Curiously Carmen

Milkcow is a Korean dessert chain focusing on high quality, organic milk soft serve. There was a location in Richmond so I suggested we try it out since the fiance loves his milk and dairy products.

We loved it so much that we have been back a few more times! This post contains multiple visits.

My digestive issues have settled down for now, so I am finally able to reintroduce dairy again! I hope that it can stay this way for awhile because cheese and ice cream are amazing. I am going to ‘MILK’ this for as long as I can =P

Cookies and cream: On our first visit, we split the cookies and cream soft serve. Within the first bite, we noticed the delicious, smooth and milky taste of the soft serve.

Compared to other soft serves, I would say this one has a pure, milky taste as opposed to ice cream. The oreo bits were a nice touch but the soft serve was delicious enough to eat by itself too.

Milky cube: The milky cube came with honeycomb and drizzled with honey. It was simple yet delicious.

Ube soft serve: Ube was one of their seasonal flavours. I’ve only recently tried ube so I jumped at the chance after seeing it on the menu. This flavour was delicious too!

I would describe the flavour of ube similar to artificial taro powder (such as in bubble tea), but lighter and muted.

Black pearl: Although the name says pearl in it, this soft serve didn’t actually come with pearls. In this case, pearls meant Maltesers, which are still delicious!

If you’re a fan of Nutella, you would enjoy this. The black pearl soft serve came with a chocolate hazelnut syrup. The sea salt enhanced the sweetness. The Maltesers were at the bottom of the cup as a nice finishing touch!

All in all, we loved Milkcow as evidenced by our multiple visits. The soft serve is delicious and high quality.

Price was quite reasonable too, at around $5-$6 per cup at the time of writing. The portion would be good for two people to share. We will definitely be coming back!

Gordon Ramsay Burger was definitely on our to-try list, and seemed to also be on everyone else’s list as well because it was always lined up whenever we walked by! The line up was worth it though because we left with very happy stomachs!

Gordan Ramsay Burger is located inside Planet Hollywood. There is a giant glass fireplace where patrons wait against. To keep people busy, there was a big touchscreen menu that you could look at while in line.

We came for a late dinner around 9:30pm, after watching a variety show at the V Theater nearby. The total wait time for us was around 20 minutes, and this was also on a weekday. If you’re coming during prime dining hours or on the weekend, I would expect to wait at least 40 minutes.

The one thing I didn’t really like about this place was how pushy our server was to us for buying drinks. Since we looked at the menu in line, we already knew what we were ordering. It made me feel a bit uncomfortable to tell our server a few times that we didn’t want drinks.

Onion rings: I was a bit surprised to see that the burgers did not include sides here! The fiance ordered onion rings to start, which set the tone for a delicious meal to come.

The onion rings were big, fresh, and crunchy. They came sprinkled with some shredded cheese which made it taste even better. My favourite part was the cheddar ranch dip, which went perfectly with the crunchy onion rings!

Hog dawg: You’re probably wondering why on Earth we would order a hot dog at a place specializing in burgers. Well, for starters, it was definitely not a ‘basic’ hot dog! A lot of reviews recommended the hot dogs, so the fiance decided to get the hog dawg.

The hog dawg was a giant pork sausage, wrapped in bacon, and topped with pulled pork and fried onions. It was delicious and easily the best hot dog we have ever tried.

Fish and crisps burger: My fish and crisps burger was equally delicious. Fish burgers aren’t something I normally order, but I wasn’t feeling like a beef burger that night.

Just like the onion rings, the fish fillet was fried to a crunchy, crisp, golden perfection. The burger also contained ‘crisps’, which I would describe as hickory sticks but without the smoked hickory flavour. The crisps didn’t have much flavour though, they were more there for the texture.

The yuzu dill mayo was absolutely AMAZING and complemented the fish and crisps perfectly. I enjoyed every single bite and would definitely get this burger if I came back.

We left very satisfied with Gordon Ramsay Burger. The burgers and hot dogs aren’t just your typical burgers and hot dogs – they have crafted quality, unique combinations which complemented each other really well.

They definitely know what they are doing here, and the line speaks for it.

I made a good choice before our trip to Las Vegas by asking a bunch of people for their food recommendations. Cola suggested Earl of Sandwich and it ended up being our favourite find of the trip!

We loved it so much that we ended up going 3 times that trip and bought some on the flight back for dinner! Earl of Sandwich was affordable, delicious, filling, but still contained good quality ingredients.

According to Google Maps, there are 3 Earl of Sandwich locations along the Strip. We only went to the one inside Planet Hollywood by the casino. It is not that big in there with only a few seats, but most people get takeout.

Tuna melt: I wasn’t feeling like beef or chicken that night, so I went with the tuna melt. It was an excellent choice on my end because it was delicious. There was a lot of tuna, mayo, and cheese. The sandwich was served hot which made it even more delicious.

I am not too sure about the type of bread they use, but it tasted very fresh and was toasted. When I looked on the website, it just said ‘artisan bread’. A similar comparison would be ciabatta bread, but thicker and softer.

French dip: The fiance went with the french dip, and he loved it as well. There was a very generous amount of roast beef. In addition, the hot sandwich came with caramelized onions and Swiss cheese.

The Full Montagu: On our second visit, the fiance tried the Full Montagu. This sandwich came with roasted beef, turkey, Swiss cheese, cheddar, lettuce, Roma tomatoes, and mustard sauce.

I ordered the tuna melt again and enjoyed it as much as the first time!

