chinese Archives - Curiously Carmen

East One Seafood Restaurant

September 3, 2018 Leave a Comment

The boyfriend and I didn’t know where to go for lunch one day, so we decided to go to East One because it’s been a few years since we came here. East One has gone through many name changes and possibly owner changes throughout the year. Growing up as a kid, I remember coming here but it was a different name.

I also did a review of this place for their late night snacks back when it was called Venice Garden Seafood Restaurant – not sure if the owners are the same or not though.

The cuisine has always remained the same though – Hong Kong/Chinese comfort food.

We definitely over ordered but we brought the rest of it back for his little brother, who likes the food here!

Spaghetti bolognese: I’ve been ordering this dish for the past 15 years or so of my life (minus the 3 years I couldn’t have dairy), and don’t plan on switching anytime soon. It’s my comfort food and it usually tastes the same, but there are some restaurants who don’t make it as well. This is the boyfriend’s little brother’s comfort food too and he is quite picky about it, but he likes the one at East One so I ordered it.

It did not disappoint! There was a generous portion of meat, and there was enough sauce to evenly distribute it with the noodles. It was also cheesy as well. It was a delicious carb heavy treat! The portion is pretty big and I ended up packing half of it back.

Pepper beef with crispy chow mein: Another classic comfort food! This was a pretty big portion which we ended up bringing back home as well.

There was a generous portion of beef. Meanwhile, the sauce was peppery and delicious. The chow mein was crispy too. Overall, no complaints about this!

Deep fried squid: This isn’t a traditional comfort food at Chinese/Hong Kong style restaurants and more of a Taiwanese dish, but the boyfriend’s family loves the squid here so we gave it a try. The batter was fresh and crunchy, with a good amount of squid.

Chinese/Hong Kong style restaurants are plentiful in Vancouver. East One is a decent option, at least for the things that we ordered. They also have many servers working so the service is quick and efficient.

An added bonus is that they are not cash only!
Yay!

Happy Tree House BBQ

August 22, 2018 Leave a Comment

One evening, Maki suggested that we go and try a place that she’s been hearing good things about, Happy Tree House BBQ. When I first heard of the name, it reminded me of Happy Tree Friends and the whole night, I kept calling it Happy Tree Friends. FYI, I would not recommending watching that show.

Anyways, Happy Tree House BBQ is located on Kingsway Street in Vancouver. It is relatively new and specializes in Northern Chinese BBQ, which is something I haven’t had before. Nigiri mentioned that he felt like he was in China because a lot of restaurants there are similar to Happy Tree House.

The restaurant was clean, spacious, and really big! It was comfortable and suitable for large groups. There was also K-pop/C-pop blasting and music videos playing. It’s a good place to go with friends on the weekend.

Most of their items come spicy, which I wish I knew before we ordered. I love spicy foods but my stomach can’t handle it much these days, so I avoid eating it. The server said that if we put in a non-spicy request, they could have accommodated but it was too late.

The meats that they offered were a lot different than what I was used to at a BBQ. They serve organs, tendons and cartilage which could be off putting to people used to Western culture… but in Chinese culture, eating organs and tendons is quite popular and encouraged because they contain a tremendous amount of nutrients such as iron.

We weren’t sure what to order, so Maki just ordered a bunch of things and we hoped for the best! All the BBQ sticks came at once and it was really hard for us to differentiate what meat was what. So the dinner became a game of guessing what meat we were eating =P.
Assorted meat: As mentioned above, we weren’t able to distinguish which type of meat it was before eating it. We ordered a combination of lamb kebab, Angus beef, pork, chicken gristle and chicken gizzards. There is usually a minimum of 3-5 skewers per meat type, which is how I’m assuming they keep their business afloat.

Most of the meats were spicy so I couldn’t eat it 🙁 but I did try a few pieces. The meat was fresh and juicy and bursting with flavour. They used a lot of cumin seasoning which I personally loved! Of course, there was a good amount of spicy kick in it. If I was to come back and order non-spicy, it still would have been delicious because of the variety of spices they use.

Bull backtraps: None of us had an idea of what bull backtraps were… but decided to order anyways. I didn’t have any because it was spicy, but the general consensus was that the bull backtraps were extremely chewy and dry. It did not sound appetizing. The boyfriend had so much trouble trying to bite this that he gave up.

