Curiously Carmen

Dosa Factory

November 28, 2020

Disclaimer: By the time I post this, I am not sure what the COVID protocols are because things are changing so quickly. At the time of writing, we are currently in a two week semi lockdown that began one week ago. This dinner happened before the lockdown when we were allowed to be with our safe 6 so please do not attack me.

Please be responsible, do not expand your social circle, stay home if you’re sick, and overall be a considerate and decent human!

Dosa Factory is an Indian restaurant that I’ve heard good things about. While looking for a place to order delivery from that I haven’t reviewed yet, I saw Dosa Factory on UberEats and suggested it for dinner!

Also, a heads up on UE incase this happens to you as well. This has nothing to do with Dosa Factory but I wanted to share our experience. Unfortunately that night, UE was experiencing issues. In the morning, we scheduled the delivery between 5:30-6:00pm. By 6pm, the app still showed that the food was being prepared so Nigiri called the restaurant. Turns out, the food was ready and had been waiting for a driver since 5:30! We waited a bit more until 6:30pm when Nigiri decided to pick it up because we were all hungry (btw the app was still showing that the restaurant was cooking….ugh).

By the time Nigiri drove to the restaurant, came back and we opened our food, it was lukewarm after sitting for 1.5 hours. Needless to say, we were not impressed with UE that night and requested a refund. I learned after this experience that if the app says that the restaurant is still preparing the food and it’s been an hour already like us, call the restaurant and check.

Again, I know this is not the restaurant’s fault and the experience with UberEats does not affect my review on Dosa Factory but I wanted to let you know incase your food is taking a long time.

Palak paneer: This is Nigiri’s must order when getting Indian food! The palak paneer here was not bad. The flavour was mild with not a lot of spice, so it was great to eat this in between the spicy dishes to cool our mouth. I’ve only had palak paneer at Chakra, and I found that Dosa Factory had more cottage cheese cubes inside.

Malabari chicken korma: The chicken korma here was delicious too! The meat was very tender, aromatic and flavourful. There was a good amount of spice to it.

Butter chicken: The butter chicken was sweet, creamy and a nice break from all the spicy dishes. Kimbap doesn’t eat spicy food so this was the perfect dish for her. There was a generous amount of chicken inside.

Tandoori chicken: Kimchi picked the tandoori chicken, which was essentially two very large drumsticks and breast. The chicken was marinated very well and wasn’t spicy. It was my first time having tandoori chicken so I don’t have much to compare it to, but I did enjoy it!

Fish and prawn kotthu parotta: Since we had a lot of chicken dishes already and Maki is a pescatarian, I chose this dish. I had a really good kotthu parotta at Kurumba and a not so good one at House of Dosa just down the block from Dosa Factory, so I wanted to compare.

First of all, this was jam packed with juicy, flaky pieces of fish! I would say there was more fish than roti bread which I am not complaining about. There wasn’t much shrimp though but the generous portion of fish more than made up for it. Taste wise, it was delicious and very flavourful, not heavily drowned with oil to the point where the roti bread wasn’t fluffy anymore.

Madras fish curry: This was a random addition after it looked like we wouldn’t have enough food. The Madras fish curry was the spiciest dish of all! It had no mercy with the spice level. The fish was cooked well and flaked off. There was a generous amount of fish inside the curry too.

Garlic naan: The curry dishes came with a free side of fluffy basmati rice and naan bread as well. We upgraded some of the naan bread to garlic bread. Both the regular and naan bread was delicious and doughy.

Despite the hiccup with UberEats (see intro paragraph) and our food being lukewarm by the time we ate, we were all very satisfied with Dosa Factory. Everything was very flavourful and not slicked with oil to the point that it wasn’t enjoyable.

After trying many Indian restaurants before deciding on a go-to, Dosa Factory would be one that I order regularly from! House of Dosa is on the same block but Dosa Factory is a lot better. Stay tuned for a review on House of Dosa! I actually have it written but I try to spread out my reviews on the same cuisines :).

Tatsu Japanese Restaurant

November 21, 2020

Despite ordering delivery more often due to the pandemic instead of eating out, we have yet to find a go-to sushi place that we like. Well, I really like Samurai Sushi for casual, no frills sushi but unfortunately don’t see them on delivery apps often. We saw Tatsu Japanese Restaurant and it was pretty close, so we decided to try it out.

Tatsu Japanese Restaurant is located on Commercial Drive. There are a bunch of sushi restaurants on Commercial Drive. So far, the ones we’ve tried are Kishimoto (for more upscale sushi), Sushi Ville, Ginger Sushi, Naruto Sushi, and now, Tatsu for delivery.

California donburi: For myself, I was feeling like a donburi. I was going to get a salmon donburi, but last minute, I saw the California donburi and ordered that instead.

