chinese Archives - Curiously Carmen

Eastern Pearl Seafood Restaurant

February 25, 2021 Leave a Comment

The fiance and I found ourselves in Port Coquitlam for another errand again. We don’t eat around here much, so we decided to try a restaurant in this area before heading back. Last time, we tried Pho Toan Thang in this area and it was pretty good.

I messaged my coworker for some suggestions, and she suggested Eastern Pearl. It’s been awhile since we had dim sum, so off we went!

Eastern Pearl is one of the only authentic Chinese restaurants in this area. It is located inside Shaugnessy Plaza, so there is plenty of parking available.

As usual, we ordered way too much food (always happens at dim sum) but dim sum leftovers are delicious!

Sticky rice wrap: The sticky rice wrap here was wrapped in a wax paper as well. This was something I haven’t seen before at other dim sum places, but now I’m wondering if it has to do with COVID safety procedures?

Anyways, the sticky rice wrap was delicious. The leaf was fragrant which made the rice flavourful. There was a generous amount of ingredients inside and the pork was delicious.

Prawn dumplings: The prawn dumplings were very good as well. The size of the prawn dumplings were big, with juicy, fresh snappy prawns. No complaints!

BBQ pork bun: The best dim sum place we’ve had BBQ pork buns at is Wah Lun (or Ryan’s as it is now called). Wah Lun has a house special BBQ pork bun which is heavenly!

I was wary of trying the BBQ pork buns here since Wah Lun is pretty hard to beat. Well, colour me surprised because the BBQ pork buns here were just as amazing! The bun was fresh and hot, with a delicious egg/sugar coating on top like Wah Lun. The inside was stuffed with BBQ pork. I am so glad that we ordered this.

Enoki and shrimp bean curd: This was the only “disappointing” dish, but it wasn’t even really that disappointing. The fiance loves his bean curd wrap but we couldn’t find it here, so this was the closest thing. He was expecting it to be more like the bean curd wraps with meat or veggies.

The taste was quite simple but I enjoyed it. The prawn was also snappy and fresh. I haven’t seen this item at other restaurants but I would get it again.

Prawn spring roll: Prawn shrimp rolls are my guilty pleasure at dim sum. I keep using the word delicious in this post, but there is no better way to describe it?!

The prawn shrimp rolls were piping hot with a satisfying crunch. The vinegar dipping sauce complemented it very well (IMO at least, the fiance hates vinegar haha). I had to stop myself from eating so many or I would have suffered with my stomach problems later on.

All in all, we had a very satisfying lunch at Eastern Pearl. This is an excellent choice out this way, when you don’t want to drive to Vancouver/Richmond/Burnaby etc for good dim sum. It is even better than some dim sum restaurants in said areas. Eastern Pearl is a gem for dim sum and I will definitely come back if I’m in this area again.

Sun Yee Cafe

December 4, 2020 Leave a Comment

Sun Yee Cafe is a new Hong Kong style cafe that opened two-ish months ago and replaced Golden Penny Chinese Restaurant, which had been around for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, I remember Golden Penny being around! Sun Yee Cafe is by Hastings and Lakewood inside the small strip plaza.

While looking this place up online before placing my delivery order, I noticed that there were two previous Sun Yee restaurants in Vancouver. One of them was a block away from the current location many years ago, and the other Sun Yee was located on Victoria Drive. Both previous locations have since shut down, so I wonder if this Sun Yee has the same owners or not? Or did new owners take their name for recognition sake?

Anyway, I noticed this place on UberEats for a bit now. One afternoon, I noticed that they were offering a buy one, get one free deal so it was the perfect time to try it!

This post is a review of 3 separate orders. You’d think that it was good if we ordered it 3 times, but it wasn’t as you’ll soon read about.

Diced chicken and salty fish fried rice: I wished that UberEats lets you mix and match all the eligible BOGO items, but unfortunately you have to order the same thing. I tried to call the restaurant if they would be willing do make another fried rice on the BOGO menu, but unfortunately they said no.

Anyway, it has been awhile since I had this type of fried rice! The fiance doesn’t like salty fish (anyone else? haha I can see why it’s off putting, the taste is quite strong and pungent…) so I had this all to myself, with enough to last me 4 meals!

There wasn’t much diced chicken, salty fish or egg in the rice, which was a bit disappointing. Salty fish has a strong taste so you don’t need much for flavour, but it did feel stingy. I was also disappointed that the rice lacked the “wok hei” aroma that makes fried rice taste good.

