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Curiously Carmen

Ebisu on Broadway

July 25, 2016

The boyfriend and I were planning on grabbing dinner but ended up eating too many snacks at home while watching TV that we weren’t hungry for a full meal anymore. Oops =P

So, we decided to get some light snacks in Richmond, but we couldn’t find parking. We ended up going back to Vancouver to Ebisu on Broadway Street as the boyfriend has been wanting to try this Vancouver chain out. Yes, there is an Ebisu in Richmond but we wanted to be back in Vancouver.
EbisuI’ve been here a few times already with my family years ago (along with the location in downtown), but this was the first time the boyfriend has tried Ebisu.

This location is on the second floor of a plaza, just off Broadway on one of the quieter inside streets. Luckily, we arrived just after 10pm so meter parking was free already!

The outside doesn’t look that nice, but the inside is a lot better. The seating is comfortable and spacious, while the service was really warm and fast.

We didn’t know that they had happy hour from 8:30pm-close, so that was a nice surprise! Unfortunately, none of the happy hour items really stood out to us so we ended up only ordering one item from their happy hour menu.
Ebisu2

Sashimi salad $9.50 small | $15.95 regular: I’ve been on a sashimi salad kick lately, so naturally, I had to order Ebisu’s sashimi salad! You can choose from either creamy, house ginger, or spicy dressing. I chose the house ginger.

The veggies were pretty fresh, and the house ginger sauce was really tasty! It tasted more like a garlicky, miso sauce but we both really liked it.

The amount of sashimi was a bit disappointing, I would have wished there was more. Albiet a small portion, the sashimi tasted pretty fresh and came with octopus, tuna, wild salmon, and salmon sashimi.
Ebisu3Takoyaki, $5.95 happy hour | regular hours $6.50: The takoyaki was plump and flavourful. The boyfriend enjoyed the takoyaki here more than Manzo because they have less lemon juice sprinkled on top, making it less sour. I found the takoyaki pretty delicious and would order it again here.
Ebisu5Dynamite roll $3.95 happy hour | $5.50 regular: We decided to try out the dynamite roll because it was pretty cheap during happy hour! Unfortunately, the cheap price justified the cheap taste. The rice was bland and mushy.

While it looks appetizing here, it collapsed once we picked it up. The tempura was very soggy and did not taste fresh at all.

We wouldn’t order this again and I hope the regular dynamite roll tastes better than the happy hour version!
Ebisu4Truffle fries $4.95 | regular $5.95: Oops, I forgot to take a photo of the truffle fries but you can see it in this picture!

The truffle fries were AMAZING. They truffle oil really enhanced the flavour of the fresh, crispy, piping hot fries. It was dusted with some sort of herbs as well. I would come back to Ebisu just for these truffle fries!

——

All in all, we had a lovely experience at Ebisu and I would definitely come back for snacks(esp. the truffle fries!). The prices are a bit higher than what I’m used to, but I don’t mind coming here once in awhile. It’s a nice change of scenery from the regular Japanese restaurants I visit.

I wish they opened later than 11 pm for happy hour, but it is located in a quiet area so I understand. The Ebisu in downtown is open until 1 am though!

I’ve only been to the Ebisu in downtown and Broadway. I would say they are both pretty similar in terms of quality and service. I actually went to the downtown Ebisu in the summer but never got around to writing a review.

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

Ebisu Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, happy hour, pub Tagged: food, food blogger, foodie, happy hour, japan, japanese, late night

Sushi UOmo – Revisit

July 11, 2016

Update 11/2018: Since writing this post, it seems that Uomo has changed ownership and things have gone downhill. The prices increase each time, while the quality and quantity decreased. We have stopped going here now. 


I thought it was finally time to do a revisit post on Sushi UOmo! The last time I wrote about this place was December 2014, when we first tried it out.

Since then, UOmo has easily become our top place to go for cheap, consistently delicious sushi.

We come here probably at least once every two weeks, sometimes even more. My last review didn’t really do UOmo justice, so I finally took some pictures (after our 50th visit or more probably LOL) and will be talking about the go-to items we order here!
Uomo1Tuna tataki, $7.95: Mmmm, where to even start with how delicious this is? The tuna tataki is cut thicker here than other places I’ve been to. The ponzu sauce is full of great, tangy flavour.

Coupled with the fresh onions and slightly grilled taste of the tuna meat, we order this every time we come now.
Uomo2Sashimi salad, $8.95: If you’ve been keeping up with my food posts (and thank you if you do, I appreciate it!), you’ll know that I’ve been on a sashimi salad-loving streak lately. UOmo’s sashimi salad is what jump started my interest in sashimi salad, and has made me love it! Every time I order sashimi salad, I use UOmo as the standard to compare it with.

