food blogger Archives - Curiously Carmen

Sal Y Limon

January 22, 2017

I normally don’t go for Mexican food- actually, scratch that, I never go for Mexican. I don’t remember the last time I had Mexican prior to this month. OH wait, I think it was Las Margaritas almost two years ago, for Dine Out Vancouver 2015.

I don’t really know why, I guess because there are so many restaurants to pick from in Vancouver that Mexican food goes off my radar! But lately this month, I have been trying more places. And by places, I mean Chipotle (Yes, I finally tried Chipotle and I can see why people rave about it) and this review, Sal Y Limon!

Sal Y Limon is located inside a small strip mall off Fraser. Parking is a tiny bit of a mess, so I recommend trying to find parking on the side streets. I don’t understand why the architects of this strip mall made it like a zig zag shape, ineffectively making the parking lot messy as well.
Once inside, it is pretty spacious although it can feel cramped during peak hours. Once you get in, you order your food at the till. The workers will bring you your food with the corresponding number stand.
Shrimp taco, $2.75: The shrimp taco is on the far left. I am a huge shrimp lover and devoured this! The shrimp was big and juicy, with a fresh and crunchy batter. It was topped off with crunchy and fresh veggies, and a spoonful of spicy mayo. So good! All the flavours went perfectly together!

Pollo pibil, $2.60: I ordered two different chicken tacos! This one was the slow roasted marinated chicken breast. It was soooo tender and packed with flavour. The pickled lettuce and cilantro also went really well with the tender chicken breast. Out of the two chicken tacos, I definitely recommend this one!

Pollo asado, $2.60: Same price as the chicken breast. This one is really simple, just chicken meat seasoned with salt and a bit of pepper. I found it a bit too plain, considering the explosion of flavours from the other two tacos. However, if you want something simple, this is the one to order.
Shrimp taco, $2.75: See comments above

Pollo pibil, $2.60: See comments above

Tinga vegetariana, $3.00: This was one of the vegetarian tacos. Although I didn’t try it, my cousin enjoyed it although she thought it was pretty spicy (she doesn’t do spicy food at all, so might not be that bad for spice lovers).

It came with mushrooms, zucchinis, onions, and napoles (Which I just learned from writing the post is that napoles are a vegetable made from cacti. Who know that you could eat part of a cacti?! See how blogging teaches you things? =P)

Pierna, $9.05: Instead of ordering tacos like my cousin and I, the boyfriend ordered a burrito! And boy, was it massive. It was bursting with rice, beans, cabbage, sour cream, and more.

The boyfriend ordered the pierna, which is pulled pork. He also added cheese for an extra cost. I didn’t try it but he said it was amazing, and wouldn’t stop talking about how good it was! I mean, I wouldn’t doubt him…it looks amazingly delicious!

Overall, Sal Y Limon is a great place to go for Mexican. I am not a Mexican food expert so I’m not sure if it’s authentic or not, but I can attest that they have delicious and fresh food! Also, the prices are so cheap!

Yay!

The Pink Bicycle

January 19, 2017

While in Victoria, the boyfriend and I tried a few locally loved restaurants. I mean, you’re not truly visiting a place if you don’t try their food, right? When we were looking up restaurants to eat, The Pink Bicycle rose to the top of both of our lists.

We made the decision to walk from our hotel to The Pink Bicycle to save on parking and see more of the city, but the walk was longer and more difficult than we expected. We got a bit lost, it was still really cold from the snow storm warning, and I was getting blisters from the new winter boots I had just bought in preparation.

The restaurant is dark and doesn’t really have much signage, except for a pink bicycle on the window.
As expected on a Friday night, there was a bit of a wait. The restaurant is pretty small, and the kitchen is on the top floor. I always feel a bit bad for restaurants where the kitchen is on another level, because of the servers who have to walk up and down.

If that was me, I probably would slip a few times.
Pink Bike Cheeseburger, $12.50: I ordered their standard cheeseburger, but without the cheese due to my dairy restriction =(. It came on a toasted sesame bun, naturally raised local beef, veggies, and the pink bike sauce (a combination of mustard, ketchup, and relish).

This burger was such a delight! You could really taste the quality in it. The patty was thick and juicy, and full of flavour. You know it’s a good burger when the juices are oozing out onto your plate and getting all over your fingers.

I also really enjoyed the sesame bun. It was nice and thick, and reminded me of a classic burger. Although the pink bike sauce is just a combination of mustard, ketchup, and relish, they really nailed down the ratio because it tasted really good.

For my side, I stuck with the regular fries. They were nice and crispy.
BBQ Island Bison Burger, $15.50: The boyfriend also really enjoyed the bison burger. As with my beef burger, his bison burger was thick and juicy as well. It was topped with smoky cheddar and BBQ sauce.

