For those not with Twitter, I tweeted that I would be coming up to Whistler yesterday to work for the 2010 Olympics. I’ve settled into my tiny room within a storage container, and things are okay up here. Just waiting on HR to let me know what my schedule is. For today, I don’t have any work so I’m going to head out to the Whistler Village and see what’s going on.

I don’t want to flood this blog with things unrelated to food, so I suggest that you bookmark and subscribe to my Tumblr if you’re curious as to what I’m doing up here. I do anticipate having posts about the local Whistler eateries though…and perhaps even some Vancouver ones as well. Yep, I’m gonna be in two places at once.

Also, I will constantly be uploading pictures to my Flickr set so keep checking that too!

Cheers.

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2010. | Permalink | 1 comment | Add to del.icio.us

This post will be a double whammy feature, with both myself and Jeff providing the commentary. This is great for you AND me because he may cover things that I may have left out & vice versa. It also means you, the reader, have a hell of a lot more to read. Enjoy!

For ease of reading, Kevin’s thoughts will be in GREEN, and Jeff’s will be in BLUE.

Jeff was my company for the night, and also my notetaker. The first time I’ve ever had to resort to taking notes at a restaurant, mainly because of the sheer amount of food I knew we would be having and also because of the unfamiliar names we would undoubtedly happen upon.

He would have been totally lost without me.

Ben of Chowtimes invited me and some other bloggers for a tasting at TangThai downtown. He had already reviewed their first location on Broadway, and they contacted him for help with their newest endeavour into the competitive downtown core. His suggestion for a blogger dinner was taken into account and here we were on a weekday night.

Thank you to Sonia and Deo for inviting us and Ben for organizing this event. It was a pleasure meeting some of the top food bloggers Vancouver has to offer and the passion that these people have for food is unreal.

In attendance was Sherman (Shermans Food Adventures, you can see him just to the right in the below picture), Jenny & Ricky (Secret Eden), Mijune (Follow Me Foodie), Jeff and I (604 Foodtography), and Ben and Suanne (Chow Times).

Before the meal began, Sonia and Deo (the owners) came out to personally greet us. From outside (1st picture) you can see they have an upstairs portion of the restaurant. Unfortunately, they were still waiting for some furniture to arrive so it wasn’t open for public yet. They did let us upstairs to take a look. From up there, there’s a nice eagle eyes view of the space downstairs, and you can even peek into the kitchen a bit. The space does hold a commanding view of the street below, and I foresee it being extremely busy up there come summertime.

The inside is beautifully decorated with Thai statues, sculptures and other pieces of art.

Menus? Where we’re going, we don’t need menus.
We didn’t need them because Sonia would be our host, chef & server tonight. She had free reign to bring out anything, as she felt strongly about her food and wanted to let it speak for itself.

Sonia also wanted us to try some of her new dishes before they were put on the menu. Nothing wrong with being a guinea pig at times I suppose.

It is however a really pretty menu. The back page showed all the different spices that are commonly used in Thai cuisine. At this time of writing, they now have a liquor license so some Singha beer would be good to go with whatever you order. Not that I would have had one were they available when we went, cause I’m still on that cleanse. Sigh.

How long do you think Kevin can go without alcohol? Think he can last until July?

One of my pet peeves is that exotic cuisines are frequently watered down to suit all tastes. This could be either the spicy level, or even the flavors are watered down. My thoughts are that if you are bringing foreign food to Vancouver, you should bring the real thing. Don’t pussy around and try to appeal to the masses, remain true to the food and the customers will come. I liked that the 5 star rating said “Welcome to Thailand! ”. Kind of cheeky, but it’s appreciated.

1. Prawn Skirt (prawns, pork, crab meat, and water chestnut) $8.95/4

We started off with something familiar, spring rolls. These were packed to the brim with ingredients though, it was really surprising. Full of meat and more meat, the water chestnuts familiar crunchiness and sweet flavor provided the counterbalance. Real crab meat was used, but it was shredded up so it was hard to tell it was in there.

