Just last week, I blogged about our breakfast at the Cafe Medina. One of the more popular items at Cafe Medina is their Belgian waffles which is not surprising given that it is a Belgian owned restaurant. In that blog post, Jonnek responded in a comment informing us that there is a Belgian waffle place in Steveston. That reminded us of the post we read just weeks ago from Yum-O-Rama of that same place.

What we learned about this unassuming place was surprising. Read on …

It is called Damien’s Real Belgian Waffles. It is located in the picturesque Steveston Village in Richmond. More precisely, it is on Chatham and No 1 Road, just slightly to the west of No 1 Road.

The sign outside is so small that you can’t pick up the name Damien written on the logo of a boy holding a waffle. We learned later that the name and the logo does not matter as much. It is the words “Real Belgian Waffle” that is more important.

Since it was just a short drive from our home and I was not working on Friday, we decided to go to Damien’s for breakfast after our boys went to school. Damien opens at 9AM and so we went close to their opening time so that we can get freshly made waffles.

It was a bright spacious place with a few tables scattered in a smallish eating area. We could see way to the back where Philippe and Miho Leroux were working. Damien’s does not look like they have lots of customers coming for breakfast here. As a matter of fact, we were the only customers.

With no walkin customers other than us, we were kind of surprised to see them making hundreds of waffles.

Their offerings are mainly waffles. Anyway we were there for the waffles only.

I opted for the Breakfast Waffle combo. For $5, I get to choose one waffle from a selection which includes … vanilla, white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate and matcha. It also includes a choice of coffee or tea. I had the coffee which was made with a French Press. An extra waffle is $1.90.

The above is my selection — the dark chocolate and the milk chocolate. The raspberry thingy that came with it does not go well with the choc waffles I thought. It would be great with the plain ones.

The Damien’s restaurant is run by a husband and wife team. Philippe Leroux was the man behind these waffles. He is French and had worked in many restaurants in Europe as a pastry chef before he took over Damien’s about 2.5 years ago. Miho (who is Japanese) came over to chat with us when she saw us taking pictures. Suanne and I thought they make a lovely couple.

Miho proudly informed us that their waffles uses real butter, no eggs, no preservatives and no oil.

Suanne went for their Plated Dessert. It is called the Supreme Matcha and Truffle. This is $5 and does not include the beverage like what I had.

Even looking at it you will know it is very chocolatey — it was! It was too chocolatey for me but Suanne loves sweet things like this. This includes a white chocolate roll, a chocolate wafer, chocolate sauce and of course the chocolate truffle.

These two waffles are not freshly made. Miho explained that it is too early and they had just started to make them for the morning and that they can start baking it after proofing. When we were almost done, the whole place was filled with the sweet aroma of freshly made waffles.

So we asked Miho for another piece, a freshly made one and plain so that we can taste the real goodness of their waffles with simple maple syrup. It was good … very soft and yet crunchy on the outside. Miho said that if you want fresh made ones, it will be at around 10-11AM.

For those of you who like the Belgian Waffles from Cafe Medina … here is an info for you. Damien’s supplies the waffle dough to Medina Cafe! So if you like Medina Cafe, this is where the waffles actually came from. Now we know why they have hundreds of waffle dough being proofed when there were no one else but us the morning we were there. It seems like their primary business is wholesale, not really retail.

With that info, perhaps you should check them out if you are in the neighborhood.

Damien’s does sell their Waffles to go and by the boxes of 6 ($11) to 10 ($17.50). Each waffle costs $2.25 and it is $2.50 for those with the more expensive chocolate flavour.