But the thing is that we had never had the urge to go in and check it out … until now. You know what I think? I think it is because they have dark windows throughout the frontage that firstly you cannot see what’s in it. For us, we were a bit hesitant too because we were not sure what this place is. With a name like Sensus, who knows it’s like a bar or something which we do not normally go.

Sensus Bistro is located in Union Square on Capstan Way in Richmond. This is the place where Liu’s Taiwanese, Han Ju Hot Pot, Pho Queen and Richmond Sushi is, to name a few.

When we walk past this time on the way to @Ease, we notice the poster above pasted on the entrance. It looks like it is a Hongkong Style Cafe in the likes of Bauhinia … an upscale, more expensive type of HK Style Cafe. We thought this would be a much better idea than @Ease and decided to lunch here instead.

Don’t be misled by the empty looking restaurant above. We were there early for lunch as we normally do (i.e. it was just after 11AM). So they had just opened and the lunch crowd had not started trickling in. By noon, the place was packed. Sensus is obviously a popular restaurant and we had not heard of anyone talking about them before.

The decor is modern … OK, relative to all other HK Style Cafes. It is clean and well maintained. We had a good feeling about this place. If we had not pushed opened the door and walked in, we will have never discovered this place. If you ask me, the dark windows should go.

They have a relatively large menu with the same kind of offerings you find in Bauhinia. It is in color and have selected dishes pictured on it too. I had taken a few pictures of their menu and put them way down this post. Check that out.

On the table was this thingy above showing their special. I already know what I wanted. I had always wanted to try this (at Bauhinia). It is expensive though … $18 but on Thursday it is a special of the day at $14.

It sure is a mouthwatering chunk of meat isn’t it?

I ordered this with spaghetti on the side. The spaghetti is very well made … not too soft and firm to the bite.

While it is really nicely deep fried and crispy on the outside and the meat is tender and juicy inside, the pinkishness of the meat really puts me off. As for the taste …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Sensus Bistro on Capstan Way, Richmond (449 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: Chinese, Hong Kong, Restaurant Review, Richmond

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
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Pastry Club Dessert Cafe on W 41st Ave, Vancouver (151 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: Cake Meet, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

So when it was Remembrance Day on Wednesday last week, we made the excuse to also dine out the day before. After all, it felt like a weekend, albeit a short one.

We went to Miku because we heard so much about their unique version of sushi. Having never been here before and guided by the reviews we read, we went there with a perception of exclusiveness and authentic Japanese culinary experience. After all, they are located at a part of downtown that we thought is an expensive area to operate a restaurant.

Miku is located on West Hastings just west of Burrard. It is just a street away from the new Vancouver Convention Center.

As usual, we were at Miku early at 5PM. They were at the midst of setting up for the evening. We were greeted by the restaurant manager, Erica, who turned out to be our perfect host for the evening. We were given a choice of seated at the bar or the tables. We opted for the tables simply because we felt kind of odd eating in front of the chef, especially when we want to take pictures. On hindsight, it would have been much better seated at the bar because that was where the action is.

Miku is modern and certainly upscale. The service was impeccable.

While their menu is not overly large (it was a 3-pager only), the menu was rather overwhelming to us as a lot of them are in Japanese names. I am sure you know the feeling when you have menus you simply have no idea what they are. I must say that our waiter was really good and patient with our questions and help us navigate the menu.

I got something Japanese for the drink. This is called the Nakano Brewery Ume Shu ($8 for a glass). I like this … it is a well-balanced complex Japanese plum wine. Even Suanne likes it too. It does not reek of alcohol and is light. The only thing is that the ice dilutes it pretty fast so it is best taken early on.

We started the night with two orders of sushis. The above is their signature Miku Roll ($15). This roll has salmon, uni (sea urchin), snow crab and cucumber and rolled with tobiko.

While this does not look particularly pretty, it is amazing. What makes this different from others is the way it is prepared …

… Aburi-style. Erica explained to us that the Aburi technique of searing is copyrighted. When I saw that they were making this, I asked if it is OK if I take a picture of them making this at the bar. I scampered over and took the picture above.

We had seared sushis before. This is is different in that they had a bigger torch and seared with a charcoal which gives out crackles as it is seared. The charcoal is supposed to give it a smokey flavour while the searing serves to liquify the oil in the ingredients. It looked fancier but am not sure if the charcoal really makes a difference.

Two things we love about the Miku Roll … you see the fatty looking thingy topping the roll above? I thought it was some fatty meat or something until we asked our waiter who said it was their very own Miku Sauce. It was great and was curious what exactly it is made of. When we got the chance, we asked Erica who said that it’s a secret recipe that she is not privy to that info. Maybe she did not know? LOL!

