All Entries in the "Dining Out" Category

Ashiana Tandoori Restaurant on Kingsway (and Knight), Vancouver

Suanne and I first came across Ashiana Tandoori Restaurant during our visit to EAT! Vancouver.  When we blogged about the event, it just so happened that the picture we selected for our front page was two action pictures of them making fresh roti on site.  It was Sonia who requested that we email them the pictures we took.  So, one thing led to another, we were invited to Ashiana to check out their restaurant.

Suanne and I like  invitations like this not because it was a free meal but that we get to speak to the people behind the restaurant and learn more about the restaurant, the food and the people.  We realize that we appreciate the food we eat the more we know about it.  We wanted to also learn more about Tandoori and see it in action for ourselves.

Ashiana Tandoori Restaurant is located at the intersection of Kingsway and Knight.  It was in a bad location just a few years ago when the Vancouver flea market was just around the corner.  However, in the past couple of year the neighborhood had undergone a major rejuvenation when the new King Edward Village was completed.  It is amazing how just one carefully planned development project changes the face of the neighborhood just like that.

Ashiana is celebrating their 26th Anniversary this year.  Having first opened in 1983, Ashiana is one of the first authentic Tandoori restaurant in Vancouver.  The people behind Ashiana is Rick and Sonia.  It was a pleasure meeting them and having them telling us their story.

Sonia told us the story how they got their first major exposure during the Expo 86 when they took their clay Tandoori oven.  At that time, the Tandoori oven was quite a novelty and his clay Tandoori oven was the first in Canada.  It just happen that Rick fell ill on the day and Sonia, even though a few months pregnant, had to stand in to do the demo.

They came across to us as a very hard working husband and wife team.  Over the years, they had built a name for Ashiana and had won so many awards year in and year out.

You know, speaking to restaurant owners, Suanne and I had new respect for them.  Like many restaurant owners, Sonia and Rick put in 14 hours a day, 364 days a year — closing only on Christmas.  In all these years, they had only gone on a vacation once together!  They had to take turns to manage the fledging restaurants.  Even though, Ashiana had made a name in the restaurant business, Sonia and Rick said they do not encourage their children to take over their business.  We were quite impressed by what we learned.

Ashiana has a banquet room that can easily cater for up to 150 people.  They told us that it is rare that restaurants can get to their size these days.  Ashiana first small restaurant is located on Victoria Drive.  In 1992, they put in all they had and re-opened in this new location.  Since then they had never looked back.

First thing we were served were Papadums.  We learn now that is is made of lentil and is sundried.  The ones Ashiana serve here are made in India.  They could have microwaved this to provide a more uniformed charness.  Instead they make it in the tandoori clay oven.  Love the charred sides!  He he he … is that carcinogenic?

We see the same type of dips that we had in La Tandoor a few weeks ago.  The tamarind chutney and hot mint chutney are better than those we had then — particularly the hot mint chutney.

We told Sonia before the visit we would like to learn more about the Tandoori oven and to see for ourselves how they make our dinner.  So, the first thing we did was to have a tour of their kitchen.  We saw how our naan bread was made in the Tandoori oven — man, I had no idea how fast it was made.  It was almost instantly we saw the air bubbles popping through the skin.  I never quite figure out how the bread sticks to the side without falling off.

The fresh hot Naan out of the oven was fantastic!  It was fluffy and soft … and particularly great with … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

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

Kintaro Tonkotsu Ramen on Denman, Vancouver

Suanne and I went downtown to cover an event a couple of weeks ago.  Since the event was late beyond our normal dinner time and does not really serve food, we decided to just go check out the place which Rey was raving about.

Many would claim that Kintaro’s Ramen is the best in Vancouver.  If I recall correctly, Rey even said that Kintaro has the best Ramen outside of Japan … something like that … something like wow, you just gotta try it!

We had seen lines outside the small restaurant before and it was something that put us off trying Kintaro.  This time we were there at 5:30PM, just before dinner rush hour.  There were tables available at that time.  However, by 6PM there were already people patiently waiting outside the restaurant for a table.

Despite its popularity, the restaurant is unbelievably small and if I could add, spartan.  I guess it is the charm of a place like this.  It is its simplicity that adds to the charm.  In Kintaro, it is all about Ramen, and about Ramen.  I always believe that a setup like Kintaro is best left as it is … i.e. they should not change a proven formula by expanding this place or remove the long lines!  LOL!

I absolutely had no idea what they were all shouting about throughout the time we were there.  They shouted the moment we walked in … each time a customer walks out or make an order.

