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Curiously Carmen

Suika – Updated Visit

September 5, 2016

Suika was one of the first blog posts I’ve ever written! Two and a half years later, I am back with an updated post on one of my favourite restaurants in Vancouver. For Valentine’s Day this year, the boyfriend and I decided to just go somewhere familiar and tasty. We’ve been here a few times already, since we both love it here.
Suika Drink VancouverSuika shirley temple, $4.80: I love the drinks at Suika, and decided to order this since it’s been awhile! The Suika shirley temple comes with calpico (Japanese yogurt drink), fresh watermelon puree, soda, and lime. This was deliciously sweet, with the watermelon tasting very fresh. Unfortunately, I found out that calpico may contain milk, so I decided not to chance it and ruin our dinner and ended up only drinking half of it. I know, how sad =( The boyfriend had the rest and he thought it was pretty good.
Suika Sashimi Salad VancouverSashimi salad, $11.80: I don’t even know why I like sashimi salad so much, when I don’t even like regular salad. It must be the sesame/miso/garlic style dressing that Japanese restaurants use that I like so much, coupled with fresh seafood! It’s such a clear and healthy, yet delicious dish. Everything in this salad was delectably fresh, including the sashimi and the greens!
Suika Tuna VancouverTuna tataki, $7.20: My must order recently is the sashimi salad, and the boyfriend’s is the tuna tataki! This was very delicious with the inclusion of the home made chili oil but it wasn’t extremely spicy.
Suika Ebi Mayo VancouverEbi mayo, $9.80: We liked this the last time we came here, so decided to order it again. Unfortunately, the batter was really bland and tasteless. The batter also did not taste that fresh as well, it was a bit soggy.
Suika BibimbapKakuni bibimbap: After cracking an egg and stirring it around for you, it is recommended to let this sit for 3-5 minutes to let the stone bowl cook the rice, making it crispy! We’ve ordered this in the past and it was delicious this time as well.  We found that this had a salty fish flavour even though we only saw beef. However, the boyfriend does not like the taste of salty fish so he didn’t eat that much of it.

We were actually getting pretty full at this point and ended up packing half of this back home.
Suika Oxtail Ramen VancouverTokyo oxtail ramen, $9.80: I always get this when I come here because it’s so delicious! It is very flavourful and comes with a chunk of oxtail, that has a fair amount of tender and flavourful meat. The noodles were nice and bouncy as well!

We ended up packing some of this back too, as we were too stuffed by the end of our meal to fathom finishing it.
Suika Toro Battera VancouverAburi toro battera, $12.80. Lightly pressed fatty tuna with avocado, sesame seeds, and home made soy dressing. We haven’t ordered this before here, but man, was this DELICIOUS!

The lightly torched fatty tuna went really well with the creamy avocado and soy dressing. I let the boyfriend have most of this because he loves tuna, and wasn’t too satisfied with the bibimbap due to the salty fish.
Suika8We were looking forward to their frozen grapes, but they didn’t have it this time! =( We got candies instead. I forgot what flavour they were (I’m assuming watermelon?) but they were pretty good.

All in all, we enjoyed our visit to Suika and it never disappoints us. Most of their food is consistent (albeit the ebi mayo) and service is always quick and efficient. I would recommend trying Suika if you haven’t already! It’s a good place to go with a group of people and split the tapas over drinks.

Oh, another thing is that they’re usually fully booked with reservations on the weekend, so I would definitely recommend making a reservation before coming here.

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

 

Suika Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, japanese

G-men @ Nan Chu

August 23, 2016

Lately, I’ve been trying to diversify my food adventures and going to Richmond more often. Apart from the worst drivers in the Lower Mainland, Richmond is famous for delicious Asian food! One of the highest rated restaurants on Zomato in Richmond is G-Men, and I’ve heard great things about this place from friends.

Unfortunately, I tried to come here twice already before the third successful attempt. The first time was due to a last minute event I had to go to, and the second time was that there was no parking! Seriously, trying to find parking in that area is so difficult on a Friday night. Finally, the third time we decided to go later and were able to find parking!

Gmen1Takoyaki, $3.75: Since it was our first time here and wanted to try more of the menu, the four of us decided to split a couple of appetizers. We ordered the four piece takoyaki and this was simply delicious! It was drenched in delicious sauce and the takoyaki were a pretty decent size.
Gmen2Potato fries ($4.50): These fries were amazing! They were incredibly crispy and seasoned with such a delicious combination of herbs. We ended up ordering another plate because we all couldn’t stop eating this. In retrospect, that was a bad idea because we didn’t end up finishing the second order of fries and ended up packing it home. But seriously, this is a must try here!
Gmen3Shio ramen ($8.95): Shio broth is made with chicken broth, and is my go to flavour for ramen! Macaroni and I both ordered the shio ramen. The shio ramen definitely did NOT disappoint. This was amazing. The broth was so well rounded – incredibly flavourful and thick. Meanwhile, the meat was melt in your mouth soft.
Gmen5Tan tan men ($10.25): The boyfriend ordered this because he loves spicy peanut sauce. Again, the broth here was rich and thick, and full of spicy peanut flavour. Although I don’t love spicy peanut sauce as much as he does, I found this to be delicious as well!
Gmen4Shoyu ramen ($8.95): Cheese ordered the shoyu ramen. Again, this was just as delicious as the rest of our meal. Rich, flavourful, and a very generous quality. No complaints.

