Chow Times » Cake & Dessert

Pastry Club Dessert Cafe on W 41st Ave, Vancouver

Suanne — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:00:11 +0000

When Joanne recommended the Pastry Club Dessert Cafe to me, I thought it sounds familiar. Upon checking my list of places to go for cake meet, apparently it was on top of my list. What a coincidence. So, without further delay, Polly and I went to check out the Pastry Club Dessert Cafe in Kerisdale. They are close on Sunday and the rest of the days, they are opened from 8:30 am to 7:30 pm.

Parking seems to be a problem here. The servers keep watching out for the parking meter enforcer and we overheard them saying that the parking meter enforcer comes to check the meter everyday. So, make sure you feed the meter if you park your car in this area.

Pastry Club Dessert Cafe is a small cozy neighborhood type of cafe. It has 9 tables that serve 2 each. During our visit there, we noticed that the servers know everyone of her customers except me and Polly. When a server came to serve a customer seated next to our table, she predicted what the customer is going to order and said to the customer “something never change”. That shows that the server really knows the customer well and the customer is a regular.

Polly and I were there quite early i.e. way before lunch time. So, we ordered our regular coffees and desserts from the counter buffet. Polly had latte while I opted for a stronger cappuccino. The small coffees cost $2.95 each.

There is only one type of cheesecake that day which is Chocolate Marble Cheese Cake. A slice costs
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Churros and Hot Chocholate at Dulcinea, Vancouver

Suanne — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:00:52 +0000

We blogged about Dulcinea in early spring this year when they just opened not long. Polly wanted to try this place for our cake meet. I’ve heard that Dulcinea has the churros in place already and it’s a good time for a revisit.

We’ll, the first thing I ordered is their signature drink, 1528, a thick Spanish hot chocolate with churros. I ordered a double shot for the 1528 which costs $4.50 while the churros above costs $5.25. I must say that the churros we had in Spain is much more reasonably priced.

Churros is so good with the thick chocolate drink is because the ridges hold the chocolate well. I would have ordered more churros if they are cheaper.

We also ordered these Hojaldre de Chorizo which is a savoury pastry. It is like curry puff made with puff pastry. These are $3.40 each.
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Excellent Tofu and Snacks on Hazelbridge Way and Browngate, Richmond

Ben — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:35:54 +0000

On the way home after tasting “Mao Ze Dong’s Most Favoured Dish“, I suggested to Suanne that we go get some sweet dessert.

I actually am not that crazy over dessert but I know Suanne will definitely say yes.

We had always wanted to try the Tofu Pudding from Excellent Tofu and Snack. They are located on the strip mall by Hazelbridge and Browngate. It is just a couple of doors away from Lido.

Service was terrible here. The lady manning the long low counter sure looked grumpy and has a face as long as my arms. No smiles but that’s OK with us. She was kind of not too pleased when we try to asked questions about her menu.

And then she sweetened up when she noticed that we pull out a camera and notebook. She was MUCH more sweeter to us after that and her tone changed. LOL!

Excellent Tofu is basically a soy pudding place. Their menu is simple. It is either soy pudding with toppings or flavoured ones. They have some tofu based snacks too.

I ordered the one with black glutinous rice. I had an option for either
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Thomas Haas on Harbourside Drive, North Vancouver

Suanne — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:00:52 +0000

Angie from seasaltwithfood invited Polly and I for a get together at Thomas Haas in North Vancouver. Polly and I seldom venture so far for our cake meet although Thomas Haas has been on our list of places to visit, we have yet to travel so far for dessert. But for Angie’s sake, we made the trip to North Vancouver. If I remembered clearly, our last cake meet with Angie was at La Petite France last November.

Thomas Haas is located in a kind of industrial area with a private school just across it. It’s kind of out of the place for a dessert place but believe it or not, this is a very busy outlet. Customers were taking advantage of the great spring weather to enjoy their dessert at the patio.

Thomas Haas is a chocolatier who believe that passion and integrity is the essence for true artisan craftsmanship. They showcase their art piece right at the front counter.

Being passionate with their chocolate, they have quite some varieties of truffles and chocolate pieces on their display counter. But we are not really into chocolate but more for their cakes.

