Chow Times » Malaysian

Complimentary Dessert from Tamarind Hill in North Vancouver

Ben — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:00:17 +0000

Hi All:

How would you like desserts like this … for free?

Coconut Crepes from Tamarind Hill

Tamarind Hill will be giving a complimentary dessert for every $35 spent in their new restaurant in North Vancouver.

We visited the Tamarind Hill on Lonsdale Ave about two months ago mainly because we wanted to check out if this new restaurant was as good as the popular restaurant in New Westminster. It was … even though the North Van restaurant is smaller than the first one in New West. We had blogged about our experiences here:

The first Tamarind Hill on 6th Ave in New Westminster
The new Tamarind Hill on Lonsdale Ave in North Vancouver

I wanted to let you know that our visit to the Tamarind Hill in North Van was unannounced. The staff did not realize who we were during the visit even though they noticed our camera. I think they assumed we were tourists because they asked us where we were from.

We paid for our meal. We are not paid in kind or money for this arrangement. We did because we wanted to give value to chowtimes readers — that reason and that reason only!

Tamarind Hill only realized that we had visited their restaurant after we posted our experiences on chowtimes and wrote to us about it. We took the opportunity to propose something that will benefit all parties … a free dessert to drive chowtimes readers to go out of the way to give Tamarind Hill a chance to show what they have to offer.

The details are simple: …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Complimentary Dessert from Tamarind Hill in North Vancouver (74 words)

Tamarind Hill on Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver

Ben — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:36:05 +0000

Everyday Friday Suanne and I go out for dinner just by ourselves. We leave the boys at home. They are happy to get rid of us, just as long as they get to play the PS3 and hog the computers. They appreciate time away from us as much as we do them. They think we don’t know but I know they practice wrestling moves with each other at home. When we are at home, we forbade the boys from strangling each other blue. Nanzaro especially, is a wrestling nut and is totally addicted to everything wrestling. I don’t know what to do with him really. He just loves that barbaric sport. He knows every wrestlers name and can even describe their outfit down to how many loops of shoe laces they wear.

But last Friday, Nanzaro decided to gatecrash our Friday dinner. As soon as he heard that we are going to the new Tamarind Hill restaurant, he decided to hang out with us instead of his ko-ko (older brother).

Logistically, it was going to be difficult. I would get off back from Burnaby, drive back to Richmond to pick Suanne and Nanzaro up and then on to North Vancouver. Believe it or not, that is almost 90km round trip! And you know how bad Friday traffic could be.

So we decided to try using the new Canada Line instead.

I bet you remember of the lines on the first day of service when rides were free. People are mad enough to wait up to 3 hours in line to get on the train. Crazy!

Well, my dear son was one of those crazy folks. Nanzaro went with his best friend and his dad to catch that free ride. They waited for 1.5 hours at the Lansdowne Station and then gave up. So Nanzaro was glad we are taking the train. It was rather confusing using the machines when Suanne insisted on using her FareSaver as part payment. Translink ticket machine is not some of the easiest to use if you ask me.

We met up at the Station by the River Rock Casino. They have free parking for now. Even though it is free, there were lots of spaces left in the multi-storey park and ride. I expected that a lot more people would have use the park and ride. Anyway, come Sep 8, they will charge $2 for parking.

I was not too impressed with the Canada Line. The cars we were in had too few seats. Almost 1/3 the train was a big empty standing only area. I realize that they did it that way because this line goes to the airport for baggage lugging passengers too. I noticed that the stations were designed just to fit the existing configuration of four cars. I would have thought that they would have built the platforms longer in case they need to extend it someday.

The best part of the journey is taking the seabus to North Vancouver. For those of you who had never been to Vancouver, the Seabus is the cheapest harbour cruise here. I always recommend visitors to try take the seabus. I am not sure what the fare is for the two-zone ticket … $4?

Vancouver is simply stunning viewed from the Burrard Inlet.

We took the connecting bus on Lonsdale Quay. It was just 5 minutes to the Tamarind Hill.

The Tamarind Hill is the newest Malaysian restaurant in Metro Vancouver. This is opened by the same people who also owns the Tamarind Hill restaurant in New Westminster. We had been to the Tamarind Hill in New West and we loved their food.