G-Men was amazing and I definitely will be back. This place lands the spot of one of my top favourite ramen places in Vancouver now. All the food we had that night was delicious and full of quality. I’m already excited for my next visit here!

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

G-men @ Nan Chu Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, japanese Tagged: comfort food, food, food blogger, food lover, foodie, japan, japanese, noodles, ramen, shio, shoyu

Sushi UOmo – Revisit

July 11, 2016

Update 11/2018: Since writing this post, it seems that Uomo has changed ownership and things have gone downhill. The prices increase each time, while the quality and quantity decreased. We have stopped going here now. 


I thought it was finally time to do a revisit post on Sushi UOmo! The last time I wrote about this place was December 2014, when we first tried it out.

Since then, UOmo has easily become our top place to go for cheap, consistently delicious sushi.

We come here probably at least once every two weeks, sometimes even more. My last review didn’t really do UOmo justice, so I finally took some pictures (after our 50th visit or more probably LOL) and will be talking about the go-to items we order here!
Uomo1Tuna tataki, $7.95: Mmmm, where to even start with how delicious this is? The tuna tataki is cut thicker here than other places I’ve been to. The ponzu sauce is full of great, tangy flavour.

Coupled with the fresh onions and slightly grilled taste of the tuna meat, we order this every time we come now.
Uomo2Sashimi salad, $8.95: If you’ve been keeping up with my food posts (and thank you if you do, I appreciate it!), you’ll know that I’ve been on a sashimi salad-loving streak lately. UOmo’s sashimi salad is what jump started my interest in sashimi salad, and has made me love it! Every time I order sashimi salad, I use UOmo as the standard to compare it with.

With that said, it’s usually pretty hard to top off, especially with the price. For $9, the plate comes with a VERY generous amount of assorted sashimi, that fills me up every time. Usually, I’m not full on salad but this hits the spot every time. It comes with an assortment of wild sockeye salmon, regular (farmed) salmon, tuna, shrimp, squid, octopus, tilapia sashimi.

I love the salad because of the generous assortment of sashimi. I used to just order salmon sashimi, but I like the salad because I get a variety of different sashimi that I normally wouldn’t order. The veggies are always fresh, and crunchy and comes with the same ponzu sauce as the tuna tataki, plus olive oil.
Uomo3Crunch roll, $4.25: The crunch roll comes with shrimp tempura and avocado on the inside, and topped with either yam or sweet potato on the outside. The tempura here is consistently fresh and crunchy, making this roll super delicious. The avocado is always nice and creamy too!
Uomo4Negitoro roll, $3.00: Yum! Our go-to maki roll, the negitoro. Negitoro is made from the tuna belly, so it contains more fat than a regular tuna sashimi. Then, it is mixed in with onions before being put into a roll. There is always a generous portion of sashimi to rice, and always tastes really fresh.
Uomo5B.C. Roll, $3.50: Funny story – I used to hate B.C. rolls. I always saw them as the ‘food scrap’ roll aka. “let’s throw the salmon skin and wilted lettuce into a roll and call it a BC roll”. Basically, as the leftover ingredients mushed into one roll.

With that said, the BC roll at UOmo is the ONLY BC roll I would voluntarily order. A traditional BC roll comes with just salmon skin, but they include a decent amount of actual salmon meat. The salmon skin is also fried and tastes really fresh, as with the lettuce.

This is the only place I’ve been to where I feel like they actually put quality in a BC roll, because other places seem to snub the BC roll. Whenever I take people here, I tell them that they must order the BC roll but I am met with the same response I had before I tried that place (‘Ew, BC roll is gross and it’s just salmon skin’.). However, their minds always change after trying a piece because it’s that good!
Uomo6Overall, UOmo is a fantastic joint and my go-to Japanese restaurant. It’s cheap, delicious, friendly service, and in the neighbourhood.

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Update 11/2018: Since writing this post, it seems that Uomo has changed ownership and things have gone downhill. The prices increase each time, while the quality and quantity decreased. We have stopped going here now. 

 

Sushi UOmo Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, japanese Tagged: delicious, food, food blogger, foodie, japanese, japanese food, sashimi, sushi

Totto Ramen, New York City (Hell’s Kitchen location)

May 12, 2016

Totto Ramen and Ippudo Ramen were both on my ‘want to try’ lists during my visit to the Big Apple. We made it to Ippudo Ramen on the first night, and also was able to try Totto Ramen a few days later! Both places are extremely popular in New York, making the wait times pretty long.

