All Entries in the "European" Category
New Ikea Restaurant in Richmond
The new Ikea finally opened on the 25th April. It was bigger than the original location which was the first Ikea in North America. We are very eager to visit the new Ikea but we did not go on the first day as we knew it will be packed due to freebies, etc.
We went to the Ikea Restaurant for lunch on the first weekend. The restaurant was packed with people. There was a line up as expected.
The restaurant is huge with various settings for different ages. I love the new setup.
I like the new food tray cart. It is very handy for family dining.
Ben and Nanzaro opted for the 10 piece Meatball Combo which is $5.99. We switched the mash potatoes with fries instead. More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Sciue in Yaletown, Vancouver
Polly suggested to go to Sciue in Yaletown for our cake meet. She past by this Italian bakery when she and her son came downtown for her son’s provincial exam. We took the Canada Line to downtown. Sciue is just a short walk from the Yaletown Roundhouse station. There is another Sciue located at West Pender, Vancouver.
It was a beautiful summer day. The patio of Sciue is full. Sciue opens early on weekday, from 6:30AM and closes at 7:30PM.
Sciue is pronounced as “shoe-eh”. Sciue in Italian means good and fast. This particular location is warmly decorated. Booth seats lined the wall. Sciue’s breakfast includes daily baked goods, donuts (Ciambella), and their famous ‘”Pane Romano” creations.
For drinks, I had the Caffe au Lait (picture on the left). A medium cup costs $2.50. I was hoping that it’s going to be like the Cafe Con Leche that I had in Spain. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s just not thick and strong enough. Polly had a medium Chai Latte for $3.80.
We started our breakfast with Pezzetta which is Sciue Flat Pane Romano Filled with Prosciutto Cotto and Fontina Cheese. The above is … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Argo Cafe on Ontario and West 3rd Ave, Vancouver
The Argo Cafe is certainly a place I would not have found on my own. It was HM who alerted us about this hidden gem. After doing a bit of research on line, it appears that it is very well known and popular with people who works around the area.
The Argo Cafe is perhaps one of those place you will not bother check out. At a quick glance, you might not even think it is a restaurant. The painting outside is very gaudy. There is the heavy metal door and the windows are barred. If I did not know anything about this restaurant, I don’t think I would even go in for a cup of coffee.
Maybe that’s the way it should be. The Argo Cafe is already … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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The Diner at West Point Grey
In lieu of watching the Royal Wedding of William and Kate, Polly and I decided to go for an English breakfast for our cake meet. We found an English diner at West Point Grey with 53 years of history.
The English diner is simply called The Diner. You will not miss it as the Union Flag decorates the front of the the diner.
There is a scale model of the Tower of London bridge complete with a state coach and horses that decorates the front of the diner.
The interior of the diner is decorated with lots of photos of the Royal Family and memorabilia like plates and cups featuring the Royal Family, red English telephone booth, etc. The moment you enter the diner, you will be struck by the royal blue booths and tables cloths. You can click on the photos to view them at larger size.
Of course, the recent addition to the decor are wedding photos of William and Kate.
Back to food, we must have …
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Breakfast of Champion
Well. It is done. We have initiated the cutover procedures about an hour ago.
It was another early morning for me. Got into the office. Checked all the fury of emails from overnight. Everything fell in place. No big issues. Had a final status review with all team members from Atlanta and Dublin. Went thru readiness checklist. Checked off one item after another. Can hear team is drained from their voices. They gave their all. Can also sense they are relieved. Last minute industry news trickled in. Two more major Global DS announced they can’t cut over at 0000 GMT tonight. Woohoo … Looks like my company will be the first off the starting block. Can imagine there will be a press splash later today! This team should be proud. They beat the world.
After the final readiness meeting was over, cautioned team this is not over yet. Crafted an “RE030 Good To Go” email of overall status. Team recommends we are good. Cutover procedure was to start in 1 hour at 0000 TYO time. Will be a long 9 hour process in three waves ending at 0000 GMT.
Hit the send button. In a way, my role on RE030 is done. Transition from project to operations will be completed by end of day. I will be winding down this phase and kick off the next.
It is always a surreal feeling at this point of the project. I feel like the center of the universe when the project was in the delivery phase. After this act of handover, it is no longer my baby. The other part of the company takes over. I had to step back while the cutover is in execution.
With time on my hand while the cutover us going on, I thought I give myself a treat. I thought I go have a breakfast of champions. Drove a few minutes to an industrial area. Very unlikely place for good food but this is certainly considered as the best there is for breakfast.
Went to … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Fraser Park Restaurant — Hard to Find in Burnaby
Complete Disclosure:
We did not pay for the food in this restaurant as Anton was expecting us.
“Difficult to find. Hard to forget.”
That is how I would sum up this place.
It is the character behind the Fraser Park Restaurant that I find very interesting. It is this interesting character of this place that the a popular TV show from the Food Network is going to feature this nondescript restaurant in the coming spring.
