At the rate things are going, I think with the help of Karl, I will be able to check out the Burnaby restaurants more.

It was Karl’s turn to make the choice. He suggested that we go to the next restaurant along Kingsway called Chill.

I exchanged several emails from Flora of Chill before when she invited Suanne and I to the restaurant. We said we will go one day but we never had the chance. So this would be a great time to go with Karl. Oh … I did not inform Flora ahead of my visit.

Chill is located next door to Pho Hoa (I think). I think at one point it is was a pub or something. I am not sure about this but there is something about this location. Feng Sui or what, not many people seems to gravitate to this place. Maybe it is on this short stretch of Kingsway that people step on the pedal when the road widens a little and hence this does not have the same visibility as the restaurants just 1-2 blocks up and down Kingsway from here.

Stepping into the restaurant, we find that the place looked much better than we thought. Neat clean lines with a decidedly Taiwanese style eatery. LOL! “Decidedly Taiwanese style eatery” refers to the black and red colors chosen in the same scheme of The One restaurant, Beefy Beef Noodles and Estea. See below …

The One Restaurant, Burnaby

Beefy Beef Noodle, Vancouver

Estea, Richmond

OK, I pretty much made this up. LOL! For some reason, I am beginning to associate red-black color scheme with Taiwanese restaurants. I thought it was kind of sleek.

The Chill is spacious. I really like the way the restaurant is setup. This is so unlike many Chinese/Taiwanese restaurant. There is the normal booth type seatings on one side, a separate bar area and most others are configurable tables with nice high back leather chairs.

Karl and I were seated at the tables located on a raised platform which we reckon doubles as a stage for night performances.

The place was pretty quiet when we were there. I am not surprised. Like I said, it’s something about this location. The whole time we were there there was only 3 tables taken up.

Oh … when Karl and I was there, workers from my company were there too. One of them came over to me and whispered that “lit dow geh yeh hoe larn sek geh” … “the food here is hard to eat”. He he he … Karl and I looked at each other and said … “then why is he here”. LOL!  For a moment we were thinking maybe the food here is not as good as the how it looked.

Chill does not appear to be like many of the Taiwanese restaurants around dishing out standard fare. They try to make themselves different while at the same time serving the popular Taiwanese dishes.

There are live performances on some nights and specials on certain days of the week. They like to call what they serve as tapas which kind of lend itself with the alcohol they also serve inhouse. It sounds to me that they want to make this like a “Taiwanese Cafe-slash-bubble-tea-house”  for the grown ups.

This is what I meant when I said “Taiwanese Cafe-slash-bubble-tea-house”.

This is the first time I had seen Alcoholic Bubble Tea. I really wanted to try this but I had to get back to work. I did not want go back and run a meeting looking like I am half-drunk since I turn red very easily.

How does “Brandy Milk Tea” sound? LOL!

So instead of getting the alcoholic drink, we asked our waitress for recommendations. I went with something called the Hawaiian Holiday ($5.25). It is the one on the right. The Hawaiian Holiday is a mix of banana, coconut and pineapple. Pretty good.

Karl’s choice is the one on the left. I can’t remember now what his is called — Lemon Plum I think.

Onto the food …

When I asked our waitress for a recommendation, she so enthusiastically recommended their Taiwanese Beef Noodles. Oh, I thought that it is quite bold seeing that they are just blocks away from Lao Shang Dong. I wanted to try that but Karl did not. Grrr … since I said I will leave all ordering to him this time, I let it go … I will come back some day to check that out.

The Kong Pow Chicken above is $6. It was quite flavourful. I like it but …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Chill Restaurant and Lounge on Kingsway Near Royal Oak, Burnaby (301 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments
Post tags: Burnaby, Restaurant Review, Taiwanese

I would have thought that a lot of people who have known of this old time HK Style Cafe. I heard of them before I even first used the words HK Style Cafe on chowtimes.

But it was only recently that we went.

BTW. What do you think is the proper way to pronounce the name of Cafe Gloucester? Is it “Glos-ter” or “Glow-chest-ter”?

Located on Cambie, Cafe Gloucester was one of the businesses that had survived the carnage during the Canada Line construction. A restaurant like this will definitely survive because they are very popular particularly with the Chinese community. This is because their prices are cheap, service is fast and food are not bad.

