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Curiously Carmen

Olive & Anchor

September 20, 2016

During the last week of summer, the boyfriend and I went to a bunch of different outdoor places around the Lower Mainland to savour what was left of the season. One of these places was the beautiful Whytecliff Park, which is a bit past West Vancouver and by the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal.

After enjoying an afternoon at Whytecliff Park, we decided to venture to Horseshoe Bay. Four minutes drive later, we arrived into the small but lively village and decided to try Olive & Anchor after I found it on Yelp!

I am really glad we tried this place because everything about it was spectacular!
Olive & Anchor RestaurantSince we had already quickly looked at the menu on Yelp, we knew we wanted to try their happy hour. I also really wanted to try this place because most of their happy hour items were dairy free! Olive & Anchor has some Asian influences in their dishes, which explains why there wasn’t dairy in a number of their plates.
Olive & Anchor Horseshoe BayEbi mayo, $6: We started off with the ebi mayo, which was a shrimp and green bean tempura. After seeing this at another table, it looked kinda small and we were kinda doubtful that it was worth $6.

However, the tempura was fried really nicely and had a lovely crunch to it. It came with Japanese mayo, which we both love a lot. If you haven’t tried Japanese mayo before, I urge you to try it out!
Olive & Anchor VancouverKFC (Korean Fried Chicken) Wings, $6: The chicken wings came in a delicious sweet chili glaze, topped with crunchy cashews and sesame seeds.

The wings were juicy and full of flavour. Just like the ebi mayo, the fried batter on these wings tasted really fresh as well.
Olive & Anchor Horseshoe Bay VancouverCrispy cod taco, $6: I am normally not a fan of tacos (cue GASPS) but I was feeling adventurous that day and ordered this. BOY, am I GLAD I did because this was delicious. This taco right here is starting to convert me into a taco person!

The cod was fried perfectly, while the fish was juicy and flaked off nicely. The taco came with a generous amount of fresh veggies and a slice of avocado. I was seriously considering ordering another one but stopped myself.
Olive & Anchor Horseshoe Bay 1Fish poppers, $6: These were like mini fish fillets. Again, the fish was juicy and flaky with a very fresh and crunchy batter. So good!

Olive & Anchor really wowed us not only with their food, but with their service as well. Our server was really friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient. I wish that all servers were this amazing.
Olive & Anchor Take outI have nothing but good words to say about Olive & Anchor. I wish we discovered this place at the beginning of summer, so we could take advantage of the outdoor seating and ferry view more. But, I know that we will definitely be back!
yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Olive & Anchor Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, happy hour, japanese, korean, seafood Tagged: chicken, ebi mayo, fish, fish taco, food, food blogger, food review, foodie, happy hour, korean, seafood, vancouver, vancouver dining, vancouver eats

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

Hanwoori Korean Restaurant

May 1, 2016

My apologies for the slight absence on the blog! I am currently in New York City, so I have been quite busy exploring the concrete jungle. I can’t wait to sit down and write about all my food and sightseeing adventures!

—-

Back during Winter Break, a few of us decided to go for Korean food and what we ended 2015 with. Cinnamon had been here before and liked it, so we went ahead and made a reservation. Unfortunately, we didn’t leave that satisfied and were pretty disappointed with our meal.

We were running late for our reservation, but gave them a call for a heads up. We were glad that they still saved the table for us, seeing that there was a big line up at the door. We really appreciated it!
Han1Banchan, free: To start, we received our complimentary Korean appetizers. Nothing too special here, just your average banchan with no complaints.
Han2Ggorigom tang, $14.95: Slow simmered ox tail and bone marrow broth with brisket. I ordered this because I had this at Jong Ga and it was really delicious, and wanted to see it it matched up. Nope, not even close. The broth had no taste, it felt like I was just drinking cloudy water with a chunk of bone and some green onion flavour. There was also barely any brisket inside, I think I managed to find a couple tiny measly pieces.

They also forgot my rice, which they eventually brought after. I’m glad I had the rice to fill me up, otherwise I would have been really hungry with a bowl of cloudy water and flavourless broth. I ended up adding a lot of salt to it, which made the flavour improve. I heard that Korean restaurants tend to leave their broth unflavoured and that each person usually seasons their own bowl to their liking?
Han3Soontofu jigae, $10.95: Continuing on with the disappointment, Cinnamon was shocked when her ‘seafood’ tofu soup arrived with barely any seafood! There were a few pieces of shriveled up seafood, all of which could fit on her small spoon. When she told the staff about this, they brought it back with a couple more pieces of seafood but it was still a very tiny portion. The seafood also did not look fresh at all, judging from how shrunken and shriveled they looked.

