Archive for October, 2008
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
At Victoria’s recommendation, a few of us decided to meet up for dinner at Plan B in Yaletown when Lawson was visiting. None of us had been to Plan B before so our server helped us walk through the menu. Although there are some meal-sized entrees, most of the dishes at Plan B were tapas style and were best shared.
We decided to each pick one or two dishes that piqued our interest from the menu. I’m always a big charcuterie fan so I decided to pick that. :) The mix of cured meats also came with some lightly buttered crostini, pickles, olives. The salami-type meat on the right (below) was pretty standard but sometimes it’s nice to have something familiar. :) I enjoyed bundling the meat with a pickle and then pairing it with either a crostini or olive…or sometimes even both.
The salade nicoise was another one of my picks. The tuna chunks were lightly grilled and very fresh tasting. My favourite part about this salad was the very lightly cooked egg which served as a salad dressing of sorts. We broke the yolk and spread it over the salad. Although it may sound a bit odd, it was quite tasty and imparted a nice creamy flavour over the salad.
The seared steak was another great choice. We seemed to be on a roll with picking our dishes that day. :) The steak was thinly sliced and served on a bed of spinach with fingerling potatoes and tomatoes. The potatoes were nicely roasted with a slightly caramel-like skin. There was also a small dollop of grainy mustard and a smear of horseradish sauce. I normally don’t like horseradish sauce but it had a very mild taste which I enjoyed quite a bit.
Victoria chose the Croque Monsieur, which came with a side of fries. If you are trying to be healthy, this probably isn’t the best choice. I had Croque Monsieurs a few times when I was in France and it seemed to be a popular street food. This version was fancied up a bit but was basically a French version of a grilled cheese sandwich. The only difference was that the cheese was on the outside. :) I’m not sure if mustard is included in the traditional version of this but I found it gave a slight punch to the sandwich. The fries were lightly seasoned and not too oily, which I liked.
We also decided to order some mussels to round out our main dishes. The mussels were steamed in a roasted tomato and saffron broth. Although this was tasty, I felt that the saffron flavour could have been a bit stronger. The mussels themselves were quite fresh and juicy. The bread was a bit charred but had a nicely chewy texture that prevented it from getting soggy when dipped in the broth.
We were finally ready for dessert. I’m a big lemon dessert fan so I decided to go with the lemon tart. There was also a big dollop of lavender foam, which was separated from the tart by some raw chocolate or cocoa bean pieces. Although I couldn’t taste the lavendar in the foam, its bubbly lightness actually made for an interesting texture contrast with the lemon tart. The slightly bitter cocoa bits actually brought out the lemon flavour of the tart, which I also found interesting.
Victoria chose the coffee and rosewater creme brulee. I can’t remember her exact comments about the creme brulee but she did enjoy it quite a bit. The churros were also something different and its crunchy texture provided quite a contraste with the creaminess of the creme brulee.
John was looking for something on the lighter side that day so he decided to go with trio of sorbets and ice creams. Our favourite flavour was definitely the passion fruit (below left). Its flavour came out very strongly and really made you feel like you were somewhere tropical. We also liked the coconut, although it didn’t even taste like coconut. 
Plan B was pretty quiet when we were there for dinner. If you eat there between 4-6PM, you can also get extra points if you book the reservation through OpenTable.com. The dishes are on the small side though so you should be prepared to order more than one dish per person unless you are not very hungry. They also seem to change up their menu choices occasionally so you may want to check what’s on the menu to see what’s in season.
Details:
1144 Homer St, Vancouver
604-609-0901
Summary:
Food: 
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Price: $$ to $$$
Posted in Tapas, Vancouver, Lower Mainland Cities, West Coast, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
It was Gene’s birthday and he decided that our team should celebrate at Anton’s Pasta Bar in Burnaby. For those of you who haven’t tried the Anton’s experience, it’s a pasta place that is well known for its extremely large portions. I’m not sure if it is still the case these days, but they used to have a promotion going that if you could finish an entire dinner size pasta entree by yourself, you would be the proud owner of an Anton’s ballpoint pen. Personally, I didn’t see how this would motivate someone to eat so much pasta in one seating but I knew many people who saw this as a personal challenge.