These were quite tasty. The crab seemed to have been overpowered by the other flavours but a good start to the meal. Crispy without being oily, just like how mom makes them.

2. Satay Chicken & Beef w/ peanut sauce $13.50/8

The others will probably say something like the peanut sauce wasn’t true peanut sauce, but I found it okay. The satays both had a strong curry taste to them though, which is something I’m not too familiar with for satays.

Sonia had mentioned that Thai satay is a little different from the more popular Malaysian satay. One of the differences is the addition of turmeric as you can see, gives off a yellowish colour to the food. I was only able to try the beef satay and it was okay. The peanut sauce looks different than what I’m used to, but I didn’t think anything of it. Perhaps this was the Thai version of the sauce?

3. Tom Kha Kai (spicy chicken coconut milk soup) $3.95

This soup was deceiving. It looks harmless sitting there, all white and innocent, but the hidden spice lingered long after the last sip. Delicious!

This was good. REALLY good. Pieces of chicken and peppers compliment the broth nicely. This was deceivingly spicy. HOWEVER, I vaguely remember Sonia telling Ben that this was made to be more spicy than usual. I wrote it down somewhere but Kevin has the notes. If you’re afraid of this being too spicy, double check with the server. This is too good of a dish to pass up on because it might be too spicy.

After the appetizers and soups were taken away, we were given some rice to accompany the main dishes that would be coming out shortly.

4. Pla Rad Prik (fried tilapia with spicy, sweet and sour sauce) $15.95

Please note that the giant cockatiel garnish is not usually served with this dish, obviously Sonia was looking to impress us. While it was a nice touch, it wasn’t necessary. I would never want to lead a reader astray into thinking that they could order the same dish and receive it exactly like they saw on this blog.

I believe we all agreed that the fish was a tad overfried. If that was the purpose, then yes, it was fine. It not, then that took away from this. I only had a little of this and from what I remember, it was okay. Nothing impressive, nothing bad.

Most of my friends know that aside from a few exceptions, I do NOT eat fish. Well, basically it’s just Asian styled fish that I refuse to eat (sashimi excluded). I’m not exactly sure how my displeasure for fish started though. That being said, I did try some of this. Because of my lack of experience with fish, I can’t really comment too much on it. It seemed a bit overdone but we were told it’s supposed to be prepared like that. The sauce was really good though, excellent on top of some rice.

5. Stuffed Squid w/ Green Curry

Oh what a delight this was. This was something new the kitchen had made and we were the first ones to try it out. Talk about faith in themselves!

At first glance, I thought the green quarters (just left of the bottom center) were tomatillos, or even heirloom tomatoes. Turns out they were figs! I’ve never had figs in a cooked dish before so that was nice. They were a pretty neutral flavour. See the little pea like thing scattered around?? At first we thought they were peas, but then what kind of steroid peas are these? I avoided eating one till someone did, and they commented that it was very bitter.  We found out that they were in fact, baby figs. Figs & baby figs, I like the creative use of non conventional ingredients like this.

The green curry was delicious. Didn’t find it too spicy but like the sauce with the fish, great with some rice. In fact, after the squid was all gone, some people had taken this dish just to get some of the curry.

Not entirely sure what was stuffed inside the squid, but I can guess that there was pork & some vegetables. This was a hit for me, and I hope they put this onto the regular menu, if they haven’t already done so.

The curry wasn’t the only good part of the dish for me. I’ve never had a stuff squid before but this was very good. I have no idea what was inside though.

6. Nua Pad Thakhai (beef with lemongrass and vegetables) $13.95

Again, deceiving! Doesn’t look too spicy but for me, at least, this was the spiciest of everything we had. It was good though, really had a nice kick of spice that didn’t overpower the other flavours, the lemongrass especially.

With Asian cuisine, some dishes must be served with rice. This is one of them. Rice is great with spicy or saucy dishes. A lot of the others had actually stopped eating this dish to preserve their tastebuds for other dishes. Oh well, more for me!

