a bite of brownie

For quick and cheap Chinese eats, T&T Supermarket offers a wide selection of hot and cold dishes for people on the go. I was craving for dim sum so I went ahead and ordered the shrimp dumplings and the pork siomai. The dumpling wrapper was too thick, I never eat those stuff so I removed them and went ahead to eat what's inside. I don't think it tasted anything like shrimp but then again if it's less than a dollar per piece, I guess I got what I paid for. The pork siomai tasted the same, the only difference was the color and the shape.

Not satisfied with the dim sum, I also ordered the roasted duck and bbq pork combo. After watching Food Inc. the night before, I guess I'm not that appreciative of meat anymore. I think I'm gonna go ahead and change my entire diet to seafood and veggies. That documentary made me sick.

Verdict:
N: 1.0/5.0

T&T Supermarket - Metrotown
4800 Kingsway Burnaby, BC

If you are ever up for a large plate of pasta and around an hour lineup, the you ought to visit this place. Anton's Pasta Bar is famous for the queues that form on its doorsteps starting 7pm. The only other place I tried here in Vancouver that has this long wait time is Stepho's Souvlaki Greek Taverna at Davie.

The great thing about this place is their big servings, I think they even hand out a prize for people who actually finish a whole plate by themselves. Seriously, the food is massive, it could feed 3 people.

On my first visit, I think I tried an oil based pasta sauce, and on the second visit I ordered the seafood risotto. This time I tried one of their specialty dishes, the Fusilli New Orleans, which was not as spicy as the pasta I cook, but it was ok, I finished maybe 1/5 of the plate. I also tried a bite of lasagna, and that was way better, I'm gonna order that next time. It just takes 30 minutes to prepare.

Our orders:

Meat Lasagna

Fusilli New Orleans: scallops, sausages, prawns, chicken, red & green peppers in a spicy Cajun sauce

Herb Penne Genovese: sun dried tomatoes & mushrooms in a tomato pesto sauce

Verdict:
N: 4.0/5.0 [-1 because of the lineup]

Anton's Pasta Bar
4260 Hastings Street Burnaby, BC

Still not done with my fill of Korean food, so I visited this quaint little place just across NCIX, right after I checked out the D10. I remember eating here once with a friend and I ordered the same dish I ordered before. What else would I want from a Korean restaurant? Galbi of course.

The neat thing about this restaurant, or probably it's a standard in any Korean food place, are the side dishes. I got five - soup, kimchi, bean sprouts, broccoli and sweet potato. While I did like all of them, I would have traded the bean sprouts and sweet potato for radish kimchi or other vegetable side dish.

I would definitely come back to this place and try something else from their menu, everything looks good!

Verdict
N: 4.0/5.0 [-1 because I think the Cho Sun sweet potato is better than this version]

Happy Day Metro House
5021 Kingsway in Burnaby, BC

After carrying my stuff and moving them to storage, we decided to grab some snacks to replenish the *lost* energy. It was a toss between cinnabon and bubble tea, the latter emerged victorious.

The new bubble tea place along Kingsway was seated right on a major intersection so it was hard to miss. It was cold and windy but I got the lychee slush with coconut jelly and we also tried the taro pancake.

The slush gave me brain freeze but it was so good. The taro pancake also turned out great. It was basically taro wrapped in batter and deep fried, so it's crunchy on the outside but soft and sweet on the inside. Reminded me of deep fried Mars bars (deep fried what? that's another story =)).

Verdict:
N: 3.0/5.0

Tea Time Bubble Tea
Kingsway, Burnaby BC

I've been trying to find out the name of this place but it's all in Chinese characters so I don't know, I guess I will just have to call it that Taiwanese Noodle place near Green Basil in front of Metrotown, really long name but I'm sure locals will find it.

This place has only five tables so it gets really packed especially during dinner. I used to always walk by this street looking for it but couldn't find it, I thought it closed down for good, but it turned out that they are closed during Mondays, and since they don't really have a proper sign except for all those Chinese characters, you wouldn't really know that it was a restaurant. The place was so small, it looked like a barber shop.

On to the food, my favorite dish here is their beef tendon, and that's what I ordered. My friend got the mapo tofu, which was also good. The pickled bamboo shoots really stank but it tasted ok too. All in all this is a hole in the wall kind of place that locals really love to go to. If people are willing to wait 30 minutes for a table, then it must be really good.This family owned restaurant should definitely expand their place soon.

Verdict:
N: 3.5/5.0 [-1.5 because of the long wait to be seated]

Taiwanese Noodle Place
462x Kingsway Burnaby, BC

Just before we watched Sherlock Holmes, we decided to grab a quick dinner at Sui Sha Ya. I think the only striking thing about the place is its signage and ambience when you enter the it, makes you think you're going to an expensive sushi place, which it actually is compared to others I've been to, but not really as good at all.

We chose the AYCE menu and got more than we can finish. We picked the miso soup, ebi sunonomo, kimchi, chicken teriyaki, ebi and veggie tempura, ika karaage, chicken karaage, house roll, crab cone, salmon sashimi, tuna sashimi, spicy salmon sashimi, spicy tuna sashimi, unagi, tobiko, cuttlefish and grilled beef short ribs.

It was a lot, and yes there were only two of us to finish all those. I have tried a lot of AYCE sushi places and several other Japanese restaurants here but I haven't really been to one that is owned by a Japanese. It's usually owned by Koreans or Chinese, not that I'm complaining but wouldn't it be more authentic if food from a certain country is actually served by people from that same region?


Anyway, nothing from the dish really stood out, I'm not sure if we should have tried one of each item on the menu but that would have been food coma and we would be falling asleep on the movie house. One thing I noticed though was that the unagi was actually twice as long as the rice ball and not as sweet as it is on other sushi places - which works for me. They were also generous with their grilled short ribs servings, one of my favorites.

Verdict:
N: 2.0/5.0 [-3 because sushi is a dime a dozen in Vancouver and this one didn't justify its hefty price tag]

Sui Sha Ya Japanese Restaurant
4820 Kingsway, #236 Burnaby, BC