chicken Archives - Page 3 of 4

Score on Davie Sports Bar, Denman

May 3, 2014

I was invited by my friend to go to Score on Davie, because our mutual friend saw an article on it and really wanted to try their
“checkmate” Caesar which is a Caesar topped with a whole chicken, burger, hot dog, brownie, and more! Although I love spice and tomato juice, I’ve never ordered Caesars because I prefer beer much more. After trying out Score on Davie, I think I will be ordering Caesars much more. The place was packed by 8pm on a lovely Vancouver evening, and they were at overcapacity.
One thing I really liked about Score was their music. They had such good hip hop beats going all night long! This was their menu. We decided on sharing a couple of food items, drinks, and of course, the checkmate.
These are some of their other specialty Caesars as well. We thought that these were pretty impressive, but we did not know what the checkmate had in store for us… I should also mention that the checkmate is not on the menu, probably because it would annoy the hell out of the workers to make it if everyone knew about it. We had to ask our server for it!
Some of my friends decided to share a pitcher of sangria ($25). You are given the option to chose between red or white wine, and it also comes with a big metal spoon to help with getting the frozen fruits easier. They really enjoyed the sangria.
I ordered the Mill St. Vanilla Porter ($4)! It was delicious. It was a dark and thick beer, with hints of chocolate but with the smoothness of vanilla. So good!
We decided on getting some nachos to share ($16 approx). These were pretty decent, and came with salsa, sour creme, and beans for dipping. I would have liked it if there was more cheese, I found a lot of the chips didn’t have any melted cheese on them. To compare it with my visit at St. Augustine’s pub, St Aug’s had more nachos but Score has more dipping sides and ingredients in their nachos.
We also decided on sharing some honey garlic chicken wings ($12 approx). The chicken was hot and juicy, with the perfect amount of honey garlic.
And finally, our checkmate Caesar came and as you can see, it is truly a mouth and eyeful! Ready to hear what it came with? An order of onion rings, buffalo chicken wings, a whole juicy burger, a mini slider burger, a hot dog with pulled pork, a brownie for dessert, and OH YEAH, A WHOLE CHICKEN UNDERNEATH. The drink came to $60, WHICH, before you complain and leave this page, was a good deal because you got full sized portions of all the food. If you ordered all that food individually, plus a large Caesar, you would be paying the same amount anyways. We also split the bill 6 ways so it only came to $10 each.

You’re probably wondering if it was worth it. The answer is YES!!! Even though all the food was piled on top of the mighty Caesar, it was all quality food. The buns for the burger and hot dog were toasted, making it super soft on the inside. The pulled pork was so tender and juicy like the one I had at Burgers Etc BBQ House. The onion rings were perfectly crispy and tasted really fresh, as well as the crispy buffalo chicken wings. The brownie was super soft, decadent, and rich and even came with whipped cream, which melted pretty fast since the brownie was warm. The whole chicken was very meaty, and seasoned really well too! Of course, the Caesar was made well too!

In conclusion, their atmosphere and service is really welcoming and attentive. Their checkmate Caesar is one of those drinks that you just have to try, put it on your summer bucket list if you have one. Their food tastes a lot better than the average pub, the quality, tenderness, and juiciness of all their meat dishes really show. I predict that this place will get a lot busier once people hear about the checkmate, so I’m glad I already got the chance to try it!

-Carmen

Chez Meme Baguette Bistro, N. Burnaby

April 24, 2014

I have came here a few times already, but haven’t had the chance to blog about it since I only started my site three months ago! Chez Meme is a cute little locally owned French cafe along Hastings Street.

Once in awhile, they will open on weekends, which you can check on their menu board in store but otherwise, they are only open weekday morning & afternoons.
We got there at 11am, where there were still a few seats open. I figured that because it was a rainy day, it wasn’t as busy as I expected it to be, but I’m glad that we made the reservation anyways.

After 15 minutes, a line started to form, so now I know what time is the best to go if I want to avoid the line up. As you can tell, the place is pretty small but it is also owned by a husband and wife team.

Here is one side of the menu, with all their delicious baguettes! They are well known for the baguettes, so it was obvious what my choice was. Being a French cafe, they also have an extensive wine and espresso drink menu which is posted on their wall.
After coming here many times, I had my heart set on the nordique baquette! The nordique baguette consisted of smoked salmon, cream cheese, dill, and onion. It was the perfect combination.

Their baguettes were light and chewy, which complimented the heaviness of the cream cheese. Even then, there was a perfect amount of cream cheese to go with the smoked salmon. The dill and onion accentuated the flavours of the salmon and cream cheese, making everything in the baguette flourish.

For my choice of sides, I chose their soup because they always have really good soup. Today was the zucchini and basil soup, which tasted really flavourful. It had a puree texture to it. I enjoyed my dish very much, and have no complaints about it.
The boyfriend chose the cordon bleu baguette, which consisted of black forest ham, chicken, emmenthal (type of cheese), and a dijon mustard sauce for dipping. The chicken was wrapped inside the ham, which was slightly grilled making some parts of the ham crispy and delicious. We both agreed that the dijon mustard was very overpowering. It almost tasted like wasabi!

