~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.