All Entries Tagged With: "All You Can Eat"
Fatty Cow Seafood Hot Pot on Victoria Dr and 35th Ave, Vancouver
When it comes to hot pot, Richmond has a lot of choices. As a matter of fact, most of the top Chinese hot pot restaurants are found in Richmond. Just to name a few … Chubby Lamb, Hot Pot One, Point Zero Four Fusion, Garden City Hot Pot, and Mongolian Hot Pot.
There is a new one newly opened in Vancouver that I think will give Richmond’s hot pot restaurants a run for the money.
We heard of rave reviews about Fatty Cow. We also heard that they are expensive too. Hot Pot meals are not cheap anyway and one could easily expect to spend $20 upwards anywhere you go. So even if Fatty Cow was expensive, it was just a few dollars more. So that did not deter us since it was just two of us.
Fatty Cow is located on Victoria Drive at the intersection of 35th Ave. From the outside, Fatty Cow looks very impressive and modern.
We were there early again. When we walked in at 5PM, they were just finishing setting up for the dinner. They open only at 5:30PM and asked that we return later. You know, I wish that restaurants have the sense to allow customers to just take a seat and explain that they are not ready. A simple gesture like that does not take much on the part of the restaurant but customers not only will understand, they will be appreciative.
Well, there was no where to go and it was not exactly a warm day. So we waited in the car until 5:30PM.
Fatty Cow has got to be one of the prettiest looking hot pot restaurants we had ever been to. It was still new. They had just opened barely a month ago. Everything has a glint to it. Even the workers wears suit like they do in high end Chinese restaurants.
Service is excellent — from the captain to the staff who came by all the time to fill our tea and top up the soup. They even come by every now and then to help us check the temperature. Each time I reach for the controls at the side of the table, often someone will come by and help.
Don’t you like the new dishware and utensils? We do. It was so sparkling clean. They are even logo’d. Not many hot pot restaurants bother to create a logo/branding for their restaurants unless they are branches of successful hot pot restaurants in Asia. So I was just wondering if Fatty Cow is one of such branches.
One thing we did not like about Fatty Cow is that they charges extra for sauces. Each serving is 50 cents. The above three is free but if you want additional ones, you gotta pay for it.
The three they gave us was the soy sauce, sesame and sar char. They were excellent. We particularly like the soy sauce which is light and sweet. Good thing they gave us an entire bowl of it.
Since we like raw garlic we got the above as an extra … 50 cents. Next time we come to Fatty Cow, we will bring our own condiments in small plastic containers.
Click on the menu above for a larger image. As you can see, it is not cheap. It is $20 per person for Monday through Thursday and $21 for Friday to Sunday. And that is just the start. That price does not include the soup base. The soup base is another $7 and $8.50 if you want a double soup. Good thing is the soup base is charged per table and not per person.
There is a very good selection of meat, dumplings, vegetables, seafood, and noodles. They even have premium seafood items which again comes as extra. You can see how the prices could just add up easily.
No, we did not get the premium seafood items. Too expensive.
For the soup base, we opted for a double soup base. The left side is called the Fatty Cow Hot and Spicy. We wouldn’t have ordered this if not for the fact they branded this with their name.
The milky soup base on the left side was recommended by the captain as their most popular soup base. This is called spare ribs broth.
I like their burner. It is very responsive. It will boil up the soup in just 3 seconds the moment you crank it up and you could stop the boiling instantaneously too.
The Fatty Cow Hot and Spicy soup base is just that — SPICY. There are lots of peppercorns in it. See above? The above is just one scoop from the soup base. Frankly I felt it was way too much. So much that we ended up scooping it off to the plate and added it back to the broth if we want to spice it up.
As for the Spare Rib Broth, it was very good. There are a lot of beansprout and even pieces of pork in it. We took the beansprout out because we like the broth not so “busy”.
This thing above is wonderful. It is in the snack section of the menu …
… Fried Fish Skin. It is light and tasted wonderful. They said they make it themselves. It was oily but was just so crispy. This is one snack you should get to start off the meal.
