a bite of brownie

I've always liked the Marine Gateway complex because it has (almost) everything I want in one place. If I can afford the condos here then I would probably move into this neighbourhood haha

I don't remember when I first tried out the Ban Dao restaurant but it was one of those impromptu dates with my cousin who happens to live nearby. I think we were supposed to watch a movie and we went here for an early lunch.

I've tried most of their dimsum and I would definitely recommend the shrimp rice roll and the xo sauce, the rest were ok, but I was missing the xiao long bao which was conspicuously missing from their menu.

Our usual order consists of the shrimp dumplings, pork siomai, avocado roll - yes I know that's not dimsum but this is Vancouver haha most restaurants have a sprinkling of Japanese food on their fare, my cousin likes the chicken feet and the beef tendon while I enjoy the beef ribs and pork spareribs, the taro with scallop dish is also a crowd favourite. Last time we tried the chicken wings but those weren't really worth it I think, I would still go for Phnom Penh's just for that..

We passed by this place once for dinner and quickly realized that they have a different pricier menu so we skipped it haha Maybe I would come back to try their roasted duck 3 ways and the suckling pig but that requires advanced order so yeah.. not anytime soon..

This will definitely be a go to place for quick dimsum bites, the place is huge and the service is prompt.

Some say it's a bit pricier than most places but I really haven't tried a lot of dimsum joints here to begin with and I feel the preparation here is clean and consistent so I keep coming back.

Rating: 3/5

The test of a good restaurant is if it is consistent in pushing out good dishes and if it improves in the stuff they need to work on based on customer reviews or well just based on their experience. I've been to Captain's Boil five times in the past 8 months (yes that's why I can't fit in my jeans anymore haha) three times at their Kingsway branch, once at their Richmond location, and once at their Yonge branch during my Toronto visit last month. I've ordered different items from their menu on each occasion and I think the only ones I haven't tried yet are the clams (because I'm afraid they'll be chewy) and the chicken slices (because hey why go to a seafood boil if you're going to get chicken!! haha).
This review is a summary of all those dishes I tried.


Sauces:

Captain's Boil - probably the best choice to have a balanced taste of spicy buttery and garlic goodness
Cajun - hotter than the Captain's Boil
Lemon Pepper - a bit bland for my taste, might be good for those who don't want to overpower the seafood taste or those afraid of chili
Garlic Sauce - I tried this on the shrimp but I missed the spice, this should be the choice for the faint of heart.

If you like eating with your hands wrapped in plastic gloves and devouring seafood swimming in sauce served inside plastic bags then this is definitely the place for you. The first time I tried this kind of dining was in California at Kickin' Crab and Craw Daddy and Boiling Crab, what can I say, I'm not a fan of getting food inside plastic bag but it works if you don't mind getting messy, which is probably what's gonna happen anyway when you're eating seafood and cracking shells here and there.. is it worth another visit? Sure! Especially if you don't want to have that mess in the comforts of your dining room, otherwise I say just go buy fresh seafood from the market then cook them at home.

Verdict: 3.5/5

a Japanese street food take on the usual hotdog.

I'm not really much of a hotdog sandwich fan, I mean I like hotdogs on a stick but the bun is a killer for me, I'm not a bread person so I usually discard this part, it does serve as a nice holder for your hotdogs when sticks aren't available so I guess it has some uses.

Japadog started out as a food cart a few years back and I remember the infamous lineups at Burrard just to try these kurobota pork goodness. My favourite is the terimayo (with teriyaki, mayo and seaweed toppings) and the oroshi (with grated radish and soy sauce). I also tried the okonomi (with bonito flakes) but it was a bit too plain for me.


So far I've visited two sit down branches, one at Robson and the other one at McArthur Glenn outlets, I liked the latter one better because it's more airy and spacious. You can also sample all their hotdogs on a platter, without the bun, which I should like theoretically but somehow it's nothing special without all those toppings.


