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 Arrov 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 Inasai ($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 Inasai. 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 (1,124 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post tags: Filipino, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

Their last practice was the day before the closing ceremony where it stretches until past 10PM. The organizers provided them food (sandwiches and subs) and so Suanne and I decided to go eat before picking them up.

After cross checking our to-try list, we decided to go to Spices on Cambie. Ever since Thien Kim (where we tried 4 different soup noodles and none of them are phos) and Song Huong (7 courses of Beef), we had been trying to see what else Vietnamese offer in their cuisine other than Pho. We like pho, but we had so many of them it is less of an adventure eating them these days.

Spices fit the bill. While Spices also has the usual Vietnamese fare like noodle soups, sandwiches and brochettes, they also have a few specialties of their own.

Spices is a reasonably sized restaurant. Unlike the bright interiors of most Vietnamese restaurants, this place a bit dim. The red and wood paneled walls gave it that reddish hue. The walls were decorated with interesting black and white photos of life and architecture of Vietnam.

It was a pretty busy night at the restaurant. Even though you don’t see any of the tables above taken, I took that picture way past 9PM where most of their customers had just left.

We observed that we were the only Asian customers here which we initially thought that perhaps Spices will westernize their food to suit non-Asian customers. And then we heard the workers speaking to each other in Cantonese too. We were so wrong.

So we first ask the waitress if this is authentic Vietnamese cuisine they have here, pointing to some of the items which I had never come across before. She vehemently said that their cook is Vietnamese. We took that at face value.

Their menu is diverse. Pho represents only a small section. What caught my attention was a few dishes that has the word “Imperial” and “Royal” in the name (see the 1st and 2nd images of the menu above). Anything “Imperial” and “Royal” has to be good right?

Look at the last page of the menu above where there is a page on combos ($12-$17) you can order if you want to try a few of their dishes. We wanted to order from it but it is too “limiting”. It is also too little if we order one combo to share but too much if we order two.

So we ordered Prawn Imperial as an appetizer. We had just one piece to try which is $3.50. The appetizer size option is two pieces for $6.25.

It deserves the Imperial name. It has a large prawn wrapped with ground pork and vegetables and then re-wrapped with Vietnamese egg roll wrapper. It is deep fried and served with what they call the Imperial sauce. We can’t really pick out why this seemingly normal fish sauce tasted good and different.

It was quite a meaty spring roll and the wrapper was crunchy as expected. Wished we had ordered two instead.

Suanne wanted to order a lighter baguette but was told that it was only for lunch. Not wanted to scour the menu again, we asked the waitress what is their most popular dish. She rattled off four dishes but the first one caught our attention … the Royal Prawn Citron.

This, to us, is the OMG dish of the night. It is pricey ($15) but worth it. The dish is filled with jumbo prawns which are marinated in a “special sauce” and then sauteed with fresh garlic dill sauce.

When it was brought to the table, it was sizzling hot which drew a lot of attention from our neighboring table. It just smell heavenly and we were quite pleased with the choice.

The prawns were fat succulent ones with brittle shells. A little more crunchier would have been 100% perfect. I just like to eat the prawns with the shells.

The dills too were great with rice. It is not often (if at all) I see dill done this way before. Now … the best part is the …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Spices Vietnamese Cuisine on Cambie and W 17th, Vancouver (268 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments
Post tags: Restaurant Review, Vancouver, Vietnamese

For Suanne and I, the plan of the day is centered around watching the Canada-USA gold medal hockey game and the Closing Ceremony on TV at home. After dropping the boys off and wishing them to break a leg, we thought we quickly grab a sandwich from Ba Le and go back for the game with time to spare.

We went to the location on Kingsway and Fraser. Their other location is in Chinatown. BTW, is the name Ba Le mean Paris in Vietnamese?

Ba Le is well known f0r the Vietnamese baguette. Between the Chinatown location and this location, you MUST come to this location. This is because …

… Ba Le had just started operation of their new expensive oven just a few weeks ago. As reported on Chowhound, the owners had this industrial sized oven imported from France and had the baker sent to France to learn to use the oven too.

