Curiously Carmen

Toyotomi, Richmond

April 21, 2014

My friend heard that this place was really good for AYCE hotpot and sushi, and after much speculation and anticipation, the six of us went to try it out for the first time. Prior to our visit, I was obsessively reading my fellow Urbanspoon-er’s reviews to know what I should be aware of. So thank you, fellow reviewers for giving me the heads up! We came prepared 🙂

Previous reviews warned us that Toyotomi was a bit confusing to find, especially their parking and entrance. They were correct.

They were pretty strict about parking in the right area, and you had to put down your license plate number or risk getting towed. Toyotomi is located on the bottom floor of an office building. I noticed that the lobby of the building smelled really nice, like laundry.

When we walked in, we were greeted by an elaborate table of empty alcohol decorations. Whoa!
We made reservations for 7:30, since people said that this place gets really busy. It was probably about 1/2 full when we went. Our table was very awkwardly placed. On one side of the table, was booth seating and then there were four other chairs.

However, the table was shorter than the booth and the chairs were awkwardly placed, so that the person sitting at end couldn’t really reach the hot pot. They also didn’t have a built in stove like most hot pot places, just the portable ones which I guess makes it more flexible for them, incase customers don’t want hot pot.
We were also well aware of their strict food wastage policy, so we ordered very carefully. The menu above is their AYCE menu. We chose deluxe since people said that’s the best value, because you get sashimi and more hot pot items.

You can also get AYCD (drink) which cost an additional $4, but I think everyone at the table had to order it. Sauces, and extra toppings cost $0.5 approximately as well.
For an extra $1, you can get two soup bases. We decided on getting the Japanese chili and Japanese bone. The servers were really good at coming by frequently to make sure our soup didn’t run out.

Both of the soup bases were really flavourful. The chili one had a mild spiciness to it, while the bone broth was like a standard, lighter broth. Both tasted pretty different from each other.
Our first round of meat! We ordered AAA prime rib, sirlon beef, fatty beef, lamb, and lean beef. All of them might not be pictured here, as I mentioned in the intro. All of the meat was really juicy,tender and delicious!
Next up, came our other hot pot items served under a bowl of ice. We ordered pork blood, prawns, beef omasum, pork dumplings, and shrimp dumplings.

The pork dumplings were disappointing because they tasted exactly like the frozen ones that you buy at TNT. I also didn’t taste or see any shrimp in the “shrimp dumpings”, but just some sort of seaweed and other meat in it instead. Other than the dumplings, the rest of the items in that bowl were tasty.
My gosh! Look at all that sashimi! The sashimi made it worth the deluxe for sure. Each piece of salmon and tuna was so thick, sweet, and juicy. They definitely did not skimp out with their sashimi.
This next bowl was kind of random. I’ve never seen onion rings, fries, or sausages offered at an Asian AYCE but hey, it was good! We completely devoured this bowl.

My friend couldn’t even wait for me to finish the picture before digging in, as you can see from the chopstick. The onion rings and fries were really crispy. The fries reminded us of Costco fries, which are the best! The takoyaki balls were also really delicious, the skin was pretty crispy. The fried chicken was really juicy, crunchy, and seasoned well!
Up next were our rolls. We ordered california rolls, and a special house roll. I didn’t try the california roll, but the special house roll was amazing. The shrimp tempura inside was super crispy and juicy. The topping was tuna sashimi, with crunchy flakes and special sauce. We ended up ordering so many more of these after because they were simply delicious!
This was the beef sashimi. I don’t eat beef sashimi, but David said that the beef was extremely tender and they ordered many more rounds of this. It also came with a ponzu sauce which complimented the beef perfectly.
Behold! The spicy salmon and tuna sashimi. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be this delicious, especially for AYCE. The spicy sauce had a mild sweetness to it. The sashimi was also really thick, like the non-spicy sashimi. It came with a crunchy topping mixed inside which I loved, it gave the sashimi a good crunch. The onions on top were also a tasty garnish.
This was our seaweed salad. Nothing too special about it. It came in a really, really small bowl (think soya sauce sized) and with a small quantity. It was pretty crunchy and flavourful, but I wouldn’t order it again just because their other dishes are so much better.
After ordering many rounds of each dish I mentioned, we were ready for dessert. Again, I’ve never seen frozen pineapples offered as a snack/dessert before so I was intrigued. The pineapples came rock-frozen, but eventually melted so that only the inside was frozen. This was a great, healthy (non fattening), and light dessert to an overwhelming indulgent and gluttonous meal. The pineapples were very, very sweet, and did not have any freezer burn taste to it. They were the cherries to the top of a fabulous cake!