To make your money worthwhile, you should just focus first on … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Koi Sushi on Westminster Hwy, Richmond
There is one thing we know that our boys would always like — sushi. They don’t really care about the quality at all. All they want is quantity. The more the better.
When I suggested that we check out the new All You Can Eat sushi restaurant, they were delighted. But there is a problem … Suanne just don’t like Sushi and raw fish. She will go along as long as his boys enjoys their food.
We went to Koi Sushi which is just next door to the ever popular Shanghai River. Specifically, it is on Westminster Highway just west of No 3 Road. We recently knew of this place because they had ads on the local city papers announcing their grand opening.
We remembered that this place used to be called the Shota Japanese Cuisine.
The interior was clean and decor was well coordinated. The chairs was comfortable and it was certainly spacious. Not many AYCE sushi places are like this. We were quite impressed.
Service wise, it was slow. It took a while for our hot tea and menu to come … and even that we had to flag the waitress down.
Koi Sushi’s AYCE Lunch is $11. It is $1 extra for Friday through Sunday.
Koi’s AYCE menu selection is large and spread over two pages. Unlike a lot of other Sushi AYCE, Koi has Robata too. Needless to say, Suanne was really happy to see that.
The above was what we ordered … lots of sushis for the boys and lots of Robatas for Suanne. We thought we would order this as our first order and then order some more afterwards. Nope … it turned out that is too much food.
Their sashimi is $2 extra. I really don’t know how this all works out but regardless, the sashimi is small. I don’t think we had seen sashimis cut this small before.
It is kind of hard to judge their servings. For instance, we had no idea that this one order of the Teriyaki Chicken came with … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Shabusen Yakiniku House on Granville and West 14th, Vancouver
The last time we had Japanese AYCE (all-you-can-eat) was 7 months ago. That was when we went to E-Bei.
As much as Nanzaro and Arkensen love Japanese sushi, the reason why we had not gone to one more often is because Suanne just doesn’t like raw fish, period.
But Shabusen Yakiniku House is different. It is both a Japanese AYCE and a Korean BBQ AYCE.
There are two Shabusens in Vancouver. There is one in downtown Vancouver. We went to the other one on Granville.
In case you don’t know, the word Yakiniku means grilled meat in Japanese.
For an AYCE, Shabusen looks a lot posh and better than all the other AYCEs we had been to. The whole place is bright with lots of ceiling high windows and skylights. It was actually a beautiful day eating here despite the it being rainy the whole morning. The Fall colors looked so good at this time of the year.
Every table had a gas grill in the center. That is for the Korean BBQ. See the bottle above? That is the BBQ sauce but really, we hardly need to use that because the meat were already very well marinated.
Service was kind of slow here. The waiters and waitresses seems to walk around with their eyes peeled to the ground all the time. It is as if they are afraid that if they get eye contact with the customer, they will have to do more work or something. It was so hard to get their attention when we wanted something from them.
The AYCE is $13 for weekdays and $13.50 for weekends. Dinner is is $22.
The selection at a glance looks a lot smaller than places like Kingsway Sushi and E-Bei. The above was our first round order where we max out our order of Sashimis.
We left these 32 pieces to the boys. These alone kept them very happy.
For Suanne and I, we were quite contended with the Korean BBQ. There are three choices … chicken, beef and pork.
In our greed, we ordered a total of EIGHT plates of BBQ meat. That was way too much and we had a difficult time finishing all of them. We did not feel good about wasting food.
For once, I was the one who did all the cooking. Oh yeah, believe it or not [giving myself a pat on the back].
BBQ is a guy thing for some reason. Suanne was happy to let me do all the work while she enjoys my cooking.
Well, I must say that I did quite well. The meat was super … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Point Zero Four Fusion Restaurant on Alexandra Road, Richmond
Suanne and I never learn. We know that we almost always end up regretting having AYCE (All You Can Eat) and yet we go back again and again.