The other thing that is amazing here is the tobiko (flying fish roe) which was seared making it really crunchy. We had a great time popping all the tobiko which scattered inside our mouth. Nice!

Our second sushi is called the Premium Aburi Sushi and described as the Chef’s Selection of Assorted Aburi Sushi. With a name like that you cannot go wrong right?

There are a total of 7 pieces of sushis in this $18 offering. Each of the sushis were paired with …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Miku Restaurant on West Hastings, Vancouver (820 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments
Post tags: Japanese, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

Negative Space had been operating since April. This space used to be where Hai Jun is which was one of our favourite restaurants.

Negative Space is located in the Pacific Plaza on Odlin Cresent and McKim Way. It looks very contemporary in black and grey with pictures of their food on the windows. Walking past it, it does look inviting and will definitely make one take a second look at what they offer.

The interior looks smaller but cozier than what we remember from days of Hai Jun. Maybe it is because they partition the area into some sections that is semi-private. There is this one corner that seats six, maybe seven, people that I thought was a nice touch — it has throw pillows and is partitioned from the rest of the restaurant.

We immediate like it. The place is clean and looks brand new.

The menu was interesting with quite a wide variety of food types. We could not quite put them into any particular category of Chinese cuisine. So we asked and they told us that they serve Chinese fusion food taking the best of all the cuisines offer. Fancy description, so we thought.

One particular item that caught our eye is the Japanese Kobe Beef. It costs $35 per ounce and you need to order a minimum of 5 ounces. You do the math! I was curious if anyone actually will spend that kind of money in a restaurant like this.

I wish I had taken the picture of the menu to share with you but I can tell you it is very interesting. We found it hard to decide what to order and changed our minds several times before finalizing on what we wanted.

The food did not disappoint.

Suanne initially wanted to get the Spicy Pork Belly but ended up getting the Negative Space Hot Pot. This item is not on the menu but we saw one table having it. So we asked for it because the soup looked so rich.

We get a choice of either pork, beef or seafood to go with the hot pot. Suanne opted for the pork which came nicely curled in a separate dish. Presentation wise, it does look really nice.

The soup was rich and really delicious. It came also with some …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Negative Space Chinese Restaurant on Odlin Crescent, Richmond (518 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post tags: Chinese, Restaurant Review, Richmond

All this was sparked off by the long comment that Dyn made which I made it into a blog post called Why Do Whites Accept Japanese and Thai Cuisine Over Other Cuisine. I posted it because it was controversial and thought our readers would love to read of it. However, little did I expect that Dyn’s notes sparked off a series of very long, thought provoking comments from other readers.

That got me thinking over a few comments made regarding bad translations in Chinese Menu that puts off diners who are not familiar with the cuisine. So I did some more research on the internet and in one discussion forum, there was a discussion how a western menu differs from a Chinese one.

Menu from The Cannery, Vancouver

In western menu, the dishes often describes the ingredients and the way it is prepared.

Menu from Sunway Restaurant, Richmond

On the other hand, with Chinese dishes, you will not always be able to picture the dish if you are not familiar with it. Traditionally, many Chinese dishes have a 4-word (syllable) names and some of the names have no relevance to the dish. Sometimes they even sound poetic when spoken.

Anyway, Suanne and I thought that over the weekend we just go and check out two funny sounding menu items that we know of. These are from our past restaurant visits that our readers had pointed out which we did not realize. The plan was just to go into these restaurants and order just this ONE item and do a review of them.

Suanne was kind of “mm hoe yee see” going in and ordering one item for the two of us. Taking pictures in a restaurant already catches attention but going in and ordering ONE specific dish, taking pictures and then leave quickly sure got the attention of the restaurant. But that is what we did.

Here is what we tried:

Dead Man Coffin from Sunway Restaurant

Anyone has any idea why this is called the Dead Man’s Coffin? I can only guess it is because it is …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Funny Chinese Dishes: Dead Man’s Coffin, Wild Speculation Beef Salamander and More (788 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 12 comments
Post tags: Chinese, Restaurant Review, Richmond, Taiwanese

So when Jonnek twitter’d me saying that he found Churros in Richmond, Suanne and I was pretty excited. BTW, did you know that we are on Twitter too? If you are interested to also follow us on Twitter, it is on http://twitter.com/chowtimes.

Our boys wanted to get the newly released Modern Warfare 2 from Best Buy (MW2 is an amazing game). So, we all took a drive to the Lansdowne Mall to pick up the game from Best Buy and then pop over to the food court to check out the Churros.

