food & drink Archives - Page 3 of 43

Food: Broken Rice

April 6, 2018 Leave a Comment

It was a cold winter night, perfect for Vietnamese food! I suggested Thai’s Saigon Bistro, but Cinnamon wanted to go to Broken Rice instead, which was fine by me since I have wanted to try it. It’s located on the same block too.
The restaurant was pretty clean and had some gentle classical music playing.
Spring rolls, $7.50: Sangria, Cocoa, and I shared the spring rolls which came with minced pork, taro root, mushrooms, and more. They came very crunchy- piping hot and fresh!
House pho, $9.95: Cocoa and I both had the house pho, which was delicious! It came with a decent amount of rare beef, brisket, and beef balls. The broth was perfect and not too salty.
Grilled beef short ribs, $11.50: Sangria went with the grilled beef short ribs, which she thought was delicious as well albeit pretty salty. It was a big portion and she ended up packing some of it home.
Vegetarian vermicelli: Cinnamon ordered the vegetarian vermicelli which came with fried tofu and vegetarian spring rolls. She had no complaints about it either!

Overall, it was a good first visit to Broken Rice and I would come back again for the pho and crispy spring rolls!

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!

Food: Osaka Teppanyaki

March 12, 2018 Leave a Comment

During our trip to Mexico, the boyfriend and I tried out the teppanyaki restaurant at our all-inclusive resort. It was both of our first time having teppanyaki and seeing how it was a fun experience, I wanted to try one in Vancouver to see how it compared!

I came across Osaka Teppanyaki on Yelp and thought it would be fun to try for my birthday.

Osaka Teppanyaki is located on West Broadway. Walking in, the restaurant was a bit dark but somewhat busy. We were seated quickly and brought our tea and water.

For teppanyaki, you have to wait until your seating area is filled (usually bout 9 people) until the chef comes out and cooks for everyone. Otherwise, it’s a waste of their time to come out for only 2 customers. I wonder what happens if the seats next to you don’t fill up??

Anyways, after receiving our complimentary soup (it was some kind of clear beef broth soup, nothing special) and salad (Japanese ginger sauce style), our chef came. He did some quick fire shows which we enjoyed watching. Each person also had 3 complimentary shrimp!

Steak & chicken, $33: The boyfriend’s New York Steak was a perfect medium rare. It was tender and flavourful albeit a bit small.

Steak & chicken, $33: As for the chicken, it was very juicy and flavourful too! I liked how we could see it being prepared, so we knew exactly which types of seasoning were being used.

Shrimp, $33: Although each dish comes with 3 complementary pieces of shrimp, I love shrimp so I ordered it for my main. The shrimp was super delicious. We saw him squeeze fresh lemon juice and a chunk of butter… mm, so good. I’m definitely going to cook it this way at home in the future!

All in all, our first teppanyaki experience in Vancouver was enjoyable. I would recommend going at least once because it’s fun to watch the fire shows and see your food being prepared by the chef.

Yay!

Food: Smoke and Bones – Terrible Experience!

March 6, 2018 3 Comments

It’s been a really long time since the boyfriend and I were this disappointed at a restaurant. After attending Ribfest in July and going to their BBQ stand, we were counting down the days until Smoke and Bones opened their first location in North Vancouver.

However, our experience here was a total 180 from Ribfest… so many things, if not all things went wrong.
After a 30 minute wait, we were finally seated. The restaurant had a warm and inviting feel to it, although it did feel a tiny bit cramped. This is where the ‘good’ ends, although there wasn’t much good to begin with.

When we ordered, we were told by the server that they were out of BBQ ribs and brisket… the two main menu items. Okay, fair enough… new restaurant, busy Saturday night. We were a bit disappointed as they should have told us at the beginning but whatever, we will survive. So we ordered other things which were not good.
Pulled pork burrito: This sounded good on the menu, but it was abysmal. First, it was really small and definitely not a burrito size… more of a snack wrap. Secondly, it was bland and flavourless.