We found out about this new restaurant because the owner wrote informing us about it. They knew we had a positive review of our visit to their New West restaurant. Suanne and I decided that we go visit them incognito and unannouced — just to please you all readers.

The North Van restaurant is smaller than the one in New West. OK the picture above shows empty tables but it was at that time when that section was just cleared of customers that I managed to take a sneak shot. I was surprised that they have so many customers even though they were opened for just a few weeks. And it was quite glaring that we were the only Asian customers that evening. I remembered that restaurant in New West too has lots of white customers too which led me to think that Malaysian cuisine appeals to non-Asian too despite its spiciness.

They have an extensive wine list but we do not drink. The decor is red-brownish with roughly the same sort of theme as I vaguely recall in the New West restaurant. It is decidedly Oriental even Arabic, but certainly not Malaysian for sure. Even the piped music is western. All these do suggest to me that they try to target the non-Asian segment as their customer base.

But that’s about it. Am glad to see that the food is very authentic Malaysian and every bit as good as the ones in the Tamarind Hill in New West.

I ordered the Curry Lamb ($13.60). It is described on the menu as boneless lamb marinated with ground fennel and Malaysian curry, slowly simmered in coconut with fresh onions, garlic, cloves, cinnamon and coriander.

I really have to give this a thumbs up. It has a …

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Tamarind Hill on Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver (376 words)

Yummy Malaysian Delights in the Richmond Public Market

Ben — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:00:10 +0000

It had been ages since we stepped into the Richmond Public Market. We were shopping for groceries around that area and decided to go to the Richmond Public Market to get some desserts — ice plate specifically. Something tells me that we could get it there.

The Richmond Public Market was a great idea which I felt went wrong. Unlike the many public markets around Metro Vancouver, the Richmond Public Market seems to be suffering from some bad choices of tenants. About the only thing that will draw us here is the food court.

The design of the Richmond Public Market is good. It is brightly lit with a sky roof and the layout is practical. However, they seems to allow all kinds of businesses here without much regard on how they fit in to the overall image. For instance, I felt it strange to see a lot which sells mattresses and beds next to the butcher stall.

I am just not proud of my city’s public market really.

What is interesting at the Richmond Public Market is the food court. It is like a collection of Asian hole-in-the-walls. Obviously this is MSG-city but the food here is cheap and in many instances really authentic. There are a few stalls which specializes on little known regional Chinese cuisine.

There is a stall just right at the entrance to the car park. For some reason, this strategic spot had always been a Malaysian stall. This place must have changed hands at least once in the past 10 years. I am not surprised if it had changed owners several times already.

In this stall now is the Yummy Malaysian Delights. They had on their menu a lot of Malaysian delights but we were only looking for this …

In Malaysia, this is called the ABC. ABC is short for Air Batu Kacang, literally translated as Red Beans in Ice. It is also known as Ais Kacang. This is an excellent choice of dessert for summer.

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Yummy Malaysian Delights in the Richmond Public Market (238 words)

Weekend Buffet at Kedah House on SE Marine Drive, Vancouver

Ben — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:00:04 +0000

Man … were we surprised, pleasantly surprised!

I was just checking our old posting on Kedah House and found that the last time we were there was three years ago, almost to the day. I drive past Kedah House to and from work everyday and yet we had not eaten there for that long.

As always, Arkensen and Nanzaro wanted pho or sushi for lunch. The boys can just live of those stuff everyday — together with instant noodles. Suanne and I overruled that choice. Suanne does not like raw sushi at all. We finally settled for Malaysian instead.

We were going to drive all the way to Seri Malaysia in the far reaches of Vancouver until we remembered Kedah House. For some reason we did not have a good impression of Kedah House’s food. Perhaps that’s why we had not made an attempt to visit them after all these years.

Kedah House is located on SE Marine Drive (Vancouver) in a little strip mall just east of the Knight St Bridge. Many years ago they used to operate on Fraser Street until they moved here.

This is what changed our perception of Kedah House. They have a $10 buffet lunch on weekends. [Note: Malaysians normally call all-you-can-eat as buffets].