7. Fried Eggplant and Basa Fish $??

This was the second dish that they were testing out. Deep fried eggplant slices with deep fried basa fish chunks. Not sure what the sauce is on top, but it was a curry of some sort. The mildest dish we had, I would like this to be added to the regular menu as well. The slices of eggplant could be thicker, as it wasn’t clearly evident from tasting it that it was indeed, eggplant.

This was a good dish. I enjoyed the breaded eggplant although I agree that the slices could have been bigger. Again I had some of the fish but I’m not going to comment on that.

I think it was around this time when we noticed that the restaurant was FULL! Imagine that, on a Wednesday night and they had a full house.

8. Herb Chicken BBQ w/ Thai Sauce (1/2 order) $??

Choosing not to comment on this because I don’t remember anything about it.

This was not on the menu. The chicken was a bit dry. Nothing really special in my mind. It is a good match with the sauce though. It would come to $16.95 I think.

9. Pad Thai Krung Tep (rice noodle dish w/ a tamarind-based sauce) $12.95

Traditional pad thai is supposed to be brown in color since it’s made with a tamarind sauce. The pad thai that you may be more familiar with is most likely reddish, and that’s a result of the westernization and bastardization! Not to put down this, but I think it was just a matter of timing. If this had come out earlier or even first to open our appetites, it would have been a lot better than at the end because the flavors were completely lost on us as our tastebuds were overwhelmed at this point.

At first, it was confusing why this pad tasted so differently than the ones available throughout the city. Then we realized that what Vancouverites are accustomed to isn’t actually traditional pad thai.

This dish came at the end and I agree, it would have been better earlier. The texture was good but the flavour was lacking.

See the first entry under noodles, the description says “contemporary Pad Thai sauce“. Compared to “traditional“. You know what’s up…

10. Cashew Chicken (cashew nuts, crispy chillies & vegetables) $12.95

When this came, we all quietly thought to ourselves “gwai lo dish“. Well all of us except Mijune.. heh. There were quite a bit of them around us too! It’s funny how Chinese people will think “This is our dish, they took it from us!” but really, it’s not ours. We just happen to have used the same ingredient, they just prepare it differently.

An Asian dish with a westernized spin. I didn’t mind this dish but it wasn’t something I had to have. If you’re the type of person to order this type of dish normally, you might enjoy it.

11. Thai Tea Pudding w/ sponge cake & whipping cream $5.95

I love Thai Tea and I know for a fact that Jeff does too. As such, I was a bit apprehensive about it being in a pudding form.

I didn’t have to worry that much though, as this was awesome! The sponge cake was a little chewy, perhaps it had been left out for a while? Not a big deal though, gobbled this up like no tomorrow. This was also not on the regular menu, but it should be!!

If you’re in Southern California and a fan of Vietnamese food, I highly recommend getting some REAL Vietnamese food. There is so much competition down there that quality is a must to succeed. The reason why I mention this is because down there,  thai tea is a common sight in Vietnamese restaurants . It’s rich and creamy, similar to milk tea. Unfortunately, it’s rare to find thai tea in Vancouver prepared like that.

This pudding is the closest thing I’ve ever had in Vancouver that reminds me of the real thing (in pudding form no less). Delicious! It goes well with or without the whipped cream and while the sponge cake didn’t add to the dish, it didn’t take away from it either. I could eat a tub of this. A bathtub. (Okay, maybe I’m getting carried away now but I really love thai tea).

12. Tapioca pudding w/ jack fruit & coconut meat $??

This was a total blah. First off it came to us just a bit above room temperature, which was strange for a tapioca dessert. It would usually be served either hot or cold. The other thing about it was that…it was salty. Not just a pinch of salt salty, but salty like the ocean (okay, exaggeration).

I asked Sonia if it was supposed to be salty and she said yes, she likes it a bit salty and she was the one who added the salt. She did admit that she hadn’t tasted it before bringing it out, so perhaps that’s the reason why it was so salty. A disappointment our last dish had to be this one that left a sour salty taste in our mouths.

