burnaby Archives - Curiously Carmen

Pho D’Lite

November 24, 2016

A new pho restaurant has popped up in Burnaby! Well, not thaaat new, but it opened in the past year beside the Whole Foods in the Solo district. The name of the restaurant is Pho D’Lite, such a cute and punny name!

After hanging out at one of my friend’s condos at solo (such breathtaking views up there!), the boyfriend and I were starving. We didn’t want to drive anywhere because we were that hungry, and warm, comforting pho seemed like the perfect option.
The restaurant was very clean, new, and spacious. In particular, we awed over the beautiful plate art wall that was behind us. It looks like they glued a bunch of Asian plates into a nice pattern. I can certainly spot some plate patterns that my family and relatives own!
P4, Pho Tai, Large, $9.95: There are many different pho combinations to choose from, as with most Vietnamese places. The boyfriend chose p4, which just comes with rare beef. There was a pretty generous amount of rare beef, as well as onions.
P7, Pho Nam Bo Vien, Large, $9.95: I ordered the opposite of the boyfriend, aka all cooked beef – beef balls and beef brisket. As with the other bowl, they were pretty generous on the meat toppings and onions.

The broth itself was comforting and flavourful, not too salty or light. Each of the bowls also came with a HUGE amount of noodles. In retrospect, I should have ordered the small because I did not finish the large bowl, especially with the generous toppings of meat.

Pho D’Lite is a pretty solid pho joint that I would definitely come back to if I was in the area. Service is quick and friendly, while the pho is comforting and comes with generous portions of both noodles and meat.

Yay!

Tentatsu- Burnaby Location

October 13, 2016

You may be familiar with the original Tentatsu restaurant in East Van, by Hastings and Nanaimo. Tentatsu recently just opened their second location in Burnaby, about a 8 minute drive from the original!

The boyfriend and I decided to try it on a whim one evening.

In addition, Tentatsu was having a 10% grand opening discount! Perfect time to try it out and see if it matched the original.

The restaurant itself is really big and spacious. It reminds me of a dance hall and is good for large groups.

Compared to the original location, I liked the service here a LOT better. Thinking about the service at the original makes me so angry because of how atrocious it was.

The staff weren’t friendly, but quick and efficient enough. Or maybe because I have such low standards from the original Tentatsu that I thought their service was decent (actually, this is definitely the case).

We were also impressed with how they served quality genmaicha tea (Japanese match green tea w/ brown rice) for free! I was happy when our food came quite quickly, unlike the original location where my mom and I waited almost 30 minutes when it wasn’t that busy.

California roll: The California roll was decent, and tasted fresh. It has a good about of ripe avocado inside and topped with crunchy sesame seeds.

Salmon roll: The rice in the salmon roll was still warm, but it was good nonetheless.

Tuna roll: The tuna roll was decent as well, no complaints about it!

Salmon nigiri: I only wanted one to try their sashimi, but the boyfriend insisted I order 3. You will soon see why it was not a good idea!

The sashimi had a slight fishy taste to it and was fresh. Lately, I’ve been tasting ‘sashimi’ that has the texture of sashimi, but no taste. So, it was a relief when there was a slight salmon taste!

Negitoro roll: We were dissappointed with this roll because it barely came with any tuna. However, the tuna was fresh and tasted good! There was only a few measly pieces of green onion inside.

Negihamachi roll: I didn’t try this because I was too busy trying to finish the other dishes. The boyfriend thought it was okay, but could have used more flavour. Again, the rice was slightly warm.

House roll: The house roll was pretty decent! As with all the rolls, it tasted fresh. It is basically a large California roll with tamago and masago.

BC roll: Nope, not as good as Uomo next door. The salmon was a bit dry and bland and way too fishy.

Here is a picture of the negitoro roll. You can see the small amount of tuna compared to rice, and how little onion there was.

With a seemingly negative review, would I come back? Yes! Although it’s not the BEST, the prices are amazing for what you get. Service is quick and efficient too.