With that said, it’s usually pretty hard to top off, especially with the price. For $9, the plate comes with a VERY generous amount of assorted sashimi, that fills me up every time. Usually, I’m not full on salad but this hits the spot every time. It comes with an assortment of wild sockeye salmon, regular (farmed) salmon, tuna, shrimp, squid, octopus, tilapia sashimi.

I love the salad because of the generous assortment of sashimi. I used to just order salmon sashimi, but I like the salad because I get a variety of different sashimi that I normally wouldn’t order. The veggies are always fresh, and crunchy and comes with the same ponzu sauce as the tuna tataki, plus olive oil.
Uomo3Crunch roll, $4.25: The crunch roll comes with shrimp tempura and avocado on the inside, and topped with either yam or sweet potato on the outside. The tempura here is consistently fresh and crunchy, making this roll super delicious. The avocado is always nice and creamy too!
Uomo4Negitoro roll, $3.00: Yum! Our go-to maki roll, the negitoro. Negitoro is made from the tuna belly, so it contains more fat than a regular tuna sashimi. Then, it is mixed in with onions before being put into a roll. There is always a generous portion of sashimi to rice, and always tastes really fresh.
Uomo5B.C. Roll, $3.50: Funny story – I used to hate B.C. rolls. I always saw them as the ‘food scrap’ roll aka. “let’s throw the salmon skin and wilted lettuce into a roll and call it a BC roll”. Basically, as the leftover ingredients mushed into one roll.

With that said, the BC roll at UOmo is the ONLY BC roll I would voluntarily order. A traditional BC roll comes with just salmon skin, but they include a decent amount of actual salmon meat. The salmon skin is also fried and tastes really fresh, as with the lettuce.

This is the only place I’ve been to where I feel like they actually put quality in a BC roll, because other places seem to snub the BC roll. Whenever I take people here, I tell them that they must order the BC roll but I am met with the same response I had before I tried that place (‘Ew, BC roll is gross and it’s just salmon skin’.). However, their minds always change after trying a piece because it’s that good!
Uomo6Overall, UOmo is a fantastic joint and my go-to Japanese restaurant. It’s cheap, delicious, friendly service, and in the neighbourhood.

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Update 11/2018: Since writing this post, it seems that Uomo has changed ownership and things have gone downhill. The prices increase each time, while the quality and quantity decreased. We have stopped going here now. 

 

Sushi UOmo Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, japanese Tagged: delicious, food, food blogger, foodie, japanese, japanese food, sashimi, sushi

Nice Vice 0% Dairy Creamery

July 3, 2016

This review is long overdue, especially since I went to Nice Vice in May! Nice Vice has been buzzing around town for being Vancouver’s first ever 0% dairy creamery shop. To me, this is like heaven and especially important because I can’t have dairy anymore.

I was really excited to try this place out and see if it would satisfy my ice cream cravings!
Nice Vice Yaletown VancouverNice Vice is located in Yaletown, a quick walk from the Canada Line station. It is pretty small, so it is easy to miss.

Inside, the store is pretty bare and basic, and there are also no washrooms for customers. It is an open space, with bar seats on one side of the wall but I found the seating to not be that comfortable. I would recommend grabbing your dessert to go and walking around Yaletown instead.
Nice Vice Yaletown VancouverVegan Buddy and I came on a Tuesday evening. It was cloudy,  but not cold or rainy that day. Due to the weather and seeing how it was a weekday, the store was empty except for us! Luckily, this meant we could sample more flavours.
Nice Vice Yaletown VancouverI wasn’t particularly in love with any of the flavours, but they weren’t bad either. In the end, I ordered strawberry fiends forever and mango. I ordered the one scoop for $5.00, but you can get two flavours for an additional price – I don’t remember exactly, but it was either 50 cents or $1.00 extra.

Both tasted like sorbet, and weren’t that creamy. They both had a very sweet fruity taste, which was good! The mango reminded me of exactly of the Asian mango pudding.
Nice Vice Yaletown VancouverVB ordered one scoop of the matcha and vanilla strawberry swirl. The matcha had a medium matcha taste, not too strong or subtle. I didn’t really like the vanilla strawberry swirl because I found it a bit bland and just icy.
Nice Vice Yaletown VancouverThey also have a bunch of assorted salts that you can top off your dessert with! We tried a bunch of salt flavours. Some went well and brought the flavour out, while some did not pair well at all. I recommend you sprinkle a super, tiny bit of salt – I’m talking about like 4 or 5 grains tiny, because we found that even just a pinch was too much!

Overall, I don’t think Nice Vice compares to real dairy ice cream at all, it was just okay. I was a bit disappointed because I had heard such great things about this place. Or maybe, my expectations were too high.