This dish was…different. Like Kevin had said, Sonia made this based on her preferences. While I understand the concept of adding salt to bring out the sweetness, this would a bit too much for many. While some may like this, perhaps it would have been better if the dish was served cold or hot but the lukewarm temperature did not help.

I was thoroughly impressed by Sonia and her food, majority of them were thumbs up from me. I observed the rest of the restaurant, and the servers seemed calm and attentive, which is always great for us, the customers. Here’s hoping that things will only improve from here on. Some things can still be tweaked, and you can bet that they will be after reading like 5 different “reviews”. The portions are generous and so don’t be too alarmed by the price point ($12~/entrees) as you should really be sharing them.

Hopefully they will have more help available in the summer months when that area (Denman at Robson) gets very busy. A full restaurant on a weeknight in January? I can only imagine how busy this place will be later on. Good service (not just our table) with authentic dishes makes this place one of the better choices in Vancouver if you’re ever in the mood for Thai.

Thank you Sonia & Deo for allowing us to try your food, and also to Ben for giving us the opportunity to partake in this dinner! Food is a labor of love, and there was plenty of it here.

Click to read
Chow Times
Follow Me Foodie
My Secret Eden
Sherman’s Food Adventures

Disclosure: cmp.ly/1 – This dinner was on the house. There was no expectation to review or blog about it, I am doing this solely because I want to.

© JPhung for 604 Foodtography, 2010. | Permalink | 1 comment | Add to del.icio.us

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Kingsway is a busy street, stretching from Vancouver to Burnaby and you will find no shortage of eats of all kinds. Most of the Korean joints seem to be in Burnaby though, so it’s a little rare to find this one a couple blocks away from Knight in Vancouver. From the outside, it isn’t really flashy and doesn’t catch the eyes attention. I would have driven past not noticing it if we weren’t looking for it.

Margo and I arrived just before 10 after she came to pick me up, then consequently made me drive the rest of the way. Really, I know it’s just cause she doesn’t like to drive in Vancouver, I mean she even gets lost in her own city, Richmond. =p

Bright fluorescent lights beam down in the room, providing a stark contrast from the dark gloomy night outside. Inside it feels warm, inviting, and the server was quick to attend to us. There were two other tables, one was a couple sitting behind us and the other was two families sitting in the rooms.

Having read such good things about the seolleongtang, I knew I would be getting it. The last time I remember having a good ox bone soup was at Wang Ga Ma in Coquitlam, near the H-mart. Now I just had to decide what I wanted in it. Should I be boring and just get sliced beef? Boring… I needed some excitement, so I went for the Tripe, Tongue & Spleen w/ Flour noodle. A question about the Hangul spelling, why is it spelled differently? It seems there is no standard spelling and that people interpret it and spell it differently. Case in point is that Googling it will turn up “seolleongtang” but the menu here says “sul lung tang“.

While we waited for our orders, a bunch of banchan came out to keep us waiting. The usual suspects were here, kimchi, seaweed, potatoes, bean sprouts, and daikon. The potatoes were excellent, as was the kimchi. Home made for sure, and rated an 7.5/10 on my spice scale. 10 means I’m crying by the way.  We were also served our rice in metal bowls, which I love because it keeps it hot for that much longer.

Coarse sea salt was provided on the table for the soup and other uses, but I found I didn’t need it nor want to add any to the soup when it came.

I enjoyed the creamy broth-soup that can only be made from ox bones, cooked for several hours or even a whole day to extract all the wonderful flavors from the bone and its marrow.  A slight off-white and cloudy appearance is the norm, and is usually accompanied by green onions, rice, and side dishes. Most of the items were at the bottom, covered by the white thin vermicelli like noodles.

A bowl full of green onions.  I used more than half of it…did I mention I like green onions?

Tongue! It was only till later that I realized that I had inadvertently ordered one of Shermans favorite things, tongue.

Margo had the Soondubu w/ Seafood. Oooo this was spicy since Margo requested that it be super spicy. I think there was a LOT of tofu in here and also an egg, which she broke the yolk of. <Nelson Muntz> HA HA. </Nelson Muntz>. Note that the soondubu link is to MaangChi, a very exceptional resource for all Korean food, shown to me by Andrea.

