~Yummy in Our Tummies~

As I had mentioned in my earlier post, because of the small portion sizes at Hapa Izakaya, the boys were still quite hungry at the end. We had heard that Burger King had recently revamped their fries, making them thicker (thicker than a No. 2 pencil according to the Americans) and have 20% less sodium compared to previously. We were eager to see how these fries matched up against the competitors. Plus, they were offering free small fries that day. We had already paid a premium price for our dinner (more than our usual dinners anyhow), so off we went to Burger King on Main St. and 1st Ave. 

Our first Dine Out of the year was at Hapa Izakaya and we were looking forward to eating here with Turtle and Droidman.  Anyone who is at all familiar with the asian food scene in vancouver, likely has heard of Hapa Izakaya and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it out for Dine Out Vancouver 2012. We opted for the Kitsilano location mainly because we figured we would have an easier time finding parking. We haven't been to very many Japanese izakayas (too hard on the wallet usually), but were excited to try it out at the Dine Out price of $28/person.

The Kitsilano location of Hapa Izakaya is found at the corner of Cornwall Ave and Yew Street. There are actually three sushi/Japanese restaurants on the same side of the street, but it's clear that Hapa is the most popular of the three that night. The exterior of the restaurant is very unassuming and discrete. In fact, had I not known about the restaurant, I probably would have missed it. It is very dimly lit on the outside with a very simple, small white backlit sign for its name. The interior remains fairly dim, and I was surprised to find it so spacious with quite a large table set aside for the five of us. The choice of decor is fairly modern looking, but the antique-stained wooden tables also gives the place a rustic feeling at the same time.

After a full morning of interviewing candidates at a job fair for me and dealing with difficult customers for Ying, we found ourselves hungry and wanting some comfort food. I had heard of The One Spot Soup House or Soup.com (literal translation of 湯.com), but never got around to trying it. It’s a small hole-in-the-wall style family-run business located on Victoria Drive close to 43rd Ave (see map below). This tiny restaurant is buried in the midst of a busy section of Victoria Drive, sandwiched in between several Chinese grocery stores. There is absolutely nothing impressive about the exterior, but there is a glaring lack of any English on the signs (unless you count .com as English). In fact, I’m not quite sure I actually saw the English name of the restaurant anywhere (maybe it was on the menu?). Nevertheless, I kind of like the characteristic large decorative Chinese clay urn as its front store decor, but it really doesn't match the rest of the exterior design.

The interior isn’t much better, with fairly worn-out tables and chairs. It can accommodate about 40 people including one large table. Even though we arrived at 3:30PM, the place had many diners with one large group celebrating a birthday.

Breakfast at White Spot?  When you think breakfast, White Spot isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind (and vice versa) but after recently eating at Jethro’s and being unimpressed with my several visits to Ihop, I was fresh out of ideas for breakfast with  TheHousewife.  Plus, I’m not one to usually breakfast out as I usually have a light home-made breakfast on the go.  Honestly, I wasn’t even aware that White Spot has a breakfast menu!  Yet, at  TheHousewife ’s suggestion, here I was discovering new food at a readily available restaurant.  Since my experience at Jethro’s with the eggs benny was a miss, I knew what I wasn’t going to get; instead I had my eye and stomach on the waffles and omelettes!

I've heard quite a bit about Jethro's and had it recommended to me by a few people as well and today I finally got a chance to visit it, after 2 weeks of intending to go but being unable to.  Yeah, there was an expectation built up for sure.  Plus, I like breakfast foods and I sometimes have breakfast for lunch or dinner at home.  So yeah, I was really looking forward to my fix of eggs, french toast, and coffee; especially after the long boring chem class I'd just had.  I guess its good to know what other breakfast places I've eaten at: Ihop and a waffle house in New West.  Yeah that list is short haha.  But I'm hoping to make it bigger by having White Spot next week.  But on this icy cold morning, Jethro's was my destination.

After three whole days of psychiatry lectures, Ringo and I were thrilled to find out that our Thursday afternoon lecture on addiction medicine had been cancelled and change to a self-study session.

Don’t get me wrong, psychiatry is fascinating, but an afternoon off in third year is always welcomed! After our morning lectures, Rich came to pick us up and we headed off to Richmond to find lunch. Ringo suggested that we try the new restaurant that the Aberdeen 车仔面 place’s owners had recently opened. He remembered that it was close to Manzo, but we circled the little plaza twice and couldn’t find it! Next, I suggested Spicy Stage Café (川味鱼米线) to try their noodles and see how they compare to Deer Garden. Yet, we were disappointed again as it seems like they were closed for renovations until March. We finally settled on Kyung Bok Palace (景福宫) at Lansdowne Center, a Chinese-owned Korean restaurant. Now this place has been around for many years and we’ve eaten there countless times. As you can see from the pictures above, the owners have taken great care to maintain the ambience of the restaurant – with attractive entrance decorations to the plush seats and a large room available for private functions. I remember when they first opened, they used to have metal chopsticks too!

