food & drink Archives - Page 112 of 115

Hime Sushi

March 15, 2014

The boyfriend and I came here one evening during a break between my classes. We were looking for some fast, delicious, fresh tasting sushi and after wanting to try this place for a few months, we decided to actually go.

I’m glad we went because Hime Sushi serves up some really fresh and delicious sashimi, as well as other dishes. I think their sashimi was the star of the show, but their specialty rolls were delicious too.

Hime Sushi is really easy to miss when you’re driving by. The outside of the restaurant doesn’t really stand out, we were both surprised when we found out it was by Broadway and Main because we drive by this area multiple times a week, yet we’ve never noticed it until we street-viewed (is that even a verb?) it.

Trying to take a picture of the outside was also quite difficult to catch everything, but I tried my best.

It wasn’t too busy when we first arrived. The servers were polite, attentive, and friendly. Hime Sushi also starts you off with a small plate of chilled edamame beans. I looove edamame beans so we were off to a great start.
The first dish that came was our tuna and salmon sashimi. I’ve read on Urbanspoon that they have really fresh and juicy sashimi, so it was time to test that out.

And boy, was their sashimi ever delicious! It was really fresh, juicy, and sweet – all great components to delicious sashimi. Yum! I noticed their slices of sashimi were a bit smaller than usual, but the freshness of the sashimi made up for it.
Of course, you can’t go to a new restaurant without trying their specialty rolls. This was there ocean red roll which consists of spicy tuna and green onion in the inside, with wild sockeye salmon on top. It came drizzled with hot sauce.

Again, we really enjoyed this due to the quality and freshness of the sashimi. I found myself finishing off every little detail of this roll because it was so good!
Some standard rolls, starting with the salmon and avocado. This was really good due to the freshness of the salmon and avocado. Not only is their sashimi fresh, but avocado as well! The second one was the negitoro (tuna and onion) roll. We enjoyed this one too.
We ended up ordering a second time since I wasn’t completely full yet. I love tobiko. This was their tobiko roll, which I loved. Their sushi rice was really flavourful and sweet, with the right texture and the tobiko was also really crunchy.

All in all, we thoroughly loved our visit to Hime Sushi even though their portions were smaller than we were used to. Hime Sushi uses really fresh ingredients, and you can totally taste it in their dishes. I am in love with their sashimi and sushi rice. Their service was also really friendly and prompt too. We allocated one hour to eat since I had to go back to class, but we ended up finishing our meal in under 40 minutes.

-Carmen

Bestie – German sausage restaurant

March 14, 2014

After hearing many great things and seeing mouth watering pictures on the internet, we decided to give Bestie a much anticipated visit one sunny afternoon.

Bestie is nestled in Chinatown, adding to the list of recently opened gentrified, hipster-type, local restaurants in this area. I thought that this place wasn’t as great as it was hyped up to be. I really liked the decor, service, and ambiance of this place, but the portions of food were smaller than I expected. I was also a bit disappointed with my currywurst, as I’ll explain below.
I liked the interior of Bestie. It gives off a very clean and cool vibe, with the type of wood panels then use and primary colours. It kind of reminded me of a children’s play space but maybe that’s just me? Of course, they can’t be in Chinatown without having the Chinese money cat statue!

Bestie also serves up alternative specialty drinks, as seen in the corner of the picture.
The boyfriend’s currywurst with venison and blueberry ($8). Blueberry?! Yep! It actually tasted pretty decent, the blueberries gave it a sweeter flavour to it.
Friend’s butter chicken currywurst ($9-10?). Can we all take a moment to acknowledge their cute, customized spoons? I thought they were so cute, but my friend found it harder to eat with it. Since he’s a much taller and bigger person than I am, his hands were too big for the fork. I thought that was pretty funny…
I ordered the currywurst as well, with classic pork thuringer. Again, I thought it tasted alright. It tasted as healthy as a sausage could be, you could definitely tell it was healthier than the normal sausages you’d buy at Costco or something.

However, there was a lot of curied ketchup on top to the point where I couldn’t really enjoy the taste of the currywurst. I’d try to describe the taste to you but the ketchup was overpowering. My fries ended up getting soggy because of all the ketchup that was soaked in it, I ended up eating only 1/2 of it. Next time, I would definitely order the ketchup on the side if I knew!

