Seasons in the Park: The Perfect Place

I have to admit that this post is overdue, but I just had to share my love for Seasons in the Park before I go back to blogging restaurants in the East coast. 

I can't remember when my first time here was, but ever since I could remember, Seasons has been my family's go-to place whenever there is a celebration or when we have guests visiting us. The restaurant sits at the top of Queen Elizabeth Park and has breathtaking views. I always go to Seasons for lunch but the scenery is just as stunning as I imagine it would be at night since the park itself is very beautiful. 

On top of the great decor and view, the service here is impecable. Not long after we placed our orders, the waiter brought us a warm basket of bread. I liked that the crust was crispy and the inside soft and fluffy. The bread is also unlimited here. I always have to stop myself from filling my stomach with loads of bread!

Caesar Salad    $10 + tax

Nice Cafe is a nice cafe

Brunch was never my "thing" until I moved to Toronto. When I lived in Vancouver, the closest thing I've ever had was dimsum. As a result, when the only time that worked between my Vancouver friends and I was earlier in the day, we decided to be "classy" and meet for brunch. 

Being a rookie at brunch in Vancouver, I had to do some research to select the restaurant for our party. The brunch we wanted to go to originally wasn't open, so I had to look for an alternative. I came across Nice Cafe and decided to give it a try given its high ratings online as well as its convenient location. Given the large size of our party, I thought it'd be safer to call in beforehand to make reservations. Once I arrived at the restaurant, I was thankful that I had planned ahead. The restaurant is fairly small but extremely packed, with people crowding by the door waiting. 

Eggs Benedict    $7.10 + tax 

Adonia Teahouse: Cute, Cozy, but Cramped

AMY: You'd think that after two not so satisfying experiences of afternoon tea (ahem, Faubourg, Meloty) we would stop trying. Well third time's a charm right? We decided to give afternoon tea one more go at Adonia Teahouse. The interior is cute and very lady-like, but our seating space was very tight. 

LULU: The last time I visited Adonia was years ago back in high school, but I remembered it to be a pleasant experience. That being said, I was excited to try the afternoon tea, now that I was old enough to enjoy it. The first thing that I noticed after sitting down was, boy is this place cramped! 

AMY: We went for the Afternoon Tea set option for $27 per person with your choice of tea. They have quite a few teas to choose from. I ended up having the Peach Green Tea because it had rose buds in it. The teapot sat upon this little warmer which was a nice touch but slightly space consuming. I liked the china very much as it satisfies my need for floral adornment during afternoon tea. 

LULU: I opted for the Pink Grapefruit tea but was a bit iffy about it at first, since there are papaya bits in it according to the menu. After conversing with the owner, she reassured me that it was a good choice and that if I didn't like it she would let me order a new tea at no additional cost. And indeed she was perfectly right about my tea being a good pick. The aroma of the tea wasn't as strong as Amy's, but the taste was fruity and not too sour at the same time. 

Shortly after our tea arrived, our food came on a three tiered stand with sweets on the top and savory on the bottom two. Before I go into how the bites tasted, did I mention that I loved the fact how the floral cutlery all matched?
Anyway, we didn't have anything to eat that morning, so we were pretty hungry. I went for what I thought was the safest first, which was the ham and cheese sandwich. To my surprise, it was delicious! I couldn't figure out why it tasted so good because it was just toast, some mayo, ham, and cheese. However, everything else I had after that couldn't live up to this sandwich. My second favourite was the spinach and bacon quiche. The crust was crispy and the filling was tasty and not too salty. The top tier was my least favorite. Sadly there wasn't anything on that plate that I enjoyed -- everything was overly sweet for me.

Miku Restaurant: Aburi, A-blah

LULU: Before a girl's night out in downtown Vancouver, we wanted to start the evening with a semi-classy dinner in the area with our group of friends (welcome back, Steven!). Miku has been on our to-eat list for a while, so we decided to take the opportunity to cross it off our list. All of us read reviews online and were very hyped up about finally going here. The restaurant looked amazing from the outside and the servers greeted us wholeheartedly -- it seemed like we were off to a great start!

