the tart rhubarb, with the creamy mascarpone and vanilla.

The Petit-Fours are a selection of four little desserts. I can’t remember the exact names of each of them, but one was a thick chocolate, one was a basil ice cream, another were 2 cubes of Madagascar chocolates, and a cream (sorry! my memory sucks). My favourite was the thick chocolate. The basil ice cream was a bit weird, but my friend said when mixing a certain cream with a certain chocolate it works really well. I just forget which pairs worked.

Anyways, I’ll be back. After a year wait, it wasn’t a let down. Thanks to Gourmet Fury for introducing me to Boneta. Definitely a MePlusFood and friends favourite. Very trendy and cool place to have a great meal, and have drinks with friends.

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Boneta
1 W Cordova St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 684-1844 

www.boneta.ca

This Monday I was once again invited to a media tasting event, and this time I was invited to Pink Elephant Thai.

At this dinner me and six others got to try 4 appetizers, 8 main courses, and 2 desserts. There was a lot to eat, and there were a lot of memorable dishes.

The first appetizer we got was the Look Tong Tom Moo, pork spare rib soup served with egg nest and steamed rice. I thought this was a perfect appetizer to start the night because the broth both smelled and tasted appetizing and yet not overwhelming. I loved the whole garlic cloves in the soup, the spare rib had fell off the bone meat. Really delicious slow cooked broth.

The Double ‘O’ Lettuce Wrap had oysters and ostrich meat.  The dish was sweet in flavor and I loved the oysters in this dish. It had a nice crispy batter, which added another texture to the dish. It was a good twist to a normal lettuce wrap.

Another good appetizer to get was the Floating Market, and the star of the dish was those spinach tempuras. I’ve never had spinach tempura, they were light, crispy and so good with the sweet and spicy Thai applesauce.

My least favorite appetizer was the Spicy Butterfly Butter Jumbo Tiger Prawn. I guess the name of the dish threw me off a bit, because the dish wasn’t spicy or particularly buttery to me at all.

All the main dishes were family style dishes, and  our first main was the Keang Panang Pla, it was red curry with Salmon. And if I remember correctly this was the Chef’s family dish. I love red curries to begin with, and I loved this dish.

My favorite curry dish was the Coconut Curry with braised ox-tail and pumpkin. This is the curry I would order over and over again, because I love coconut and I love ox-tail. The ox-tail was fell off the bone tender. The curry creamy and and the pumpkin added extra sweetness to the dish. Soo yummy.

Kra Pau Moo was an other dish that was packed with sweet and spicy flavors. It was pork cheek with red chili paste. It was served with mixed vegetables. The pork cheek had really nice BBQ charcoal flavor.

We also had the Pla Salmon Salad. This was a warm salad and again with sweet and spicy flavors. It had some cashew nuts and sliced apples to give the crunchy texture. I really enjoyed the sliced green onions because they gave the salad a good spicy bite.

Just when we thought we were done, we were given 2 desserts to end the meal with. One of them was Vanilla Ice Cream with grilled pineapple and one was sticky rice with fresh mangos and coconut. My favorite was no surprise the sticky rice with coconut, it was the most flavorful of them all, and it just had the right amount of sweetness.

Dinner here was great, and I had a lot of fun eating with 5 other strangers. There was a lot of pink in the restaurant without it being too cutesy. It was a nice modern and fun space to dine in. It looks like an expensive place to eat, but the prices are very reasonably priced at $12 for main, and average of $7 for appetizers.

Thanks Pink Elephant Thai for having us over. I left the restaurant still thinking about that ox-tail curry.

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A couple weekends ago before I went shopping for spotted prawns at Granville island, I stopped by The Red Wagon for some breakfast.

I have read a few good reviews from other bloggers about their Crispy Pork Belly breakfast, and I just gotta go try it to see what all the fuss was about.

The Crispy Pork Belly breakfast came with 2 eggs of your choice, toast, potatoes, grilled tomato, and a generous chunk of pork belly. It was drizzled with salsa verde, and hollandaise sauce.

This breakfast was amazing. There was a lot going on, and every bite was just full of flavor. The salsa verde and the hollandaise sauce somehow just worked out together really nicely with the eggs and the potatoes.