Just as we were to place our order, we saw them taking out a freshly baked batch of baguette from the oven. It smell so good that we told ourselves we are going stay and eat in Ba Le … on one of the three small tables just next to the oven.

We counted that batch that just came out. It was 200 baguettes in those trays. It seems like they make a lot … more than a thousand for sure. Looking at the operation here, I am sure they make this and sell it to other restaurants. We were wondering if they do sell just the freshly baked baguette to walk-in customers.

The picture above was deceptively quiet. It was all about angle and timing! There were a lot of customers lining up for their orders. A lot of them obviously taking out for the hockey gold medal game because they were wearing Team Canada jerseys. I had never seen such lines for Banh Mi before. The assembly station was extremely busy and somewhat chaotic. I can see that all four people were working heads down trying to keep up with all the orders.

Suanne observed that the man who was taking the orders (and handling the money) uses his hands to pick up the food too.

They have ten different types of sandwiches on the board. They are all about $3 to $4. Besides the baguettes, they also sell a lot of other Vietnamese delicacies. People come here for the baguettes.

We got two sandwiches to share. Selecting one of them is easy … it was the one that is simply called the Special sandwich (right). The other one was the meatier Grilled Pork sandwich.

The baguette has the nice golden look to it. The slashes is shallow and the crust thin. Light and airy, it crumples easily when pressed.

So, I was complaining to Suanne that she does not know how to eat sandwiches. You see, she just has to press the sandwich each time she takes a bite. It was reflexes I know but this makes her sandwich all flat like sliced bread by the time it was half-finished. Ohhh … I can’t stand that. LOL!

The Grilled Pork Sandwich ($3.50) had that moist pork pieces which was slightly …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Ba Le Deli and Bakery on Kingsway and Fraser, Vancouver (227 words)

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Post tags: Restaurant Review, Vancouver, Vietnamese

Last Saturday was the final dress rehearsals of the Vancouver 2010 Closing Ceremony for Arkensen and Nanzaro. They received an email just the night prior informing that they need to do TWO dress rehearsals instead of one. So instead of 11:15AM to 7:00PM, they were informed that they need to stay right until 10:30PM. They sure worked hard for it … and in total secrecy too. We are actually proud that they kept it a total secret from us. We finally saw their performance on TV! But damn the guys at CTV who cut out a LARGE part of their performance to air commercials!!!! Both Arkensen and Nanzaro was so totally upset when they saw the replay last night. They practiced so hard to show the WORLD.

After dropping the boys off for their final practice, Suanne and I thought we go to the section of downtown for lunch knowing that the western part of Robson is quiet. Indeed it was. There was lots of street parking around.

We went to Santouka, the new Ramen place that everyone is raving about the past few weeks. Apparently, Santouka is a popular chain restaurant in Japan which specializes on serving Hokkaido ramen. I think they also operate a chain in the US too.

Santouka is located just next door to Guu with Garlic on Robson Street. You might miss it because the shop front is hidden behind a bus shelter. Anyway, the address is 1690 Robson Street.

We were surprised to learned that they had been opened only for the second day. We assumed that it was already a week since they opened. The restaurant was busy, not quite full but given it being opened for just the second day, we were impressed.

The dining area seats about 35-40 people. There are counter seats that overlooks the open kitchen which was separated by glass which we thought was good because it does not steam up the entire restaurant with the boiling broth.

We were seated at the section in front where there is a low kidney shaped table which has a large wooden carving of a bear in the center. We like that section. The only draw back was that there is no where to hang our coats or place our bags.

Service was excellent as one expects from Japanese restaurant.

We were promptly served glasses of water with mini ice-cubes. For a restaurant this size, there were a lot of waitresses. There were four of them milling around ever ready to help when needed. So yeah, we get almost anything instantaneously and the glasses were always topped.

Their menu came in a plastic binder and has pictures. They only have limited selection on that day. Basically we only can order from the first two pages. What a bummer.

The other pages were items they will only serve on their grand opening day. Click on the images above to see a more legible version of the menu.