I just don’t know where to begin telling you about Anton and the Fraser Park Restaurant. LOL!
I wish there is a way you could meet Anton … get to know him and see what goes on inside his head and you will know what I mean.
I met Anton in his restaurant over a year ago. He first contacted me because he saw that I had been planning dinners (the 8GTCC dinners) and he thought that it was fun and wanted to talk about doing something like that. At one point, he was thinking of getting people to come together to cook together in a afternoon and the sitting down to enjoy the fruit of the labour. At another time, he was thinking of getting his chef friends together for a cook off and then invite people to come and pay-what-they-want. All for the love of food!
I like Anton. He did not come across to me as someone who would want to do this just for publicity for his restaurant. As a matter of fact, he told me way up front that he did not want me to write about his little restaurant because he has way enough customers already than he can handle.
That was then … one year ago. All that initial brainstorming was not carried through. He got busy and I got busy with other things in life. And I did not blog about the restaurant.
Out of the blue, Anton wrote to me again. He was telling me that the TV show had identified his restaurant and planned to shoot in his restaurant over two days. I can’t tell you what the TV show is but I think some of you can guess which show it is. Don’t ask me because my lips are sealed.
Anton asked me if I could meet him so that he could pick my brains on what he needs to do to prepare for the TV shoot. It is not that I am an expert in this sort of things but I would love to go and catch up with Anton again and bring Suanne along to try his food.
So where is Anton’s restaurant? The Fraser Park Restaurant is not exactly unknown. Many people knows him and loves his simple authentic German food. It is located in an area you will least expect. As a matter of fact, it is one restaurant you will not go into if you saw it by chance.
And that is the beauty of it. Sometimes one should not judge a book by its cover. As I mentioned up front … it is the character that makes this restaurant that I think many people should experience. You might hate it … or you might just love it. I love it.
It is “difficult to find” as I said. Fraser Park is located way down the southern most part of Byrne Road in Burnaby. There is virtually nothing here except for lots of industrial buildings. Oh, I think there is also a correctional facility nearby too! There is also a nice park that I used to walk along after lunch when I was working in the area.
Outside the restaurant and in the general area, don’t be shocked with rusted cars and vans parked haphazardly around.
Anton’s specialty is his German lunches. He is after all a master butcher and a master sausage maker. He studied food science in microbiology. So he knows his stuff. You can see his credentials on the walls inside the restaurant.
He changes his menu every week and serves different things everyday. However, there are days that he will feature something standard because people loves that:
- On Wednesday it is his famous German lunch
- On Thursday it is lamb based
- On Friday it is salmon day
We picked Wednesday to visit Anton because we wanted to eat his German lunch.
See the menu above. Don’t you just love him putting in a smattering of German words on his weekly menu? You can click on it to make it more readable. He emails the menu of the week out to his customers so that they can plan to come in for the specials of the week. It is hard to get bored with his food when he tries to vary it every day, every week.
Anton is a crazy nut if you ask me. He is a perfectionist and he insists on making his food from … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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Mis Trucos on Davie, Vancouver
One of the things Suanne and I enjoy in life is having dinner with friends — dinners that are unrushed, with no agenda and purpose other than get together and talk, talk, talk. We had a great time with TS and JS (Eating Club Vancouver) and ET and Christina (Doesn’t Tazte Like Chicken) last Friday.
TS and JS organized this. When they invited us, we dropped our Friday date plans for this. It had been a while since we last met up for Dim Sum at the Top Gun J&C in Richmond.
All these while I thought Mis Trucos was on Commercial Drive. I am not sure what made me thought of that. I almost drove to Commercial Drive!
That Friday night was the Opening Ceremony night of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympics. Driving across the Granville Bridge, we were caught in a traffic snarl — almost a gridlock. So, instead of chancing it, we parked our car immediately after the bridge to walk. And guess what … the road was so empty and quiet all the way from the foot of the Granville Bridge to Mis Trucos on Davie and Thurlow.
Mis Trucos calls themselves a Mediterranean tapas bar. We were kind of surprised how simple and small this place is — just about 8-10 tables in a very casual setting. We were also surprised how empty Mis Trucos was on a Friday night.
The interior was very dark — while romantic to some, but for us, it’s difficult taking pictures.
The menu is also simple. Just a 1-pager. Most of them are tapas size items. Actually some of them are so small I don’t know if I want to call it tapas. It is so small, I might not even call it bite-size.
Not knowing what most of these are like, we just left all the ordering to TS and JS.
Like this one. The Gilda is Black Olive wrapped with anchovy. This is $1.90 … each!
OK, you may call me cheapskate — permission granted but I thought it was overpriced.
On the menu, it says that it is $1.90 each or $6.00 for four.
But we have six of us and when we ordered one for each of us, we were billed $9.80. Basically they bill is one order of four for $6 and the other two orders of one for $1.90.
