All Entries Tagged With: "Hotpot"
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
Swish Swish on Kingsway and Nelson, Burnaby
I had been getting a steady stream of visitors these days at work. This time it was Lauren who flew in from Atlanta for a few days for discussions and planning. These sort of planning sessions are usuallyย gruelingย as we try to get as much plans agreed within the few available days. So we normally work through lunch most of the time. We would get someone to order in quick lunches like pizza, subs and Chinese take outs.
Since we were ahead on the agenda, I suggested that we take some time and for once go out for a proper lunch on the last day.
I suggested that we go to this new Japanese Hot Pot restaurant at the corner of Kingsway and Nelson — a place I had always wanted to go try. That restaurant is called Swish Swish. Most people driving past this busy intersection may not even notice Swish Swish. This is because it is unnecessarily obscured by pillars which serves no function and does nothing aesthetically to the building. I think it would do the building a world of good if they remove those ugly pillars.
Some of my team members were hesitant about going to this untested restaurant. Firstly this restaurant had been opened only for two months and none of us had ever been there before. Secondly, some of them were unsure if Lauren would be partial to having Asian hot pot knowing that most of ourย colleagues from the US are cautious about the type of Asian food we have here in Vancouver.
But Lauren insisted that she is excited to try it. So we went.
The interior layout is odd and in a semi-secular arrangement. It does look compact because you could not see to the end of the restaurant from one end. Actually, it does hold quite a number of tables.
The name Swish Swish is the literal translation from the word Shabu-shabu.
Here they serve two types of Japanese hot pots — shabu shabu or Sukiyaki. They are both hot pots … the main difference is in the type of broth served.
Sukiyaki’s soup base has more flavour because it is made with soya sauce and mirin while shabu-shabu’s broth is primarily water.
Click to display larger image.
Swish Swish is actually an All You Can Eat Hot Pot place — or at least that is what they started off as.
Their AYCE is $12 for lunch while dinner is $16. The lunch and dinner AYCE is basically the same except that they have lamb available only for dinner. In the mid-afternoon, they give a $2 discount off the lunch menu price. I think that should qualify it as one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, AYCE hot pot in Vancouver.
However, we did not get the AYCE.
Click to display larger image.
The AYCE would be too much food and will take too long to eat. Instead we had the Lunch Express which they had recently introduced to their menu.
I think it makes sense that they introduce this lighter version of the Japanese hot pot. Most of the lunch’ers around this area are office workers who have time only for quick lunches.
Besides the Sukiyaki hotpot, they provide rice and appetizers. You can opt for udon instead of rice if you want.
I suggest that you ask for rice. If you opt for rice on the side, they also have vermicelli in the hot pot. However, if you ask for Udon, the Udon is served in the hot pot (without vermicelli).
This is what I got … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Top Gun Hot Pot in Crystal Mall, Burnaby
I had visitors again at work.
This time it was Martin who is a Project Manager from our office in Toronto. He is here to explore theย feasibilityย of joining our project team which is short of PMs. Although our project teams are scattered around in Atlanta, London, Singapore, New Delhi and Vancouver, we had never had a PM sitting remote from all team members. Frankly, I don’t know how one could manage a project that way despite all the communications technology and all.ย I had always maintained that no video or web conference facilities in the world will replace face to face meetings.
Anyway, it was two solid days of meetings and planning that the three PMs had. At least we managed to arrive at agreements in many key issues. I must say that the meetings were somewhat contentious because there are a lot of interests that each of us PMs need to protect. At the end of theย gruelingย meetings, we decided to put work behind and go out for dinner. I was determined NOT to talk anymore about work.
I wanted to bring Martin and Gage to an Asian restaurant. Both of them are as white and despite being Canadians do not have a lot of experience eating Asian. While I played safe by bringing my boss to a French restaurant, with these colleagues I could be moreย adventurousย and get away with it. LOL!
I brought the PMs to the Top Gun Hot Pot which is located at the top floor of Crystal Mall. It was perfect because just a short walk from the office.
One thing that I had not quite figured out is why non-Asians generally do not enjoy Asian food. I know I am generalizing here but just humor me for a moment. I do find that non-Asians are suspicious about Chinese and Korean food. However, I find that they are more receptive to Thai and Japanese food. Why is it so?