There was a generous amount of fries, but they didn’t taste that great and were really oily. He regretted not ordering the soup, because mine was delicious. We both agreed that we are getting soup as a side next time we come here.

The only thing disappointing was the fries but that is easily overlooked when you take into account their other items. Even though there was only one server (the co-owner), she was very attentive and friendly.

She also speaks to you in French at times, which adds to the overall experience of a French bistro. Looking over at other table’s dishes also looked very delicious as well, I would love to try another item on their menu when I come back 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

Tractor Foods

April 14, 2014

My friend and I noticed Tractor Foods while shopping along West 4th one afternoon, and seeing we both felt like having a light meal, we decided to try it out.

As you can tell, their design is very simplistic. We didn’t even realize that Tractor was a restaurant until we crossed the street and took a closer look. When we first walked in, we were overwhelmed with how modern and nice everything looked. (Picture from 604now.com)
You will first see the salads, and other sides, like soup, that they offer. Tractor makes their food in small portions, so that everything is as fresh as possible.

All their salads looked really appetizing, and we both had a hard time choosing which one to get! I love my dark green veggies, and there was such a plethora of them here that I had to select from! Once you pick the side you want, you will then proceed to the sandwich/main course of your choice.
Since we only wanted a light meal, my friend and I settled on getting half a sandwich, with a choice of side. I ordered their grilled chicken sandwich, which came with tomato, basil, and provolone on cranberry bread.

For my salad, I ordered one of their kale salads, which came with potatoes. I absolutely loved my meal, everything was perfect about it. Everything tasted so fresh, from the crunchy kale to the cranberry bread. It was also very light and refreshing too, which was exactly what I wanted on a nice, sunny day.

The portion was perfect and I left feeling satisfied.
My friend ordered their vegetable sandwich, with an addition of grilled chicken like mine. Her side was the tomato salad with basil and bocconcini.

The bocconcini had an elastic texture to it, and had a light taste which complemented the stronger tasting, and more acidic tomatoes. The tomatoes were also very juicy as you can see in this picture! She enjoyed her dish as well!

Overall, Tractor is a great place to go for a light meal if you’re in the neighbourhood. I noticed on their site that they changed parts of the menu since the last time I went (they have different salads now) so I will come here again when I’m in the neighbourhood!

-Carmen

Tuc Craft Kitchen

March 9, 2014

Hi everyone!

Nestled in the trendy neighbourhood of Gastown, Tuc Craft Kitchen fits in perfectly with its vintage, but modern-type ambiance. Tuc features high ceilings and big windows, which makes it seem roomier and there are wooden board accents on the wall too.

My friends wanted to try this place after hearing good reviews, so we decided to go one afternoon. We all had a lovely experience here, from the accommodating and friendly staff to the delicious dishes they had to offer.
Picture taken from (http://www.vanbrosia.com/2013/08/tuc-craft-kitchen.html). Here is the exterior of the restaurant, pretty simplistic and minimal design but enough to be noticed!
Some of us got there 15 minutes before they opened for lunch, but the owner was nice enough to let us in so we didn’t have to wait outside. I really like the wooden interior and design of the restaurant, and think the white chairs make a good accent as well.
I finally settled on ordering the Tuc pot pie ($11), which consisted of Fraser Valley free run chicken, nugget potatoes, sweet peas, and carrots in a white wine/thyme creme sauce. I liked that there was a generous amount of quality chicken inside.

The top itself was really soft and flaky, which I ended up cutting into separate sections and dipping it in the sauce and chicken. It was very creamy, warm, and comforting. The salad was pretty decent too, it came with a lot of spinach which I loved and there was a sweet taste to it!
This was the chicken dip sandwich with parsnip fries ($12). I didn’t try this, but my friend said it tasted pretty good and thought it was unconventionally delicious with the dip.

The parsnip fries were definitely new to me, but I enjoyed them. More on those later…
Here is where Tuc’s service really shines through! My friend couldn’t eat meat that day due to religious reasons, and asked the server what vegetarian options were available. She told us that there weren’t many vegetarian options but that they would be happy to make a dish for her off the menu. They ended up making a customized vegetarian pasta that my friend enjoyed very much.
This was the beef brisket and pork crackling sandwich that came with a side of smashed potato fries ($13). Even though I only had a bite, I fell in love with this sandwich! The beef brisket was very tender and the pork was very crispy. When you took a bite, it would be soft but there were bits of crispy pork pieces in it too. It came on sourdough bread, with dijon mustard and pickles. So. good.
Next up was the mini shepard’s pie and soup ($9) (I believe the server told us the soup of the day was tomato and basil). My friend enjoyed her dish and I liked the presentation of it, so cute!
To share, we decided to get parsnip fries and smashed potato fries ($8~ for both), even though two of the dishes we ordered came with them already. What really made these fries stand out for me was the dipping sauce. They said it was their homemade ketchup but I have never tasted such delicious ketchup before! It was made with coriander, which made it a bit smoky and spicy but it had a hint of sweetness to it. I would order their fries again just for the ketchup.

I thought their lunch menu was really delicious and crafted with great quality. Their service was also very accommodating, fast, and friendly not to mention the beautiful decor.

Thanks for reading!
-Carmen