food blogger Archives - Page 10 of 17

Soft Peaks Ice Cream

March 4, 2015

Hi hi!

What type of food blogger would I be if I didn’t talk about the latest ice cream shop that has been taking Vancouver’s social media by storm? Can you guess which place I’m talking about? Yep, Soft Peaks Ice Cream! Soft Peaks is located in the cobblestone streets of Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood.
After hearing many stories of people waiting upwards of one hour for a cup of organic ice cream, I did not want to partake in that so we decided to not go on a weekend, which is probably when it’ll be the most busy. Finally, the boyfriend and I found time to go one weekday evening. There wasn’t much parking available and it’s probably easier to commute there, we paid for parking three blocks away.

Soft Peaks has very high walls, which gives it a spacious appearance. There is also a small alcove on the second floor where customers can enjoy their ice cream. Overall, I would say seating is pretty limited if the place was packed but it doesn’t feel cramped.
The girl at the counter was very friendly and had great service. We waited approximately 7-10 minutes for our soft serve, but it seemed a lot longer than that because I was really anticipating my order.

I was a bit surprised when I saw the size, I thought that for $7 it would be a bit bigger. But, quality over quantity?
The boyfriend ordered the rocky mountain with his choice of chocolate syrup. I was secretly hoping he would order the caramel syrup so that I could try it =P

Being the milk lover he is, he really, really, REALLY loved his soft serve. He emphasized how creamy and smooth it was, and how delicious the Avalon milk was. He would be back again in a heart beat. But what about those who don’t have a “soft” spot for dairy?
I ordered the mudslide, which came with crushed tim tam flakes. Unlike the boyfriend, I was not in love at first bite. I didn’t think it was amazing, but it wasn’t bad either as what seems to be the general consensus around this place.

Since the soft serve is made with organic Avalon milk instead of cream, the good thing meaning that it is lower in fat, but the negative thing might be that people aren’t used to this taste. When eating soft serve, people are accustomed to super sweet soft serve like at Dairy Queen or McDonalds.

Without the chocolate syrup and tim tam flakes, I would have found this very plain. I’m really glad that I had the chocolate and flakes which gave more excitement to an otherwise plain soft serve.

Another thing I noticed while reading reviews were that people were angry and felt ripped off because the soft serve had a giant hole in the middle! If I was paying $7 for a small sized soft serve, I would be angry too. I think they have since corrected the problem since my soft serve only had a slight hole and the boyfriend’s didn’t.

Soft Peaks had a great idea by re-inventing the soft serve with organic and high quality Avalon milk. The quality of the soft serve is definitely there, and it is very smooth but it is not the sweet soft serve that people are accustomed to.

-Carmen

PS. If you haven’t bought a bottle of Avalon milk before, you must try it on its own – the quality and smoothness of it is undeniable.

*Media sample provided by Soft Peaks. Opinions and thoughts are my own, and are not altered by the requests of the company.

Rocket Sandwich Shop

February 25, 2015

Hello all!

I was walking around on my lunch break one day, and noticed a clean, pristine and modern looking sandwich shop that I’ve never heard of before. I then decided to search them up and found out that it was a healthy, alternative gourmet sandwich shop catered for those on the go. I think it’s also relatively new because their website still says “now open!”. A few weeks later, my coworkers and I went to try this place for lunch and here’s how that went!
I really liked the modern, clean, and simplistic design to Rocket- that’s what made me notice this place originally! As you can see, they have a white tile wall with a big rocket ship stamped on it, their company logo. They keep the colours simple and fresh, with a splash of colour- à la baby blue espresso machine. A small selection of pastries are offered behind a clean, streak/thumbprint free glass.

On the other side of the clean wooden counter was the fridge, where their sandwiches are stored. We went around 12:30 on a weekday, and the fridge was looking a bit scarce already. However, the worker told us that they were able to freshly make a sandwich that we wanted if we did not see it there!

The price of one sandwich was $8.50, and I didn’t feel like paying that much for a sandwich although they looked delicious. I opted for the hot egg breakfast sandwich instead, with your choice of one out of four options and was $4. I decided on the prosciutto and cheddar topping.

I fell in love with this at first bite. I loved how savoury, warm, and fresh everything tasted. The cheddar cheese was slightly melted on the prosciutto, while the English muffin was soft and lightly toasted. My favourite part was the EGG though, I’m still thinking about how delicious that egg was. For $4, this is a much better tasting breakfast sandwich with fresh, quality ingredients than getting a breakfast sandwich at a fast food joint for around the same price.

