food & drink Archives - Page 3 of 36

Burnaby Mountain Clubhouse

March 9, 2017 Leave a Comment

It was my mom’s birthday, and I wanted to take my parents out for dinner! She suggested Burnaby Mountain Clubhouse after hearing it about it from her coworkers. I’ve heard many great things about this place, especially during Dine Out season. I remember attempting to make a Dine Out reservation, only to be told there was a 50 table wait list!

After taking a look at the menu, they offered a $25 three course dinner which seemed like a good value! Plus, there were dairy free options for myself! It’s hard for me to have a set menu because most items contain dairy, especially the dessert. But, I called in a day before to ask about their dairy free options and they said they could give me sorbet or fruit instead of the usual dessert.

Since it is a set course, the price for each item will not be included.

Burnaby Mountain Clubhouse is located in a pretty quiet and hidden area, by Burnaby Mountain Golf Course. There was a large parking lot for both golf course and restaurant customers.

Walking towards the restaurant, I didn’t expect the exterior to look as plain as it did. But, the interior looked pretty nice and modern. It also wasn’t that large of a restaurant, so it felt pretty cozy and intimate inside.

Crispy prawn Caesar salad: My dad ordered this and said it was pretty decent! The romaine lettuce was nice and crunchy.

Seafood chowder: My mom said the chowder was really good and filling, due to how creamy it was. There was also a good amount of salmon and other seafood!

Veggie spring roll salad: I ordered this because it was the only dairy free appy option. The salad was Asian inspired, with a sweet chili and peanut sauce. My dad actually enjoyed the taste of my salad more than his! The spring rolls were a nice filling addition and were crunchy, with some peas, carrots and cabbage filling.

New York steak: Both my parents ordered the 8 oz NY steak, and enjoyed it. I had a few bites and there was an amazing grilled and charred flavour to it, but not that yucky burnt flavour!

Wild sockeye salmon: I didn’t want us to have 3 of the same dish, so I tried the salmon! I’m glad I did because I really enjoyed it!

It came with a clam and tomato infused pilaf, but I tasted mainly only the tomato. I really liked the tiny chopped pieces of pineapple in the rice because it added some extra texture and pop of healthy, sweet flavour! It reminded me of Malaysian style rice with the pineapple.

My salmon also flaked nicely and was juicy!

Waffle with ice cream: Man, did this smell good. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and prefer savoury items (which is a blessing considering my dairy restritcion) but this smelled so good that I really wanted it. But I resisted for the sake of my health. Sad life.

Ice cream w/ ginger cake: My dad was confused with the Mason jar style that is so hip nowadays, LOL. He said it wasn’t as practical to eat the dessert, which is true. The ice cream came w a ginger cake that he wasn’t a fan of.

Raspberry sorbet: My dessert looked so sad compared to theirs 🙁 and it was so plain. But I’m glad they had a dairy free option available! Once I saw my mom’s waffle w strawberry syrup, I asked if I could have a side of the syrup to drizzle over. That made my sorbet taste a lot better!

All in all, we enjoyed our visit to Burnaby Mountain Clubhouse and can see why it’s so popular during Dine Out. You get a quality, fancy meal with an excellent atmosphere at a very affordable price.

Service was a bit slow but our server was friendly and did an excellent job in acknowledging my dietary restriction!

I would definitely recommend this place for a special occasion or day without breaking the wallet!

Yay!

Tasty Pho

February 26, 2017 Leave a Comment

When I was in my third year at university, my friends and I would frequently come to Taste of Asia for a cheap and delicious bowl of pho, although laden with so much MSG that copious amounts of water would not suffice. We came here so frequently that the servers recognized us, and we would often engage in conversations with them!

Unfortunately, they changed owners within the past year or so. Taste of Asia became rebranded as Tasty Pho, and they underwent renovations as well. It is no longer a hole in the wall style place but still seems to be family-run. There’s a brand new coat of paint, some big TV screens, new tables and new chairs.

