spices Archives - Curiously Carmen

After spending the lovely afternoon in Steveston, and having fish and chips at Sockeye City Grill, the boyfriend and I came back to Vancouver for a hearty Thai dinner. We went to Aree Thai last year, and liked our experience so we decided to come back.
Since we have been here before, we remembered which dishes we enjoyed, and the ones that we didn’t. When we came here last year, we remembered that we didn’t like the spring rolls and avoided them this time around.
For starters, we ordered the tom kha soup, with chicken (small- $4.95). For most of their dishes, the server will ask you what level of spiciness you’d like. We decided to go with a medium level. Tom kha is made with a coconut broth, flavoured with mushrooms, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and galangal. The coconut broth was very evident and gave the soup a sweet taste with a creamier texture.

We enjoyed the soup but found it to be very spicy. Normally, we love our spicy foods and have a high tolerance, but if we had one more spoonful of this soup, we would have had to soak our mouths with milk. I’m not sure if the kitchen accidentally made our soup super spicy, because it was definitely not medium spice. I would order this again due to the variety of flavours, but with less spice.

Next up was the yellow curry in rice noodle, with our choice of beef ($9,95). I wasn’t a big fan of this dish because I found the rice noodles were a softer, soggier texture than I was used to.

Also, there was a strong lime flavour to the curry which was overpowering for me. However, the boyfriend really liked this dish so it really just depends on your own personal preference! The beef was tender, and the onions were a great addition as well.
The last two dishes we ordered was green curry and coconut rice. We ordered the green curry previously, and loved it. This time was no different. Like the soup, there was a strong coconut taste to the curry, and made it a bit sweet. We ordered it to be medium spicy, which it was, unlike our fire scorching, tear inducing, flaming chili bowl of soup LOL. There was a decent amount of good quality white meat chicken, with no fat or tendon on it which I loved. As for the coconut rice, it was very delicious and moist. Eating the two together is a perfect combination!

All in all, we enjoyed our second visit to Aree Thai. There was only one server, but she was doing her best to serve the other four tables that were there. Nothing much to complain about, if you are wanting a low-key, easy going dinner, then Aree Thai is a good place to go.

Pros:

Delicious, aromatic food
Fast and nice service
Not too long of a wait due to lots of seating space
Clean and simple interior with some Thai sculptures
Free street parking

Cons:

Spice level on their menu is not always accurate, or the same for all dishes (ordered medium spicy for both dishes, but the soup was suuuuuppeeerrrr spicy)

Hi readers!

Going to The Keg is a pleasure and treat for my family and I. It’s a treat that we all enjoy, and we usually have a great experience seeing that all three of us are steak lovers. This time, I surprised the boyfriend and he joined our family as well (he had no idea where we were going until we arrived at the parking lot! my surprise was a success!)

It was also his first time ever at The Keg, which was pretty surprising for me, but I’m glad he finally tried it and was able to share that experience with my family. My parents and I noticed that the dishes this time around were not as great as they were before, it seemed as if The Keg had cut down on their quality and quantity of food. That said, it wasn’t bad, just not as good as we had before.

The location we went to was in Burnaby, right beside the Costco. They have an ample parking lot, and also lots of street parking. We had a reservation at 7:30 and arrived on time, but we had to wait around 15 minutes to actually get seated.

We were seated at a booth at the far end corner of the restaurant. It was a good seat as it was quieter in that area than the rest of the restaurant. Our server was prompt to greet us. Right off the bat, he informed us that they were running low on prime rib that night, and to tell him if we were planning to order that so he could reserve it for us. After about 10 minutes, he returned and told us that he reserved some for us and took our order. Here’s our dinner!
This was the complimentary sourdough bread that came with our order. We were disappointed because last time we came here, there was a variety of bread in a bigger basket. The Keg really cut down on their bread, which is a disappointment.I really liked the quality of their strawberry margarita. I thought it was blended perfectly, and the strawberries tasted really fresh. I enjoyed the texture and the taste of this drink a lot. It was a pretty big glass too!
Granville Island Winter Ale.
Mom’s 12oz prime rib medium rare with twice baked potato & onion rings. It was too big of a portion for her, she regretted ordering a 12oz because she felt too full. Ended up packing the twice baked potato. She thoroughly enjoyed her prime rib though. It was very tender and soft.
Dad’s 12 oz prime rib with stir fried vegetables, medium well. I don’t think he enjoyed this as much as before. Said it wasn’t juicy enough and felt dry. I think he was a bit disappointed, he would have probably liked it done medium or medium rare instead!

The boyfriend’s New York Striploin with Keg Fries. His striploin was noticeably more juicier than our prime ribs. You can tell by the second picture how juicy it was! It wasn’t as tender as our prime rib, making it have a tight texture and a bit of chew, but that’s to be expected since it’s a striploin.

He thoroughly enjoyed his dish, except for the fries. The fries were extremely, extremely, salty to the point where I could’t even handle it. It was coated with so much salt that we couldn’t eat it! That was a bit disappointing but overall, the NY striploin itself was great!

My 10 oz prime rib with garlic mashed potatoes. I thought this was pretty delicious. The meat was really tender which is a sign of great preparation and cooking. It was seasoned perfectly as well!

I remember last time we came here, the prime rib came with four different sauces so I was disappointed it only came with two this time. Overall, it was good and I liked that it was soft and tender. The garlic mashed potatoes were done perfectly and delicious!
For dessert, we ordered the mini fudge brownie with a side of vanilla ice cream. I can’t even begin to tell you how delicious this was! For starters, we were really surprised when this came because it looked pretty big. We thought the server accidentally brought us the full size.

The chocolate brownie was delicious. On the top was melted dark chocolate, and the brownie itself was really warm and decadent. What made the vanilla ice cream stand out was the caramel on the top. It brought out all the flavours of the dessert perfectly, and balanced the taste of the brownie. Details like this is what I really appreciate and look for when I write my food reviews. We mixed each bite with the brownie and ice cream, and it was like heaven on earth. It was really the cherry on top of a great meal.

-Carmen