The donburi was densely packed with sushi rice and was quite filling. Essentially, it was all the ingredients of a California roll in a bowl setting with the addition of salmon sashimi and baby shrimp.

Although the donburi was densely packed with rice and a huge scoop of crab meat, there wasn’t much salmon sashimi. The pieces were chopped up like poke style, but I would guess that there was only about 2 pieces of salmon sashimi.

The wasabi mayo was delicious, although it may be too spicy for some people. The donburi was good with fresh ingredients and crunchy vegetables, but I didn’t feel like it was worth the price for how little salmon sashimi there was in the bowl.

BC Roll: The fiance likes to try BC rolls whenever we try a new place. The BC roll was alright. The salmon skin could have been a bit crispier, but that could also be due to getting the order as delivery.

Chopped scallop roll: The chopped scallop roll was delicious! The roll was jam packed with juicy, fresh pieces of scallop.

Tuna tataki roll: This was ordered off their specialty roll section, but it was a disappointment. It was basically a California roll with a thin piece of seared tuna on top and some spicy gochujang sauce. The tuna was quite dry too. For a specialty roll, I was expecting more and would not order this again!

Negitoro roll: The fiance has become a negitoro roll expert and can usually tell right away if it would be good or bad. He was happy to see that this was one of the good places.

The negitoro was fatty and soft. There was a lot of fresh green onions inside too.

Overall, we found that the items were hit or miss. The usual go-to items we get like the chopped scallop roll and the tuna roll were delicious though, so we would order again. The ones we didn’t like as much, such as the tuna tataki roll and California don, are items that we don’t normally get.

I’d only recommend this place if you were in the area or they had delivery. It wouldn’t be a restaurant that I’d drive purposely to but we wouldn’t mind getting delivery from them again since it’s close and fast for us.

Deer Garden – Fraser St Revisit

November 18, 2020

I have a few reviews on all of the Deer Garden locations, but it bothered me that the last time I wrote a review on the Fraser St location, my go-to Deer Garden location, was five years ago! The fiance and I come here often, but I never ended up writing a revisit post until now. You can also read my previous posts on other Deer Garden locations.

We were quickly seated and asked for contact information for tracing. Service here is usually not friendly, but at least they are efficient and fast.

Desert chicken wings: We rarely order the sides here because the noodle portions are so big already, but we were very hungry that day!

The name “desert chicken wings” always gave me a chuckle because I’m not sure where the desert part comes in. Nonetheless, the chicken wings were delicious! They were piping hot, crunchy and juicy and reminded me of chicken karage.

Drinks: The soup combos come with a drink too. The hot drinks are usually free unless you order one with lemon. I got the almond milk, but I should warn my lactose intolerant peeps that I’m pretty sure they add milk powder or condensed milk to it because it’s quite creamy. The fiance got the cold calpis drink.

DIY Soup Noodle: I’ve been getting the same bowl of noodles with a few minor revisions over the past 5 years. My go to is the century egg and parsley soup with crystal noodles. For the toppings, I’ve been getting sausage and extra bean curd these days.

I used to get the vermicelli noodles, but about a year ago, they changed noodle brands and the new one wasn’t as good. Also, they used to have fresh bean curd which I was a huge fan of… They “temporarily” sold out though, and by “temporary” I mean that there has been a hand written sign on the wall for over a year. I’ve pretty much given up on having fresh bean curd here anymore, which is more silky and light.

Despite the changes, the broth was delicious as usual. The sausage was nicely grilled before putting it into the broth. The portion was enormous as usual and it’s hard to leave Deer Garden hungry.

DIY soup noodles: The fiance either picks from the spicy peanut broth or laksa broth. On this visit, he went with the laksa broth. I never got into laksa broth surprisingly enough, but I don’t mind taking a few sips here and there. The laksa broth was creamy and flavourful with a subtle hint of spice.

For the toppings, he went with egg noodles, luncheon meat and beef. It was a very satisfying bowl of noodles.

No matter which Deer Garden you go to, they are always consistent and delicious. It’s a staple Asian restaurant in Vancouver and popular for good reasons. They have the best DIY soup combos with huge portions and a decent price.

Anh and Chi – Revisit

November 14, 2020

A bit over a couple of years ago, I had a delicious lunch at Anh and Chi and wrote a review on it! Since then, I haven’t been back until Maki mentioned that she tried it and enjoyed it. We had some wedding tasks planned in the area a few weeks later, so we came by for a re-visit lunch.

One thing to note is that Anh and Chi only takes reservations by donations. They start at $10 and you can pick one of the charities that they have listed on their website. Otherwise, you will likely have to wait in line because this place is always busy.

