Did some of you notice that chowtimes.com went off line earlier on today? It was 6 hours long starting from 11PM yesterday. Good thing it happened during those hours when most of you are already fast asleep.

The outage was apparently widespread and impact all virtual dedicated servers hosted in GoDaddy. I was told that the root cause was with their network. For a while I was quite concerned that with the sudden increase of traffic the past few weeks (after chowtimes was mentioned on The Vancouver Sun), it is deja vu all over again.

Anyway we are back in business.

Suanne, Nanzaro and I went out looking for dinner that day about three weeks ago. Arkensen said he did not want to go out insisting he is not hungry and had made instant noodles just an hour earlier. He is smart and I think he planned it that way to avoid going out. He had planned with his friends to play Call of Duty: Black Ops. Have you guys seen that game? It has great graphics.

I can’t play those games anymore. These games belong to the younger generation. For my generation, we only have ONE joystick. I know how to move forward and backward and I know how to look left and right. That’s it. With today’s games, you have TWO joysticks and countless buttons. Not only can you move in all four directions with the new controllers, you can look up, down and every direction. So I tried to play these games with my boys. I get killed within seconds … all the time. Even before I can orientate myself, my boys would shout “Head shot!” and laugh out loud. Yeah, they can aim and shoot in a split second right in the middle of their dad’s temple. I give up! I’ll stick to Solitaire on Windows.

Both Arkensen and Nanzaro doesn’t share friends. Weird huh? Arkensen and his friends doesn’t want to have anything to do with Nanzaro and his friends. It is Arkensen’s game with his friends and the rule is Nanzaro stay out of it. So Nanzaro had no choice but to hang out with mummy and daddy. 🙂

So we drove and was planning to go to a small Malaysian restaurant in Union Square. Strange … they were closed when in fact the sign on the door says that they should be opened. I think they decided to close shop that day because of the snow fall. So we walked around Union Square and decided to go to the Bubble World.

We had never noticed this Bubble World before. I think they are new.

Bubble World … it is a franchise. You get quite a number of them scattered around Metro Vancouver. When they got started, they are more well known for their Bubble Tea outlets. However, this one is different. This one feels more like a restaurant than a bubble tea joint.

The restaurant does look … (more…)

Brrrr … do you feel that today, in particular, had gotten another notch colder? I had my jacket on in the office the whole day. There is a thermostat near where my desk in the office but I think it’s fake. It does nothing no matter what button I press.

He he he … I remember reading articles recently that people install fake thermostat so that people don’t complain and keep calling maintenance to adjust the temperature. Those fake thermostat gives people a false sense of control; a kind of a placebo. In fact it does nothing. I was looking at it this morning and was thinking this thing might be a fake. You think.

The article also mentions that the door close button on elevators is another example. Have you come across that before? The close button doesn’t work and yet people press it. It also gives people a false sense of control when they get impatient waiting for the door to close. Placebo effect?

So I went and try to google placebo effect and guess what I found … this entry on Wikipedia about placebo button. Interesting, eh?

Sorry I was off topic. Let me get back on track.

We are not Bubble Tea people. It’s not that we don’t like it but we always have this perception that BBT places are young people hangouts, not a place for mums and dads.

And don’t ask me why people use the acronym BBT for Bubble Tea and not BT. People had been using BBT for so long that not many people even think that it should have been BT.

But we went to a BBT place anyway. Despite the cold weather and all. We would have loved to go to a hot pot restaurant but we were not hungry and for hot pot you need to be super hungry to have your money worth. So it was the BBT place because they have light snacks and food items.

We went to the Tapioca Express. This is located in the Union Square a few doors away from Liu’s Taiwanese Restaurant and Richmond Sushi. He he he … you should look at that post on Richmond Sushi. It was post #5 on chowtimes.com and it was the first post about eating out. My boys were cuter then and they could sing soprano parts then.

This is quite a big place. As we walked in, we came to a large waiting area where there are several big boards on the wall showing their menu. Most of it is for beverage of course. They do have a small selection of food items too. I remember someone telling me that their Fried Pepper Chicken is pretty good in this restaurant.

Tapioca Express is something like a fast food setup. You order and pay for your food at the counter. We had been here twice before and they have a serious expression. We expected something like how-are-you-doing … or … how-can-I-help-you … or … maybe just a simple “hi”. Instead (both times), they just looked at me and wait for me to say what I wanted. Serious-faced.