Speaking of the potatoes, not only were they moist on the inside, they were also sprinkled with fresh green onions and cilantro, so genius.

On to the crispy pork belly itself, it lived up to its name. It was really crispy! It’s like somehow they extracted all the fat parts of the pork belly, and replaced it with crispy skin. It was pretty good, but just a tad dry.

My friend ordered their Banana Pancakes, and it was very banana-y. It wasn’t just a few slices of banans on the pancakes, it was like they pureed bananas and mixed it into the pancake batter. Not sure if they really did that, but there was whole lot of banana taste. It was very sweet on its own, we didn’t use much syrup with it all. It was also very buttery.

A simple, traditional breakfast consist mostly of eggs, potatoes and some type of pork, everyone can make it, but The Red Wagon does better. You gotta come try the crispy pork belly breakfast. And between the sweet and the savory breakfasts here, based on the 2 dishes we got, the savory was the clear winner.

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The Red Wagon
2296 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC V5L

It was our good friend Jess’s birthday a couple weeks ago, and birthday girl was craving some serious steak, so we went to check out Gotham in downtown Vancouver.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about the steaks here. Most of the Vancouverites I’ve talked to said they’ve had the best steak here. Not that I’m a snob, but I’ve already had my best steak ever at Del Friscos Double Eagle Steakhouse in Las Vegas. I went there with some skepticism, better than over hyping it for myself I guess.

For my steak, I decided to try the Filet Mignon while most of my other friends got the Bone-In Rib Steak. We also got some garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, and Cauliflower Gratin to share.

My filet mignon steak was bigger than I thought, I believe it was a good 8 oz steak. I ordered it medium rare, and the steak was delicious. The outer part of the steak was seasoned generously with salt and pepper, it had a nice crust. And the center of the steak was so perfectly tender and juicy. I enjoyed the center of the steak quite a lot.

I also tried some of the Bone-In Rib Steak. It certainly has a different flavor than the Filet Mignon, it was very flavorful, but it wasn’t as tender as the filet mignon.

The sides were pretty good too. The garlic mashed potatoes were really creamy, and very awesomely packed with garlic flavors. The Cauliflower Gratin was very cheesey, and also creamy. The asparagus were probably the biggest asparaguses I’ve ever seen, but nonetheless, they were very nicely cooked and tender as well.

At our table, someone also ordered the Steak and Lobster with New York steak. The surprise of the dish was the lobster. It was so buttery, tender. Something about the lobster that night, it tasted pretty orgasmic.

So, was it the best steak I’ve ever had? Nope. Was it the best steak in Vancouver? probably. This was definitely an expensive restaurant to visit. Besides the good steaks, you are also paying for the classic masculine steakhouse atmosphere.

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Gotham Steakhouse & Cocktail Bar
615 Seymour St
Vancouver, BC V6B
(604) 605-8282

The Roll Factory is a small sushi restaurant on Davie. I’ve had a group coupon here for the longest time, and it was about to expire, so I finally went and used it last week. The place seems like more like a take-out restaurant, but there are seats there to eat. It was kind of strange when we went in, because they didn’t ask if it was dine-in or take-out and they didn’t really tell us where to sit. We kind of just sat down, and we had to ask for the menu (which was also posted on the wall). Once we sat, we were also given luke-warm tea.

We sat a table that was really wobbly, and  our tea was spilling everywhere. I just wanted a snack because I was going to Gotham’s later that night for a Birthday, so I ordered one roll, and let my friends use up the rest of the two coupons. I ordered the Victoria Roll which has Yam Tempura, Cucumber and avocado topped with even more avocado and sesame seeds. My roll was pretty good, the yam tempura was freshly fried and very crispy. Very sweet overall though with the yam and loads of avocado. The sauce they added was pretty sweet too. But overall I think that was the theme of the rolls we ordered. Everything was quite sweet. Anyways, I liked my roll.

My friends ordered the Dragon Roll, Scallop Magma Roll, Spicy Salmon Roll, and Dynamite Roll. The Dragon Roll had prawn tempura and cucumber topped with unagi and masago – a bit different than a standard dragon roll. This too had a bit of sweetness. The Scallop Magma roll was a little bit spicy, and it had white tuna mixed with tempura bits, and topped with chopped scallops and a black sesame sauce. The spicy salmon roll wasn’t spicy at all, and actually a bit sweet, maybe they heard wrong?

