All Entries Tagged With: "Vancouver"

Chowtimes Readers Dinner at 12B Underground Kitchen

This is just a quickie post since I had already done an in-depth review of Chef Todd’s 12B Underground Kitchen in this post here.

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 on following page. Click here to continue reading

Nancy Wonton House on Victoria Drive and 37th Ave, Vancouver

Come to think of it, we had never quite cared about Wonton Noodles.

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 on following page. Click here to continue reading

Sha Lin Noodle House on Broadway and Cambie, Vancouver

It was another one of those days when we had to send the boys to their Olympic Ceremony practices. We had given up trying to get any info from them. Our fear is that we will NOT be able to watch it on TV on the day of because we could end up having to wait to pick them up after the Olympic closes. We’ll see.

Oh talking about the Olympic Ceremony, the response to the Olympic Opening Ceremony Dress Rehearsal give away had been overwhelming. So far we have over 230 responses after 2 days. Just a reminder that we will cut off all entries at 12:01AM this Thursday.

This time we went to Sha Lin Noodle House for a late lunch after the boys practices. Sha Lin is on Broadway near the intersection with Cambie. If you want to come here the next few weeks, you should know that Broadway is designated as an Olympic lane — and that means no more street parking. The best way is to take the SkyTrain and get off at the Broadway/City Hall station.

Sha Lin Noodle House had always been a very popular eatery. The main draw is the good authentic Chinese food and the prices. They had been operating here for a long time already — at least 10 years old.

Many customers will stand and gawk at the poster at the entrance of their popular dishes before going in. We did. All of them looked delicious. Makes us want to get all of them.

Don’t expect much from Sha Lin. The place is rather spartan and does shows its age. The place was full even when we were there after lunch hours at 2PM.

Service here is bad — really bad. Most of the waiters and waitresses have really bad attitude and walk/talk so listlessly. Youngsters! It is like they hate their job, their life or something. If not for the great service of that lone tall slim waiter who tried his best to placate us, we would have left.

This is the kind of place that had success gone to their heads. They have so many customers that they can’t handle, they seem to think that they don’t mind losing customers. This is sad because their food is pretty good. I hate to say this but we like the food for the most part.

For starters we ordered the Sliced Rolls (fried). This is just $2.95. I recommend you order this.

The fried rolls is served with condensed milk as a dip. So it is a very sweet dish. The deep fried bread dough was just perfect — crispy outside, soft inside.

We know that our boys will like it but they will always instinctively reject anything we order for them. Especially Nanzaro, who will put up an act when we asked him to try other food. He will put both his hands over his mouth and make it look like he is going to throw up. He is very convincing in doing this but not to us. He had been doing this ever since he is a toddler and is now a habit.

We normally let them be but this time we were extra assertive that they must try a piece. Guess what? They loved it.

Arkensen said it tasted like donuts. I never thought of it that way before but he is right. And Nanzaro? He flashed me a thumbs up and said “You rock, Dad”.

See? Dad knows best when it comes to food. Nanzaro knows that but he just doesn’t want to give his dad the credit he deserved.

We also ordered 2 sticks of Kabob to share. They were cumin flavoured and were very spicy — we asked for the hottest they can make it.

The meat was a bit dry and tough but it was OK. It took a bit of chewing to down them but it was the whole point because you really can taste the full flavour of the kabob.

Sha Lin is well know for their hand made noodles. They classify them as dragging, cutting, rolling and pushing noodles.

Arkensen ordered the most common type, the dragging noodles. The one he had came with beef and bean sprout in soup which is $7.

Served on the side is a plate of … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Wicked Cafe on W 7th Ave and Hemlock St., Vancouver

Polly and I wanted to check out the street car installed for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic which travels between the Olympic Village Canada Line Station and Granville Island from Jan 21 to March 21.  So, we had our Friday cake meet at Wicked Cafe at 1399 W 7th Ave and Hemlock St., which is on the way to Granville Island.

It was a bright sunny day with some chill in the air. When we arrived at Wicked Cafe around 11:00 am., it was absolutely full house. We had to sit at the patio even though it’s a bit chilly. Fortunately, the sun was out and seated at the patio felt like a spring day.

Polly had a Latte for $2.90. It is very common for coffee shop to serve latte with some latte art. If you like latte art, check out this post and click on more for some amazing latte art.

I decided to have a Chai Latte for $3.55 since… More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Tangthai Cuisine of Thailand on Robson and Denman, Vancouver

Complete Disclosure:
Suanne and I were invited by the Tangthai Cuisine of Thailand for a tasting session. This post is based upon the complimentary tasting session.

Some of the best Thai cuisine restaurants that we had tasted was at Tangthai on Broadway. I still remember that visit to Tangthai. It was just the day before we went on a 3 week gastronomic vacation to Spain (Barcelona, Seville and Madrid). It was a rush for us but we went nevertheless. Our mind was clearly not on blogging but it turned out to be more than we expected.