It tasted really salty. Moreover Suanne and I are not fans of olive as much as we tried to like them.
Got to hand it to Mis Trucos. The Foie Gras was excellent. I recorded four long “Mmmmmms” from ET. ET is a picky eater (Christina said so many times! LOL!) … and so I reckon if he approves, it has to be good.
It was. The sweet and tangy jelly balanced the rich creamy foie gras. This is $17.40 for six bite sizes. Good but expensive.
The Coca is a Catalan flatbread topped with chorizo and anchovy. We got two Coca at $4 each.
This is really nice and especially with the really … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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DB Bistro Moderne on West Broadway, Vancouver
The one meal I had always looked forward to each week is Friday dinner with Suanne. It is not that you don’t already know that if you had been following this blog.
The one place we had always wanted to go to is DB Bistro Moderne. Frankly, we held back from going there because it is not exactly cheap and requires a special occasion to justify it … until now.
DB Bistro Moderne is located on West Broadway. It is just next door to its more illustrious sister restaurant, Lumiere. Just a few doors away is a place called Moderne Burger. DB Bistro Moderne and Moderne Burgers are two totally different and unrelated restaurants. Just thought we point out the obvious.
Before DB Bistro Moderne came to being, this was Feenie’s which we blogged about oh, so long ago. It is a long story and so I won’t go into that. Needless to say, it is stuff that one could creatively write a story about Feenie’s rise to fame (and fall). Did you know I worked with Rob Feenie before? A few years ago, I was the Project Manager for the launch of a range of high end home appliance in Canada. We had Rob Feenie do a demo and invited the media and public. Gosh, I still can’t believe the bucks the company paid for a 1 hour appearance.
Enough of Feenie … today DB Bistro Moderne is inspired by another great chef, Daniel Boulud of New York.
I had no idea. We had assumed that DB Bistro Moderne a lot like Feenie’s. We were wrong. This is certainly more upscale than Feenie’s ever was.
As usual, Suanne and I went very early at 5:30PM. That was the time that DB Bistro Moderne opens for dinner. We were the first one there. So it is kind of misleading seeing a lot of empty tables above. The place was absolutely filled by 6PM.
With dim lights and soft music, the ambiance was beautiful and it was perfect for a dinner date. The place is very dim for picture taking but who other than us takes pictures in dinner, right? Wrong! When we were there we could see TWO other tables taking pictures of their food too. Gosh, I have a feeling that this is getting so common that restaurants is so used to this nowadays.
As expected, service was excellent … and very French-y. Too French-y for us. We were surprised by some Amuse-bouche. As much as we tried to understand what it is called, we couldn’t understand, despite asking twice. Rather than end up looking stupid, we decided not to get the server say it a third time. Some Frenchy name. All we got was that it is some kind of cured fish. There you go. But nice touch!
Our server told us that their special of the day is Prime Ribs. Well, it was not just called Prime Ribs but a very longish description that really captivated us. It is one of those sharing plates. You know, big big portions for two people that many restaurants are doing these days. Our server was doing such a great job in describing that I was having half a mind already of ordering that. Then she said “This is $40 …”. Oh … interesting … now we are talking.
And she added “… per person”. Hmmm … on second thought maybe we’ll get the burger instead.
Le Bread came next. Pardon my French but this is what I call Le Bread de la Excellente. Very good, very nice.
There is even three different types and served with butter. The first is cheesy and crusty. The second was herb-y and soft. The third was regular baguette.
We gobbled that down rather quick. The server came and asked if we wanted more. “Of course” we said. We had more.
Two things was on my mind before I came. It was “foie gras” and “burger”. I was quite set on getting that. We finally decided get between the two of us a selection from the prix fixe menu ($35) … and a burger and … a foie gras appetizer.
Foie Gras. I said I can’t remember if I had this before. Suanne said I had and I had forgotten. Whatever right? If I can’t remember, I might as well not had foie gras before. Well, at least not as big as this.
I think they call this Torchon. Twenty one bucks. This was not on the menu and we were told this is the special of the day. The foie gras is made in a pate with a fig in the center … and …
… served with fig puree and 2 very crispy toast. Two very, very toasty crispy toast. Four would have been perfect’er.
Smoooooth … is how we say the foie gras is. Now I can say I had tried foie gras before … that is until I forget again.
Très joli mais vingt-et-un bucks … courtesy of Google Translate.
The above is called the country duck terrine. It is the appy part of the $35 Prix Fixe menu.
With onion compote, whole grain mustard, home made pickles scattered all over the plate, we debated how to deal with this. They even had sea salt and pepper placed in the corners of the plate that we almost missed because it was dim and that there was just a small portion on the side.
This is IT.
This is what I always wanted to try. I call this the twenty-eight bucks burger. They call this the New York’s Original DB Burger.
I don’t think I had ever tried a more expensive burger in my life. For twenty eight bucks it had to be perfect. It WASN’T!!!
Well, let me explain … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
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