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Stepping inside, I was a little taken aback. Sorry I gotta admit, Marine Drive is a busy street, so a clean and well kept interior was not what I expected.  The service was also really good and attentive! Complete with uniforms as well!

Left the ordering to my parents cause well…there was no English on the menu.

Green Vegetable and Tofu soup. Generally it’s made with seasonal vegetables, and this time it was made with bitter mustard leaves..yuuuck. I’m not a huge fan of mustard leaves because of the slight bitter taste to them, but at least they’re not as bitter as bittermelon.

魚香茄子 (Yú xiāng qié zi), literally translated to fish fragrance eggplant. Mmmm….eggplants are good. I love them, no matter what method of preparation.

Deep fried large intestines. It strikes me as strange how a lot of friends don’t know what this dish is, even though it’s a very typical Cantonese dish. I have fond memories of eating this as a kid, but stopped for some unknown reasons. Most likely because my mom felt that the restaurant couldn’t clean it well enough nor was it very healthy, so now when she orders it it’s a little bit of a treat.

Served on a bed of pickled daikon and carrots, these were crunchy and chewy at the same time, and when coupled with the red sweet and sour vinegar dipping sauce….ohh man…deliiiicious.

Stir-fried Water Spinach, aka hollow heart vegetable or 空心菜 (kōng xīn cài). Hands down my favorite Chinese vegetable because it stays crunchy even after being cooked, it can double as a straw and just tastes so earthy and good. See kids, spinach IS good.

Deep fried silver fish. I regard these as chinese fries, perfect for both pre-drinking and after drinking. Actually…probably more so after drinking.

Fermented rice soup..or what I know it in Mandarin as 酒釀 (Jiǔ niàng) Basically, rice is fermented and it becomes rice wine. After the wine is decanted off, the bits of rice is taken and made into a soup. It’s a slightly sweet soup typically served for dessert, similar to the Korean sikhye (see Seoul Doogbaegi for a picture near the bottom)

All of the items here are way above average, but the quality was also up here with the price. The only complaint is that the prices should have been more on par with the portion.

@ The time of this post, apparently The Wonton King is closed for renovations under new management. As for whether or not they will keep the same name, who knows?

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Straight from the menu online, these are the descriptions. All except the last were ordered by my friends.. and I didn’t try any of them at all.

Penne Tip $11.99
sautéed sweet peppers, mushrooms, avocado, feta in a Cajun cream sauce

Black Bean Salsa & Chips $7.99
aka – black bean dip – black beans, red onion, sweet peppers, cilantro, sour cream, Tipper’s own seasoned tortilla chips

Tipper’s Grilled Portobello $10.89
on a toasted Kaiser with mixed greens, roasted red peppers, chipotle mayo and swiss cheese

Baked Seafood Melt $12.99
Wild BC salmon, prawns, & mushrooms sautéed in our own alfredo sauce, topped with cheddar and baked golden brown

Of course if there’s steak on the menu, I’m probably the first to get there. So that’s what I ordered.

Classic Steak Sandwich 11.99
grilled 6 oz sirloin, seasoned served open faced on grilled garlic Portuguese

I ordered this medium rare and that’s exactly what it came as..juicy red! This dish instantly became my favorite for not only the quality, but more so the price. Open faced sandwiches are messy so after a half-hearted attempt to pick it up, I just ate the bread and steak separately. After all, who can chew through an inch thick steak?

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The map is old, but Green Lemongrass now occupies the spot where you see the Vietnamese Food awning.
Just know that Green Lemongrass (be it the original Richmond location or this Kingsway one) is a good bet for quality Vietnamese food and some more unique items.  Below is grilled chicken satay with vermicelli.

The above is kind of typical and boring, and this is what Jeff had insisted I order instead. Prawn brochette on sugar cane. With little rice vermicelli wraps (which I will now call pancakes) and a buttload of vegetables/herbs as well. Oh and the requisite fish saaaaauce.

Some serious rabbit food here with all these vegetables and herbs. Some of these I haven’t even seen before let alone know the name of.. delicious!

Pick up a skewer, wrap it in the rice vermicelli pancake, then further envelop it with some lettuce and herbs. Dip in fish sauce. You may or may not include the sugar cane…I did cause I wanted to suck it dry for the sweet sugar cane juice.

The other offering of this plate is with a Vietnamese pork sausage patty type skewer. With charcoal-y grill marks and a sweet honey taste to them, these were killer.

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Alright, starting where I left off after Yuji’s. Walked across the street to Scoop! for some more dessert. Since the whole frozen yogurt craze took over Vancouver, and even more so since Qoola made a big splash in the industry, there’s been many places to choose from.  Shortly after Qoola’s opening, I got some recommendations to try out Scoop but its’ location always was a bit of a deterrent, not to mention the times that I did manage to pass by they weren’t open!

What I noticed first upon entering was that the the entire layout and decoration was sparse but clean and modern. There’s also lots of pink all over.