Overall, my roll was pretty good, but my friends didn’t like their rolls. And since they were the ones who were eating the seafood, I’ll take there word for it. There are tons of sushi places around there, and my friend who lives close by says he probably wouldn’t go back as there are better choices in the area.

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The Roll Factory
809 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 568-8539

herollfactory.ca

A couple weeks ago my friends and I stopped by 9th Avenue Grill for some breakfast before our day of photowalking.

The menu had pretty standard breakfast items and the prices were very reasonable. For my breakfast I decided to try the Cheese Omelette And …, yup, that was the name of the dish, with the dot dot dot.

It was a 3 cheese omelete with bacon, sausages, pancakes and potatoes. My omelete was pretty flat with cheese folded inside. There were 3 cheeses, but the only one I could really taste was cheddar. I had a feeling it might be a tex mex mix. It was not bad.

The sausage and bacon were pretty good, but I was most disappointed by the pancakes, especially when I just had Rhizome Cafe‘s a day before. The pancakes were were just flat, dry, and didn’t have much flavor at all. They actually reminded me of pancake mix.

A friend ordered the 9th Avenue Big Breakfast with French toast. This was just a classic breakfast with 2 eggs, bacon, sausage, potato and choice of pancakes or French toast. This dish was again pretty normal, but the french toast were just a tad bland.

Perhaps the most flavorful dish we had was the Veggie Hash. It was scrambled eggs with peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes with Monterey Jack cheese. This was a nice hash, it had all the nice flavors from all the vegetables.

Overall, I wasn’t too impressed with their breakfast food. The savory part was all right, but the pancakes and french toasts just weren’t good enough.

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9th Avenue Grill
1822 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6J
(604) 714-0744

Last week I had this huge craving for burgers one night, so the next day I decided to go to Stackhouse Burger Bar to fulfill my cravings.

I first heard about this burger bar from dee, but we never found the time to go together. So I went here first with a promise to him that I’d come back with him because there were 2 burgers I really wanted to try.

My first visit I ordered the Portabellini Burger. This burger was topped with portabellini, Guinness cheddar, chipotle aioli and butter lettuce, and it was served on a brioche bun. This burger, was amazing.

My first bite was instant happiness. The beef patty was super flavorful, super juicy and it just tasted super fresh. It was cooked perfectly, all 6 oz of it. The portabellini mushroom added another layer of mushroom magic juiciness. The chipotle aiol was really nice and buttery brioche bun is the way to go with all burgers.

This burger was everything I thought a burger would be when I was craving for one, I absolutely loved it.

My friend ordered the Lamb Burger, which had goat cheese, , cilantro aioli and butter lettuce. This was a solid burger, the lamb was nice, the overal flavor with the goat cheese and cilantro aioli worked, but it wasn’t as kickass as the Portabellini. The portabellini just had more punch in the face flavor compared to the lamb.

The second burger I really wanted to try was their Veggie Burger, so I got the veggie sliders on my second visit here with dee and others. The veggie sliders had portabellini, fried fennel, arugula, and cilantro aioli. The patty consisted of tofu, edamame and goat cheese.

After my first visit I had high hopes for my veggie sliders. They turned out all right. They weren’t the best veggie burgers I’ve had, but they weren’t the worst either. You can really taste all the ingredients in the patty, the tofu, and the edamame. It somehow reminded me a lot of the lamb burger, probably because they both have goat cheese and the cilantro aioli.

Among the veggie sliders, my friends and I also shared the Stackhouse sliders and the Crab sliders.

The patty in the Crab sliders had really nice crispy crusts, but the whole thing tasted like  crab cake with buns. None of us were a fan of it.

The Stackhouse slider is miniature version of the Stackhouse burger, which is Portebellini burger with pancetta.  This was the best slider out of the three. The beef was again, very delicious.

This is an awesome burger bar, I highly recommend the Portabellini Burger. I’d definitely come back, but I think I will be sticking with the beef options when I do.

