Ho Yummy

Over the weekend, I attended a food blogger dinner organized by Sherman of Sherman’s Food Adventures. It was only my second time attending an event such as this and I had the opportunity to meet other bloggers in the Vancouver area, including Kevin from 604 Foodtography, Jessica and her boyfriend from Yum-O-Rama, Kim from I’m Only Here for the Food, Wilson from La Petite Vancouver, Christina and ET from Doesn’t TaZte Like Chicken, Andrea from the Best Damn Food Blog There Is, and TS from the Eating Club. It was nice to see the face behind the blogs and even better that we got to do so over a meal at Alvin Garden in Burnaby. Alvin Garden is a Chinese restaurant that features food from the Hunan/Xiang region (near Szechuan). I’ve never had Hunan food before so it was quite a good thing that Kim suggested this place. The picture below was taken by Kim because I was too afraid of getting wet to venture across the street in the rain.

Each “blog” got to choose a dish and because all the ordering was coordinated via Sherman and Viv, I’m not too sure what was ordered. I have access to the menu though so I’ll try to give my best guess although you other bloggers who attended can feel free to correct my mistakes in the comments.

The food came pretty much all at once and before long, our large table was filled with several, mostly spicy dishes. Jenkins and I deliberated quite a while on what our contribution would be and finally decided on the pan fried spicy chicken, which was noted as a Xiang Special. Despite the abundance of chili peppers, I did not find this to be too spicy and the crispy chicken went really well with rice. Jenkins’ only complaint was the pieces of chicken were cut too small to be truly satisfying.

The Hunan-style braised pork was not too fatty, despite it being made with pork belly. The sauce was a bit on the salty side though so this is best eaten with rice.

The braised duck came in a curry-like sauce but was not spicy at all, in my opinion. The pieces of duck were cut quite small (similar to the pan fried spicy chicken) so we weren’t sure what the meat was in the dish initially. I found the duck to be overcooked and dry despite it coming in a stew-like format.

I enjoyed the Dongting broiled fish in chili soup although I had no idea that there was fish at the bottom of this bowl at first. There were quite a few chilis in this soup but not overwelmingly so.

The moist and flaky fish went very well with the bean sprouts in the soup and tasted great with a bit of rice.

The spicy Ma Po tofu was another dish that is best eaten with rice. The ratio of ground pork to tofu was just right for me and I found this quite a bit spicier than most versions I’ve had, which I really liked.

To temper all the spicy food we ordered, someone also ordered a pot of the daily soup. The simple flavours of this soup tasted very homey and included tofu, pork, corn, and carrots.

I felt that the green beans with pork were too oily for my liking and the meat was a bit on the salty side. The beans were nice and crunchy though and I suppose if you ate it with enough rice, the saltiness wouldn’t have been too bad.

The pork belly with peppers was ok but I felt that this was much oiler than the braised pork belly we had earlier.

The steamed egg with minced pork tasted exactly like the version that Jenkins’ mom makes. It’s best eaten with rice and was a nice change of pace from the many spicy dishes we had that evening.

I found this steamed fish head with chilis surprisingly salty and the several small bones decreased my eating pleasure. Despite the bones, I think I would enjoyed this dish quite a bit more if it wasn’t so salty.

These fried pumpkin cakes had a chewy consistency similar to mochi and its slight sweetness made it more of a dessert item than something you would eat for your main course. I also enjoyed the crispy outside and was a bit dismayed that I had to share mine with Jenkins.

These steamed corn cakes were the biggest bust of the evening. They were surprisingly hard and dry even though they were steamed. There was also no flavour to them whatsoever so someone suggested that maybe they were supposed to be eaten with some kind of sauce.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the unique dishes at Alvin Garden. It was great that we went with such a large group because we were able to sample quite a few dishes and now I know what to order the next time I’m there. Service was pretty prompt and by the time we left the restaurant at around 7:30PM, all the tables were full. The prices were also very reasonable. All the dishes we ordered worked out to $16/person at the end of the evening.

Thanks Sherman for organizing this fun event. Looking forward to attending the next one.

