All Entries in the "Coquitlam" Category
Bool Chul Pan Korean Hot Grill on North Road, Coquitlam
Ladies and gentlemen. This restaurant is a great find.
It is unique and one of a kind in Vancouver. It is cheap. It is delicious. It has monstrous portions. It is multi-course. It is interactive. It is fun. The people are super friendly.
If I tell you the name of this place, you will NEVER find it. Yeah, go ahead … go Bing or Google or Bingle the name “Bool Chul Pan”. See if you can find it. LOL!
It is everything I like in a restaurant. And I think you will too.
The place is unpretentious. Not much of a decor. The tables and chairs are of bulky wooden unpolished type. The place is smokey. It is smokey from all the cooking they do for you at your table. The smell alone of this place will make you drool in anticipation. The hardest part is eyeing the neighboring tables having the same thing on a sizzling pan … cooking away.
I swear those at the tables who were already eating smirking at us droolers who had not started yet.
Let me clue you in a little bit more. They serve drinking water in plastic containers like the ones above. The characters on the label should give you some clue what type of food they serve.
OK, the title of this post already has the word “Korean”. Just humour me and stay with me … pretend you still don’t know.
This place gives us metal chopsticks. No other nation in the world uses metal chopsticks. And the chopsticks are very thin … very hard to hold even for someone who grows up using chopsticks. It forces you to pick your food more delicately … more deliberately.
They give you banchan. Lots of it. Plates stacked high as they bring them to your table. Then they lay it on the table leaving hardly any space left for anything else.
Suanne had to put her note book on her lap. I had to also put my camera on my lap.
Kimchee. Potato. Bean sprout. Daikon. Cold Sour Soup. It is free. No charge at all. Free is good.
The banchan is quite OK. Not great. I had better ones. But it is forgiveable given what we are about to have.
Then they gave each of us an apron. Everyone has one. It is bright orange. This is gonna sizzle. This is getting exciting. Felt kind of silly putting this on. But we did. Everyone did.
They proudly declared that they are the only people who serves this unique meal in Metro Vancouver. No one else. Non. Nada. Nien. Nyet. Illai.
Mei you!
Then came the gas burner. For once we see a Korean made one. It is not one of the billions of Chinese made burners that had flooded the worlds market.
The Korean stands are taller. They are different.
Nanzaro ordered this. This one came in a bowl as big as a basin. Not really, but close. It is huge, big, humungous, gigantic, enormous, massive. This alone can feed a family of four, communal style. Am not kidding.
This is called Spicy Seafood Soup with Korean Pasta. Only $9.
The noodle was chewy. It is loaded with stuff … with squid, onions, mushroom, wood ear, cucumber and green onions.
Value for money. Delicious too.
But wait. This is not “it”. The above is not “it” at all. No siree.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is IT! … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Man Ri Sung Korean Restaurant on Clarke Road, Coquitlam
This is an “Oh Wow! Oh My!” kind of post. You really got to pay attention to this one.
Jenny of My Secret Eden went for the Duck Feast at Man Ri Sung and blogged about it. It was one of those rare finds that you only know about by word of mouth. This is the kind of feast that you need a lot of people to attend. So, we invited Angie of Sea Salt With Food and Whitney and Ken. With the kids there were 10 of us altogether.
Man Ri Sung is a Korean Restaurant. They are located on 609 Clarke Road in Coquitlam — which was a long drive away for all of us. If not for this duck feast, we would not have taken the trouble to drive that far. Man Ri Sung is a standalone restaurant with its own parking lot. However, parking is limited and some cars need to be double parked.
Forget about ambiance and decor. It is a really simple restaurant. The dining area is large but was very busy when we were there — that was a good sign.
The above was what we were there for. The duck feast is normally $62 but they had it as a special for $50. Each order is meant for four people but I felt it has more than enough even for five people.
This is quite complicated … let me see if I can explain the Duck Feast. Each order will come with three courses. The main course is the duck. Part of the duck is then used to make either a hotpot or congee as the second course. In the third course, you get to choose from Japchae, steamed gyoza or some dark rice rolls.