I ordered item listed under the section that says “Limited Quantity: First Come First Serve”. I see a lot of ramen places does this “limited quantity” thing that makes people want to order that even though it is more expensive. The normal ramen is about $9 while the “limited quantity” ones are $13.

I got the Toroniku Kara Miso Ramen. It came served with a bowl of noodles in a spicy hot miso soup and a side plate with all the other ingredients including the pork jowl which is the star of this dish. First thing we did was to taste the soup … in a word, awesome. It is sesame flavoured and rich. I don’t know how to describe this better … it is not the smooth kind of broth but grainy (?).

The noodles was equally good and tasty too. We could even eat this alone with the soup …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Santouka Hokkaido Ramen on Robson, Vancouver (373 words)

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Post tags: Japanese, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

She goes for her dessert fix with Polly every Friday. The problem is she has to go according to Polly’s schedule which is only a couple of hours in at noon. The thing is also most of the better dessert places are opened at night.

After the ramen dinner at Benkei, I suggested that we go to True Confections on Denman since we are already around the area. True Confections is one of the places Suanne often says she wanted to eat in.

There are three True Confections dessert restaurants in Metro Vancouver. The other two restaurants are on West Broadway and North Vancouver.

True Confections is known for their cakes which they say is completely made in the restaurant. They also made sure that they do not have fillers, preservatives but uses only fresh ingredients. So yeah, they take their cakes very seriously.

Specifically, they are known for their very tall cakes. Some of their more popular ones looks like it is 9-10 inches tall. The ones you see above are not the taller ones, but you get the idea.

The restaurant was empty on the Friday night we were there. It was the Olympics which drew everyone away to the Olympic zones. We asked the waiter about it and he said it had been very quiet ever since the Olympics started. They had even extended the restaurant in anticipation of more Olympic traffic — but all in vain. I feel for them. If there is anything we could do to help rally people to come to places like this, we would … we should.

There are cakes, premium chocolate cakes, cheesecakes and stuff like pies and tarts. I knew what Suanne wants … cheesecake. We also cannot ignore their tall PREMIUM chocolates cakes too — they look too good to resist.

We got the simple Fresh Fruit Cheesecake which costs $8.25. They call this a Montreal-style cheesecake. We were  not sure what that means actually. We did observe that is …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of True Confections on Denman, Vancouver (198 words)

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Post tags: Cake, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

Instead, everyone were clustered around the Robson Square area where the Olympics actions are. Not only that the expected increase of customers did not materialized, the number of customers actually decreased.

Suanne and I spent last Friday in downtown. We decided to go to Benkei for ramen. We had always see that this part of the city is teeming with people on Friday evenings. But that day was eerily quiet.

Which was good for us anyway. There were no lines when we went there and got a table straight away. Benkei Ramen had always ran second fiddle to Kintaro Ramen just around the corner. I am not sure why though because I don’t find a lot of difference between the ramens of these two places. Food aside, there are a lot more I like about Benkei than Kintaro.

The interior is way better than the bare basic interior of Kintaro. We were kind of surprised how spacious it is inside. From the outside it does look deceptively small and narrow.

There is this casualness about Benkei I like too. We thought that the box chairs were a great idea because they also act as a bag holder. We also like the fact that their offer to hang up our jackets.

Service wise, there are no shortcoming we could point out. They are friendly, genuine and even anticipative. I am saying this because …

… Suanne and I was just sitting there and was reading a sign on the wall saying that minced raw garlic and chili sauce is available for the asking. The waitress who walked past saw us pointing to the sign, stopped in her track and then said, “I’ll get you some”.

The menu is just a simple two-pager. You just order out of the five soup offerings and then decide if you wanted extra toppings and sides to go with it.

We got a side order of Chashu Plate ($3.75). Thinking that it would just be a small plate given that price, we were quite pleased it was quite a serving despite it sitting on a bed of beansprouts.

The Japanese name Chashu sounded a lot like Char Siu in Chinese. I am surprised if they have the same root words. We love this. It has a softer and moister texture compared to the Chinese Char Siu with quite a bit of fat too.