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Stackhouse Burger Bar
1224 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z
(604) 558-3499

Last weekend after we stopped by Hamburger Disco‘s pop up store on Main street to picked up some t-shirts, we went to the near by Rhizome Cafe to grab some brunch.

Most of the items on the menu are vegetarian, and the only meat available was salmon. For my breakfast, I uncharacteristically picked their eggs benedict, Eggs Rhizomedict because I was really curious about their house made squash sauce that they use instead of hollandaise.

The Eggs Rhizomedict had roasted red peppers and spinach. The squash sauce was a little strange at first, simply because my mind was still expecting hollandaise. But the more I ate it, the more I loved it. The sauce was really yummy, it was a bit sweet. I tasted mostly butternut squash. I had my Eggs Rhizomedict half salad and half roasted root vegetables. The roasted vegetables were yams and potatoes. The this was a savory breakfast, but there were a lot of sweetness from the squash sauce, roasted red pepper and yams.

Dee ordered the Rhizome Buttermilk Pancakes, which had 3 very fluffy pancakes. I liked these pancakes a lot. They were topped with sliced apples that has been caramelized a little. It’s a very simple dish, but also very yummy.

I really liked my breakfast there, and I’ll definitely come back.  This is a great spot breakfast for vegetarians.

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Hapa Umi is the newest Japanese restaurant by the creators of Hapa Izakaya, Justin and Lea Ault. Be warned though, this is not an izakaya! They have much more high end food, that can still be shared, but don’t expect your ebi mayo and chicken karaage. They serve much more refined food. Hapa Umi, is located on West Cordova near Waterfront Station. There aren’t too many signs so it’s easy to pass it by. Their location is kind of hard to find, and it’s not too close to the heart of the downtown dining/party area. I think currently most of their business comes during lunch, and early dinners.

Tanis from T2 Communications invited Beipas and I, as well as Erin from the Foodists for a small intimate tasting event last Thursday. Hapa Umi has been open for almost two months, but the reviews haven’t been too great. Originally, their menu wasn’t well received, and the reviews on Urban Spoon weren’t so high either. MePlusFood loves the Hapa Izakaya restaurants, but we weren’t too sure if we would love Hapa Umi. I told Tanis last minute about my seafood allergy, and they were still able to accommodate me  on short notice with different dishes, although they already planned a set menu. At Hapa Umi we were able to try out a few selections on their lunch, dinner, and dessert menus as well as many of their wines and sakes. The dishes shown aren’t the size you would get, as this was just a sampling.

The first dish was a halibut ceviche, a lemon-lime soy marinade, with a shiso-infused olive oil. I think the first taste got some nice reviews. Since I’m allergic, I was given a duck tataki with a orange soy reduction.

The second was a Pemberton Meadows beef tataki with a garlic ponzu sauce, with green onion oil, and spicy daikon. This is probably the best tataki I’ve had because of the sweet garlic ponzu sauce, and the pop and spice from the green onion oil and spicy daikon paired with some tender lightly seared beef.

Third was an edamame ravioli with a yuzu brown butter and truffle oil sauce. This pasta was awesome, and everyone wished they could order an “Anton’s” sized plate. This is only an appetizer, and comes with 5 raviolis. The very al dente ravioli was stuffed with edamame and ricotta. It was quite mild, but still can tell it was soy bean inside. It came with a nice citrusy yuzu brown butter. The yuzu adds a nice tart acidic kick.

They served us a lunch bento box which comes with a lot of variety and sells for $19. It comes with a miso soup, rice, and potato salad on one plate, and another container which varies. Ours came with a couple pieces of sushi and sashimi, tamago, vegetable roll, tomato,  and a pork belly. The stand out here was the pork belly which was really fatty and melted in your mouth. It wasn’t a thick fat that lingered in your mouth and throat, it was quite smooth. It came with a sweet sauce that is very similar to a sauce used with Filipino roast pork.

Next came a selection of sushi rolls and cones. They came with a couple spicy tuna rolls, and a vegetable roll. Not a big fan of vegetable rolls because they are quite bland, but at least ours came with some crunchy asparagus and green beans. Also came with a chop scallop cone, and a specially made vegetable cone for me. The sushi was good and fresh.