Scallops: The scallops were dusted with a combination of seasoning which was delicious. The most dominant seasoning was white pepper which I love. White pepper is such a comforting spice to me because it reminds me of Chinese soup.

Squid tentacles: I was eager to try this but didn’t know it was spicy, so I didn’t end up having any. There weren’t any complaints about this dish but others mentioned that it was very spicy.

Veggies: We wanted to balance the meat ratio, so we ordered a simple plate of veggies. All the veggies were fresh and we had no complaints about it.

Mung bean pasta: Maki said that this was one of their most popular dishes, so we gave it a try! It was served chilled and had a jelly like consistency to it. It was very flavourful with a hint of spice.

Hand made noodle in bone broth: UGH, I forgot to take a photo of my noodles! =( Since most of the dishes were spicy and I didn’t want to upset my stomach again, I decided to order a soup noodle. I love hand made noodles so I wanted to see how they were here. The hand made noodles were chewy and slightly dense. I believe they were seasoned with white pepper before being cooked, because I could taste it in every bite. However, the bone broth was disappointing and flat. It tasted like boiled water. On the plus side, you know that it is healthy and ‘ching’. I’m glad that the noodles had flavour!

Despite not being able to eat most of the food due to spice, I would still recommend coming to Happy Tree House BBQ if you can/like spicy food and meats. The meat is juicy, fresh and well seasoned. They have a lot of servers working so it’s easy to waive someone down. I would recommend making a reservation because it was packed at peak dinner time, around 7-8pm.

Yay!

Dinesty Dumpling House

July 4, 2018 Leave a Comment

After going to Din Tai Fung in Seattle, a Michelin-star chain of Taiwanese restaurants, I was wanting to try Dinesty Dumpling House to see how it compared. Dinesty is pretty popular in Vancouver and it is one of Cocoa’s favorite restaurants, so off we went one Saturday evening!

We made a reservation at their Burnaby location just incase it was busy. It is located a block away from Metrotown, in the same building as Trattoria and element hotel. Good thing we made a reservation because it was packed!

Drunken chicken: Cocoa loves the drunken chicken here so we ordered a plate to share. One thing that sets it apart from other drunken chicken dishes is that it is completely boneless. It is served at a nice chilled temperature. If you are a fan of drunken chicken, you would like the one here.

Xiao long bao: The XLB here were pretty good, although not as good as Din Tai Fung. I was hoping it would be similar so that I could get my fix in Vancouver. They were nice and juicy and came with a good amount of soup inside.

Taiwanese beef noodle soup: I found that the broth was pretty flat and didn’t have much dimension to it. The saving part of this dish was the super tender and flavourful beef brisket.

Dan Dan noodles: The boyfriend was disappointed in this, and rightfully so. There was a huge portion of noodles but not much flavor and no protein. It was no bueno.

Beef roll: The beef rolls were pretty decent, although the portion size wasn’t worth it for the price.

Shanghai pork buns: Just like the XLB, the pork buns were nice and juicy inside. They came lightly pan fried so they were slightly crispy when biten into.

I think this place is a hit or miss depending on what you order. Some items were good, but some were disappointing and not worth the price.

Meh…

Mott32

July 1, 2018 1 Comment

Recently, I was invited to a tasting at Mott32 in downtown at the Trump International Hotel for their new summer menu. It was a great experience! The ambiance was great and the inside of the restaurant was very pretty and photogenic (aka #instaworthy).

Mott32 is quite an unusual name for a Chinese restaurant, isn’t it? It is named after a street in New York, 32 Mott Street because it was the site of NYC’s first Chinese convenience store. There are also Mott32 locations in Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Las Vegas.

Here are the new dishes for the summer. Each of these dishes took an unique and fancy spin on dim sum dishes. I love when restaurants are really creative with their dishes!

South Australian Scallop, Garoupa, Caviar & Gold Leaf, Egg White dumpling: We started with a steamed dumpling. I’ve never had such a fancy dumpling before. It was tasty and the egg white texture went well with the scallop and garoupa (type of fish).

King Prawn Garlic Spring Roll: This is my guilty pleasure at dim sum. The spring roll was very fresh and crunchy. The prawn inside had a nice snap to it too. No complaints!

Blue swimmer crab meat, conpoy, winter melon soup: An upscale twist on the fish maw soup. Instead of using fish maw, they used conpoy which is made from the abductor muscle of scallops. The soup had the same gelatin-like texture. There was also generous chunks of crab meat and thinly sliced winter melon. It was delicious.