The boyfriend and I came here twice in the last 4 months. Both times, it was because Wah Lun next door was really busy and we didn’t want to wait for a table. The service here is quick and it is never that busy, although the food is decent.

#28, Pho Tai, Nam, Sach, $7.95: This bowl of pho came with rare beef, flank, and tripe. There was a decent amount of meat and tripe. The broth was delicious and fragrant, although a bit more on the salty side. I loved that there was a lot of chopped green onions as well. Overall, very delicious and comforting.

Grilled pork and spring rolls w/ vermicelli, $9.50: The pork was very flavourful with a good amount of lemongrass flavour to it. They do a great job of grilling meats and it’s always very flavourful w a slightly grilled and sweet taste.

The spring rolls were fresh and crunchy as well. The side of veggies were also really fresh, just like my pho.
Overall, Tasty Pho does live up to its’ name and is pretty tasty! Out of the two other Vietnamese places we eat at in this neighbourhood (Coconut Tree and Thai’s Saigon Bistro), Tasty Pho has risen to the top of our list.

Yay!

Maru Korean Bistro

February 17, 2017 5 Comments

For Valentines Day, the boyfriend and I decided to celebrate by trying a restaurant we haven’t been to before! That, and exchanging memes that we created for each other. We are both so obsessed with memes and had an awesome time laughing until we teared up at each other’s meme creations!

Originally, we had made plans to go back to Bai Bua for Thai, but two days before, we both realized we would rather try a new place.

After a bit of Yelping, I found this place and suggested it because it looked nice and had good reviews. As well, we didn’t want to go anywhere in Vancouver on Valentines Day, as parking would be hard to find. Can you tell how much we hate waiting in lines for food and looking for parking?
Maru Korean Bistro is located in North Vancouver, by Lonsdale Quay/seabus terminal. From reading the reviews online, it opened a little under a year ago. I would say it is walkable from Lonsdale Quay, but there is a steep hill! The boyfriend and I go to Lonsdale Quay quite often in the summer because it is a quick drive and offers a beautiful view of downtown Vancouver’s skyline.

Since we hate waiting in lines, reservations were a must on Valentines Day. Ain’t nobody got time to wait in line and glare at customers who are happily eating when the hanger hits.

The girl on the phone was really friendly, and when I asked her how booked up they were for Valentines Day, she said they didn’t have that many reservations yet. I took as a good and bad sign =P

An hour before our reservation, she called us to confirm which was greatly appreciated. I took their friendliness on the phone as a great prelude to our dinner!
There is street parking outside but it may be hard to find, depending on the time you go. Luckily, we found the last spot just steps away from the restaurant. Walking into Maru, we were really surprised at how big it actually was! It appeared that they separated the restaurant into two. The picture above is where all the customers that night were seated, ourselves included.

There was another seating area in the back that was 3x larger than this, which we assumed was reserved for larger parties or overflow.
Korean seafood pancake, $12: Of course we had to try their seafood pancake! Unfortunately, the seafood pancake was pretty disappointing due to the lack of seafood. There was barely ANY seafood in there, except for maybe a few pieces of very tiny frozen shrimp and skinny squid pieces. It felt more like a veggie pancake.

Despite that, the texture was perfect and I liked how it was crunchy. The dipping sauce was slightly spicy, which we enjoyed as well. But we probably wouldn’t order this again because of the lack of seafood.
Korean fried chicken, $8.50: The Korean fried chicken came with a Korean chili sauce, which I would describe as spicy but also a bit sweet. Like sweet chili, but packed with a lot more heat! This dish was delicious!

The fried chicken was fresh, and had a variety of different textures with the pumpkin seed, cole slaw, and chewy ricecakes.
Open faced BBQ pork bun, $8: The BBQ pork bun came with slow-braised pork belly, kimchi, shredded lettuce, garlic chips, jalapeno, and mayo. I really loved the soft and doughy bread, which reminded me of the Chinese man tao buns or steamed buns. Because of that, this was a very comforting dish to me.