I remember reading that the Copa Cafe located a few blocks down Cambie, is an off shoot of Cafe Gloucester — like a rouge off shoot. Is that right?

Cafe Gloucester can brag that they had won the award for being the Best HKSC. I am not sure which year though but maybe last year.

You know, of all the restaurant awards, I follow the Chinese Restaurant Awards closely. The coveted Critics Awards for 2010 will be announced on April 7th and you can bet that who ever wins these awards will receive instant recognition. He he he … to think that I had dinner with some of the critics at S&W Pepper House just recently.

We were there for lunch. The dining area is large and yet they are able to fill the restaurant in most times of the day. Cafe Gloucester is one of the few HK Style Cafe where service to us is polite. The workers are even well dressed with matching uniforms. It’s a sign to us that they care about good service rather than dishing out cheap food and be done with that.

Their menu is lovely. There are enticing pictures spread over eight pages with some very good selection on each section.

This is the type of menu that we take a long time reading because it is hard to decide what we want. We needed a more sophisticated way to keep track of our shortlisted dishes than keeping a finger at the relevant pages. We actually have to list it down on paper and then do our elimination from there.

I went with the Laksa Chicken Vermicelli Soup ($8). This is just so that I can contrast this with Bo’s Laksa that I had recently where I can see why his is so good compared to those you find around town.

Nope. The laksa in Cafe Gloucester is too watery and it is only a little spicy. So yeah, it was hard to finish this because it’s not as I expected. It is not that it is inedible mind you. In the most part, it is decent.

But the chicken meat are boned in and quite meaty and well done. That kind of save this bowl of noodles.

Normally I would finish the laksa soup down to the very last drop. Here I just had the chicken and the vermicelli. They need to make the laksa thicker.

Nanzaro took the longest to decide what to order. Strange considering that he still end up with fried rice.

The reason was he tried to be fancy and wanted something better than everyone else. He took so long and the waiter was waiting for his order that he felt pressured. So he had the Gloucester House Special Fried Rice ($7).

The fried rice was …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Cafe Gloucester on Cambie and West 17th, Vancouver (321 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 14 comments
Post tags: Hong Kong, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

Oh man!

I was so honored to have been invited to a dinner with some of the most revered foodies in Vancouver last week. When FMED asked if I would like to join in a dinner with such distinguished names in the foodie world, I was kind of uncertain. You see, these guys and gals are heads and shoulders above the likes of me — a wannabe foodie … a food blogger. These guys knows food and speak authoritatively. These guys are judges for restaurant awards. Their opinions are revered and trusted. They are what I want to be when (if?) I grow up. LOL!

Since I did not have their permissions to mention their names and pseudonyms, the diners will remain anonymous. Let’s just say there were a group of six boys and girl.

The dinner was at the S&W Pepper House in Richmond. S&W Pepper House is located on No 3 Road, right across from the Richmond City Hall. There is another S&W Pepper House in the Crystal Mall in Burnaby. Both are popular restaurants serving some of the best Sichuan cuisine in Metro Vancouver.

Oh boy, I was so embarrassed that I arrived late. Not good to have these people wait. They had almost finished the ordering by the time I arrived.

I had been to both S&W Pepper House in Richmond and Burnaby before. As a matter of fact, I remembered that the visit to the Burnaby’s S&W was one of our earliest post — like 2/3 weeks after chowtimes got started. Reading back that 4 year old post brings back memories to those days when blogging is a simple affair. I still remember that meal where we had the “Guo Qiao” (Crossing the Bridge) Rice Noodle in Special Soup which has a story behind the name of the dish.

First thing that came across my mind was so less classy this S&W Pepper House is today compared to when I first ate here almost 3 years ago.

Richmond's S&W Pepper House in 2007

This place used to look brighter, has better paintings on the wall and it does seem more busier. Maybe it was because this time we had the dinner in mid week. Oh well … not that it matters really but I just happen to notice the stark contrast.

The guys and gals are cooler.

They don’t take pictures of the food before they eat it. They don’t even have to write down their observations. All they needed was the chopsticks.

But they understood. LOL! They respectfully allowed me to shoot pictures before they dove into the food. I know it is not cool but I got a job to do.

FMED stole the picture above. I was not aware of it but I thought I share one of the rare shots of me here. I think this is the ONLY picture of me “at work”.

