Archive for August, 2007
Sunday, August 19th, 2007
Jenkins and I went to Sun Sui Wah in Richmond the other day with my family for a dim sum brunch. I am a total sucker for dim sum and almost never turn down an invite to dim sum. 
Sun Sui Wah is pretty popular for dim sum so we went at 11am to avoid the lunch rush.
Unlike some of the more old-fashioned dim sum places, at Sun Sui Wah, you order what you want on a sheet and it gets freshly made and then brought to your table. Occasionally, the kitchen will bring out “specials” that are carried out on trays and you can order from those as well.
We started with the deep fried wonton, which came with a tangy plum dipping sauce.
I’m not sure what these are called in English but in Chinese, they are called “ham sur gok”. Basically, they are packets of pork and mushrooms wrapped in a chewy glutinous dough and then deep fried. The crunchy outside contrasts nicely with the chewy interior.
We also had some congee (rice porridge). This one had dried fish, green onions, and crunchy deep fried wonton skins on top. It was a nice departure from the deep fried dishes we had had thus far.
We also had some steamed pork and mushroom wrapped in bean curd and sticky rice packets. I took pictures of these, but unfortunately, they turned out to be very blurry. But the dishes themselves are worth trying.
Then we had some steamed pork ribs with a little bit of black bean sauce. The pork was very juicy and would have gone nicely with some rice.
We also had pan-fried soy sauce rice noodle rolls. This is one of my favourite dishes and I like to generously dip it in the accompanying hoi sin and sesame sauces.
The steamed shrimp rice noodle rolls were also good. These came with a slightly sweet soy sauce for dipping.
We also ordered some shrimp and scallop dumplings…a slight twist on the usual har gow that is very popular with most dim sum goers. The pieces of shrimp were nice and big and the scallops were a nice addition.
At this point, we decided it would be nice to order some noodles to help fill us up. The first noodle dish to come was the house special noodles. The egg noodles were fried and on top was poured a oyster sauce-based sauce with veggies, scallops, squid, bbq pork, and chicken. It sounds like an eclectic mix of toppings but went great with the crunchy noodles.
The Singapore fried noodles were curried rice vermicelli noodles with bbq pork, shrimp, peppers, and bean sprouts. The noodles were not oily at all and were slightly al dente.
Finally, it was time for dessert. We ordered the tapioca pudding, which is one of my favourite desserts. Tapioca pearls are mixed with some coconut milk and red bean paste in the base. Over this is a crunchy cookie topping. The contrast between the creamy and crunchy is fantastic.
We also had another fan favourite for dessert…the mango pudding. You can also opt to have some extra evaporated milk drizzled on top, which makes for a nice and creamy dessert. The mango went great with the milk and was a refreshing and tasty end to the meal.
Details:
102-4920 No. 3 Rd, Richmond
Tel: 604-273-8208
Summary:
Food: 
Service:
Price: $$
Posted in Asian, Chinese, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
John, Louis, Chris, and I went to the Bubble World on Kingsway & Wilson the other day. It was after work and a nice way to wind down. Although it is Bubble World, none of us ordered bubbles along with our drinks. Bubble World offers a take-0ut menu along with its eat-in service with the take-out being about $0.50-0.75 cheaper in general.
I settled on the passion fruit green tea. This was one of my favourite tea house drinks for a while because I find the tangy passion fruit flavour blends really well with the green tea.
Chris had the pomegranate green tea. Although the pomegranate taste was not very strong, the drink itself was a nice shade of red.
John wasn’t feeling well so he went with the hot drink option for his honey lemon green tea. He said that you can taste the honey flavour more than in a cold drink and found that it was perfect for his throat, which was still a bit sore.
Louis decided to go with the taro slush drink. If anything, this was a refreshing drink to have on a hot, sunny day. At $4.50, it was also the most expensive of our three drinks.
In general, I don’t like Bubble World because they charge more for in-restaurant drinks than take-out drinks. At the same time, the in-restaurant drinks are quite a bit smaller than the drinks you get when you do take-out. To me, this just does not make sense! However, as it is so close to where I work, it is the de facto bubble tea place we go to on most weekdays.