Italian: Luckily we both have big appetites so we ordered a third sandwich to split, giving me an opportunity to expand my Earl of Sandwich tastebuds. The Italian sandwich was a meat lover’s paradise, containing salami, capicola, ham, mortadella, Swiss cheese, Italian seasoning, and Italian dressing.

There was a very generous portion of meat as with the other sandwiches. The variety of meat kept the sandwich exciting and the Italian seasoning/herbs were a nice touch.

Chipotle chicken avocado: I ordered the chipotle chicken avocado as the last meal in Vegas. It did not disappoint either. The grilled chicken was juicy with a delicious grilled flavour to it. Meanwhile, the avocado was chunks were nice and ripe.

The chipotle sauce added a very slight spicy kick to the sandwich. Also, are you wondering why there is only half a sandwich? That is because the fiance was too hungry and forgot that I needed a picture for le blog before he dug in.

Out of all the sandwiches I tried (including the fiance’s), my order of preference would be: 1) Tuna melt, 2) Chipotle chicken avocado, 3) French dip, 4) The Full Montagu, and 5) Italian. That being said, I loved them all and wouldn’t mind having any of the 5 sandwiches again.

Earl of Sandwich was definitely worth trying. As mentioned above, it was cheap, filling, delicious, and made with quality ingredients. It is an extremely better version of Subway but at similar prices!

It has been a long time since I’ve been to a ramen place! After coming back from Vegas, the fiance was craving some ramen. We haven’t been to Jinya Ramen yet so he suggested we try it out!

As expected with most ramen places, there was a wait. After putting down our phone number, we were told that it would be about a 30 to 40 minute wait so we went across the street to Wal-Mart to kill time. I received a text about 30 minutes later saying that our spot was ready.

Jinya tonkotsu black ramen: The fiance went with his go-to broth, tonkotsu. This particular bowl came with thin noodles, but in retrospect, he would have preferred the thick noodles instead.

The broth was rich, fatty, and flavourful aka everything you’d expect in ramen. We found it to be over priced though, at $17 at the time of writing. For comparison at Ramen Gaoh, a bowl goes for $12.

So although it was delicious, we felt that it wasn’t really worth the price, and some other Yelp reviewers have said that too.

Jinya bun: They were advertising the Jinya bun, so why not give it a try? I enjoyed it more than my entree. The steamed bun was very soft. The chashu was very tender and melted in my mouth.

In addition, the cucumber gave the bun a nice, refreshing crunch. The Japanese mayo was the cherry on top – I love Japanese mayo!

Tokyo curry rice: I was craving some Japanese curry, so I decided to get the Tokyo curry rice. It was delicious, but tasted like something I could easily cook at home for a much cheaper price. They probably just use the Japanese curry packets.

There also wasn’t much ground chicken, which was disappointing. I liked that it was comforting and warm for that rainy evening, but again, it didn’t feel worth it for someone who makes Japanese curry at home often.

We left satisfied as the food was tasty, but both felt that it was overpriced for what it was. There are plenty of other ramen places in town which are just as delicious, but cheaper.

A trip to Las Vegas is not complete without a meal (or meals) at the buffet! Although we would have loved to go to every single buffet in Las Vegas, the price would quickly add up!

After watching some Strictly Dumpling videos, we decided to go to Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace! Anyone else watch his videos?

We left so uncomfortable full and on the brink of stomachaches and regret… so much so, that we decided to skip out on the other buffet we had in mind the next day. We did not want to feel this uncomfortable again!

(If you’re wondering why don’t we just eat less, the answer is we are Asian and it is not in our blood when at a buffet. It would be a disgrace. LOL.)

Anyway, we were planning on going here for dinner before our Cirque De Soleil show. But there was a really long line up to enter already, and we didn’t want to rush the buffet or risk being late to the show. Instead, we came the next day for lunch.

It was a lot less busy at lunch and the offerings were still really good.

The carving station! You could choose from roast pork, beef brisket, prime rib, wagyu tri tip, and turkey. The meat was absolutely delicious and juicy.

This post will be mostly photo heavy. I’m not going to include every single food item because that would be too long of a post.

There was a lot of variety to choose from, and with many different cuisines featured.

I was surprised to see how much Asian food they had! Bacchanal Buffet had Chinese food (stir fry, fried noodles, rice, spring rolls, etc), dim sum, Japanese, and Thai.

I didn’t try any to save stomach space, because Vancouver’s Asian food is probably much better.

The chilled crab was a bit disappointing, and didn’t taste super fresh. They also didn’t crack the crab shell properly or give out shell-cracking tools. But the smoked salmon was amazing and I kept coming back for that.

Part of the Italian section, I didn’t take a picture of the other Italian section. I should have, because there was a really delicious garlic bread with truffle ricotta cheese that I couldn’t get enough of.

I liked the individual frying baskets that they had. They looked nice and also kept things more organized!

More breakfast/lunch items!

One of my biggest regrets here was loading up too soon on the lunch food, when I should have saved more room for dessert!

Unlimited ice cream! I was way too full at this point, but I did ask for a sample of the ube ice cream. I’ve seen it around in Vancouver but was a bit wary of ordering it. It reminded me of taro bubble tea!

As mentioned above, I only included about half the food items that were offered during lunch. I don’t want to make this a super long post. The quality of the food was alright, but a buffet is one of those rare things where quantity rules over quality.

All in all, it was a great deal at $40 USD per person for lunch. We were so full for the rest of the day that we only needed a light dinner in the evening!

I’d recommend going to Bacchanal Buffet! Next time, I would pace myself slower and save more room for dessert!