Jonnek informed us that the Churros can be found at the Empanada Hut.

Empanada Hut is famous for their empanadas. Having just had lunch, we decided not to try them although they looked very mouth-watering. Foodosophy did a write-up once on these empanadas, so you might want to check it out here.

Our mission here was the Churros. Here it is …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Churros from Empanada Hut in Lansdowne Mall, Richmond (282 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments
Post tags: Fast Food, Restaurant Review, Richmond, Snack

For a change we decided that we would go all the way to Vancouver to check out the Dutch style breakfast at the Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe. I still remember having eaten Pannekoek for breakfast when I was in Amsterdam two years ago.

Yeah, I know. Some people tell me that Pannekoek is eaten for lunch and supper, not breakfast in the Netherlands. But to us, it is pancakes and we Canadian eat pancakes for breakfast. :-)

The Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe is located on Cambie around the intersection with West 17th Ave. It’s easy to spot the restaurant. The outside has this faux Dutch windows with flower boxes.

The inside has a Dutch ambiance and coziness to it. But the place does look old. The dining room are partitioned into three distinct sections giving this large restaurant a small restaurant feel.

I heard that this very Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe is the origin of the De Dutch Pannekoek House franchise that you find all over BC today. So, if you like De Dutch, you should check out the real deal here.

The restaurant has a very homey feel to it. It is haphazardly decorated with wooden clogs, paintings and Dutch posters. Along the wall, they have pictures of their past customers lined on a strip on the wall with cute comments written on them.

We started off with the normal coffee and hot chocolate. However on their menu, they have a half page showing the “GIANT” Coffee Mocha for $4.25. Yeah, they capitalized the word GIANT but at the same time they also put the word GIANT in close inverted commas. It was not in anyway giant, but is sure is “GIANT”. It was quite normal.

There is a large section on the menu dedicated to Pannekoeken (the word Pannekoeken is plural of Pannekoek). We all pestered Nanzaro to agree to get the Pannekoek because we wanted to order something other than Pannekoek. He flip-flopped a few times on what he wanted. First he wanted the Nasi Goreng (fried rice!) Pannekoek. Then he changed his mind to Curry before finally settling on the Cheese Lover’s Special.

The Cheese Lover’s Special has five different type of cheeses … Edam, Gouda, Swiss, Cheddar and Mozzarella. We felt that this is really expensive because to us it is just a thin layer of pancake with 3 slices of tomatoes on top of the cheeses. This one is $12.15. Their other Pannekoeken ranges from $11 to $13.

On every table is quite a large bottle of syrup meant for the pancakes. That all-black bottle stands out and so we had to try it on the pancake.

For me, I had the Nasi Goreng and Eggs ($10). You did not hear this wrong. The name Nasi Goreng is …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of The Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe on Cambie and W17th, Vancouver (474 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: Breakfast, Dutch, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

It’s such a shame that such a fine restaurant like The Cannery are forced to close through no fault of theirs.

Last week, I had a week long strategy planning session with our core project members who came from several countries. The meetings were grueling to say the least. On the last day of the meeting, it rested upon me to organize a team dinner. I love planning dinners like these and chose one of the best place one could go to for such team dinners — The Cannery.

If you have never heard of The Cannery, you will never accidentally bump into this place. It is because it is located out of way. As a matter of fact, it is located right in the middle of the Vancouver Port.

To get to The Cannery you need to clear the port security although it is generally no fuss. They will ask where you are going and they will let you through if you just say you are going to The Cannery.

It will feel kind of weird because located in the middle of warehouses, silos and train tracks is a restaurant very unlike what you will find elsewhere in Vancouver.

The moment we walked, my guests were already remarking how this place exudes the old-fashioned attractiveness and charm. When I told them this place will close in just a few months, they said the same thing … “what a shame”. That is said even before we had started eating.

Gail was saying that they can never replace a place like this. They can’t just close this and hope to reopen it in another place with the same experience. Sha said that it will never be the same again. I agree.

You really got to see this place for yourself. I felt it is just the perfect restaurant for just about any occasion. There are nice little corner with the view of the Burrard Inlet for a nice cozy romantic dinner. At another corner is a casual setting at the fire place.

We got ourselves a very nice corner for our group of 13 people. I could not be happier myself. :-)

Our waitress was a cheerful person and knows the food and drinks they serve very well. Too well, because she rattled off such a long description of the martini that most of us just did not understand what we got. Most of us had that martini “with a dash of raspberry” you see on the right.

