restaurant Archives - Curiously Carmen

Fable Diner

November 14, 2016

Fable Diner is a new addition to the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood in Vancouver, aka my favourite neighbourhood in the city. The name may sound familiar to you because Fable Diner is the sister restaurant of Fable Kitchen, which is in Kitsilano.

My ex-coworkers really love going to Fable Kitchen, and wanted to try out Fable Diner. They all rave about the tomato soup. So, we had a reunion and decided to see how Fable Diner is!
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.

Everything worked out though as one of us called the restaurant earlier in the day to let them know, and they were setting up our table when the first few of us were arriving!

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!

The boyfriend said that the tomato soup was very creamy and cheesy. It came with a delicious sourdough bread and melted cheese as well. Even though it looked small, the tomato soup was very creamy and filling.
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.

I really enjoyed both the burger and fries. The fries were salty, crispy, and thick. If I were to come back, I would definitely order the FD burger again!

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.

Overall, we really enjoyed our visit to Fable Diner! The service was top-notch and I would definitely give the service 5 stars. Very friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient. I wouldn’t really consider this place a classic diner, it is more of a modern revision and the higher prices reflect that.

But they are located at a prime location, and use fresh ingredients so better quality often means higher prices. However, don’t let that stop you from visiting this place because it is really good!

Yay!

The Green Moustache (Mini Rant)

March 19, 2016

The Green Moustache offers healthy, alternative eats but the thing that sold me to visit was their dairy free cheesecake, since I can’t eat dairy anymore but want my cheesecake!

For starters, after driving to their West side location (they also have one in Whistler) and meeting up with Avocado and another friend, I was so disappointed when I was told they didn’t have any cheesecake that day. Since we made the trip here already, we figured we might as well share some other items.

‘Hook’ smoothie, 12 oz $6.50: Cocoa, mint, goji berries, honey, banana and almond milk. They were out of the honey so they told us they substituted maple syrup instead. Not a big deal, but how do you run out of honey when that is one of the main ingredients in all your drinks, and you pride your smoothies on not using sugar?

This basically tasted like a dark chocolate banana smoothie, with hints of mint to it. I liked that it wasn’t too sweet.
Buddha bowl, $9.50: An assortment of healthy greens, quinoa, and rice. AGAIN, they didn’t have ripe avocado on hand so they gave us hummus instead. That was another disappointment since we both love avocado.

This bowl was filled with an abundance of fresh ingredients, and was really filling due to the brown rice. It had a combination of both sweet and savoury, and soft/crunchy textures.

Just to re-cap, each item we ordered so far has had an ingredient unavailable, or just the dish was entirely unavailable itself. Not impressed….
Raw chili, $9.95: The chili is served a bit chilled/room temperature, something that I found a bit odd. Unfortunately, we found a rubber band piece in our dish. When we asked about it, the staff apologized and said that this was their last bowl of chili so they wouldn’t be able to make us a new one. We came at 12:30 pm and it wasn’t even busy, yet this was your last bowl?

To add to the disappointment, the chili was incredibly salty. It was hard to eat more than 2-3 spoonfuls at once because it was just too salty, even with the brown rice. We were glad that had the refreshing buddha bowl, and would alternate.

Eventually, we just gave up on eating this and packed it up – my friend came up with the idea to eat this with tortilla chips instead, which would probably taste better.
Chocolate walnut fudge brownie, $3.50: To make up for the rubber band and having so many items unavailable, we were offered a complementary brownie as an apology. We enjoyed the brownie, and I liked how it wasn’t that sweet and probably made with dark chocolate. It was sweetened with dates as well.

Although service was very friendly and knowledgeable, I’m not sure if I’ll return or recommend this place as I left disappointed at how many items were missing from our dish. It’s definitely not worth driving out to this area if you aren’t already here.

I understand that occasionally, restaurants will run out of certain items, which is totally understandable and fair. But judging from how many items were unavailable just shows disorganization from the establishment.

Thanks for reading,

Carmen

Coast Restaurant

March 6, 2016

Note: I wrote this review a year ago, last March. I came back here in May 2015 and didn’t really have a good experience, so I hesitated to put this review up. The service was really slow and un-attentive, while the food didn’t taste as good as the review I have written here below.

——

Back when I used to work in downtown, I had the pleasure of going to Coast for lunch. It was my second time here, and I suggested this place because I had a wonderful experience the first time I went. From the atmosphere to service to food, everything was exceptionally done (the second time I came which is what the review is based on, the third time was not good).

Originally, my cousin and I had plans to eat at Black & Blue for lunch, and I decided to read up on the menu before we went since I had a limited lunch break. I was a bit shocked at how abysmal the Zomato ratings were for that restaurant – I thought it was a good restaurant!

Since the Glowbal Group restaurants aren’t particularly cheap, we decided to be safe and go back to Coast, since it was good the last time we went. I was able to make a last minute reservation online without any problems.