To read what the other bloggers thought of the dinner, click on the links below:
Sherman’s Food Adventures
I’m Only Here for the Food
La Petite Vancouver
604 Foodtography
The Best Damn Food Blog There Is

Details:
4850 Imperial Street, Burnaby
Tel: 604-437-0828

Summary:
Food:
Service:
Price: $$

CHOP, the high end restaurant owned by the same owner of Moxie’s, the Sandman Hotel, and a few other chains, recently opened up in Richmond by the Sandman Signature Hotel (formerly known as the Delta Hotel). My first impression stepping into CHOP was that this restaurant belonged downtown. It’s furnished with sculptures and designer light fixings, and looks very modern. To me, it would appear to be the classiest and nicest “breastraunt” out there (”breastraunt” is defined as a chain restaurant where servers and waitresses seem to be hired for “something else” that’s not related to superior customer service skills or knowledge in food and wine).

I’ve been to CHOP a number of times (as I work a good 5 minutes walk away from there) so I’m going to combine two of my food experiences at CHOP into one post.

On one visit, I was at CHOP strictly for dessert. They have an assortment of dessert, of which most I’ve tried already, but the only one I have photographed is their 24-layer chocolate cake served with a side of vanilla bean ice cream. This cake really is 24-layers and is topped with an edible blown sugar ornament on the top. The cake is a little bit too rich for my liking, but I can understand this is more of a “novel” menu item than something that’s expected to be the best cake in the world.

On my other visit to CHOP was inspired by Rebecca Bollwitt of Miss604.com when she tweeted about and later briefly blogged about Best Patios in Vancouver. Needless to say, CHOP has quite the patio. Their patio involves lamp posts that second as fans over their stylish white leather seats.

I was at CHOP this time around with my work neighbour Karen and we had walked over to CHOP during our lunch break for drinks and a snack. After our brisk walk, we decided to cool off with a couple drinks. I had the CHOP 178 Fizz, which was a mix of melon liqueur, Limoncello, sparkling wine, and a scoop of mango sorbet. The drink was refreshing and sweet, and the mango sorbet added a fun slushy dimension to my drink.

Karen had the Tanq Toniq Iceberg, which was a regular Tanqueray gin tonic, with a scoop of lime sorbet. I had a sip of this too and found it equally refreshing as my drink. I liked this one a bit more than mine as it wasn’t as sweet.

The two of us shared Steak Bites as our snack meal. These are one of my favorite orders at CHOP. They’re small tender bite sized steak cubes packed with plenty of flavor. Steak Bites are served with sweet dijon barbeque dip and a horesradish aioli sauce. The two sauces complement the steak very well; but alone, the steak is still phenomenal. I highly recommend ordering this dish.

Overall, CHOP is a pretty solid restaurant to visit if you’re looking for somewhere to grab a quick bite or plan a party. They’ve got multiple private dining areas and can accommodate quite a few people. I also recommend trying their veal sandwich and some of their other desserts. There is a decent selection of foods to be tried at CHOP, and so far my visits to CHOP have been rather satisfying.

Details:
10251 St Edwards Dr, Richmond
Tel: 604-276-1180

Summary:
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Price: $$$

Juanita and I met up for dinner one day. She had just returned from a long trip and I was eager to hear about all her adventures. It took us a while to figure out which restaurant to go to though because Juanita has been to most of the places on my list but we finally settled on Boneta in Gastown. Located on the edge of Gastown just behind the Army & Navy, Boneta’s location was definitely interesting and I hoped the food would be just as good.

Despite the fact that I had just finished my kickboxing class that evening, I was not very hungry and neither was Juanita so we decided to share a couple of smaller dishes. Juanita’s choice was a light hamachi (yellowtail) salad with cucumbers, green onions, caviar, and fried pork rinds. The vinaigrette was light and slightly tangy with just a hint of sesame oil. I thought the pork rinds was a bit odd but its crunchy texture went very well with the fatty, smooth yellowtail. My only complaint was that I wish there was more for me to eat since it was so tasty!

Next came the charcuterie platter. Our server proudly told us that everything before us was made in house, even the board that the charcuterie came on! The whole wheat baguette was still warm from the oven and very crusty. I thought all the cured meats had a ton of flavour and went well with the bread and accompanying salts and pickles. My favourite was definitely the foie gras mousse (brown cube in the middle). The mousse was light, airy, and full of great foie gras flavour. To make things even more decadent, there was a small sliver of butter to go with the mousse and bread. Same with the previous dish, I only wished there was more mousse for me to eat! The amount of bread that came with this dish was not quite enough but our host quickly brought us another freshly baked baguette when we asked, free of charge.

