Search Results for: deer garden

Haroo Korean Restaurant

April 6, 2016

‘Harroooooo’ everyone!

Back in January, the boyfriend and I wanted to try a Korean place that we haven’t been before, and discovered Haroo. It is located in Richmond by Lansdowne Center, right beside Deer Garden.
Haroo wouldn’t have been that noticeable if it wasn’t for the giant bright signage they have on the corner. The restaurant itself is pretty small, but comfortable and cozy.
Most tables fit four people, so it would be a bit uncomfortable to eat here with a larger group. There were two waiters working, which I am assuming was the owner and his son.

We got the last table when we arrived on a weekend evening. I’m glad that we didn’t have to wait!
Banchan, free: The banchan here was a lot better than other Korean restaurants I’ve been to. They take it up a level and give you a side salad, which was so delicious! The veggies were really fresh and crunchy, and had some sort of sweet cranberry sauce.

I also really liked the sweet potatoes (left). The banchan here was prepared with quality and wasn’t just quickly prepared and thrown on the table.
Beef tofu soup (sundubu), $11.50: We wanted something warm and comforting, so decided to order the beef tofu soup to share. The portion here was smaller than we were used to, so that was a bit disappointing.

We ordered medium spice, but found the soup to be very bland and lacking flavour. Overall, we found this dish to be disappointing and wouldn’t order it again.
Seafood pancake, $18.95: Another must when going for Korean food (even though it’s super easy to make at home!). Out of all the Korean seafood pancakes I’ve tried in Vancouver, this was probably the best one I’ve had so far. If I’m craving seafood pancake, I know exactly where to go!

The pancake was super crunchy, I think they probably flash-deep fry it right before serving. It is seriously amazing. There is a very generous amount of seafood inside, and is bursting with flavour. The sweet dipping sauce just completes an already delicious pancake.

—

I would definitely come back for the seafood pancake, but not for the tofu soup. Service was really fast and efficient as well. I would recommend trying the seafood pancake if you ever decide on trying Haroo!

Thanks for reading,

Carmen

Cattle Cafe (Metrotown) – DIY Soup Noodle Combo!

August 4, 2015

Hi everyone!

I don’t know about you… but I find the restaurants inside Metrotown to not be appealing or delicious. Which is why whenever we go to Metrotown and want to have dinner nearby, we like to eat across the street at Cattle Cafe.

I was quite sad when Cattle Cafe closed down for awhile, but I’m really glad they re-opened two stores down from their original location. Whenever I’m craving the Asian style DIY noodle combo, Cattle Cafe is one of my go-to places as I’ve said in my previous post on the super stingy/cheap Duotian Fish Soup Noodles restaurant.

I almost always order the DIY soup noodle combo, which comes with a drink. You can get a cold drink for an extra .50 cents. That day, I ordered the hot almond milk as usual. The almond milk here comes pretty sweet, you can definitely tasted the condensed milk. I love the familiarity and comfort of Chinese style almond milk.

The boyfriend ordered an iced milk tea. It had a strong and authentic milk tea flavour, definitely one of the better places to order a milk tea!

I absolutely love their french toast and even though I know I will feel horribly and uncomfortably stuffed because of over-ordering, I will still eat this because of how good it is.

I love how they cut it up into small sections for you already. Not only does it make it easier to eat, but I find that you get to taste more of the outer, crispy filling as opposed to the middle piece that tastes just like bread and custard.

It came with a generous amount of custard inside, unlike Duotian (I’m still a bit bitter about how cheap and stingy they are!) and just enough syrup.

I always order the same soup no matter where I go! Century egg and parsely soup, with vermicelli noodles and beef/fish balls.

The broth is deliciously creamy and flavourful, meanwhile there is an abundance of ingredients on top.

Oh yeah! I just remembered that when both of our noodles came, mine had a lot less soup. I asked the server if I could have a bit extra since I like my noodles with a lot of soup, and she was really nice about it. I was a bit scared to ask at first because y’all know that a lot of Asian restaurants are notorious for being stingy and unwilling to compromise with customers…. LOL
The boyfriend ordered the peanut chili soup with Japanese BBQ pork and beef balls. Compared to the broth at Deer Garden, he said that the peanut taste here was a lot lighter and he was disappointed. Keep in mind though, he loves peanut butter to death and always spreads 4X the regular amount on his toast LOL.

I don’t like peanut butter as much as he does, so I liked the taste of it his broth. Any more peanut flavour and it would have been overwhelming for people who aren’t die-hard peanut butter lovers =P

—

A big bowl of warm, filling noodles and some fresh french toast after, we were both very stuffed and satisfied with our meal. I always have a hard time walking out of here because I get so full after LOL! Cattle Cafe is always consistent, and I can always rely on this place to curb my soup noodle craving. It’s a great place to go for soup noodles, and I love how they have friendly service as well.

What is your ‘go-to’ noodle combo?

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Duotian Fish Soup Noodles Restaurant – Stingy restaurant =\

July 14, 2015

Hi everyone!!

Cheese and I decided to have lunch here one day because we were craving Hong Kong style iced lemon tea, and it was the closest place. I didn’t really have a good experience here last month, but I wanted to come back and give it another try.

I’m not sure I’l be back or not, their food isn’t that great because the restaurant is so incredibly cheap and stingy. There are definitely a lot better places, this place falls on the bottom for the make-your-own-noodle -soup combo category.

As I mentioned earlier, Cheese and I came here instead of our original plan at Sushi Uomo because we were craving HK style iced lemon tea. When our drinks came, the lemon slices were incredibly paper thin. The pictures don’t do it justice because you see the front of the lemon slice and not the side.

Because the lemon was so thin, our drinks did not taste authentic and tasted like plain sweet tea from McDonalds. It was pretty disappointing, and we ended up crushing our lemons completely to a pulp in order for it taste a tiny bit like HK lemon iced tea. Overall, it was pretty disappointing.

Continuing along to prove my point of how cheap they are, look at this french toast that my friend ordered. There was barely ANY custard in it, he felt like he was just eating two slices of bread.

There was also barely any syrup on the side, normally they provide a full small tin of syrup for you.

If there was an adequate amount of custard filling, the french toast would have been decent.
Cheese ordered the pumpkin and tomato fish soup with rice noodles, beef balls, and sliced beef.
I ordered my usual century egg and parsley soup with vermicelli, beef balls, and fish balls. I wanted cuttlefish but they were out. =(

The broth was lighter and more watery than I was used to, but the flavour was still good.

Overall, Duotian is pretty meh and I wouldn’t come back unless I was stuck in the area and REALLY, REALLY craving noodle soup. Cattle Cafe and Deer Garden are much better, and they are less cheap with their ingredients.

Have you been here? What did you think of it?

Thanks for reading!

Carmen