My coworker ordered the spicy shrimp sandwich. She enjoyed her sandwich as well, even though it was a bit on the pricey side for a single sandwich ($8.50 without tax and tip). Well to justify the amount spent on her sandwich, she said it’s not likely that she will craft up a sandwich with this much effort in it on a daily basis – preparing, seasoning, and cooking the shrimp and making the specialty sandwich sauce.

True that, if you were to make that at home it would probably take a long time. Usually, people prepare sandwiches because they’re quick and easy so I guess that the spicy shrimp sandwich at Rocket is worth the splurge.

-Carmen

Earnest Ice Cream – Two visits

February 24, 2015

Hi everyone,

FINALLY! I am so happy to be able to write a post on Earnest… because that means I finally tried it! The reason why I waited so long to try it is because of my pet peeve in lining up at eating establishments. If you’ve been reading my blog already, you know that I hate waiting in line for food.
I actually sucked it up and attempted to go to Earnest twice in the summer. Both times, we drove around the store and surrounding blocks looking for parking, for a good ten minutes before giving up.

Needless to say, Earnest seemed like a faraway, dreamy and distant land that I’ll never be able to go to =( Until now! Their new location had opened up this month right on the outskirts of Olympic Village.
Although I haven’t been to the original location, I’ve driven past it many times and know how small it is. This location is a major upgrade in terms of size, featuring high ceilings and almost floor to ceiling windows. It feels very roomy and spacious due to the high ceilings.

For our first visit, the boyfriend ordered a scoop of the whiskey hazelnut. It was very rich, creamy, and smooth…the epitome of what great ice cream should taste like. There were small chunks of hazelnut in his ice cream as well. The only regret he had was to order the waffle cone instead, he thought that it costed extra!
This was my heavenly scoop of salted caramel. Again, it was very rich and creamy… the caramel taste was perfect. I enjoyed every bite of this and the waffle cone tasted fresh and was crunchy.
I was craving Earnest so much after our first visit that we went back the next day…. whatever! #hatersgonnahate. I ordered the same salted caramel ice cream with a waffle cone, so I won’t talk about how delicious it was again!

The boyfriend ordered the cookies and cream, with a waffle cone this time! Again, it did not disappoint.

Earnest was seriously amazing, and definitely lived up to the hype. At least, I think so, but I would love to hear about those who didn’t like the ice cream here. Friendly, fast service combined with quality, rich, and smooth ice cream… I’m not sure what more you could ask for.

-Carmen

PS. Since both stores are the same and carry the same flavours, here are spoon backs to both locations:

Rogue Kitchen & Wetbar- Convention Center location

February 15, 2015

Hi everyone!

Sometimes, as a food blogger, you will visit one of those restaurants that are so bad that you don’t even want to waste your time writing or even thinking about it. But at the same time, you want to warn people before they go to said restaurants. Well, Rogue at the Convention Center is one of those said locations. If I knew how bad the food and service would be, I would have definitely tried another place. This place was definitely one of the worst places I’ve been to in a while, food and service wise.

Walking in, I was very impressed with the decor and location. They had floor to ceiling windows, which let in a lot of sunlight and there was a beautiful view of the water outside. Unfortunately, that’s where it stopped with Carmen being impressed.

My friend and I decided to share the chicken and chorizo cappelini, which sounded delicious on paper. What arrived and what we tasted was another story. The cappelini noodles were extremely mushy, bland and soggy. In addition, the entire plate was void of any flavour, just soggy, mushy, disgusting noodles.

The worst part of the dish was how oily it was. The entire time we were trying to stomach this down, all we saw was oil gleaming from every angle and all we tasted was bland, soggy noodles.

After a few bites, we were done and couldn’t eat anymore. I don’t know how they can serve this out to customers and charge $17 for it. Take it from our experience and save yourself the money, do not order this.
My friend and I also shared the spicy tiger prawn and pesto pizza. I had this at the other Rogue location in Waterfront station, which was really good! However, we were disappointed again when we picked up a slice, and it collapsed due to how much greasy oil was on the thin crust dough. The whole pizza was incredibly oily, to the point where it was so unappetizing that neither of us wanted to eat it anymore.

I tried to salvage it by dabbing my napkin to soak up the oil, but my napkin was drenched in oil after two slices and service was so slow and rude that I didn’t want to ask for more napkins. The pizza was also cut really badly and uneven, some of the pieces were four times larger than others. I’m sorry, but this was just terrible.

There weren’t many prawns on the dish either and tasted nothing like what I had at the other Rogue, I can’t believe they are sister restaurants.
I’m so glad that I ordered a side soup because this was the only minimal dish I had that day. This was the tomato basil soup. I’m not sure if they can cook their soups really well, OR if my standards for this place had gone so low that I thought this was good. There was a strong tomato taste to it, and had a bit of a thicker consistency. It had the right amount of herbs and saltiness, and the melted Parmesan added a nice finishing touch.

Moving on to the rude service. Service was very minimal, and when our server did come, she seemed to be in a really big rush and did not want to serve us. I asked for a hot honey water, which never came so I asked another server as she was walking by. Bad choice. She literally THREW it down on our table and walked away so fast that we couldn’t ask her to bring our server.

My friend was also missing her utensils and water, which took us three tries before our server got it for us.

It’s safe to say that I will not be returning to this Rogue location after how gross our food was and how bad the service was.

-Carmen

Bon Macaron Patisserie

February 11, 2015

Hi everyone!

Maki hopped on a ferry to Victoria over the long weekend, and surprised me with a box of macarons from Bon Macaron Patisserie! I’ve never heard of them as I’ve only been to Victoria once for a high school field trip, and also because I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. I also don’t understand the crazy macaron phase that everyone obsesses about but to each their own =)

But enough of me rambling on, I’ll get to what you are all here for =)

First off, can we talk about how cute their mascot is?! It’s a French sir macaron hehehe! After browsing through their site, I learned that Bon Macaron is owned by two good pals who were born, raised, and educated in France, before settling down and opening their store in downtown Victoria.
Inside the mini box were six assorted flavours! They looked so cute and dainty. Maki picked out random flavours for me, but avoided their savoury macaron section. At first, I was a bit disappointed hearing that because I’m sure you all know how much I love my savoury foods over sweets! But she told me they were pretty disappointing and some were really gross, so I guess savoury macaron flavours don’t go well together.
They were all so cute that I couldn’t help putting them all on a plate and making it look nice. Macarons unite! Since we both didn’t know what all the flavours were in the box, I was left to taste test each one and figuring out which flavour it was based on their website. I think I did pretty well, there were only two that I couldn’t figure out exactly but good thing my friend remembered.
The first one I tried was the tangerine chili, it even had sparkles on it if you look closely or open the image in a separate window! I hope that the sparkles are safe for consumption LOL! I loved how this wasn’t too sweet and had a custard filling inside, there also wasn’t much of a chili taste which I preferred. Yum!

When I first bit into the second macaron, my thoughts and taste buds went from weird -> yummy -> weird -> yummy -> I’m not sure how I feel about this anymore. Originally, there was a strong spicy cinnamon and chai taste to it. Then, it started to taste like bananas. I really enjoyed the banana part, but I wasn’t a fan of the strong cinnamon taste. This was either the chai or banana flambe macaron, it seemed like it was a mix of both flavours.
Up next was the chocolate pear, I didn’t see this on the menu but my friend remembered the flavour. I didn’t taste the pear, only the chocolate. They use a dark chocolate filling, so it wasn’t super sweet. I enjoyed this one as well =)

The light pink one was the raspberry. Compared to all the other fillings I had tried so far, this one was a lot sweeter. The raspberry tasted like the candy flavour, instead of the raspberry fruit. I also noticed that the amount of filling that they give here is a lot less than at Theirry’s or Soirette, but that doesn’t bother me!

One of the classic flavours, good ol’ chocolate. If you’re looking for something original and want to keep it safe, this one is the way to go. Just like the pear chocolate above, this chocolate macaron wasn’t too sweet and tasted like it was made with dark chocolate. I liked the lightly dusted cocoa powder on top as well!

Last but not least! I had no idea what flavour this was. I wrote down mini notes on each of these because I figured I’d probably forget and all I wrote for this one was ??? LOL! However, I asked my friend and she said it was the bubble gum flavour. Now that I think of it, there was a slight hint of bubble gum, but it tasted more like a plain macaron except hot pink.

4665958_orig — Picture from EatDrinkVictoria.com

Overall, I really enjoyed the macarons and was left with a happy tummy. Each of the macarons were made with great quality and tasted great even though it had been a couple of days since my friend bought them. The outside shell was slightly hard but when you bite into them, they are soft and a bit moist and chewy. A bad macaron would be super hard, crumble, and crack, leaving you with nothing but a mess and a macaron corpse.

I only had a few small bites of each since I was planning on going to bed soon, but wanted to try them since they were still relatively fresh! I’ll finish the rest of it off today >=). It is recommended that the sweet macarons (ones that I received) should be consumed within three days, and the savoury ones to be consumed within one day.

Special thanks to my wonderful friend Pauline for being thoughtful and surprising me with these treats! =)

What are your favourite macaron places?

-Carmen

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