Pick what kind of flavour and size frozen yogurt and the staff will weigh it first. They’ll then hand it back to you and you can pick and choose from over 30 toppings. When you’re done, they weigh it again for how much toppings and then you pay the total price of yogurt size+topping total weight.

I only wanted mochis and so I left the toppings to her instead. She ended up getting some mangoes (preserved and from a can unfortunately, but I do understand, it wasn’t mango season yet), gummy bears and of course my mochis. All on top of a mango flavour frozen yogurt.

To me, it was just another frozen yogurt. Can’t say it was the best I’ve had, can’t say it was the worst. The only thing that stood out for me was the freedom to choose exactly how MUCH of a topping you want, which is pretty damned important I suppose..

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I know this blog has been dead for the last month.. but right now I’m in Taiwan for the last leg of my trip..

I’ve been eating lots (& drinking..but shush..), barely sleeping, and walking lots, but I love it here!

If you have Facebook, you could do me a huge favor and LIKE this Facebook album. It’s for a game that we have going on our tour..and you can also see what I’ve been up to as well.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23161&id=115482711810266

Hope you’ve all been eating well as well. I’ve been craving burgers, pasta, pizza and sashimi so badly!

Cheers!

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John Chow? Mo Cho? He ain’t got nothing on me.

Just sign up for a 30 month free trial and I will teach you all the secrets!*

*Must pay S/H of $1000USD**
**This is a joke.

Based on all the different currencies, can you guess where I’m going for the rest of this summer? 6 weeks specifically.

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The interior is clean, well furnished and minimalistic. That sort of seems like an oxymoron now that I read it again….

Our reservation was at 530pm, right when they opened. As a result.. we were the only ones in the restaurant for quite a bit and so it almost felt a little awkward, like they had opened just for us. The servers were certainly attentive, I mean what else could they have possibly done?

The reason why I was here was because Chloe had a Travellers Deck, which is a local company that has made a, to quote from their About Us section, “informed and opinionated deck of our favourite handpicked shops, restaurants, bars and services.” Basically, you can to go a Chapters, pick up one of these decks and get discounts for eats and shopping. Think the Entertainment Book, but a lot smaller and focused on just Vancouver.

Age Spicy Tuna Roll – deep fried spicy tuna roll

Rolled in panko and deep fried till golden brown, the tuna roll itself wasn’t spicy, it was the sauce drizzled on the bottom of the plate that was spicy.

Prosciutto Roll – cream cheese mango rolled in rice and encased in Italian prosciutto

Oooomy, creamy, sweet, salty, umami. Everything rolled in one! A must order if you are ever to eat here, the way everything just came together in your mouth was mmm…gawd, so good.

Kiwi Roll – scallop, cucumber and mayo roll topped with a slice of kiwi

I ordered these because they looked and sounded like they tasted amazing according to Jonathan from Foodandtell. While not as mind blasting as the prosciutto roll, these were equally delightful for the uniqueness. The scallop itself had a sweet taste, something not uncommon in seafood, and the kiwi provided the slightly sour tang. A great ying-yang balance of flavours here.

Aburi Negi Miso Kobe Beef

This is the first time I’ve ever had kobe beef! Sliced about as thin as two loonies stacked together, it just …melted in my mouth. All that nice marbled fat just spread its tentacle-y arms of flavour through the meat and helped it disintegrate in my mouth like it was ice cream on a hot sidewalk.

Watch as the server torches the beef right in front of us.

Green Tea Crème Brûlée

Now this is a dessert that I could finish by myself. The creamy custard like texture of the creme brulee with accents of matcha popping in… also another item I would say is a must order.

Remember the days when the only tax we had to pay when eating was GST.. oh but now it’s the HST.. hurray.

God I loved this place.

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Steam Whistle - Mmm beeeer. Look for a future post about Steam Whistle!

Calamari Appetizer – This was just a whole lot of batter on little shrunken squid rings and tentacles topped off with unimaginative and boring red onion slices.

Daily $10 dinner special – Roast Lamb – Don’t know how I completely missed this on the menu or posted somewhere, but Jeff ordered it.

Wow I have no clue what this is at all. Jeff can’t even remember what it is and he ate part of it! I suppose this is deserved because I take so long to post (more than a month later).

Greek Salad that came with my order ..below. Ah the greek salad, so simple but so complex at the same time. The sweet taste of olive oil, the saltiness of the olives and feta cheese combined with the cool crunchy taste of cucumbers and ripe plump juicy tomatoes…. awww yea.

Moussaka – Simply put, this is a Greek version of Shepherds Pie.. with eggplant (aubergine) added. I think there was a bechemel sauce in the pan as well. Anyways, I really enjoyed this and would love to order it again.

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Bam, Sammy J. Peppers! If you’ve read my blog at all, you would know that I’m not a big fan of chain restaurants, and will not normally choose to eat at one if given a choice..but there was nothing else in immediate sight, we were hungry and I figured why not.

