seafood Archives - Page 5 of 8

Momo Sushi

November 9, 2015

Ah, how I miss working in downtown and having effortless access to a plethora of mouthwatering food. Fortunately, there are occasional days where I get to work in downtown so I take advantage of those days! This time around, I wanted to try something new for the sake of my blog yet close to our building.

Casual Japanese restaurants in downtown doesn’t really catch my eye since I find it a bit overpriced in that area, but we drove by Momo Sushi in the morning and my coworker heard good things about it. Plus, I really wanted a warm bowl of udon as it was really chilly that day. After a busy day of work, it was pretty much early evening and we decided to stop searching for places and go there as we were both hungry.
Momo Sushi is located right on the border of downtown and Gastown. Walking in, I actually had no idea how big the restaurant was because they have an entire lower level that you can’t see from the outside of the restaurant. The steps are pretty wide, with a booth on either side of the stairs, which was where we were seated.

The neon signage looked like a throwback to the 80s, but I thought that the 3D installation they had was pretty cute. The carpet, booths, and supplies looked pretty worn out and have probably seen better years, but they still served their purpose. The restaurant also had an old musky wooden building smell to it, but that’s because it is located in a historic building.
Salad, miso soup, complimentary rice bowl: Since my coworker ordered a bento box, it came with the standard salad and miso soup. The miso soup was your average miso soup, but didn’t have much seaweed in it. It was also served nice and warm.

I didn’t know that our order came with a complimentary rice bowl, topped with seaweed and tobiko. Since I was already having a bowl of carbs, I didn’t eat much of the rice but I enjoyed the seaweed and tobiko. It was a nice & small snack to munch on while waiting for the main dishes. Both seaweed and tobiko tasted fresh and had a good crunch to it.Beef udon, $7.50: I was craving a nice bowl of warm noodles since it was cold and my throat was a bit sore. The beef udon satisfied my craving but I found it to be very salty! I poured some hot water to dilute the soup and also found myself asking for multiple refills of water to quench my thirst.

The udon was cooked perfectly, while the beef was thinly sliced and there was an average amount. It also came with a couple pieces of fish ball. Can’t complain for the price, especially in the downtown area!

Bento box C, $10.25: When my coworker’s bento box arrived, we both admitted that the presentation didn’t look too appetizing. The box was too big for the food, making the portion look smaller than it actually is – the wasabi in the middle of an empty section just looks awkward.

Presentation aside, the tempura was fried in old oil judging from the colour of the batter. My coworker thought her dish was a bit disappointing but still ended up finishing it anyways.

Negitoro roll, $2.95: Again, the presentation of this was not the best but the taste itself was not bad! The tuna and onions tasted pretty fresh.

Dynamite roll, $4.50: Clearly, presentation is not their strong suit LOL, that uneven cutting doe. Although the prawn looked very fat at the end piece, there was none in the last two pieces.

While my coworker was eating this, I told her that I thought she ordered a dynamite roll instead of a california roll? She said she did order a dynamite roll, but the prawn was just very small. It ended up looking just like a california roll without the tempura.

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Their prices are pretty decent for the downtown area, I find that a lot of Japanese places in downtown are overpriced. The service was also very attentive and friendly. It’s not the best here, but it’s not the worst either. It’s a good place for a quick bite to eat, and I would come back if I was craving some quick Japanese food.

Jo Ju Hot Pot

October 9, 2015

The Heights neighbourhood has a plethora of cuisines to choose from… from the familiar to the more daring choices. However, the one thing that has been missing in that area is a bubble tea shop, ever since Pearl Drops closed down. I really miss that place.

So you could imagine my happiness when we were driving by this area and I saw a new restaurant signage indicating that they serve bubble tea! I was so excited that I messaged a couple of my friends right away to tell them. Sadly, I kept forgetting the name of the restaurant although it was in the back of my mind the next week… I wanted to read reviews on it but I didn’t know the name and it did not show up on Zomato yet… ahhhh! The next time we drove by, I made a mental note to myself to remember the name. Jo. Ju. Jo ju. Jo ju hot pot….!!

Cheese was helping me on a project one evening in August, so I suggested that we go try that place out before working.
After parking at one of the many free parking lots in this neighbourhood close by, we arrived at the restaurant. It wasn’t really busy, as you can tell from my picture above. We were seated pretty quickly and service throughout our visit was quick and friendly.

