Curiously Carmen

Kanadell Japanese Bakery

Kanadell Japanese Bakery is a place that I’ve seen a lot this year, and was wanting to try it. They started out in local farmer markets, and have opened up a storefront earlier this year.

I follow them on Instagram and their baked goods tend to sell out each day, so the hype is real.

Back in the summer, Maki and Nigiri were kind enough to bring some of their pastries over for us to try!

Matcha melon pan: I love melon pan! Melon pan is a type of Japanese bun. There isn’t any melon in it, but the outer layer resembles a melon hence the name.

The matcha melon pan was delicious! There was a light matcha flavour and it wasn’t too sweet. The bread was enjoyably soft and fluffy.

Earl grey melon pan: This was my favourite melon pan that we tried that day. The earl grey flavour was fragrant and floral.

Regular melon pan: This is their regular melon pan, which is just brushed with sugar I believe. The matcha and earl grey melon pans were better, but I also didn’t mind the regular melon pan. The regular melon pan doesn’t have caffeine unlike the other two, so this is a better choice if you can’t have caffeine.

Fresh bread: Maki and Nigiri kept raving about their fresh bread, saying how delicious it was. They were absolutely right. Their loaves of bread were the most pillowy and soft bread I’ve ever had. This bread was good enough to eat plain. I recommend eating this within 2 days or else the bread wouldn’t be as pillowly and soft. Bread seems so simple, but the bread was my favourite out of all the things we tried that day.

My only complaint would be that I wish it was sliced!

Bear bread: I’m not really sure what this was called, so I’m just going to call it the bear bread. Kanadell is known for their cute, cartoon style bread. This was alright, but forgettable compared to the loaves of bread and melon pan. It wasn’t bad, but there are better pastries to try here.

Kanadell Japanese Bakery did not disappoint. I will definitely be back, especially for their fresh bread loaves. I understand the hype for this place!

Vashti Rose Ice Cream – Two visits

This post is a long time coming, because I’ve wanted to try Vashti Rose for a long time now! I started to receive Facebook ads awhile ago. Targeted ads work people!!! Lol.

Vashti Rose caught my eye because they had just as many vegan flavours as regular dairy flavours. We finally went to try it and ended up going twice in a week, because we were in the area both times!

Vashti Rose is a very small ice cream shop in Port Moody. It’s a bit odd because they share the space with a kickboxing or martial arts facility. They are quite easy to miss because the sign is a bit dark and it’s not really in a busy area.

The best way to describe where Vashti Rose is, is that it is beside the Shell gas station.

The flavours change daily, but here were the flavours on our first visit. We came a bit later on the second visit, and some flavours were crossed off.

Banana fudge caramel walnut vegan: You know a vegan flavour is good when dairy ice cream lovers order it! I had decided on this already, but Sangria and Lager also decided to get it because it was that good. This was a flavour I haven’t tried before, but it was really good! There were some crunchy walnuts in there too.

The top dollop was a sample of the vegan peach crumble and blackberry jam. Sangria couldn’t decide, and the staff were nice enough to give her a tiny scoop of it.

Cookies and cream: The husband really enjoyed the cookies and cream ice cream. In particular, he noted how generous they were with the cookie chunks. The cookie chunks were really big, and he even found a whole Oreo chunk in there!

Mint vegan: I couldn’t decide on one flavour, and went with two scoops. The mint kinda tasted artificial, but I didn’t mind that much. The chocolate chips they used in here were probably 90%+ dark chocolate, because it was extremely bitter! The bitterness contrasted too much with the mint ice cream, and I was not a fan of the chocolate chips.

The bottom scoop is the banana fudge caramel, which you can read about above.

Lemon curd: We came a second time with Maki and Nigiri. Maki really enjoyed her lemon curd ice cream. Although lemon isn’t normally a flavour she usually gravitates to, she was pleasantly surprised at how much she liked it. There were also lemon curd pieces in there which reminded her of lemon cheesecake pieces.

Mini egg: I was really jealous of Nigiri’s scoop. Much like the cookies and cream ice cream, the mini egg ice cream had a very generous amount of mini egg chunks in it. Nigiri enjoyed his ice cream a lot.

Salted caramel: The husband decided to try the salted caramel flavour this time. It was also just as good as the cookies and cream, and did not disappoint. However, he prefers the other flavours with stuff in it (such as cookies and cream or mini egg) because they are so generous with it.

I’m really glad that I finally tried Vashti Rose, and brought some friends who also enjoyed it. I will definitely be back for my ice cream fix. Rocky Point Ice Cream nearby is the more popular ice cream shop in Port Moody, but Vashti Rose is great too, if not better!

La Glace Ice Cream

After dinner at Yuwa, we decided to go over to La Glace for some ice cream. It was perfect timing because Maki had mentioned this place to me a few days prior, and she really enjoyed it.

La Glace is located in the same small plaza as Yuwa. The space is very girly and cute, something out of a French bakery.

They were closed for dine in when we went, but there were a couple of patio tables and benches around. It got pretty busy and lined up around 7pm, with many families coming here after dinner perhaps.

They have some really nice ice cream to-go jars. They would make for really nice jars to keep afterwards!

