Chill Restaurant and Lounge on Kingsway Near Royal Oak, Burnaby

Karl (The Friday Lunch) and I are turning out to be regular lunch partners. Which is great because it gives me the chance to check out the restaurants in Burnaby more. If you get a peek at my “to-visit” list, it is the Burnaby list that is the longest. Suanne and I cover Richmond since it’s in our neighborhood and if we go our further, it is to Vancouver mostly.

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 on following page. Click here to continue reading

Weekend Musings (06-Mar-2010)

With the Olympics over, it’s back to business.

Like some of the restaurant businesses who reported a dip during the Olympics, chowtimes’ traffic too dropped by 10-15%. We are back to record setting territory again. I hope that the restaurant business is back to their normal levels too — particularly those on Denman and the Broadway corridor which I know were impacted.

Chowtimes Featured on EAT Magazine

It was December last year when Pam Durkin from the EAT magazine wrote to us with some questions for chowtimes. It was so long ago that I had completely forgotten about this until I was alerted recently of the write up on the magazine.

The EAT magazine is a Victoria based, province wide magazine that focuses on the culinary scene here in BC. It is not on sale but is distributed free and has over 100,000 readers province wide.

He he he … I don’t know that part about being a “self-proclaimed foodie” but nevertheless it was kind of cool seeing the chowtimes name on print. You can read the entire article on page 14 here.

Spring Break — Discovery of Portland’s Food Carts

Time sure flies this year isn’t it? We barely have much of a winter this year and now we are into spring already. No, I am NOT complaining.

Suanne and I were wondering if we wanted to do anything during the spring break.

Portland Food Carts (Credit seattlest.com)

We remember Charlene was telling us how amazed she was with the food carts in Portland. We had been to Portland before but that was pre-chowtimes days where we could not care less about food carts. Charles was saying that there are sites where there are something like 20 food carts.

THAT … sounds like the description of heaven to Suanne and I. Wow … that also sounds like a working holiday too. LOL!

Yeah … we are like 99.99% sure we are heading that way for our Spring Break.

But we don’t know much about the food carts in Portland. For those of you who had been there before, could you share a bit more about it with us. We would particularly like to have recommendation of the bigger sites, the must-try food, locations … any tips at all.

It is my dream that Vancouver one day will develop its own food cart culture.

Oh … Dine Around Seattle is happening throughout the month of March too. Dine Around Seattle is like our Dine Out Vancouver with prix-fixe dinner at $30. The timing could not have been more perfect!

Lots of Peppers!

Suanne had been a busy girl last week. Look at this!

I asked Suanne to help populate the Chowtimes Restaurant Explorer which is a rendition of a Google Map of the restaurants we had visited before. I told her to just take her own time and populate like 4-5 a day.

She went on to populate 40-50 a day! So now the Restaurant Explorer is looking all good. Suanne has still some way to go.

It goes without saying the densest area is Richmond.

Taste and Learn — Filipino Cuisine

By the time this is posted, 8 Chowtimes readers will be having lunch in Goto King with Rey, Suanne and I. Am looking forward to it … free food … and we get to learn a bit too. I wish we could accommodate more people (had to turn away some, sorry) but seating was limited.

I am just glad that we could host something like this. I know it is kind of unprecedented and people will be wondering what’s the catch. No catch! There are really people on this planet who loves food and is willing to share. We hope to do more things like this in future … not just eating, but learning too.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Eat well!

Ba Le Around The World

So I am curious right?

I never knew that there are so much story behind the humble Banh Mi from Ba Le. I was only interested to see for myself the new expensive oven that Ba Le installed recently but in the process, I learn that a lot of people have so much to say/share about it.

Banh Mi Unstacked -- Illustration from the NYT

This makes me WANT to someday go to Saigon and eat at the original Ba Le and see for myself how the real Banh Mi is really like. As much as Vancouverites love our very own Banh Mi from Ba Le, I have a feeling that the folks in Vietnam will laugh at our own version. See what I mean below … LOL!

Taste and Learn About Filipino Cuisine — For Free

Remember I told you two weeks ago in my Weekend Musings that There is Such a Thing Called Free Lunch? Well, here is the plan.

We had known Rey almost a year already. When we met, he was working in promoting the Filipino culture through raising awareness. Being a foodie too he brought us to Filipino restaurants and introduced us to Filipino cuisines.

Suanne and I always enjoyed learning about food and its associated culture. So we looked forward all the time to meet with Rey to learn from him.

Well, you can too … and believe it or not, FOR FREE!!