For our mains we got a BC wild spring salmon wish was really white and didn’t look like salmon at all. Heard it was really moist and it was presented very nicely. Peace country lamb shank was braised and crazy tender. Just putting a little bit of pressure on the meat broke it apart. If you look at it closely, you could see it was already pretty shredded, and possibly reshaped.. Very moist and tender and packed with flavour. It  came with some nice sauces, and a rich pommes-puree. This is a close to perfect main for me, just wished there was a bit more pommes-puree. Both the mains were very shareable if you like.

We were also given a selection of their desserts – opera cake, passion fruit mochi ice cream, hapa umi shortcake. The Hapa Umi shortcake was definitely the stand out for me. It was a crunchy almond biscuit with a sweet tomato and cream cheese in the middle. This was awesome, the tomato jam was very sweet, and almost berry like. Very good combination and my favourite of the bunch. The second best was the passion fruit mocci ice cream. I’m not a big fan of mochi to begin with, a bit too sticky and chewy for me, but it was Beipas’ favourite. Very tart and perfectly wrapped around a ball of vanilla ice cream. The opera cake wasn’t that good in my opinion, but that’s because I don’t like green tea in my desserts. It was very rich.

They have a really good selection of wines and sakes, and their sommelier did a great job pairing our dishes. I’m a big fan of the Granville Island sakes. Some were very mild and sweet and went down smooth. They have a lounge area where you can have some drinks and watch the game, and the main dining area. They also have a chefs table. Let’s hope that with the new adjustments to their menu, that they’ll start getting more customers. I hope the location isn’t their downfall, because the dishes we tried were for the most part very good. The prices are a little on the high end, but they are serving high end food with excellent ingredients, with lots of preparation and care.

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Hapa Umi
909 W Cordova St
Vancouver, BC

(604) 420-4272

www.hapaumi.com

Another restaurant that was on my dine out menu wish list that I didn’t get to try, Au Petit Chavignol is a little shop on East Hastings. They also have a cheese shop next door with lots of fine cheeses. For lunch, I ordered the chantrelle mushroom mac and cheese. My friends ordered the French Onion soup, pomme frites, and they each got a grilled cheese sandwich.

My mac and cheese was probably the best I’ve had. At $14, you got a chantrelle mushroom mac and cheese topped with an almond-thyme brioche. Very rich flavours. I mostly loved the woody flavours given off by the chantrelle mushrooms. Still not too creamy, but the rich flavours make up for it. The crust was really nice as well. Crisp, but still easy to cut through.

The grilled cheese was packed with applewood cheddar, brie, and havarti, which is a very nice mix of different cheeses with different textures. It was definitely a fat, cheesy sandwich, but maybe a bit too cheesy. The bread crisp and buttery, and wasn’t squished. It was served with a nice little pickle and onion, and some sliced apple.

I loved their fries. They were very crisp and golden brown outside, and airy inside. Seasoned with a bit of salt, and served with a nice mayo. I could have eaten these fries forever.

I’d come back to try out the rest of their menu. Their menu isn’t too big, and they also serve nice meats and cheeses.

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Au Petit Chavignol
843 E. Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 255-4218

www.aupetitchavignol.com

Cafe Regalade is a french bistro in Kitsilano. I came across this place on a quick search on Urbanspoon the night before my friend and I decided to get some brunch the next day.

My brunch choice was the Toulouse Breakfast. It had poached eggs, white beans, bacon, and sausages. It also came with a side of salad and baguette.

The presentation of the dish was pretty fancy. All the ingredients were cooked in a shallow skillet, and it looked very appetizing.

The breakfast was very flavorful, but nothing was over powering. The beans were cooked perfectly, not too mushy. The bacon was so tender, it had a nice subtle smokey flavor. The sausages also really juicy, and it had really nice flavors from the herbs. It was a solid breakfast, but just a tad too greasy.

My friend had the Lyon Breakfast, which had eggs, mushrooms, spinach and onions. It also came with a side of salad and potatoes.

The Lyon breakfast was also served in a shallow skillet, but it was very different from the Toulouse breakfast. It was very very flavorful and rich. You really need something bland to eat with this, the baguette was a prefect compliment. I really liked this breakfast, especially the spinach.

