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!
Although we came on a Thursday evening around 8 pm, the place was still full! Luckily, we were the first in line so the wait was less than 10 minutes.
Gojiro focuses on jiro-style ramen, which is ramen that features a mountain of toppings.
Basic bakamori w/ karaage,$13.55: DAMN. LOOK AT IT! There was a generous amount of chicken karaage, loaded with a mountain of cooked beansprouts.
Basic w/ chashu, $9.95: My bowl does not look as impressive as the boyfriend’s, but it was still really delicious. We both requested the thick broth because why eat ramen otherwise?
The noodles were cooked perfectly, with a nice bounce to it. They were a bit thicker than I was used to, but still super delicious nonetheless.
So far, I’ve only tried two poke places in the city. The second place I tried was The Poke Shop, which opened a few weeks ago. It is located in Gastown, just by the steam clock.
I haven’t been to enough poke shops to judge the prices, but I would say it’s fairly average? The only other place I’ve been to is The Poke Guy, and The Poke Guy is a bit more expensive because it is ocean-wise.
After selecting your base (purple rice, white rice, zoodles, spinach, or pick half/half) and protein, it is on to the toppings! I’m not going to list them all here because there are too many! But you can see from the picture above.
Super large bowl w/ unlimited toppings, $15.95: For my two proteins, I got the albacore tuna and wild sockeye salmon. I chose purple rice as the base. Unlimited toppings were pomegranate, mango, watermelon, spinach, cucumber, corn and topped with shoyu dressing.
Here are other poke bowls that some of the food bloggers ordered!
Left to right: 3 berry & lemon soda, pineapple plantation iced tea, iced matcha green tea w/ honey, all $3 w/ poke bowl, or $4.50 solo.
Overall, The Poke Shop was good and I would recommend giving it a try! The portions are generous, while the restaurant is spacious with great interior design (a dining experience also includes the ambiance).
Since we had a larger group, we tried to make reservations but unfortunately, were told that they don’t take them. Hopefully this will change soon, as the space was comfortable enough to hold larger parties. We were told to come a bit earlier to secure seats.
I would describe Fable Diner as a fancier, much cleaner and hipster version of your traditional diner. It is not greasy in there, and did not smell like oil. With that said, it is also more expensive than your classic diner!
Drink: I don’t remember what the drink was called and there isn’t a drink menu online. I do recall it was some sort of blueberry soda though. It was pretty good and sweet.
Peanut butter nutella milkshake: Again, sorry I don’t have the price as the drink menu isn’t currently posted online! Everyone expect me split this milkshake, and LOVED it. It was very creamy and rich, and they couldn’t stop raving about how good it was! It also came with some salted pretzels inside the whipped cream.
Roast duck pancakes, $14: We all decided to split this and see how it tasted. For $14, it is a bit pricey but the roast duck was cooked very well. It was flavourful and very tender. It’s a good appy to split with others!
Tomato soup bowl, $10: Again, almost everyone ordered this because it is a favourite of theirs back at Fable Kitchen. Everyone was happy when they tasted it, and it was the same recipe! I wanted to try it but this dish is the epitome of food death for me because of the high amount of dairy inside!
FD Burger, $14: Finally, something I could actually eat! After checking with our amazing and friendly server that this did not have dairy in it, I decided to order this! The patty was cooked well done, and very juicy. It was served with a mayo-based sauce. The bun was also soft and fluffy, and lightly toasted.
Pulled pork sandwich with tomato soup, $10: I didn’t try this, but I was told it was really good! 
Corn on the cob, $6: I didn’t try this either, but I was told it was really good. It came with a chili lime sauce and a couple pieces of fresh cilanto.
