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Cartems Donuts

April 2, 2019 Leave a Comment

I remember having Cartems donuts maybe like 6-7 years ago when a friend brought them to an university club event. They were delicious! Since then, I haven’t had Cartems so Latte and I went to go check out the Main Street location one evening!

The Main Street location was quite spacious, with very high ceilings. There was a friendly, good vibe going on in there and it would be a nice place to study or get some work done.

The bottom row of donuts are always vegan, so they do have a large selection of vegan donuts (one of the reasons I wanted to come back since I currently can’t have dairy). I was surprised that Latte wanted a vegan donut, but that’s better for me because it meant we could share!

Tea: We both ordered a tea with our donut. I had the herbal strawberry mint which was fragrant and warming.

Citrus glaze donut: This was my favourite out of the 3 that we ordered! The donut was thick and fluffy. The citrus glaze was subtle and gave it a nice, sweet tang. I’ve never had a citrus donut before but the flavours worked well with each other.

Maple walnut donut: This one was good too, but it was more of a savoury donut. It was topped with crushed walnuts and I tasted a hint of black pepper.

Vanilla bean donut: This donut was also good! It was the simplest one out of the 3, so we really tasted the quality of the donut. The donut was delightfully fluffy and moist.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that citrus glaze donut, so I took the boyfriend here a few days later! We ordered 1/2 dozen to bring back and tried more flavours.

The funny thing was that I decided to keep it a secret that it was vegan, so that he wasn’t bias in his opinions!!! MUAHAHA!!!

From left to right:

Vanilla bean: Reviewed above

Citrus glaze: Reviewed above

Chocolate donut: A classic donut, you can’t really go wrong with chocolate. The boyfriend loved it!

Forgot to take a separate photo of it, so this will do!

Tropical mint: The only donut that we did not like that day. The taste was just odd… it was a bit sweet but you get this minty aftertaste. We ended up scraping off the tropical glaze on top so we could eat it as a plain donut.

Salted caramel: This was the only ‘regular’ donut we had (aka not vegan). Since it contained dairy, I couldn’t eat it. He found it to be a lot more dense and not as fluffy, so he didn’t like it as much.

At this point, I was laughing inside and couldn’t wait to tell him this was the only dairy donut – MUAHAHA!!!

Berry hibiscus: This one was just alright…. it was filled with jam inside. The berry hibiscus donut wasn’t as fluffy as the other ones.

After the boyfriend ate all the donuts, I mischievously told him that they were all vegan except for the salted caramel! He was quite shocked and never would have guessed.

Cartems Donuts are amazing and they have very creative flavours! I would definitely recommend stopping by. They have a huge selection of vegan flavours which are arguably better than the regular, non-vegan ones!

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).

DD Mau Chinatown

March 27, 2019 Leave a Comment

DD Mau Chinatown has been on my radar for awhile now! I went to the original Yaletown location probably over 5 years ago, when they were just starting. Back then, they were only serving banh mi (Vietnamese subs) and I remember they were AH-MAZING.

So, it was time I finally tried their second location, and I brought Latte along with me! She has also been to the Yaletown location and enjoyed it.

DD Mau Chinatown is located on Pender Street, and it is easy to miss without the punny poster board.

The restaurant is quite narrow and dark inside without any windows, so we weren’t really a fan of the ambiance. Their tables were also these metal, stainless steel type tables reminiscent of surgical tables at a hospital.

But, that was quite minor considering how tasty and satisfying our food was!

Iced Thai tea latte: Latte started off with an iced Thai tea. She enjoyed it and had no complaints about it.

BBQ Duck banh mi with a fried egg add-on: For $15, this better be worth it! That’s the most expensive banh mi I’ve ever seen.

Thankfully, it was delicious and Latte enjoyed every bite. It was full of BBQ duck, and lots of fresh veggies inside. She was glad that she ordered this and was very satisfied with it. I’m glad to hear that their banh mi are still delicious (albeit pricey!).

Rice roll: The rice roll came with lemongrass beef, herbs, and vegetables. I had a few bites and it was delicious. The beef was very fragrant and the herbs just elevated the taste. It finished with hints of mango. So good!!!

Pho: For myself, I wanted to see how good their pho was! At $13, it was more than I was used to paying so I hoped it would be good.

And…. It was! The broth had a lot of depth and was savoury and flavourful. It came with a very generous portion of meat balls, rare beef, and flank – more than it looks in the photo!

Overall, we left very satisfied with DD Mau. I would definitely come back.

Elephant Garden Creamery

March 24, 2019 2 Comments

Elephant Garden Creamery has been on my radar for a few months now! It opened up last September, right before it got cold.

One sunny afternoon, the boyfriend and I went to try this place and it ended up being one of our new favourite dessert places (for both regular and vegan ice cream)!