We were impressed at the tasting during summer at Tangthai Broadway and how Dhitichaya Ruengsamarnwong worked so hard to bring authenticity to her restaurant and her food. See our previous blog posting on Tangthai Broadway here.

Since our last visit, Tangthai had just opened another restaurant with the same name. This new one is located on Robson at the intersection with Denman.

With floor to ceiling glass walls in front, Tangthai on Robson looks a lot more inviting. As we walked into the restaurant, Suanne and I were surprised that Dhitichaya pasted a poster of our review on the entrance of the restaurant. We are just small time bloggers and seeing our post in a poster form was simply surreal. LOL!

Location wise, this new Tangthai restaurant is way better than the one on Broadway. There are lots of foot traffic for sure.

Assisted by her husband, Deo, the main person behind Tangthai is Dhitichaya Ruengsamarnwong. It is such a long name that I am sure that most people will find it hard to remember. So, Suanne and I just called her by her nickname, Sonia.

The Tangthais of Vancouver is an offshoot of a successful Thai restaurant called Padthai in Edmonton.

Tangthai tries to differentiate itself by being authentic. It is pretty evident as we walked through the doors and greeted with Thai carvings and statues.

The dining area is adorned with wooden panel carvings. Even the carved table tops were made in Thailand and shipped to Canada. While it was a very nice and pleasant dining area, it is still a little rough around the edges. This is coming from a perfectionist me although I understand that they had just started operation just a few weeks back.

Tangthai has a two level dining area. At the time we were there, only the ground floor is opened to the public. Sonia told us that the upstairs dining area is just days from opening as they put in the finishing touches. I felt that the upstairs dining area would be a great place for people-watching because it overlooks the busy Robson street.

Suanne and I were not alone this time.

When Sonia contacted us that they wanted to invite us to a media event of sorts to introduce the new Tangthai restaurant, we expressed that we will not like to go to an event that we just jostle with hoards of people and sample minuscule morsels of food. I think food bloggers should be treated with more respect than that! So, I suggested that it would be more meaningful for us if we have a proper sitdown dinner and sample proper food in a proper setting. Sonia liked the idea and then said “bring along your friends too”.

So we brought along friends … quite a lot of them. Blogger friends!

Suanne and I decided to invite some of the very best and most prolific Vancouver area food bloggers along for this tasting. Can you recognize any of them above? The ones that attended are:

• Sherman of Sherman’s Food Adventures
• Mijune of Follow Me Foodie
• Kevin of 604FoodToGraphy
• Jenny of My Secret Eden

I’ll put up a link to their reviews here the moment they post theirs. There were a couple other bloggers who could not make it unfortunately.

We started off with something called the Prawn Skirt ($9 for four). We had this before and it is good. It is like spring rolls except that they used better ingredients. It is stuffed with prawn, minced crab meat and water chestnut which gives a very distinct texture.  With the sweet chili dipping sauce, it is a good combination.

Too bad we were eating this with friends. This is because I can only do one dipping on the sauce. If I am with Suanne, I will dip into the sauce before each bite.

The Prawn Skirts were followed by another appetizer. This is Beef and Chicken Satay (4 for $7).

Hah! I did not know that Thais have satay. As far as I know, only Malaysia and Indonesia lay claim to having invented the satay. One of these days Malaysia and Indonesia could go to war over this claim. OK I am exaggerating but at times this is a heated topic.

But Sonia insisted that satay is as much Thai as it is Malaysian or Indonesian. I give her the benefit of the doubt.

There are a lot of similarities to the Malaysian satay but there are also some subtle differences that makes it unique.

It appears that the marinate used is largely similar particularly the use of tumeric which gives it the yellowish tint. I told Sonia that there is a big flaw on her satay and that is the absence of chicken skin. LOL! No seriously. In Malaysia, the best satays have the skin on the skewer which makes it more juicy. I understand why she did not have it because Vancouverites are such health freaks.

The peanut sauce is smooth and creamy unlike the original Malaysian version which is peanuty and chunky. My expectations are biased to the Malaysian version but in all fairness the satay is pretty good.

Tom Kha Kai. That is spicy chicken coconut soup ($4).

Tangthai uses lean chicken meat in the coconut milk based soup. The soup was rich and lightly spicy. We find that this soup is thicker than what we normally get elsewhere. This is delicious. Personally, I would have prefer to try Tom Yam simply because Tom Yam is a national dish of Thailand.

The first thing I noticed when the dish came was the food carving.

One of the thing we vividly remember from our last visit to Tangthai Broadway was their very impressive food carving. It seems like they had tone this down a little and not as spectacular here.

This dish is called Pla Rad Prik  ($16). This is deep fried tilapia with sweet and sour sauce. The sauce is more on the sweet side than it is sour which I prefer for fishes.

Tangthai deep fried this so crisp that the some parts of the bones and fins are brittle enough to eat.

No one touched the head. Good!

I know Suanne would want to pick the flesh. She always does but in the presence of people she did not. Not me.