When our bowls were cleared away, she brought out some Sikhye for us. It’s a traditional dessert made from pouring malt water onto cooked rice and letting it ferment, to change the starch in the rice into sugar. Sometimes ginger and sugar can be added, but it’s just as good without flavoring.

At $8 each for dinner, considering the amount of food we had, that’s a pretty wicked deal. We both put down $10, feeling that it was worth way more for what we had just ate and so it was only right that we do so. Revisit? Yes.

The menu is scanned and up at Urbanspoon, follow this link to view it.

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2010. | Permalink | 1 comment | Add to del.icio.us

Sorry, the map isn’t sitting exactly where I want to be, so just drag it to your left slightly.

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Borandsi Cafe is literally a dodgeball throw away. Well, I think I could probably throw that far. It’s just across the street and slightly north of Honey’s Bistro. The location of it is completely unexpected, since it sits right beside a brake & muffler shop. Now I know some places have strange or out of the ordinary locations, (Tenku Budanyaki comes to mind, it’s in the middle of a parking lot!) but this probably takes the cake.

The interior is decidedly modern and very clean cut. Big couches that are low to the ground with equally low tables are situated by the windows. My initial feel and thoughts were that this would be a GREAT place to hang out with friends and just chill out, enjoy a couple drinks & desserts. There are also pastries available.

In fact, Borandsi Cafe has obviously had the foresight for that and have a big collection of board games and the like to keep you entertained if your friends are boring. To rent the games, it’s $3.50/hr per person, which you can pay for at the end. There were two tables that had games, one had Jenga and the other some board game. Sounds good, and if I had money I probably would. I mean, just think about it, even though it’s a cheap hourly rate, these games were one time purchases, and so they can quickly make their money back and more on it. At least for LAN places, you know they have to pay for the internet connection. Oh well, definitely not putting the games idea down, it’s quite thought out actually.

So who’s down for a game of RISK, LOTR style? =d

We weren’t here to play games though, we were here to get ICE FRAKES! The menu isn’t too descriptive, which makes me think that this place gets by solely on word of mouth. There was 7 of us, so we ordered two Large Specials ($12.95) + add. Rice Cake ($1). What makes these ICE FRAKES special is the way they’re served.

Yes, your eyes are not fooling you. This is a 1L glass measuring cup!! It’s filled to the brim with ingredients. Here’s what I remember was on it..

Ice flakes, red bean, condensed milk, kiwi, grapes, peach, bananas, frozen strawberries, rice cake (mochi), tapioca pearls, green tea ice cream, and topped off with chocolate sauce & some Fruit Loops. I’m probably missing something like another fruit but it’s still an impressive amount of ingredients. This is best shared with some friends obviously. I loveeeed it, chock full of stuff, but the only thing I would ask of them is that the ice flakes be finer, some of them were quite chunky.

If this is the large, you’re probably thinking what the mediums are. They’re the same but just served in 250mL cups instead.

I’m coming back for sure, but probably not till the summer when these will be killlller. Almost don’t want to tell you all about this place, but it deserves to be recognized. Thanks Julia. Think of this as me blowing up your spot, a la Vancouver is Awesome.

PS. I posted the picture as part of my 365 project (a picture a day) on my Tumblr. Follow me and I will too.

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us

We walked inside and it was veeeery dark and dim, definite signs of a drinking-forward establishment. There was also only another table of two inside, so was this a bad sign? Who knows, it was nearly 7pm..maybe the drinking and chicken wing eating occurs later on around 9? We were quickly seated all the way in the back, given two menus and a small tray of what seemed to be, old stale popcorn. I tried one and yep, it was. Our little corner was dark, only one light above the table. Definitely felt sketch, but apparently that’s what most of these hof’s are like in Korea.