I was kind of surprised how many appetizers were ordered.

The above is called Fried Peanuts with Cilantro and Chili. This is just $5 and was marvelous. I had never ordered this before. Almost everyone just ate it straight. For me, I just had to have it with rice because the spiciness and flavour is too overpowering for me.

The above is called the House Special Chicken. While this is considered an appetizer, the large serving belies the categorization. There is half a bird here and costs $11.

The Chinese name, I think, is “How Swee Gai” which literary means salivating chicken. Fancy name, huh?

Again with this, I just had to have this with rice.

I see the dish above very often when I go for lunch at the Crystal Mall. I never knew what it was but it certainly was popular that a lot of people ordered it. I assumed that this is a very Sichuan dish.

Guess what it is made of.

This is called Shredded Potato with Dried Chili ($5). I was kind of intrigued because as far as I know potatoes are not native to China. Potatoes originated from South America and I was curious how this ended up as a traditional dish in China.

I thought I was cool right? I just had to mention this … and guess what the response was from the experts.

Well …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of S&W Pepper House on No 3 Road and Granville, Richmond (450 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 13 comments
Post tags: Chinese, Restaurant Review, Richmond, Szechuan

Yesterday, I blogged about the tapas we had in Mis Trucos.

Today I am going to blog about Chinese Dim Sum in The Jade Restaurant. I think this is going to be a bit fair comparison because The Jade restaurant is not a cheapo dim sum joint.

The Jade Restaurant is located on Alexandra Road.

This is the kind of restaurant that you will see a fair number of Mercedes and BMWs in the parking lot.

We don’t normally go to Chinese restaurants that have high ceilings and chandeliers. Those kind of places are reserved for special occasions.

There are not just one … but several chandeliers.

And that explains why we had never been here before. We were put off by the chandeliers.

And the captains wear suits too. The tables have double table cloth. The banquet hall is bright and large. This type of restaurants are designed for banquet dinners. The smallest table is meant for four people. For morning dim sums on a weekend, it is usually a family affair. So seeing multi-generation families are not uncommon.

The only reason we were brave enough to step into here was because we read of the review from Wendy (Eat N About). It seems like the prices were not as bad as I feared.

You know what sucks here? The service. It was not that it was bad all round but a lot of the waiters/waitresses “tai yan” — that means that they have extra good service to the richer tai-tai’s (from the way they dressed and speak in Cantonese) while for us English speaking customers, we are left with the whatever they wished to dish to us.

That is the problem with such successful Chinese restaurants. They are so popular and have so many customers than they can handle, they can afford to select their customers. For some customers, we see that the waiters were always milling around waiting to fill the tea cups for them. For us, when we ask for anything, we were told to “mmm goi tang-tang” (please wait) and they don’t come back. When we ask them again, they give that annoyed look.

So when dining in such places, you got to deal with this or you are better off not going at all. IF … if you can look beyond this, dining in The Jade is good in every sense.

The Jade Restaurant opens at 9AM. So we were there early because their dim sum is really cheap in the first hour from 9AM – 11AM.

My tip to you is to go at 10′ish and order the first round of cheap dim sums and then follow-up with the better (more expensive) dim-sums at 11AM when the sifu (master chef) arrives in the kitchen.

When we arrived, the place was pretty empty. By 11AM, the whole place was buzzing with activity and there was already a number of people waiting for a table.

We ordered the ‘Bo Lei’ tea. It was a very dark tea … much darker than coffee but the flavour was not overly strong. This is one of the more unusual Chinese tea. You might want to try it if you had never before.

The menu does indicate the availability according to time. Click on the menu above to display it larger. If you don’t know what to order, just go for the ones that is marked with a red star. Those are their specialties.

But anyway, the prices of the dim sums between 9-11AM is $4 – $5 but have a limited selection.

After 11AM the prices ranges from $7 – $10 with more varieties like congee, noodles, and some special price items.

We thought it was not too expensive for a classy-looking place like this.

Arkensen and Nanzaro wanted cheong fun. Suanne and I decided to get one that you don’t normally find in other dim sum restaurants. This one has mushrooms and scallops. The boys protested saying that they don’t want this because it has vegetables (mushrooms!) in it. We tried to reason that this has scallops and they will like it. Well, rather than prolonging the debate, I just over-ruled their protest. Guess what … they love it. LOL! They just don’t want to listen to their mum and dad anymore.