Since we were on vacation, he went all out and upgraded to the mac and cheese sticks. I really wish I could have tried them because he kept raving about how delicious and cheesy they are.

He also added a zesty lime mayo dip, which he said was alright. The star of the dinner was definitely the mac & cheese sticks for him!

Overall, we really enjoyed our food at The Pink Bicycle and I would highly recommend giving it a try if you’re a burger lover! Service was a bit slow since they were busy, but they were all very friendly and catered to my food restrictions nicely!

Yay!

Angel Cake Cafe

January 5, 2017

Okay, I don’t even know how to begin this post! Angel is one of mine and they boyfriend’s regular places to eat. We LOVE this place for cheap Hong Kong style food!

We come here quite regularly because, as you will see, their set combo is super delicious and CHEAP. If we are super hungry, ordering ONE of these combos will fill us to the brim.

The lunch combo we order is $15, which includes ALL the food below!

In fact, we went to Cora’s for brunch the other day and joked how $35 of food there was not remotely satisfying or delicious as $15 of Angel’s. 😛

Soup: The combo comes with your choice of soup. Usually it’s Borscht or Cream of Mushroom that you can pick from.

The boyfriend usually has the soup, unless he picks Borscht then I’ll have a bit. The soup is always really flavourful and filling, even though there aren’t many pieces of meat/veggie inside.

Garlic bread: This garlic bread is AMAZING. It comes toasted, and is very fluffy and slathered with lots of butter. But of course, I can’t eat this anymore because of the butter.

Drink: To have a cold drink, you’ll have to pay an additional $0.50, which is the standard at HK Cafes. The drinks here are always tasty and satisfying.

On the day we came here, we decided to each order a drink. The extra drink was full price at $3.50.

Choice of two meats, rice/spaghetti, and sauce WITH veggies and fries: Seriously. Look at how big this portion is. FOR $15, which includes the appetizers! And, it is so delicious too!

The boyfriend and I each pick one of the meats. You can also order 3 meats, but we did that in the past and it was definitely a regret because we didn’t even touch it.

Fish cutlet/fillet: The boyfriend always picks the fish fillet. Each time we get this, the fillet is very fresh and crunchy.

The fish meat flakes off really nicely and is accompanied by a cheap jar version of tartar sauce.

Chicken steak: I always get the chicken steak, and like everything else here, it is amazing every time! Look how BIG that is, the plate was a large plate and compare it with the fork!

The chicken steak is seasoned very well. The skin is nice and crispy but the inside is always really juicy.

Spaghetti with black pepper sauce: Again, they give a very generous amount of spaghetti. The black pepper sauce is perfect with a nice amount of heat and flavour to it.

You can also pick from other sauces or have rice instead.

Let me remind you how much this super filling and delicious meal costs- $15! It’s seriously mind blowing due to the quality and portions they give you. This lunch set begins at 11:30 and they have a dinner version, which costs a bit more and includes a BAKED POTATO. Even thinking about how much deliciousness they give you is making me full right now.

Although the boyfriend and I don’t live in the neighbourhood, we are always willing to drive here just for Angel’s!

Yay!

Fat Mao Noodles

January 2, 2017

My friend had wanted to try Fat Mao Noodles, and being the noodle fanatic that I am, I did not say no. If I ever say no to noodles, you should know that I am probably not okay.

The restaurant has been open for a bit over a year now, and gained a bit of interest in the foodie community. Why? The restaurant was opened by Angus An, who is behind Maenam, Longtail Kitchen, and Freebird. You can read my review here on Longtail Kitchen afterwards!
Fat Mao Noodles is located inside Chinatown. It is easy to spot from the rest of the stores on the bloack due to it’s glass walls.
The restaurant is fairly small, but seating is still comfortable because customers do not have to squish beside each other. I was greeted instantly by the workers in the open concept kitchen. My friend and I came around 12 pm, and there was only one other table (pic taken before we left).

The place started filling up around 12:30pm, so we were glad we came before the rush and got to order and ask our server questions!
The menu is also worth including because it is so cute! We really enjoyed the cat themed decor in here, and I’m sure cat lovers would appreciate it as well.

After all, mao is cat in Cantonese, so the restaurant name translates to fat cat!

Each table also has a side of sauces to go with the noodles. As you’ll soon read, these sauces played a really important part to my bowl of noodles!
Braised duck noodles, $11.99: With this dish, you could choose between either Shangnai chewy noodles or wide rice noodles. I love my doughy and chewy noodles so I went with the Shanghai noodles.