In conclusion, we enjoyed our visit to Bestie even though my currywurst was a bit disappointing for me with the overpowering ketchup that stole the taste of the actual sausage. Their portions were smaller than I expected for the price paid. I enjoyed the decor and ambiance more than the food.

No 1 Beef Noodle House

March 11, 2014

I don’t know how they can call themselves “Number 1” when they had the worst bowl of beef noodles I’ve ever had. Even when I lived in Calgary, a city where they don’t offer nearly as much satisfying authentic Asian food, had better beef noodles.

We would have been better off cooking our own beef noodles at home, and that’s saying something because none of us know how to make it. Our visit to No 1 Beef Noodle House was really disappointing, from the service, to wait times and noodles. I can’t think of a single redeeming quality of this “restaurant”. Let’s start with the review…

When the four of us got inside, we were quickly seated. They gave us tea and it took longer than usual to flag down a server for hot water instead. When we were all ready to order, again, it took us awhile to find service. Keep in mind that the restaurant was not that busy, it was probably 3/4 full.

My friend’s chicken nuggets and rice dish came first (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture, sad face). He thought that the dish was okay, it came with a few other sides too. If we ever came again, I would order that instead.
Standard beef brisket with wide noodle: When we were ordering, the server was asking us which noodles we wanted and I asked for the wide ones, like at Wang’s or Chef Hungs.

The bowl of noodles were really disappointing. The “chopped” noodles were gross extremely soggy. The soup was really bland and had no taste to it. They also give you thinner slices of beef brisket than other restaurants (More on the beef brisket below..). The portion here was also smaller than usual, so I wasn’t particularly full or satisfied.

Oh wait! It gets worse! Initially, when the two of us got our noodles & fried chicken dish, we were waiting for the other two to get their dishes before we started eating. So, we waited… and waited.. 20 minutes came by, my friend and the boyfriend still didn’t their noodles.

They ordered the same thing as me, except with different noodles so we weren’t sure why it was taking them so long. After waiting for a long time, my friend finally decided to ask a server about their food. Of course, it took her another 5 minutes to actually wave down a server. At this point, everyone was pretty hungry and getting frustrated at the restaurant.
Spicy beef brisket with noodles: After waiting another 30 minutes for the rest of us to get our food, it finally came! I don’t understand why theirs took so long when it was similar to mine, and it wasn’t even that busy. I didn’t take a picture of my friend’s because it looked the same.

With his first bite, he didn’t taste any “spicy” soup even though his bowl cost $1.50 more. He told me to try it, and I didn’t taste any spiciness at all. Soup was bland, just like mine. Luckily, we had a side of chili paste so he ended up dumping the whole thing inside to salvage it. Of course, it gets worse, again!
This piece of brisket in the boyfriend’s and my friend’s was so hard that it was impossible to chew. They both tried to eat it but gave up after awhile because it wasn’t worth it.

Of course, finding a server was hard and when we told her that we wanted to split the bill, they didn’t understand what we meant.

No 1 Beef Noodle House was disappointing in terms of their food, service, and overall experience. After reading the reviews on Urbanspoon, I noticed that people had the same experience as us. When you read the reviews from oldest to newest, they slowly get worse and worse.

-Carmen

Tuc Craft Kitchen

March 9, 2014

Hi everyone!

Nestled in the trendy neighbourhood of Gastown, Tuc Craft Kitchen fits in perfectly with its vintage, but modern-type ambiance. Tuc features high ceilings and big windows, which makes it seem roomier and there are wooden board accents on the wall too.

My friends wanted to try this place after hearing good reviews, so we decided to go one afternoon. We all had a lovely experience here, from the accommodating and friendly staff to the delicious dishes they had to offer.
Picture taken from (http://www.vanbrosia.com/2013/08/tuc-craft-kitchen.html). Here is the exterior of the restaurant, pretty simplistic and minimal design but enough to be noticed!
Some of us got there 15 minutes before they opened for lunch, but the owner was nice enough to let us in so we didn’t have to wait outside. I really like the wooden interior and design of the restaurant, and think the white chairs make a good accent as well.
I finally settled on ordering the Tuc pot pie ($11), which consisted of Fraser Valley free run chicken, nugget potatoes, sweet peas, and carrots in a white wine/thyme creme sauce. I liked that there was a generous amount of quality chicken inside.