Yakisoba

STEVEN: Good ol' yakisoba! Fry up some noodles, toss in a bit of calamari and vegetables, and top it off with tempura batter flakes - simple, right? This was one of our dishes of the night, and in hindsight, actually  my favorite one (surprisingly). I guess it isn't exactly a promising start for Miku when a seemingly elementary dish gets the most "Not Bad's" from everyone. I've got to give credit where credit is due though, I thought the crunch and flakiness of the tempura batter gave the slick noodles a new dimension you don't normally find in yakisoba.

Calamari

Bubble World (大頭仔): A Yummy Pit-Stop in Richmond

LULU: One night, Amy and I were meeting our friends for a quick dinner. The boys had just finished singing at karaoke and were grabbing a bite before catching a movie later that night. We wanted to find something close and fast, so we decided on Bubble World. I hadn't visited the Richmond Bubble World before and didn't have very high expectations since I always thought of it as just a bubble tea place.

AMY: I visit this place quite often, usually when I'm not particularly craving anything and just looking for a quick eat. There are a couple of dishes which I rotate around, with the beef noodle being one of them (surprise surprise). The quality of the broth really varies. Most times it is rich with full flavor, but other times it can be quite watered down. I've noticed that their soup is a little more on the sweet side, but that's not to say that it's a bad thing. There's a good portion of noodles which usually gets me quite full. I never order this dish with the meat if it can be avoided, so I can't comment on the beef chunks.

Beef Noodle in Soup without Meat 牛肉湯麵    $6.25 + tax

Red Fried Fermented Glutinous Pork with Rice   紅糟肉飯    $6.95 + tax

A Quiet Afternoon at Meloty Fine Tea

LULU: Having been disappointed by Faubourg, we decided to give afternoon tea another try. Arranging our date to Meloty was extremely difficult since they are rarely open for some reason. When we finally made a reservation and made the visit to Meloty, I was surprised by how big the place was. The decor is elegant and rather calming. They also have a second floor and I liked that you could see the bottom floor from the top. During our visit, the restaurant was empty and quiet. The waitresses were dressed in uniforms and provided friendly service. However, it kind of bothered me that we could hear the chatter of the waitresses when they weren't serving customers.

AMY: We decided to go with the Deluxe High Tea as we were both quite hungry at the time. It comes with three tiers of savory bites and an all-you-can-eat style of desserts. Tea, of course, was refillable with hot water.

Meloty Deluxe High Tea $25 per person + tax

Special: Battle of the Flo Tea Rooms

Happy New Years everyone!

AMY: A typical meal-time scenario between the two of us goes something like this: First we start off by asking each other multiple times "what should we eat?", which is usually followed up with a half-assed reply of "I dunno...". We then proceed to spend a good 20 minutes flipping through restaurants on Urbanspoon before finally making up our minds. This little ritual is how we decided to visit Flo Tea Room on Granville. We've only been to Flo a couple of times in the past, despite the fact that it has been open for a while now. 

LULU: Our love for Taiwanese beef noodle is a well-known fact, so it was no surprise that we went for it after seeing it on the menu at Flo. Having tried countless beef noodles in Vancouver, I have to say that Flo would be pretty up there in my rankings. Maybe we were too hungry, but I almost want to use phenomenal to describe their beef noodles. The soup and the meat had very strong beefy flavours, unlike other places that may just taste diluted or heavily seasoned. It seemed like they stewed it for a long time. 

It was a really pleasant surprise to me since I always thought Flo was more of a Hong Kong style restaurant. Apparently it is Hong Kong and Taiwanese style. Now that I think about it, it makes more sense since they did have a lot of Taiwanese dishes in their gazillion menus. 

AMY: Two words: Absolutely Scrumptious! One of the best beef noodles I've had in Vancouver. Now hold that thought...let's see if Flo Richmond can live up to the competition.