diner review Archives - Page 3 of 6

Kamamarui Ramen – Metrotown Location

November 23, 2014

After going shopping, it was one of those nights where we didn’t feel like cooking at home. Since we don’t eat in the Metrotown area much except for Cattle Cafe, we spent the next 5 minutes shivering in the cold trying to think of a backup place to eat after seeing that they were closed. Warm, soupy noodles… Oooh! Kamamarui! We spared no time shivering in the cold, ran back to the car and made our way to Kamamarui.

After walking in, we were greeted and told to sit down at the waiting chairs. The guy spent a pretty long time (well, longer than necessary), to clean everything and have us seated even though it wasn’t busy. He was just hanging out, walking back and forth slowly, while we sat there waiting for him to seat us… eventually, he finished wiping the table and went back and was doing some other stuff.
The menus were tacked on the wall, which was more convenient for both the servers and customers I guess? The walls looked like cement but they actually weren’t. Menu was pretty straightforward, they mostly served ramen and small sides such as gyoza/rice/or these rice balls known as “bombs”.

My favourite type of ramen is shio because it’s usually very rich and creamy, something I crave in ramen broth. Since they didn’t have shio, I ordered the tonkotsu ($9) because that seemed like the next closest thing to the richest broth there was. The broth was very creamy, rich, and flavourful.

The noodles were cooked al dente and had a great bounce to it. In addition, the cha shu was very tender and sweet since it was covered in some sort of marinade. As I was enjoying the noodles, I realized that the broth was so thick that I ended up asking for some hot water (which the server microwaved, I was confused) to dilute it.
The boyfriend ordered the cha shu ramen with extra noodles. The cha shu ramen didn’t specify which broth it was, but it tasted like mine. The meat was also the same as the one in my bowl, so I guess the only difference with his was that he received a lot of extra cha shu. He also thoroughly enjoyed his noodles and cha shu.

Our bowls of ramen were very satisfying and delicious. From the reviews and positive things I have heard about Kamamarui, I personally that it really does live up to the type. I had my doubts that this place would be on par with Kintaro Ramen or Santouka Ramen in the Great Authentic Ramen District (fyi, I just made up the name of the district lolol), but it really is a great substitute if you don’t want to commute down to the Denman area.

Throwback: Favourite bowl of shio ramen at Kintaro

I know that it’s not authentic and is Korean owned, and I’m not sure if they slow cook their broth like the others, but I do know that it’s pretty decent here. I think we will be back!

Sushiholic Japanese Restaurant

November 20, 2014

The boyfriend and I have been meaning to try Sushiholic for many months now, but we never actually went until last month. He ordered take out for us probably a year or so ago, when I worked late hours as a barista. That time, we chomped on it like there was no tomorrow in his car during my break. After that, we wanted to try Sushiholic in restaurant, since our take out rolls were pretty fresh and delicious. I’m not sure if the quality went down in the time that has passed or any other reason, but we weren’t too impressed with the food that night. Pictures are definitely deceiving!
To start, we had an order of salmon sashimi ($10). The salmon tasted pretty bland, there wasn’t that juicy or fresh taste to it. We appreciated the generous portion and thick slices, but sadly, there wasn’t much taste and it fell flat.
The special rolls sounded pretty appetizing, so we decided to order the fire dragon roll ($12). Unfortunately, this tasted really flat as well and had no vibrant or special flavour that we expected for someting with the words fire and dragon in it. Not including those words, the roll was definitely NOT worth $12. It came with prawn tempura, spicy tuna, mayo, cucumber, and avocado. The prawn tempura was very soggy and tasted like it had been left overnight… maybe leftovers? I know that tempura can lose a bit of the crispiness in a roll, especially if there are other wet ingredients in it but it shouldn’t taste that disappointing. Didn’t really taste any of the prawns either. I’ve had other rolls similar to this at other restaurants which have tasted better, with crunchy tempura.
The negitoro roll was pretty decent, tasted average and the tuna actually had flavour compared to the salmon sashimi and fire dragon roll. Onions inside the negitoro roll tasted fresh and were crunchy too. Then came the chopped scallop roll, which was probably the worst dish that had arrived at this point LOL. Thinking back and writing this, it’s pretty funny. It was very bland, warm, and had the scallop had a rubbery texture to it. As well, it definitely did not taste fresh. At this point I was really hoping that I wouldn’t get a stomachache after eating all their sashimi. (Well, minus the tuna!)
The boyfriend ordered the BC Roll, I didn’t try it but he said that the cooked salmon meat and skin was very dry. Our meal prospects were getting worse and worse…
Okay, so our rolls were pretty disappointing so far…but maybe their cooked food would taste better?!? We ordered the tempura udon, and I was relieved that it had the taste I was accustomed to. The broth was flavourful and had the standard udon soup broth, while the udon noodles were cooked perfectly.
The tempura that came with the udon was drastically different than the tempura in the roll, what a great relief and surprise. The tempura here was very crispy, crunchy, and flaky compared to the soggy, abysmal mess before. Do they use their leftover tempura from the day before in their rolls? It sure tasted like that to us….