Luckily, she had rice and tofu to fill her up!
Han5Yukgaejang, $10.95: Finely shredded beef stew with mushrooms and vegetables in a spicy beef broth. Although Lollipop shouldn’t be eating spicy food, she couldn’t resist! Again, the protein in her bowl was lacking. She didn’t find it super spicy either, and thought that it would have come with more spice.
Han4Seafood pancake, $21.95: This was probably the only decently delicious order that we had of the night. The seafood pancake was filled with a generous amount of seafood, that looked a lot fresher than what the seafood they put in the tofu soup.

At the end of our meal, we were all just full from plain rice and/or noodles. It wasn’t satisfying at all and left our tastebuds wanting more. Judging from the plethora of Korean restaurants in Vancouver, I am not too inclined to try Hanwoori again. I much prefer House of Tofu Soup, Jong Ga, Royal Seoul House… or pretty much any Korean restaurant I’ve tried in Vancouver.

Hanwoori definitely falls to the bottom of the ranking, which is a shame because I’ve heard such good things about this place and it has a good rating on Zomato.

Hanwoori Korean Restaurant Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: korean Tagged: asian, food blog, food blogger, foodie, korean

Samsoonie Noodle & Rice

March 10, 2016

A few months ago, I was looking up different Korean restaurants around Metro Vancouver to eat at. I came across Samsoonie Noodle & Rice in Richmond, and it had pretty good reviews so the boyfriend and I went to try it one weekday evening!
Samsoonie Restaurant Richmond VancouverI would say that Samsoonie is pretty hard to find if you’re not looking for it. It’s tucked away in a plaza, the last store hidden in the corner. We ended up driving past the whole plaza and found it when we drove around it for a second time.

It wasn’t too busy when we went there. Seating was comfortable and spacious.  Considering that there was only one server working that night, service wasn’t too slow.
Samsoonie Restaurant Richmond VancouverBanchan, free: Samsoonie only gave us two appetizer dishes, which is fine because we normally don’t finish everything anyways. Normally, places give four places but I’ve been to Korean restaurants that give up to 6!
Samsoonie Restaurant Richmond VancouverSoft tofu hot pot, $8.99: My go to dish at Korean restaurants is the sundunbu, or tofu hot pot with choice of meat. This hot pot came with an average amount of seafood but a lot of soft tofu! I was so stuffed at the end of this meal, I didn’t even finish the rice!

I found that the soup was slightly bland compared to other places. It wasn’t too flavourful or spicy and didn’t have much depth. It wasn’t entirely terrible though, and I still felt satisfied after eating it.
Samsoonie Restaurant Richmond VancouverBeef soft tofu hot pot, $8.99: I didn’t take a picture when it arrived because it looked the same as mine. Again, the soup broth wasn’t super flavourful but the boyfriend still enjoyed it.

There wasn’t much beef to the pot, but the beef itself was really soft and flavourful. It was the boyfriend’s favourite part of the dish, even if there wasn’t a large amount of it.
Samsoonie Restaurant Richmond VancouverSeafood pancake, small, $9.55: The boyfriend wanted the large pancake but I knew that we would not be able to finish it. It would have just been a repeat of House of Tofu Soup, so I suggested we order the small.

The seafood pancake was delicious! It was nice and crispy on the outside, but soft on the inside. There was an average amount of seafood inside, but it was stuffed with leeks.

The spoon is there for comparison. It was the perfect size for us, the large would have been too much and we would have had to end up packing it up.

Overall, Samsoonie is a pretty decent restaurant but not one that I would crave again. I wish that the broth would have been more flavourful and less watery, but service was really friendly and seating was comfortable.

There are so many Korean options to choose from in Vancouver, so the food has to be super delicious to be able to compete with each other. I would prefer to go to Jong Ga or House of Tofu Soup, both in Korea Town.

yay-nay-or-meh

Yay!

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

Samsoonie Noodle & Rice Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato


Filed Under: food & drink, korean Tagged: food, food blogger, food post, foodie, korea, korean

Royal Seoul House – First time trying a Korean set lunch!

May 14, 2015

Hi everyone =)

If you’ve been following me for awhile now, you may have noticed that I’ve never food blogged on Korean cuisine before. I can count the number of times I’ve had Korean food on one hand! It’s not that I hate Korean food, but it’s not really convenient for me to try good Korean restaurants, nor do I know which ones are good.

But, here is my first Korean post and my first time trying a Korean set lunch! Please read this review with a grain of salt… this is probably my third or fourth time eating Korean so I’m not the most knowledgeable in how it tastes, or what authentic Korean tastes like.

Last month, I had plans to eat a Korean set lunch with some old coworkers but unfortunately, I couldn’t make it last minute =( I heard that it was really good and really filling, so I suggested that we try this place out to my friend a few weeks later.
IMG_2187.JPGWalking in, I absolutely loved the decor and interior of this place! It felt like I was in an olden day movie set. The restaurant was very spacious and clean as well. You could tell that it was weaning towards being an old restaurant, but they put every effort in making sure everything was clean and robust.