Besides chocolates, Thomas Haas also have a wide range of pastries …

… and cakes. We love this place already.
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Picnic in Stanley Park

Suanne — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:00:19 +0000

With the nice spring weather, Polly and I decided to go for a picnic at Stanley Park for our cake meet. Spring is the cruise ship season and we saw one just cruise by the Burrard Inlet. We would love to go on board one day.

We parked ourselves near the light house. There were several picnic tables and we got one just under the shades. During our stay there, we saw may tour buses passed by, every 2 or 3 minutes. The visitors must be from those cruise ships.

We got some snacks from Osaka Supermarket at the Yaohan Center for the picnic. The above is Fish Ball with Rice Puff. The rice puff gives the fish ball some crunchy texture. Kids will certainly love this. It is served with sweet chili sauce. These were $2.50 for 6 at the time of promotion as a new item.

We also bought some Taro Cake and Radish Cake or Turnip Cake which were $2.50 for 4. We had two pieces each and just right for Polly and I to share.

The Water Chessnut Cake is cool and crunchy. It is a nice dessert item after a meal. It is also $2.50 for 4.

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100% Healthy Dessert on Westminster Highway, Richmond

Ben — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:00:48 +0000

It was the night of the Chowtimes Readers Dinner at the Afghan Horsemen when we went to this little dessert joint in Richmond. There was too much meat for us. I can’t explain it, the meal felt lop-sided.

We had walked past 100% Healthy Dessert countless times before. As much as we had always wanted to try it, we did not because they open in the evenings (4PM to 1AM).

Surprisingly, it was quite busy that night. I was expecting this place crawling with youngsters but do see quite a few older customers here. That made us feel not too old,

There is nary a decoration in the place. Quite spartan I would say.

Menu-side, there were lots of variety to choose from. The menu is generally divided into hot and cold dessert sections.

We thought that the Mixed Fruit with Stir COLD Noodle sound interesting. So, we ordered that. It was colorful to say the least. At first, I thought that the noodles are rice noodles served with mango sauce but …
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Meinhardt Fine Foods on Granville St, Vancouver

Suanne — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:00:59 +0000

When I blogged about Max’s Bakery & Delicatessen, LotusRapper recommended us to Meinhardt Fine Food. I figure we wont go wrong with his recommendation as he is a real foodie and so Polly and I had our cake meet there one Friday morning.

Meinhardt Fine Foods is located at 3002 Granville Street. Since we came from Richmond, we entered the store from the south entrance. I went to check out the place while Polly waited at a street parking behind the store. We want to make sure we can dine in before we feed the parking meter. I only saw two rows of counter sitting in the store and went back to the car to check with Polly if she’ s ok with the counter sitting as she was wearing skirt that day. Polly did not mind.

We only found out that there is a dine in place adjacent to the store (with the word PICNIC on the awning in the above photo) after we had finished our meal and decided to take a walk north Granville Street.

The Meinhardt Fine Foods has lots of ready made food, include Indian food, salad, sandwiches, cakes, pastries and cookies. They are well staff too.

Polly and I ordered Chai Latte and Cappuccino for our drink. However, when Polly sipped into her drink, she realized that she was given steamed milk which she did not mind.

From the Indian section, we ordered the Vegetables Pakora to try. We had the regular Vegetables Pakaro and Cauliflower Pakaro. The regular Vegetables Pakora seemed to have more flavour than the Cauliflower Pakaro. Both are flavourful of Indian spices.

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Vivo! Gelato in Kerrisdale, Vancouver

Ben — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:00:27 +0000

The bad thing about having a food blogger dinner at Long’s is that we can’t stay long. We already over extended our welcome at Long’s when we stayed over 2 hours. Long’s was kind enough not to shoo us away.

As a matter of fact, they were rather respectful of us … especially when there were at least four SLRs trained on every dish even before the dish lands on the table. So, we stayed until we overheard that a party of 10 was waiting for a table … and we had the only table in Long’s that can fit 10 people. Sandy (the friendly waitress) did not even bother to hint that we should go. Rather, we thought we should just let others savour the good stuff Long has. We decided to just pay and go.