They use fine inoki mushrooms. The scallop was most unique and has a very exquisite taste.

This is $5.28. For the non-Chinese, did you know why the price is so oddly ends with twenty eight cents? The number 8 is an auspicious number to the Chinese because the word sounded like “wealth”. The number 2 is a word that sounds like “easy”. So in combination, 28 is “easy wealth”. That is why you find that the Chinese will pay to get car license plate with the number “8″ in it.

In some Chinese cities, people pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for not just car license numbers but for things like phone numbers, the floor of an office building, etc. Even the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony kicked off on 08/08/08 at 8:08 PM.

If the number 8 is auspicious, the number 4 is to be avoided by the Chinese … because it meant “death”. LOL!

Chinese!

Despite protests across the table, we went ahead and ordered the Steamed Mushroom Dumpling ($4.98). The Jade restaurant makes their dumpling very well. The wrap is so thin and translucent that you could virtually see what is inside. This one has shitake mushroom and has a unique flavour.

It was so good that you don’t really need chili sauce or sweet soy sauce to dip. I think pure Cantonese dim sums does not provide the dipping sauces unless you ask for them specifically. Is that right?

Our waiter recommended this. The Steamed Eggplant with Black Bean Sauce ($4.48) was kind of oversteamed because the eggplant is too soft and mushy. We like the version we had at Royal Dinner and Dance better.

For some reason, they gave us this one above when we ordered the Supreme Dumpling in Soup. Their Supreme Dumpling in soup is their specialty.

We thought that it would be good to try dumpling with lamb meat for a change. The Pan Fried Lamb Dumpling is $4.48.

They serve this with sweet soy sauce mixed with chili, cilantro and garlic which was really good with the gamey tasting lamb dumpling.

So many dumplings right? This one is called Steamed Chiu Chau Dumpling ($4.48).

The skin is so thin that we got to be careful picking it up. The crunchy texture of the fillings inside was great. It consists of turnip/jicama, chives, dried prawns, pork and peanuts. Loaded! It crumbles when you bite into it and so you want to eat it placed on a spoon.

The best part of the meal has got to be this simple dish. This item is only available after …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of The Jade Restaurant on Alexandra Road, Richmond (510 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 21 comments
Post tags: Chinese, Dim Sum, Restaurant Review, Richmond

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 after the jump. Click to read the rest of Mis Trucos on Davie, Vancouver (458 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 18 comments
Post tags: Restaurant Review, Spanish, Tapas, Vancouver

The Ebisu Japanese Restaurant in Richmond is located in the Ackroyd Mall. There are two other Ebisu in Vancouver, Ebisu on Robson and another at West Broadway.

What brought me to Ebisu in Richmond is the above advertisement. I wanted to try their Izakaya items. But, unfortunately, the above are only available at dinner time. What a bummer.

Luckily, they have the lunch special going during our visits. It’s $2.88 per item, minimum order of 3 per person. Polly and I opted for the lunch special since they are light tapas.

Ebisu has clean lines and spacious setting. We were there at 11:30 am when they just open for lunch and I managed to take a photo without the crowd. It was quite full during lunch time. Most of them look like office workers. Service is prompt but not rush.

We ordered the miso soup for 50cents extra. The miso soup has generous amount of tofu and green onions. Just right for the rainy winter day when we were there.

We started off with Sesame Seaweed for appetizer. Love the crunchiness of the seaweed and the mild sesame flavour.

Next, we had the Chikuwa Cheese which is fish cake filled with cheese and deep fried. The melting cheese adds richness to the lightly crunchy fish cake. You have to eat this immediately when served.

The Prawn and Vegetable Tempura came with …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Ebisu Japanese Restaurant on No 3 Rd and Ackroyd Rd, Richmond (175 words)

© suanne for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments
Post tags: Cake Meet, Japanese, Restaurant Review, Richmond

Pho Lan is located just across the street from the Richmond City Hall on No 3 Road. This is the restaurant known to have hosted the weekly Dot Com Pho sometime ago. I don’t know what happened but for sometime already, they have not had the weekly event in Pho Lan anymore.