The decor is really basic with lots of misplaced Tourism Malaysia posters all over wall. As far as I remembered, it is much better than we visited this place 3 years ago. It is cleaner and brighter.

The buffet spread is placed along the wall on two sections of a long table. There was not a lot of varieties but more than enough for a good hearty lunch. Despite that, the quality is pretty awesome for a buffet.

We were kind of surprised how busy this restaurant was on a weekend. We got seated at a strategic location … just next to the buffet table! It does make it easier for repeat trips. Not sure about you, but I like many return trips to the buffet table for a “focused” selection of food rather than piling up the plate with all kinds of grub.

It is very Malaysian (or rather I should say “very Malay”) the way water are served in a plastic pitcher. He he he … they even serve it in a very Malaysian type of glass too. These kind of glasses are very common in Malaysian coffee shops, like 99.999% of the shops uses glasses of this design.

I will consider this as the “salad/appetizer”. It is not really an appetizer as Malay cuisine does not really have the concept of appetizer (well, unless you count munching on dates is considered as an appetizer). This is called Gado-Gado. Oh boy … this is soooo authentic that reminded me of the comfort food I grew up with.

The best part of the Gado Gado is the peanut sauce. They were marvelous and served warm too. I drenched the entire salad with the peanut sauce. I like the fact that they keep on refilling the peanut sauce so that they remain so deliciously freshly made on the buffet table. This is perhaps the best Gado Gado on this part of the planet.

All the usual ingredients were there … cucumber, ketupat, turnip, dried tofu, rice cake and hard boiled egg. Oh, talking about hard boiled egg, my mum (as in ALL mums in Malaysia) forbade me to eat overnight hard boiled eggs when I was young — I emphasize the word overnight. It was OK for girls to eat overnight hard boiled eggs but not for boys. Can anyone share with everyone why?

I had the cold hard boiled eggs. I don’t care if anyone stare at my pants. LOL!

Nasi Minyak is literally translated to as Oily Rice. It was really fragrant. We can pick up the smell from afar. The fragrance is from the spices used, primarily star anise and curry leaves. For once, forget the name but they are really delicious by itself.

This is a salad … freshly made from cucumber, pineapple, onions and chilli for that extra heat. Although we were told that this is sometimes taken by itself, the waitress recommended that we do it like this …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Weekend Buffet at Kedah House on SE Marine Drive, Vancouver (439 words)

Cafe D’Lite on West Broadway

Ben — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 16:05:54 +0000

How was it? How did you like all the snow the past week? LOL!

I’ve never seen so much snow falling in the Vancouver area for as along as I can remember.

To think of it, it all came even before the official start of winter. Here in Richmond we had almost 2 feet of snow in all. Try walking in the snow and the snow will reach up to your knee.

There is this something about snow … it’s mesmerizing to watch it falling. While it is still powdery and fresh, it’s beautiful until it starts to turn in a slushy mess … or …

… you try to drive out to the streets. The city of Richmond did not bother to plow the side road until the day of Christmas which made it quite a challenge to get to the main streets. I think the worse is over now because yesterday many parts had turned into puddles of water. Suanne and I ventured out on an errand Vancouver downtown and ended up having lunch out.

We went to one Malaysian restaurant we had always heard about but never tried before. As a matter of fact, Cafe D’Lite has been on our To-Visit list the past three years or so. It’s just because it was really out of the way for us. Cafe D’Lite located in 3144 West Broadway. Actually it is just next door to the famous Notte’s Bon Ton Pastry.
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Cafe D’Lite on West Broadway (427 words)

Chilli Padi on Fraser St, Vancouver

Ben — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:12:55 +0000

We met up with Angie (of Sea Salt With Food) again for a Sunday lunch. We wanted to go for Indonesian and choose the Sweet Chili Cafe but it was closed on Sunday. Being already hungry and all set for hot and spicy South East Asian food, we went to the next place we can think of.

A short drive to 41st and Fraser brought us to Chilli Padi. Chilli Padi is a Malay restaurant and located in the old location of Kedah House (another Malaysian restaurant). I describe Chilli Padi as a Malay restaurant as opposed to a Malaysian restaurant because it serves Malay food. Malaysian food encompasses a wider cuisine that includes Chinese and Indian cuisine.