Ellie quickly glanced at the menu and suggested that we go to Honey’s bistro, as both Pete & her had thought I meant that place when I told them I wanted yangnyeom chicken. They both said that the place was quite pricey and the other was better..so we should just go.  They reasoned that we had just sat down and hadn’t even ordered nor received water so it should be okay. It seems so rude and all..but that’s exactly what we did. The guy didn’t even come by to check on us once nor did I see any sign of him when we left.. haha.

So, a short drive north along North Rd. to Honey’s Bistro.  If there wasn’t Korean shows playing on the TVs or any signs around, you’d think you walked into a Western restaurant. The interior resembled a cottage or a lodge restaurant you would find up in the mountains where snow bunnies would unwind after a long day on the slopes. Oh how I want to go snowboarding.. oops, getting off topic here.

Like at Mexican Chicken, we were also given popcorn with the menus. At least these weren’t stale. So does anyone have an answer for why popcorn is given, and is this the norm in Korea?

Prices were cheaper here, but not by much as they’ve upped their prices which you can see by the stickers. Since I was about blind as a bat with what to order, knowing only that I wanted chicken wings and I wanted them pretty damn soon, Ellie ordered for us and Pete ordered for their half of the table. Of course, we had to get the yangnyeom chicken.

We ordered the 12 piece mixed ($13.85) + sauce for $1 to share between Ellie, Ty and myself. At first glance, the chicken didn’t look impressive. It just looked like a big blob of sweet & sour pork..but with chicken instead. A quick lick taste test and it confirmed we hadn’t been duped. The flavor of the sauce acts slow, but once it grabs hold of your tongue, it doesn’t let go. First it starts off slowly, with a tinge of sweetness but then the spice sneaks in from the back and clobbers your tongue numb and useless.

Enough bout the flavor, you can tell I liked it a lot. On the plate was an assortment of drumsticks, wings, and thighs. All were quite generous sizes. Something about the exterior coating of the wings (sans sauce) seemed better than the regular pub grub style of wings. Not sure why, I’ll have to order them without sauce next time to find out why. Oh yes, you get a side dish of pickled daikon, which you can keep getting refills of. Just an accompaniment and something to cleanse your palate I suppose.

Pork and vegetables fried with kimchi.. decent, couldn’t really taste if it was spicy or not by the time I got to this because my tongue had given up on tasting by then.

anddd .some other stuff that Pete ordered. I only know that the one on the right is Kimchi Fried Rice.

With some googling, I found some recipes that I will keep in mind to try out one day. Or perhaps, you can try it and bring me a sample.

Take Thou Food – Chicken Wings w/ Korean Marinade && Viet World Kitchen – Yangnyeom Dak

For reference, this is what a hof in Korea is like. Pretty much similar in terms of what we got..except the price of course.

The Daily Kimchi – Korean Fried Chicken Hof (as a bonus, this blogger is based in Vancouver!!)

This won’t be the last of Korean posts…stay tuned.

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us

I had a long break between class and my clinic, so I took the time to enjoy a slow lunch by myself at the closest Red Robin at Robson & Thurlow in Downtown Vancouver.

Eating alone…has its pros. You are 99.9% guaranteed a seat and it’s a fairly quick process. I didn’t get the nice corner seats where I could have a nice view of the street, but mine was okay, it was a nice sunny day, something that this Vancouver winter has had far too many… where’s the cold and snow?

Mmmmm so I ordered the Royal Red Robin Burger (This is the aristocrat of all burgers because we crown it with a fresh fried egg. Also, topped with three strips of hickory-smoked bacon, American cheese, crisp lettuce, tomatoes and mayo.) Was it good? Yeaaaa their burgers are always decent for a chain restaurant. Bacon was chewy, nien. Cheese was melty. Lettuce was crisp like Subway. Patty was juicy and actually dripped. To be honest I didn’t taste the egg much, it neither added nor subtracted to the burger…

No refill on the fries for me as I’m trying to be a bit more careful with my portions. Small meals, many times a day over big meals, couple times a day. My server was extremely attentive and friendly, which is strange because I didn’t have to pay for a single thing. I find that usually when a server gets wind that you have a coupon or are getting something for free, their quality of service lowers a bit. Why is that?

