chinese Archives - Curiously Carmen

North Noodle House

March 12, 2023

In the summer before school started, I wanted to hang out with friends as much as I could before things got really busy. I’ve been hearing about North Noodle House for many years now, but I don’t go to New West much. Frappachino and I were in the area, so we decided to try it out.

North Noodle House is a very small, mom and pop owned restaurant located inside New West skytrain station. There is also a parking complex as well. Apart from North Noodle house, there were a handful of other restaurants, small shops and a Safeway.

Beef noodle soup: It is no surprise that I am a huge fan of soup noodles! I had to try the beef noodle soup, and it did not disappoint. The noodles were handmade in the restaurant, and had the perfect chewy texture.

The beef slices were extremely tender as well. Although the broth looked quite clear, it was very flavourful. Frappachino is not a fan of clear, light broths but he also found it tasty!

Fried noodles: Frappachino ordered the fried noodles, which was like a stir fry. The noodles here were wider and flatter. I would have liked this type of noodle for my soup as well. He also enjoyed his noodles.

Beef roll: To share, we split a beef roll. It’s been awhile since I had a beef roll, but these were delicious. They were lightly pan fried which made the outside crispy.

Overall, we left very impressed with the food at North Noodle House. If this place was closer or I was in the area, I would go pretty often. It is a gem!

Grand Crystal Seafood Restaurant

March 4, 2023

Back in the summer, Frappachino and I decided to try dimsum at Grand Crystal, which is located inside Crystal Mall. They had opened up earlier last year, and the owners had previously owned another Chinese restaurant in Vancouver which I forgot the name of now.

Since this visit is from awhile ago, I don’t remember all the details!

Prawn dumpling: Unfortunately, I don’t remember if this was tasty or not anymore. But I think I would remember if it tasted bad, so I guess it was decent!

Fried glutinous rice dumpling: This is one of my favourite dim sum dishes but I don’t order it that much due to how oily it is! Again, I don’t remember if this was good or bad but I think it was ok? Lol!

Eggplant stuffed with shrimp paste: This is the only dish out of the three that we ordered that I actually remember! Frappachino and I weren’t planning on ordering this, but we saw the table next to us order it. I am pretty neutral with eggplant, and didn’t expect too much from this. But we were really surprised at how good this was and we both loved it!

Firstly, the portion was quite big! As you can tell from the photo, they gave us a whole eggplant cut in half. The shrimp was tasty and the batter was crunchy and fresh. To top it off, the sweet chili sauce on top was delicious!

Overall, we had a delicious and satisfying lunch at Grand Crystal. I have been meaning to come back and bring others here for the shrimp eggplant dish. I hope that it’s consistent here and will be just as good the next time.

Dolar Shop Hot Pot – Burnaby (Multiple Visits)

January 11, 2023

Dolar Shop is one of my favourite places to go for hot pot, although I don’t go too often as it is on the pricer side. My last review on the Dolar Shop was a few years ago, at the Richmond Lansdowne location. Earlier in 2022, they opened up a location in Burnaby and we have since been a handful of times!

This post is a combination of a few visits!

What I like most about Dolar Shop is that everyone gets their own individual pots and choice of soup base. I find that most restaurant soup bases are quite oily, thus prefer to do hot pot at home.

Visit 1: During the summer, we came here to celebrate Smore’s birthday and had a feast! I was too busy chatting and only took one photo that time, oops. I went with the mushroom broth, which was a lighter and clearer broth but still very flavourful.

You can also do a combination of two broths for a higher price, which some of us did.

Their signature Dolar Shop soya sauce is also quite good. When you are first seated, the server will prepare a customized sauce dish for you.

There is also a sauce and snack bar, which you can create a second bowl of sauce with more ingredient options.

Visit 2: A few weeks later, the husband and I came ourselves for the lunch promotion! It was the first time we tried it, but have heard good things from Smores. The lunch promotion is usually available for a limited time, and offers a much cheaper lunch set.

A lunch set starts at $30 and goes up to $45 if you want the fancier cut beef. It’s still a bit pricey but not as much as dinner or the regular price.

Chicken mushroom/pork bone broth set: I am not sure what the actual name is, and the website doesn’t list the lunch promotion sets as they change. But I ordered the same pork bone/mushroom broth as the visit above.

The lunch set comes with an individual-sized portion of meat (I went with chicken), and an individual-sized portion of veggies.

The veggie platter also comes with their a couple of shrimp pate balls which is my favourite item on their menu! There are also a few quail eggs, imitation crab meat, and spam.