Needless to say, our visit to Sushiholic was pretty disappointing and unfortunately I don’t think we will be back. It makes me a bit sad to say that because I had good thoughts about this place, which slowly disappeared. In a city like Vancouver where fresh, yummy sushi is easily accessible, there are many places that do it a lot better, and for cheaper too. Although the prices were pretty decent for the sizes we received, the quality of the food just wasn’t there (with the exception of the negitoro roll and udon tempura, not the tempura in our special roll). I had high hopes for this restaurant, I’m not too sure what happened between our take out order about a year ago and now.

-Carmen

Rajio Japanese Public House

November 16, 2014

Rajio. Radio? Rajio. Japanese izakayas, or Japanese tapa bars, have become a common thing in Vancouver the past few years. Izakayas are a great place to wind down and relax, enjoy some drinks, and delicious food in a great and loud atmosphere. Emphasis on the loud, it is tradition for servers and kitchen staff to belt out greetings and thank you to every customer that walks in and out of the doors. I personally love izakayas, my favourite in Vancouver is Suika. But of course, I’m always up to try new izakayas, especially one that is a sister restaurant of Suika.
I apologize in advance for the grainy pictures, lighting was a bit dim inside. Walking in, we were greeted with loud welcomes in Japanese. At first glance, I loved the juxtaposition of cartoon characters and rustic, historic Japanese decor.

We were seated by the front in a small circular table, the type that you would see in a small coffee shop. From this table, we had a good view of the restaurant and the street. We went during a promotion last month, which came with four of their food items (the first four down below).

We started off with the Bagna Cauda ($6.80), an assortment of veggies with their in-house made dip consisting of garlic, anchovy, olive oil, and Japanese sweet mayo. Admittedly, I never eat enough veggies and I’m also not a big fan of them either. However, the sauce was what completed the meal for me. It was creamy and had a light garlic taste that went really well with the fresh and crunchy vegetables. Definitely not your average veggie dip, we were left wanting more and discussing how we could try to recreate the dip at home. It was a good starter and filled us up.

Up next was the sashimi salad ($8.80). Again, the greens in the salad were very fresh and crispy. The dressing was also very delicious, and the tobiko added a savoury and crunchy taste to the salad. The tuna sashimi was incredibly soft and melted in our mouth. Again, just like with the veggie dip, we were left wanting more… are you starting to see a reoccurring theme here? Hehe 🙂

One of Rajio’s specialties is their kushikatsu. Kushikatsu originated in Osaka, Japan, and is a very popular street food. It is basically either deep fried veggies or meat that comes on a skewer, with a special kushikatsu dipping sauce. The dipping sauce was very dark and opaque, and came in a mason jar. We were told to not double dip, I was also reading that in Japan, some of the restaurants reuse their sauce with other customers. I seriously hope this isn’t the case and it probably isn’t due to Vancouver’s high health standards. Anyways, we were given an assortment of veggies which I can’t recall, and a chicken skewer. The veggies still packed a lot of flavour despite being deep fried and dipped in sauce.

Our ebi ramen came next. I actually preferred the oxtail ramen at Suika, their sister restaurant, more. The noodles were bouncy and cooked well, and the pork was very moist and tender.