We had always passed by this place with the bright yellow signboards each time we go to Alexandra Road. They have the brightest signboard along Alexandra for sure. The name too — I can’t quite figure out what it really means. It is called Point Zero Four Fusion … it could mean to read as Point Zero, Four Fusion or .04 Fusion. Whatever it is, the tagline says that they serve Beijing Style Cuisine.
The place is large and takes up the space of three normal shop lots. The decor is tacky as expected. The tables were raised a few inches off the ground because of the gas pipings to each table. See the legs of the chairs … they even had to have the legs extended. Pipings or not, I think they did not maintain them because some of the built in stoves did not work. Ours didn’t work and they used a portable burner instead.
Service is rude. Should I say service is rude by western standards. Not everyone can stand for this but Suanne and I learned to look away from this. They are rude as in not making eye contact, giving mono-syllabic answers, grabbing utensils in a haste … you know. I believe they think they are projecting a professional and efficient image but buddy, that it rude here in this part of the world. Smile … please … because that translates to tips, dum-dum.
You got to ask for the 2-page order form in English. By default they hand you one in Chinese.
The Hot Pot AYCE is $18 per person. What is not stated is the “extras” … the soupbase is an extra charge. The soup base ranges from the no frills $5 pork soup to $15 drunken chicken. There is quite a variety to choose from. The Dips and Sauces are free for the first order. They will charge 50 cents for the second order.
You can upgrade the AYCE Hot Pot to include BBQ Skewers (another of their specialty) for an extra $6. We thought it is a bit too much having Hot Pot AND BBQ Skewers.
Looking at their faces, they are of no help to us in deciding our order. We ended up ordering almost one of every item.
The “suen moi tong” drinks are a deal. The above is just $1 per person with unlimited refills. Cynical as we are, we thought the reason it is so cheap is because they wanted us to fill up with water instead of the more expensive meat items.
I made a mistake asking question about exactly what this is made of. The waitress just blurted, while turning her back to me and walk away, “for drinking”. Oh please … I know that. There goes your tips, baby.
The soup base we selected was the Szechuan. They were spicy hot. I got to hand it to them … they smell absolutely marvelous and fragrant. There are a lot of spices in the soup base … especially with the lips numbing peppercorns. Nice.
They were MSG laden too as we confirmed after the meal. We were thristy.
Round one was the meats. We ticked every single meat item except for the pork blood. I am not sure how they decided how much to give us but it was a lot of meat.
At least it was all thinly sliced and does shrink a lot once it is cooked.
Round two was the seafood. The same strategy applies … we ticked every single item. We did not opt for the Geoduck because it was $12 extra … per dish!
Actually they smell very fishy. I can picked up a waft of it when it was brought to the table. It was not stale or rotten or anything like that. It had a smell of a fish market.
But once cooked, it should be OK.
Anyway, the strong fragrant soup base overpowered any fishiness once the seafood is in the pot. Absolutely loved the soup base. It was really good during the meal. It was the after effect from the MSG that is not so good. As much as the soup base is important to the hot pot, equally as important is the …
E-Bei Japanese Restaurant at Granville and 41st, Vancouver
Each time we go for AYCE (all-you-can-eat) we end up regretting over eating. However, this time we cannot say no because the birthday boy (Arkensen) gets the choice. Nanzaro was, without doubt, very happy with the choice.
We decided to go to E-Bei for the AYCE. We had heard of some bad reviews of E-Bei on many sites before but decided to go nevertheless. It is because I know our boys are not food snobs and will definitely enjoy E-Bei — and they did.
E-Bei is located at the intersection of 41st and Granville in Vancouver. One thing we did not like about dining here is that we had to pay for parking … $4 for two hours.
E-Bei is not very big as far as AYCE Sushi places are concern. I am comparing the size of this place with places we had been to before like Fish On Rice and Kingsway Sushi. E-Bei was packed when we were there and there was quite a bit of a wait line too.
So, there you go … sometimes one cannot just rely solely on anonymous reviews. People does obviously enjoy E-Bei and find this place of good value here. However, seating is tight … so tight that we could see and smell the food of our neighbor.