We ordered all this food, with so much leftovers for $25 including tip and tax! Granted, there was a 10% opening discount but $27-29 for all this food is really cheap. It’s a good option for a quick bite in the neighbourhood!

Yay!

Kilala Sushi

October 2, 2016

Earlier in the summer, myself, the boyfriend, and Sangria decided to venture out from our usual sushi joints and try a longstanding but hidden restaurant, Kilala Sushi. They’ve been around for awhile now, and I hear their name getting tossed around from time to time.

Kilala Sushi is an authentic Japanese restaurant, run solely by a husband and wife team. They also specialize in distributing tamago for various restaurants in Vancouver, so this place is half restaurant/half tamago-making factory? I say that because the sitting area itself is quite small but you can see that the back is a bit factory like, with a very big stainless steel kitchen.
Appetizer sashimi, $5.95: The appetizer sashimi comes with three pieces of tuna, and two pieces of salmon. The salmon was average, but the tuna was really good. It was very soft and buttery, and melted in your mouth.
Tamago roll, $2.25: As I mentioned above, they specialize in tamago, so it was only natural to try it! The tamago was sweet, fluffy, and tasted fresh. I really liked how it had a fluffy texture, as a lot of places I’ve been to have a harder texture with dried edges (which means it’s not fresh and has fried out).

Negitoro roll, $3.00: The boyfriend and I ALWAYS order negitoro roll, so we had to try Kilala’s version of it! It was pretty good, and above average. Just like the tuna sashimi, the tuna in here was also soft and buttery. It was filled with lots of green onion too. They definitely did not skimp out on the tuna and the onion.
Hmmm, I don’t recall what these two rolls were called and I can’t find anything similar on the online menu! Sorry.

Even though I don’t remember what they were called, I remember how they tasted! Both tasted very fresh, and were filling. Just look at how big that salmon sashimi is inside the roll!

All in all, Kilala serves quality and authentic sushi, and the three of us enjoyed our meal. Everything was fresh, and even though there was only one server (the wife, husband was the chef), service was quick and friendly.

The only downside of this place is that it is quite hidden behind a bush and the seating is also a cramped.

Yay!

Chad Thai Restaurant Review

February 20, 2014

Hi readers!

I have heard many great things about this place from my friend, and the perfect opportunity came to finally try it out when one of my best childhood friends came back into town this week. I feel like since it’s such a small place, it often gets overlooked by all the other surrounding restaurants in the neighbourhood. It also has really high ratings on Urbanspoon, which I never knew!

This was the Chad Thai Garden dish. It consists of a fresh rice roll stuffed with vegetarian delights such as tofu, mushroom, carrot, and served with spicy dipping sauce. At first bite, I fell in love with the flavour of this dish. The spicy dipping sauce really highlighted and complimented the flavours well.

The part I loved most though, was the BASIL! The basil was what really made this dish stand out as it kind with its minty flavour, giving this dish a good PoP! The only thing I didn’t like was the way that it was prepared.

The rice wrap was wrapped pretty loosely, and the three of us had a hard time eating this without the wrap breaking and having the contents go on all over our plates.

The second thing we ordered was the Gai Yang. Gai yang is a type of Thai grilled chicken which is marinated in Thai herbs and spices. We picked the sweet chili sauce for the dip, instead of the peanut sauce.

I enjoyed this dish as well. It tasted really similar to lemon grass chicken to me. I would probably have preferred white meat over dark, since it was a bit fatty but overall not bad!
The last thing we ordered was the Yen Ta Fo. This is a thin rice noodle in piquant sweet and sour stock with fermented tofu, calamari, fish balls, prawns, and crisp wonton topping. I found this dish to be definitely more sweet than sour, I wish that it was more balanced.

We also ordered the soup to be medium spice, but we all agreed that it wasn’t really that spicy. It came with a good portion of seafood which I enjoyed. I probably wouldn’t order this dish again because the soup was too sweet for my liking.