Crispy Pata from Pinpin Restaurant on Fraser

There is no catch, no selling of anything — so you don’t have to worry about this arrangement. It’s a long story how Rey end up with free lunches but he has quite a bit to use up. So Rey thought he might as well share it with chowtimes’ readers. What he wants to do it to promote Filipino culture and Filipino food. For Suanne and I we thought it would be another great idea to provide value to you readers and get to know some of you more.

Here is the arrangements:

Restaurant: Goto King
Address: 5183 Joyce Street, Vancouver (google map)
Date: March 6th, 2010 (Saturday) at 12:00 noon

Yeah, that is this coming Saturday. So time is a bit tight to arrange things (all thanks to my procrastination due to the Olympics!). Location wise, it is perfect because it is just next to the Joyce Skytrain station for those of you who don’t drive.

Pancit from Little Ongpin in Richmond

If you are interested, … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Weekend Musings (27-Feb-2010): Announcing Restaurant Explorer

What a week for Canada!

After two weeks of sports, I am getting a bit fatigued from being glued to the sports event day after day. I am just glad that it is coming to an end — and to a high note too! We all woke up this morning having topped the Gold medal standing for the first time. If all expectations goes according to plan, we will even stretch the Gold medal lead.

Which leads me to think that Canada should abandon the American way of determining the medal leaderboard by taking into account the number of medals won. We should follow the rest of the world is ranking it by medal types.

Whatever it is, we are at the verge of attaining the most Gold won in BOTH summer and winter Olympics.

GO CANADA GO

Restaurant Explorer

Ryan made a great suggestion. He asked the chowtimes has a Google Map of all the restaurants we had visited before. This idea was first done by Matt on VancouverSlop which was adopted by CBC’s website (Matt is a genius in these sort of things!).

So here is our implementation of our idea. You can get to the Chowtimes Restaurant Explorer by clicking on the Restaurant Explorer link at the top of the page. I made that link with a RED background for now just to show you guys it’s there.

The page is still under construction — and it will be while before we retroactively populate all our old restaurant visits. There is, after all, over 400 Metro Vancouver restaurants to go through. Don’t hold your breath!

This this what we have implemented:

• A 1-liner description of the restaurant
• Picture(s) of the food we tried
• Address and phone number of the restaurant

The other features are standard Google Map functionality which we have little to no control over … like “Get directions”. This interface of this embedded Google Map does not behave exactly like if you got to http://maps.google.com … so this is a bit more clunkier and sadly harder to navigate.

But please have a look at the Restaurant Explorer and let me know what you think. ANY feedback is very much appreciated. We just want to build something that is of use to you readers.

Thanks a lot to Ryan for this suggestion. [Sorry Ryan, we still have not found a way to make this fit a 1024 x 768 screen -- which we know represents a sizeable 17% of our visitors].

Hope you like it.

Chowtimes Mentioned on Jennifer 8 Lee’s Blog!

OK. it was just a little mention on Jennifer 8 Lee’s blog … a small mention, no link juice for chowtimes.com but still it is a big deal to Suanne and I.

Jennifer 8 Lee is who we want to be when we grow up — not that we will want to at this time. Fancy being invited to speak on a TED conference one day where Suanne speaks on her Underground Restaurant venture. That would be a day right, Suanne? LOL!

We felt so honored!

Delicious Flags

To close off this week’s musings, here is a series of national food made in the image of its respective national flags. It is from a chain email we received from Minoo which we find very interesting. Look over this and let me know if you agree that the food is a fair representation of the food you normally find in the country.

From Australia, the Australian Meat Pie which is a favourite and common take away snack.

Brazil. OK we see lime and maybe banana leaf at the background. What is the diamond shape part made of? Pineapple? This one we stumped us. That shows how little we know about Brazil (or for that matter South American) food.

The only thing I can think of at the mention of Brazilian food is beef …. mmmm … churrasco! I am sure Brazilian Cuisine is way more than that.

China. This is kind of odd. Firstly the Star Fruit. We did not realize that the star fruit is native to China (not that we know where it is from).

Then the background … it seems like Bak Kwa (Suanne’s recipe here) but we thought it is more South East Asian than it is China. Any one can help?

Viva la Francai! The French flag is represented by Blue Cheese, Brie (which is also the name of a French province) and grapes.

Greece, the cradle of Western Civilization … home of the Olives and Feta Cheese.

India, the land of diverse spices and intense tastes is presented by saffron colored curry, shredded coconut and spinach. The Ashoka Chakra in the middle is represented by … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Weekend Musing (20-Feb-2010)

It was just a struggle juggling between work, the Olympics and chowtimes. I am intense when coming to doing work. I expect nothing short of the best I can give in everything I do.

