Author Archive for Ben

New McDonalds Product – The Angus Third Pounders

Hi All:

Chowtimes were informed by McDonalds USA that they were launching a new burger nationwide yesterday. Please note that this is currently being launched in the US and not in Canada. Normally we would not be interested because it’s for the US but since they offered to provide us BOG (Be-Our-Guest) cards, we jumped on it and said yes.

The new products are called the Angus Third Pounders.  Obviously from the name itself it is large … a third larger than the quarter pounders.  As a matter of fact, this is the first new burger launch from McDonald’s since the Big N’ Tasty burger was added to the menu in 2001 … eight years ago.

The Angus Third Pounders are available in three offerings:  Deluxe, Bacon & Cheese and Mushroom & Swiss.  The big-big difference between this and the other McDonald’s burgers are the introduction of ingredients never seen before on a McDonald’s burger:

• Red onion rings
• Full slices of bacon
• Sauteed murshrooms
• Natural Swiss Cheese
• Bakery-Style sesame seed roll

It seems like McDonalds is upgrading their burgers to offer More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Greek Summer Festival 2009

Suanne and I were invited by Amir, the Executive Director of the Greek Summer Festival, to the event to experience Living A Day The Greek Way.  Suanne and I had been having way too many invites these days but this was one event we could not turn down because we felt we had so much to learn.

We met Amir and to our surprise, he had actually gotten the people behind the event together so that we could meet them.  Never in our imagination how much history there are behind this annual event.

The Greek Summer Festival had started as a one day event 23 years ago organized by the Greek Orthordox Community of East Vancouver.  The event’s main goal is to raise funds (this year they partner with Make a Wish Foundation) and to introduce to Vancouver the richness of Greek culture, traditions and FOOD!

They told us how this one day event grew from one-day event to an event that spans two weekends around Canada Day.  This year’s event runs from June 26th to July5th.

George Economous was our host of the evening who was gracious enough to spend two hours that day to bring us around the place and showed us the event behind the scene.  He he he … Suanne and I felt like we were on a guided tour of Greece!  We were so intrigued by the stories we are hearing we decided to learn more before digging in to the food.  But since this is a food blog, I gonna share with you the most important aspect of this festival … FOOD … especially …

… LAMBS.   If there is only one thing we came away impressed, it was the lamb.  Being Chinese who generally finds lamb gamey, we ended up thinking of lamb in a much different light.

The Greek Summer Festival sold a whopping 465 lambs within 10 days in the festival last year.  This year, they are on track to break last year’s count and I am not going to be surprised.  We met George “The Real Boss” (the person above is George “the Host”).  George “the Real Boss” is the man behind these lambs since the inception of the Greek Summer Festival.  Boy, he sure has lots of stories to tell and BBQ burn scars to show too!!

They used to do this by hand and using charcoal but today they have a whole row of rotisseries imported from Greece that slowly cooks this.  It takes four hours of slow cooking to make each.  They use the very best New Zealand lamb because of the tenderness of the meat and of the consistent size.  They tried to use local lambs but gave up because it was best only during Easter period.

They used to chop the lamb piece by hand.  It is impossible to keep up with the demands that they had introduced new ways and machines to do the job better and faster.

Many people actually come to the Greek Summer Festival only for their lambs.  People would drop by the festival on their way home to pick the lambs on the spit up by the kilo ($32) or half-kilo ($16).

Some people even order the whole lamb.  That is $185 and is more than enough for 20 people.  They will cut it to your choice.  Sometimes there are customers who comes in a group and order an entire lamb to feast at the festival.  That would be fun!

This is what Suanne and I had — the Lamb Dinner, Bone-In.  This is wonderful … perfecto in every aspect. More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Hai Phong Vietnamese Restaurant on Kingsway and Inverness, Vancouver

Every now and then we do get emails from our readers sharing with us a review of their favorite restaurants.  About two weeks ago, Julie sent us a longish email giving a description of what we should check out in her family’s favourite restaurant.  That restaurant name is Hai Phong.  I had heard of Hai Phong, reading it from Tiny Bite’s site and was actually on my list of restaurants to visit.

The Tamarind Crab above was what made us decide make the visit.  We had enough of Pho, as you probably already know.  We want to discover more of Vietnamese cuisine.

For meals with crabs and such, we had to have more people.  We asked if Julie wanted to join us but by the time she got back to us, well, the dinner was already over.  However, we got Angie of Sea Salt With Food to come along for this meal.  Oh I want to mention this.  If you are not familiar with Angie’s site, her site exploded onto the blogosphere a couple of months ago — at the peak she had 40,000 pageviews in a day and that made her Alex ranking leaped to 60,000.  Gosh, her site was also featured on BBC two days ago.  She is like a superstar of recipe blogs now.  [Note to self: blog about recipes, not restaurants.  LOL!]

Anyway, Hai Phong is located along Kingsway by Inverness.  With so many Vietnamese restaurants along this stretch of Kingsway, it is very easy to dismiss Hai Phong as just one of the many.

The interior is bright because of the glass wall along the facade of the restaurant.  The place looks new and even have wide screen TVs mounted on the walls.  A very pleasant difference; its not only it looked clean but it is also spacious.