Overall, the food at Chad Thai was pretty decent. I wish we ordered more food so I could give a better review, but we weren’t feeling that hungry! The servers were all really friendly and attentive, coming to fill our water constantly and asked us how everything was. Small things like this really are appreciated and come noticed!

At the end of your meal, they give you complimentary Thai candy which was really good- it was a bit sour, kind of like the Chinese dried salted prune candies. I would probably come here again sometime, and try more of their other dishes!

The Keg Steakhouse & Bar – Burnaby location

February 13, 2014

Hi readers!

Going to The Keg is a pleasure and treat for my family and I. It’s a treat that we all enjoy, and we usually have a great experience seeing that all three of us are steak lovers. This time, I surprised the boyfriend and he joined our family as well (he had no idea where we were going until we arrived at the parking lot! my surprise was a success!)

It was also his first time ever at The Keg, which was pretty surprising for me, but I’m glad he finally tried it and was able to share that experience with my family. My parents and I noticed that the dishes this time around were not as great as they were before, it seemed as if The Keg had cut down on their quality and quantity of food. That said, it wasn’t bad, just not as good as we had before.

The location we went to was in Burnaby, right beside the Costco. They have an ample parking lot, and also lots of street parking. We had a reservation at 7:30 and arrived on time, but we had to wait around 15 minutes to actually get seated.

We were seated at a booth at the far end corner of the restaurant. It was a good seat as it was quieter in that area than the rest of the restaurant. Our server was prompt to greet us. Right off the bat, he informed us that they were running low on prime rib that night, and to tell him if we were planning to order that so he could reserve it for us. After about 10 minutes, he returned and told us that he reserved some for us and took our order. Here’s our dinner!
This was the complimentary sourdough bread that came with our order. We were disappointed because last time we came here, there was a variety of bread in a bigger basket. The Keg really cut down on their bread, which is a disappointment.I really liked the quality of their strawberry margarita. I thought it was blended perfectly, and the strawberries tasted really fresh. I enjoyed the texture and the taste of this drink a lot. It was a pretty big glass too!
Granville Island Winter Ale.
Mom’s 12oz prime rib medium rare with twice baked potato & onion rings. It was too big of a portion for her, she regretted ordering a 12oz because she felt too full. Ended up packing the twice baked potato. She thoroughly enjoyed her prime rib though. It was very tender and soft.
Dad’s 12 oz prime rib with stir fried vegetables, medium well. I don’t think he enjoyed this as much as before. Said it wasn’t juicy enough and felt dry. I think he was a bit disappointed, he would have probably liked it done medium or medium rare instead!

The boyfriend’s New York Striploin with Keg Fries. His striploin was noticeably more juicier than our prime ribs. You can tell by the second picture how juicy it was! It wasn’t as tender as our prime rib, making it have a tight texture and a bit of chew, but that’s to be expected since it’s a striploin.

He thoroughly enjoyed his dish, except for the fries. The fries were extremely, extremely, salty to the point where I could’t even handle it. It was coated with so much salt that we couldn’t eat it! That was a bit disappointing but overall, the NY striploin itself was great!

My 10 oz prime rib with garlic mashed potatoes. I thought this was pretty delicious. The meat was really tender which is a sign of great preparation and cooking. It was seasoned perfectly as well!

I remember last time we came here, the prime rib came with four different sauces so I was disappointed it only came with two this time. Overall, it was good and I liked that it was soft and tender. The garlic mashed potatoes were done perfectly and delicious!
For dessert, we ordered the mini fudge brownie with a side of vanilla ice cream. I can’t even begin to tell you how delicious this was! For starters, we were really surprised when this came because it looked pretty big. We thought the server accidentally brought us the full size.

The chocolate brownie was delicious. On the top was melted dark chocolate, and the brownie itself was really warm and decadent. What made the vanilla ice cream stand out was the caramel on the top. It brought out all the flavours of the dessert perfectly, and balanced the taste of the brownie. Details like this is what I really appreciate and look for when I write my food reviews. We mixed each bite with the brownie and ice cream, and it was like heaven on earth. It was really the cherry on top of a great meal.

-Carmen