In addition, fried rice usually comes with some peas or chopped choy. The fried rice here didn’t include that, but instead had some cooked iceberg lettuce instead. The lettuce was pretty limp, tasteless and slicked with oil.

If there wasn’t a BOGO deal, the fried rice would have 100% not been worth it. I’m not sure if the quality was not good because of the BOGO so they skimped out, or if that was their normal quality. Either way, my first impression of the restaurant was not good.

At least I was full and ended up having 4 meals (lunch and dinner for 2 days!) with it due to the promo, so the value was there. But taste wise, I’ve had a lot better tasting fried rice and I would not recommend it at full price.

Baked spaghetti with sausage: On another day, I saw that they were offering the BOGO promotion as well, so we ordered two of these dishes for the price of one. Considering that my first order was disappointing, I wanted to see if this dish would be any better.

The baked spaghetti was slightly better compared to the fried rice but still pretty average. At least there was a generous portion of meat in the tomato sauce. Although the dish said baked, it didn’t really seem like it was.

Beef fried rice: Lastly, we ordered beef fried rice during another BOGO promo. It seems like this BOGO promotion is always happening, at least right now since they are newly opened.

The beef fried rice was as lackluster as the diced chicken and salted egg fried rice. There weren’t many pieces of beef inside, and what beef there was, was small and crumbly. As well, there wasn’t much flavour and there was even less scrambled egg in here than our previous fried rice order.

After ordering 3 times, my verdict of Sun Yee Cafe is that it is below average and not worth regular price. We only ordered because of their buy one get one free promotion on UberEats. It would not be worth the price otherwise. The taste is not that good and they are pretty stingy with ingredients. There are way better Hong Kong style cafe restaurants out there.

MILA

November 8, 2020 Leave a Comment

MILA is the newest addition to Vancouver’s vegan food scene that opened a couple months ago in early September. After hearing about it, Avocado and I knew that we had to check it out! I predict that this place will be very popular for vegans and non-vegans alike. Or should I say plant-based because that is the new trendy term for vegan these days? 🙃

MILA is located in Chinatown. The restaurant was easy to miss because there weren’t any signs except for a small one on their door. I recommend making a reservation because they are quite busy and have limited seating due to the pandemic. Despite it being busy inside, the tables were spaced out and we felt clean and safe in there.

While writing this review, I also found out that they are the sister restaurant to Virtuous Pie, a vegan pizza joint a few blocks away. Avocado and I also tried Virtuous Pie almost 3 years ago and we enjoyed it.

Walking in, we were greeted with loud music (not in an obnoxious way, they had some good lo-fi beats going on) and it was bumpin’ in there for a Sunday evening. It was not what we were both expecting with the dark lighting, music and all. We both thought it’d be a quiet, low-key place. To quote Avocado, it felt like a vegan Cactus Club!

The atmosphere could have easily been seen as hipster, pretentious and snobby (like our experience at Heirloom a few years ago).

If I sense that a place is pretentious, I likely won’t go back. However, that wasn’t the case with MILA. The staff were very friendly and there were no pretentious, hipster vibes detected which was a relief.

Aburi lox: This was one of the most popular items online, so we decided to give it a try. It ended up being our favourite of the evening! I wasn’t sure how I’d feel with carrot being a replacement of salmon, but this roll was delicious for a non-vegan like myself.

Admittedly, the carrot did not replace the texture of real salmon because it lacked the fleshiness of salmon meat (why does that sound morbid?). However, what it didn’t lack was taste. The aburi lox was an explosion of delicious flavour. The sauce on top was incredibly creamy and rich with a nice grilled flavour to it.

There was also more sauce in the middle with shiso leaf, which elevated the flavour even more. I didn’t even mind that this was carrot, that was easily forgotten because of how delicious everything else was.

Bao buns: The bao buns came with hoisin tempeh, pickled onion + cucumber, sambal aioli, cilantro, and crispy shallots. The buns themselves were warm, thick and puffy. I found that some of the bun stuck to the wooden bowl though, so I’d recommend removing the lid and letting it cool down before eating.

The bao buns were not bad either and we both enjoyed it. The sambal aioli and fresh veggies gave the bao buns a lot of flavour, but not enough for me to forget that it was vegan (unlike the aburi lox).

Mushroom and sausage tagliatelle: This dish was also highly recommended online, and I was super excited to try it! Avocado and I appreciated how they split the dish for us already when we told them that we’d be sharing everything.