To us, this place is more Chinese than Japanese. From the looks of the customers and workers, I can see Chinese faces. Can you tell facial features of Chinese from Japanese? I can … I think.
Orders are placed with the chit they provide. I like that they always have a fresh one for us the moment they take away our order — no delaying tactics like some places who has every trick in the book to make you wait. The food came very fast and quite accurately too. We find that they have more choices as compared to our recent visit to Kingsway Sushi.
The AYCE costs $11 ($9 for children). On weekends and holidays, they charge $1 extra. However, they stipulated a time limit of 1.5 hours but I don’t see any signs of this being enforced. I think it’s just a provision for people who eat excessively.
The Nigiri’s are pretty good. I think this is the favourite of E-Bei’s customer. This is because the menu states that they will charge 50 cents for each unconsumed rice of any Nigiri Sushi. I guess some people ordered tons of this, removed the rice and had the fish as sashimi. LOL!
Their Nigiri is respectable in that they did not load up the Nigiri with lots of rice … it was much more raw fish than rice.
The cones (roe, spicy tuna and spicy salmon) were quite good … except that the rice was like Chinese steamed rice. Alright it might be a no-no to some people but it is more than edible. Like I said, it was quite good … for us.
The rolls were some of the ugliest and malformed rolls we had ever seen. It does not look pretty but it was OK. The bad thing here is with the color green in almost all of it. You see, our boys will refuse to touch it if it has any green color stuff (avacado or cucumber). Suanne and I ended up eating all of these.
Suanne likes the Salmon Head a lot. She is so adept in picking off the flesh. I find that their Salmon Head looks the best among all AYCE’s — big chunky pieces and fleshy.
Look at the above … that’s the remnants on Suanne’s plate. She ate everything edible … except for the …
… eyeballs! I know some people likes it.
The smelt was not that good. They use very whitish batter for this. The reason why I put this picture here was because Suanne and I have a question …
We like smelt with roes in it. We guess it is very cheap because we find these in many eating places. For some reason, we had never come across smelts with roe fresh from the supermarkets. We can’t find it in Asian markets or even at places in T&T. Do you know where we could get some?
The Octopus was served with garlic butter sauce, or so says the menu. It looked good but was somewhat too salty for our liking although we like the slight spiciness in it.
I don’t know what the above fish is called but it was quite good. We like fried fish. More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Kingsway Sushi on Kingsway and Boundary
Ever since Whitney and Ken moved out from Richmond, we had not been able to meet up as much as we did. A couple of weeks ago they called saying that they would be in town and are looking for the best All-You-Can-Eat (AYCE) sushi. We interpret BEST as in good, cheap and has sashimi. Our favourite remains with Ninkazu in Richmond but since we had blogged about that place before we suggest the one place high on our list of To-Try … Kingsway Sushi.
Kingsway Sushi is easy to find. It is located at the junction of Kingsway and Boundary, just across the street from the unmistakable shoe-shaped building of Telus. Pay parking is available at the basement parking of the building where Kingsway Sushi is located.
It was quite expensive if you ask me. Pay parking is about $2 per hour but Kingsway will reimburse the parking for the 1st hour only. I paid for $4 for two hours and then I realized it was written quite boldly that weekend parking is free. I would not have mind as much until this middle age lady said in such loud voice to her husband that “Parking is free” … THREE times. Her thunderous voice echoed throughout the basement parking area. [Oooi ... honey, you don't have to be so smug and you are embarrassing me in public!!]
We had never been to Kingsway Sushi before.
We were quite surprised how large this place is and how bright it is here. Actually we were expecting this place to be packed on a Saturday afternoon but they did not fill the place. We were wondering if people are beginning to eat out less because of all the economic gloom from the news these days.
Whitney called saying that they were going to be a bit late … “a bit” as in 30 minutes. I was initially kind of worried that we will get harassed because we did not have the entire party there before we got seated. I often hear that these places make money from turning the tables fast and they show their annoyance when we hog a table and start later than normal.
No, they were quite pleasant about it (at that time) when we told them the entire party is going to be late. I think it was because it was still early and they had just started business. They even suggested that we get some little appetizers as starters while waiting. We like that.