It worked out great for the ten of us — we ordered two sets of the Duck Feast.
BTW, you will need to pre-order the Duck Feast as it takes two hours for the chef to prepare it. When I made the reservation, the person on the phone could not understand English and asked if I speak Korean or Mandarin.
Korean eating utensils are different from Chinese and Japanese. Unless you are Asian, you might not notice the difference. For one, Korean has spoons with long handles (kind of good that they even have a paper wrapper around it) — Chinese normally issues soup spoons while Japanese does not have spoons.
As for chopsticks, Chinese uses longer, thicker chopsticks with blunt ends. Japanese uses shorter chopsticks with sharper ends. Now, Koreans uses chopsticks made of metal and has a flat side … we were not used to handling flatter chopsticks. I think the reason why the chopsticks are metal is because it is more suitable for food like Korean BBQ.
The Chef personally cart the duck and carve the duck in front of the diners. I think it’s a nice personal touch but wished that he speaks English. During the time we were there, we counted that they sold about 8 ducks in all. Not bad.
We can see that the ducks were fresh out from the oven … it was steaming when the chef carved it. Actually we were all very hungry because we reminded each other to come hungry. Waiting for him to finish carving was sheer agony for me!
The duck by the looks of it was great … it looked moist. They are very tender to the bite and most important of all, they were quite fleshy.
However, you do not eat it just like that … there are more, much more!
Tong Kung Chiu Chow Restaurant in Richmond
This restaurant had been replaced with a new restaurant, updated on 11th Oct 2008
When Suanne and I started blogging on chowtimes, we just did it because, well, it was an in-thing to have a blog. One thing led to another, today we have over 700 entries. We are still amazed at how the site had grown and that people actually find the blog interesting enough to return to the site. We still have not quite figured it out why chowtimes readers comes back.
What really kept us going is that we found that there are actually quite a few loyal followings of the site. I think it was sometime in October or so, I volunteered to organize a Chinese banquet for readers of chowtimes. Frankly, Suanne and I were pleasantly surprised to find that there are actually people who were interested — and that too, from readers who we don’t know.
In all, 9 people attended. Of everyone, LotusRapper, who came with his lovely wife, is the only person I had ever met. I had not met Ed from ededition.com but had been following his blog for sometime already. Then there was this gregarious Tiffanie who owns a chain of ice cream parlours — yummy, Suanne and I is going to check it out someday. Joseph, a true foodie, was also there. And the charming couple, Cissy & Henry … people Suanne and I would want to be like when we “grow up”. Two (Jennifer and Gigi) of my favourite bloggers could not make it.
The choice of going to Tong Kung Chiu Chow Restaurant boils down to one thing … snakes. More about that later.
One thing about Chinese banquets, you really need a lot of people. For the uninitiated, many formal Chinese restaurants offers 8-10 course dinners. These are mainly for weddings or celebrations. The menus are a fixed price for a table of 10. Most of the good menus will start from $180. I had seen one menu that costs $998!!
Selection for the restaurant was quick and easy. For us, the criteria was simple, we wanted to not spend not more than $200 and it had to be a Chinese Banquet. We gathered the menus from a few restaurants and selection was made within a week. For some of us, it was the “Snake and Shark’s Fin Soup” that led us to choosing Tong Kung.
Tong Kung have three standard menus that costs $168, $198 and $238. We chose the $198 menu which has 10 courses on it.
Tong Kung is a Chiu Chow (Teochew) cuisine restaurant. It is located on Park Road in Richmond, just a ear shot away from the Richmond City Hall. We decided to meet early, at 5:30PM. We were the only people there then but it soon filled up very fast. We told ourselves that since there are so many people, we can’t be wrong choosing this restaurant.
I know very little about Chiu Chow cuisine. Here are MY perceptions … Chiu Chow cuisine is really big on seafood, maybe because the region is along the coast of south east China. It is generally bland and devoid of spiciness, unlike other Chinese cuisines that have stronger flavours and spices. I would say that it is very close to Cantonese cuisine.