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Since she wanted to see the new Canada Line, I focused my search on anything that would be near Cambie. The section near King Edward station has a nice concentration of restaurants. Now it was just a matter of picking one…..always an easy task. </sarcasm> Copa Cafe or Gloucester Cafe? Nah, cha chang tings are boring and too typical. Trixi’s caught my eye and so we made plans to meet there for lunch.

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Coming in from the drizzling cold Vancouver weather outside, we were greeted to a warm and cozy interior, with a quiet chatter from the other patrons. We were seated in big leather seats near the back and quickly warmed up. How can you not have a soft spot where the owner is also your chef and your server? Hit up their About link for a short blurb about the owners.

Whenever I think crepes, I think dessert. That all changed when my French9 class went to Cafe Crepe for a field trip. Oh what a surprise it was to me that you could put, gasp, cheese and ham in a crepe. What? It totally blew my mind. However, I’ve always been of the thought that savoury crepes can never be a meal, as they are just not filling enough.

Anyways, I went for the Crepe Lorraine (Brie Cheese, Ham and Spinach) $8.75. Mmmm mmm I love Brie cheese. Mine definitely looked a little flat compared to Sally’s and I finished it way before she did hers, but while sitting there talking, I felt …satiated. That’s strange…how is this possible? The cheese stayed stretchy and soft till the very last bite, which I enjoyed.

She ordered the Lemon Pepper Chicken, Mushrooms, Swiss Cheese Crepe ($9.25), and had a great deal more of ingredients within.  Notice in the middle of the crepe, is a big bump. That would be a piece of the lemon pepper chicken! I estimate that there was probably 2 whole breasts contained within this crepe.

Satsified and not wanting to spend more money, we passed on dessert and drinks, though something intrigued me that I want to try out in the future, a sweet crepe with Sweet Cream Cheese, Jam, Coconut & Almonds. The pairing of flavours seems so complex and I’ve never heard of sweet cream cheese before.

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us

The interior is not a typical Chinese restaurant setup. There are booth seats and strange decorations…most likely remnants of the lounge that used to reside here. Like true Chinese business owners, they probably decided to save money on redecoration costs and leave the place as it.

I had no hand in ordering anything, so taking a picture of the print out of what was ordered is handy, both at the time and later when I would post about it. There’s just no way I would remember the names of some dishes if I didn’t have this to refer to! This is going to be a picture intensive post with very little text for description because I’m lazy and honestly can’t remember much about the dishes…

From near to far, Braised Gluten w/ MR (what’s MR?!), Chicken w/ Wine Sauce and Fried Vegetarian Roll.

Shanghai Style Smoked Fish

Shanghai Style Juicy Pork Bun, or more commonly known as… Xiao Long Bao.

Edit, as requested by Melody, some detail about the XLB. Far as I can remember, the skin was thin but held its contents well, in this case, hot scalding meat soup.  To date, I still think the best XLB I’ve had (in the Lower Mainland) are at Shanghai River.

Spare Ribs w/ Vinegar, kind of like sweet and sour ribs.

Steamed Chicken Soup. Oh this was good, and this was only a small serving for the 8 of us! I would come back and just order this for myself.

Braised Lamb in Hot Pot

Fried Glutinous Rice Cakes

Smoked Duck

Lazy post from me, check. It’s also cause I’m not a fan of writing about Chinese restaurants cause there’s SO much to write about.

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Budgie’s Burritos from Todd M Duym on Vimeo.

I thought the commercial was pretty slick, so I put it onto my go list. Funny though how I can forget about restaurants and never think about them when I’m out and about. Anyways, since Vanessa is now a Vegan, thinking of places to go eat is now a lot more focused.  I thought being a Vegetarian is hard enough, but being a Vegan is even worse. Originally we were supposed to go to Gorilla Food, as they serve raw vegan food, but they were closed when we got there.

Racking my brain for places to go, specifically vegetarian restaurants, I instantly thought of Foundation, since I had recently gone. However, I didn’t want to revisit them, not because the food wasn’t good, but because I just wanted to blog about something else. Thinking visually though, I remembered that Budgies is a short distance away from Foundation so we hopped on the bus & left downtown.