Miso soup is like a must as a starter in AYCE Sushi. Tell me now … they serve Miso Soup in a bowl and without a soup spoon. I need someone who is familiar help confirm this. The Japanese drinks Miso Soup direct from the bowl and they are supposed to slurp it down as loudly as possible … is that right?
To the Chinese drinking soup direct from the bowl (not using the soup spoon) is uncouth. Well, at least that was what my mum warned me not to do when I was young.
For the starters, we also had Edamame. It is like young soybean.
I had never quite like beans in general but found that I ate most of it from the leftover pods I had on my plate.
I think the above is called Ebi Sunomono (shrimp salad?). A little sourish and vinegarish with cold noodles in it.
They have two menus available for lunch. One menu was with Sushi ($11.95) and the other one without sushi is $9.95. We went ahead to get the one with Sushi because after all that’s what the kids were looking for.
Before we placed our order, we decided on a strategy to maximize on the meal. So the game plan is simple, there will be a four phase plan of attack:
- Phase 1 (Appetizer): Start with the stuff on the appetizer section (which we just had)
- Phase 2 (Try Everything Once): Get ONE of every item enough for everyone (trick is not to get too greedy on any one item) and note down what everyone like more of. It is handy getting one of their paper takeout menu to mark down what each liked.
- Phase 3 (Gorge on “Likes”): Place order after order of what we like until we are almost full. It is important to stress on the word “almost full” because you want to leave room for Phase 4. 95% full is a good yardstick. This is the phase you begin to sit back and loosen your belt. This is also the phase where the waiters will start getting annoyed with you and do everything they can to make you leave — just ignore them.
- Phase 4 (Finale): This is the phase you will feel really sick and swear that you will never ever do AYCE again. But as a true foodie, you must soldier on to defend the honor of the spirit of AYCE. This is where you make one last attempt to stuff yourself sick … at least with the desserts.
Sashimi was extra but at least they have it.
Start of Phase 2 (Try Everything Once). We got two orders of Sashimi’s. It was just OK. It was not large slices but at least it is not paper thin if you know what I mean. These all went in no time.
The Sushis was the most second most important items on our Phase 2 game plan. The Sushi were respectable. Respectable in that they have nice big slices of fish. So what did we have?
- Kani Sushi (Imitation Crab)
- Saba Sushi (Mackerel)
- Tuna Sushi
- Salmon Sushi
- Tai Sushi (don’t know which is which)
- Inari Sushi (also don’t know which is which)
Their Deep Fried Scallop is pretty good. We ended up ordering a lot of these.
Suanne digs the Salmon Head. I think they call this the BBQ Salmon Head Shioyaki. She’s good at picking up the morsels of flesh from this. I like it too but it’s too much work.
The Chicken Karaage was awesome. Ken remarked why is it that he can never make it like this at home. Indeed … why? I posed that same question to Suanne (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
Ken loves this too … it is called Deep Fried Shrimp Ball. Everyone likes it but not as much as Ken. This is because I noticed he keeps on ordering plates after plates of this.
We ordered all the rolls they have on the menu … every single one of them. There are twelve types on the menu and they gave us only eight types. We said “all” rolls. I think they know that with all the food we ordered, we would not have noticed. But we’re professional foodies … we know such things. I let it slide and not make a fuss about it because we can hardly finish what we had ordered already.
Lancaster: Plain and Fancy Farm Feast and Amish Experience
Part of our itinerary is to make a stop at the an Amish area on the way to Philadelphia. Ever since I watched the movie Witness, the one that Harrison Ford starred in, I was quite amazed with the Amish way of life. It just so happen that somewhere in between Washington DC and Philadelphia lies the largest Amish community in North America. That place is called Lancaster and this is the place where the movie Witness was shot.
Our stop is primarily at a famous farm called the Plain and Fancy Farm. There is another farm called “Good and Plenty” but we choose this one. This place is located somewhere between two little towns called … believe it or not … Intercourse and Bird-In-Hand. Weird name for towns, I know. Can anyone guess why the town is called Intercourse? No dirty ideas please!
