The four of us, we don’t normally go to Bubble Tea Houses. It is not that we don’t like Bubble Tea. As a matter of fact, our boys absolutely like it but they told us they will not be caught dead in a Bubble Tea House. I think they are associating it with places where girls hangout … LOL!

We would not had gone in if not for the fact that we have absolutely no idea where to go. You know, it was one of those days when we needed some place to blog about but simply cannot think of one … until we drove past the Cosmos Plaza on Garden City and McKim (in Richmond that is). That is when Suanne said that Gogo Tea Cafe had at sometime ran commercials on the TV.

It is located a floor above the street level. Almost all restaurants in Richmond simply had no views at all and is dark. Well, the view here was not that great but at least it had a lot of light here. It was still winter when we visited Gogo Tea. When spring comes round, there will be more color.

Talking about spring, I just can’t get enough of spring … it is simply the best season of the year for me. It does cheer me up with the longer days. Even driving to work is interesting observing how there are more colors every day.

Gogo Tea is bright … with ceiling to wall windows and white furnishings. On a bright day it could be blinding. Oh yeah, it is a youngster hangout alright but there are a couple of families there too.

Milk Teas are Gogo Tea’s speacialties. Ordered as an individual items, the Milk Teas are $4 and above. However, if you order from their lunch menu, you just need to add $1 for regular milk tea and an additional 50 cents if you want pearls (or coconut jelly, pudding or grass jelly) too.

We love the milk teas. They are absolutely fabulous and I am sure you will like them too. They are uniquely served in really tall glasses. They are so tall that we can’t even drink from the straws without taking it off below the table level to reach the straws!

I had the Gogo Milk Tea which came with coffee flavoured chewy jelly and whipped cream. Suanne had the Matcha Milk Tea which was more green tea and not at all sweet. Arkensen had the Chocolate Milk Tea and Nanzaro the Mocha flavoured one.

The best among all had to be the Gogo Milk Tea … it’s rich, creamy, chewy, sweet. They have a huge milk tea selection and if you don’t know what to order, then go for the Gogo Milk Tea. You won’t be disappointed.

For food, Arkensen ordered the Deep Fried Pork Chop on Rice which costs $7.25. It came with a side dish of edamame, tofu and century egg drizzled with sesame oil.

The Tofu and Century Egg Drizzled with Sesame Oil dish is surprisingly very good. No one wanted the century eggs (not even Suanne) but really, they are great.

BTW, century eggs … I grew up being told that century eggs are all black because they were soaked in horse’s urine for a long time. Is there any truth to it?

Nanzaro ordered the Curry Beef on Rice which costs $6.95. It was pretty disappointing and does not look appetizing for me. To me, only Indians and Malaysians makes the best curries on the planet.

Suanne ordered the Tofu on Hotplate. This is a vegetarian dish but really tasty and served on a sizzling hot plate. The side dishes that came with this is the same as those that came with Arkensen’s Pork Chop Rice. We like this and it’s just $7.95.

Me, I ordered the House Special Beef Soup. Although they serve the non-spicy version, I asked if they can make it spicy hot. Was glad that they did and must say that they did a great job in making it ultra spicy. This bowl costs $5.25.

The total bill came up to $40 including tax and tips. They accept cash only, by the way. We’ll definitely come visit again someday … we enjoyed their milk tea a lot.

They have their website on http://gogotea.ca

We had been to Han Ju Tofu Hotpot a few times before. As a matter of fact, we had blogged about it sometime last year (see here). Since we had some photos from our last visit and that we like it so much, we thought … sure … let’s just share it one more time.

I was confused. I had always thought that Han Ju is a Korean restaurant. Maybe it is because of the name “Han Ju” which for some reason sounded like a Korean name to me. Han Ju is in fact a Taiwanese restaurant.

I know there are two Han Ju’s … one in Richmond and the other in Crystal Mall in Burnaby. We went to the one in Richmond (8328 Capstan Way).

For those of you not familiar with Chinese food, you would probably not have guessed that the above is actually pig ear. In Taiwanese cuisine, it is common for them to serve appetizers in morsels of marinated food.

The Marinated Pig Ear has an unique combination of gelatanious and crunchy texture.

Most of Taiwanese appetizers are served cold. Marinated tofu is another common Taiwanese appetizers.

Bubble tea originated from Taiwan and comes in many flavours. Our favourite is Coffee Bubble Milk Tea. If you had never tried it before you should. Many people likes chewing on the black gummy balls made of tapioca. Otherwise, the drink just tastes like well, milk tea … sweet.

Han Ju Bubble Milk Tea costs only $2.50.

It goes without saying that Han Ju’s specialty is their hotpots. They are unique in that they are served in metal hotpots. You got to be careful handling these scalding hot pots. I think they have something like 6 different types of hot pots.