Cold free range chicken, coriander, and black truffle: Another spin on your traditional cold chicken dish. This was truly unique as I never had Chinese cold free range chicken and black truffle together! They also added truffle oil so it was really aromatic. However, there wasn’t a lot of truffle oil taste.

White asparagus, crab meat, honey peas: Our veggie dish was white asparagus, which I thought was rice noodles when it first arrived. The asparagus was covered in a delicious sauce made up of egg, crab meat, and other veggies.

Crispy cod fish with golden garlic and chili: The cod fish was deep fried and then covered with lots of chili and garlic. For most of us, we found it to be very spicy! It doesn’t look too spicy, but it was! I dusted off a lot of the chili flakes which helped it to be less spicy. The batter of the cod fish was very fresh and crispy.

Kung po prawn, sweetcorn, and water chestnut cake: This dish was sooo unique and unlike anything I’ve had before. It was so delicious and I haven’t stopped thinking about it, and I want to try to find a way to re-create this at home.

The bottom layer was like a ‘pancake’ of chopped water chestnuts and corn which was lightly fried. I’ve never had water chestnuts in this way and thought it was so innovative! On the top, was stir fried prawns and cashews. Texture wise, it was so unique with the crunchy properties of water chestnut. Even when I tried to Google recipes similar to this to make again at home, I couldn’t find much on it which shows how innovative this dish is.

Alaskan crabmeat, egg white fried rice: In Chinese banquet style dinners, rice or noodles usually are the last to arrive after all the main courses. My own thoughts to this is because people can fill up on other things instead of carbs.

Anyways, the fried rice was delicious. It was a saucy type of fried rice. Some of us found it to be a bit too salty, but I thought it was good.

Guava, pomelo sweet soup with sago: Mmmm… another super unique dessert that I haven’t seen before! This was a blend of guava and pomelo into a smooth and rich smoothie…with sago in it. It was so refreshing and such a nice way to end the tasting. I’m a huge fan of guava so I absolutely loved this.

I really enjoyed all of the new summer dishes that Mott32 had to offer. This isn’t their whole menu of new summer dishes, there are also some new ones that we did not sample! All of Mott32’s dishes are made fresh daily and never frozen. They also do not use any MSG in the cooking, so I was not left parched and feeling gross afterwards!

With the uniqueness and quality of the food, along with the beautiful ambiance, dining at Mott32 is not cheap so I would save it for a special occasion. I was thinking that it would be nice to take my parents here since they haven’t had such an elevated dim sum dining experience before.

Yay!

Food: Shang Noodle House

March 19, 2018 Leave a Comment

While browsing Groupon in the fall, I came across a really good deal at Shang Noodle House! The Groupon came with two bowls of noodles, takoyaki, fried chicken, and two cans of pop for only $25! I purchased it right away and we went to go try it a few months after.

After we paid for street parking, we went inside the restaurant and found out that they had free reserved spots -_- so a heads up to all of you driving there, save yourself some money! The restaurant was completely full and it looked like most people also had the Groupon based on the food everyone ordered. I mean, Asian people usually do not buy canned pop at restaurants… we all know it’s really overpriced!

Takoyaki: The takoyaki came out piping out and fresh. The outside was crispy while the inside had a good amount of stuffing and a piece of octopus. It was pretty good!

Chicken wings: The chicken wings also came out piping out and fresh. I really liked them because they had the flavour of chicken karaage. They were also very crunchy and crispy.

Prawn, scallop, chicken, and bbq pork ramen in pork broth: I chose this one since I like my prawn and chicken. The pork broth was yummy and flavourful, with a strong white pepper flavour. The ramen was different than the usual type of ramen. I would describe the noodles to be more like egg noodles actually.

Pork katsu udon in bonito shoyu: The pork katsu came on the side, and it was quite a big portion. Definitely worth the full price of $10.90! Just like the other fried stuff, the pork katsu was very crunchy and fresh. The bonito shoyu broth was tasty as well.

The Groupon was a great deal because the portions here are really filling and delicious. Even without a Groupon, I would definitely come back. If they do another Groupon deal, I’m definitely going to re-purchase it!

While doing research for this review, I found out that this place is owned under the Kirin Restaurant Group. Even more bonus points because Kirin is quite notable for Chinese fine dining.

Yay!