There are two things we wanted to do here … have a good old Amish feast and take a tour of the area and learn more about the Amish way of life.
The Plain and Fancy Farm is a small complex of everything Amish. Besides the restaurant, this is where you can book a bus tour which brings you to various areas in the nearby Amish community. One thing I learned here … despite the simple lifestyle, there are a lot of Amish millionaires here! So, don’t think that these people are simpletons.
We opted for their Rolls Royce meal … the all you can eat Family Feast.
If there is anything that the Amish does extremely well, it is their food. Not only are they very very good, they sure serve lots and lots of it. We got seated on a long table which we thought was a bit odd since there were only the two of us. The table setting is unique where they have a little bench thingy right in the middle. You know what it is for? Well, they serve so much food on the table that this is their way to stack the plate high.
Service was exceptional and so downright genuine. I already like the Amish because they were so polite and so patient with us with our questions.
The drinks we ordered was just lemonade and sweetened ice tea.
The feast was delivered in three separate courses … the appetizer, the entree and dessert. Make sure that when you start off with the appetizer that this is just the appetizer … the main meal is yet to come!
First appetizer was the iced raisin bread. We love the icing and the freshness of the bread.
Then there is the rolls with apple butter. We just discovered apple butter the day prior. The bread smell like its just been taken out of the oven. Warm to the touch, this is perfect. For me, this itself could make a meal.
Ever heard of chow-chow? No, not the dog. Called chow-chow, the above is a common relish in this part if the world and is made of a few vegetables. I love cauliflower but Suanne rarely makes it at home as she claims that it has no nutritional value.
Oh … here is a childhood joke about cauliflower I still remember from my teen days. It goes like this … Boy to girl … “Hey, you look very good”. Girl, blushing, asked “Oh really? Why did you say so?”. Boy replied, “It is because you are pretty … pretty like a flower”. Girl shyly asked, “Really? What type of flower?”. Boy answered … “cauliflower!”.
Was that funny or lame? LOL!
There is this thing above … am not sure what this is called. It’s cabbage with mayo … very much like coleslaw. Nice, we like it.
After this we loosened our belts one notch to tackle the entree.
Their fried chicken was awesome. The skin is crispy and the meat inside moist. Simply one of the best fried chicken we ever had.
The chicken pot pie is nothing short of amazing. I never quite cared for anything named pie but this one was like wow. It resembles nothing like a pie though.
The roast beef was almost perfect. Being a meat eater, I had two servings of the above.
At this point, I was just wondering if there will ever be just one dish that is just OK. Nope … the mash potato is not just OK, it was more than OK.
The sausage is large. It looked mean for sure but for some reason, we are not a huge fan of sausages.
The steamed baby carrots were tender and soft with a hint of sweetness. Nice.
I believe this is called the grind corn. Never tried it before but I love this. I bet this is easy to make at home … I started to suggest to Suanne to research this on the net … she gave me the evil stare … I immediately looked down on my food like I had never suggested it at all.
The bow tie pasta was darn simple — just butter and pasta. Now, that would have been easy to make at home too but I better shut up and eat. This reminded me that nice food need not be complicated.
And finally came the dessert. This is when we loosen another notch in our belts.
The famous Shoofly Pie … it made of molasses, brown sugar and cinnamon. Know why this is called Shoofly? Oh … whipped cream … this is not the real deal if you don’t have lots of it.
And the other dessert is the Apple Sour Cream with Caramel. My life would be complete if I have this at home everyday … but then to think of it, my life would end the instant I dare to express this to you-know-who. LOL!
Last but not least … homemade ice cream. That’s it and thank goodness. If there are more food, we would need to remove our belts because there are no more notches to loosen.
Damage was about $40 buck. We left happy and for a fleeting moment, I wished I am an Amish. Where do I sign up?
And now … ladies and gentlemen … Ben goes into his tirade of his travel series again … BUT … BUT … he is doing it hidden in the next page. If you care to read of it, click on read more below.