All in all, a Vancouver visit is never complete without trying out this hotdog, it's an east meets west concoction that defines the culture of this city. It's almost like a signature dish like the Chicago dogs although not quite yet.


Verdict: 3/5

Louisiana inspired seafood boil


I've been waiting for the opening of this restaurant since winter last year, mostly because I wanted to try the lobster roll! We visited this place a couple of times and as much as I like their lobster rolls, there's a few other dishes that's worth trying, like the fried frog legs! which, not surprisingly, DOES NOT taste like chicken at all.

Just like Captain's Boil, this seafood restaurant servers their food inside plastic bags, and you will have to use those plastic gloves unless you want to dirty your hands.. am still not a fan of that but hey that's their style.

Ordering here means picking a seafood - lobster, crawfish crab, crab legs, shrimp, clams, mussels, then choosing the sauce: cajun or garlic pepper, and finally choosing the spiciness level - mild, medium, spicy or holy moly, guess what I picked! There's a variety of sides and snacks and I usually pick the calamari and the soft shell crab if I'm not feeling too adventurous.


Although I enjoyed the fare here, and the fact that they don't split the lobster in half, which makes it more instagrammable, I find that the sauce is somewhat lacking. I would definitely prefer the seafood to be swimming in sauce rather than just coated at the top.


However, despite its misses, the staff at their Robson branch is far more attentive that the ones at Captain's boil. I would probably come back just to try the crab roll next time and a few other sides.

Verdict: 3.5/5

who doesn't love fish tacos?

Tacofino is another one of those accidental finds that we discovered while waiting for dinner reservation for yet another restaurant. This time we were planning on trying Pidgin at Carrall Street and on the way there we saw this Gastown gem.

It was happy hour so the menu was priced reasonably and an appie of nachos and fish tacos sounded like a good plan. The surprise order here was the chicken wings which turned out quite well that before I tasted Phnom Penh, I've already given the best chicken wing crown to this joint. A few days later we went back here just to make sure it's not a fluke and tried the steak tacos and chicken tacos plus the quesadilla, I'd still go for the crunchy fish tacos next time and maybe try the dinner menu too but the place is always packed and it's a miracle to not stand in line on both occassions I visited.

There are several branches scattered around the city the only ones I've tried are the Gastown and victoria locations. I like that they have slightly different highlights for each store but the one in Victoria was a hit and miss. Their fish tacos were a bit soggy and not as crisp as the ones in Gastown, but my second visit there was better, they also had some seaweed toppings and an of course, you can't be a millenial Vancouverite without an extra dollop of avocado, which of course costs extra.

I'd like to try the Yaletown and Tofino stores next time and see what fish taco goodness is waiting for me.

Verdict: 3.5/5

Ok. So this restaurant is a tiny little tapas restaurant. I had (yet another) groupon deal for this and I hadn't seen my friend Connie in ages so we met there. I walked in at 6, it is early, and only a couple other tables are seated. It might seat a grand total of 30 people. The walls are white, except for a few spots painted black and marked up with chalk. I love that there is a "blackboard" you can draw on in the bathroom. :)

I've also noticed a bit of a trend... I only blog about restaurants where I have ordered shitloads of food to photograph. Perhaps it is because I don't have anything really witty to say... just love eating. ;)

I started off with a French 75 which was made with a little Bombay Sapphire, some lemon, some cava and a cherry. Mmmm... tasty. (No photo. I drank it too fast!) By the time Connie arrived I was looking forward to our 6 course tasting menu.