Elephant Garden Creamery is located on Commercial Drive, so parking is a bit hard to find. The decor is white and minimalistic with green plant accents.

It was quite warm in here, they probably could have dialed up the AC a little bit! We did have to wait a bit because there were only two people working.

I was a bit disappointed to see that there was only one vegan/dairy free flavour offered that afternoon when the website had a few more.

It seems like their flavours change a lot, so if you’re really set on one flavour, I would recommend giving them a call first to avoid disappointment. But, the one vegan/dairy free flavour they had ended up being delicious as you’ll read about soon!

Milk tea ice cream (top): The boyfriend absolutely fell in love with the milk tea flavour, and couldn’t stop raving about it. There was a strong, authentic, milk tea flavour (makes sense because this place is Asian-owned). He definitely wants to come back to order this flavour!

Malted chocolate ice cream (bottom): The boyfriend wanted to compare their malted chocolate with Rain or Shine’s much loved version. It was tasty, but the one here doesn’t have any honeycomb in it, so he preferred Rain or Shine’s version more.

Mango coconut sticky rice: My vegan ice cream was delicious! With vegan/non dairy ice cream, sometimes you don’t get that richness because stores don’t use coconut milk/cream. I loved that this was rich but also dairy free.

There was some delicious mango syrup (which did not taste artificial at all) thrown in as well. I loved it and would come back for this flavour! The boyfriend enjoyed this too and said it was quite impressive for a vegan flavour.

Our first visit to Elephant Garden Creamery was a success. I hope that we will be back more in the future, and I’m glad we have another ice cream place added to our list!

Zakkushi on Main

March 20, 2019 Leave a Comment

You ever have one of those meals that was so good, you couldn’t stop thinking about it the next day? That was Zakkushi on Main for the boyfriend and I!

I had heard of Zakkushi before but kind of forgot about it until my uncle recommended it one night. Ever since going to Tokyo and having delicious yakitori, we have been craving it sooo badly again.

I’m happy to say that Zakkushi surpassed our expectations and brought us back to Japan!

What is so special about yakitori, aka grilled meat? The meat is cooked using special Japanese charcoal, called binchotan. The charcoal is much higher quality and hard to find, but it produces amazingly grilled meat.

Tofu skewer: I love my tofu, so naturally I wanted to try it here! The tofu was grilled perfectly and full of smoky delicious flavour. After trying this, we were so excited to see how the meats tasted, if the tofu was already so good!

From left to right: 1x chicken thigh with sea salt, 1x chicken thigh with teriyaki, 2x Kurobuta pork

Chicken thigh w/ sea salt: Oh my GOD. The chicken thigh was so incredibly juicy and full of smoky flavour. This one was just seasoned with simple salt, so the focus was more on the smoky flavour. This was my favourite skewer!

Chicken thigh w/ teriyaki: The teriyaki skewer was good too, but the sauce took away from the grilled taste. I would recommend the sea salt one so you can get full flavour of the barbeque.

Kurobuta pork: Kurobuta pork is a type of high quality meat, akin to Wagyu or Kobe beef. It was also simply seasoned, probably only with salt as well? Nonetheless, it was delicious. It was more on the lean side but still very juicy.

From left to right: 2x duck breast, 2x pork belly, 1x chicken thigh with sea salt

Duck breast: The boyfriend’s duck breast skewer! He loved it and had no complaints about it.

Pork belly: The boyfriend’s favourite skewer of the night, pork belly! The pork belly was fatty and also came with some Japanese leeks to balance it out.

Garlic beef: For our second round, we tried the garlic beef with teriyaki sauce! The garlic beef was amazing as well. Very juicy with crispy garlic flakes.

Oropon beef: The boyfriend really likes ponzu sauce, so we were intrigued with this beef skewer that came with daikon and ponzu sauce. The flavours went well together and the juicy beef also had the grilled, smoky taste.

Edamame beans: There was a special deal on Yelp, where you can get a free appetizer if you check in! The appetizer that night was the edamame beans. No complaints about the edamame beans.

Saikyo miso beef: We wanted to try this due to the miso sauce. The miso was a bit sweet and went well with the beef, but it was nothing special. The beef was still delicious though.

Cheese tsukune: Tsukune is a chicken meatball! I was going to order one without cheese, but was too full after many chicken thigh skewers. Since I wasn’t going it, the boyfriend ordered it with cheese! He said it was delicious and had no complaints about it.

Needless to say, we left extremely satisfied and happy. I should warn you though, that it can get pricey real quick if you’re ordering many skewers! We came with a budget price in mind and went over. Also, they are a cashless restaurant and only take card.

Zakkushi reminded us of the yakitori place we tried in Tokyo, and we are so glad that we finally checked this place out! I’m sure we will be back.