After going on the Circle Line sightseeing cruise (click link for my experience with them!), we walked over to Totto Ramen to their Hell’s Kitchen location around 9:30 pm on a Friday night. Since it was already late, we didn’t think it would be busy so we were a bit shocked to see a big crowd outside the tiny noodle joint!

We had to wait a total of 30 minutes, I can’t imagine how long you would have to wait during peak hours. If you don’t want to wait during peak hours, I suggest coming on a weekday around 5pm or something like that. Luckily, I met a couple in line who were visiting from Israel so the line went by quickly.
TottoI love Japanese culture because of how efficient everything is. While we were waiting, one of the workers went around and we all placed our order in line. As you can see, the restaurant is really crowded and small. We shared a four person table with two other customers against the wall, and there was no room for us to really move around.

So, don’t come here if you are claustrophobic! There is also really loud metal/screamo music playing.. my theory is that it makes people eat faster because of the intense music. I definitely found myself eating pretty fast, partly due to the music and because I was hungry.
Totto3Chicken paitan, $10: Totto Ramen’s original straight noodles in a rich and creamy chicken broth. This was immensely delicious, and super warm and comforting. It was raining in New York that night, so it was the perfect bowl to have. The pulled pork was also really delicious and really tender.

I found the chicken to be slightly bland, it tasted like it was just boiled but it’s still good to have some protein regardless.

There was also lots of fresh chopped onions in the broth as well. 10/10 would recommend. So good.
Totto1Miso Paitan, $12: The miso paitan has the same chicken base as mine, but with miso added to it. Again, this bowl was very delicious and flavourful. The pork was very tender and melted in my mouth, I wish we had also ordered pork on the other bowl as well!

In addition, the onions, scallions, and bean sprouts were very fresh and crunchy as well.
Totto4Here’s a closeup of the ramen noodles in the chicken paitan. They were cooked perfectly and were slightly chewy. This was my first time trying the thin ramen noodles and I really liked it!
Totto5The noodles in the miso paitan were a bit different, and were more like the ramen noodles I was used to eating back in Vancouver. Again, these were cooked perfectly and had a lovely bounce to it.

All in all, Totto Ramen was really good and worth the wait. The broth is rich and flavourful, while the noodles are bouncy and cooked perfectly. I can definitely see why there are such long waits for this place. Coming from Vancouver where ramen is already plentiful, I have high expectations for ramen and Totto definitely surpassed my expectations!

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading,
Carmen

Totto Ramen Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, japanese, New York City, travel, USA Tagged: food, food blogger, food review, foodie, japanese, japanese cuisine, new york, noodles, nyc, ramen, ramen noodles, review

Kose Sekkisei Facial Powder Wash

April 15, 2016

Last year, I was introduced to Sekkisei, a Japanese beauty company that had just launched in Canada. Sekkisei has a beautiful, royal blue packaging for all of its products. Being the communications and marketing nerd that I am, I love design consistency!

I received a number of Sekkisei products for review. However, I don’t like having super long posts so I will be dividing my Sekkisei reviews up as I try and use them more. Today, I will be focusing on the Sekkisei facial powder wash.
Kose Sekkisei Facial Powder WashOne of Sekkisei’s main selling points is that it claims to whiten skin, and make it more translucent. Fair, white skin is considered one of the most beautiful features a woman could have in the Asian culture. There are so many Asian products out there that are marketed towards whitening your skin.

In fact, if you can read Chinese characters, you will see that the first character means ‘snow’ in Chinese.

As Sekkisei is a Japanese based company as mentioned earlier, Sekkisei products are derived from both high quality Chinese and Japanese herbal extracts.

You may be wondering why a Japanese company uses Chinese characters instead of Japanese characters? The Japanese actually have three alphabets, one which is called ‘Kanji’ and uses Chinese characters on writing mixed with the other two Japanese alphabets. The meaning on paper/writing is the same, but pronunciation is completely different.

Kose Sekkisei Facial Powder Wash Anyways, back to the review. The powder wash comes in a sturdy bottle with one small opening, so that the powder does not spill everywhere. The powder is very fine, and very light. One small sneeze can send the product falling everywhere! =P

It reminded me of baby powder, but even softer. Sekkisei describes this product as a ‘skin-clarifying powder wash that leaves skin brighter than and as fine as freshly fallen snow’.

After putting the powder on your hand, lather it up by adding water. You may want to experiment with the amount of water you add to reach your desired consistency. For myself, I added a few drops of water and washed it on my face in a circular motion.

My first impression was that it lathered pretty quickly, and I loved how gentle it was on my skin. It was very smooth, yet did a decent job in making my skin feel very clean and fresh.

You can purchase Sekkisei products online or at select Shoppers Drug Mart stores in Canada!

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading,

Carmen

Press samples featured. Opinions are own. 


Filed Under: face, japanese Tagged: asian beauty, asian product, beauty, beauty blogger, beauty review, japanese, skincare

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