The circular oyster bar in the middle of the restaurant. I love the interior and ambiance of Coast. Some of the seating is a bit squishy and uncomfortable, especially during peak hours. You could be sitting almost shoulder to shoulder with the next table.
Sorry, I forgot what drink this was but it was one of their non-alcoholic cocktails. I tried to read their menu online, but none of the drinks there seemed to ring a bell so perhaps the menu changed.

I thought it was really refreshing, and wasn’t too sweet but had some strawberry pulp in it. If I was going to be picky, I would have liked it with less ice because I found that 1/2 the drink was ice.
My cousin and I decided to split all of our lunch items. We both weren’t that hungry since we had some light snacks before meeting up, so decided to split some items.

You can’t go to Coast without ordering their seafood.

First up on the left, was the spicy ahi tuna roll. For $12.95, it is a bit overpriced considering a lot of Japanese restaurants can serve this for half the price, but there is no denying that the quality was definitely there. The tuna was extremely fresh and melted in your mouth. It came flavoured with a mouth watering sesame yuzu sauce, and a hint of spice. There were small crunchy flakes on top which topped the cherry off in an amazing roll.
On the right, were the fish and chip cones. It came with cod tempura, greens, fresh tobiko, and rice wrapped in some sort of soy paper (???). Again, everything tasted delightfully fresh and the tempura was perfectly crunchy. I loved biting into the crunchy tobiko as well, which popped with flavour! The rice bed did a good job in filling me up as well.
Our last dish was the smoked salmon flatbread. Give me almost anything with smoked salmon and arugula, and I will eat it. Smoked salmon and arugula is probably one of my favourite combinations of food.

The flatbread was thicker than I expected, I was expecting some sort of thin crust pizza-variation for some reason.

I came back here last May (see note above), and ordered this as well. Unfortunately, it was not as good as the flatbread was drenched in so much mayo that it we couldn’t taste anything else. This place isn’t as consistent as it used to be, so I’m unsure if I would come back especially since it’s not cheap dining.

Would have been a yay! but because of the second experience, it is a meh…

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

Jo Ju Hot Pot

October 9, 2015

The Heights neighbourhood has a plethora of cuisines to choose from… from the familiar to the more daring choices. However, the one thing that has been missing in that area is a bubble tea shop, ever since Pearl Drops closed down. I really miss that place.

So you could imagine my happiness when we were driving by this area and I saw a new restaurant signage indicating that they serve bubble tea! I was so excited that I messaged a couple of my friends right away to tell them. Sadly, I kept forgetting the name of the restaurant although it was in the back of my mind the next week… I wanted to read reviews on it but I didn’t know the name and it did not show up on Zomato yet… ahhhh! The next time we drove by, I made a mental note to myself to remember the name. Jo. Ju. Jo ju. Jo ju hot pot….!!

Cheese was helping me on a project one evening in August, so I suggested that we go try that place out before working.
After parking at one of the many free parking lots in this neighbourhood close by, we arrived at the restaurant. It wasn’t really busy, as you can tell from my picture above. We were seated pretty quickly and service throughout our visit was quick and friendly.

The restaurant was pretty clean and simple, most of the furniture there seemed pretty new. It was also pretty spacious and didn’t feel too cramped, with lots of natural light coming through the big windows.
I really did not like the design of the menu, and I felt that the pictures looked very inaccurate.. as if they took it from the internet. Furthermore, Cinnamon had visited this place before me and sent me some pictures, which looked nothing like the menu pictures! So, a word of advice… don’t order based on the menu pictures!

I ordered the seafood hot pot, which came with a bowl of rice on the side.

The broth did not have much depth and was pretty plain, but it wasn’t bad either. It was pretty average. It came with an egg, some shrimp, fish balls, and a mussle which I found on the bottom. You could definitely tell that the shrimp came frozen and did not have a bounce to it.

However, the portion was pretty big. I came in the restaurant really hungry, but left really full from this dish! If you are just moderately hungry, I don’t believe that you’ll need the rice bowl.
The egg came poached and hard, probably due to the hot temperature of the soup. If you’re not a big fan of hard poached eggs, I would recommend that you let them know or it will come out as a hard poached egg.

I also ordered it with medium spice, you can kind of see the spice in the picture. I didn’t find it spicy at all though.
Cheese ordered the signature BBQ meat on rice, but sadly, he thought it was disappointing. There was nothing special about this, you could easily cook this at home for a lot cheaper.

Originally, we were going to try the bubble tea but were too full after our meals to think about ordering a drink!

Overall, the food at JoJu Hot Pot is mediocre at best but it does fill you up. I know that they’re new, so I’m willing to come back another time to see if they have improved. There is not much special about their food, nor is it bad.. it’s just very plain, mediocre, and boring.

In a place like The Heights where there are plenty of restaurants to choose from, or just Vancouver in general, this is definitely nothing special or worth driving out for. It would be a place to go to if you were in the area, and definitely not a place where you would be craving.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

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.
Walking 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 =)
For 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.

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.
Clockwise 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.
Three 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.

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.
Soy 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!
Nearing 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