Details:
4300 Kingsway, Burnaby
Tel: 604-434-5551
Summary:
Food:
Service:
Price: $
Posted in Drinks, Asian, Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
Derek, Peggy, and I went to Tomoya for sushi the other day. Located at 6285 Nelson Ave in Burnaby, it’s just around the corner from Lao Shan Dong beef noodle house and basically across the street from Metrotown. I had heard from a friend that this was pretty good so decided to give it a try.
Upon reading the menu at the restaurant, we found out that the chef was from New York and sought to bring an interesting spin to traditional Japanese food. We were intrigued by their special rolls, which were spins on regular rolls that you would find in most sushi places.
I have to admit that there is a gap of a few weeks between when we went to this restaurant and when I write this post so I can’t remember the names of all the rolls we tried though.
First off was the Flying Dragon roll. It is basically a dynamite roll with the added bonus of eel and both red and green tobiko on top. Let me just say now that the size of these rolls is bigger than most regular sushi rolls and you also get 8-10 pieces instead of the usual 5-6 pieces.
Then we had the Metro roll. It had tempura salmon, avocado, and crab inside. On top, there was sashimi salmon and tobiko. This roll was very crunchy, which was nice…but I found that the tempura salmon had more fried batter taste than salmon itself.
Then we had a sushi roll that had cooked shrimp and mango layered on top. I can’t remember what was inside the roll though. I was intrigued by the mango on top, but found the overall taste of this one pretty plain.
This next roll was my favourite of the four. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what it’s called! Inside, it was a regular California roll. But on top, there was chopped scallops, red & green tobiko, and green onions. It sounds like there is a lot going on, but the flavours all worked well with one another.
Overall, I think this is a great new addition to the regular sushi restaurants along Kingsway. Most places that I’ve been to that offer rolls like this are all on the west side of Vancouver. The servings were much bigger than I anticipated. The three of us ordered four rolls, but three rolls would have been more than enough. Each special roll costs around $7-9.
My biggest complaint about this place was that the tables weren’t wiped down very well, which resulted in an impression that the restaurant was a bit unkempt and sloppy.
Details:
6285 Nelson Ave, Burnaby
Tel: 604-437-8839
Summary:
Food:
Service:
Price: $
Posted in Japanese, Asian, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, August 13th, 2007
Jenkins and I went to Empire Mandarin Restaurant the other day with our families. It is located in Richmond at 8251 Alexandra Rd, which is a street filled with mostly Asian restaurants. The building with the restaurant is split into two, one is the Empire Mandarin Restaurant, which features Shanghainese cuisine. The other restaurant, whose name escapes me at the moment, serves traditional Cantonese cuisine.
There were eight of us so we ordered a set meal for eight. At $149 for ten dishes, this was an unbelievable deal. I tried to take pictures of all the dishes but I may have missed some along the way.
First, we had Shanghai pork dumplings. Inside the dumpling is a little pocket of soup which bursts in your mouth when you bite into it. It can be messy if you don’t pop the whole dumpling in your mouth at once.
Next came the crab. Unlike most crab I’ve had at Chinese restaurants, this came with some chewy “noodles” and edamame beans. The “noodles” are loonie-sized and bring an interesting texture to the dish and soaks up all the yummy crab juice. I don’t think they’re really called noodles but I’m not sure what the name is in English.
We also ordered some extra buns to eat with the crab. You have a choice of steamed or fried…of course we picked fried. It was crispy on the outside and steamy on the inside.
Next came the soup. It was light and refreshing with vermicelli noodles, pork, and veggies.
Our next dish was stir-fried shrimp with ginger, green onions, and some pepper. Although it was made with simple ingredients, it was still quite tasty.
This was probably one of my favourite dishes of the evening. I know it was my dad’s favourite! Smoked duck with chinese buns…so yummy! You may even say “ho yummy”. 
You could really taste the smoky flavour of the duck and the meat itself was very moist. The saltiness of the dish went perfectly with the buns, which helped to diffuse the flavour a bit.
After all these meat dishes, it was time for some veggies. This was another simple dish with baby bok choy with bean curd and some kind of fungus. It wasn’t heavy and was a good dish to eat after the duck.