Probably due to the second baguette, we were both quite full at this point. However, we decided to plough ahead and order a dessert to share. I decided to pick the caramelized apples, baba au rhum cake with licorice cream, and some ice cream. I was a bit disappointed with this dessert. There were quite a few different elements to it and I was not sure if they all went together. The caramelized apples were a bit on the mushy side and I couldn’t really taste the licorice flavour in the cream. I’ll have to try another dessert the next time I’m here to see if their other desserts hold up.

Both Juanita and I quite enjoyed our visit to Boneta. With the exception of dessert, our dishes were quite tasty and prepared in quite unique ways. The service was also excellent and the staff were all friendly and engaging. There were so many things on the Boneta menu and now that they’ve switched to the summer menu, I’ll have to make another visit to try their other dishes.

Details:
1 West Cordova, Vancouver
Tel: 604-684-1844

Summary:
Food:
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Price: $$$

Jenkins and I were wandering the streets of downtown one sunny weekend day and realized that it was already two o’clock in the afternoon and we hadn’t had lunch yet. It must have been the hot weather because despite the late hour, we were not very hungry. We happened to be near Red Burrito at the time and since I had never been there, I decided that that was where we were going to eat lunch.

Red Burrito specializes in Mexican fast food, such as tacos, tamales, and of course, their signature dish, the red burrito. I decided to go for the burrito bowl, which seemed to be pretty popular with quite a few people that I know. It came with beans, rice, and beef as a base and I added salsa, letuce, corn, lime juice, and sour cream. I liked the burrito bowl because it was a lot less messy than a burrito or taco.

The flavours melded quite well together and the extras I added were all very fresh. Because all the items in the bowl were layered on top of one another, you had to make sure to mix everything well in order to taste all the flavours. The burrito bowl looked a bit small at first glance but was actually quite filling and I was not able to finish it.

Jenkins decided to go for the red burrito with chicken. He chose to add the same additional toppings as mine so he did not have to make too many decisions. If you’re looking to get full, the red burrito is probably a better option than the burrito bowl because it seemed to have quite a bit more to it for basically the same price.

Jenkins found his chicken burrito to be on the bland side though so he added some hot sauce to spice up the flavour.

Red Burrito was better than I expected and is a pretty good place to go especially if you’re in a rush. I wasn’t a huge fan of the beans in my burrito bowl though so the next time around, I’ll opt out of the beans and maybe ask for more rice.

Details:
606 Robson Street, Vancouver, BC
Tel: 604-676-0097

Summary:
Food:
Service: n/a
Price: $

Jen and I met up after work one summer day and decided it was too hot out for coffee. Instead, we decided to check out a relatively new frozen yogurt place that opened at Robson & Seymour. We figured it was a healthy alternative to ice cream and lucky for us, froyoswirl was actually on both our lists of places to try.

Being both health and cost conscious at the same time, Jen and I decided to share a large frozen yogurt and added 3 toppings for about $6. We opted for a summer theme with our toppings and chose strawberries, mangos, and lychees. The frozen yogurt was soft serve and still had the nice tangy taste of well-made froyo. Its slight tanginess actually complemented the fresh fruit quite well. I find that fresh fruit always goes better with frozen yogurt than ice cream, which makes the fruit taste sour no matter how sweet the fruit actually is.

Both Jen and I thoroughly enjoyed our treat but were somewhat deterred by the somewhat high price of our frozen yogurt and immediately started trying to brainstorm cheaper alternatives. Of course, this led me to search for a home made frozen yogurt recipe, which I found and was able to replicate with quite a bit of success. That being said, I did enjoy the frozen yogurt at froyoswirl quite a bit and they do have quite a nice variety of toppings. Froyoswirl is a great alternative if you don’t want to deal with the hassle of making your own frozen yogurt or if you don’t have any topping options at home.