With Gage and Martin, they are the type of people who will not normally walk into a Chinese restaurant, let alone going to a Hot Pot place. So I asked them about it but did not quite get the answer I understand. They did say that it is the texture of some Asian food that puts them off.
It is their first time going to a Hot Pot restaurant so they were really intrigued with things that I had always taken for granted. For instance, they were quite amazed with the heating surface for the hot pot which could bring the hot pot to boil in seconds.
The ordering was all left to me. To be kind to them, I ordered all the “safe” food (see selection above). I stayed away from ordering things like large intestines, kidneys, liver, tendon, pig’s blood and tripe.
Oh yeah, they did ask me what I ordered but I told them to … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Hot Pot One in Aberdeen Center, Richmond
We were recommended by friends and readers that we should check out the congee at Hot Pot One. ย With three separate recommendations, we know that can’t go wrong. ย Problem is it took us so long to check it out.
Hot Pot One is located in the Aberdeen Mall. ย It is on the top floor and just next door to the more illustrousย Fisherman’s Terrace. ย Come to think of it, there are quite a number of good restaurants here at the Aberdeen Center. ย There is the Northern Delicacy which we like too.
I remember walking past Hot Pot One some months ago and they had someone standing outside the entrance with the menu in hand virtually asking everyone who walk past to to check out their restaurant. ย At that time, I thought that their location was bad because it is at the top floor and at a section which has less foot traffic.
Things had changed since then. ย We we went for brunch on last weekend, the place was simply packed.
We were seated by the window which provides a nice view. ย It is not often you see a restaurant with so much light and wrap around windows, let alone a Chinese restaurant.
Service was fast and surprisingly unrushed. ย They gave us the menu and asked if we know what we wanted. ย I think they ask that because they thought we were regulars. ย They serve dim sums, regular Chinese meals and of course congee. ย We told them we want some time to go over the menu and they left us alone until we asked for them again.
They served individual tea like the ones we had in Top Gun J&C and Garden City Hot Pot. ย It did not come across to us at that time to ask if it is compulsory that everyone to order their own tea. ย We just thought that it was exactly like Top Gun J&C and Garden City Hot Pot.
They have a good selection of Chinese Tea. ย They are $1 per person and $2 for premium ones. ย I thought that the Dragon Well which I had in Top Gun J&C would fall under the Premium tea list but they were just $1. ย Dragon Well tea is supposed to be the best and sort of like the imperial tea. ย I guess there are cheap ones too. ย So, I selected the $2 Ginseng Oolong.
They serve their tea in a more practical and less messy way. ย I like the tea ย cup so much that Suanne bought one for me last week.
They name their congee DIY Congee. ย How this works is that you order a base congee for $4.25. ย Additional ingredients are $3.25 each. ย If you want, you could add the more expensive Geoduck or Tilapia.
I ordered two separate ingredients: liver & kidney and fish head. ย The pot of congee is large. ย If we knew how big this is, 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 …
Neptune Wonton Noodle on No 3 Road, Richmond
Having missed dinner, Suanne and I decided that we should go out for supper. In many parts of Asia, where there are always places to eat at any hours of the day, suppers are meant to refer to the meal after normal dinner time … usually late at night.
It had been many years since we went to the Neptune Wonton Noodle. This restaurant is positioned as a cheaper version of the Neptune Sharksin Seafood Restaurant and is located just side-by-side to it (on Akroyd and No 3 Road). This is the restaurant with the green entrance … the more expensive one is the one with the red entrance.
Neptune Wonton Noodle, despite the name is actually more famous for its other food than wonton. I don’t know if people really order wontons here at all. It is a popular spot for late night supper and opens until 2AM.
When we were there past 10:15PM, the place was packed — and noisy as expected of such a place. Walking in, one cannot help but notice the fragrant aroma of herbal soup — which is a specialty of Neptune.
For a busy Chinese restaurant, Neptune’s service is fast and efficient. More importantly, it is not rude … but then they do not smile much. At least one does not feel ignored or offended from poor service as one might get from busy restaurants.