We ordered the Seafood and Tofu Hot Pot. We like it because they certainly are generous with what seafood they put in there — prawns, squid, mussels, tofu and even an egg. This is really spicy. Combined with the piping hot broth, be prepared to sweat a bit. We get a bowl of rice together with this.

We also had the Sesame Oil Chicken Soup. These are great as winter food.

Nanzaro and Arkensen had been whipping up a large appetite these days. I guess they are at the age that they eat like there are no tomorrow. We normally keep to a budget when we go out each week … Suanne and I had decided to bump the budget up by 30% this year! :-(

As long as it is rice, they are happy.

I am not sure about you but we know of only two places that are opened 24 hours. The first was the the #9 Restaurant in Richmond. The other one is the Taiwan Beef Noodle House which is located on the south end of Granville St in Vancouver. I don’t know exactly where it is but if you travel south along Granville St at around the 70th St thereabouts, you’ll see it on the east side of the road. You won’t miss it, especially at night — they have a very bright yellow wrap around sign.

Since we had promised ourselves we will not go to #9 again (service was not only atrocious, but they were somewhat rude), Suanne and I decided to drive across the Oak St bridge for a late night supper. Suanne did not have dinner that night and since it’s a Friday night and there’s no work the next day, we could go out later. Just the two of us, without the boys who were already fast asleep.

The Taiwan Beef Noodle House is very much like a teenage hangout — lots of young people. I have never figured out the lifestyle of these young people and do wonder if our boys will go hangout late at night in these places when they grow up.

I was not particularly hungry and am here more for Suanne. We told ourselves that having two orders will be too much and decided instead to get a snack and for Suanne to get a bowl of noodles.

We like those marinated snacks that we often find in Taiwanese restaurants. They are basically made of animal parts that you don’t normally eat. But let me tell you, they are delicious. We ordered a combination of three choices which costs $7 and gotten ourselves the marinated large intestines ($3.50), marinated sliced beef tripe ($3.50) and spicy pork ear ($2.50). The spicy pork ear is a taste we had recently acquired — from recommendation from WB who swears that they are great … they certainly were.

Suanne ordered a large Spicy Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup but it came small. They got the order wrong but instead of getting them to exchange it for a large one (better value), she decided that she might just as well take this one since it’s supper and we normally do not have a big meal before bedtime.

We like this place. Their food is good, the prices OK and service is polite (not like you-know-who).

Do you know of any other 24 hour restaurant around the Lower Mainland?

This is a new restaurant. If my memory serves me correctly, this place had just opened for about 2-3 months now. I really think they have an odd name — Dinesty. I guess the name is a play on the words Dine and Dinasty but somehow I keep thinking they are made up of the words Dine and Sty! Nevertheless, this restaurant is a really classy place.

Dinesty is a modern and clean Chinese eatery. I believe they are more of a Taiwanese style restaurant — I could be wrong. We were surprised how busy it was when we were there at slightly past lunch time on a weekend. We had to wait for 20 minutes before we had a table assigned.

One sign of a good restaurant is their attention to details. The plates and chopsticks were logo’d. I like it because they care about their image.

Here is why I thought this is a Taiwanese restaurant … spicy beef noodles. This must have been one of the best spicy beef noodles I ever had. The bowl is large and had big chunks of beef. For a place like this, $8.95 is quite cheap.

It came with preserved vegetables and green onions on the sides. Normally, these stuff is served on the bowl itself.

Like I said … this is the bestest beef noodles I had. I love the tendons best. Makes me feel hungry blogging this page now.

We saw a lot of people ordering the Shredded Pork with Hoi Sin Sauce. This $10.50 dish came with 6 pieces of freshly made, warm pancakes.

This is eaten like Burritos — pile some shredded pork on the thin pancake, and roll it up. This is really good. If you are here, you simply must try this. However, there are so much shredded pork that we had to order additional pancakes. The additional pancakes is not cheap … it costs about $2.50 or $3.00. We can’t recall at this time.

Seeing other people also ordered Xiao Lung Bau (Steamed Pork Dumplings), we also ordered a basket to try. At least I know now what this vinegar and ginger dipping sauce is for. I still don’t like the idea of vinegar as dipping sauce.

The Xiao Lung Bau costs $6.95 for a basket of seven buns. That worked out to about $1 each. Seeing the size of it, $1 is pretty expensive to me. I guess the high price is because of the manual work that goes into making this Shanghainese delicacy.

Dinesty is located at the strip mall on Ackroyd and No 3 Road in Richmond. You should try it.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PLACE HAD NOW CLOSED

Helen had always mentioned how good the Taiwanese restaurant right next door to Ellie is. When we blogged about Ellie, Lauren also recommended that we tried this place. We finally made it to the Taiwan Beef Noodle King restaurant.