Their desserts taste more like sorbets and aren’t super creamy. I prefer the vegan ice creams at Earnest and Rain or Shine because they are richer and creamier. But if you like sorbets, you would like this place!
yay-nay-or-meh

Meh…

Nice Vice Creamery Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: dessert, food & drink, vegetarian/vegan Tagged: dairy free, dessert, food blogger, foodie, gluten free, nice cream, nice vice, organic, sorbet, soy free, vancouver, vegan, vegetarian

Tasty Hand-Pulled Lanzhou Noodle, New York City

June 19, 2016

Since I’ve gotten back from New York, people have asked what my favourite moments there was. Undeniably, the Empire State Building, Matilda the musical, and visiting all the urban parks were at the top of the list!

But what about food? Would you believe me if I told you it was this small, dingy, hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Chinatown called Tasty Handpulled Noodle? Perhaps it’s the noodle crazed fanatic in me talking, but I still constantly think about this place and how delicious their hand-pulled noodles were.

Tasty1House special noodle soup, $8.50: For $8.50, this bowl was definitely worth the price and so filling.
Tasty2Beef noodle soup, $7.25: I ordered the beef noodle soup because I don’t really like tendon.

The star of the show here is definitely the hand made and hand pulled noodles. Each noodle bowl is made fresh to order. Your noodles start from a lump of dough, and once you specify the type of noodle you want, you can see the worker in the kitchen pulling and cutting the noodles before throwing it in the boiling hot water.

The noodles had a great chewy texture, and were pretty thick too. The slightly ribbed edges of the noodles allowed for the beef broth to soak inside, which led to a very delicious taste in your mouth!
Tasty3Roast duck noodle soup, $7.75: We both loved this place so much and couldn’t stop thinking about it after lunch, so we came back for dinner the same day. Yup, we loved the noodles that much and the price made it even better!

Instead of ordering the beef noodle soup again, we decided on trying the roast duck noodle soup. The base and noodles were the same, the only difference is that it came with duck instead of beef. I actually liked the duck more than the beef because it was more tender and had more flavour.
Tasty4Here is a photo of the chef pulling the dough to create the delicious noodles!

Tasty noodle, you were DEFINITELY tasty! Don’t judge a book by its cover or you’ll miss out on some delicious noodles. Give this place a try if you’re ever in New York City’s Chinatown neighbourhood!

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading,

Carmen


Filed Under: chinese, food & drink, New York City, travel Tagged: asian, asian food, chinatown, chinese, chinese food, food, food blogger, food lover, foodie, new york city, noodles, nyc, travel, travel blog

Five Senses Korean Restaurant, New York City

May 24, 2016

I don’t know why, but the name Five Senses reminds me of a scary movie kinda? Weird! Anyways, after a day of exploring NYC and going up the Empire State Building (read my tips on visiting the world famous landmark here!), my mom and I were super hungry. We normally look up restaurants in the area beforehand, but this time, we decided to just wander around the neighbourhood and find a restaurant that caught our eye.
FSWe walked by Five Senses, and it looked pretty busy so we gave the menu a quick look. After seeing the high ratings on Yelp, we decided to try it! I’m glad we came here before the dinner rush because there was a pretty long line up afterwards.

Oh yeah, turns out that we were actually wandering around Koreatown, which explained why there were so many Korean restaurants around us =P
FS1Banchan, free: The banchan was pretty much the same as what you would get in Vancouver. However, I’ve never seen the clear, cold noodles mixed with veggies on the far right before. That was probably my favourite dish out of all of these. The noodles were served a bit chilled, and had a really strong sesame oil taste to it! The kimchi packed a lot of heat as well.
FS2Sul lang tang, $12.99: I honestly don’t know why I keep ordering beef bone stock soup when it usually isn’t that tasty. I’ve come to accept the fact that Korean beef bone soup is usually pretty flavourless, and this was pretty much the same. On the right hand side of the photo, you can see the salt that it comes with, but I had to ask for another plate of it because it still wasn’t enough.

On the plus side, there was a generous amount of noodles and beef, even though the beef was overcooked in the broth. Each spoonful was met with many beef slices, and there was more meat than noodles which was great!
FS3Soondubu, $13.99: I had wanted to order this as well, but wasn’t really feeling like anything spicy. This is the seafood tofu soup. It came with a generous amount of tofu and seafood, and was super filling. We found it to have a good amount of spice to it as well. Overall, a really comforting and delicious dish!

Service was really fast and attentive, which is always a plus. However, since there was a line up, we did feel as though we were being rushed to leave and didn’t really feel like we truly enjoyed our food as much as we could have. But I understand, if I was waiting in line I would hope that the other customers eat quickly as a courtesy!

Thanks for reading,
Carmen

Five Senses Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: korean, New York City, travel, USA Tagged: food, food blog, food blogger, food review, foodie, korea, korean, new york city, nyc

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