I had it … all mine!

Sonia told us that this is a new dish she had just introduced to the menu. So we are kind of a guinea pig of hers for this new dish. LOL!

This is called Pla Mul Pad Prik ($16) or Stuffed Squid in Green Curry Sauce. Nestled among the squid is pieces of fig.

Sonia said that this is a common dish in Thailand. This dish has a pronounced lemon grass flavour. Although lacking in color, it is quite spicy. I would say unexpectedly spicy despite knowing that it is curry.

The squid is stuffed primarily with … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

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

DB Bistro Moderne on West Broadway, Vancouver

The one meal I had always looked forward to each week is Friday dinner with Suanne. It is not that you don’t already know that if you had been following this blog.

The one place we had always wanted to go to is DB Bistro Moderne. Frankly, we held back from going there because it is not exactly cheap and requires a special occasion to justify it … until now.

DB Bistro Moderne is located on West Broadway. It is just next door to its more illustrious sister restaurant, Lumiere. Just a few doors away is a place called Moderne Burger. DB Bistro Moderne and Moderne Burgers are two totally different and unrelated restaurants. Just thought we point out the obvious.

Before DB Bistro Moderne came to being, this was Feenie’s which we blogged about oh, so long ago. It is a long story and so I won’t go into that. Needless to say, it is stuff that one could creatively write a story about Feenie’s rise to fame (and fall). Did you know I worked with Rob Feenie before? A few years ago, I was the Project Manager for the launch of a range of high end home appliance in Canada. We had Rob Feenie do a demo and invited the media and public. Gosh, I still can’t believe the bucks the company paid for a 1 hour appearance.

Enough of Feenie … today DB Bistro Moderne is inspired by another great chef, Daniel Boulud of New York.

I had no idea. We had assumed that DB Bistro Moderne a lot like Feenie’s. We were wrong. This is certainly more upscale than Feenie’s ever was.

As usual, Suanne and I went very early at 5:30PM. That was the time that DB Bistro Moderne opens for dinner. We were the first one there. So it is kind of misleading seeing a lot of empty tables above. The place was absolutely filled by 6PM.

With dim lights and soft music, the ambiance was beautiful and it was perfect for a dinner date. The place is very dim for picture taking but who other than us takes pictures in dinner, right? Wrong! When we were there we could see TWO other tables taking pictures of their food too. Gosh, I have a feeling that this is getting so common that restaurants is so used to this nowadays.

As expected, service was excellent … and very French-y. Too French-y for us. We were surprised by some Amuse-bouche. As much as we tried to understand what it is called, we couldn’t understand, despite asking twice. Rather than end up looking stupid, we decided not to get the server say it a third time. Some Frenchy name. All we got was that it is some kind of cured fish. There you go. But nice touch!

Our server told us that their special of the day is Prime Ribs. Well, it was not just called Prime Ribs but a very longish description that really captivated us. It is one of those sharing plates. You know, big big portions for two people that many restaurants are doing these days. Our server was doing such a great job in describing that I was having half a mind already of ordering that. Then she said “This is $40 …”. Oh … interesting … now we are talking.

And she added “… per person”. Hmmm … on second thought maybe we’ll get the burger instead.

Le Bread came next. Pardon my French but this is what I call Le Bread de la Excellente. Very good, very nice.

There is even three different types and served with butter. The first is cheesy and crusty. The second was herb-y and soft. The third was regular baguette.

We gobbled that down rather quick. The server came and asked if we wanted more. “Of course” we said. We had more.

Two things was on my mind before I came. It was “foie gras” and “burger”. I was quite set on getting that. We finally decided get between the two of us a selection from the prix fixe menu ($35) … and a burger and … a foie gras appetizer.

Foie Gras. I said I can’t remember if I had this before. Suanne said I had and I had forgotten. Whatever right? If I can’t remember, I might as well not had foie gras before. Well, at least not as big as this.

I think they call this Torchon. Twenty one bucks. This was not on the menu and we were told this is the special of the day. The foie gras is made in a pate with a fig in the center … and …

… served with fig puree and 2 very crispy toast. Two very, very toasty crispy toast. Four would have been perfect’er.

Smoooooth … is how we say the foie gras is. Now I can say I had tried foie gras before … that is until I forget again.

Très joli mais vingt-et-un bucks … courtesy of Google Translate.

The above is called the country duck terrine. It is the appy part of the $35 Prix Fixe menu.

With onion compote, whole grain mustard, home made pickles scattered all over the plate, we debated how to deal with this. They even had sea salt and pepper placed in the corners of the plate that we almost missed because it was dim and that there was just a small portion on the side.

This is IT.

This is what I always wanted to try. I call this the twenty-eight bucks burger. They call this the New York’s Original DB Burger.

I don’t think I had ever tried a more expensive burger in my life. For twenty eight bucks it had to be perfect. It WASN’T!!!

Well, let me explain … More on following page. Click here to continue reading