The top itself was really soft and flaky, which I ended up cutting into separate sections and dipping it in the sauce and chicken. It was very creamy, warm, and comforting. The salad was pretty decent too, it came with a lot of spinach which I loved and there was a sweet taste to it!
This was the chicken dip sandwich with parsnip fries ($12). I didn’t try this, but my friend said it tasted pretty good and thought it was unconventionally delicious with the dip.

The parsnip fries were definitely new to me, but I enjoyed them. More on those later…
Here is where Tuc’s service really shines through! My friend couldn’t eat meat that day due to religious reasons, and asked the server what vegetarian options were available. She told us that there weren’t many vegetarian options but that they would be happy to make a dish for her off the menu. They ended up making a customized vegetarian pasta that my friend enjoyed very much.
This was the beef brisket and pork crackling sandwich that came with a side of smashed potato fries ($13). Even though I only had a bite, I fell in love with this sandwich! The beef brisket was very tender and the pork was very crispy. When you took a bite, it would be soft but there were bits of crispy pork pieces in it too. It came on sourdough bread, with dijon mustard and pickles. So. good.
Next up was the mini shepard’s pie and soup ($9) (I believe the server told us the soup of the day was tomato and basil). My friend enjoyed her dish and I liked the presentation of it, so cute!
To share, we decided to get parsnip fries and smashed potato fries ($8~ for both), even though two of the dishes we ordered came with them already. What really made these fries stand out for me was the dipping sauce. They said it was their homemade ketchup but I have never tasted such delicious ketchup before! It was made with coriander, which made it a bit smoky and spicy but it had a hint of sweetness to it. I would order their fries again just for the ketchup.

I thought their lunch menu was really delicious and crafted with great quality. Their service was also very accommodating, fast, and friendly not to mention the beautiful decor.

Thanks for reading!
-Carmen

Dream Sushi

March 6, 2014

Hi everyone,

The boyfriend, his little brother, and I were in the neighborhood last week and were craving some sushi, so we decided to check out Dream Sushi after reading some positive reviews on Urbanspoon.

I’ve been here once a few years ago, but I don’t remember anything from my visit. However, we had a pleasant and satisfying visit at Dream Sushi and would probably come back here again if we were in the area!
So, with all the crappy and rainy weather we had recently, I didn’t get a chance to take a decent picture. Here is one I found of Google with credit to Sherman’s Food Adventures (http://www.shermansfoodadventures.com/).

It is pretty small inside, even though it’s cozy. Their walls are filled with different comments from customers on brightly coloured paper, which I thought looked pretty cool since I’ve never seen a restaurant completely fill up their walls like that.

This place is also Chinese-owned, I’m assuming with all the Cantonese I heard from all the staff.
The first thing we ordered was the salmon sashimi ($9.50). It tasted really fresh and juicy. As you can tell from the picture, the slices were pretty thick and decent too.

It came under a bed of shredded daikon. I would definitely order this again, with how fresh it tasted!
This was the paparazzi roll ($8.95), which was comprised of spicy tuna, cucumber, avocado, fried yam crisps (? I think, not too sure but it was crispy) with seared tuna tataki, spicy mayo, onions, and sesame on top. This was AMAZING.

I loved how all the ingredients tasted so perfectly with each other. This roll was made with a lot of care, quality, and detail as you can tell with the garnishing on top. It also tasted really fresh, and there was a slight crunch inside. The sashimi in this dish was also very fresh tasting as well. I would highly recommend trying this dish! YUM!
Last but not least, we ordered some regular rolls. I’ll start with the california roll ($3.50). This tasted like a regular california roll, but the avocado was really fresh.

Most restaurants either add cucumber OR avocado, but they included both in their roll. I also liked how there was sesame on top, it was a great addition to detail and made a somewhat-boring roll look more interesting. Look at those sesame seeds!
The other roll we ordered was the negitoro roll ($2.75). Nothing special about this roll, we all enjoyed it and didn’t really have any complaints. We also ordered a chopped scallop roll ($3.75). Again, nothing too special about this roll either. The last roll was the smoked salmon roll ($3.75). We were a bit disappointed with this roll because we thought it would taste better than it actually did, but maybe we had high expectations due to the other dishes.

In conclusion, we enjoyed our visit to Dream Sushi. All of their sashimi is extremely fresh, and they prepare all their rolls with detail and quality. Service was attentive as well. They weren’t overly friendly or anything, but they made our visit pleasant and were quick to come to our table, and refilled our drinks without asking.