dessert lover Archives - Curiously Carmen

Hi everyone,

(Disclaimer- I actually wrote this draft last April LOL, I was meaning to publish it once the weather became hotter but I completely forgot!)

I predict that Rain or Shine Ice Cream is going to be the next big ice cream parlour in Vancouver and for outstanding reasons. I mean, come on, ICE CREAM WAFFLE CONE TACOS and ice cream paddles? They take ice cream, which is already a wonderful invention, and find ways to make it more spectacular.

I somehow came across this place while I was reading other food blogs. What caught my eye was that one review said that offer “ice cream flights”. I love beer flights/paddles (Biercraft, St Augs anybody?), so needless to say, I was ecstatic when I heard about this and knew I had to come here. People also said that it was like Earnest ice cream without the line up and popularity.

Upon entering, I noticed that it was a pretty small place. Probably seats around 12 people at most. They had a big cows head statue which reminded me of Marsha the Moose from Big Brother Canada.

The workers let us sample so many different flavours, gave us some history behind the store, and were so patient. Even though they had other customers to serve, they treated everyone equally and had time for everyone’s questions and sampling requests!
We finally decided on our flight flavours. We shared the chocolate, peanut butter, blueberry balsamic, and brown butter snickerdoodle. Ahhhh! All of the flavours were so creamy and rich. The workers told us that they make all their ice cream in the back kitchen with local ingredients as much as possible. The freshness of their ice cream really shines through, and it completely melts in your mouth with every spoonful. It cost $9 which I think was worth it, since it was so fresh and delicious. The following 4 pictures will be a review on each flavour, because I’m that obsessed…
Peanut butter- The boyfriend eats, breathes, and lives peanut butter so it was only natural we got this flavour. Unfortunately for me, I am not a big fan of peanut butter but I still liked the creamy and smooth texture of this. There were also small peanut chunks in the ice cream, which made the ice cream crunchier.
Chocolate- As you can tell, we devoured part of this before I remembered to take a picture. The chocolate was very smooth, and it wasn’t overwhelming sweet.
Brown butter snickerdoodle- This one was my second favourite. As with the chocolate one, this one wasn’t overly sweet other but it had lovely hints of cinnamon spices. IT WAS SO GOOD. On top of the smooth, creamy, cinnamon goodness, there were also generous chunks of cookies inside the ice cream too, which tasted so, so, so, amazing.
Blueberry balsamic- I saved my favourite for last!!! Again, this flavour was very very creamy and delightful. There was a strong blueberry taste to it. There was also generous chunks of blueberries inside which I thoroughly enjoyed. I would definitely recommend trying this flavour!

All in all, we loved our experience at Rain or Shine. It’s definitely worth trying, and if you’re not sure of which flavours to get, try the ice cream flight like we did! Perfect for the indecisive individuals like ourselves. I can predict many Summer nights coming to this place, I better come here more before it gets super popular and impossible to grab a seat or cone (like Earnest)!

-Carmen

Hi everyone!

This is a really late post and has been in my drafts folder since September. Oops! But better late than never right? =) Enjoy the post!

I have heard really great things about Nuba from a number of different people. I’ve passed this restaurant quite often, as the bus I normally take to downtown drives by it. Each time I pass Nuba, I wonder when I am able to finally try this seemingly delicious place. I finally got the opportunity to last week, when my company was holding a company welcome lunch for myself and the other co-op student (I wrote this post back in September… oops)!

To start, my coworker and I decided to split the roasted potato and garlic soup, which was their special that day. It came drizzled with olive oil, which we stirred into the soup. The soup had a mild spiciness to it, and a strong garlic taste. There wasn’t any potato chunks in the soup, I think it was pureed into the soup because it had a thicker consistency. In addition, there was an abundant flavour of spices which went well with the garlic taste. To all the health conscious folks out there, their daily soup is always vegan and gluten free!

I ordered the chicken tawook with hummus. It came with a side salad, chickpeas, pita bread, and choice of roasted potatoes or brown rice. All of our pita bread came in the same bowl. The pita was a thinner than I was used to, but perhaps that is the style?

I wanted to eat it with tzatziki sauce, but it came at a surcharge so I decided not to. Judging from the menu, I was not expecting the chicken to be on skewers, but it was tasty and savoury nonetheless! There was a slight grilled taste on the chicken, and it was very juicy and flavourful. The chicken was marinated in paprika, lemon, thyme, and garlic. Apart from the chicken, I regretted ordering the brown rice as my side rather than the roasted potatoes.

The brown rice was a bit hard and undercooked for my personal taste, but that’s just the Asian inside me speaking, we love our rice really well cooked and soft 🙂 I was also told that the roasted potatoes were really good and one of their specialty dishes. I think the dish came to around $15-17, which seemed a bit overpriced for what was received although the chicken was really good.

Another dish that was ordered that day; I forgot if it was the lamb kafta or lamb kibbeh. Sorry! I didn’t try this so I can’t give much of an opinion on it, so a picture will have to do 🙂

At the end of our scrumptious meal, my coworker ordered a Turkish coffee. I thought that the presentation of it was very cool and unique! I didn’t try any because I have extremely high sensitivity to caffeine (once, I drank a Pepsi Lime at dinner and couldn’t sleep until 3am. Or had milk tea at 10am and slept the next morning at 6am…), but I was told that there was a strong chai flavour to it. So a mix of chai tea and coffee!

For dessert, we all split two dessert plates. I’m not too sure of what each pastry was called since I wasn’t the one that ordered it, but I did enjoy the taste of all of them. In particular, I enjoyed the almond nougat type pastry, but I’m pretty sure there is a specific Lebanese name for it.

All the pastries were really sweet. The two next to the center pastry had some sort of carmelized sugar on top, and was a flaky pastry. The one in the center had the same idea, but with a custard-type topping.

-Carmen