It must have been good publicity for Pho Lan when the Dot Com Pho were held there. All bloggers would have known John Chow of johnchow.com (totally no relation to chowtimes.com obviously). If I am correct, his site must have the website with the biggest readership running out of Vancouver … and he makes tons of money blogging. He claims he makes $40-$50K a month but am not sure if it’s a big exaggeration but nevertheless I am sure he make serious money.

Sigh … if only I could make 10% of what he said he does.

Pho Lan is always busy at anytime of the day. Service is very fast and friendly. We had never had problems getting what we needed. They are almost always in a rush and hands with something whether they are going to the kitchen or coming out of it. I had this thing about observing how the waitresses work that tells me how efficiently run they are.

The insides of Pho Lan is really nothing fancy. As a matter of fact, I don’t think they even care about decor at all. At least it is tidy and organized.

The man who took our orders obviously knows how to handle food bloggers. It must have been from the days of the Dot Com Pho. As he was taking our orders, he observed that Suanne was writing our order onto the notebook. He excused himself mid-way and reappeared with a take-out menu. He told Suanne that the takeout menu is the same and that she can use the menu. Smart chap. All restaurants should learn from this guy to be blogger-friendly and not be suspicious of bloggers taking notes or pictures of the menu!

The menu in Pho Lan is nothing fancy. It is just like all pho places with the Beef Noodle Soup taking center-stage.

While most Pho places offer pho in two size, Pho Lan is one of the rare places which has pho in three sizes. The options are $5.50, $6.50 and $7.50.

The good thing about Pho Lan is that you can also order a good day as a side. And it’s cheap too $1.50 plus tax.

Arkensen is the one who will always order the “#1″ in Pho restaurants. We don’t even have to ask him and we already know. He is the least adventurous when it comes to food. So, we don’t count on him taking over chowtimes.com some day. LOL!

He got the large one ($7.50) which was really really large. It was so large that Arkensen said he felt like throwing up after the meal. He and Nanzaro are both like a gold fish when it comes to food they like. You know gold fish right? They will eat as much as you feed them until their belly turns over. They just don’t know when enough is enough. Like goldfish, my boys will eat and eat and eat until they get sick.

The pho is great and has a nice cloudy soup. Don’t you find that pinkish rare beef slices awesome? All pho places should learn to serve it this way.

Oh. Mine is good. Between Suanne and I, I am better at picking food. Ask her if you don’t believe me. She had long conceded that I pick great dishes and she often picks dishes that she ended up regretting … and then eye’ing mine.

The $7.50 Fried Tender Beef on Rice Vermicelli is a dry noodle dish. This one is very very …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Pho Lan on No 3 Road and Granville, Richmond (381 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments
Post tags: Restaurant Review, Richmond, Vietnamese

Full Disclosure
This blog post is written based upon a free meal provided by a chowtimes reader who has a connection to the owner of the restaurant. More details below.

Last Saturday we had eight chowtimes readers joining us for a lunch and learn. While Suanne and I were the one organizing this, it was Rey who picked up the tab for this.

Rey is an advocate for Filipino community and in the course of his community work, he has amassed some goodwill barter from the businesses of the Filipino community. One of this is with the Goto King restaurant on Joyce. Since he has a lot more credit accumulated than he could ever eat, he offered to donate some to eight chowtimes reader — which we accepted. After all, we could not resist this as long as it benefits our readers.

Frankly, we mulled over this unusual arrangements for some time because well, it was unusual. Having known Rey for sometime, I know his intentions and how he goes around helping people without asking anything in return. By sharing this with chowtimes readers, he is also able to further promote Filipino culture and food.

Then I thought about how our readers will perceive this because I know some of you would be suspicious about free stuff for chowtimes. This is not about a free lunch just for Suanne and I but it is more for our readers who are willing to come together to meet like minded foodies and learn too. I was also thinking that this would be a great opportunity to have multiple reviews done not just by me but also reviews directly from foodies, not food writers or bloggers. Just see how my thoughts compares with the rest.

Oh … I wish I did not have to go into this long lengthy preamble and having to explain this to everyone. But this is necessary since it involves free stuff — and it’s also an unusual arrangement. LOL!