Not knowing really what to expect, I was quite surprised how nice and clean Chilli Padi looked compared to Kedah House when it was here. The decor is quite Malay with rustic wooden panels. The place is quite smallish though … smallish but with a cozy feel to it. Most of their customers, we can see, are obviously very Malaysian … Chinese Malaysians and Malay Malaysians.

We started off by ordering a very popular soup found in Malay hawker stalls. It is actually a more Thai soup than it is Malay. It is a hot and sour soup but what characterize this soup the most is …

… the Chilli Padi. Of all chillies, I love Chilli Padi the best. Despite it small size, it is lethally hot … just a slight tad milder than habanero which is way bigger. Chilli Padi is called that because of it’s size … padi means a grain of rice in Malay. The big bowl, good for the seven of us, costs $10.

We also got some Satays to share. The six sticks costs almost $7. They were really good and must tip my hat to them because they made it like the way it is supposed to be … with charred bits too. Say, is it true … charred or burnt meat is carcinogenic?

Anyway, I love it. The only downside is they gave so little peanut sauce and they did not even chilli it up. it came with sides of onions, cucumber and cube rice.

Their Rendand was great — some of the best I had ever tried. It is a lot more drier than what we had in Tamarind Hill. The Beef Rendang costs $9.

If you dine out in a Malay restaurant you simply must order Rendang. To me it’s like ordering Pad Thai in a Thai restaurant. Rendang is stewed in mixture of spices and coconut milk over a few hours to a thick creamy sauce. The ultimate is that the meat must be soft and tender … and it was so. Chilli Padi does their Rendang really well.

We also had what they call Kacang Buncis which is basically long beans. It is cut into short sections and stirred fried in chilli sambal and minced dried shrimp. A good dish is when the long beans is fresh and chrunchy … it was. $7.65.

The Sambal Sotong (squid) was a complete disappointment to say the least. The texture felt kind of funny in that it is chewy (not springy as expected). Me thinks that the squid must be bordering on going bad. $12 … just wasn’t worth it. We practically left this untouched.

The Apek Char Koay Teow was very good. It is a Malaysian style fried rice noodle in sweet soy sauce with lots of chilli, eggs and minced garlic. I must say they have one of the best Char Koay Teows in Metro Vancouver. $7.65.

I don’t want to talk about the above. Who else but my boys ordered this. Sigh … at this rate they are going, how on earth are they going to inherit chowtimes from Suanne and I.

The bill came up to $75 before tips and taxes. It was not bad considering the amount of food we ordered. If you look at it, their entree generally costs less than $10.

Overall the meal was better than expected but was somewhat marred by the somewhat funny tasting squid. The Beef Rendang was good … the satay was good … the char koay teow was good … the tom yam soup was good. You should check it out yourself.

Oh … we got the 50% discount coupon above because they charged us THREE times on the meal. We got quite a shock that our credit card statement showed the transaction three times. We called them and they promptly reversed the charges … and gave us a 50% off lunch and dinner coupon too. We like the people in Chilli Padi … they are good honest people.

BTW … how do you spell Chilli anyway? With a double L or a single L.

Tamarind Hill Malaysian Cuisine in New Westminster

Ben — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:10:51 +0000

Suanne and I consider Ed and Christina from Doesn’t Tazte Like Chicken as people with sharp mouth. No, I am not saying that they talks a lot. That is a literal translation from the Cantonese expression “Tsim Tsui”. They know food very well alright.

We had been meeting over dinners once every few weeks. It was our turn to select the location and this time, Suanne and I picked the Tamarind Hill Malaysian Cuisine located in New Westminster. The choice was a hands down choice for us as we know Malaysian food very well.

Tamarind Hill is located on 628 6th Ave. It is located right in front of the Royal City Center’s 7th St parkade entrance. There are lots of street parking but I warn you to be careful about trying to park at the Royal City Center and walking over to the restaurant. We tried to park at the parkade and noticed that there was a guy sitting in a car watching for non-customers parking in the parkade. Never wanting to take a chance, we drove out and parked in the street. Be warned.