Course 1 - Squid Ragu
So the first course was a squid ragu with a piece of garlic toast. This dish, was rather garlicky (which I LOVE) so it was good... but no kissing afterwards. I would have liked to have some more garlic toast to sop up all that ragu goodness. I was glad that there was still some of the baguette left that we started munching on (but at $3 for about a quarter of a baguette... I don't know if the bread was worth it)


Ah... a well cooked scallop is one of the quickest ways to my heart! :) This course was a seared scallop with crispy pancetta on a squash puree and I don't remember what the foam was. The scallop was well cooked and the pancetta - sigh - when isn't crispy bacon good? The squash puree, well, was a bit of an afterthought. It didn't really add too much flavour, although it might have cut the saltiness of the pancetta a bit. And, like I said earlier, I don't remember the foam. :P

Course #3

I think this was one of my favourites. Sea bream (which is actually a rather ugly fish). Cooked beautifully. The skin was super crispy which is the only way that I will eat fish skin. Mmm. It was served over a bed of pine nuts, raisins and something else which my woefully short term memory has forgotten.


Course #4 was my least favourite.

This was the chef's take on "Pork and beans." It was a crispy pork belly seated on creamy beans topped with a quail's egg. Issue #1. Quail's egg wasn't fully cooked. Now I understand that most people like their eggs this way, but I HATE runny egg yolks. Chalk it up to my paranoia about salmonella. Issue #2 the crispy pork belly, while flavour wise was good, texture wise it left much to be desired. The fat in this piece of deep fried pork belly was not cooked and so was soft and chewy rather than rendered down. :( Finally, beans are beans, and they have never been my favourite (other than garbanzo beans in the form of hummus!)

But the chef saved the best savoury dish for last. Lobster risotto. MMMMMMM!!!!
This creamy concoction had loads of flavour and a surprisingly large amount of lobster. What a fantastic end to the tasting menu.

The dinner was summed up with a panna cotta topped with diced pear and a caramel almond crunch. The pear and caramel topper added a nice texture to the creaminess of the panna cotta.


I can't say that this was the best dessert I've ever had, but it was better than the chocolate pudding that I had at the Market by Jean-Georges earlier in the day.

All said and done, I felt like I had eaten too much. Would I go back again? Absolutely! :) I think next time though I won't do the tasting menu and just go for some of their tapas items + the lobster risotto.

Rating: 4/5 Everything wasn't perfect so no perfect score.. but a respectable 4/5 and definitely worth going back for.

So... Entry #2 :) I am not a one hit wonder!

The past few months I have been obsessed with these damn "groupon" sytle coupons which has led to my spending more than a little money on coupons. The one plus side to this is that I get to try out new restaurants once in a while. Japas Bistro was one of these. So, to start off with this restaurant is just 1/2 a block from the Broadway Canada Line Station which makes it super easy to get to. It is a hole in the wall which I would have never set foot into if it wasn't for this coupon that I had.

I would have never ventured out to this restaurant (afterall it is across a bridge!) if it wasn't for the 50% off that I got and I would have missed out on some tasty food. And as an added bonus, it came with a free drink!

The free drink was a watermelon based drink. I think it might have just been blended watermelon. Whatever it was made of... it tasted good. I ordered a 2nd one after. Although at $4 per drink for a non-alcoholic bevie, I might not order it again.

To start my friend Tina and I ate some edamame (no photos since edamame is pretty standard stuff). - oh... and I forgot to take a photo and I didn't think a photo of empty pods would make a good blog post!

Next up came gyoza.
I almost forgot to take photos of this too - which is why it only has 2 gyoza on the plate. I had never seen such long skinny gyoza before. They were tasty. Although, due to the long skinny nature of them, it made for not the greatest form factor for dipping in the sauce if you wanted to be able to avoid double dipping. I would order them again though.


Mmm... Pumpkin croquettes - how can you go wrong? Deep fried goodness. The pumpkin was nice, light and fluffy, the panko crust crispy. My only complaint with this dish was that two halves came on a soy based sauce and two halves on tartar sauce. Since I don't like tartar, this was a miss with me. Next time I order this - if it is still on the menu (I think it is a seasonal thing) I will ask for no tartar sauce.