Overall, we had a really pleasant and worthwhile visit to Toyotomi. Each person ended up paying $25 (not including tips). Since it was our first time, we didn’t know what to expect but I was impressed with their service, and the quality of their food. What stood out the most was their sashimi and the quality of beef. I can’t wait to come back here again! I also can’t believe I’ve never heard of this place until recently!

-Carmen

Bubble Queen

April 20, 2014

Bubble Queen is a very popular bubble tea joint in the Lower Mainland. My favourite is their fresh mango bubble tea with chunks of fresh mango on top, but I decided not to get that today because I have plenty of mangoes at home right now.

Their fresh mango bubble tea is to die for- it is creamy, sweet, blended perfectly, and on top of that, they add a generous amount of fresh mango chunks on top.
Upon walking in, we were really surprised that there were only five other customers here on a Saturday night (This picture above was taken from Yelp). I’ve been here five other times, and the line up is usually out the door.
I noticed that they have moved their menu on the wall, they used to have menus that customers pass around. It was easier to read, but there was so much on the menu, making it hard to decide what to get! I imagine that the menu would be hard to read when there are a lot of people, since the line up goes in front of it.
More options! If you choose the specialty drinks, you can get free pearls. However, the cost of the speciality drinks are at least $1-2 dollars more expensive, so I’m not sure if you’re actually getting a good deal or not. They also serve bubble waffles or toast boxes as well.
Notice all their mangoes in the fridge and shelf? Yummm! I’ve never seen this place so empty before. I also noticed that the floors were really, really sticky and the tables desperately needed to be wiped down. However, if you’re just grabbing takeout, it’s not a problem.
I finally decided on getting the passion fruit calpis slush with pearls. I always get their fresh mango slush with mango chunks on top, but I felt like having a change today. The other drink is their coconut slush with pearls. Both drinks came to $10.10.
I didn’t really taste the calpis juice in my drink, the passion fruit was very strong. I feel like this would taste better not as a slush, since calpis is usually served just like a juice. I probably won’t order this flavour with calpis again, because it was too sweet for me and I didn’t taste any calpis! The pearls were very warm, but as I mixed my slush with the pearls, they tasted pretty good. They were chewy and sweet!
The coconut slush with pearls was so good! It was so creamy, rich, and frothy with a strong coconut taste. I liked how smooth it was. I wish I had ordered this one instead!
Also would like to point out their enourmous stack of chocolates for their bubble tea! Overall, Bubble Queen has very good bubble tea at a decent price. I predict that as the weather becomes warmer, I will be paying more visits to this joint!

-Carmen

Ramen Sanpachi

April 19, 2014

People say it’s hard to mess up ramen because it’s just broth, and noodles but there’s much more to it. The broth should be made from good ingredients and from scratch, or it’s not going to taste good.

My visit to Ramen Sanpachi fell short, and I was disappointed with the broth and questioned it’s authenticity.
We decided to come here since the boyfriend has been here before and he liked it. We found meter parking pretty easily. I was a bit confused because in the picture, it looks like Sanpachi is the smaller restaurant on the left, right?

But turns out, the right side is part of the restaurant too… talk about change in style. I thought it was two different restaurants, but when I read the hirigana on Google street view (what basic Japanese I know came in handy, heh), it was the same place! Weird.
We were expecting it to be busy since it was Friday evening, but there were only two other tables. When we first came in, I noticed a sign advertising their “Taiwanese beef noodles”… I saw that as a warning sign to its “authenticity” but I decided to overlook it.

I also read reviews on Urbanspoon that this place wasn’t authentic, because one of the servers asked if they could speak Chinese to the customer because it was easier.
Here is the ramen menu. They have a story on their background, where they started in Japan and expanded internationally. Their miso broth is their specialty, and to this day, only the family knows exactly what is in the broth.

A couple of the ramen dishes on the right let you chose the type of soup base you wait (miso, shoyu, shio, yatai, spicy), and come with more cha-shu pork for an extra $3 which I have never seen before at other ramen joints.
This is where the semi-disappointment begins. I settled on ordering the shio ramen because I wanted a saltier and rich broth. The first thing I noticed was how clear the broth looked, when I’m used to having creamy, and rich broth with my shio ramen. Although Benkei cheaps out on the pieces of meat they give you, they have their broth made really well and I never realized it until I came here.