The pork belly was juicy and flavourful, and there was a lot of mayo, making it creamy. The veggies inside the pork bun were also fresh and crunchy. However, the fresh bun was my favourite part, surprisingly!

Soft tofu soup with seafood, $12: Yummmm! Adding to the deliciousness, the soft tofu soup was tasty as well. There was a nice spicy kick to it. Actually, not just a small kick- more like a full body karate kick to the face. Spicy food lovers would definitely enjoy this! The boyfriend drank more of the soup, and his nose was running by the end of the meal.

There was a decent amount of soft tofu and vegetables inside. We ate this with the bowl of rice, which was really comforting and warming for the rainy evening.

One disappointing thing about the tofu soup is that there was barely any seafood! With what seafood we did salvage, they were tiny pieces and did not taste fresh at all. It seems that the pattern here is that they aren’t generous with their seafood at all, and they are also very tiny and unfresh pieces.

Despite the lack of seafood in our seafood dishes, we left really satisfied which is saying something. Everything else was very flavourful and executed very well. We were discussing what our favourite dishes were that night, and we both couldn’t decide! It was a tossup between the BBQ pork buns, fried chicken, or spicy broth.

Bonus picture of the meme books that we made for each other! It’s amazing how well you know a person’s habits and quirks based on the amount of memes you can come up with for them. <3

Yay!

Yu Xiang Yuan Handcrafted Noodles Restaurant

February 11, 2017 6 Comments

If you read my CC Curently (A new series featuring monthly-ish highlights of mah life)post, you would know that I caught a cold in Victoria. Once the boyfriend and I arrived back in Vancouver, it was almost dinner time. Seeing how we were in the middle of that Arctic air snap, we both wanted warm, comforting noodles. The first choice was Deer Garden since we had to drive past it to go home, but then we remembered this restaurant was in the area as well.

This is one of the unusual cases where the boyfriend finds new places to try. For the longest time, we wanted to try this place because we both LOVE handcrafted Lanzhou style noodles. BUT, we couldn’t because we kept on forgetting the name or where it was! Even when writing this post, I had to Google ‘Fraser and 41st noodle restaurant’ to find the name. =P
The restaurant is more on the small side, but the seating still felt pretty comfortable. The decor is a bit all over the place with mismatched chairs (note the more royal red seat covers vs. the others) and mismatched tables (note the white table cloth tables, wooden table, and glass pane table) but that’s when you know it’s a legit Chinese restaurant!
Beef noodles w/ vegetables in soup with dragged noodles, $7.50: For $7.50, this was really worth it and so delicious! The broth was clear and not too heavy, but still full of flavour. There was a generous amount of beef slices and vegetables as well.

And of course… the noodles. DELICIOUS. Lanzhou style noodles are one of my favourite foods ever, and this place nailed it perfectly. They were nice and chewy and soaked up the delicious broth. It was a perfect bowl of noodles for my yucky cold and cold weather.
Dan dan noodles w/ cutting noodle, $7.50: What Lanzhou noodle soup to me, is dan dan noodles to the boyfriend. He loves dan dan noodles due to the peanuts and spiciness. I only tried a small bite since I was sick and didn’t want to aggravate my stomach with the chili oil, and it was really good!

The dan dan noodles had a nice spicy kick to it. There was a strong peanut flavour and a good portion of meat as well.

We both loved our noodles here and will definitely come back when we are craving it! If you’re not familiar with the different types of noodle styles, there are pictures at every table showing you what style it is.

As an added bonus, the free wifi sign at the front of the restaurant says “FREE WIFE” instead of wifi. LOL! Now you definitely know it’s a legit Asian place… typos everywhere and too cheap to print it again.

Bai Bua Thai Cuisine (Two Visits)

February 8, 2017 5 Comments

While looking for dinner options for our girls reunion, Cinnamon suggested Bai Bua. She had raved about it before and I’ve heard great things from other people as well! I am really glad we ended up coming here.