The Cold Crab was the first dish and an excellent choice for starters. The way the Chiu Chow prepare the cold crab is that they steam it first and then served it chilled. I have no idea why they do that and what it does to the flavour … anyone knows?
Seems like crabs are big in Chiu Chow cuisine. We loved it. For me, I put aside the eating utensils and just used my hands. Using hands is OK because this does not have sticky gravy, sauce and stuff all over it. Don’t know about you all, but eating with my hands is the ONLY way to handle crabs.
The roe is purportedly the best part of the Cold Crab. It is OK taste-wise, I guess … but it sure does not look good.
Next came the Assorted Meat and Duck Platter in Chiu Chow Special Soy Sauce. I sure don’t know what “special sauce” is but the Chinese word for it is “low sui” which is roughly translated as “old water”. I am guessing that this is stocks that had been thickened over and over again.
Being a meat person, this was awesome. The duck wings though, I could not understand because there are so little meat to it. The pile of meat was heaped high … great stuff.
Next came the Crab and Prawn Balls. They are basically minced meat and shaped before being deep fried. Another meaty dish. I love the springy texture.
Well, the Snake and Shark’s Fin Soup was supposed to be the star of this dinner but when they came, we cannot see any evidence of snake meat let alone taste it. Anyway, I don’t even know what snake meat look and taste like … like chicken? Moreover, we could not really see shark fin too.
Lotus Rapper mentioned there is a strong orange peel taste. Suanne swore that there is that taste but to me I would not have known until told.
The next dish was simple. It is called Three Kinds of Seafood Stir Fry with XO Sauce. To me it does not look like there is XO Sauce in this but it tastes great. I like it better if seafood is cooked without strong sauces like XO Sauce anyway. It is a good dish to clear the palate from the previous dishes.
By this time, everyone should have felt full already … I sure was myself but we had just bareful passed the middle course. The Spiced Ginger Chicken, we think is the air dried. We did not eat a lot of the chicken although it looked tasty (it was).
Following is the Braised Mushroom with Goose Feet in Oyster Sauce. The mushroom and bak choy was good. In particular, I love the huge mushrooms. We had quite a few goose feet left — I think it is not everyone’s favourite. For me, I prefer chicken feet over this … this one has more bones and very little meat and skin.
The Steamed Fish was great. What fish is that … I have no idea. I can’t tell one fish from another. So, is this a pomfret? or a tilapia? or is pomfrets the same as tilapia? I have absolutely no idea. One thing I do know, the soya sauce poured over the white fish meat is always good.
There were two steamed fishes. Fantastic dish.
The second to last dish was the Chiu Chow Fried rice. None of us could eat anymore and we ended up asking for a doggy bag for this and other left overs. The tenth dish was the Red Bean Soup.
Overall, all the servings were huge. Certainly value for money. My only beef about this dinner was that whilst the service was great at the beginning, by the 4th dish, they had been taking out one dish after another way before we had started on the previous one. It is best enjoyed if they had only timed it better. I do think that the kitchen was not able to cope with all the people coming in and thus just messed up with the timings.
The damage came out to $27 per person including taxes and tips.
Suanne and I really enjoyed ourselves, although admittedly I was dead tired that day. For us it was great meeting the people who cared enough for chowtimes that they took time off to come to the banquet (some even drove all the way from North Vancouver to Richmond!). We would love to organize another event sometime in the future for sure.
Insadong, Korean BBQ & Seafood Restaurant at North Road, Coquitlam
The members of the Gilmore Park Church community kitchen organised a field trip to a Korean Restaurant and a tour to a Korean Supermarket, led by Minnie and Lan. We went to Insadong, a Korean BBQ and Seafood Restaurant located at North Road, Coquitlam. We were told that dong means village in Korean language.
Upon entering the restaurant, there is a glass wall with display of some Korean dolls dressed in traditional Korean clothing; certainly brings out the Korean atmosphere into the restaurant.