The restaurant was pretty clean and simple, most of the furniture there seemed pretty new. It was also pretty spacious and didn’t feel too cramped, with lots of natural light coming through the big windows.
I really did not like the design of the menu, and I felt that the pictures looked very inaccurate.. as if they took it from the internet. Furthermore, Cinnamon had visited this place before me and sent me some pictures, which looked nothing like the menu pictures! So, a word of advice… don’t order based on the menu pictures!

I ordered the seafood hot pot, which came with a bowl of rice on the side.

The broth did not have much depth and was pretty plain, but it wasn’t bad either. It was pretty average. It came with an egg, some shrimp, fish balls, and a mussle which I found on the bottom. You could definitely tell that the shrimp came frozen and did not have a bounce to it.

However, the portion was pretty big. I came in the restaurant really hungry, but left really full from this dish! If you are just moderately hungry, I don’t believe that you’ll need the rice bowl.
The egg came poached and hard, probably due to the hot temperature of the soup. If you’re not a big fan of hard poached eggs, I would recommend that you let them know or it will come out as a hard poached egg.

I also ordered it with medium spice, you can kind of see the spice in the picture. I didn’t find it spicy at all though.
Cheese ordered the signature BBQ meat on rice, but sadly, he thought it was disappointing. There was nothing special about this, you could easily cook this at home for a lot cheaper.

Originally, we were going to try the bubble tea but were too full after our meals to think about ordering a drink!

Overall, the food at JoJu Hot Pot is mediocre at best but it does fill you up. I know that they’re new, so I’m willing to come back another time to see if they have improved. There is not much special about their food, nor is it bad.. it’s just very plain, mediocre, and boring.

In a place like The Heights where there are plenty of restaurants to choose from, or just Vancouver in general, this is definitely nothing special or worth driving out for. It would be a place to go to if you were in the area, and definitely not a place where you would be craving.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

The Fish Counter

September 29, 2015

Before summer ended, I spent the afternoon with Gin exploring Main Street. Both of us had been wanting to try The Fish Counter for a long time, and couldn’t find a better time to check it off both of our lists.
The Fish Shop serves up sustainable seafood, and all products are Ocean Wise. The place reminded me of a cool, local seafood shop.

Since it was a nice and sunny day, the windows were all open and so was the patio. The sun was coming in, the air was fresh and warm – what more could you ask for?

It took us quite a while to decide on what to order as everything looked so delicious! We ended up splitting three items for lunch.

The first thing we ordered was the special that day, the Greek fish taco. This caught my eye because I am a HUGE fan of Greek food and I can’t pass down anything with tzatiki sauce. Seriously, I don’t normally tend to finish all my dipping sauces with my food but when it’s tzatiki sauce… I’ll gobble it up so fast before you know it was there!

Everything tasted really fresh but unfortunately, we both found this taco to be lacking in taste and very plain.

We were torn between the chowder and BC bouillabaisse, and ended up deciding on the latter. This soup was seriously amazing and was a seafood lover’s dream. There was an extremely generous amount of seafood – with every scoop we had, there was an abundance of fish, clams, shrimp, etc that came along with it.

We really enjoyed the soup and would order it again in a heart beat! I must warn you though, if you’re not a seafood lover, you might find this soup a bit too ‘fishy’ but we thought it was absolutely perfect.
The last thing we ordered was the crab and shrimp baguette, or pretty much a shrimp/crabcake baguette 😉 Again, all the ingredients were really fresh and the flavours went well together. The baguette was nice and soft too, while the side salad came with fresh and crunchy vegetables.

I would recommend squeezing a bit of lemon juice on top to further accentuate the flavours!

Since this place is mostly self serve, you clean up after yourself once you’re done eating.

Overall, we really enjoyed our first experience at The Fish Shop and I would recommend this place if you’re a seafood lover. All the ingredients they use are really fresh and the quality of the food is definitely there. Since the seating area is a bit limited, this would be a good place to order take out as well. The staff are also extremely nice and welcoming.

On the other side of the restaurant is their actual fish shop! We didn’t buy any seafood to bring home to cook that day, but the option is there for those who want to.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Richmond Night Market 2015 – Part 1/2

June 24, 2015

Hi everyone!

Last year, I wrote a post on the Richmond Night Market so I thought I would do one again this year. That post received quite a few views, so I figured that you readers like to hear what’s good/bad at the nightmarket!