After all our food came from the voucher, we wanted to see what else Rajio had to offer. We ordered the peking wrap ($7~), which for some mysterious reason, I can’t find on their menu or anywhere on the internet!! The peking wrap tasted exactly like the traditional Chinese wraps, it came with the usual hoisin sauce, fresh white onion, and meat. The dough of the wrap was very soft. The only difference was that it wasn’t Peking duck and the chicken was deep fried, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Every time the boyfriend and I go out to eat Japanese food, it is not complete unless we order some sort of negitoro roll. But this time, we upgraded and got the negitoro battera ($9.80), pressed sushi with tuna belly, scallions, daikon, and sesame. Just like the sashimi salad, I enjoyed the freshness and taste of the tuna sashimi but I found the daikon taste a bit too overpowering. I let the boyfriend finish this plate off since he liked it more than I did.

Last but not least, squid karage ($6~)! Hm, just noticed that deep fried food seems to be an occurring theme in this visit.. oops. It was love at first bite. The squid was very crispy and crunchy, jam packed with flavour and I wished this plate would never ever end.

Our food was undeniably delicious, and with every dish, we we left wanting with more. Staff seemed a bit disorganized as our drinks were forgotten, only to have arrived twice at different intervals after we asked them. Our ramen came twice as well. We were told that our additional items after the set menu would take awhile since it was busy, fair enough. We ended up waiting 30 minutes in between, good thing we weren’t in a rush. I’m glad that we came a bit earlier and beat the rush. Rajio, you have stolen my heart much like your sister!

-Carmen

Mio Sushi, Seattle

November 9, 2014

A lazy Sunday calls for staying at home in cozy blankets, PJs, and watching Netflix while eating a disgusting amount of corn nuts. Oh, and catching up on blogging too of course. Apart from Toulouse, we also stopped by and tried Mio sushi on a whim. Our result to Mio was a result of indecisiveness, hunger, and convenience.

It was quite sad that after arriving in Seattle for a mere 28 hours, I was already missing and craving Asian noodles. In particular, I was craving udon soup as well so we set out on what would be a thirty minute indecisiveness, constant scrolling on Urbanspoon until we found Mio. There were other places as well, but we didn’t want to drive and we also didn’t want to spend a lot of money in the downtown core.

We were pleasantly surprised at how fast of a walk Mio was from our hotel! I was a bit iffy on walking there because the streets were pretty dark and we had to pass a big dark, unlit park which has probably seen better days… but I was assured that it would be safe to walk, turns out it was a pretty nice day for a brief stroll.

This location of Mio was located right outside of the downtown core, in the South Lake Union neighbourhood. The area looked pretty new, nice, and trendy. Kind of reminded us a bit of Yaletown but more commercial. We were the only customers when we came in around 8:30 pm.
As mentioned, I knew what I was going to order before stepping in. They had a seafood and nabeyaki udon. I got the nabeyaki udon ($9 usd) since it was cheaper than the seafood udon, and all I really wanted was just udon. It came in a cute stone bowl with a handle, and I was warned the bowl was very hot. I would have liked the tempura on the side because it got really soggy, but it was good nonetheless.

There were also some pan fried string beans, but it got pretty soggy and didn’t taste super fresh. Apart from those two very minor hiccups, this bowl of udon was exactly what I wanted, and was delicious. The broth was very flavourful, and a tad salty. It came with perfectly cooked and a decent amount of udon noodles, and imitation crab meat. I liked how there was a lot of seafood as well, it was a good addition as well as the fresh green onion garnishes.
The boyfriend ordered the Gyu ramen. The ramen was really disappointing. It lacked flavour, depth, and was very plain. Perhaps we were just used to amazing ramen in Vancouver, but this bowl was not appetizing. He also mentioned that the ramen noodles tasted like instant noodles… yikes.

To split, we ordered the salmon and yellowtail roll. Yellowtail roll is the same as negitoro roll, it confused us at first. Both rolls were very fresh and flavourful, pretty decent. The price was a bit steeper than we were used to for a casual Japanese joint at $4.75 USD per roll, but we did enjoy the freshness of it so we didn’t mind.

The rolls and udon were satisfying and delicious, but I wish we could say the same about the ramen. Service was pretty attentive, fast, and nice (well then again, we were the only customers in the restaurant!). Mio looked very clean, new, and had hints of pink accents throughout the restaurant. This looked like a place that would be really busy during lunch hours on the weekdays, but it was very quiet that night and they closed early after we finished eating. It was a good and convenient place to grab a quite bite since we were in the neighbourhood.