We were all surprised to see how popular Tamarind Hill was on the Saturday night. It was unbelievably packed that night. Moreover, most of their customers were white which is unexpected for us to learn how popular Malaysian food is. We love the place. See above … they do have the coolest looking waiting area, don’t you think?

The dining room is really tight though with chairs and tables packed close one to another. We were so close to our neighboring table we could smell their food … and I am sure they can do ours too.

We got there a bit early and got ourselves drinks while waiting for Ed and Christina. Suanne ordered the non-alcoholic Mango Colada ($3.75). No rum in this one but I am sure Suanne would love it with a little rum … except that “officially” she does not drink alcoholic stuff.

I don’t know why. Even thought Tamarind Hill is a Malaysian restaurant, for some reason I felt that they are more Singaporean than they are Malaysian. The owners who came to speak to us briefly (because we have cameras!) looked and sounded more Singaporean than they are Malaysian to us.

For that reason, I ordered the very Singaporean Tiger Gold Lager. It came with a chilled glass, I liked that. It came in a really small puny bottle, I did not like that! You can’t get smaller than the 330 ml bottle. $6.

Ed and Christina left the ordering to us. For starters we ordered 2 roti canai to share. It was $5 and not bad at all. It was flaky and puffy as good roti canai is supposed to be. The curry they gave was too little but understand that it’s because Canadians will treat this as a dip. For me, I always like to drench my roti with curry.

We had three mains to share. The Beef Rendang (Suanne’s recipe here) was excellent. While I had better ones before, I know I should not hold Tamarind Hill to standards of Malaysia and Singapore. it is somewhat watered down but the plus side is that there are lots of gravy. It was not spicy at all even though it is basically a curried dish.

Because this is a dish that is slowly cooked over hours, the beef tends to breakdown a lot. To me, the hallmark of a good Rendang is the meat basically remain intact. Tamarind Hill’s Beef Rendang is quite springy … and that is good. $12.

The Eggplant, Okra and Green Bean costs $11. It is a stir fry dish with onion, garlic and tomatoes in spicy sambal chilli, shrimps and dried shrimps. We liked it a lot. It has a very unique blend of taste and is best with steamed rice. I like the way they managed to preserve the purplishness of the eggplant which shows that they are not over-cooked.

We also had a seafood dish which is simply called Mixed Seafood Asam Curry. Asam is the Malay word for Tamarind. The curry again was great with steamed rice which came at $1.25 per bowl. For $17, I wished they had more seafood meat in it. We noticed they even have cockles (Kerang in Malay) and did wonder how they managed to get hold of them. Does anyone know where we can buy live cockles?

Where Tamarind does best is their desserts. They were nothing but awesome. The Pandan Cassava Root Cake, despite it’s simplicity, was some of the best we had. The Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar) syrup adds a good touch of different sweetness to the already sweet cake.

If you only order one dessert, I strongly recommend that you order the Coconut Crepes. You will absolutely love this. The soft pandan crepes wrap is already great enough but the real treasure is in the Gula Melaka infused shredded coconut. $6 is perhaps their most expensive dish but worth every cent.

Ais Kacang is a very popular Malaysian dessert. It simply translated as Nuts/Beans with Ice. A customer came by and asked us what this was. As much as we tried to explain to them, I can see their eyes cringed purely by the looks of it. I have no idea why because to me this looked absolutely delicious. $5.50.

Cendol is another common Malay dessert. It is shaved ice and has this greenish phlemy looking thingy called cendol. I think the looks of it puts some people off but despite the looks and the reminder of phlem(!), it is really nice and refreshing. $3.75.

Total before taxes and tips came up to slightly over $90. It was a bit pricey but then we did order a lot of food. We enjoyed the meal a lot. The food was quite OK overall but then I want to say that I am holding them up to Malaysian standards. The service was great, sincere and attentive. Most importantly, the company was great (thanks again ET and Christina for coming out).

I think Tamarind Hill is perhaps one of the most successful Malaysian restaurant in Metro Vancouver. I recommend this restaurant but remember to save space in your stomach for their excellent dessert.