The sides of the breakfast were also really good. The salad was butter lettuce with house dressing. The roasted potatoes were really buttery, and the baguettes were amazing, only 4 slices of baguette was kind of not enough for me.

This was a really nice place to get some semi-fancy French brunch. The breakfasts were generously portioned, reasonably priced. I would return for other dishes.

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A couple weeks ago my friend took me to his buddy’s newly opened Koi Japanese Tapas Bar for dinner. This izakaya restaurant on Kingsway is super new. The space was kind of small, but the places had a really good vibe.

We had a lot of people, and we went without a reservation, and thankfully the owner was super nice and was able to accomodate us to the best he could.

We ordered a lot of food, pretty much the entire menu. There were some really memorable dishes such as the Tuna Tataki, Koi Roll, Cheese Tofu.

Tuna tataki is a standard izakaya dish, and Koi did a really awesome job on it. The tuna was seared perfectly with nice smokey crust. There were some garlic flakes on the tuna which made it really flavorful.

Koi Roll is the sushi roll you have to try. I was so crazy about this roll. This roll had shrimp tempura, avocado, and mostly importantly, deep fried onions. Onion rings and rice, how come no one has thought of this idea before?! The sweetness of the deep fried onions was the best part about this roll. I loved it so much we ordered 3 of these in total.

Cheese Tofu we ordered out of curiosity. This was a really interesting dish. It came out looking like a cheesecake. It had the consistency of a cheesecake but less dense. It was a little bit sweet and it was served with some crackers. Was it cheese or was it tofu? I still don’t know, but it was a nice appetizer.

Like I said, we ordered almost every item on the menu, and non of them were bad. For those of you that enjoy raw beef, my friends really liked their beef tartar. I didn’t try this dish because it got too many things I normally don’t enjoy in raw form (beef and egg), but since my friends said it was really good, I will take their word for it.

This was a cool little place for some Japanese tapas off the downtown area. Given that there are so many izakaya restaurants out there, I was really glad that they had their own spin on a lot of the standard izakaya dishes, as well as having their own signature dishes.

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Koi Japanese Tapas Bar
630 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC V5T 3K4
(604) 566-9263

Yesterday morning I woke up to a message from a friend who raved about these sandwiches that he had tried the night before, and that I must go and try them myself. I happened to be in the Hubbub Sandwiches hood yesterday, so I decided to go there for lunch.

This sandwich joint is super new. The decore was simple, modern, and fun. They also had really good taste in music, I already liked the place before I tried the sandwiches.

The sandwich my friend loved was the Veggie sandwich, and the sandwich the cashier recommended was the Pork sandwich, my friend and I got one of each with a side of Clean Slaw and Creamy Corn.

The first bite of the veggie sandwich was pretty amazing. It has roasted red peppers, eggplant, and zucchini. I could really taste the sweetness from the roasted vegetables, and the sauce added really nice spiciness to the sandwich.

By this point I was pretty excited, I was having a hard time deciding if I should try the clean slaw or the pork sandwich or continue eating the veggie sandwich because it was so damn tasty.

When I finally switched over to the pork, it was like another surprise. This pork sandwich was seriously good. It was so different from the veggie sandwich, even though they have the same base (baguette, and other veggie toppings that all sandwiches have).

The pork was so yummy, it was moist and it had a really really nice vinegary taste. It also had a little bit of spiciness to it, but not as spicy as the veggie one. Also the caramelized onions were awesome.

I pretty much instantly fell in love with the clean slaw on my first bite. It had a explosive refreshing taste from the cilantro and mint at first. Then you’d get the crunch from the cabbage, and the flavors from coconut and nuts. All of my favorite things in a bowl, how can I not love? This mayo-less cole slaw is a really awesome, Summery side dish.

We were already talking about coming back to try their other sandwiches within minutes into our meal. All of their sandwiches have the same base, you just need to pick your own protein. They don’t like people messing with their sandwiches, and you’d actually get charged $0.25 for every ingredient you ask to take off of the sandwich. I liked that attitude.

