~Yummy in Our Tummies~

Yet another blogging adventure fueled by a deal voucher I purchased online! Today we ventured out to Ichiban Sushi, a small Japanese restaurant located in the London Drugs plaza on Kingsway and Joyce. The place is hidden by Honolulu café in front, and if we didn’t know about it, we probably would never visit. Anyhow the voucher entitled us to two special rolls, two bowls of miso soup and 10 pieces of assorted sashimi for $15.

Ah! Back to blogging after such a long time away! Rich recently got a promotion at work and has been super busy, while I’ve been having a terrible schedule for the past two weeks. A couple of weeks ago, we paid the downtown Costco a visit after I finally got a Costco card (after so many years!). Unfortunately for us, you have to pay for parking there. :( We ended up not using up all the parking time, so we were going to eat at the food court. However, upon seeing the super long lineup, we decided to head elsewhere. I remembered that La Taqueria Taco Shop was somewhat close by (~10 minute walk), so off we went for some delicious Mexican food! The interior is super simple looking with plain light bulbs as fixtures and these cute little coloured stools. The brick wall added a homey feeling to it. Quite charming.

Au Petit Café has been a place that Ying has wanted to try for a long time! Well, ever since our food blogging adventures have started at least. The main problem with this place is that it closes every day at 7 PM; while Ying and I are rarely both free for lunch in this neighbourhood. This is definitely a hole-in-the-wall neighbourhood gem type of place that you have to know about to enter. It’s located on Main St. and 32nd/33rd Ave, in a stretch of Main St that isn’t very busy. There was quite a bit of street parking available. :D It advertises itself as an authentic Vietnamese restaurant, not that I really know what authentic is. :P I’m just here for the yummy food.

It was a fine March afternoon. It was a good day to eat! The yummy crew decided to head out for some yummy sushi…at Apple Sauce. Hehe, the place is actually called Applause; but the first time we passed it, Rich read Apple Sauce instead and the name stuck! We had initially tried this place really randomly on a rainy day last year after some failed photography at Jericho Beach. We were surprised to find such yummy sushi and have been back several times since then. On this occasion, we were joined by Turtle and Vicky. :)

The interior was well lit, although we were mainly basking in the glorious sunshine. It is clean and cozy, able to seat ~30-40 people or so comfortably. I really like how they have these dark blue curtains (much like the ones at the front door) that can be used to separate tables to give more privacy.

With the Vancouver weather finally showing some signs of spring (aka sunshine), Rich and I ventured out to Downtown for an afternoon drive. It was around 2PM or so when we started getting hungry, because we had a really late breakfast that day. Since we were in the neighbourhood, we decided to check out Meat & Bread, the sandwich shop that has been raved about so much recently. It took a few loops around the block before we were able to secure meter parking on Cordova Street. 26 minutes of free meter from the last payer…WIN! I promptly added another dollar to top it up to 46 minutes and off we went. :) The exterior of Meat & Bread is very unassuming. In fact, if I didn’t know about it, I would probably never visit. Not to mention it’s in an area of Vancouver that we rarely visit as well.

I was hungry while walking around in downtown doing street photography. As Ying and I passed by Kintaro, we discovered there wasn’t much of a lineup! Win! So we hurried in and discovered that the inside was still packed. Oh well… So we waited… and waited. Finally, we got a seat in about 20 minutes. Kintaro is a hole-in-a-wall Japanese restaurant that specializes in ramen. If you only do one thing, you better be very good at it. This saying applies here. They make excellent ramen and is synonymous with best ramen in Vancouver in my book.

This place has been on my radar for a while but I never find myself in this area so I hadn’t been here. Until this past Monday after skating with Turtle, The Torontonian, and JChan. By the way, if you like skating you really should check out the new facilities at Hillcrest near Nat Bailey Stadium. This place has a skating rink, swimming pool, curling rink, gym, and sports facilities altogether in a shiny new (relatively) building! It a really nice area! Ok back to the topic; after skating I was hungry and I felt like going to a breakfast only location. After some indecisive loitering, snacking on chocolate, eating rice crackers and waiting for Wei Gor to finish work, we settled on the Mac Shack in Kerrisdale. Makes sense right? Totally. Click the title to read on !