Seri Malaysia on East Hastings, Vancouver

Ben — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:00:02 +0000

Ease, who recommended The Blackberry Bistro to us earlier, told us of another Malaysian restaurant that we should try out. The problem for us is that it is located in the far north eastern side of Vancouver while we live in the south side of Richmond. In short, it meant that it is a long 22 km drive to this restaurant. But we did take that long drive.

Seri Malaysia is a Malay owned restaurant which is a rarity in Vancouver. As far as we know, this is the only other Malay owned Malaysian restaurant other than The Kedah House. Most other Malaysian restaurants we know are operated by Chinese cooks.

The place is very typical Malay … very laid back. They are so laid back that even though we were the only customers in the restaurant and that there were two dirty tables with plates left uncollected, they remained left uncollected for the duration of our meal there.

Don’t expect too much from the decor … forget about having any ambiance at all. This is a plain practical place better known for the food, and only the food. The table is covered in clear plastic sheet over plastic lace coverings. Their menu was simple but have enough to satisfy any cravings you may have.

Oh, one thing I had always wanted to discuss with you all and that is the cutleries used in a Malaysian dining table. For Malaysian (and I believe it goes too for all of South East Asia and even East Asia), the main cutleries used is a fork and spoon. Western tables have fork and knife. I believe the basic difference is that Asian meals involve food that is cut into bite sizes while western meals leaves big pieces of meat and such on the plate (i.e. steak, chicken breasts, etc). Also, Asian meals always have rice and it’s easier to pick up rice with a spoon than a fork.

I don’t know the details, but I recall there was an incident a few years ago in Toronto (?) where a Filipino kid was chastised by her teacher for using fork and spoon. That became a huge issue among the Filipino community. Any of you remember that?

Given a choice and if I am not eating stuff like steak, I prefer the fork and spoon. He he he … old habit die hard!

One more thing … they serve lots of cold water. You will need that because Malay food is very spicy.

Let’s get back to food. We ordered the Roti Canai … two pieces for $5.50. In Malaysia, you can easily have this for 20-30 cents!! It was really good … crispy and flaky. I wished they would have given us more curry to dunk the roti in.

Their Beef Rendang was awesome. This is supposed to be a single serving but the serving is so large that it is enough for 2-3 people. I swear this is the best Rendang I had ever had in this part of the world.

Rendang is and is not curry. I know I am not making sense!! It is basically cooked in coconut milk and spices over a period of many, many hours until the meat almost breaks down and absorbs all the rich spices into it.

Because of the richness and intense flavour in Rendang, about the only way to eat this is with rice. If you had never tried Rendang and loves curry, you should try it. If you dare, ask them to make it spicy … yummy! The Beef Rendang is $10.50. There are so much that we had it to go.

Rendang keeps well refrigerated. So, next time we are around the neighborhood, we will buy a serving or two of this stuff to bring home.

We ordered two servings of steamed rice which costs $3. The serving is ridiculously large … I had never since so much rice before. I like that. Frankly, even one serving of rice is just enough for us two adults and two kids.

We also had Mee Goreng which is Fried Noodles Malay style ($7.75). It is made both sweet and spicy at the same time. Again, I swear this is about the best Mee Goreng in this part of the world. This is hawker food in Malaysia where one could have this for about $1 only.

One more thing about how laid back the people in Seri Malaysia are. Even though there were no other people in the restaurant, they forgot to bring us the Ikan Bakar until we asked for it when we were almost done with the other dishes.

Anyway, the Ikan Bakar was great … $8 is bit expensive seeing it is just one crummy fish. The fish is grilled and then topped with chili paste known as sambal. The Sambal was on the sweet side but really spicy.

We tried ordering their Curry Fish Head but we need to order this 2-3 days in advance. We’ll do the Fish Head the next time round.

I highly recommend Seri Malaysia for Malay food. Forget about the decor, or the service … you should only focus on the food. They are as authentic as you could get. Also, their prices are cheap provided you don’t compare them to Malaysia’s. Their address is 2327 East Hastings (near the intersection with Nanaimo).

Blackberry Bistro in Richmond’s London Landing

Ben — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:00:50 +0000

George and Ease recently invited us for dinner. It had been a very long while since we had met up. It must have been something like over three years. We had utmost respect for them and remembered so well how they had supported us in times of need.