Just after 2pm, we missed the lunch crowd, though I’m not quite sure they really have one, at least this particular location in Richmond. Not wanting to be stuck inside with dim lighting, I immediately requested to sit outside even though it was a partly cloudy day. Damn these seats were comfortable.. and just the right height with the table.

Any hard work deserves a beer, and with $3.50 ICE COLD Canadians on tap, we did just that.

The beer was SO ice cold that the beer itself was starting to crystallize near the head. Canadian is not on the top of my beer list, but when served super ice cold like this, it was actually very drinkable.

With a little prodding from the server, we ordered an appetizer to share and start.

Even though I knew it was $10, I didn’t expect a lot in terms of portion size, but it wasn’t bad. I’d estimate that if all the little cube pieces were put together, it would probably amount to a 7-8oz steak. These were good…and I can see why the waitress recommended it to us.

Garlic Pepper Steak Bites – $10
The lower mainland’s original steak bites.  ‘AAA” Sirloin cubes fried then tossed in garlic, pepper & coarse salt.

I gave Victor full run of the menu and he only ordered a burger. If we were in opposite positions, I probably would have ordered one whole page of the menu =D.

Bourbon BBQ Cheeseburger – $13
Beef, honey bourbon BBQ sauce, cheddar, Monterey jack, pickles, ranch, mayo, lettuce & tomato

If I didn’t tell you this was a burger, you might have thought it was a Portobello mushroom. Right?

I love crispy fries like this. Big inch thick fries such as those from Red Robins or White Spot may have their days in the spotlight, but nothing beats a hot fresh fry that has a satisfying crunch.

I strayed away from my tried tested and true burger options and had a sandwich instead. Ordered the cheesesteak and subbed out my fries for a salad instead.

Original Cheesesteak – $13
Shaved ribeye, sautéed mushrooms, sweet peppers, onions & cheddar.

Must be some type of creamy Italian dressing, it was mostly sour but was slightly sweet.. the only thing I can knock is the fact that there was a puddle of dressing at the bottom.

What the hell is this blurry picture doing here. You’re fired Kevin. Unacceptable!
The cheese was still melty and stretchy, and it was all packed tightly underneath the buns.. no complaints at all.

Without any control or attempt to keep track of the bill here, things can really start to add up. I mean, a lunch for two people ended up being $50~.. woooo that’s pricey.

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This specific event was an exclusive for Chow Times readers and a special menu worth $21 would be offered at $5.

Miki was a little difficult to find for a couple reasons, the street view on Google, as you’ll see below, was not updated as it’s a newish restaurant, the restaurant front space doesn’t occupy much space and there are trees blocking the view! If you are heading East along Kingsway, it’s JUST after Royal Oak Ave.

Small and with a unconventional triangle seating layout due to the shape and size of the building, the owners, Ben & Karen, have done their best to maximize every inch of space inside, and managed to fit 34 of us in for this event.

In attendance were two different kinds of foodies, those who are silent, who probably read or even post on Chow.com, and the vocal ones, such as Ed of EdEdition, TS&JS of eatingclub vancouver and Wendy of Eat ‘n About.

Below is the menu we were given. All this for $5, thanks to Chow Times!

Before the food started to come out, they warned us that because they are not a catering service and thus were not used to pumping out 34 orders at the same time, so there would be some delay. There was only 3 of them working the kitchen as well.

First was a small appetizer, edamame and seaweed salad with soy glaze drizzle, .

Before the event, we were also told that they would be rolling out a new bbq item, beef tongue. However..I feel they sliced it way too thin to really capture the delicious flavours that one desires to taste when eating tongue. The other items on the plate were fine, although served cold, but they can’t be faulted too much here as they had to cook, plate, and serve with only 3 in the kitchen.

L-R, Chicken, Pork, Beef Tongue, Green Beans, Tofu & bonito flakes and grated daikon and ginger in the background.

Shoyu Ramen – Where’s my toppings? I’m not used to not only a tiny amount of toppings but also missing toppings on my ramen! Where’s the corn? Egg? Bean sprouts? Though I suppose I shouldn’t be too picky here, they are offering full servings at only $5/pp.. that’s only $170 total for the night. I thought the shoyu had a good balance of saltiness and creamery from the pork broth, and the noodles were done well. I actually finished all of my soup because it was good, but I shied away from the miso and shio because I found them both equally too salty for my taste.

Sorry, but is strawberry coulis sauce just a fancy name for Nesquik strawberry sundae topping? I’m just being honest and perhaps a bit blunt here, but what’s the point of giving us a dessert like this for a Japanese restaurant/ramen place? Serve us something a little more in lines with the cuisine you represent, such as some matcha green tea ice cream!

I have not ventured far from the ramen epicentre of Vancouver (Robson & Denman) and I really don’t see much reason to if you’re looking for quality and quantity, in various ratios to each other, of course. There are places in Richmond, Burnaby, Coquitlam, but those are really only temporary fixes for your ramen craving. Go downtown, you will and should not be disappointed.

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