We came on a Saturday afternoon, and aimed to get here just before 12pm to beat the lunch rush. However, there was already a line ahead of us so we ended up waiting for about 15-20 minutes.

The interior of Anh and Chi is really aesthetically pleasing. It is modern, but warm and woodsy with lush green plants everywhere.

Mushroom spring rolls: I remember on my first visit here 2.5 years ago that these spring rolls were delicious! Maki really enjoyed them too, so naturally we had to get these.

The spring rolls were incredibly crunchy and packed with flavour. They came stuffed with black mushroom, carrots, jicama, taro, and vermicelli. Despite them being vegetarian, I found them to be really delicious and would gladly order them again and again. The fish sauce added even more flavour and complemented the spring rolls really well.

Bun rieu: When I saw that they had bun rieu, I knew I had to try it! Bun rieu is a crab and tomato soup. It came with crab meat and roe soufflé, fried tofu, crab claw, fresh tomatoes, green onions, rice vermicelli noodles, pork bone broth, shrimp paste.

The soup was bursting with umami flavour and was delicious. There was a lot of depth in the broth and the crab meat and roe souffle was soft and fluffy. I haven’t had anything like that before but it was good. However, the broth eventually got too salty after having more bites so I should have asked for some hot water to dilute it down but oh well.

Instead of the regular noodles, I asked to substitute for the bun bo hue thick vermicelli noodles. The thick noodles seemed to be thinner than other places though. Now that I’m writing this review, I wonder if they forgot to substitute but I didn’t think much of it then.

Steamed rice cakes: The steamed rice cakes were individually served in small sauce dishes. At first, we weren’t sure how to eat them because the rice cakes were sticky and messy when we tried to peel it off the plate. There was also a lot of water leftover from the steam in the plates.

Maki ended up slightly lifting the rice cake in a circle with the chopstick, and then putting the chopstick under the whole rice cake to make them unstick without breaking.

The rice cakes came with mini sauteed prawns, chicken crackling, and chive oil. The chicken crackling was my favourite part and it also added a fun crunch and gave the rice cakes some texture contrast.

All in all, I enjoyed my second visit to Anh and Chi. You can’t go wrong with coming here. The quality, flavour, and service is great and the constant lines prove it! I highly recommend coming here.

Railtown Cafe

November 11, 2020

For the past month, I have been publishing mostly Indian and Korean reviews! I had yet another Indian review lined up but decided that I rather spread the posts out.

I didn’t have any other restaurants to write about and haven’t tried anything new recently (except for Indian restaurants), so I decided to look around UberEats to see what I could write about.

Railtown Cafe was offering a discount on UberEats so I decided to give it a try. Rarely do I order breakfast or brunch food, but the breakfast menu looked pretty good!

There are currently four Railway Cafe locations in Vancouver. The original location is in Gastown, and there are also two in downtown by Waterfront and on Howe Street, and lastly, one on Main Street by Olympic Village. My delivery order was placed from the Gastown location.

Sausage breakfast sandwich: Admittedly, I haven’t had a gourmet sausage breakfast sandwich…. until now, that is! When I do have sausage breakfast sandwiches, they’re usually ordered in a haste from Timmy’s or McDonalds (not that there’s anything wrong with that, I do love my fast food breakfast sandwiches). This was the first time I’ve had a fancier sausage breakfast sandwich.

What a treat this was. Everything about this was delicious and I found myself savouring every bite. The bread was fresh, thick, soft and buttery – it reminded me of fluffy Japanese bread. The sausage patty was thicker than I imagined and the quality was great, there were also some herbs inside. In addition, there was a perfectly fried and gooey yolk egg, melted cheese, and some fresh, crunchy greens.

It was the best sausage breakfast sandwich I had so far and I would gladly order it again.

Bacon breakfast sandwich: For the fiance, I ordered the bacon breakfast sandwich but we ended up splitting both sandwiches in half so we could both try.

The bacon sandwich was delicious too, but the sausage sandwich was definitely better. The bacon was great quality and thickly cut. It also came with a fried egg but the yolk wasn’t as runny, melted cheese, and fresh veggies too.

Hashbrowns: I also ordered a side of hashbrowns. The hashbrowns were crunchy and delicious, and more on the thick side. I noticed that they cracked some extra salt on top, which wasn’t really needed as the hashbrowns were flavourful enough on their own.

All in all, Railtown Cafe’s breakfast sandwiches were delicious and really great quality. I would gladly order from them again or stop by any of the cafes. My only complaint was that it was quite salty, but that’s to be expected. It’s definitely something you shouldn’t eat daily because it’s high in sodium (you know you’re getting old when you start to watch your sodium levels for blood pressure), but would be a nice treat once in awhile.