Any trip to a new Japanese izakaya place would not be complete without trying the ebi mayo. I don't know why this is, because more often than not, I am disappointed. Japas Bistro was ok... not fantastic, but not bad. Pros - I loved the citrus flavour of the orange added to the ebi. Cons - too much mayo made it a little soggy.


Next course... beef short ribs. This one was the only dish I could say I will definitely not order again. The dish wasn't terrible but I much prefer korean galbi. To be honest, I think I liked the cabbage underneath the ribs that had soaked up the sauce better... but perhaps that is because by this point in the meal I was realizing that we hadn't really ordered any veggie dishes.


So this was the final dish, and without question the highlight of the night. Beef sashimi. The sauce was bizarre, but fantastically so. Mustard, olive oil, soy, and a lot of Greek seasoning. Tina mostly tasted the mustard, I mostly tasted the Greek seasoning. Either way we both loved it. I can honestly say that I have never had beef sashimi that tasted like this, and this alone makes this restaurant worth going back for. :)

Overall rating 3.5/5 The lack of ambiance in the restaurant automatically dropped this by a point, the food, was mostly good, with only one meh dish. I'll go back, but there are so many other groupons to use first!

My first post! :D

So... since I had to work over night Saturday into Sunday it seemed like a perfect time to indulge in the chocolate buffet. (I figure I can burn off some of the calories over night!) We arrived at the Sutton Place Hotel to a gaggle of teen and tween girls trying to snap photos of who they thought was Justin Beiber... (turns out it wasn't him though!)

First round:


From left to right, chocolate pecan torte, white chocolate raspberry crumble bar, triple chocolate croissant pudding (essentially bread pudding gone mad!)

The chocolate pecan torte was tasty, the crumble bar - ok, but not my favourite... but ooooo that chocolate croissant pudding... OMG! I almost went back and took seconds of this - but there was still too much to peruse.

Round 2:


From left to right: chocolate cheese cake, white chocolate mousse cake, not sure what the third thing was - there was no label!

The unknown bar was the best of these 3 followed by the cheese cake. The white chocolate mousse cake I could have passed on. I needed a break after these 2 rounds!


Chocolate Profiterole - I think I actually prefer regular profiteroles - Fairmont Hotel Vancouver's are better.

Raspberry White chocolate moussey thing. I can't remember what it was called. :P I was expecting it to be a more solid chocolate rather than mousse. But the raspberry was delicious (I think I was starting to get chocolate exhaustion at this point!) Hence the crepe next:




This was a Grand Marnier crepe with mango passion fruit sauce and Grand Marnier pastry creme on one side and regular whipped cream on the other. This was heaven. The mango passion fruit sauce was divine. I wanted a vat of the stuff.

Next up - can you believe I was still up for more?

Standard chocolate fountain with fruit. I dropped a strawberry in the fountain - but I SWEAR it was intentional - I wanted full chocolate coverage! :D

After the fruit... it was time for dessert!

This was a chocolate truffle cake - at this point it was almost too much chocolate. The side dish to the truffle cake was the dream bar below.

This was a crunchy bar with loads of chocolate and fudge.

It didn't end there.

Banana chocolate cream pie. This one was a bit of a miss. Too much banana, not enough chocolate.

Giving up on the banana chocolate cream pie after a couple bites I moved on to the mocha bar.


Who thought I would need more caffeine after all that chocolate?

So at this point, having tasted (if not finished) all of the above... I needed something to cut all of that chocolate so my final "petite four" portion of my meal was lemon sorbet with more of that delicious mango passion fruit sauce.



And at this point... I am in sugar shock and will not be able to eat sugar for a long long while. (Maybe Monday I can have another piece of chocolate!)

Cost: $26 + tax & tip
Rating: 4/5 not 5 of 5 because it would have been nice to have more dark chocolate, and there was no standard chocolate cake!!! Only a bunch of mousse cakes/tortes/bars!