I had the Akaoni (Spicy Miso) which is $7.80.

It had a rich flavour from the …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Benkei Ramen Noodle Shop on Robson, Vancouver (155 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments
Post tags: Japanese, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

Full Disclosure
This post is written based on complimentary samples from Bo Laksa King’s new delivery service.

There is something really different about Bo Laksa King’s.

Some of you would remember me writing about Bo’s Laksa about two months ago. I went out of my way to check out Bo’s Laksa simply because of rave reviews from Chowhounders. It is not often that Chowhounders gets excited altogether at the same time.

It is definitely a find. I think it’s because Bo Laksa King’s has this certain element of surprise because they operate in such humble setting. You will never expect to find a laksa counter inside a convenience store anywhere else.

Not only is the laksa great, both Bo and his wife Tiffany are genuine people. People do find them very approachable. I remember Michelle telling me during the 12B dinner that they had such a great time chatting with Bo for TWO hours! They are obliging and can easily relate to just about anyone.

A lot of people are rooting for Bo. I sense a lot of support for him to expand his business. Well, he had finally done so — but said that he wants to not grow too fast and have the quality of his food suffer. So he had decided to start a delivery business — with an expanded menu. He just started the delivery business earlier this month.

Last week, Bo wrote me an email asking us to provide him our home address and phone number. The reason is he wants to send some samples to try. We were hesitant to accept this because we live in the south end of Richmond and he operates from Vancouver near the Joyce SkyTrain station. It is a long way to do delivery.

But he was very persuasive and seeing that Bo and Tiffany are such great people, we did not hesitate to help him promote his business to chowtimes’ readers. The only condition is that he must send us his Laksa! Other than that he can send us anything else he wants.

The timing were perfect. Bo sent the samples to us just in time when we  were about to get settled down to watch the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony on TV. We love it and certainly very different from getting pizzas for sure.

Bo’s Laksa is second to none. It is still the same price ($7.50) and equally as good. The laksa soup was still really warm when we got it and he delivered this in two containers … one for the soup and the other for the noodles. This is a good way to prevent the noodles from getting too soggy. We like our laksa soup really hot and went to microwave it really hot.

From just serving a few dishes at his counter on Joyce St, he now has 33 items, many of them new. You can check all of his offerings on his new website: http://www.bolaksaking.com/

After the Laksa, the next thing we tried was the Papaya Salad. We had heard also good feedback of his papaya salad but have never tried it before.

Bo’s Papaya Salad is $6.75 and consists of shredded green papaya, tomato, onions, cilantro, crushed peanuts, fresh red chilli, dried shrimps, green beans, mix with garlic, lime, and vinaigrette dressing.

What we like best about the Papaya Salad is that it has a lot of dried shrimps and a few chili sprinkled throughout that gives a bit of heat in some bites. It was crunchy as we munch on it. Taste-wise, it has a pleasant sourness and spiciness to it.

The Pan Thay Stir Fry is $7.75. This is described as …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Bo Laksa King’s Delivery (371 words)

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Post tags: Disclosures, Malaysia, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

So last Friday, Suanne was asking me if I had decided where to go for our Friday night out. I told her I’ll figure out something during the day. I didn’t.

I completely forgot about it. I did not realize it was already past 4PM when Suanne called me on my cell telling me she’s waiting for me to meet up for dinner. That was when I decided enough is enough. I just shoot off the last email. Work can wait till next Monday.

My mind was scrambling on where to go. Suanne leaves the choice of the places to me — all the time. She had always done that ever since we met. It is like my responsibility to bring her to new places to eat. She likes that and I like my role too.

Do you feel this way I feel? When I am not looking for a place to eat, I could spot a million places while driving. I would tell Suanne “let’s go there next time. let’s go here next time”. But when I actually needed to find a place to eat, I can’t seems to see any at all.

So without a place in mind, I decided to drive along Kingsway in the direction to downtown. I did not have to drive far. It was just right after Boundary that I spotted one of the “let’s go there next time” places. Frankly, I had not even remembered the name of the restaurant … but I did remember that they have a “Fine Indian Fusion” words on the signboard.