All their burritos are under $10, and come in two size, 10 inches or 12 inches. Looking over the menu, I wasn’t keen on trying out “tofurkey“, as I’ve had a bad experience with a vegetarian hotdog (it nearly made me throw up…) so I stuck with the familiar items. When you order, the person behind the counter writes it down with erasable markers on little squares which is then handed off to the burrito maker. For Vegans, they will substitute dairy for guacamole at no extra charge. On the little square, the guy wrote a nice big VEGAN on it with snazzy bordering.

The picture below, I’m going to chalk up to me being dumb. I was so hungry since I woke up, bussed downtown, found out the place was closed and ended up here. I just wanted to get a damn picture so I could start eating. It looked fine on the screen, didn’t bother to zoom in to see if it was sharp. I come home and download the pictures and it’s …..blurry. Sigh! Oh well. What I had was the Johnny-O (rice, beans, cheese, chipotle sour cream, guacamole, jalapenos, salsa, lettuce) $6.50 (10 inch).

For the price, I find it to be a very filling burrito. It may not win culinary awards, but you’re here to get stuffed, cheap. The absence of meat isn’t noticed, as there is plenty of substance within it. Unfortunately, the salsa seemed to be a little watery and therefore when I was halfway through, it started to get really soggy and was in danger of falling apart. I would also HIGHLY suggest you either get the spiciest salsa, or supplement it yourself with the hot sauces on their table. Without it, it can be a little.. bland.

Vanessa had the JameDog (garlic roasted potatoes, rice, beans, cheese, chipotle sour cream, salsa, lettuce), $7.50 (12 inch)

She thought it was really good for something without cheese and even though they replaced it with more guacamole, it didn’t feel like an overload. No complaints from her at all.

The downstairs is small yet the colorful pieces of artwork hanging on the walls lends itself to the kitschy room. The place also has a very distinct smell, I can’t accurately describe it though. It’s not unpleasant, but just different. Can hipsters be defined as a “smell”? If so, then it smelled like hipsters.

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The menus are a simple laminated sheet, and many of the titles are quite cheeky, such as this one about liquor, “LICK HER”.

This is their famous nachos. For what you pay, it IS a lot of food, and you can really see them pile it high. This isn’t the normal nachos though, it was the special of the day, so we went for it. I think the only difference was red peppers & zucchini…of which there weren’t a lot of anyways. No difference in price though, it was still $8 for a medium, + $2 for the guacamole. I don’t see why the guacamole should be extra…their salsa was better than it!

James also ordered a pasta dish to split between the three of us, the spicy peanut pesto ..something. Tasty, the peanut probably overpowered any of the pesto that was in there though. Really enjoyed it, don’t remember how much it is though.

James and I ordered the beer special of the day, Stout. Storm Brewing BLACK PLAGUE STOUT to be specific.

Derives its name from the historical fact that at one time in Europe beer was about the only safe liquid to drink. Black Plague is Irish style dry stout brewed only in fall and winter and only in small batches to ensure the freshness so paramount to such an intensely roasted beer. 8% Alcohol content.

At $4 a Pint and $12 for a pitcher (daily drink special changes), this was a great deal..except it was insanely hard to drink. Dark beers and stouts are not my normal liquids, and so it was very hard to drink. Kind of tasted like …burnt coffee, except the aftertaste lingered forever. James and I normally won’t turn down beer, but even he had to concede defeat and ended up giving me more of the pitcher. He says it was the fact that he had to drive, but I know he just couldn’t drink it.

Foundation is a, pardon the repetition, foundation in the neighbourhood and serves up local delicious vegetarian food till 1am every night! The crowd is great, and the prime location at Main & 7th allows for people watching. I think I may be covering a lot more vegetarian restaurants in the future, as I’m going through a cleansing phase. I’ve already pledged to myself no more alcohol till July..that’s pretty rough, seeing as I love beer.

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