We've been to Green Lettuce several times now, at least three times for dinner a couple of times for lunch in the past 6 months, and it has become one of our most frequented restaurants in Vancouver.  It's not the most easily accessible restaurant for us on an given day as it is located at Kingsway and Victoria Drive but every time we have wanted to come here the drive has not impeded our desire in any way.  Their other location is in Surrey and none of us have ever been there.  This unique restaurant stands out because it serves Chinese dishes infused with Indian spices; in fact, it was the first fusion restaurant of its kind in the Lower Mainland.  Since its opening, several other Chinese/Indian fusion restaurants have popped up, mostly in Surrey, but Green Lettuce still holds its own very well against its competition.  The best part about this place is that the cooks and the servers have spent time in India and China and hence the food here is an interesting authentic mix.  Heck they are able to fluently converse in Chinese or Hindi or Urdu!  Just try them! The next best part about this place is that Nabs can eat almost every dish on the menu (Halal), whereas other places we are always on the hunt for Nabs-friendly dishes.

贵宾阁 – VIP Club? AKA Green Lettuce

It was Friday night and after four long, grueling hours of exams, I was ready for a nice and relaxing evening with Rich. First stop: T&T in downtown so I could replenish my snacks drawer in preparation for the next intense studying session. After stuffing our bags with yummy mochi snacks and various Chinese teas, we proceeded to have a quick dinner at BT Café before meeting up with Nabs at “best dessert in town” (aka Green Leaf Natural Food) for some bubble tea. Now the story of “best dessert in town” isn’t 100% clear to me still. Apparently a few years ago, one of Nabs and Rich’s buddies decided that he would go hunt for the best dessert in town on his birthday. I don’t actually know how many places he visited, but I think the list included things like Dairy Queen and Wendy’s. Thus, I’m not too sure how credible his declaration of “best dessert in town” is either… Apparently, he went from door to door on his quest and eventually settled for a cup of green tea ice cream bubble tea at Green Leaf Natural Food.

In the west end of Richmond lies a humble and unassuming sushi restaurant, one that often goes unnoticed due to its location and modest appearance. While it may be average in appearance, it is nothing less than spectacular in food and service. Takeya has quickly become one of my favourite sushi restaurants in Richmond since I discovered it 2 years ago (the other being Sushi House) and I seriously regret not having found this gem of a restaurant earlier. Those of us who are familiar with the sushi scene in Richmond probably know about Ichiro Japanese Restaurant, one of the finest sushi restaurants in the Lower Mainland; you’ll be happy to hear that Takeya and Ichiro are shared by the same people. MMMM Sushi goodness!!

It was 12:30am but Ying and I were really hungry. She just finished cramming for her exam and I just finished watching her cram for her exam. Where should we go? This seems to be a recurring question and time after time, we end up going back to Congee Noodle House – a Chinese restaurant situated on Broadway and Main in Vancouver. It mostly offers Cantonese style dishes. Aside from congee and noodle, which they have a vast selection of, rice dishes and snack dishes are also available. I got there at 12:40am. Parking was plentiful and free! (You have to pay for meter parking during day time.) I felt a little insecure leaving my car outside as there were these dodgy lookingish people walking about.

Sushi Bay on Kingsway

As both Ying and I have evening/night shifts today, we decided to go out for lunch late (at 3PM). Chances are, dinner is going to be after 12:00am T_T…… That’s what shift work does to your meal schedule <.< After all, shift work + hectic/non-existent meal times = worse health and increased risk of obesity, diabetes, etc. Every other month there seems to be an article detailing the negative health effects of shift work, but yet here we are, still trudging along(example from LA Times). How ironic…health care workers having bad health… *sigh* I guess babies still need to be delivered and people still need their drugs…

I love bargains.  Who doesn’t love bargains?  We all love bargains.  And there are few better days on which to find a good bargain than Tuesdays.  I love Tuesdays too and let me tell you why.  Because Tuesdays mean Festive Tuesdays at Fresh Slice Pizza!  (Cheap movies are another bargain but there is no good food to talk about there.)

Today, we graced Moxie’s Classic Grill in Richmond with our presence while celebrating Turtle’s birthday.  Moxie’s is a chain of restaurants which serves typical westcoast/Canadian cuisine with menu categories similar to what you find at Milestones, White Spot and other Canadian/westcoast restaurants.  As their website and newly launched TV commercials suggest, Moxie’s attempts to deliver an upscale casual dining experience focusing on quality, value and service.  Lets see how they stack up against their image.

The ambience of the restaurant is what you’d expect from a restaurant wanting to create an upscale casual dining environment.  The lighting is dim but alright, seating arranged in the open or semi-private arrangements, and classy dark furniture finely compliment each other to create a pleasing aura.  The extensions built into the walls and seats that act as coat hangers are a nice touch and something I hadn’t seen before. One complaint is that some of the seats are situated VERY close to each other. Ying and Richard’s chairs were back to back with another table’s chairs, this gave us very little leg room and flexibility to move.