The sandwiches all came wrapped in paper, and you are supposed to peel as you eat otherwise everything will kind of fall apart. Of course, I didn’t listen because 1. I wanted to see what it looks like, and 2. I needed to take pictures for MePlusFood. I loosely wrapped it back after I was done taking pictures, and because I did that, eating the sandwiches got a bit messy. Again, when they tell you don’t mess with their sandwiches, you don’t mess with their sandwiches.

Both sandwiches I tried were super awesome. I couldn’t decide a clear winner because they were so different. The veggie sandwich will get a bit soggy if you don’t eat it fast enough because of the sauce.

Can’t wait to go back soon for their other protein choices.

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Hubbub Sandwiches
859 Hornby St
Vancouver, BC V6Z
(604) 568-3398
http://www.hubbubsandwiches.com/

A few weeks ago my friends and I were hanging out on Robson street, and we decided to stop by Michi Waffle & Espresso Bar for some dessert.

We were quite the indecisive bunch because like always, we wanted to try everything. The staff also gave us some recommendations, and we finally decided on a Waffle Platter with Dark Chocolate Waffle, and Sugar Waffle, as well as a Red Bean Waffle on the side.

The waffles were really nice. They had nice crispy crust, the waffles were dense but not dry. They had this chewy texture that I really liked.

The Waffle Platter came with a banana, vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce and 2 waffles of your choice.

Out of the 3 waffles we tried, the dark chocolate waffle was my favorite because it was the best to eat it with the condiments that came on the platter. The strawberry sauce was a little nice surprise because it was fresh made strawberry sauce, we were totally expecting strawberry jam.

Red bean waffle was one of the fusion waffles they had. It was a plain waffle with red bean filling. This was my least favorite out of the three. The red bean didn’t have much flavor, and it actually made the waffle a bit dry.

This was a nice waffle bar. It’s really nice they open late, because not many good dessert places open past 9pm on a weekday. Just one more option out there for late night dessert runs.

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Michi Waffle & Espresso Bar
1319 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC V6E

I’ve had quite an afternoon tea weekend, one home made with friends and one at Faubourg in Kerrisdale.

Faubourg bakery is super busy on weekends. When we tried to make a reservation for high tea, we were instructed to leave a voicemail to make the reservation. We didn’t get any phone calls back, but we went anyway. We ended up waiting for an hour and a half for a table for high tea.

Normally, waiting for over an hour for a restaurant is pretty awful, not let alone for tea. We waited because this place seemed really promising. Aside for a little section for high tea, they also have a retail section for pastries, breads, and coffees. We ended up getting a chocolate croissant, strawberry tart and a chocolate twist while we waited. I listed them in the order of my favorites.

The chocolate croissant was really amazing. It was fluffy, buttery, and it had a lot of soft dark chocolates. I could eat 3 of these at a time.

The strawberry tart had fresh strawberries, and custard with vanilla beans. Normally I don’t go too crazy for custard, but this was pretty good. It wasn’t too sweet, and it was a nice compliment to the tart itself.

The chocolate twist was a bit dry for my liking, it needed a bit more chocolate.

For our high tea, we went with the Pink Afternoon Tea menu.

For the savory sandwiches, we got smoked salmon, and cucumber with roast beef. There was also a chicken sandwich on the menu, but they had ran out of them, so we got some more pastries instead.

I was quite disappointed with their sandwiches. Both of them were pretty bland. The beef and cucumber were dry, and the beef was a bit tough. The smoked salmon sandwiches lacked consistency. We had 3 smoked salmon sandwiches, and they had different greens in them, not sure if that was intentional.

The first thing we ate on the 2 tier plates was the Raspberry Souffle. The waiter suggested we eat it while it’s warm. The souffle was warm and had really light in texture, and it nice raspberry flavors.

The scones came with jam and cream. While the scones were nice, I really wished we’d get mascapone cheese or devonshire to go with them. Plain old whipping cream just don’t quit cut it.

It didn’t really take us that long to realized that we hyped this place up for ourselves too much.

We left the place feeling mixed because the bakery itself was seriously good, but the high tea part was just mediocre.

I’d definitely come back for their breads and pastries, but as for high tea, Secret Garden is still the best.