I had been thinking a lot of what Michelle was saying during the 12B dinner that there is no really great Indian restaurants in Vancouver. Based on what she said, I was intent on finding out more about Indian food. No, I really did not think that such an unknown restaurant like Mezbaan would fit the bill of a great Indian restaurant at all. But we did find something new … something unique in this restaurant that makes me want to come back again.

There was no customer in Mezbaan when we walked in shortly after 5PM. As a matter of fact, there was only one other customer the whole night we were there.

The decor was painted in warm orange color. Suanne said she noticed a lot of Indian restaurants are painted in this color. Well, I thought it is because it is the colour of the national flag on India. I made that answer up but I do sound convincing, don’t I? :-)

The Chef served us. I know he is the chef because I had just read on the newspaper reviews by the entrance about the restaurant. The Chef’s name is TJ and the newspaper clipping said that Mezbaan is North Indian and that Chef TJ grinds his own masala spice. They don’t use branded, pre-made spices in their cooking. I thought it was a good thing to call out.

Chef TJ was an obliging man but I think he was kind of suspicious and uncomfortable with us. We were asking way too many questions and I had a big camera in my hands and Suanne has a pen in hers, catching every word he was saying onto her notebook. Chef TJ did not ask what we were doing but am sure that was the question in his mind.

Apparently, Mezbaan has been in operation for 11 months already. The word Mezbaan means “unique host” in the Urdu language.

We were served Papadams. It was small and rolled into a cone. I wished it is of the larger pieces that we find else where. I could eat tons of this. Too little here.

Are these expensive? If not, they should serve this in stacks for the customer like restaurants do with bread.

The papadams were served with the usual tamarind sauce as a dip. Sour and spicy is how the sauce tasted. I prefer eating this plain sans sauce.

We started with Prawn Pakoras ($9) as appetizers. This was nice. The prawns were a bit on the small side.

It was cooked in a crispy seasoned batter. The batter is very thin, not as crispy as we expected. Pakoras usually are heavy in batter but not this one. Even though we did not expect it to look like this, we like it.

Despite the size of the prawns, the deshelled prawn was springy. It tasted good.

We did not know what to get for the mains and asked Chef TJ what he thinks is the best in the kitchen today. Without hesitation, he said we should try his …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Mezbaan Fine Indian Fusion on Kingsway and Melbourne, Vancouver (563 words)

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Post tags: Indian, Restaurant Review, Vancouver

My first visit to 12B was when I joined a group of Vancouver Chowhounds. That was back in December last year. That sitting was full and I was only able to make it after someone pulled out to make room for me. It was just me who went … and poor Suanne had to stay at home.

So, I offered to organize another one for Chowtimes readers so that Suanne could also have the chance to experience dinner at 12B. The response from chowtimes readers was overwhelming … a total of 36 people responded!

I truly had a problem on my hands!

You see, 12B had always limited the number of people on each night to twelve guests only. I had several discussions with Chef Todd over the large number of diner. At one stage we were seriously exploring the possibility to do an unprecedented mega-sized group of 18!

But one thing led to another, the group eventually whittled down to a nice size of 12. Two main factors were in play.

The available dates were limited. Chef Todd is fully booked for Friday/Saturday sittings right up till early June already. Although weekdays are available, it is very limited, So we were left with the less popular days of week. Not wanting to wait for a few months, we had to settle for a Sunday night — which proved to be unsuitable for some.

The other factor was the price … the price increase. Back in December, the “minimum donation” for 12B was $50. Mid-way through the planning, Chef Todd informed me that the “minimum donation” is not longer $50, but $65. Understandably, that did not sit down well with some people. Frankly, I was really embarrassed about it having to go back to the group about this hefty 30% increase. Needless to say I was quite unhappy to be forced to deal with this.

So, long story short … twelve of us finally ended up attending the dinner.

12B dinners are BYOB event. I am not an expert in wine and so I asked Glen at work for recommendations. I wanted something that is red and something light too since I flush up red very easily.