By now, we were all starting to get pretty full. Each dish took extremely long to come so we had no choice but to pace ourselves throughout the dinner. Nonetheless, we were starting to fill up with still another 3 or 4 dishes left to go!
The fish was deep fried and then drizzled with sweet and sour sauce. I prefer steamed fish more in Chinese cuisine and this was the only dish of the evening I didn’t like.
No Chinese set dinner is complete without noodles. We had soy sauce fried noodles. Although my bowl of noodles was good, the sauce didn’t seem to be mixed very well so some people’s noodles were too salty and sauce heavy.
As I mentioned earlier, the food took very long to come. By now, we had been at the restaurant for almost three hours! We had one more dish before dessert…a pork hock. However, due to the long wait and our full stomachs, we asked the server to pack it up for us. I was told the next day that it was very good.
And finally, it was time for dessert. This was a steamed glutinous pastry with red bean paste inside. There was nothing special about this dessert, but since I was so small, I appreciated the small size of it.
All in all, the meal itself was terrific. The food was different from the usual Cantonese cuisine I am accustomed to. With the exception of the fish, I thoroughly enjoyed each dish. My biggest gripe with this place was the slow slow slow service. The restaurant seemed to be very understaffed and even asking for the bill took about 20 minutes. I would recommend this place, but it is definitely better to go early since it may be a long wait for your food to come.
Summary:
Food:
Service:
Price: $$
Posted in Chinese, Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, August 12th, 2007
Jenkins and I went to Torarenbo for lunch the other day. It is located at 8191 Park Rd in Richmond, which is a small street right by Richmond Centre mall. Jenkins found out about this place a few months ago and it has quickly become one of our favourite sushi places in Richmond.
We both ordered lunch boxes, which came with miso soup.
Jenkins had the chicken teriyaki lunch box, which was $7.95. It came with an appetizer-sized tempura, sushi, salad, and fresh fruit. The chicken tempura was crunchy on the outside and went really well with the rice. The tempura even came with 2 pieces of prawn tempura.
I had the tonkatsu lunch box. Let me just say that my tonkatsu pork chop was huge. It was very good…juicy on the inside and very crunchy outside. It also came with some tonkatsu sauce and mayo to dip the pork in. The side dishes were the same as the chicken teriyaki. I think this was around $8.50 or $8.95 and was more than enough for lunch. In my opinion, this was more of a dinner-sized portion.
Jenkins and I haven’t tried the other items available here since we are always drawn to the good value of the lunch boxes. The variety of items is pretty much the same as most sushi restaurants but everything is very fresh and tasty. The service is also quite good here. Each table is served their own pot of tea, which is always nice.
Summary:
Food: 4 stars/5
Service: 3 stars/5
Price: $
Posted in Japanese, Asian, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Thursday, August 9th, 2007
Jenkins and I decided to check out Japa Dog the other day. It is a Japanese-style hot dog stand at Burrard and Smithe just in front of the Sutton Place Hotel.
They have the same hot dogs you would typically find at any hot dog stand, but the real specialty here is the Japanese hot dogs.
I decided on the Terimayo hot dog, which is a beef hot dog with teriyaki sauce, fried onions, mayo, and seaweed. The only real difference between this and most hot dogs that I eat is the mayo and the seaweed. It was good, but a tiny bit too salty for me. Next time, I may ask for less sauce and that may help.
Jenkins had the Oroshi dog. This was a pork bratwurst with grated radish, green onions, and “special house sauce”. I found this to be more original than the terimayo dog. This was also a bit on the salty side, but other than that, was very good.
Japa Dog is definitely a place you have to try at least once..just for kicks. The hot dogs are unlike any that you have tried at a typical hot dog stand. They also had a turkey smokie, which came with some baby watercress and miso mayo.
Details:
Corner of Burrard St and Smithe St, Vancouver
This stand appears to be seasonal…I haven’t been able to find it there once the weather turned cold!
Summary:
Food:
Service: n/a - there was no real “service” per se but the people who cooked our hot dogs were very friendly.
Price: $
Posted in Japanese, Asian, Reviews | No Comments »
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