We normally would shy away from such places because they looked like a Chinese language only place — I can’t read Chinese and Suanne can barely pick up some odd common Chinese characters. We decided to brave it this time.

This restaurant is located in the strip mall on Cambie and Sexsmith in Richmond. Specifically, the address is 3779 Cambie.

It is pretty common in Taiwanese restaurants to offer “side dishes”. We normally treat this as appetizers but for some reason the menus usually describes this as side dishes. Side dishes normally costs $3-$5 for a small plate.

Pardon our literal translations … we ordered what we translate to as the Big Intestines. I think most Caucasians will balk at eating stuff like this but we simply like it. It is chewy and great as a munching snack. For $3 a plate, it’s a steal.

Nanzaro is growing up to be young man now and he is beginning to insist that he gets a dish on his own. It does not matter if he can finish the entire dish but he wants his own and not share it with his mum. He ordered what we called the Taiwanese Sausage Rice for him. I know he loves simply rice dishes with lots of meat and a little gravy.

The rice came topped with minced pork … which is a very popular dish in Taiwan. Lots of sausages and came also with half a hard boiled egg. $6 only for this dish … cheap right?

For me, I had what I call the “Red Cooked Beef Noodle”. It’s a hearty bowl of noodle with snow cabbage, beef flank and of all things, wonton too. The soup is great. $5+ for a bowl of noodle … not many places offer a bowl of soup noodle at this price these days.

Arkensen had the Chicken Chop Rice which is similar to Nanzaro’s dish except that he had a deep fried chicken chop. Same price … $6. He gobbled that down pretty fast. At the rate he is growing, I won’t be surprised he will be taking two plates of these next year! I know because I ate that much when I was in my early teens!!

Suanne decided to try something different and went for the dried noodle — the House Special Dried Beef Noodle. It is somewhat drier that she expected. There were hardly any gravy at all. It is pretty good but the sight of the dried beef flank does not look appetizing to her. This one is $6.

This place accepts cash only … so be prepared with cash. The entire meal costs us $32 including tips and taxes. This is one place we would come back again and again. It’s cheap, parking is easy, and the place is clean. Try it … I think you will like it too.

Cash only, $32

We had a 3 hour stop over in Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport. The first thing I did when we landed was to find something for Nanzaro to eat. There were not much choice for food except for two small food centres.

Anyway, I got Nanzaro a bowl of beef on rice. It looked very appetizing and I know that these is the kind of comfort food that he likes.

Nanzaro also likes Bubble Tea. He likes this over everything else in Vancouver. Did you know that Taiwan is the home of the original Bubble Tea? It has chewy tapioca balls in iced tea drink. It is served with a fat drinking straw to suck up the balls.

It was good to see him enjoying a good meal. He had not eaten much for almost 15 hours.

If I recall correctly, the above costs USD $5.00.

Suanne and I went to a new place for lunch. For those of you familiar with the Willingdon/Moscorp area in Burnaby, you might know of where the Orchid Delight Singaporean restaurant used to be. It seems like Orchid Delight had closed and in it’s place is this new Taiwanese Beef Noodle House.

The restaurant is simply called No 1 Beef Noodle House. We were very impressed with the changes that the owner made to the interior. It was very modern and upbeat. The address of this restaurant is 4741 Willingdon Ave, Burnaby. You know, I highly recommend you checking out this restaurant.

What we like about this restaurant was that not only the food was excellent but the price was very OK. The restaurant is clean and the service was prompt. We were surprised how busy the place was even though it was newly opened. There is a wait for tables at the peak of lunch time — very much like what you see in dim sum restaurants on a weekend. The bad thing about this restaurant is that parking is a challenge at peak lunch hour.

BEEF BRISKET NOODLE IN SPICY SOUP

Suanne ordered their popular dish — the Beef Brisket Noodle in Spicy Soup which costs $6.25. There were big chucks of beef brisket which was quite tender. What we like about the way this is served is that they provided a deep wooden spoon — just excellent for slurping the spicy soup.

They served this dish with flat egg noodle. The waitress warned us that it is very spicy but no, it was not as spicy as we expected. You simply MUST try this dish.

EGGPLANT IN GARLIC CHILLI SAUCE WITH MINCED MEAT IN RICE

I ordered a rice dish and chose the Eggplant rice which costs $6.95. The eggplant was surprisingly very delicious in that you can even eat it without rice and still it does not tastes too salty. The dish comes along with two small sides of preserved vegetables.

The serving was large with lots of eggplants. I wish there are more rice. Looking around the other tables I see quite a few other rice dish which looked equally as appealing. I will most certainly come back again and try them out.