I asked for a private booth, where we had to take our shoes off before entering. You could slide the doors closed if you wanted to as well. I haven’t eaten in one of these private booths for awhile, but I do enjoy dining like this =)
IMG_2194.JPGFor the set lunch meals, there are two that you can pick from. After looking at the pictures and description, we decided to go with the $15 menu because we wanted to try the grilled fish, and it wasn’t offered in the $20 menu.
IMG_2188.JPG

Mul kimchi – This was described on the menu as “watery plain kimchi”. Couldn’t have described it better than that! The kimchi flavour was really diluted due to the water, but the veggies were still very fresh and crunchy.

Porridge – I imagined the porridge to be different, perhaps like a congee? This was a sweet potato/pumpkin porridge. It was delicious, very sweet and had a thick consistency to it.
IMG_2189.JPGClockwise from top right:
Tangsooyeuk – This was my first time trying Korean style sweet and sour pork, I’m more accustomed to the Chinese style. When comparing the two, the Korean style one was crispier, since the pork pieces weren’t entirely covered in the wet sauce. Talking about sweet and sour, this one was more sour and tangy.

Tangyungchae – Chilled mung bean jelly mixed with vegetables. It had a thick, crunchy texture – kind of like eating cartilage. This dish was nice, light, and refreshing.

Jogi-gui – I didn’t even know this it was fish on the plate until my friend pointed it out, it looked like some sort of yam tempura to me. I absolutely loved this dish! The fish flaked perfectly off, and it had some sort of delicious marinated mayo on the top. I wished we had more of this!

Green salad – Honestly, I didn’t touch the green salad until the end because I wanted to try all the new foods in front of me. I was actually so glad that we saved this, because the crunchy vegetables were really refreshing and helped with cool down the spicy foods afterwards. All the veggies were really fresh and came with a vinaigrette sauce.
IMG_2190.JPGThree kinds of mini pancakes – Nothing too special about the taste here, but they weren’t bad, either.  The one in the back was a fish pancake, followed by seaweed and zucchini. The fish and seaweed one were more doughy and wet, while the zucchini one resembled tempura.
IMG_2191.JPG

So Bulgogi – The beef bulgogi was very sweet and full of flavour. There was a generous amount of beef and we loved how juicy the meat was.

Cuttlefish with veggies in spicy sauce – I am a big fan of seafood, so naturally, I loved this dish as well! The cuttlefish was fresh and crunchy, and served with veggies in what tasted like a kimchi sauce base. This dish was also served cold.

Steamed soft pork bacon – The pork was amazingly tender. It was cooked so well – simple, yet delicious. We savoured each bite of this dish, which had a hint of smokiness to it.
IMG_2192.JPGSoy bean paste soup – Okay, the name of this dish doesn’t sound too enticing in English, but it was delicious. Perfect on a rainy day when you want a nice warm bowl of spicy soup. Not for the faint of heart, this bowl packed a generous amount of spice so proceed with caution! We ate this with a bowl of steamed rice and cold salad (see above) to keep ourselves from getting too hot.

I loved the soup so much that the next day, I told the boyfriend and we made a spicy soup stew at home because I couldn’t stop thinking about it!

Jogi gui – We chose to order the $15 menu because of this pan fried fish, the $20 did not offer it. I love fish, but unfortunately this dish was a tad disappointing. We expected two pieces since that’s what the picture in the menu showed =(

It had a very strong fishy taste to it – yes, I know that a fish is supposed to have a fishy taste, but this was too strong. In Cantonese, we call that taste “sang”. There also wasn’t much meat and a lot of sharp bones to unpick, which took a lot of effort!
IMG_2193.JPGNearing the end of our meal, our service was a lot slower as they were just starting to clean up from the lunch rush (we were done around 1:30-2 pm). Since my friend and I weren’t in a rush, we just sat and talked for a bit, letting our food digest.

After about twenty minutes, we agreed that they had forgotten our dessert drink. We rang the bell on the table and the waitress seemed confused because she thought we got it already.

The dessert ginger drink was very sweet and served chilled. It literally just tasted like ginger with a lot of sugar. I know that ginger is really good for digestion, which is probably why it’s served. Since I don’t really like super sweet drinks, I only drank 1/4 of mine because I still wanted to try it out =)

All in all, I really enjoyed my first Korean set lunch experience! The food was great, friendly service, and I loved the decor of the place. I’m glad that I got the chance to try a lot of new dishes that day!

What are some good Korean places in Vancouver? Let me know in the comments down below!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Royal Seoul House Korean Restaurant on Urbanspoon


Filed Under: food & drink, korean Tagged: asian, asian cuisine, bulgogi, cuttlefish, food blogger, food review, foodie, ginger drink, kimchi, korean, new experiences, pancake, restaurant, seafood, seaweed, spicy

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Hi and welcome to Curiously Carmen! I am Carmen, the girl behind the blog. You can read more about me here!

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