It was still early and we thought it was still early. We decided to adjourn to another place to continue our little gathering.

I suggested that we meet at a Gelato place for something light, ice-cream and a place where there are enough seats to fit us comfortably without having seen as overtaking the whole outlet. We drove a few blocks … quite a few blocks to Vivo! Gelato.

I had heard so much about Vivo! Gelato before but I rarely go that this part of Vancouver. I had always meant to visit them. At first I thought it would be something like some of the Gelato joints in Richmond. I was rather surprised at how spacious and pleasantly decorated the place was. What really surpises me was how busy Vivo! Gelato was. All the while we were there, there seems to be a constant line of people waiting to pick their choice of gelato.

There was more than enough seats to cater for all of us. We commandeered a corner for ourselves.

There was a good selection of gelato at Vivo. They have two counters of what you see above. Frankly I was not paying much attention to their flavours at all. I just wanted to grab something and get back to the gathering!

Our selection was straightforward. I just asked what their best selling flavour is and got just that … mango and chocolate. Suanne and I wanted it served in a wafer bowl. The gelato was finished in no time … but we continue our chatting.

Frappe Bliss in Aberdeen Center (And What Happened To Chowtimes)

Ben — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:46:46 +0000

We might as well just post about Frappe Bliss since it was while we were in the Aberdeen Center we first learned that chowtimes.com had been suspended.

Food courts in shopping malls all around Metro Vancouver is so boring. They all look alike with the same stalls selling the same stuff. I find that all food courts are dominated by the same group of restaurants.

I find Aberdeen’s food court is different and a class above all other food courts around. The layout is very pleasing and they have lots of tables. It is bright and for an Asian food court, it is clean and well maintained. The best thing about this place is the selection of food and it is well represented by some of the bigger names in Asian restaurants like Jang Mo Jib and Cafe D’lite just to name a couple.

Having gone through the long cold winter, do you find that it’s kind of overly warm and hot this spring? We do. We wanted to just get out of the house and go out and look for a nice icy cold drink to cool down. Usually we’ll just go to Timmy Ho’s for an Iced Cap but it is just too heavy for us.

The ideal would be an “ice plate” like the ones we had in Well Tea. We thought the best place to look for one is in Aberdeen since we also wanted to go grab some small plates and place mats from Daiso. The closest we got to an Ice Plate was Frappe Bliss.

You have a choice … make your own ($2.36 Frappe with 71 cents per topping) or get one of their nine concoctions. We had the one called the Peanuts Iceberg which is $3.80.

Was it good? It was awful … pretty tasteless. It was also very light — I say it was very airy and had hardly anything in it. I find it intriging how they managed to make it so fine and that it did not melt much at all despite that. Yucks.

Aberdeen’s Food Court has Wifi. I must add that it was painfully slow. It actually felt like those days when we had the 9600 baud rate modems! We got connected and found chowtimes.com suspended.

If you want to read more about our saga … click below:

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Max’s Bakery & Delicatessen on Oak St., Vancouver

Suanne — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:00:07 +0000

Polly and I met again for our cake meet. We cant meet as regular as we like due to spring break or school Pro-D days. We enjoyed our ladies only cake meet where we can indulge ourselves with sweet treats and chat about anything, mostly about our children. Girl just need a girl friend to talk to.

We had our cake meet at Max’s Bakery & Delicatessen on Oak St. Max’s Bakery & Delicatessen has 2 other locations, one on West 8th Ave and another on Granville Island which is known as Stuart’s Bakery which I had blogged about here. I have no idea that Stuart’s Bakery is a branch of Max’s until I checked Max’s website.

We knew that this must be a busy location because they have a numbering system installed where you take a number and wait for your number to be displayed or called upon. They have lots of bake goods, pastries and cakes to choose from. We knew we’ll like this place the moment we walked in.

One unique thing we noticed in Max’s is their one blade fan. I wonder if it’s more for decoration or function.

This bakery not only has lots of cakes and sweet treats, but they also have lots of savoury items to offer, like sandwiches, lasagna, roast chicken, salad, etc. We will be back to try their savoury items on our next visit.

Max’s also does catering, whether it’s corporate luncheon, wedding reception, or a celebratory family gathering.
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