A few years ago Arkensen was in hospital. Suanne and I took turns to stay with him in the hospital every night. There was that one day Arkensen had a rough patch and I stayed with him right through lunch and dinner time. Just then when it was late and I don’t expect anyone anymore, George showed up despite his busy schedule. Seeing that I had no eaten yet, George went out scouring for dinner for me. I will never forget that act of selflessness from him.

Ease told us she had been reading our blog all these while. So when Ease contacted Suanne suggested we meet up for dinner, we immediately agreed. We went to this new place call the Blackberry Bistro.

The Blackberry Bistro is described as a Pan Asian restaurant but to us it is more than that. It is located at the so called “new Shaunessy of Richmond” which I think is more aptly called London Landing. I had been through this place many times before when I was training for the Half Marathon and had always noticed the name Blackberry … this place used to be overrun with blackberries but of late a lot of the industrial buildings had been torn down to make this a new waterfront residential area.
View Larger Map

For those who are are familiar with this southern Richmond nighborhood, I want you to know that it’s on 6011 Dyke Road. It is very near where the London Farm and the starting point of the London Landing dykes.

We had expected a very Asian setting but were quite impressed with the setup. The restaurant had a decidedly modern setting with high ceilings which is lends to it a sense of spaciousness and grandness. This restaurant sure put in a lot of planning and thought into it.

There is even sofa and fireplace in the eating area upstairs with plasma TV and all (and not playing HK variety shows!). We actually did not expect that there were so many customers but were quite surprised that they had a healthy mix of customers. This is perhaps the only place we had seen so far which serves decidedly authentic Asian food and had more than 50% of the customers who are white. I like that.

The table setting was well thought out although I think they put in too much effort to making this good. Case in point … the manually wrap and bind the chopsticks and cutleries. The menu too is really cute … which for a moment I thought was a placemat!

Their menu is very much South East Asian. We had the nice juicy Chicken satay for starters. Having grown up in Malaysia, I know what real good satay are and this is it. He he he … what this lack is the fatty chicken skin which will make it even more juicier. The peanut sauce was quite OK except I had wished it had more chuncks of peanuts and a bit of chilli sauce like the way it’s supposed to be.

The best satay in the world is the one in Kajang, Malaysia called Haji Samuri. Compare the above against this blog entry I made here … looks pretty close, huh?

Suanne had the Laksa. It is creamy, thick, flavorful but otherwise not overwhelmingly spicy. It is pretty good and we agree that this is just not one of the run of the mill laksa. The mere looks of the laksa broth itself tells us that they did not just use any off the shelf paste to make this.

The laksa came with spring rolls. Taste wise, It was alright but in the looks department it was quite unique in that they gave us a dip which I could not quite figure out what it was. Looks like some orangey jam but not quite.

I had been on a mission to search for the best Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup of late after some of you reader had been commenting on this topic. Since, they had this on the menu, I ordered this. The broth is intense to say to least but lacking in spiciness which I personally like.

The bowl is huge. As a matter of fact, their servings are very large and are served in unique triangular bowls and plates.

Arkensen had the Hainanese Chicken Rice. Presentation was good. It came with FIVE sides … nice! The all important rice was flavorful. Hainanese rice is not the normal plain steamed rice but is cooked with chicken broth producing an “oily” chicken flavour rice.

Arkensen did not quite like the chicken because it was made of chicken breast. Chicken breast meat is generally tougher. I remember growing up in Malaysia people specifically did not want chicken breast but here in Canada, Canadians pay more for chicken breasts!

Nanzaro ordered some dish where he gets to pick two types of meat. He likes these kind of food where he gets to choose. I can’t remember what this is called. He had the char siu and honey spareribs which came with rice and sides.

I tried Nanzaro’s spareribs, it was great … crunchy and sweet.

Almost all dishes came with at least two sides — some salty-sweet triangular chips and grilled zucchini. And you know what that means? We had too many dishes on the table … it was jammed pack with dishes of all shapes and sizes.

George and Ease ordered the Singapore style fried vermicelli. Unlike ones we see elsewhere this one is chockful of ingredients. It looked pretty good.

George and Ease also had the curry chicken. It looked nice and good but I did not taste it.

