Curiously Carmen

A&W – Fast food coupons!

March 19, 2014

I’ve had a pretty school-intensive week, so this post is just for fun, short and sweet. Seeing that we didn’t have anything to cook and didn’t want to spend a lot of money, we saw forgotten coupons hidden under a few clothes and decided to go there.

I was so excited for the 30 minutes we were at home waiting for my laundry to finish so that we could go! I love this location because they give you these awesome frozen mugs for your root beer and cool metal fry baskets.

a&w root beer! SO GOOD, especially in these frozen glass mugs. The foam on the top actually turned to ice because of the mug.
Our two teen burgers, root beers, and fries.
YUMMMM. A&W claims to have 100% natural beef, free of preservatives, hormones, and ll of that unpleasant stuff. The onions and pickles in here were also so fresh and crunchy. Definitely an amazing burger for a fast food joint! I didn’t feel stuffed or gross afterwards like I usually do after having fast food, so I guess their ingredients are pretty good for fast food.

Also, I thought this wall was really cute 🙂

-Carmen

Pekoe Tea Lounge

March 17, 2014

I am so excited to share this review with you! I stumbled upon this place completely by accident, the boyfriend and I were at the hospital visiting someone and after we left, we noticed there was still quite a bit of time on the meter.

We decided to check out Pekoe Tea Lounge which was right across from the hospital. Finding cute and quaint cafes make me so happy, I’m glad we stumbled upon this hidden gem.

They have a broad tea selection (Probably more than David’s Tea just to give you an idea), and the sitting area is absolutely lovely. It’s a perfect place for conversation over a delicious cup of steaming, hot tea.

Upon entering, the first thing I noticed was the shelves on shelves and shelves of tea. There was a lovely table featuring mini tins of their tea selection for customers to see and smell before ordering. I probably spent about 5 minutes going around the table smelling each tea that caught my eye.

I love how they have this feature as opposed to places like David’s Tea or Teavana, where you have to ask the worker to smell the different teas. You can also buy tea tins in different sizes.

I finally settled on ordering the Hawaiian Cocktail, a herbal fruit tea that consisted of candied pineapples, papayas, mangoes, and lemon peel.

My favourite teas at the moment are fruity teas, and although they had a huge selection of fruity teas, I picked this one because it smelled really fruity and sweet. The mangoes in it smelled so good! I enjoyed the fruity aroma and taste of this tea.
The boyfriend got the Jasmine Dragon Pearls, which smelled really good as well. Also, not sure if you notice on the cup, but the sleeve was an advertisement for a Japanese airline. All the workers spoke Japanese as well so I’m assuming this place is Japanese-run!
Here are the fancy and detailed glass cups you can get if you choose to drink your tea in store. We came 15 minutes before closing so there wasn’t a point of ordering it for here, it also cost a bit more.

I was reading reviews afterwards, and a food blogger mentioned that this seemed unsanitary since the top cups are just lying face up in the open.
All in all, we really enjoyed our fast but enjoyable visit to Pekoe Tea Lounge. I’m really glad we discovered this place, we will definitely be back again! I wish this place was open later because it would be perfect to go after a dinner date 😉

-Carmen

East Cafe

March 16, 2014

East Cafe has this certain charm to it. Maybe it’s the atmosphere, or the genuine service, or their vintage Vancouver decor and photographs. I came here with two friends recently and we had a wonderful time.
I love the vintage bicycles on their walls. They also have pictures of Vancouver from the past, which I really love..

It also gives East Cafe a really local feel to it which I love. There were a lot of pictures from hockey teams in the 1900s, different bands, as well as what different neighbourhoods looked like.

Vegetarian panini on grilled foccacia with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, roma tomatoes, Swiss cheese, spinach, and pesto mayo. All paninis are served with a hot pepper and Lays chips.
Prosciutto panini with boccincini cheese, roma tomatoes, red onions, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and pesto mayo. The prosciutto and pesto was amazing!
Montreal smoked meat panini with Swiss cheese, mustard, and caramelized onions. Again, this was so good! The melted Swiss cheese was so delicious and dreamy.
Almond croissant with filling. So good! Light, fluffy, and crispy!
Nutella cookie. It tasted like homemade cookies, which is good and bad. Good because it’s delicious and gives you a comfy feeling, but bad because you can easily just bake this at home for a cheaper price.

This was my second time, and I didn’t order espresso this time. I ordered a wildberry tea, which I asked for iced and they gladly accommodated my requests. I have had the espresso here before though, I would say that it’s quality espresso and has a sweet and fresh finish to it. You can really taste the quality in it.

All in all, although East Cafe is relatively new, it has made it’s mark in Vancouver’s coffee culture. East Cafe exhibits an authentic and local character, while still staying cute and charming. Of course, their food and drink is absolutely delicious as well.

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.