First off, the duck was amazing. It was soooo tender, and effortlessly fell off the bone. It was also full of that Chinese BBQ flavour. Just for the duck alone, I’m glad I ordered this! I’ve attached another close up of the duck below because it was that delicious.

The noodles were perfect as well. They had a perfect bounce and were chewy. Since they weren’t completely flat, some of soup went in between the folds and made it more flavourful.

The broth was average. It was more on the sweet side, but it was really flat. The server recommended two scoops of the vinegar sauce. I ended up adding 5 scoops and one scoop of chili to make it have more depth. I’m really glad the sauces were there!
Boat noodles, $10.99: This was the special that day. It was a spicy pork broth with pork shoulder, beef balls, fried garlic bits and crunchy deep fried noodles. We also speculated on why it was called boat noodles.

Unlike the duck broth soup, this boat noodle broth was full of flavour. The broth had a nice tangy spicy kick to it. It didn’t really need any of the additional side sauces but my friend added some chili flakes for even more heat.

We both agreed that the noodles were a bit underwhelming. They tasted kind of like pho noodles, but were harder (not in the undercooked way). We both liked the broth of the boat noodles more, but the noodles for the braised duck noodles were better.

The boat noodles were definitely more of a southeast Asian influence while mine was more like a Taiwanese noodle. This is why we liked Fat Mao because you could get a mix of different types of Asian cooking!
Durian ice cream, $5.99: Although my friend was quite full, she really wanted to try the durian ice cream. She is a huge durian lover and wondered how durian ice cream tasted.

The ice cream was very light and fluffy, more like a mousse. It had a strong durian taste which she liked, and it was drizzled with caramel sauce on the top.

However, for the price, it was not worth it. She got the small size, which was about 6 regular spoonfuls. For $6, that was really steep and if she had known the price, would have not ordered it. So, it was delicious until she found out the price. But she also commented that she should have asked for the price before ordering.

Overall, we enjoyed our visit to Fat Mao and left satisfied. Although my broth was pretty flat, it was easily made better with their sauce. And that whole duck leg was just amazingly tender and what a meat lover’s dreams are made of.

Yay!

Peaceful Restaurant – Downtown Seymour Street Location

December 11, 2016

Peaceful Restaurant is quite popular and well known in the Vancouver restaurant scene, a large part due to it being on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. The restaurant serves up Northern Chinese cuisine, which is characterized by foods that have a bit more spice. I love Northern Chinese food and find it really comforting!
They have a number of locations in Vancouver. This review is for the location in downtown on Seymour Street, a few steps from BCIT Downtown and Granville Skytrain Station. I think this location is somewhat new because when I used to work in this area, it used to be a Taiwanese restaurant.

My cousin and I went during the lunch rush, where the restaurant was completely full. We waited about ten minutes in line.
Lanzhou beef noodle, $9.95: I have been craving Lanzhou noodles ever since I went to Tasty Handpulled Noodle in New York City. So, I decided to order something nice and comforting!

The bowl of noodles comes with a very generous portion of thinly sliced beef, although I did get lots of the tendon part. Above the noodles is a pile of glass noodles (fun see), cooked spinach, and cilantro. I felt like I was getting a bonus portion of noodles with the fun see!

The broth was very clean, non-oily, and very rich in flavour. It reminded me of homemade broth. There was also a really strong garlic taste too!

As for the noodles, they were excellent. It was cooked al dente (seems kinda strange describing Chinese food in Italian terms), and nice and chewy as Lanzhou noodles should be. I loved this and would order it again in a heartbeat!
Peaceful Beef Rolls, $7.95: There was actually another piece in here, but we forgot to take a photo until after my cousin ate it.

The beef roll was so delicious! The dough was slightly thick and chewy, but with a nice flaky and fresh exterior. There was a very generous amount of beef slices inside, coupled with hoisin sauce. I don’t order beef rolls often at other places, so I’m not sure how this compares.

But, I really loved it and would order it again!
Xiao long bao, $7.95: This was the one dish that I didn’t enjoy that day. The noodle soup and beef rolls were amazing, but this was quite lacking. It tasted like those frozen ones from TNT, which I mean is okay if you’re steaming it at home.. but not at a restaurant for almost $8!

All in all, we really enjoyed Peaceful Restaurant and have another place to go to when I’m craving soup noodles. I went back to their other location on East 5th, which is by Olympic Village/Earnest Ice Cream.

Compared to the East 5th location, the Seymour location had more fun see noodles and had spinach. The beef rolls at the Seymour location were also bigger and had more filling. But, I would still go back to the East 5th location because it’s more convenient for us and the noodles & broth tasted the same!

Yay!