Details:
820 Homer Street, Vancouver
Tel: 604-682-6116

Summary:
Food:
Service: n/a
Price: $

It was James’ birthday a few weeks ago and he wanted to celebrate by going to an all-you-can-eat sushi place. I had never been to Ninkazu before, but had heard it was owned by the same people as Tomokazu, so I suggested to James that we check it out. It had been quite a while since my last foray into all-you-can-eat sushi and it’s always more fun with a group so I was quite looking forward to it. Ninkazu is located in a small plaza between Aberdeen Centre and Parker Place in Richmond.

First, we started with a large plate of fresh oysters. I love fresh oysters and although Ninkazu’s isn’t the best, I was able to eat as many as I wanted to I suppose I couldn’t really complain. James and I finished most of this off quickly and ordered another plate so the others could have some too.

I liked how Ninkazu had quite an extensive sashimi selection in their menu. We ordered a bit of almost everything that was available, including salmon, tuna, toro, octopus, and hokkigai clams. Again, not the best I’ve had, but not bad for all-you-can-eat and due to the high turnover at the restaurant, was very fresh.

We also tried the spicy salmon and spicy tuna, which was basically salmon and tuna sashimi drizzled with a slightly sweet and spicy sauce. I like it when the spicy sauce has a hint of sweetness to it, rather than the slightly tangy taste found in Tabasco sauce, so I quite enjoyed this dish.

I also liked the Korean-style salmon sashimi. The fatty salmon belly was used here and drizzled with the sweet sauce used to marinade meats in Korean BBQs. I liked the fattiness of the salmon here as well as the sweet and slightly salty sauce.

To get our vegetable quotient in, we ordered some gomaae. I like eating spinach like this and I think I’ll have to try and find the recipe so I can make it on my own.

We also ordered some green salad, which came with a carroty and vinegary dressing. I felt that they were a bit heavy handed with the rice vinegar so the salad was too acidic for my liking.

The selection of nigiri sushi was also quite extensive. I wasn’t too wild about the sharkfin nor abalone nigiri but did enjoy the amaebi (sweet prawn) and hamachi. I appreciated that even though it was all-you-can-eat, Ninkazu did not overload the nigiri with too much rice and kept each piece relatively small so we could try a variety of items.

Even though I know cones are not a strategic item to choose at places like this due to the fact that they are so filling, I like eating cones so much that I always order them anyway. The negitoro cone had a lot of tuna and just the right amount of chives. The tuna reached all the way to the bottom of the cone and the seaweed was nice and crunchy, which I really enjoyed.

The gyoza and teriyaki chicken fairly standard. I would have liked the teriyaki chicken to be crispier on the outside though.

I did not like the oyster motoyaki at all though. They came served in little tart cups, which I think is much more hygenic than the (likely reused) oyster shells. However, I found the motoyaki sauce to be too oily and hardly any oyster pieces inside.

The grilled saba and salmon was done quite well. I suspect this would have gone nicely with a bowl of steamed rice.

You have the option of ordering only prawn tempura, as opposed to the other veggie-based tempura at some other establishments. I found the prawns to be over-battered and too floury tasting though.

The fried squid and smelt was soggy and not very tasty. I wasn’t sure if it was over-fried or just sitting out for too long but I definitely would not order this again.

The agadashi tofu was passable but I found the sauce a bit on the sweet side.

Finally, we had almost eaten as much as we possibly could so it was time for dessert. We started off with a plate of orange slices. Jenkins always comments that Tomokazu has very sweet oranges and Ninkazu turned out to be the same.

We had the oranges first because next up was mango pudding. We figured that the mango pudding would be so sweet that the oranges would taste sour if we saved them for the very end and this turned out to be the right assumption. The mango pudding did not have too much mango taste to it though.

As far as all-you-can-eat sushi goes, Ninkazu really is not too bad. Of course, you do take a hit on quality when you decide to go and do all-you-can-eat but Ninkazu does have quite a high turnover rate and most of its items are quite fresh. However, I do feel that I’ve reached a point in my life where I’d rather eat less at a nicer Japanese place than to stuff myself silly at an all-you-can-eat place. During weekends, the all-you-can-eat at Ninkazu is $22.95 per person.

Details:
4231 Hazelbridge Way, Richmond
Tel: 604-279-9077

Summary:
Food:
Service:
Price: $$