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Cold wintery weather always make me crave for soup. I was hanging out at Granville Island with Kid, shopping for groceries, and food walking. The Stock Market was one of the places we stopped by.

The Stock Market in the food court sells soup and soup stocks. There were 3 soups available that day, I decided to get the Oyster Soup because I have never had oyster soup.

The soup was really yummy. The broth was really flavorful and not overly salty. Every scoop I’d get a spoonful of ingredients, there were lots of oysters. I ordered a small soup, but a large sized soup could easily be a meal by itself.

This place has really nice fresh and home made soups. I’d definitely come back when I’m in Granville Island again.

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Stock Market
#147 – 1689 Johnston Street
Vancouver, BC V6H
(604) 687-2433

Joe’s Grill on 4th is this really laid back diner in Kitsilano. A few weeks ago, I stopped by to get some late breakfast.

For my breakfast, I ordered Waffles, it also came with eggs, fresh fruits, and choice of bacon, sausage or ham. It’s pretty awesome the waffles came with the eggs and other stuff, because I like my sweets and I like my savory for breakfast.

This was a big breakfast for its price. The part I was most excited for was the waffles. The waffles great, but I’m just spoiled with cafe zen’s waffles. They were a tad dry. The rest of the food on my plate were pretty solid.

My friend ordered Joe’s Omelet. It had mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese, and bell peppers. It was really good. I liked it better than my own breakfast. I loved the mushrooms, it was really flavorful and the eggs were moist.

This was a nice laid back place to get cheap and solid food. The omelet was really amazing. I’d love to go back and try other things.

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The lobsterman is a seafood market on Granville island. I never knew this place exited until Kid came to town and asked me to bring her here for some fresh seafood.

The market sells lobsters, crabs mussels, clams and lots of different selection of oysters. If you feel like having fresh seafood on the day you visit, you can ask them to steam the lobster and crab for you on the spot. You just have to wait for about 20 minutes. Steaming the lobsters and crabs are free after you have bought them, but they are not allowed to open oysters for you.

Kid and I shared a 1 pound lobster and a 1 pound crab. After a 20 minute stroll, we picked up our freshly steam seafood and ate it at the near by food court.

The seafood was super fresh. It was just steamed as is with no other seasoning. It wasn’t bland at all, they were flavorful on their own. They also pre-cracked the lobster and crab shells so it’s easier for you to break. It was really fresh, and really yummy.

Before we left Granville island, we went back and picked up some oysters, clams and mussels. We cooked them the night of and everything was really fresh and yummy.

If I lived closer to Granville island, I’d probably come here every Sunday, pick up some shellfish and a loaf of sourdough bread from a bakery and spend the afternoon making and eating seafood.

People who work there are super nice. Ask them nicely, and they’ll handpick the seafood for you.

If you are planning to get some lobster here, I’d suggest you come prepared by bringing some lemon and butter. They’re delicious on their own, but with some lemon and butter, it’d be super nice.

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The Lobsterman
1807 Mast Tower Rd
Granville Island
Vancouver, BC V6H 3X7
(604) 687-4228

Las Margaritas was one of the 2 restaurants we visited for Dine Out this year.

Their dine out menu was only $18 and it included my Scallop Ceviche appetizer, Crab Enchilada main, and Churros dessert. It was a pretty good deal.

The serving of the Scallop Ceviche was prett big for an appetizer. The glass cup was packed with scallops. The scallops were really soft, it was citrusy, but the overall flavor was rather mild. It was a nice light appetizer.

Enchilada! I was once again, disappointed. The crab enchilada here wasn’t very much of an enchilada, and mainly because of the regular red or green sauce was replaced with a cream sauce. It does not taste Mexican at all.

The enchilada came with a side of broken rice and salad. The broken rice didn’t have much flavor, the texture was rather weird because the rice was all broken up.

The churros were kind of hard rather than doughy. It was very cinnamony, and it was better than the flan, the other dessert on the menu.

I remember coming here once before and wasn’t too impressed with the food, this time around, also not too wowed by this highly buzzed restaurant.

Not the best place to get authentic Mexican food in Vancouver.

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Las Margaritas
1999 W 4th Ave
Vancouver, BC V6J
(604) 734-7117