They have a well arranged menu, sectionalized by the hour of availability. It took us a while to figure the sections we should be looking at. Take a look at the menu at the bottom of this post … they have exotic congee and noodles … like Lobster Congee ($14), or Sharkfin with Tossed Noodle ($13) or Abalone with Noodle Soup ($20). Well, you get the idea.
Other than these exotic ingredients, most of their other menu items are pretty cheap at less than $10.
We knew what we wanted here … their famous Hot Pots. This is not the all-you-can-eat hot pot here but specialty hotpot. A lot of tables orders this for supper — with the Drunken Chicken our favourite. There are a few hot pot options on the “Chef Special” on the menu.
We ordered the Drunken Chicken Hot Pot Assorted Plate. The name is kind of confusing but I have you know that this is like a two course hot pot. This costs $27 and is meant for 2 person.
The “first course” is a consists of half chicken. I think this is Free Range Chicken that they provided. It appears firmer, leaner and less fat.
The soup goes changes as we progressed with the meal. It started off with a clear herbal soup with rice wine and wolfberry (in Cantonese, Kei Chee). It has a distinctive “tong kwai” (Anglelica) smell to it — absolutely lovely. More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Chubby Lamb Hotpot Restaurant in Richmond
I can’t remember where the boys were or what they were doing — maybe they were at the movies with the neighbors. After all, it was more than a month ago. Suanne and I found ourselves alone and wondering what to eat for dinner. We drove around for a bit before deciding to go for hot pot. This is only our second hot pot dinner. Our first was at the Posh Sukiyaki Restaurant which we enjoyed a lot.
There are a few Hot Pot restaurants in Richmond but we ended up with one that is located at the restaurant row on Alexandria in Richmond. We blindly selected this place simply from it’s name. Chubby Lamb sounded like a great place.
Being newbies in hot pot, we quickly learned that one MUST make a reservation for hot pot restaurants, especially the popular ones. Actually before we went to Chubby Lamb, we went to another who told us that the next available table is in 2 hours!
Chubby Lamb was better … they told us they can accommodate us walk-in’ers but we have only 1 hour. Take it or leave it, no choice and sorry, they said. Not wanting to go to another place and quite bent on having hot pot that day, we said OK.
Mind you, hot pot places are basically AYCE’s (All-You-Can-Eat) places and so you can imagine how rushed we must have felt to gobble down as much as possible before our 1 hour is up.
BTW, Chubby Lamb charges $17.75 per person.
First, we ordered drinks. They recommended what they call Sour Plum “Soup”. That is the literal translation for this drink … soup. We did not quite like it and such a waste too since they gave us an entire jug of it.
For the hot pot broth, they have lots of choices … about 6 to 8 if I recall correctly. The soup is not free — they charge on top of the $17.75 per head AYCE price. The hot pot broth ranges from $5 to $12.
We opted for the ying-yang … one plain broth and another spicy. It surely does look spicy and were warned clearly enough that they are spicy. To us, it was not too spicy … just alright.
We like their sauces. They gave us four types … sesame, chili, BBQ and the normal soya sauce. It was good experimenting what goes well with what sauce.
The problem is that they do NOT have English order forms. The order forms are in Chinese. They offered to pick for us but … he he he … we said no lest they give us only the cheap stuff. We asked the waitress to read each item for us which we can see she was not too pleased because the place was so busy.
We ended up with quite a lot of food. So much that they had to bring another side table to place the plates.
It was great. Three things I remember about this … (1) the meat was really fresh, (2) the stock was good and (3) the prawns were huge. For the price we paid, it was well worth it.
We ended up taking more than 1 hour. Strange thing is they came and surprised us when they asked if we wanted to order more when our 1 hour is almost up. They sort of insisted we order more and said that there are still more time. I think they allowed us more time because we were conspicuously taking pictures and taking notes of the meal. Being food bloggers have it’s advantages. :-)
The total bill for the two of us came up to $51.35 ($57 with tips). I recommend Chubby Lamb even though it is a bit more expensive than Posh’s. You better make a reservation before you go, especially at peak dinner times.
Their address is 8391 Alexandra Road and their phone number is 604-303-8843.
Click the link below to see what we had.