Toulouse Petite Kitchen Lounge (Seattle)

November 6, 2014

I was also down in the States last weekend, and although I was hoping to have some quiet time to relax in my hotel room and blog, it didn’t quite happen. This time around, we decided that we wanted to try different restaurants that Seattle had to offer other than just the restaurant chains we were used to (I’m looking at you, Cheesecake Factory and PF Changs). Yes, they are delicious and reputable restaurants, but I wanted to try places that were only offered in Seattle.

One of the places that we wanted to try on our visit here last month was Toulouse, but we didn’t get the chance to. This time, we made sure that we would check this place out! We were also quite fortunate, as our hotel was a mere 10 minute walk away (if we didn’t get lost, that is.. but in my defense, we didn’t have a physical map or data on our cell phones to find it).

After walking around the Queen Anne neighbourhood for a bit, I knew that we had reached the restaurant when I saw tons of late brunchers waiting outside a dark/lime green-ish building. I braved the crowd and asked for a table of two. We were told that the wait was going to be 35-40 minutes. WHAT?! Since we were set on trying this place and we wanted a seemingly delicious lunch, we sucked it up and walked around Queen Anne a bit before coming back to wait in line.

After 35 minutes of waiting, we were seated at a big and high communal table, with 4-6 other brunchers sharing the space with us. The colouring and decor of the wall gave it a very rustic and homey feeling, despite the high ceilings. The liquor cabinet was definitely something to be marveled at though, look at how extensive their collection was!

But it was too early for alcohol and I had already bought a smoothie while waiting in line earlier. The boyfriend was very impressed with the intricate detailing of our tables, known as wood inlay. With his carpentry background, he knew and appreciated the about of labour and effort that went into what (to me, at least) looked like a seemingly basic painted wood design on the table. Needless to say, we were very impressed with the decor and ambiance.
Another thing to note about Toulouse is that it has won numerous awards and was featured a couple of times on The Food Network (!!!!!). We had absolutely no idea until we were reading the menu. That explains the long waits and high ratings!

Toulouse is rated one of the Top 5 Restaurants in America by Trip Advisor. That is crazy, I had noo idea and it just made our restaurant trip even better. At that point, the boyfriend decided to order two entrees because he couldn’t decide, and it wasn’t often that we ate in one of the “top” restaurants in USA LOL.
Snake River Farms Kurobota Ham Egg Benedict ($14). I thoroughly enjoyed the smoky flavour of the ham, which was a bit salty as well. The ham was very light and carved really thin. The yolk oozed perfectly onto the ham and english muffin. The hash was seasoned very well and very filling. I’m not a huge hollandaise fanatic, but I do appreciate a delicious hollandaise sauce, this one was no different. It went very well with the smoky and thin texture of the ham. This dish takes second place out of the three entrees.

This was the entree that I finally decided on, the Spicy Creole Andouille Hash ($14). First off, my eggs were perfect and ahhhhh-maaazing. It was cooked perfectly in the way that the yolk slowly oozed out, encompassing all of the hash, sausages, and veggies underneath. I was very impressed and happy at how perfect it went. As for the hash, tasso, housemade andouille sausage, peppers and tomato confit underneath, I enjoyed it as well but found the taste of the red pepper taste to be a bit overpowering. It was my first time trying andouille sausage, a Southern classic. I wouldn’t mind trying it again. There was a lot going on in this dish, but every ingredient complemented each other perfectly, bringing together a very dynamic Creole dish. The fresh green onions on top was the cherry on top of a great dish.

My favourite plate, hands down, of the day. We found ourselves constantly thinking about this dish even after we had finished it on our stroll back. Cured Pork Cheeks Confit Hash ($15), featured on The Food Network’s “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” TV show. Was it the best thing I ever ate? It certainly came close. The cured pork cheeks was SO GOOD, it was very tender and melted in your mouth, packed with flavour. Mixing in the ooey yolk, hash, arugula, and other vegetables, it was love at first bite.

I love my hearty Southern food because of how savoury and comforting it is. Would I wait 35 minutes again in line? Yes. From the friendly service, intricate decor, and delicious southern food, I am very glad we made the stop here on our trip.