The husband ordered one of the beef lunch sets. I believe he chose the mid-tier beef so his set was about $40~ if I remember correctly.

If you are unsure of spending full price on dinner, the lunch set is a great option to give Dolar Shop a try first as all the items are the same! I believe they stopped the lunch promotion in the fall, but I started to see it again in December.

Also, be sure to check whether the Burnaby or Richmond location is offering the lunch set as they usually don’t offer the promo at the same time.

Visit 3: A few months later, we decided to come here for my birthday! During this holiday season, I have been obsessed with hot pot for some reason and am constantly craving it. We actually had plans to go to Zakkushi but I switched it to Dolar Shop!

Clearly, I suck at taking photos whenever I come here… This is the only photo I took. This time, I went with the exquisite silver broth, which is also light but very flavourful! You can also pick between having chicken and tripe with this broth, so it’s a great value. The chicken was very juicy and flavourful, and was the same as the lunch set.

We also ordered one veggie plate, which turns out is the same plate as the lunch special!

My photos during all these visits are quite limited, and I feel like this post is all over the place. The conclusion to this post is that the Dolar Shop is consistently delicious, and one of my favourite hot pot restaurants! I would recommend trying the Dolar Shop, especially when they have their lunch promotions!

Fisherman’s Terrace Seafood Restaurant

December 27, 2022

I can’t believe I haven’t been to Fisherman’s Terrace yet, it seems like one of the staple dim sum restaurants in Richmond. The husband has been hearing good things about their dim sum lately, so he wanted to go try it out!

Fisherman’s Terrace is located on the top floor of Aberdeen Mall. It was really busy when we went, so we had an idea that it was probably going to be delicious. Make sure you get here early to avoid waiting!

This post is a review of our first visit, which was really good! Unfortunately, we came back a second time a couple months later and that visit wasn’t as good. A couple of items we ordered before were sold out and didn’t taste as good.

Garlic spring rolls: The garlic spring rolls were delicious! They were fresh, crunchy, and had a nice garlic taste to it. The prawns inside tasted fresh and snappy too. These were a great start to our lunch.

Shrimp dumpling: My favourite dim sum dishes are all shrimp, I am not sure why. The shrimp dumpling was pretty good too. They were plump and filled with fresh, snappy prawns.

Curry cuttlefish: The curry cuttlefish are another favourite. The cuttlefish here were pretty big and tasted fresh, with lots of curry flavour.

Steamed sticky rice: I think we actually packed the entire dish to go because we were getting so full from everything.

Bean curd wrap: The husband loves his bean curd wrap, but it’s hard to find one he really likes. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a fan of the filling in this one.

Overall, our first visit to Fisherman’s Terrace was great but the second visit wasn’t as good. I think we’d be back again if craving dim sum in Richmond though.

East One Chinese Restaurant

January 8, 2022

Happy New Year everyone!

It has been awhile, if not years, since I have been to East One. I easily forget that this place exists and end up going to Angel Cafe or somewhere in Richmond when the mood strikes for HK style food.

Anyway, we came with my parents here in September and everyone was pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoyed everything.

We came during lunch, and took advantage of their cheap lunch promotion! A huge number of items are available for under $10 (well, $9.95!) during lunch. The size is a bit smaller, but it’s still worth it! We ordered a bunch of things to share.

Beef stir fry noodles: I am not sure what this dish is called in English! This was the husband and my favourite dish of the afternoon. There was a lot of “wok hei” which I am too lazy to explain what that is so just Google it if you’re not sure. It was definitely on the oily side but delicious.

Crispy chow mein with chicken and beansprouts: Again, we enjoyed this dish as well. The chow mein was crispy and there was a decent amount of chicken. The sauce was good too.

Singapore vermicelli: I think I found this more on the salty side, but it was still delicious. It was full of curry flavour and fragrant, with a decent amount of meat and veggies mixed in.

Baked spaghetti bolognese: My absolute favorite HK style dish even though I should not be eating it! This was great too!

Preserved egg and shredded pork congee: This was a later add-on after I saw another table order it, and it looked good hehe. East One has quite the congee menu and this is one of the staples.

I enjoy making congee at home, but I don’t buy preserved egg so I usually order this at restaurants. The congee was warming and delicious. The only minor complaint is that the preserved egg was only cut in half, which meant there were four big chunks. We ended up cutting it ourselves with the spoons so NBD.

We all left satisfied and full, with leftovers! I hope it won’t be a few years until my next visit because the lunch menu was delicious and affordable.