This broth lacked the creamy richness associated with shio ramen. It was also too salty to be tasty. The redeeming qualities about this ramen was that the ramen noodles were cooked al-dente, and their cha-shu pork was lean and there was more than what we got at Benkei . The boyfriend joked that I should have gotten the noodles that came with a stick of butter, to make it more creamy and rich.
The boyfriend got the cha shu ramen with miso broth ($13). I was secretly glad he ordered the miso broth since, as I mentioned above, it was their specialty and maybe it’s only the shio broth that was disappointing? His soup tasted better, and wasn’t as salty as mine. It also had more taste. His ramen came with a lot more cha shu, which was lean and well-cut as well unlike the paper thin ones we got at Benkei . If I had known beforehand, I would have ordered the miso broth since it tasted better than mine.

I have yet to figure out if Sanpachi is authentic or not, because some of the other reviews on Urbanspoon say that the chef is from Japan. After this experience, I think I will just eat at the ramen joints on the West End, at least I know I won’t be disappointed there.

Read my separate review at Benkei here 🙂

-Carmen

Tomokazu (Late night AYCE)

April 18, 2014

My friends and I wanted late night AYCE one night, and decided to come here. I came here a few years back and it was decent as far as AYCE goes, so we decided to come back. Overall, our visit was pleasant. We found out from trial and error which AYCE foods to order, and which to stray away from. If you want to save you and your tastebuds the hassle, keep reading on!

The restaurant is not brightly lit at all, as you can see from this picture. We actually parked at the wrong restaurant initially, because there was a Korean/Japanese restaurant on the second level two blocks down Broadway. I thought that they had just changed the exterior and added Korean food to their offering, but nope.
We came for the late night AYCE. For those who don’t know, some AYCE restaurants offer a discounted rate if you go after a certain time. For Tomokazu, it was 9:30. Their late night AYCE menu isn’t as extensive as their regular menu, but it’s cheaper!
Here are the first four dishes that came, starting with the salmon and tuna sashimi. As expected, the sashimi pieces were pretty small and did not taste super fresh, but still passable. The tuna pieces in particular were really tiny, like tiny mini erasers.

There is also a limit of 6 pieces of EACH sashimi that you could order per round (max 12 per round). I forgot about the miso soup and it turned cold, when I drank it it tasted pretty watery. You could tell that the spinach gomae had been in the fridge the whole day, but it was still pretty tasty due to the rich peanut butter sauce. The spinach itself did not taste bad either, it was pretty juicy. I ended up ordering 2 more orders of this because I liked how juicy and refreshing the chilled spinach was.

I laughed when the salmon teriyaki came because it was so thin, but it was cooked well and decent.
Next came our rolls, which were pretty good! The salmon maki tasted like a regular roll you would order at a restaurant. The chopped scallop cone had a generous portion of scallop, we were all pretty impressed.

We ordered one seafood cone because we were curious, and it was pretty good as well! It came with cooked salmon and mayo. The beside it was the BC Roll , I’m not a fan of salmon skin but my friends liked it. Next was the Tomokazu special roll which we ordered because my friend is very adventurous and has a “why not” attitude when it comes to ordering. We were glad that we ordered it since it was very tasty!

We agreed that this plate alone was worth the money, because when you go to restaurants, cones are around $4 each!
All of these plates were so good! The agedashi tofu was very crispy, I’m pretty sure it was made fresh which is rare for AYCE! I didn’t try the seafood and oyster motoyakis, but my friends both loved it. It was very cheesy, and the seafood one came with a lot of salmon. I loved the chicken karage. It was crispy, well seasoned, and cooked well. We ordered a lot of them afterwards too. The korean BBQ pork was really good as well. It was seasoned and grilled perfectly and cut into small strips.
But wait, there’s more! The hokkigai tasted pretty chewy and rubbery to me, so I probably wouldn’t order this again. The beef teriyaki was very sweet, but towards the end, the remaining beef was very mushy and looked like stew. The BBQ chicken wing was good according to my friend, I was too busy eating the rest of the chicken karage to try this. Finally, the gyoza which my friend thought tasted pretty good (At this point, I was stuffed and wanted to save room for jello).
After drinking more tea and resting, we were ready to stuff ourselves with jello! My friend noted that some places keep their jello with the seafood, so it ends up tasting like fishy jello. He was happy when he found out this was not the case here. However, I noticed that some restaurants keep their jello out for so long that the edges of the jello become kinda hard and dry, but this was not the case either. It was pretty decent jello!