Goto King is located very near the Joyce Skytrain station. Goto King is actually opened by the Cucina Manila restaurant next door. Cucina Manila is a Filipino-Filipino restaurant while Goto King serves Chinese-Filipino fare. Rey briefly introduced Liberty, the owner of Cucina Manila, to us and later told us that Cucina Manila is on an expansion spree. There are plans to open a Filipino restaurant in Richmond and a lechon (similar to Chinese roast pork) restaurant a few doors away.

Goto King is actually the name of a popular food outlet (over 70 outlets) in the Philippines. However, the Goto King in Vancouver has no affiliation to the Philippines. He he he … that reminds me of the Ba Le Vietnamese sandwich name which you find all over North America. Anyway, Goto is not pronounced as “go to” but goh-toh. Go To in Tagalog means congee.

The Goto King restaurant is not very big. With 11 of us in total, we practically took up 1/3 of the restaurant. It was a busy day at the restaurant too as expected it being on a Saturday noon time. There wasn’t a line at the restaurant because they turn the table pretty fast.

Goto King is not a gourmet restaurant. They serve day-to-day Filipino food. I would call this no-frills comfort food with reasonable prices.

It was a good thing we had Rey who explained every single item on the menu (and also gave us a primer on the Filipino community and culture). Without him doing this, we would not have known most of the items on the menu.

When I said no-frills, I mean no-frills. It is almost like Hawkers Delight — just cleaner, and slightly pricier. By that I mean that you get your own drinks from the cooler and they don’t come around clearing each plate as you finish it until you ask.

In Goto King you don’t get that “how is it going guys? The weather is beautiful today isn’t it?” kind of service, if you know what I mean. Here, they will stand by the table with pen on the order chit waiting for you to say what you want. Just an observation because we like exchanging pleasantries … LOL!

Someone ordered the Shanghai Lumpia (deep fried spring rolls – 12 pcs) $5.95. They have several types on the menu (fresh lumpia too). The spring rolls are smaller than those you normally find else where and is served with garlic soy sauce and sweet chili sauce.

I so wanted to order something else but seeing that everyone already staked their claim on the more delicious dishes, I went with Goto (congee). Only Jane and I had the congee. Jane has the real thing … the real Goto … the real one with tripe ($6). This is what Jane had to say:

Jane: I think it was more flavorful than the usual congee. The tripe was tender and good too, but some of the pieces were so soft and tasted like belly/fat. Maybe those were fat indeed? I’m not sure.

I had the other version. It is called Arroz Caldo and has chicken primarily. Also $6, I find this congee filling and packed quite a bit of flavour as compared to the more bland Chinese version. I like that they have lots of ginger and chicken in it.

The condiments on the table are fried garlic chips, fish sauce and soy sauce. We all like the fried garlic chips which many of us added to the rice and congee. The fish sauce is rather salty quite unlike those we had in Vietnamese restaurants.

So I added lots of the fried garlic chips. Nice … real comfort food.

A lot of us got the Sisig Pork  $7. It came served in a sizzling hot plate. This was what I was eye’ing for but what can I do right? LOL!

It was topped with a raw egg. Not really knowing what to do, those of them who got this stared and waited for the egg to cook.

It didn’t cook.

The lady boss came around and asked everyone to stir the egg into the sisig — which everyone did immediately as the hot plate was cooling already.

This is how the Sisig Pork looked like post-stirring and pre-eating.

And this is how Rodney (who knows Filipino food very well) and Marcia (who is new to Filipino food) has to say about the Sisig Pork:

Rodney: The Sisig dish is presented exactly the same on a sizzling platter. The outer skin is usually crunchier as Filipinos are generally fond of it being crunchy and more burned as this can also be eaten as a snack / appetizer (called “pulutan”) which is munched alongside the local beer.

Marcia: I had the crispy pork dish.  Tasty but not quite crispy enough and had some gristle.

Gristle? What does the work gristle mean, Marcia?

Most of the rest including Suanne had the Chicken Inasal ($7).  It is marinated fried chicken served with garlic rice and pickled vegetable on the side.

The skin-on chicken is crisp and nicely fried. It was also a big meaty piece of it too.

Here is Rodney’s take on the Chicken Inasal. BTW, Rodney is apparently a big time food reviewer on Yelp.ca

Rodney: The Chicken Inasal is our first time to eat this dish, but then with the description that Rey provided being marinated overnight, I felt that it tasted bland. I could have just easily mistaken it as a Crispy Fried Chicken dish.

