curiouslycarmen, Author at Curiously Carmen

Mamalee Malaysian Delight

February 17, 2021

Mamalee is a restaurant I have heard of for many years now. They are most known for their Hainanese chicken. It seems like everyone in this world absolutely LOVES Hainanese chicken and goes crazy for it. I think I am the only person who thinks it is alright (I will be proven wrong as you’ll soon find out). Does that render me as a bad food blogger? Oops.

Mamalee has one of the best Hainanese chicken in the city apparently. Whenever I hear or see posts on Hainanese chicken, Mamalee is always the top recommendation. There are usually line ups but due to the pandemic, they are only doing take out currently.

Anyways, I don’t normally get a craving for Hainanese chicken, hence why I haven’t tried this place until now, when I found myself in the area. My expectations were very high because of how raved after this place is is!

Hainanese chicken with rice: Maybe I always found Hainanese chicken to be only alright because I haven’t had the good stuff before, aka Mamalee.

The chicken was so juicy, flavourful and silky. After having the Hainanese chicken at Mamalee, I am a bigger fan of it than I used to be. I haven’t had Hainanese chicken this good before.

In addition, the chicken oil rice was delicious as well. The rice was cooked in chicken oil, giving it rich flavour.

I’m glad I finally tried Mamalee because I now have a new found appreciation for Hainanese chicken. I would come back for more delicious and silky chicken, and the fragrant chicken oil rice if I was in this area.

Got Pho Thein Kim – Revisit

February 13, 2021

Almost a couple of years ago, I wrote a review on Got Pho Thein Kim. Since then, I’ve ordered take out but haven’t been back to the restaurant.

I was craving pho one day and instead of going to the usual Basil Garden, Got Pho popped in my head. Got Pho and Basil Garden are within 3 blocks of each other, but the fiance likes Basil Garden more so we don’t go to Got Pho as much.

Since I was eating alone (I love eating alone! I don’t care if you think that’s weird) I thought I’d switch it up and come back to Got Pho.

Got Pho is a low-key, no frills, hole in the wall type restaurant. Despite that, they are pretty popular and it’s no surprise why.

House special pho: There aren’t many places in Vancouver left where you can get a bowl of pho for $10 in 2020. Most places are around $12-$14 these days!

The pho was as delicious as I remembered it to be. The broth was comforting and flavourful. There was a very generous portion of noodles too. The house special came with all the different types of beef (rare beef, flank, tendon, tripe, beef ball). There was a good amount of each and I was really full at the end of the meal.

Lemongrass beef and spring roll vermicelli: I also ordered takeout for the fiance. There was a very generous portion of flavour, fragrant lemongrass beef that made the living room smell delicious! The spring roll was fresh and crunchy as well. The portion of this dish was huge too, and he was really full afterwards.

All in all, Got Pho is a great choice for some delicious, authentic Vietnamese food in the area. The prices are also really reasonable. With so many Vietnamese restaurants in Vancouver, Got Pho ranks high on my list for pricing, portion, and taste.

SunTea

February 10, 2021

I have heard the buzz surrounding SunTea for awhile now. SunTea is located in Kensington Plaza in Burnaby. We were in the area and since I saw so many good things about SunTea, we decided to try it out.

However, we were disappointed with our visit and it left much to be desired.

It was dark when we went, and originally had some trouble looking for the shop inside the plaza. They are located close to the Kensington Ave entrance on the side, by the Shoppers. Lots of free plaza parking was available.

Due to the pandemic, the cafe was closed for dine in and they offered pick up only. They don’t even let customers order at the counter – you have to download their app and place your order there. There is a number sign on the window letting you know when your order is ready.

Brown sugar milk: The fiance ordered the oreo brown sugar milk and thought it was disappointing. I had a few sips and agreed as well. There are way better brown sugar drinks out there.

The drink didn’t have much flavour and you can already tell just by looking at the drink how plain it was. Usually you can see the brown sugar coated on the cup.

The drink also advertised oreo chunks but there were none to be found.

Coconut pudding mango coconut milk: This sounded amazing but this was not drinkable. I ended up throwing it away after a few sips because of how bad it was.

The coconut milk was very watery and not rich. There was a small amount of mango inside (unlike the advertised photo), and what mango there was, was sour and hard.

Now that I’m looking up the menu for the review, it also says that the drink included coconut pudding but there wasn’t any in the drink??? This was an extremely disappointing drink.

Taro with oat milk: The taro with oat milk was the only decent drink, but even then it was a fail. Why? Because the drink was also supposed to come with oats, but they were sold out. They ended giving us extra pearls to make up for it, but it was still disappointing because the drink was supposed to have oats.