After you place the order, they will give you the device above. It is a wireless electronic device which will lights up and plays a tune when your food is ready for collection. Like this:

[vimeo 15907684 w=601 h=451]

I see this quite a bit in the US but I have not come across this in Vancouver myself before. I am sure there are but I have not seen this. In the US, I see a lot of popular chain restaurants (like Cheesecake Factory) use this.

I am saying this because I found out that the Tapioca Express is actually owned by a US company. It is part of the chain with the HQ in Los Angeles. They have only two outlets in Canada, both located in Metro Vancouver — one in Richmond and another on Fraser in Vancouver.

You may click above to enlarge the menu. Most of their drinks is of the $3.50 range. Yeah … every conceivable combinations you can think of, they got it.

The food section (the 3rd and 4th image above) consists of a small selection of snacks, noodles, fried rice, soup, mini hot pot, rice and the section we are coming here for … the Deep Fried section. The Deep Fried items are about $4.50 each.

What we liked most was this one above. It is the Crispy Chicken Skin ($4).

We were asked if we wanted it spicy or not spicy. Of course we went for spicy. Actually spicy … (more…)

Updated: 29th Oct 2014; This restaurant is closed according Urbanspoon.com.

What a transformation.

I could not believe my eyes how Liu’s had upgraded their restaurant just recently. And the food this time made a much better impression on us that it did the first time.

The first and last time we went to Liu’s was 2.5 years ago. Liu’s was tucked in a hidden corner in the Union Square in Richmond. Many people will not notice them because the entrance is partly obscured by big pillars and the huge sign of Richmond Sushi next door drew much of the attention away.

That fist visit to us was just so-so although quite a number of people were raving about them. I guess it was because we failed to order their signature dishes and got some of the not so good ones.

But there are a few winners. The stewed pig intestines left a good impression that they are good in execution of Taiwanese food. The oyster omelette (they call this the oyster pancake) was moist with the eggs partly cooked the way it should be.

Also unique is their House Special Milk Tea. They use whipped cream to top them. Until today, I had not come across any other restaurants using whipped cream on milk tea like below.

This time we are back because of this newspaper clipping. I had been hearing buzz of their re-opening for a little while already but I did not really paid much attention. With the Hated Sales Tax, the 10% discount with the ad came in handy.

Looking at the newspaper ad, I was not expecting a lot of transformation. I thought it was quite weird to advertise that they have “3 new 46″ LCD TVs”. I mean, big deal right? Who actually will go to a restaurant to watch TV anyway?

The above was how Liu looked like 2.5 years ago. They had been operating like this for 14 years already.

The below is how Liu looked like 2.5 years later … with the addition of three 46″ LCD TV.

Our jaws dropped when we walked in. This is no longer the old Liu’s.

Besides the 3 TV, they should have also mentioned the chandelier, the plush new chairs and new tables. Actually, I think they would have made a larger impact if they had advertised how the insides looked like.

It is like Liu had thrown down the gauntlet to the big boys of Taiwanese Cuisine in Richmond. They actually look a lot like Pearl Castle with the fancy blue light thingy on one side of the wall.

It is definitely more modern. Gone are the family run hole in the wall look. We wonder what brought about the change. It is not easy to change so dramatically. With the “new menu” mentioned on the ad, we were wondering if the management is still the same. Anyone know?

So this is their new menu. It also tells their hours. They are opened for lunch and dinner Monday to Friday with a break in service between 3:30PM and 5:30 PM.

The combos are still there. I felt the prices are higher but I don’t know. I thought they had always been on the cheaper side compared to other Taiwanese restaurants and now the prices are on par with them.

If you like Taiwanese food, it is worth checking out their menu as it is quite extensive. The last image on the right is where the Chef’s Special is. You may click on the images above to read it.

Started off with an appetizer. Come to think of it, we had been ordering cucumber appetizer a lot lately.

This is called Taiwanese Style Cucumber ($4). We had mostly been having a lot of spicy cucumber appetizers in Sichuan restaurants. So we wanted to see what a Taiwanese style appetizer looked like.

If you like garlic (which we do) … and lots of it (like we do) … and I mean lots of it, you will love this dish. The garlicky spiciness and sweetness of this cucumber appy is what makes this different. It is served cold. The cucumber, while good, could have been better if it is a lot more fresher tasting.

This is the dish that everyone was telling me I should have tried in Liu’s the last time I was there. They serve this with rice as a lunch special back then and it was popular because it was cheap and really tasty.

They do serve this with rice but we did not want to have rice that night. So we just ordered the chicken only version called … Deep Fried Chicken Legs (3 pieces) $5.25.

I now know what everyone mean when they said I should have tried this … (more…)