I came to the realization that I cannot do everything. I need to prioritize what is important and what is urgent … something got to give.

Sorry guys … chowtimes.com got to give way to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. LOL!  So, you will see lighter chowtimes postings from next week. It is time to play.

I took a day off work this week to go enjoy the Olympics. We went to watch a Men’s Hockey game (Sweden vs Belarus). Sorry no pictures because I left the camera elsewhere because I was not sure if they would allow long lens into the stadium. It is one of minor hockey games and so the stadium was not particularly packed. I can imagine the electricity in the stadium had this been a Canada game.

After the game, we roamed the area around Robson Square. We had never seen such festivities in Vancouver before. Everyone was so friendly and cheerful.

The lines were horrendous everywhere. With so many things happening at the same time, there is no way one could see everything. Half the fun was just being there. Sigh, I wish I had the luxury of just taking two weeks off work and be at all these venues everyday.

We caught a few shows but generally just people watching. The weather was just wonderful — bad for the ski hills but certainly the best one could hope for a winter Olympics. At the rate the weather is going, this is going to be one heck of an Olympics.

Suanne does not want to wait in line for hours for ANYTHING at all. Even the line to get into the Olympics superstore is unbelievably long and the people are all do cheerfully and patiently waiting in line. We were saying to ourselves that if we were forced to wait so long, we would also be caught up with spending hundreds of dollars for the Olympics merchandise. Boy, The Bay is making a killing during the Olympics.

We only got the Vancouver 2010 mittens from elsewhere. They are a must have item and perhaps the cheapest at $10 only.

These mittens are a brilliant image of Canada broadcasted throughout the world. You just gotta have them. They are easier to get these days. At one point when the stock ran out, people were selling this on eBay at a wildly inflated price.

We had dinner at Denman. We could see now what the news reports mean that business is down.

Everyone is converging to the area around Robson Square and only parts of Robson street. Further down the road at Robson and Denman it was really quiet for a Friday night that it felt weird. You can even get street parking easily here.

We felt bad for the businesses. But if you want to have a dinner around that area, this is the best time to go as it is not packed at all.

I had no idea how popular the Olympic flames were. Hoards of people … all cheerful despite all the jostling and all. It would have been brilliant if the chainlink fence were not there but we all know why they are there.

I hope the flames will continue to burn even after the Olympics as a lasting legacy for the city.

If you had not been out to the city for the games, drop all your plans this weekend. Go and enjoy the Olympics while it is still here.

Go Canada Go!!

Changing gears …

RICE FIELDS OF JAPAN.

My friend at work sent me another series of interesting food related picture that I want to share with you.

Look ordinary enough, but watch as the rice grows…

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan, but this is no alien creation…

Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colour rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the  paddy fields.

The are more … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Dim Sum at HKYK Seafood Hotpot Restaurant in Richmond

The Richmond Community Kitchen gathered for a Chinese New Year celebration at HKYK Seafood Hotpot Restaurant which serves dim sum in the morning.

One of the reason we picked HKYK is it’s wheel chair. There is a parking lot adjacent to this building and there are lots allocated for HKYK but you must register your license plate number in a register book at the reception.

There were fourteen members (old and new) from various kitchens who attended this event.

Another reason we picked HKYK is their prices are really cheap; $1.99 for most of the regular dim sum items. Click on the order sheets above for the enlarge view. HKYK uses a computerized order sheet where you shade the required quantity. It reminds of the multiple choices test in schools.

HKYK has been in Richmond for a long time. I remembered we had dim sum here way back in 2002. It is a big restaurant with many seating. I’ve seen reviews that service is not that good here but for the price that you pay, you cant expect much. We are quite ok with the slow service as that gives us more time to chit chat and catch up with one another.

We ordered a total of 21 different items to try. The Steamed Glutinous Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf was the only Special item we ordered. This huge dumpling costs $5.50. It came with sugar and soy sauce for dipping.

Other than the above special, we ordered pretty regular dim sum items for those who are not familiar with this Cantonese cuisine to be on the safe side. Moreover, we do have one member who is gluten intolerant.

Pork Dumplings, Shrimp Dumplings, Steamed Dumpling Chiu Chou Style and Steamed BBQ Buns are very common items in dim sum place.

Wonton in Chili Oil and Peanut Sauce, Steamed Pork Ribs in Black Bean Sauce, Steamed Beef Ribs in Black Pepper Sauce and Steamed Pork Liver Rice Rolls with Ginger are more for the … More on following page. Click here to continue reading