This post is a combination of two visits!
Bai Bua is conveniently located in East Van, by Hastings and Nanaimo. Within a couple of blocks, you are in foodie heaven… Tacofino, Red Wagon, East Cafe, Platform 7, Aer Cafe, Sushi Nanaimo… and of course, Bai Bua!

We weren’t sure how busy it was going to be, so I called in to make a reservation for four a few days prior.

Throughout the night, it was pretty quiet, which was good because we had brought our belated Christmas presents to exchange after dinner. Throughout the night, service was pretty decent although there was confusion around them forgetting one of our dishes.

Walking in, I really liked the decor of the restaurant. It felt very cozy and warm, with some hand painted artwork on the walls.
Tom yum noodle soup, $10.90: Cinnamon had been here a couple times before, and said the tom yum noodle soup was pretty good. Despite not being allowed to eat spicy food, she decided to break the rule that night because this soup was just THAT good! It packed a good amount of spice and was a generous portion.
Curry noodle, $11.90: It took us awhile to order because I was having a hard time choosing what to get. Everything sounded so good! In the end, Sangria was nice enough to offer splitting two dishes! The first dish we ordered was the curry noodle. Sangria had also been here before, and really loved these noodles.

All of their curries are made in coconut milk, meaning that it was safe for me to eat! The curry noodles were nice and creamy with a rich broth, and a good amount of spice. There was a combination of both the pad thai noodles and fried egg noodles (I think that’s what it was?). The protein in the curry noodles was chicken breast, which there was a good amount of.
Roasted duck red curry, $12.90: Originally, Sangria and I had ordered green curry. But after placing the order, we saw the roasted duck special listed on their chalkboard and both wanted that instead! Then, Cocoa read the menu as well and decided that SHE also wanted to change her pad thai to the roasted duck red curry as well.

We were really glad we changed it, because this was aammaazziinngg! The roasted duck was very tender, juicy and flavourful. There was quite a bit of roasted duck in there as every spoonful was met with pieces of duck meat. As for the curry, it was sweeter due to the cane sugar and pineapples. I wish that this was a permanent item, but all the more reason to come back again before February ends!

Cocoa isn’t much of a spice person, but she enjoyed this because it was more on the sweet side with only a hint of spice. I brought the leftovers back and the boyfriend scoffed at me for ordering red curry instead of green curry (because green curry is better), but quickly changed his mind once I heated it up for him with the coconut rice.

Tom Yum Noodle Soup, $10.90: The next week, I took the boyfriend here! We were both wanting to try the tom yum soup, so why not get some noodles with it too? I’m glad I double checked with the server because although it didn’t sound like it, this dish contained both coconut milk and regular milk.

This was my least favourite dish so far. Although I liked how it was spicy and sour, I wasn’t a big fan of the herbs they used in the soup- there’s a spice that I don’t like in Thai food, but I can’t put my finger on which one exactly it is… Maybe since we couldn’t have the regular milk inside, that made the taste of the herbs a bit stronger? However, the boyfriend enjoyed the dish and happily ate the rest of it.

I was also unlucky and ate a big chunk of dried, chewy lemongrass. I also didn’t really like the texture of the noodles either. Oh yeah, and the beef was dry and rough.
Green curry, $11.90: On my first visit I tried the red curry, this time it was the green curry! The green curry wasn’t as spicy and more on the sweet side. As with the red curry, the green curry was rich and creamy from the coconut milk. The chicken was moist and juicy, with a good amount of veggies inside.

Coconut rice large, $5.00: A Thai dinner isn’t complete without coconut rice! Their coconut rice is so good. It has a strong coconut flavour and is slightly sweet. Any curry and their coconut rice is the perfect marriage!

I recommend getting the large for two people, as you can pack it up with the remainder of the curry sauce and eat it for lunch the next day, as I did 😉

Phew! Such a long post… but for good reason! I definitely see myself coming back here in the future and I’m glad Cinnamon suggested this place!

Yay!