Coconut pandan (vegan): I’m not vegan, but I can’t have dairy. Many places have started to offer more vegan/dairy-free flavours in the past couple of years which I am definitely not complaining about. Maki had tried the coconut pandan flavour before, and really liked it. I take it as a good sign when regular ice cream lovers enjoy vegan flavours. The coconut pandan was delicious. It was made with coconut milk, so the ice cream was creamy. I would definitely get it again.

Cookies and cream (vegan): I don’t normally see a vegan cookies and cream, so I decided to order a second scoop. It’s been 2 months since the visit so I don’t remember exactly, but I THINK I found it to be only alright. I think it was not rich enough. I definitely remember liking the coconut pandan one more.

I don’t remember what everyone else ordered, but here are the photos! I tried checking the website but their flavours vary each month.

The husband and Aero both ordered the same flavour. Unfortunately, Aero found a strand of hair in her ice cream. They replaced it with a new cup.

Despite this failure of a blog post of forgetting 1) how I liked the cookies and cream scoop, and 2) what everyone else ordered, the takeaway is that we enjoyed La Glace hahaha.

I wouldn’t make the drive purposely to come here because there are many other ice cream places closer that I enjoy (Elephant Garden Creamery and Earnest Ice Cream to name a couple), but if I was in the area I would come by again.

La Glace Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Minus Cake Boutique

Minus Cake Boutique is a dessert cafe that opened a bit over a year ago. They are located by Kingsway and Boundary Road, next to Sharetea. I actually haven’t noticed Minus Cake Boutique before, but have heard about it on social media. I always thought it was in Burnaby.

Screenshot from Google Maps, next to Sharetea

It was the fiance’s birthday (this post is super late because I haven’t been motivated to write food posts lately), and Sangria and Lager surprised us with an UberEats delivery from Minus!

Minus specializes in cake and bubble tea. The cake comes in a plastic sphere that sits on top of the bubble tea drink. I haven’t seen other cafe stores offer something like this yet.

Combo Pandan Pineapple Coconut Cake: This was delicious! The drink was a fizzy kiwi lemonade, with fresh kiwi pulp inside. I really enjoyed the drink and it was good quality. The pandan pineapple coconut cake was equally as delicious as well.

The cake was part mousse, and part regular cake (sorry I don’t know the term….lol not a baker). The flavour of the cake was Asian style, light and slightly sweet. The pineapple and coconut went really well together and I would get this again.

Brown Sugar Hojicha Mochi Cake: The second dessert Sangria and Lager ordered for us was a chocolate style one! The drink had high quality, smooth chocolate in it. I would describe it as a high quality chocolate milk.

The hojicha mochi cake was delicious as well! There were some pieces of chewy mochi inside. The hojicha flavour was strong and delicious too.

All in all, we really enjoyed the surprise from Minus Cake Boutique and am glad that Sangria and Lager introduced us to it. I would recommend it as the perfect birthday treat, you get a bubble tea and personal sized cake on top! The quality of the cup and plastic sphere were sturdy, so no worries about the sphere falling off.

Minus Cake Boutique Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Remi Patisserie

Vancouver has been abuzz lately with the opening of Remi Patisserie’s storefront! Over the past year, Remi Patisserie has gained popularity by selling their pastry products in other cafes or on social media. They are a small shop located by Cambie and Broadway, and pre-ordering days in advance on their Instagram is highly recommended.

Maki and Nigiri told us good things about Remi Patisserie back in the summer, and really enjoyed it. They were nice enough to drop off some cake for us recently! It was the perfect treat and pick-me-up since the fiance and I were both feeling sick that week.

Maki and Nigiri picked out 3 slices of cake for us. While looking on their Instagram, I believe these are called tea rolls. They are more Asian inspired and reminded me of an elevated version of the Chinese swiss rolls from Asian bakeries that I grew up eating.

Thai tea roll: First up, we tried the Thai tea roll. At the time, we didn’t know what flavour it was… but knew that it was DELICIOUS and that we loved it. The roll itself felt dense and thick, but it was actually very soft and fluffy when bitten into.

In addition, the filling of the Thai tea whipped cream was delicious. There was a strong milk tea taste while the cream filling was light and delightful.

Matcha sesame tea roll: Secondly, we tried the matcha sesame tea roll. The matcha used at Remi Patisserie is organic and from the city of Uji in Japan. Again, this roll was delicious. Just like the Thai milk tea roll, the quality and flavour of the matcha was excellent. The matcha was nutty, strong and earthy.

The sesame added more nuttiness to the roll and highlighted the strong matcha flavour even more. The combination of the two was great.

Earl grey and salted caramel roll: Lastly, we tried the earl grey and salted caramel roll. Out of all three, this one was my personal favourite. The earl grey and salted caramel cream inside was so incredibly light and fluffy.

The tea flavour in this roll wasn’t as strong as the Thai milk tea or matcha, but I could still taste it. In addition, the salted caramel gave the roll an extra amount of sweetness.

Overall, we really enjoyed the pastries we tried from Remi Patisserie, and can see why they are so popular! The quality of the pastries is evident and it was so delicious. The texture of the tea rolls were perfect too.

As mentioned earlier, they reminded me of a fancy version of traditional Asian pastries. I would love to try more of their other desserts as well.