Originally, my friends and I had plans to try G-Men in Richmond, but we could not find parking. We ended up going to Aberdeen Mall to eat instead. You may think that resorting to food court food is pretty atrocious compared to a restaurant, but Aberdeen’s food court is amazing.
Continuing our streak of bad luck that night, we wanted to try a dessert place in Richmond but it was packed. We decided to just go back to Burnaby, as my friend had told us about Midam Cafe many times.
It is a pretty hard place to find, located right under a flight of stairs and tucked into the corner with no visible signage. But it ain’t an Asian restaurant unless it has those features, amirite? 😉
Green tea float, $6.99: Essentially a green tea ice cream smoothie. Yes, it was as good as it sounded, judging from how Cheese was raving about it. I would have tried it too, but that’s just asking for death when you are extremely lactose intolerant.
Rice cake with bean flour & apple sauce: I wanted something sweet that day, which is usual for me because I would take savoury over sweets usually. Sadly, my options were limited seeing that I can’t have dairy, so I settled for the rice cake from the recommendation of the server.
This was a very odd dish, and was not my cup of tea. It wasn’t bad at all, but I was expecting the rice cake to be sweet. Instead, it was very salty and had hints of cinnamon flavour. I also didn’t taste the apple sauce at all. My friends tried it and they thought it was a bit strange too. Maybe we just aren’t used to Korean rice cakes, but it was nice to try something new! I would order this if I was craving something savoury.
Strawberry sorbet, $4.99: I wanted to order this, but was afraid there was dairy. Luckily, Macaroni ordered this and confirmed that there wasn’t any dairy, so I was able to try it. It was so delicious that I ended up ordering one myself (especially since i was in a sweets mode and my rice cake ended up being surprisingly salty). It reminded me of the strawberry slush at Milk and Sugar. I found it to be a bit chunky and not blended enough, but it was still full of fresh, delicious strawberry flavour.
Oreo milkshake, $4.99: The boyfriend ordered this and fell in love with the flavour instantly. It was one of the BEST milkshakes he’s ever had in his life. Macaroni and Cheese also tried it and confirmed the boyfriend’s thoughts – it was indeed THAT amazing and delicious. To this day, they still talk about how great this oreo milkshake is while I am left imagining how delicious and heavenly this is. Perhaps if I bring my dairy supplements, I can try this out for myself but I find that those supplements do not always work for me.
All in all, we enjoyed our late night visit to Midam and I can see myself coming here again for some late night snacks/drinks. One cool thing to note about Midam is that the place is completely decked out in NBA gear – there is a basketball hoop, jerseys, posters, pretty much a NBA lovers dream in here!
Yay!
Thanks for reading!
-Carmen
Nice Vice is located in Yaletown, a quick walk from the Canada Line station. It is pretty small, so it is easy to miss.
Vegan Buddy and I came on a Tuesday evening. It was cloudy, but not cold or rainy that day. Due to the weather and seeing how it was a weekday, the store was empty except for us! Luckily, this meant we could sample more flavours.
I wasn’t particularly in love with any of the flavours, but they weren’t bad either. In the end, I ordered strawberry fiends forever and mango. I ordered the one scoop for $5.00, but you can get two flavours for an additional price – I don’t remember exactly, but it was either 50 cents or $1.00 extra.
VB ordered one scoop of the matcha and vanilla strawberry swirl. The matcha had a medium matcha taste, not too strong or subtle. I didn’t really like the vanilla strawberry swirl because I found it a bit bland and just icy.
They also have a bunch of assorted salts that you can top off your dessert with! We tried a bunch of salt flavours. Some went well and brought the flavour out, while some did not pair well at all. I recommend you sprinkle a super, tiny bit of salt – I’m talking about like 4 or 5 grains tiny, because we found that even just a pinch was too much!
So, after an afternoon of exploring Central Park and The Met museum, we explored the Upper East Side and went to Candle 79!
We were still pretty full from our lunch at Blue Dog, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to try this place. Since we already had plans for the rest of the trip and wouldn’t be in this area of NYC again, we decided on just having a small snack to at least try something!
Housemade ice cream sampler, $9: The nachos were already really filling considering we weren’t hungry to begin with, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to have ICE CREAM. I was already sold when our server told us it was made with rich coconut milk. I’ve been deprived of ice cream for soooo long.
Although it looks pretty small on the outside, it is pretty spacious inside. It got pretty busy throughout our visit, and the line never stopped and tables were mostly full.
They also have cute, bear shape macarons with little ears on them in their display! As well, they have cake slices.
The four of us also got a drink each! Starting from top right, going clockwise:
Green tea waffle, $10.99: Cocoa and Lollipop shared this delicious waffle, topped with green tea ice cream, moci, whipped cream, almonds, kiwi, and strawberry. They both LOVED this waffle and said it was absolutely scrumptious.
Of course, I forgot to bring my allergy pills! Yes, unfortunately I’ve been allergic to cats ever since I was a child. But cats are so cute! Luckily, my allergies only get really bad after two hours, so I just dealt with a itchy nose for the time being. My bad…
Vegan & gluten-free brownie, around $5: Many of their pastries are healthy and suitable for those with alternative diets. I ordered a brownie with peanut butter icing. The brownie was a bit on the dry side and lacked a chocolate flavour, but the peanut butter on top was delicious.
Here are some of the places for the cats to play. One of their entire wall is a wooden shelf for cats to crawl around in, or sleep in the holes.
They also have cat themed board games and children’s story books as well! It truly is a cat lover’s paradise here.
Hehe, a selfie with one of the sleepy cats. The chairs are cat themed too!
All in all, I think the Catfe is a great place for cat lovers. I wouldn’t recommend coming if you aren’t a fan of cats, because you are essentially paying $5 (with purchase from cafe) or $8 (no cafe purchase, just to see the cats) to see them.