Service was great.  We like it when the waitress is genuinely helpful and takes the time to help us understand the menu.  Admittedly I do sometimes ask of the waitress questions like “So, what is YOUR favourite dish?” or “what is the dish you are most proud of here?”.  I find that this sort of questions do tell a lot depending on how they answer these type of questions.  Sometimes they would just sort of decline to answer by asking in return if you like beef!  Sometimes, they would point out their most expensive dish.  But sometimes I could see the genuineness in their answer and could sort of sense the recommended dish is what we should go for … we often use this way to validate our selection. More on following page. Click here to continue reading

POM Wonderful — 100% Pomegranate Juice

We do get samples every now and then.  Molly sent us an email asking if she could send us some coupons to sample.  We said yes and true enough the package came in the mail just a couple of days later.  That was fast.

Chowtimes had often been contacted asking if we would like samples from food manufacturers.  We replied to Molly saying that we’re in Canada because we thought that she may have mistaken us for a US blog site.  Very often, the samples comes from the US and the products are not available outside of the US.

POM Wonderful, as it turns out, is available widely in Canada.  It is just that we had never paid much attention to it.

We went to the Real Canadian Superstore to get some.  Never knowing where to look for it, we spent quite a bit of time looking — thinking that it is somewhere in the beverage section.  We actually had thought it was some form of a concentrate because of the word “concentrate” on the bottle.

As it turns out, it was in the section where food like salads are … i.e. at the produce section.  POM Wonderful came in a nice and unique bottle and is supposed to be drank cold.  They have a few flavours all identified by the colors on the cap.  The bottle is so nice, I know it will end up in the drawer where Suanne keeps these kind of cure bottles — she can’t bring herself to throw cute things away.

The above is Mango.  To me it tastes like More on following page. Click here to continue reading

LetsGoForDinner.com … to Joe Fortes

Suanne and I first came across letsgofordinner.com Restaurant Loyalty Card during the EAT! Vancouver event.  They got our fleeting attention with their claim of giving away 50% off dinner with the use of their Restaurant Loyalty Card.  We did not think much about it until a few days after we got home while sorting through the stuff we collected at EAT! Vancouver.

The LetsGoForDinner card will certainly appeal to foodies, especially those who wishes to dine out at fancier restaurants.  LetsGoForDinner offers half price certificates to some of Vancouver best restaurants.  It’s as simple as that.  Here are some of the the restaurants covered under this program (click on the links to see what they had to offer):

• Cloud 9 Revolving Restaurant
• Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House
• Italian Kitchen
• Trattoria
• Coast Restaurant
• Sanafir Restaurant and Lounge
• Goldfish Pacific Kitchen
• Glowbal Grill
• Zin Restaurant and Lounge

In addition the card will give you an automatic $10 discount without having to purchase discounted certificates at the following restaurants.  More on following page. Click here to continue reading

So.Cial at Le Magasin

We had been receiving emails about a promotion at So.Cial at Le Magasin.  It was all about their $12 Prime Rib Dinner every Sunday.  That sounded so good because I was thinking that it is going to be like the Garlic Studded Prime Rib that Suanne used to make at home.  Since Suanne does not use the oven in summer, there is very little chance I am going to get Prime Ribs at home for the few months.  We thought that at $12, we could not go wrong.

I was on the phone with ET of Doesn’t Tazte Like Chicken and asked if they would like to join us for the Prime Rib dinner.  Suanne and I sort of knew that Christina would say yes because she is a sworn “meatatarian”.

Does anyone know why So.Cial is spelt with a dot?

You know, I had never dined in Gastown before.  As a matter of fact, the last time I walked down this street was … wow … 8 years ago.  This tourist stretch was very quiet that day.  I guess it’s because it was a Sunday evening.  We got seated by the window which give a clear nice view of the street.

The interior was really pleasant.  I love the metallic ceiling and timber pillars.  The restaurant was virtually empty the entire night we were there.  There was only three tables taken at max … and none of them ordered the Prime Rib.  As a matter of fact, most of the customers does look like they were tourists.

We each ordered their house wine — everyone except for Suanne.  It was about $5, I think.

We decided to start off by ordering some tapas.  It was $6 each.  For five, it was at $5 each.  Sounds like quite a discount right? More on following page. Click here to continue reading

A Treat for Chowtimes Readers at Charm Modern Thai

Hi Chowtimes Readers:

Following our review of the dinner, Charm Modern Thai had very graciously agreed to offer Chowtimes Readers a chance to check out their restaurant at a discounted rate.  This is exclusively available only through chowtimes.com.

All you got to do is to read the terms and conditions carefully on the coupon below and bring a printout of the coupon to the restaurant.  For the “$5 off the $35 Set Menu”, please note that you need to call in advance to book your table.  Also note that you will get $5 off for EVERY person in your party if you order the “$35 Set Menu” — good, eh?

You guys will have it better because Suanne and I did not even have this discount when we dined at Charm.  So there you go … it’s not always that bloggers have a better deal then readers.  LOL!

Getting the $35 Set Menu for just $30 is like a special on top of a special considering that it is a four course dinner with house wine!  Their menu is below.  See that the “$35 Set Menu” below states that this is applicable for a minimum of 2 and maximum of 6 person.  I wanted to call that out so that you are not surprised if you so decide to dine alone or bring the entire hockey team.  If you have more than 6 people, perhaps you could sit at separate tables and make believe you don’t know each other?  You reckon?  LOL! More on following page. Click here to continue reading