There are two nightmarkets in Richmond, this is the one by River Rock Casino (the more popular one to go to). There is free parking, but the lot was apparently ‘full’ so we drove around the area for a good 15-20 minutes looking for parking. But when we actually walked across the parking lot, half the lot was empty so I’m not sure why they said it was ‘full’. =.=”

Admission to enter the nightmarket is $2.75 per person. You can buy a booklet with 10 entry stamps and skip the long line ups if you think you’ll be coming here often though! Even though the line was long, we waited under ten minutes.

I took a picture of the booth at the top, followed by what we ordered underneath. All the food here is cash only! Although it is street food, it’s not exactly cheap.
The boyfriend loves his takoyaki, and quickly set off looking for a takoyaki stand! While I was in line for squid, he came back with this!

We enjoyed the flavours of the takoyaki. It was well seasoned, tasted fresh, and came with a generous amount of flakes and sauce on top!
While he is obsessed with takoyaki, I am obsessed with squid and a trip to the nightmarket is not complete without some grilled squid.

I ordered the ‘signature’ squid, which had a salty but sweet aftertaste. The squid was nice and crunchy, with a hint of smokiness from the grill.

My friend ordered the ‘garlic lovers’ squid, which I liked more than the signature. The flavours felt more rounded and I liked the strong garlic taste, compared to the sweet aftertaste that I had with the signature. They were both delicious, but my personal preference was the garlic lovers.

My friend, who came here a few weeks before us, said not to get the bubble waffle from the ‘orange stand’, so we went to this place instead LOL.

Although the wait time was pretty long, it was worth it. The bubble waffle was nice and puffy, with a crisp exterior and soft interior.

Thanks for reading! I felt that this would be too long of a post if I included all the food we tried, so stay tuned for part 2 =)

-Carmen

Hapa Izakaya (Coal Harbour) –

June 4, 2015

Hi everyone!

In May, some friends and I met up to chat over some happy hour appies. I’ve heard great things about Hapa hour, so we decided to go to the Coal Harbour location. Although our conversations were great, we all left slightly disappointed with the food.

With my horrific experience at the Kits location in January in mind, Coal Harbour was not as bad. Actually, my experience at Hapa Beach was probably the worst restaurant experience I’ve had in the past year or more. When I think of bad food and bad service, my mind automatically goes to Hapa Beach. You can read about it here…
We ordered the grilled squid, which came with a garlic soy marinade. I didn’t really taste the marinade, and found it to be very bland and overly chewy. The only flavour the squid had was a slight smoky flavour from the grill.
Next up was the spicy tuna roll. This was also very bland and the quality of the ahi tuna was very poor. It lacked flavour, and didn’t taste fresh.

This was probably the worst spicy tuna roll I’ve had. For a higher end Japanese restaurant, I expected a lot more as I can go to a cheaper place for better tasting rolls.
Continuing along with the disappointment, came the beef tataki. Again, the beef lacked any flavour and was very dry. Although the menu said ‘lightly seared’, the edges of the beef were seared so much that it was chewy and rubbery.

The beef was also shriveled up due to how poorly it was seared.
The hapa hot wings were perhaps the worst of all. Seriously, this dish was a huge mess and we all weren’t sure what they were trying to make. To start, the only good thing about the wings was that they were crispy and fresh. There was no flavour at all in the wings.

It also came sprinkled with some sort of chopped tomato/salsa mix which made us really confused??? Like why? It did not go with the chicken wings at all!

Then, the side dipping sauce was even weirder and did not go with the already weird salsa mix/bland chicken wing combo. We weren’t even sure what it was, it tasted like a cold puree slop of some kind????

LOL. As well, the menu had said they were ‘hot wings’, yet there was no hint of spice or even traces of pepper. Did the kitchen staff blindfold themselves and chuck whatever was available into the chicken, and not bother to season it? This dish was just so weird, tasteless, and random… we really weren’t sure what was going on here.
The only thing that we liked that day was the ebi mayo. The prawns were big and fresh, and had a nice snap to them. They were also nice and crispy and the sauce was flavourful as well.

Safe to say that we will not be coming back to hapa hour and we were all really disappointed with the food. In fact, I’m not sure if I want to go back to the Hapa Izakaya chain in general as it seems the food quality has diminished at a fast rate. Two years ago, I really enjoyed my dinner at Hapa but I’m not sure what was happened recently.

In a city like Vancouver where there are LOTS of competitors for Japanese cuisine, Hapa needs to step up their game or they will become lost in the sea of Japanese restaurants.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen