food porn Archives - Curiously Carmen

Peqish – Healthy fast food sandwiches

June 10, 2015

Hi everyone!

I first noticed Peqish in January after our office had moved closer to this area. My coworkers came here one morning, and arrived back at the office with piping hot, melt in your mouth, freshly made chocolate cookies. We decided to try this place out for lunch a few months ago in February.
As you can see, Peqish is pretty small. The concept behind Peqish was to provide people with healthy fast food on the go. Each of their items are made fresh daily. With emphasis on the express, the place has a mere 5 bar seats which is pretty narrow. You also order your coffee/drinks on the computer and pay there, similar to restaurants that I’ve seen in Tokyo with the same system.
The shelves are filled with healthy sandwiches, wraps, mini salads, and smoothies. This is a picture of their hot food section, while 3/4 of the other items are stored in a fridge. There were so many to pick from and took us all awhile to decide on what to order. So many decisions.
I settled on the “bohemian wrapsody” – shwarma beef, hummus, tahini sauce, peppers, and carrots enveloped in a Middle Eastern style flatbread. I also got one of their “protein booster” chicken snacks and the green smoothie made with kale, coconut, and pineapple. This was a lunch combo for $10.

I found both the meat in the wrap and protein snack to be extremely dry. It took me awhile to finish because it was so dry, which was disappointing. Aside from that, the vegetables were fresh and sauces were flavourful. There is a lot of potential in the wrap, but sadly the meat was just too dry to be edible.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed the smoothie and think I’ll be back in the future to get this. The coconut and pineapple were really strong, and it tasted refreshing! Much healthier and cheaper than going to Starbucks, haha.

My coworker ordered the 5 spice pulled pork wrap from the hot shelf (mine was from the fridge shelf). Like my meat, the pulled pork was extremely dry.

For her side, she chose the orzo pasta salad cup which was really good. It had a good amount of herbs and the vegetables tasted fresh.

She ordered the berry smoothie, but said it was disappointing because all she could taste was the banana. It tasted exactly like a pure banana smoothie but berry coloured… but bananas are easily over powering in smoothies so it’s important to get the ratio right!

This is a close up of my coworker’s pulled pork wrap, since the previous picture is just covered in condensation.

Overall, we were disappointed with the wraps since the meat was so dry and inedible, but I liked the green smoothie and she enjoyed her pasta salad cup. I’m not sure if we will be back for the sandwiches, but I did enjoy the smoothie and wouldn’t mind having another one!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Archimallows – Homemade Gourmet Marshmallows

March 30, 2015

Hello everyone!

Archimallows is a pop-up marshmallow shop, with their kitchen located in South Vancouver. They’re probably best known for being the adorable pop-up stand at Pacific Center’s Holt Renfrew in Downtown Vancouver, but they do private functions all over town.
At the social, Kyle had a small little table decorated with cute pieces of fake moss, fresh marshmallows in mason jars and white rice, finished off with polka dots! I LOVE POLKA DOTS, so naturally we were off to a great start. In fact, I’m wearing my polka dot printed PJs and have my polka dotted phone case to my left right now.

His flavours rotate depending on the week. At the event I attended, he had dark chocolate salted caramel, lemon meringue, vanilla sprinkle, and cola float (pictured above).

After lightly torching the marshmallows, you have a selection of finishing it off with a quick dip in coca-cola or Bailey’s (yes, the alcohol). You can see the bowl of Bailey’s in the first picture, the cola is a bit hidden behind the marshmallows =)
Here is Kyle lightly torching the lemon meringue marshmallow. Each of the marshmallows are individually torched in front of your eyes!
After toasting, Kyle asked if I wanted to try it as a s’more… the answer was a 100 percent YES!

Oh man, this was heaven in a bite. The graham crackers were crunchy and had a light flavour to them, so that it did not steal the spotlight from the marshmallow. The lemon meringue had a slight lemon taste, but it wasn’t super sour. It was soft and melted in your mouth, but had a nice, thin crisp exterior.
Vanilla sprinkles! Just like the lemon meringue, it tasted really fresh and the marshmallow was very soft. This was dipped in Bailey’s so it had a slight caramel taste to it, which enhanced the lightly torched exterior. There isn’t much Bailey’s on the marshmallow, it is definitely not enough to get you drunk if you’re worried about that.

Kyle was also nice enough to make more s’mores for my friends and I! I had the salted caramel s’more, and it was probably my favourite flavour of the night. It came with dark chocolate flakes which were slightly melted due to them being torched. I liked how it was slightly salty and had a caramel taste, even before it was dipped into the Bailey’s!

My marshmallow experience before trying Archimallows went only as far as jumbo-puffs, or those generic store brand marshmallows. I got to try and see a whole new wide of fancy, quality marshmallows!

archimallows — Mini egg archimallows! Taken from their Instagram

The best bet to find Kyle and his pop up stand is at Holt Renfrew! If you’ve ever been there, you might recall seeing his stand right near the bridge/tunnel that connects Holts and Pacific Center. Next time I’m in the area (which is often considering I work closely), I am definitely going to try to find Archimallows!

Which flavour sounds the best to you? Dark chocolate salted caramel, lemon meringue, vanilla sprinkle, or cola float? Let me know in the comments down below!

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

Forage – Foodie Brunch

March 13, 2015

Hi hi hi hi hi!

Last month, I met up with fellow food bloggers Naomi from Pink Marshmellows and David from Picky Diners Club. We went to Forage and for a weekend brunch in downtown, and it was quieter than we had expected inside!

Luckily, we had a reservation and only ended up waiting around 5 minutes before we were seated. Forage is located deep in downtown, near the end of Robson Street. It is around a 12 minute walk from Burrard skytrain.

I ordered the classic benny, which included back bacon, free range eggs covered in hollandaise served with a side of crispy potatoes.

The muffin was nice and soft, while the back bacon had a thick cut and smoky flavour to it. My eggs were poached perfectly to my liking and covered with a generous and delicious amount of creamy hollandaise sauce.

The potatoes were very crispy on the outside, and bursting with a savoury herb flavour. Half way through, it started to taste really salty but that didn’t stop me from devouring the whole plate. We made sure to have our water constantly filled.

Naomi ordered the special benny that day, the pork belly benny. It was the same as mine, but without the back bacon and pork belly instead. I had a bite and her benny was delicious as well, the pork belly was very tender and rich.

David ordered the corned bison hash which came with a sunny side up egg, toast, kale, house-made sauerkraut, and IPA mustard hollandaise. A plate with a German twist, which was delicious as well. All the flavours in this dish went perfectly with each other. I just wish the egg yolk wouldn’t have fallen or the picture would have looked nicer!

The toast also came with a side of homemade blueberry and strawberry jam. Since David couldn’t finish everything, we gladly helped him finish the toast. The toast was lightly buttered as well.

All in all, we had a great time at Forage. Our server was attentive and friendly, and had a sarcastic sense of humour. I really liked how the restaurant did not feel cramped and had a simple, modern wooden interior, nor was it too busy.

Have you been here before? How did you like it?

-Carmen

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.

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