We had a few bottles of wines to accompany the food. One of them was Syrah which they all raved about. I had the strong red wine but really, I can’t tell the difference between this vs other red wine. Our waitress offered someone in our party to taste it before they are poured for the rest of us.

Looking at the number of bottles we ordered throughout the night, I can imagine how much this is all gonna cost. Good thing I am not the one who had to expense it!

It was very dim in the restaurant. I had to push the ISO setting to “enhanced” in order take these pictures. Even that, it came out with motion blur for some picture. But really, am glad it turn out mostly OK even with these difficult lightings.

The bread was nothing to shout about and does not wow us at all. I had tasted better … but …

… the lobster oil with the balsamic vinegar pretty much made up for the ho-hum bread. This is produced and bottled in Vancouver and is the invention of their Executive Chef. You can actually buy them at $25 a bottle (see here).

I had a lot of the bread with this dip.

Their menu is laid out as “first course” and “second course” instead of the normal Appetizer and Main.

My first course is the Roasted Mussels ($16). The mussels was kind of OK — no big deal. It was served on a sizzling cast iron pan resting on an iron stand. The better part was not the mussels but the gravy and the really crispy bread.

Here are some of the other first courses that the others in our party ordered. The Cannery’s first courses are …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of The Cannery Seafood House on Commissioner Street, Vancouver (424 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: Restaurant Review, Seafood, Vancouver, Western

Frankly, Suanne and I are not big fans of breakfasts but we got to make it up to Nanzaro who was still mentioning about him missing the breakfast in Bon’s. So we woke up bright and early last weekend and went to The Naam. What we did not tell Nanzaro though is that Naam is a vegetarian restaurant.

Naam starts serving breakfast at 6AM. You might think, wow, it’s early but actually they are opened 24 hours. The Naam is located on West 4th Avenue near the intersection with Macdonald St.

The beauty of going there early at 7AM is the quietness. The place exudes that kind of morning calmness with people enjoying a big breakfast, hot cup of coffee with a book in hand. The wooden varnished tables and casual decor adds to the charm of this place.

It was not like that for long. By 8AM, this place was absolutely buzzing with customers and getting service from the waiters is a true test of patience.

You know, you can’t just build a restaurant with these kind of ambiance these days. The total mood, character and experience we see here is built over the 40 years that The Naam had been in existence in the core of the Kitsilano neighborhood.

The Naam has a big breakfast menu. You could probably imagine that it took us a while before we finally settle on our selection. Anyway, if you can’t read the menu above properly, click on it for a larger image.

Hot Coffee and Hot Chocolate was $2.50 with free refills of coffee. The hot chocolate cup had a paper napkin tied to it. We were wondering why they did that because this is the first time we had seen anyone doing it. Does anyone know if there is a practical reason for this?

The hot chocolate was pretty good. It tastes like it is made with cocoa powder and is unsweetened. We like it this way but knowing Nanzaro, he hates it. To him, hot chocolate is not supposed to taste this way and it has to be sweetened like those you find in Denny’s and IHOP.

The Naam describes themselves as a “Vancouver’s Oldest Natural Foods Restaurant”. They pride themselves as saying most of everything they serve are made in premises, using pure and fresh ingredients.

Nanzaro opted for the Breakfast Quesadilla ($9). It has red organic corn tortillas with scrambled eggs. You can opt for tofu instead of eggs.

You got to hand it to Naam. Their breakfasts are …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of The Naam on West 4th and MacDonald, Vancouver (541 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments
Post tags: Breakfast, Restaurant Review, Vancouver, Vegetarian

Guu in Aberdeen opens for lunch at 11:30am. That is still ok with us. Since we were there at about 11:00 am, we had some time to do some groceries shopping before our lunch. Polly likes to do her groceries shopping on Friday as most groceries places are packed with people in the weekends. As for me, I like to do my groceries shopping at the beginning of the week as I seldom cook during weekends.

Guu is a Izakaya type of Japanese restaurant.  All the servers will greet you the moment you enter and leave the restaurant.  They are full of enthusiasm.  I like their high spirit.  The only other Asian restaurant that practice such greetings are Taiwanese restaurant.  However, they are more subtle.

Polly likes Guu’s cup and condiment holders, especially the cup with the fish imprints.  Chinese restaurants usually have toothpicks at the counter but in Guu, they actually have them on the table.  What a nice touch.

We ordered two items to share.  The first item was called the Guuu’d Box.  It’s on the lunch special menu.  This bento box costs
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Guu in Aberdeen, Richmond (143 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments
Post tags: Cake Meet, Japanese, Restaurant Review, Richmond