Thirdly, it came with a bunch of grocery store chips. We really regretted ordering this because it was NOT worth the money… but not like we had much of a choice since most of their menu had BBQ ribs and brisket.
Chicken & sausage platter: So since they didn’t have BBQ ribs and brisket, we opted for our second choice. The sausage was the only decent thing because it’s quite hard to mess up sausage. The chicken was VERY dry.

Only the skin had flavour, while the meat was just bland and dry. It definitely needed more marinade.
Bread: Can we just take a moment to look at this sad piece of white bread? The platter came, and we were told that they were out of corn bread as well… ok. So, she said that she could bring us a ‘Southern style white bread’. Well, not like we had any other options if they were out of corn bread.

IT WAS LITERALLY A PIECE OF WHITE BREAD. Nothing special about it, no ‘Southern’ style. Straight up plain bread that I can buy from Safeway. Not toasted, no jam, butter… nothing. Just plain bread. I can’t even call it toast because it wasn’t toasted.

THEN, I noticed that they had given us the wrong side. We ordered fries, which I confirmed with the boyfriend incase I said the wrong thing. So we decided to try the mashed potatoes, and if they were good, we would just stick with it and not ask for our server.

Nope, the mashed potatoes were equally as bad as everything else. Super bland, no flavour. So we told her about the mistake, and the server was quite rude about it. She treated us as if we were stupid, and gave us attitude saying “well you ordered mashed potatoes”. No, we did not.

After everything, we were just ready to leave this place ASAP. I’m not a picky food blogger and usually have good experiences. I don’t like to complain and cause trouble, but looking back, we probably should have said something. But we were just so done with this place that we wanted to leave.

Will we be back? Nope, and I don’t recommend coming here. Mistake after mistake after mistake.

Nay x100000000.

Food: Trattoria Burnaby

March 3, 2018 Leave a Comment

It’s been awhile since I celebrated my birthday with a group of friends, so I decided to do that this time. I forgot how fun it was and should probably do it more often!

Anyways, I was wanting to go to a nicer place but didn’t feel like heading downtown. Trattoria was a good option since it is owned by Glowbal Group and is large enough for groups. The only thing I didn’t like was that they charged a cake cutting fee of $3/person ($3 x 15 = $45 extra) so we did my birthday cake somewhere else afterwards.

We were given a semi-private room for the fifteen of us, which was pretty nice. It was separated by a glass wall and a floor to ceiling wine shelf. Throughout the night, we had our own designated server as well.

Smoked Salmon Radiatori, $18.95: Originally, I had my mind set on their pizza… but after reading this on the menu, I changed my mind. It was absolutely delicious. If you love smoked salmon and dill, this is the dish for you. It was very creamy and came with a good amount of smoked salmon.

The only negative thing was that four of us ordered the same dish, and the portion sizes were not consistent. For example, two dishes were noticeably smaller than one of them. Pictured above is the smaller portion, while the other dish was at least 25% bigger!

Cheesy bread, $5.95: This was ordered as a side dish, and omg it was amazing. It was a garlic bread with lots of melted cheese on top. You seriously can’t go wrong with melted cheese.
Fried vegetables, $10.95: My friend ordered this and immediately regretted it after a few bites. It was definitely not worth $10.95 for a few pieces of vegetables. As well, they did not have any seasoning so it was quite plain.
Risotto of the day, market price: The risotto of that night was lobster. It looked really good and my friend said it was delicious!
Pasta platter, $23.95/person: Two of my friends split this, which was a really good idea. If you’re indecisive, you get to try four different types of their pastas! It comes with the truffled spaghetti & signature meatballs, gnocchi, garganelli pollo, and the linguine gamberi.

Cake: As a bonus, Trattoria gave me a complementary slice of tiramisu cake! 🙂 Thank you!

Overall I had a great time at Trattoria, and the food was good. There were a few hiccups with forgotten drinks but service was consistent and friendly. They have pasta specials on Tuesday so I would love to come back and order the smoked salmon pasta for a cheaper price!

Yay!