chinese Archives - Curiously Carmen

Fraser Court Seafood Restaurant

April 24, 2019 Leave a Comment

I’ve been to Fraser Court many times for dim sum over the years, but didn’t realize that I never actually wrote about it! Dim sum is something I love, but don’t get to enjoy as much now due to my digestive problems.

However, there are times when my stomach feels okay so the boyfriend and I finally went for dim sum after over a 9 month hiatus! Fraser Court is one of our go-tos, so we played it safe and went here.

There is a parking lot, but it can be quite busy during peak dim sum period and Jethro’s Fine Grub (bleh) is also located in the same building. There is plenty of free street parking around though.

Sticky rice: One of my favourites, and it is one of the healthier options that I can eat because it’s steamed! Sticky rice is very filling, so we only managed to eat one (which is fine because leftover dim sum is delicious too). There was a generous amount of pork and the sticky rice was fragrant.

Shrimp dumpling: Another one of my favourites! The shrimp tasted fresh and had a nice bounce to it.

Shrimp rice flour roll: Clearly I love my shrimp. The best part of rice flour rolls is the dim sum soya sauce, which is mixed with sugar and MSG… so bad for you, but life is about eating delicious food sometimes (within reason, don’t eat everyday!).

Again, the shrimp had a nice bounce to it and tasted fresh. Some places add a couple pieces of Chinese vegetables, but this place didn’t.

Bean curd wrap: This is one of the boyfriend’s favourite, but unfortunately it was very disappointing that day. The meat inside the bean curd was oddly dense… like, SUPER, SUPER, dense.

Deep fried taro dumpling: As much as I wanted to eat this, I didn’t because I would pay for it later with stomach pain! If made perfectly, deep fried taro dumplings have a light, crispy, crunchy batter and a savoury filling. The boyfriend enjoyed this a lot more than the bean curd wrap.

Minced fish paste rice flour roll: Yup, we love our rice flour roll – this is the boyfriend’s favourite rice flour roll. The inside was lightly battered, giving it some crunch.

Minus the disappointing bean curd wrap, we left very satisfied and with a lot of leftovers for later!

Fraser Court is a decent option for dim sum in Vancouver, and we will definitely be back sometime… just not too often because my stomach wouldn’t be able to handle so much heavy food on a regular basis!

Deer Garden Signatures – Burnaby

April 5, 2019 Leave a Comment

Deer Garden is a restaurant the boyfriend and I go to sometimes, when we are craving soup noodles. We usually go to the Fraser Street location and actually didn’t even know there was a Deer Garden in this area until we were walking by on the way to Myst one day!

A few months later, we were doing some errands around Metrotown so it was a convenient time to finally try this location.

There is a small parking lot on the side, but it was all full. There’s also free street parking in the area, but you may have to walk 2-3 blocks.

The size of the Burnaby Deer Garden is a bit smaller than the Vancouver one, but the layout is the same.

Unfortunately, we got the worst table in the restaurant that day. It seems like it used to be part of the waiting area, but they decided to add a random table (the other tables were all booth seats). Throughout the meal, waiting customers were standing very close to us and it was a bit hard to get service.

Pork cutlet: The boyfriend felt like adding a pork cutlet to his lunch! I didn’t try any, but he really enjoyed it. The pork cutlet was served piping hot, and with a loud, audible crunch so you know that the batter was fresh.

DIY noodles: I ordered the century egg and fish soup, Korean crystal noodle with fish and sausage. The soup broth taste was consistent with their other location.

I love Deer Garden’s grilled sausage, it has been so long since I ordered it due to my digestive issues. My system wasn’t in a flare-up that day so I was able to spoil myself… it did not disappoint *heart eyes*.

Some of the crystal noodles were not completely cooked, and hard when I bit into… so I soaked them in the hot soup while eating the fish and sausage first. There was a good amount of boiled plain fish and century egg.

DIY noodles: The boyfriend ordered laksa soup, egg noodles with fish balls and sausage. There were only 3 measly fish balls, which was a bit of a disappointment! Otherwise, he enjoyed his noodles and was quite full after, especially with the pork cutlet addition.

The Vancouver location is a bit more convenient, but we wouldn’t mind coming back here if we were in the area!

Legend House Chinese Restaurant

March 31, 2019 Leave a Comment

A couple of months ago, I was on the hunt for restaurants with Lan Zhou beef noodles for myself and dan dan noodles for the boyfriend. I came across Legend House in Coquitlam and we finally checked it out a few months after!

Coquitlam isn’t an area where we normally eat in, but it seems like there are many new restaurants there now that condo developments are popping up like crazy over there. There is both paid and free street parking in this area.

We were expecting the restaurant to be really busy on a Friday night, but surprisingly, it was only half full.

At the entrance of the restaurant, they have a huge window where you can see the noodles and dumplings being freshly made.

Lan Zhou beef noodle: I was really surprised at how HUGE this portion was! Like seriously, for $7 in 2019… this was an absolutely steal.

Despite it being a huge portion, the soup was virtually tasteless… I know on the menu it said ‘clear broth’, but it tasted just like boiled water with a hint of vegetable flavour. I had to ask for some salt to give the broth a tiny bit of flavour.

Tasteless broth aside, the noodles were freshly made in-house and yummy. There was a good amount of seasoned 5 spice beef, wood ear mushroom, spinach, and vermicelli. I would have enjoyed it more if the soup had flavour, but still felt satisfied because the beef was good and so were the noodles.

Dan dan noodles: Omg, I didn’t realize my photo was blurry >=( Ugh!!! Anyways, the boyfriend enjoyed his dan dan noodles. They packed a good amount of spice and had a decent portion of pork.

For those who don’t like preserved veggies, it may seem like their dan dan noodles don’t come with it… but we discovered that they were very finely chopped with the pork. Talk about dedication to the chef who chops that up!

Xiao long bao: The XLB were very juicy and the broth was actually flavourful (unlike my noodle broth). There was a generous filling of pork inside too. The skin to meat ratio was proportionate.

Even though my noodle soup was bland, I wouldn’t mind coming back if I was in the area for their XLB. But I wouldn’t make the drive out here purposely again.

I would also like to highlight the service that day…. it was really good, for Chinese restaurant standards! All of the servers were really friendly. They came to refill our tea every 5 minutes and were attentive.

The XLB and service made up for the super clear and tasteless noodle broth (and the noodle bowl was pretty cheap so I wasn’t upset about it).

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! It was packed so thoroughly that it looked like they were using sollas overwrapper (check out http://rtgpkg.com/sollas-overwrappers/ to learn about this type of packaging).

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!