Overall, we had a great experience at AYCE. I personally came with low expectations because it’s AYCE, you can’t expect supreme quality when you’re getting as much food as you possibly can.

Service was average, the workers didn’t really come to top our tea or anything, but it was fine. We ended up staying for more than 1.5 hours (the maximum time limit), but they let us sit and digest our food until they closed.

-Carmen

St. Augustine’s Pub

April 17, 2014

I am done with exams and school in general! Well, until the end of this month… but still, I’ll take a reason to celebrate with good company, beer, and nachos!

I love St. Augustine’s for their awesome beer selection and cheap paddles! For those who don’t know what their beer paddle is, keep on reading. St Aug’s is my go-to pub when I want some good beer. They offer over 60 beer taps, so you have a pretty huge selection, from IPAs, lagers, stouts, and pale ales, and more. Even if you don’t like beer, their food menu is pretty delicious as well.
I was pretty surprised at how busy St. Aug’s was on a weekday night. We had to move to a bigger table since more people ended up joining us, but thankfully, there was a table of nice customers who switched their seats so that we could combine two tables.
Their beer menu changes daily, even hourly. I almost always order the paddle when I come here, because I am so indecisive. The paddle consists of 4 tap beers of your choice. It is around $9 for four 4oz beer samples. I decided to split the paddle today with the boyfriend. The following beers are seen from left to right!

Steveston hefeweizen- This had some wheat, banana and cereal flavour in it. I liked how it was full-bodied and had some citrus aromas to it!
What the huck- I chose this one because it claimed to have a berry flavour (huckleberry-hah get it?) and aroma to it. Indeed, it did! The brewery added berry juice after filtration, which gives it its colour and sweetness. However, it wasn’t sweet enough to taste just solely of berry juice of course! I liked the sweet, slightly tart but smooth finish to it.
Old boy classic ale- Had a darker and roastier smell to it than the previous two. It was creamy, and had flavour hints of coffee and caramel. If you’re into dark and heavy flavours, this one is a good choice. I loved it!
Smooth criminal- Smooth criminal was very dark, malty, and creamy. There was notes of chocolate and coffee in this one. It was definitely very “smooth” like their name says. Out of all four, I enjoyed this one the most because it was so smooth and dark. I was craving an oatmeal stout for so long and this one really fulfilled my cravings.
We always order nachos to share when we come here because it’s such a large portion for $16. I was a bit disappointed with their nachos because there wasn’t that much cheese with it.

There was a lot of sour cream and I wish they had more cheese instead. It would also be nice to have a different variety of nacho chips. I have definitely had better nachos before, but these are alright. Tomatoes and onions on the top were pretty fresh, as were the peppers.
I was really hungry, and ordered their salami pizza ($9)! I was surprised at how big the dish was. This dish tasted a lot better than the nachos, and I fell in love! There was a generous portion of meat and jalapeno peppers.

It also wasn’t oily, and had a thin crust so it didn’t make me feel greasy afterwards. This pizza is also very spicy due to the amount of jalapenos based inside, so consider yourself warned!
Two of my friends ordered their classic burger ($15), which came with a choice of regular fries, yam fries, or salad.
My friend ordered the tea saison beer, which I was curious to try since it had rooibos tea in it?! I had mixed feelings and decided to give it a taste. I was oddly surprised at how well the flavours went together. The tea saison was more fruity,with notes of mangoes, apple, and papaya.
My other friend ordered the vaporizer. I didn’t try it, but the menu described it as “dry and hoppy”.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to take pictures of everyone else’s beer/drinks but I hope you enjoyed the ones I managed to captured!

Overall, St. Augstine’s offers a great selection of beer and I would definitely recommend this place if you like beer. Nachos are average, but their pizza and burgers are a lot better.

It is always busy here, which I take as a good sign. Service is either a hit or miss. We’ve had times where we had great service, but we’ve also had rude and sporadic service. I guess it just depends on who is working that day, but their service has seen both ends of the spectrum.

-Carmen