I noticed that they serve a lot of rice with the food. That tall mound of rice adds up to quite a meal. I thought it was quite flavorful and with a dash of soy sauce and a bit more fried garlic chips, I could even eat this alone.

With the 11 of us, we ended up ordering only four different types of main dishes. That is because most of us went for either the Sisig Pork or the Chicken Inasai.

The dessert part was a bit more varied. The Sapin-sapin above is $2.00. It is a colourful glutinous rice cake and very sticky …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Goto King Near the Joyce Skytrain station, Vancouver (1,045 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments
Post tags: Filipino, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

I am just kidding. I just wanted to catch your attention and read on.

It had been a while since we had dim sum as a family. The beauty of having a blog is that you can easily figure exactly when the last time it was. Everything is so well documented. For us, the last time was in October last year. We are not much of a dim sum people.

Last weekend, we decided to just go to a restaurant closest to home. Suanne reminded me that there is a place that serves dim sum with an odd name … the Royal Dinner and Dance. This is located on the strip mall on Garden City and Blundell in Richmond.

The moment we walked through the door, we had a good feeling that this is going to be good. All these years, we did not even realize this place would be like this.

The restaurant is located upstairs. You walk up a very wide staircase which has pictures of dancers. I think this place doubles as a dance club too because there is a stage and half of the restaurant is on the dance floor.

The restaurant is bigger than we imagine from the outside. What caught us by surprised is how many customers they have despite its size. The place was filled with customers. This is the kind of place where entire/extended families come for dim sum.  A lot of the tables taken were parties of four and above.

The table already were prepared with the order form and a pencil. It took us a while, as usual, to make our selection. The prices are cheap too.

Service is hurried as one can expect from a place this this. They came by twice asking if we are ready with the order. They were cool when we said we needed more time. For people who are not used to this type of places, you would take it personally when they abruptly turn away and go to the next table. We don’t consider this rude but understand that some people not used to this will feel slighted.

We were glad to see the varieties they have on the menu. So, we try to pick one or two items from each section … and in the process over-rule some of Arkensen and Nanzaro’s choices. If we leave the choices to them, they will pick TWO orders each of siu mai, har gow and sticky rice. So unexciting. LOL!

I was surprised when both Arkensen and Nanzaro said that they wanted the Rice Rolls with Chinese Donut ($3.75). We never thought they will want such traditional and to us, bland dish.

The Chinese donut here was not crispy but a tad soft. A sign that it is not made fresh. The flavour comes mainly from the soya sauce. They also gave us hoisin sauce and sesame sauce too which we thought it was kind of weird. I actually asked our waitress if it is meant to go with the rice roll and she said “yes”. *shrug*

It was quite nice too dipping the rice roll on the two sauces.

The Pan fried stuffed eggplant with shrimp is kind of skinny. Other than that it is cooked just nice. It is not overcooked that it is all mushy and loses the whiteness inside and yet also not undercooked that it’s raw and fibrous. The flesh inside was still white. We thought they did this perfectly and like the sauciness of the dish too. The sauce was great with the rice roll. Only $2.50.

Well, Arkensen also ask for this … the Steamed Crystal Prawn Dumpling (also $2.50). The size is respectable and the texture was firmly springy.Very good.

We were looking for that tell tale sign of freezer burn and all to see if they are just simply steamed direct from big batches of pre-made ones. They looked good enough for us.

They also have several congee options. We got the Lai Wan Boat Congee ($3.95) because we do not know what it is. We still do not know why this is called Lai Wan or what the words Lai Wan means.

The congee bowl is quite big for a $4 portion and has in it squid, prawn, pork rind, peanut, and Chinese donut. The congee itself does not carry a lot of flavour but a dash of soy sauce and ground pepper does the trick.

Next up is called the Fried Sticky Rice with Preserved Meat ($3.95). It came in a glass bowl and is supposed take a form of the bowl when they cup it upside down on the plate. Well … it fell apart and the waitress had to scrap the rice into the plate, losing the form.

You see it was not sticky enough for that. And I was thinking that this is FRIED sticky rice and so it is not supposed to be that sticky.

Anyway, the sticky rice has lots of …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Royal Dinner and Dance on Garden City and Blundell, Richmond (381 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 23 comments
Post tags: Chinese, Dim Sum, Restaurant Review, Richmond

This post is not about just any restaurant.

