• About / Contact
  • Work With Me
  • Food & Drink
    • brunch
    • chinese
    • dessert
    • coffee/tea/drink
    • food truck
    • italian
    • japanese
    • greek
    • late night
    • noodles
    • pub
    • sandwiches
    • seafood
    • steakhouse
    • taiwanese
    • thai
    • vegetarian/vegan
    • vietnamese
    • western
  • Travel
  • body
  • eyes
  • beauty events
  • face
  • fashion
  • hair
  • lips
  • nails
  • skincare
    • 
    • 
    • 
    • 
    • 

Curiously Carmen

Edaleen Dairy

September 12, 2019 Leave a Comment

Back in June, I accompanied Sangria to Blaine to pick up a parcel. It was a very brief trip, but we did make a stop to Edaleen Dairy which is quite popular in the area! 

I’ve heard of Edaleen Dairy before, which is famous for their fresh, delicious and cheap local ice cream! 

Along with ice cream, Edaleen Dairy also carried other dairy products such as milk, cheese, butter, and more! I did end up getting a jug of chocolate milk for the fiance since we came all the way here anyways and he loves chocolate milk.

He really enjoyed it and said the milk was really creamy and delicious. 

Blackberry ice cream: The portion sizes are huge here! This was the small scoop for only $3 USD. That’s what America is all about, large portions and cheap prices.

The cone was so unexpectedly big that Sangria had trouble finishing it all. She did say it was delicious though. 

Despite not being able to have dairy, I wouldn’t mind coming back here to pick up some high quality, local dairy products for others. Perhaps one day my digestive system can tolerate dairy again…. I will be driving straight here to get my ice cream fix if that day ever comes.

Edaleen Dairy Store Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: dessert, food & drink

The First Dessert

August 10, 2019 Leave a Comment

After a delicious dinner at Hoang Yen, Avocado and I were looking for a place to hang out at afterwards. She brought up The First Dessert, which was a new restaurant she passed by while walking to Hoang Yen!

The First Dessert is located by Victoria and 41st. The place is small but does fit a reasonable amount of tables. Speaking of tables, we really liked the decor! It reminded us the style during ancient China. 

Service was nice and patient while we both asked a bunch of questions about the menu! 

Sago with soy milk and pearls: My initial pick was the sago with fresh mango, but sadly they didn’t have mango that day! 

The bowl was very refreshing and I found it alright. I don’t have this dish often so I don’t have much to compare it too, but it was enjoyable. My only complaint was that the pearls were a bit hard in the middle. 

Sesame paste with rice dumpling: Avocado went with the sesame paste with rice dumpling. The sesame pudding had a thicker consistency, she would have preferred it to be a bit more watery but that’s personal preference. 

I had a bite and it was very sesame-y! The rice dumpling came with sesame inside as well. 

Overall, it was an alright first visit to The First Dessert.

I wouldn’t drive purposely here, but if I was close by, I wouldn’t mind stopping by again.

Meh!

The First Dessert Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: dessert

Brown Bites: Snow Angel

August 1, 2019 Leave a Comment

Brown Bites is a mini series on my blog featuring places the boyfriend has tried without me, so it wouldn’t be my own review. Why the name Brown, you ask? It is named after the Japanese LINE character, Brown. Brown is a cute, shy, emotionless cartoon bear but secretly full of love, and we adore him to pieces!

While hanging out with Macaroni and Cheese one night, Cheese felt like having dessert so the boyfriend went with him to Snow Angel.

Snow Angel is a new Korean dessert place specializing in shaved ice! It is in the new apartment complex on Dawson Street by Brentwood.

Traditional bingsoo: The boyfriend’s bingsoo came with yogurt powder, mochi, red bean, walnuts, and vanilla ice cream. The bingsoo had a nice, milky flavour.

There was also a generous amount of red bean which was appreciated! The mochi was mango flavoured and delicious too.

Mango and pomegranate bingsoo: Cheese ordered the mango and pomegranate shaved ice in a to-go cup. This was the single size serving, I believe you can also get a larger one for sharing as well!

He enjoyed everything except for the pomegranate, which was too much of a sour contrast with the rest of the cup. Some people may like the sour contrast but he personally didn’t. It also came with a scoop of ice cream on top which was nice!

Overall, they both really enjoyed Snow Angel and would like to come back to try the other flavours. Thanks for reading another installment of Brown Bites!

Snow Angel Cafe Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: dessert, food & drink

Brown Bites: Popina Canteen

June 8, 2019 Leave a Comment

Brown Bites is a mini series on my blog featuring places the boyfriend has tried without me, so it wouldn’t be my own review. Why the name Brown, you ask? It is named after the Japanese LINE character, Brown. Brown is a cute, shy, emotionless cartoon bear but secretly full of love, and we adore him to pieces!

One of the traditions of my boyfriend and mine is to have a seawall biking date at least once in the summer. I recently invested in a new and better bike, and so biking has become a new hobby! So, we decided to bike over to Granville Island and start our biking tradition early!

I predict that there will be a lot more biking adventures this year now that my bike isn’t a piece of junk anymore. Which means hopefully more food reviews for places around the seawall!

After getting to Granville Island (so glad we didn’t have to deal with the hassle of parking in this crowded area), we walked around the market a bit!