Glen recommended the Pinot Noir from Nk’Mip. So I went to the BC Liquor store on Cambie. Oh gosh, I had never been in that place before and was so surprised how big and fancy it is. They carry almost every kind of wine and beer you can imagine. Suanne and I felt kind of lost in there.

LOL! Suanne and I was complaining the lack of vowels in First Nations names. Nk’Mip … how do you pronounce it?

It turned out that the bottle was not opened at all. Not only because everyone brought liquor but Keev even brought four bottles.

Chef Todd told me that he checked chowtimes’ earlier review the day before and made sure that he does not serve the same thing that I had in my last visit. That was considerate of him. I did not even expect him to do that at all but he did.

Chef Todd told our group the same thing he told us in my first visit — that he tries to make different menu every night. I still find it hard to believe that anyone who have such a repertoire of dishes … but that is what he said.

Cream of asparagus soup with white wine and truffles “four ways” (truffle salt, oil, and, uh, a couple of other preparations)

Suanne and I had a great time chatting about food. The group are made up of pure foodies — he he he … not bloggers who sometimes go to restaurants just for the purpose of writing reviews on the blog. These guys and gals are all there for one thing and one thing only … the food.

Among the group was Michelle and her university professor husband. They had traveled widely around the world in search of food. Since they sat directly across from me, I spent the most time chatting with them. It is so amazing being able to talk about the well-known restaurants we had been to, particularly in Spain which was still very fresh in my memory.

halibut seared in brown butter, served on a jardinière brunoise and quinoa, with a fennel, orange and poppyseed salad on the side

There was also Joe and Anya. Joe is not just a foodie but his name is one that some of you will hear of more and more over time. He is beginning to start blogging together with Matt on vancouverslop.com!

So, I am going to take the short cut in this post and refer you to HIS post on this meal at 12B. His post is located on this link. Go check it out! He is going to be helping me on the next project which is the …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Chowtimes Readers Dinner at 12B Underground Kitchen (434 words)

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

We love noodles as you can see. We had been blogging about noodles a lot of late. It is because we gravitate towards anything with hot soup during the colder seasons. We had our fair share of Japanese Ramen, Taiwanese Beef Noodles, Malaysian Laksa, Vietnamese Pho but we don’t go out of our way for a bowl of Wonton Noodles.

The name Nancy Wonton House had popped up in two separate occasions the past two weeks. That triggered that thought why we rarely go eat wonton. Although wontons are very much Chinese, perhaps it is because I subconsciously associate wontons with faux Chinese fare.

Since Suanne and I was around the neighborhood of Victoria Drive and 37th Ave, we decided to go check it out. Frankly, we were not hungry at all but we went nevertheless … before this place recess to the back of our distant memory again.

Nancy Wonton House is an old school Cantonese restaurant from umpteen years ago — God knows how long. You don’t find many of these type of restaurants opening anymore. Cantonese restaurants sprouted in Vancouver prior to the days of 1997 before Hongkong was returned to China. The wave of of Cantonese speaking HK immigrants brought along with them a lot of Cantonese restaurants.

As the fears of a Communist China administered HK dissipated over the years, a lot of HK immigrants returned. In the past few years, Chinese immigrants are dominated by those from Mainland China. This new wave of immigrants brought along another genre of Chinese cuisine, mainly influenced by the cuisine from Shanghai and Beijing.

So Nancy Wonton does show its age. The decor is so much like it was when it first opened a decade or two ago. Some things never changes.

The dining area is large. Accentuated by the mirrors on one side of the restaurant, it even looked larger than it actually is. The table sizes are larger with booths along the side that can seat six and round tables that can easily fit ten. It is very much a neighborhood restaurant where extended family with kids and grand parents comes over for dinner.

We did not even spend much time scanning their menu. The menu is huge. The dishes are numbered and at a glance we can see that they have almost 300 different items on it. We already know what we wanted — wonton noodles.

The food in Nancy Wonton is known for its cheap prices. The noodles above is less than …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Nancy Wonton House on Victoria Drive and 37th Ave, Vancouver (384 words)

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