What a ridiculous busy week! The Yummy crews are totally behind on eating! Nabs and I have been working like dogs and Ying has been “studying” for her exams (aka facebooking – just kidding). Today, after Taekwondo, I decided to try Nine Dishes located on Kingsway. Why this place? No particular reason really... The bright red sign looks appealing I suppose and it's relatively close to my class. They serve Szechuan and Northern China style fusion food. Interesting concept.

I finally had the opportunity to pay Mazuya Sushi a visit after probably a year of not being able to and finding it closed on 3 separate occasions during my vacation from here.  Yea, its like it just was not meant to be.  But today I set out to set my own fate, and with the company of Peanut Butter, there was not much that could have gotten in the way of us eating here. Mazuya is my favourite sushi restaurant in Vancouver and has been for about 2 years now.  I first came across this place in the summer of 2009 when I was working full time in the area and I used to eat here at least 3 days a week.  It got to the point where they would know who was calling and I would just say that I’ll be there in 15 minutes and they would have my favourite order ready by the time I arrived on my lunch break!  Man, those were the days!  But in those days, I was a student and I was only able to enjoy the standard rolls.  On this visit, I dared to spend more and try some of their specialty rolls.

It had been a long time coming. Ying had been wanting to make yummy in her tummy courtesy of Stepho’s for a few days now and we finally went there a few Mondays ago.  Located in downtown Vancouver, Stepho’s is characterized by budget friendly prices, long line-ups, and calamari dinners.  It is also one of the few unexpected places that serve halal meat so Nabs can eat meat here.  In fact, Nabs can even have the calamari here!  We know what you’re thinking and we were thinking the same thing too.  With all that Stepho’s has going for it, how could we not have been here already??  As a matter of fact, the last time any of us visited here was probably 1.5-2 years ago and a lot can have changed in that time.  So Nabs, being unsure whether they still had halal meat, was hesitant to go.  In the end, we convinced him to tag along, promising that we would find out if it’s halal once we got there. Stepho’s is located on Davie street and if you’ve ever driven down this street,  you know parking can be a headache and costly before 10 pm.  Fortunately we were headed here after 9:30 pm so we managed to find parking just 2 minutes walk down from the restaurant.  Beware, don’t try to be clever and park at the shoppers across the street, walk around in shoppers, then exit and go to Stepho’s.  Nabs’ friend got ticketed like that.

Our second and final Dine Out this year was at Mistral French Bistro in Kits and we were fortunate to be accompanied on this outing with the honorable Krispy Bites and Evan.  Having been to Mistral twice in the past 2 years and being very content with my experience each time, I was looking forward to going here and curious to see how the Dine Out menu compares to the regular one.  As good as the food has been, the service here in my past visits has been even better and is by far the BEST I've had in all the years since I've been eating out.  Besides, with a 3 course meal that would average in the $40/person vicinity on the average day, how can you say no to a $28 3 course menu? That's a 25% cost savings!  And we all like saving money!  Just look at the ING Direct guy for example.  Anyhow, here we were late on a Sat evening ready to indulge into frenchly delicacy.

I just got off after another hectic day of work and Ying was telling me about how similarly crazy her shift was. It was 6pm and I had 2.5 hours to kill before dine out  with Krispymilk, Nabs and Ying. What should I do? I suggested JJ Bean so we could forget about our mind boggling work and have a cuppa joe in a cozy and dimly-lit setting. JJ Bean is a modern coffee shop that offers tranquility on a busy Main St. intersection. It serves tea, coffee, sandwiches and some pastry. I really liked its interior design, especially the fireplace in the middle of the shop. Thus, I made myself comfortable on a big leather chair and rested my brain by reading Sherlock Holmes.

After hearing so much about this place from friends, I finally had the chance to try Phnom Penh last week. I did have a brief taste of it a few years back when Rich and I volunteered as tour guides in Chinatown. It was one of the stops on our tour and we got to sample some of their food – I think it was spring rolls or something like that.

At the time, this unassuming restaurant didn’t really catch my attention. As I rarely venture into that part of Chinatown, I never felt the urge to specifically go back to try their actual dishes. Then over the years, it seemed like more and more friends were recommending it – especially their famed chicken wings. Now, as you may know, Rich is vehemently opposed to anything chicken-related, so this restaurant was put on the back burner. I certainly didn’t want to go there and have a full plate of fried chicken wings by myself. Last week, Rich’s parents came back from Hong Kong for Chinese New Year, and we were looking for a place to eat. I suggested Phnom Pehn – so off we went to Chinatown.

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.

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.

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.