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Review: Not Just Pasta at Anton’s

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

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Price: $$

Posted in Burnaby, Lower Mainland Cities, Italian, Reviews | 2 Comments »

Review: Poking Some Fun at Po King

I first went to Po King a while back when my grandparents introduced it to me.  It’s a relatively cheap Chinese restaurant that opened a few months ago and offered dim sum for $2.99 per dish.  As such, it’s pretty busy at lunch and it’s best to get there a bit before 12 (at least on week days) if you don’t want to wait for a table.  Po King is located along Kingsway about a three minute drive east of Metrotown.

Most dim sum restaurants these days require you to order from a sheet and the dim sum is then brought to your table.  Po King kicks it old school by bringing carts of dim sum around.  One thing to note though is that the rotation of dim sum can be pretty scant at times so if you see something you want, it’s best to grab it right away.

The bean curd with pork and bamboo shoots was quite tasty.  Sometimes, this dish can get a bit oily but Po King’s version was not so.  Because there is so much pork packed in the bean curd wraps, it is actually quite filling so it’s best to ask your server to cut them in half.

I am always a fan of these Chinese beef balls, especially when there is an accompanying vinegar dipping sauce.

These bbq pork buns also have a sweet topping which makes for a unique combination of salty and sweet.  My aunt first introduced these to me quite a while ago and they always make for a tasty filler dish.

We sure do like our bbq pork buns!  We also had the regular version with no sweet coating on top. 

My grandma ordered this dish of steamed eel. There were quite a few bones so it is some work to eat it but also worth it. 

I really enjoyed this dish of fried leather jacket fish in Maggi sauce.  The bones weren’t too difficult to navigate and the crunchy outside of the fish went very well with the Maggi sauce.

We were still a bit hungry so we also ordered some fried noodles with chicken and veggies.  This dish was made fresh so the noodles were nice and crunchy.

One of my favourite dim sum dishes is the shredded chicken with jellyfish “salad”.  I would say that there was more jellyfish than chicken and I found it to be a bit watery towards the bottom.  It tasted good though and I liked the pickled sweetness of the pickled ginger and turnips.

Po King is a great deal for the type of food you get and the price.  I’m really glad that another good dim sum place has opened up near where I work.  I’ve already dragged my co-workers here a couple of times since first going there with my grandparents. 

Details:
150-5665 Kingsway, Burnaby
Tel: 604-436-2986

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Price: $

Posted in Burnaby, Dim Sum, Lower Mainland Cities, Asian, Chinese, Reviews | No Comments »