Latte and I always seem to have great food adventures whenever we hang out! This time, we went to Yogi Snack Bar which is in the West End by all the ramen restaurants.

It is a really cramped and small restaurant. Seems like it’s a place to quickly grab a bite and go. They don’t even have washrooms for customers here!

We decided to split everything so that we could try more items.

Soup, free: We each started off with a complementary soup. There wasn’t much flavour in it. I wouldn’t have had any if it wasn’t for the tofu slices and green onion.

Takoyaki, $6~: We saw a sign on the wall for this so decided to try it. Even though takoyaki is a Japanese origin, it was prepared very well here. The outside was crispy while the inside was delicious.

Ham kimbap $5, Bulgogi beef kimbap $6: Believe it or not, I have never ordered kimbap before! I’ve had a few pieces here and there if a friend shared with me, but never a full portion.

Anyways, my first experience ordering kimbap was great. The veggies inside tasted very fresh and was crunchy. Both rolls were delicious, the Bulgogi beef had a nice sweet flavour to it.

Spicy rice cakes, $6: Mmm, this was delicious as well. The rice cakes were drenched in a spicy sauce that had a hint of sweetness. It packed a lot of heat so don’t order this if you don’t like spicy food. The rice cakes were dense and chewy and soaked up the spiciness nicely. For only $6, this was really worth it.

Despite the cramped and stuffy seating, we enjoyed all of the dishes we got. It was good to try this place out but it would be nicer and more comfortable if there was some AC or a customer washroom here!

Yay!

When Yook opened last summer, the boyfriend and I have been talking about trying it out, since it’s pretty much the only Korean restaurant in this area. Well, it’s been almost a year and we finally came to try it out with Smores!

Yook is located on Nanaimo and East Broadway, which is more of a residential area. There are a few restaurants in this area but nothing compared to the hot spots in Vancouver. Since this is a quieter area, there is free street parking which is easy to find, although we just walked here because the location was very convenient for us.

Going inside, it seems as that Yook has renovated from the old Vietnamese restaurant that used to be there. There were a few other tables but it wasn’t super busy when we came on a Monday evening.

Tip: If you check in on Yelp, you can get a free drink!

Banchan, free: The banchan was pretty standard, nothing super good or bad about it.

Seafood and green onion pancake, $16.95: This was served to us piping hot and fresh! The outside was crispy. Our only complaint about this was that there wasn’t much seafood in it… it seemed like more of a vegetable pancake instead. There was lots of green onion though.

Bulgogi beef, $18.95: The bulgogi beef came on a sizzling hot plate and smelled amazing! Flavourwise, it was delicious as well. The beef was marinated very well and was juicy. There was a generous amount and pretty worth it for the price.

Japchae,$14.95: The japchae was so good! There was a good amount of beef inside too. I don’t remember exactly what the sauce was made out of, but I do remember that it was very delicious. Of course, the glass noodles just completed the dish because glass noodles are bomb.

Spicy dakgalbi with cheese, $18.95 + $5.00 for cheese: Koreans love their meat with cheese, so we had to order this one! This was a spicy chicken with veggie dish, which we added cheese to for an additional $5. This was SO GOOD. It packed a good amount of spice and the chicken was nice and tender. Once the cheese melted, everything went together so perfectly.

I’m not sure why we didn’t try this restaurant any sooner, but there is not a doubt that we will be back. We all left stuffed to the brim and very satisfied with our dinner!

Yay!

For Valentines Day, the boyfriend and I decided to celebrate by trying a restaurant we haven’t been to before! That, and exchanging memes that we created for each other. We are both so obsessed with memes and had an awesome time laughing until we teared up at each other’s meme creations!

Originally, we had made plans to go back to Bai Bua for Thai, but two days before, we both realized we would rather try a new place.

After a bit of Yelping, I found this place and suggested it because it looked nice and had good reviews. As well, we didn’t want to go anywhere in Vancouver on Valentines Day, as parking would be hard to find. Can you tell how much we hate waiting in lines for food and looking for parking?
Maru Korean Bistro is located in North Vancouver, by Lonsdale Quay/seabus terminal. From reading the reviews online, it opened a little under a year ago. I would say it is walkable from Lonsdale Quay, but there is a steep hill! The boyfriend and I go to Lonsdale Quay quite often in the summer because it is a quick drive and offers a beautiful view of downtown Vancouver’s skyline.

Since we hate waiting in lines, reservations were a must on Valentines Day. Ain’t nobody got time to wait in line and glare at customers who are happily eating when the hanger hits.

The girl on the phone was really friendly, and when I asked her how booked up they were for Valentines Day, she said they didn’t have that many reservations yet. I took as a good and bad sign =P

An hour before our reservation, she called us to confirm which was greatly appreciated. I took their friendliness on the phone as a great prelude to our dinner!
There is street parking outside but it may be hard to find, depending on the time you go. Luckily, we found the last spot just steps away from the restaurant. Walking into Maru, we were really surprised at how big it actually was! It appeared that they separated the restaurant into two. The picture above is where all the customers that night were seated, ourselves included.

There was another seating area in the back that was 3x larger than this, which we assumed was reserved for larger parties or overflow.
Korean seafood pancake, $12: Of course we had to try their seafood pancake! Unfortunately, the seafood pancake was pretty disappointing due to the lack of seafood. There was barely ANY seafood in there, except for maybe a few pieces of very tiny frozen shrimp and skinny squid pieces. It felt more like a veggie pancake.

Despite that, the texture was perfect and I liked how it was crunchy. The dipping sauce was slightly spicy, which we enjoyed as well. But we probably wouldn’t order this again because of the lack of seafood.
Korean fried chicken, $8.50: The Korean fried chicken came with a Korean chili sauce, which I would describe as spicy but also a bit sweet. Like sweet chili, but packed with a lot more heat! This dish was delicious!

The fried chicken was fresh, and had a variety of different textures with the pumpkin seed, cole slaw, and chewy ricecakes.
Open faced BBQ pork bun, $8: The BBQ pork bun came with slow-braised pork belly, kimchi, shredded lettuce, garlic chips, jalapeno, and mayo. I really loved the soft and doughy bread, which reminded me of the Chinese man tao buns or steamed buns. Because of that, this was a very comforting dish to me.

The pork belly was juicy and flavourful, and there was a lot of mayo, making it creamy. The veggies inside the pork bun were also fresh and crunchy. However, the fresh bun was my favourite part, surprisingly!

Soft tofu soup with seafood, $12: Yummmm! Adding to the deliciousness, the soft tofu soup was tasty as well. There was a nice spicy kick to it. Actually, not just a small kick- more like a full body karate kick to the face. Spicy food lovers would definitely enjoy this! The boyfriend drank more of the soup, and his nose was running by the end of the meal.

There was a decent amount of soft tofu and vegetables inside. We ate this with the bowl of rice, which was really comforting and warming for the rainy evening.

One disappointing thing about the tofu soup is that there was barely any seafood! With what seafood we did salvage, they were tiny pieces and did not taste fresh at all. It seems that the pattern here is that they aren’t generous with their seafood at all, and they are also very tiny and unfresh pieces.

Despite the lack of seafood in our seafood dishes, we left really satisfied which is saying something. Everything else was very flavourful and executed very well. We were discussing what our favourite dishes were that night, and we both couldn’t decide! It was a tossup between the BBQ pork buns, fried chicken, or spicy broth.

Bonus picture of the meme books that we made for each other! It’s amazing how well you know a person’s habits and quirks based on the amount of memes you can come up with for them. <3

Yay!