This restaurant is the newly opened restaurant by the same people behind Lao Shan Dong.

A few weeks ago, I saw on Natalie’s Facebook of pictures of the food she had at a restaurant called The One. The pictures of the food was unique but I did not think more about it and thinking its just another nice Taiwanese restaurant. No plans at all in visiting.

Last week on the way home, I was walking past Lao Shan Dong when I saw a notice pasted at the door (above). Apparently, The One Restaurant is owned by Lao Shan Dong. I would not have visited if not for that sign. We knew that if The One has food half as good as Lao Shan Dong, this is going to be one successful restaurant in no time.

So Suanne and I immediately changed our Friday date plans to check out The One.

The One is located on Kingsway near the intersection with Imperial. It is just across the street of Pho Hong which we blogged about recently. There are ample parking spaces in the small strip mall it was on. But I do think that given the size of The One restaurant, it will be a challenge if they do have full house.

True to the theme outside, the interior is also adorned with tables and chairs in the clashing colors of black and red. The seats are plush but I do find some of them a bit small even for someone my size.

The interior is modern and spacious. It is also bright because of the ceiling to wall glass frontage on two sides of the restaurant. This is a refreshing difference from Lao Shan Dong which is always packed and cramped with nary a decor inside.

Nicole said that The One is upscale and indeed for a Taiwanese restaurant the likes of No 1, Beefy Beef, Corner 23 and others, this is definitely more upscale than them.

The One is opened for lunch and opened till late (to 2AM during weekends and 1AM on other nights).

The One is a Taiwanese Cuisine restaurant. So you get the same type of food you normally find in Taiwanese restaurants.

The menu is more extensive than the 3 pager above. I did not take more pictures because … well … I was afraid. I was afraid that they think we are spies from the competitors. So I only managed to take pictures of 3 pages. What I can tell you is that the menu is broken into sections of the following:

• Appetizer: marinated ear, tofu and stuff
• Noodles: what else … the same TBN from Lao Shan Dong!!!
• Dumplings
• Soup: what else too … the same TBN soup, sans noodles, from Lao Shan Dong!!!
• Meal Combo
• Hot Pot
• Fried Rice

On every page of the menu are the words “No MSG” … and that is good.

We did not get the TBN (short for Taiwanese Beef Noodles for the uninitiated) because we wanted to try their other stuff. But we did notice that they offer both the Beef Noodle Soup for $7.50 and also just the beef soup (no noodles) for the same price. I asked our waitress if the beef soup is more if don’t want the noodles. She sheepishly said you don’t get much more beef. She was honest.

Like all TBN places, they also have lot of drinks options … milk tea, bubble tea, coffee, fresh juice, herbal tea and slush. There is also a section for dessert and of course things like thick toast.

This was what I was coming for … and what I saw on Nicole’s Facebook.

Not knowing what to choose, I randomly chose the one called The One Seafood Hot Pot with Rice. This is $13 — quite pricey but it also came with a drink and a small dessert.

I thought the hot pot was unique and definitely bigger than most.

This is more like it … a boiling pot. Most other places have that token light at the bottom that does a little more than keeping the soup hot.

It was disappointing to learn that the soup base is milk. It did not occur to us to ask when we placed our order. Both Suanne and I personally hate milk as soup. As a matter of fact, Chinese rarely uses milk in cooking … did you know that? So you find that diary products are not big in traditional Chinese cuisine.

Normally Suanne would be the one who will finish off the soup but she declined saying that the one in Pearl Castle is better. Although it was not my fav kind of soup, I thought it was quite good.

The Hot Pot has a lot of ingredients. That included prawns, mussels, fish cake, tofu, very bouncy fish balls (which bounced across the restaurant when I dropped it on the floor), other meat balls and octopus.

The fish ball has stuff in it. I remember having this in one of the stalls in the Richmond Public Market. We like this a lot. It was kind of small … smaller than the ones we had in the Richmond Public Market for sure.

Here is the drink that came with the Hot Pot. It is an …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of New Lao Shan Dong Restaurant — The One Restaurant on Kingsway Near Intersection with Imperial, Burnaby (284 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 15 comments
Post tags: Burnaby, Restaurant Review, Taiwanese