I was a bit wary of eating even a lunch-sized portion of pasta for lunch since I had to go back to work afterwards so I decided to try one of their salads. I went for the spinach salad because they used a vinaigrette dressing instead of a creamy one. Even the salads at Anton’s come in large and small sizes. Since I was only planning to eat salad for lunch, I thought I should go for the large size but our server advised us that small would be more than enough. Even though my salad just consisted of spinach, mushrooms, and bacon bits, it was more than enough to fill me up for lunch.
You do have to be careful if you’re ordering salad only to be healthy though. Alison ordered a seafood salad with Anton’s special dressing and she was presented with a generous heaping of dressing. She told me the salad was pretty good though, albeit a bit heavy on the dressing.
Some of us added some chicken to our salads for some additional protein. You had a choice of garlic chicken or spicy chicken. I chose the spicy chicken, which just turned out to be fried chicken in a tabasco-based sauce. The batter was not too heavy but I found that the spicy sauce didn’t go with my salad at all.
In a party as large as ours, it’s almost a given that someone would order a pasta dish. :) Christina chose the spiral pasta with seafood and mushrooms in a cream sauce. She also requested whole wheat conchiglie instead of the regular egg version.
Jay had the penne bombay, which also had prawns and was served in a creamy curry sauce. It was something different and the curry actually went pretty well with the pasta.
Gene decided to go for penne alle’ Emiliana, which had chorizo, bacon, and black olives. The server recommended that Gene also add pine nuts, which would add some additional crunch to the pasta.
Anton’s can sometimes get pretty busy so lunch is a pretty good alternative to dinner if you want to avoid the crowds. The restaurant doesn’t take any reservations though so if you are going in a large group, it’s best to go earlier. I generally find the pastas at Anton’s to be too heavy on the sauce or too oily, but the salads turned out to be a nice alternative. You just need to watch what kind of salad dressing is used.
Details:
4260 E. Hastings St, Burnaby
(604) 299-6636
Summary:
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Price: $$
Posted in Burnaby, Lower Mainland Cities, Italian, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
Jenkins and I met up with Jenkins’ parents one weekend afternoon for some dim sum at Golden Ocean in Kerrisdale. Although I’ve come here before, it’s usually for dinner and it was the first time I had been there for dim sum in quite a while. Because Golden Ocean is one of the few dim sum places in the Kerrisdale area, it’s almost always packed during meal times. Lucky for us, that day, we only had to wait about 10 minutes before we were seated.
Jenkins’ mom was responsible for ordering most of the items that day. First came one of Jenkins’ favourites: pan-fried pork buns. It looked quite tasty but the bun part was a bit mushy. The pork part was quite tasty though and went very well with the red vinegar dipping sauce.
Next came the har gow shrimp dumplings. These were nicely steamed with the rice wrapping skin having some nice elasticity to it. It sucks when the skin is over-steamed and it starts to melt away when you try to pick up the dumplings with your chopsticks.
I had never had these pan-fried turnip cakes before but they were one of my favourite items of the day. The toasted sesame seats on top added a nice roasted and nutty flavour and the puff pastry was flaky but not too oily. I’d definitely order these again.
I’m not sure what these are called in English but they are bean curd rolls with minced pork and some veggies inside. Some restaurants make this oilier than it really needs to be but at Golden Ocean, there was hardly any oil and it actually made you think it was healthy. :) (Or should I say healthier…)
The sui mai pork dumplings were also quite tasty. It was a bit smaller than I was used to but the pork and shrimp had a nice crunchiness to it.
These shrimp dumplings also had garlic chives in it which gave the dumplings a mild garlic flavour. It only had three pieces though so the four of us had to share.
The stamed spare ribs with black bean did not have too much black bean taste but had a great garlicky flavour to it. I think it would have gone really well with a bowl of rice.
It doesn’t seem like we ate too many dishes but I’m trying my best not to overeat at dim sum these days. I figure that way, I’m able to go to dim sum more often without it being too unhealthy. :) If you are ok with waiting a bit to be seated or are able to go earlier in the day, dim sum at Golden Ocean is always a good option.
Details:
2008 W. 41st Ave, Vancouver
Tel: (604) 263-8886
Summary:
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Service:
Price: $$
Posted in Vancouver, Dim Sum, Lower Mainland Cities, Asian, Chinese, Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Hello readers! After quite a hiatus, I’m finally back. :) Jenkins and I had a great time travelling around in Paris and Northern Italy and we also have several yummy culinary adventures to share with you. I’m going to get through some leftover posts I still have from before my trip and then I’ll start posting on our travels.
Check back this week for a review!
Posted in Updates | No Comments »
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