We then came across Popina Canteen, which looked new and interesting, so we walked over.

Once the boyfriend saw that they sold soft serve in cream puff, he knew instantly he had to get one! Unfortunately for him, it was not instant because service was soooo slow as you’ll soon read about.

Popina Canteen is a new, upscale ‘fast food stand’ made in collaboration with a four popular chefs in Vancouver.

There is an option to order food to go, or you can take it inside to their covered customer-only (and pigeon proof because those pigeons in Granville Island are sure aggressive) area.

Inside the covered customer-only area, you can also order alcoholic drinks.

You can also order food on their touch screen computer, but there wasn’t any options for the soft serve there so we headed on over to the counter.

Unfortunately, the Malteser, which was the boyfriend’s first choice, was sold out already.

After ordering, the wait was quite long considering that there was only 1 other order ahead of us. The one staff member making the dessert worked at the pace of a turtle… she was so painstakingly slow in covering the soft serve with oreo bits. Imagine the sloth from Zootopia.

To make matters worse, she ended up making the wrong flavour so we had to wait another 7 minutes for her to make one soft serve, and dust the ingredients on. She was also pretty grumpy and unapproachable so it was awkward telling her that she made the wrong one…

I’m not sure why it took so long to roll the soft serve around in the dry ingredients… If this is a consistent thing, I really don’t want to imagine how long customers have to wait during peak summer hours.

Nutso: He ended up going with nutso, which came with crushed oreo cookies and a nutella center. The soft serve was great quality because it came from Birchwood Dairy, which is local (Rain or Shine and Glenburn also use Birchwood, if the name sounds familiar to you).

He also really liked the cream puff too. Since the soft serve was so high, the paper cup was a really great idea to keep it from getting messy. It was a bit overpriced at $8, but Granville Island is a prime tourist spot so prices reflect that.

Overall, he enjoyed the puffcream but it was disappointing how long the wait was despite it not being busy, and how slooooow we saw the staff member make it.

The staff here could also have been more friendly, they seemed pretty grumpy and hated their job. While waiting for the puffcream, I also noticed that the bartender inside their seating area was quite pretentious to a customer asking if they could have tap water.

So the customer service soured the experience a bit, but the puffcream itself was tasty.

Popina Canteen Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: dessert, food & drink

Innocent Ice Cream

May 27, 2019 Leave a Comment

Innocent Ice Cream has been on my radar for a few months now. It had many good reviews and also a decent vegan selection with coconut milk bases and not just sorbets.

I consider 3+coconut based flavours to be a decent selection because most places have 1-2 coconut based flavours. I’ll soon find out this was not the case though. Unfortunately, I left pretty disappointed with this place (not just because of this). I’ve never been so turned off by coconut-based ice cream before!

They also specialize in ice cream sandwiches which I thought was unique!

Innocent Ice Cream is a small and narrow shop on Main and 33rd, around QE Park. The place is pretty easy to miss because it’s small.

The service was friendly and patient while I sampled two vegan flavours and asked if their waffle cones were also dairy free.

I had a hard time choosing between the two vegan flavours … not because they were so tasty, but I found them both really bland and the strongest taste was the wooden sample spoon.

Strawberry shortcake: Described on the website as a roasted strawberry ice cream with shortcake pieces. I did not taste any shortcake pieces with my scoop.

In addition, it was very bland and had virtually no strawberry flavour at all. The taste was more like a bland, unsweetened vegan coconut ice cream. The richness of the coconut milk was there, but taste-wise, everything was lacking and disappointing.

At least the waffle cone was good and sweet. But I didn’t end up finishing this because it was so disappointing.

Classic ice cream sandwich: The boyfriend chose a pre-determined flavour off their menu board. The classic came with vanilla bean ice cream and a vegan chocolate chip cookie. You can also pick between a regular size sandwich, a mini, or a flight of 3 mini sandwiches if you’re indecisive!

He enjoyed his sandwich a lot more than me, but found it to be nothing super special or memorable.

I really wanted to like this place but the vegan flavours fell short for me. The offerings that day were tasteless. On the website, they had listed 7 coconut-based vegan flavours and 2 sorbet flavours, so it was disappointing that there were only 3 coconut-based vegan flavours as well.

The regular flavours weren’t anything special or memorable either, so I doubt we will be back. There are plenty of other ice cream places in Vancouver that are a lot better, and I don’t think Innocent Ice Cream matches up.

Innocent Ice Cream Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: dessert, food & drink, vegetarian/vegan

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 13
  • Next Page »

Hello!

Hi and welcome to Curiously Carmen! I am Carmen, the girl behind the blog. You can read more about me here!

  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 

Recent Posts

  • On Yogurt
  • Qoola Frozen Yogurt – Richmond
  • Panago Pizza
  • TAKO – Taqueria Korean
  • La Foret

Partnerships

View my food journey on Zomato!

Top Posts & Pages

  • On Yogurt
  • Tomokazu (Late night AYCE)
  • Jowaé- New Beauty Brand Introduction
  • Beauty: Estee Lauder Perfectionist Pro Rapid Firm + Lift Treatment
  • Beauty: SNP Snail Soothing Gel

Search

Archives

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2019