The tagliatelle was cooked perfectly. The vegan sauce was made up of pistachio pesto cream. The flavours were great, and I also asked for some freshly cracked black pepper which elevated the dish more. My only complaint would be that they could have added more sauce because I didn’t find it creamy or saucy enough for a pasta.

All in all, we left really satisfied with Mila. The ingredients were high quality, and we enjoyed all of the dishes. Service was also friendly and attentive too.

I would definitely recommend this place for vegans! If you’re like Avocado and I who enjoy eating vegan food every so often, you’d probably enjoy it too.

If you’re a die-hard meat lover who refuses to eat vegan food, I would not recommend it because you could still tell that some dishes are vegan.

Deer Garden – Richmond (Venezia Plaza)

October 5, 2020 Leave a Comment

I’ve written about all the Deer Garden locations (Fraser Street, Burnaby, other Richmond location) so far, except for the second location in Richmond on the second floor of Venezia Plaza!

Usually, our go-to location is the Fraser Street location but since we were going to Richmond, we decided to go here instead.

I’ve been to this location a couple times over the years. From what I remember, parking is usually horrible, cramped and busy in this plaza (as with most Richmond plazas…) but things have quieted down due to the pandemic, I am assuming. There was no issue finding parking this time.

DIY noodle soup: I went with my usual DIY combo, which hasn’t changed for many years now. For those who haven’t been to Deer Garden, you pick your soup base – most have no MSG, two toppings, noodle choice, and drink.

I went with the century egg and parsley soup base, pork sausage, extra fresh beancurd, and Korean crystal potato noodle. You can also add on a small appetizer as well.

As usual, everything was delicious and super filling. My only complaint was that the century egg could have been tastier. There was a bit of an old, cupboard taste to it.

For my drink, I went with a lemon ribena. It was recommended to me by Latte and was refreshing and delicious.

DIY noodle soup: The fiance went with the peanut chili soup, luncheon meat, beef brisket and egg noodles. Over the years, we’ve gone to many soup noodle places but Deer Garden consistently has the best peanut chili soup. The milk tea was fragrant and strong as well.

Deer Garden is consistently delicious and reliable, no matter which location you go to!

Duotian Fish Soup Noodles – Revisit

September 22, 2020 Leave a Comment

When Duotian Fish Soup Noodles Restaurant first opened up five years ago, I wrote a disappointing review and did not go back. The food was lacklustre and I remember them being really stingy with ingredients (paper thin lemon in the lemon tea, barely any custard filling in French toast, etc).

There are so many better restaurants in Vancouver and I forgot about this place… Until a few weeks ago, that is. I was craving Deer Garden DIY type noodles but was wanting to stay close to home. I pondered for a bit, thinking of any restaurants close by that had DIY soup noodles… And remembered Duotian.

I wrestled with the thought of going/not going for a couple hours because I remembered it being bad. But I decided to give it another shot – five years had passed so perhaps they have gotten better?

The fiance was so against this idea of going here because he remembered it was awful there too, that I went myself. LOL! Not that I minded though, I do enjoy going out to eat alone from time to time.

As with all restaurants during the pandemic, tables were spaced out and some were closed. Since it was only half capacity, the restaurant was full during dinner when I went.

DIY soup noodle: To avoid any major disappointment, I came prepared knowing that the food here was probably going to be below average and meh. Why did I even decide to come then? Because I was craving soup noodles and wanted to see the extent of how disappointed I’d be… Just joking… Maybe.

I ordered my usual diy soup noodle. If you haven’t been to a Chinese DIY soup noodle place before, you select a soup base, two toppings, noodle type and a drink. I went with the century egg and parsley soup with sausage and extra beancurd, and clear crystal noodles.

As expected, the bowl of noodles was meh and I’ve had better at Deer Garden. The main complaint was that the soup wasn’t as flavourful and tasted watered down. It was still edible but could have tasted better with some more salt or white pepper.

There were a few things I enjoyed about my noodles though. First, the portion was big and very filling. Secondly, the preserved century egg was really good – better than Deer Garden’s preserved eggs! The yolk was creamy and more flavourful, while the egg white did not have a wooden cupboard taste like Deer Garden. The only thing they do better here.

Thirdly, there was an abundance of fresh and sweet siu choy inside. So not all was bad and I left with my DIY soup noodle craving satisfied.

Duotian would not be a place I would go to unless it’s a 5 minute drive away. There are way better Chinese cafes out there and I’m honestly shocked they have lasted 5+ years. But it’s not entirely awful if you’re in a pinch and wanting to fill yourself up. Just come with low expectations like me.