Minnie and Lan, the Koreans among the group placed the order of the food. We ordered three dishes to share. We were served ‘rice tea’ and the rice came in metal tin with cover.
First came all the side dishes which come free with your order. The best is you can ask for free refill of the side dishes. The side dishes consist of kimchi, braised potatoes, bean sprouts, sliced daikon and spinach.
The first dish we ordered is Steamed Sliced Pork with Spicy Kimchi and Cabbage Wrap. This dish cost $19.99.
Minnie demonstrated to us how to eat this dish. First, place a slice of the cabbage on your plate. Dip a slice of the steamed pork in some chili sauce and place it on top of the cabbage. Then add some of the spicy kimchi on top of the pork. Lastly, add some fermented soy bean sauce on top and bundle up the cabbage and enjoy.
The second dish was Pan Fried Kimchi and Pork with Tofu. This dish cost $12.99. Again, Minnie showed us how to eat this dish. First take small piece of the tofu and place some of the kimchi and pork on the tofu and eat them together.
Lastly, we had the Pork Back-bone and Potatoes with Vegetables Hot Pot. We had two hotpots going as there are ten people in the group. This dish costs $34.99.
The soup is topped with some ground sesame. The hotpot dish has green onions, mushrooms and onions in it. The soup is relatively thick, perhaps due to the potatoes. It looks spicy but actually its not really spicy. I must say that this dish is a bit too pricey as it only has pork bones in it. There is no much meat in the bones.
The eight of us shared the bill as our appreciation to the drivers who brought us to this place. Each of us paid $12.50. We enjoyed the meal and had a great time learning about Korean cuisine.
After lunch, we went to HanAhReum Asian Mart to have a Korean groceries shopping experience. Click on the link below for photos from the HanAhReum Asian Mart.
Mini Malaysia Restaurant in Coquitlam
We were in Coquitlam a few weeks ago for the watershed tour. We had always wanted to check out the Mini Malaysia Restaurant in Coquitlam for a long time ever since the restaurant moved from their original location in New Westminster in 2002.
The restaurant is located in the Eagle Ridge Place on Lansdowne Drive. It is a family owned business.
Arkensen ordered the Hainanese Chicken Rice. The dish costs $6.99.
I ordered the KL Hokkien Char. This is close to what is better known as Shanghai fried noodles but with a Malaysian twist using darker soy sauce. What is missing is the “jee you jar”, fried crispy pork fats! The sambal which came with the dish were home made by the restaurant. Dish costs $8.99.
The wife of the owner, appears to be the one who does the cooking, came out and told us, twice, that she personally made the sambal herself. The sambal was really authentic. We love it.
Suanne ordered the Nasi Lemak, also for $8.99. We are very picky about our nasi lemak and this does not really measure up to our expectation … although, we must say that the presentation was pretty nice. The anchovies were really small and the curry chicken is more like dhal chicken.
$1 Breakfast in IKEA
I don’t think you could get a better breakfast deal in Vancouver than the Breakfast for a Dollar from IKEA. We have always wanted to try this out for the past few years and despite the fact that we have an IKEA just 10 minutes from home, we have never been to one.
We decided to check that out and since we were somewhere near Coquitlam, we went to that IKEA instead. This IKEA is much larger than the one in Richmond and is located along the Lougheed Highway. They have a large restaurant on the second floor.
When we were there at just after 10am, there were already a long line of people queuing up for the dollar breakfast. The breakfast is served from opening time until 11am everyday.
Service was very fast. The dollar breakfast consists of scrambled eggs, hash browns, two sausages, and a croissant. The croissant looks flattened and somewhat crispy and flaky. Is this how Swedish croissant is supposed to be? The serving was large and the food filling.
The coffee is 99 cents and you get unlimited refills. There are decaf’d and regular coffee. I am pretty fussy about my coffee but this coffee is really the kind I like.
There are also Penne Pasta in Marinara Sauce for 99 cents too. If I am not mistaken, it is served from 3pm to 5pm. We’ll definite try this one of these days.