It was when we finished our meal when the owner came by our table and chatted with us. I always enjoyed talking to the owner. In some places we went to, the owners look at us with suspicioun when we whip out our cameras.

The owner, Phillip, told us that almost all of the ingredients are made on their own. He even said that the wonton wrappers are made inhouse. It is because they actually own Soo Jerky too and had a R&D kitchen from which these dishes came from. He told us he would travel to far flung towns in Malaysia to get the original recipe of Kuching Laksa which he claims is the best there is.

Since he talked about Kuching, I asked him about this noodles called Kolo Mee which I had always heard of but never tasted. You know what happened next? He asked us to hang on and disappeared to the kitchen and made us his version of Kolo Mee (this is not on the menu).

I am so impressed and knew then and there, this is not just any restaurant.

The Blackberry Bistro has a good selection of gelato and guess what … they made these gelato on their own too. After all the food we declined the gelato but on their insistence, we tried their blackberry and blueberry ones. It is certainly one of the best we had tried … not too sweet and tastes like what it is supposed to be … fruity blackberry and blueberry. We’ll come back again some day just specifically for this.

You MUST try their gelato.

© ben for Chow Times, 2008. | Permalink | 13 comments
Post tags: Blackberry, Chinese, Food Review, Malaysian, Singapore, Singaporean, Taiwanese

Coco Chilli in Richmond

Ben — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Update 19-Jul-2008: Please note that Coco Chilli had now closed. In it’s place now is Pho 99. Click here to read the blog post for Pho 99.

Alexandra Road has a large concentration of restaurants in Richmond. That 1/2 mile stretch from Garden City and the No 4 Road is lined with restaurants. If there is one place we lunch out a lot on weekends, it is here. We go to Kam Do and Silver Tower quite a bit.

Despite all the visits, we had never stepped into Coco Chilli before. We knew it was there, who would not have noticed the bright yellow facade. It does looked a bit teenager’ish to us and without taking a second glance we thought that it is a bubble tea house or something like that. We were wrong.

I can’t really figure out what type of a restaurant Coco Chilli is. They have quite a bit of spicy and curry dishes. On one hand, I would say that they are a South East Asian restaurant but then it’s something about it that says that it is a cafe style restaurant.

Whatever it is, they have a very extensive menu. What we like best is that there are lots of pictures on them. Maybe it was bad timing but when we placed our order, all our top choices were not available. They apologized and told us that it is either that the ingredients had not arrived (oysters) or they had ran out of ingredients.

Surprisingly the restaurant is absolutely packed with people. This place must be popular. Despite their popularity, I must add that the bowl I was given had morsels of dried up food still sticking on it. Yucks!

For drinks we ordered their Coconut Milk with Jelly. It was super rich but refreshing and extremely yummy. We love it but at the same time know that coconut milk is not exactly very healthy.

It was still mummy’s choices that weekend’s eating out. So, mummy kiboshed any desire for fried rice for Arkensen and Nanzaro. We knew they wanted anything with lots of carbo in it. So, we introduced to them the Belacan Vermicelli. Oh, the boys sulked alright but when they took the first bite, they were sold. (See that, boys? Mummy sure knows what you like right?).

The Belacan Vermicelli smells good (to us anyway) when it was brought to our table. For those of you who knows what Belacan is, you will know it does give a pungent smell and flavour. If you like belacan, you will like this.

Suanne and I decided to order two main dishes and supplement them with rice. We ordered their Mussels in Curry. We had wanted to order their Oyster in Eggs but since they did not have oysters, we settled for this. It was great.

The curry was thick with only a little spiciness to it. What we love was their humongous and fleshy mussels. We counted twelve of them there. It was absolutely marvelous. If we come here again, we will order this again.

The Fried Green Beans on the other hand was just OK. They don’t taste very fresh (no, it’s not that they tasted stale … not at all). We expected such green beans to have a certain crunch to it which to us is a sign of freshness. But the sweet spicy sauce makes up for it.

We’ll go again to Coco Chilli and hopefully the next time they will have everything they have on the menu … and also 100% clean eating utensils.

Have any of you Richmond readers ever been to Coco Chilli before?