It has been awhile since we had bubble tea THAT bad…. I don’t remember the last time we had such disappointing bubble tea.

At least one topping was missing from every drink – the oreos in the brown sugar milk, coconut pudding in the mango coconut drink, and oats in the taro oat milk drink. 2/3 drinks were also watery and not good.

With so many bubble tea shops everywhere these days, SunTea is at the bottom of my list and I do not want to come back.

Matsuzushi

February 7, 2021

This review is a long time coming! Matsuzushi has been on my to-try list for many years. They are known for their fresh, authentic sushi at reasonable prices. In particular, their affordable omakase is very popular and what most people get! We finally came here in January and it did not disappoint.

Matsuzushi is a small, inconspicuous husband and wife run shop in Port Moody (similar to Kilala Sushi in Burnaby).

The restaurant is already quite small but with the COVID restrictions, they had 5 tables open if I recall correctly. A reservation is highly recommended and you may be turned away if they are fully booked.

At first, the sushi chef was awkward and intimidating to us when we were sitting at the bar. He kept staring at us expressionless, boring deep into our soul (I think he was trying to be funny??) and it felt uncomfortable. The restaurant was also dead silent so it made it even more uncomfortable. However, he warmed up as the evening went on and we got used to his sense of humour.

Since omakase varies daily, I won’t go into full detail of each piece we received that day. The omakase was $35, which included 11 nigiri pieces, 1 hand roll and a miso soup. This was an incredible deal considering most omakase places are around $50-$200+.

Since I don’t remember all the names and the omakase changes each day, I will just post the pictures.

Every piece was delicious and we had no complaints. Most of the sashimi just melted in our mouth and was so incredibly fresh. Check out that glisten!

Despite the cheaper price, the quality was not sacrificed.

The sashimi was extremely fresh and high quality. It reminded me of the sushi in Japan, and made me miss Japan even more than I already do.

The mouth watering, blue fin tuna. Look at how fatty and rich that is!

The bottom piece was the crab, which was our least favourite. The crab had a lot of salt on top, and was way too salty.

We ended our omakase with a creamy, sweet, and fresh uni. It was amazing. The temaki cone that day was a blue fin negitoro, which was so delicious. I need to stop using the word delicious so much in this post, but I don’t know how else to describe it!

We also ordered some beef sashimi as well. This was delicious and fresh too. The garlic was sliced in front of us and was very strong. We had garlic breath after but it complemented the beef sashimi very well.

A bowl of miso soup also came along with the omakase. The taste was pretty standard, but there was more tofu pieces inside than other restaurants.

I’m not even sure how the husband and wife profit from such cheap omakase, especially with expensive items like blue fin tuna and uni, but I’m not complaining!

We will definitely be back for omakase. I’m glad we finally checked out this gem! Matsuzushi is quietly tucked away in Port Moody but it is worth the drive.

Paragon Tea Room

February 4, 2021

I have seen Paragon Tea Room all over social media, especially in the beginning of the pandemic when everyone was ordering their at-home BBT kits. The BBT kits didn’t appeal to me so I didn’t check this place out.

Maki was telling me that she really liked the hojicha tea here, so I decided to stop by during the holidays to pick up a bag for her!

Paragon Tea Room is located in a busy area on Cambie Street, right off Cambie bridge so parking is hard to find. We parked a few blocks away close to Remi Patisserie and walked over.

To my surprise, it was pretty busy here and there was a line up. The cafe actually has two shops – Paragon Tea Room and Porto Cafe. There are two separate ordering lines (with Paragon’s more popular) but they share a sitting area and washroom.

Hojicha: Paragon specializes in hojicha tea from Japan. Hojicha is a type of roasted green tea with low caffeine content due to the high roasting temperature. There were a few different types of hojicha, and I was having trouble choosing so I asked the staff who recommended the hojicha bronze for drinking.

I don’t remember which is which, but apparently there is a bag that is better for baking vs. drinking. I’m sure you can’t go wrong with any of the bags here, but you could ask the friendly staff like I did for recommendations.

Hojicha oat latte: Since I was here anyways, I decided to try their latte, especially learning that it there wasn’t much caffeine. My body is very sensitive to caffeine, even in tea. If I drink it in the morning, I still am not able to sleep at night.

For a rough comparison, hojicha has 8 mg of caffeine compared to 70 mg of caffeine in matcha.

The hojicha latte was delicious! The oat milk made it velvety smooth and gave it some richness. The hojicha was fragrant and had a strong roasted taste to it.

The tea quality here is great and I would recommend stopping by. The tea powder bags would also be good presents to give.