Service was polite.  They were polite and patient when they took our orders even though we had so many questions on their menu.  I guess it was OK then because there were not so many customers.  When the lines starts to form, they were politely coming around very fast the moment we put down a chopstick asking if we are done.  I understand that they wanted to turn the tables as fast as they can.  They did it politely and we understand.  Kintaro is not a place where you would dine … I say spending 45 minutes here is stretching it a bit too long during peak hours.  It’s order-eat-pay-go here.

The Red Pepper Mix above (called Shichimi Togarashi) is a common Japanese spice mix used for soups and noodles.  It’s a mix of 7 kinds of ingredients.

Kintaro’s menu is a simple 1-pager.  We opted for the one that stated “Kintaro’s BEST!”.  It is the Miso Ramen ($8).

At the time of ordering here, you need to decide on the richness of the broth (rich, medium or light) and either you wanted fat or lean pork.  We asked for RICH broth and FAT pork.

Kintaro’s menu says that their soup is flavored with a blend of soy bean pastes from 4 different Japanese regions and twelve spices.  Whatever it is, the soup was very flavorful.  The broth was way too rich which somehow made us feel full.  We should have asked for medium instead.  You could ask for additional toppings ranging from $1-$2 but we did not bother with that.

There were 2 big slices of rather thick pork with mouth-watering marblings.  This was like the ultimate in pork … goodness-delicious melt-in-your-mouth type.  It was way better than the rather comparatively pitiful ones we had at G-Men — no comparison really. 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

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

Breakfast at California Cafe, Lansdowne Mall in Richmond

Alright, quick … tell me … if you are looking for breakfast at 7AM in the morning in and around Richmond, where would you go?

I can only think of #9 and Kam Do.  OK, maybe also Lido but McDonalds and Tim Hortons does not count for me.  We so wish that there are Dim Sum places that opens at that time.

Driving around looking for breakfast two weeks ago, we found out that California Cafe on Lansdowne Mall actually opens at 7AM.  We had rarely been to California Cafe but had blogged about that place once before.  That was because it used to be closed by the health authorities for some reason I cannot recall.

Have you ever stopped going to a restaurant once you learn that they had been closed by the health authorities … even though they had cleaned up their act and was allowed to re-opened?  For no rhyme or reason, we “sometimes” do.  It depends on how popular the place is to us.  LOL!   For California Cafe, we stopped going.

But we decided to go back in and give them a try again.  We were letting bygones be bygones … simply because there were no better choices for breakfast.

The California Cafe is another of many HK Style Cafes peppered all over Richmond.  The interior is the same as I remembered it except that the grand piano is no longer there.  I had always thought that the interior is kind of stylish with a main raised platform area.  Beyond the structural design, the place is still quite haphazardly organized, very much like many Chinese restaurants.

We were there at 7:30AM.  Suanne was still fuming that I dragged everyone out for breakfast so early during the weekend.  She just wanted to sleep in but me, my biological clock is tuned to Atlanta and London time for months already.  So, for me waking up at 6:30AM is like waking up at 9:30AM for Richmondites.  Actually Suanne has a choice.  She either could wake up at 6:30AM to make breakfast or she could wake up at 6:30AM and go out for breakfast.  Being a sensible person she is, she chosed the latter.

BTW, just so that you know, I don’t even know where to get the toast spread in the kitchen at home and also do not know how to operate the coffee machine too.  I really am not domesticated for these tasks at home.  LOL!

On a more serious note, I really think there is a dearth of early breakfast joints in Richmond.  Even at 7:30AM, California is already filled with customers.

They have very good Pineapple Bun here.  In Cantonese, they are more cutely referred to a Bolo Bun.  Seeing other tables having this we ordered one to sample.  You got to know this … how good a Bolo Bun is is sometimes used as a yardstick to determine how good the restaurant is.  Serious, I am not kidding.

Their Pineapple Bun costs $1.10.  It is denser than the ones in Lido which makes the best Pineapple Buns this side of the planet.  We like softer fluffier ones but we decided to give them the thumbs up because it tastes really good, particularly the crusty buttery topping.

California Cafe has a large menu which lists all kinds of combination that it is so confusing.  We had this combination that is called Mix-n-Match which allows you to select two meat items for just  $7.  Along with this too includes two eggs, a bun and a beverage of your choice.

If you like meat, this will delight you.  I selected Seared Chicken Leg and Seared Pork Chop.  The chops are at least 4″ by 4″ each.  I wonder how they make money by selling this for $7.

I love their buns.  I had the eggs made sunny side up because I could use the yolk as a spread on top of the butter.  Nice. More on following page. Click here to continue reading