Foraging for Fresh Eats!

*Excuse us once again for the unexpected hiatus... we've been doing some more rampaging around the world :)

Ah, Forage, back when it was young, fresh and unexplored. Their newly minted menu seemed full of potential, and the concept of sustainable dining was a plus. Our friends and I came in here with great expectations that grew even larger upon seeing their decor -- simple, clean and modern, with a touch of rustic. Our server was extremely attentive, patiently answering all our questions and giving recommendations of his own. All was well...

Smoked Albacore Tuna $22

The first dish to arrive was the smoked albacore tuna. The tuna was pretty nicely cooked as it had retained lots of moisture and flavor. I especially enjoyed the pickled vegetable and berries on top as it added an extra kick of sweetness to the fish.

Roast Bison Bone Marrow $15

This dish was probably the most anticipated of the night. While the presentation was pretty cool (you'll feel extra carnivorous trying to dig at a giant bone sawed in half), the taste was wholly missing. I am not kidding when I say this dish tastes like a lump of fat with some bread. Even as a lover of fatty meats I was not impressed.

Sucker for Suika

AMY: Driving down Broadway can be a bit of a multi-task. First there's the constant roar of traffic, a million lights to pay attention to, all while you try not to focus on which of the many restaurants that line this street have yet to be visited. Situations like this can often lead to a complete overlook of dining gems, such as Suika. The outer decor is not particularly flashy or eye-catching, but that is totally misrepresentative of the inside, because the food and energy of the place has certainly caught my attention...

Sashimi "Shake" Salad $7.80

AMY: Salads never appeal to me. There's just nothing mouthwatering about a bowl of raw vegetables slathered with sauce. But Suika takes salad to a whole new different level with their Sashimi Shake Salad. There's just something about the oh-so-fresh sashimi slices, lightly drizzled with a tangy sauce, ending with a refreshing crisp of vegetables that has got me hooked. I would never think twice about ordering this dish at Suika!

LULU:  Contrary to Amy, salads are always my favourite. This sashimi salad, which was highly spoken of by friends, did not disappoint at all! It was probably my favourite dish of the night because of the freshness.

Cheesecake, Cheesecake and Cheesecake, Etc

AMY: Cheesecake Etc is easily one of the most well known dessert spots in Vancouver, and quite possibly also one of the best of its kind. The menu is simple - they specialize in cheesecakes and offer very little of anything else. Upon walking into the store you will find that the place is dimly lighted and sparsely furnished. My guess is that they're trying to set up some sort of ambience, but to me it's just really dark. I often find myself back here week after week, not only because they are open late night, but also because I really do like their cheesecakes!

LULU: The last time I was at Cheesecake Etc was more than 5 years ago, but it didn't really feel like it had been that long already. The place still looks the same and has the same vibe, besides the fact that it is now twice the size of what I recall. Most of all, the cheesecake was just as delicious as I had remembered.

Original Cheesecake $4.50 w/ Chocolate Sauce $1.25

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. 

Bubble Waffle Cafe: a little excitement, a lot of disappointment

Drum roll please! 'Cause Amy and Lulu are bringing the co-blogs back! 

AMY: While scouring the streets of Richmond on a rainy day in search of lunch, Lulu and I decided to give Bubble Waffle Cafe a try. I noticed that the older place was replaced with Bubble Waffle Cafe a couple months ago, but haven't had the chance to try it. When we arrived, the place was packed and had a few people waiting outside. I took that as a good sign...who would line up for bad food? It wasn't long before we were offered a seat, but immediately I noticed that their chairs and tables were quite  dirty and cheap looking...nothing like what a new restaurant would look like. Well, can't judge a book by its cover, right?

DIY Noodle Combo $7.50 + tax (includes hot drink)

AMY:  For my noodle combo, I chose the vermicelli in original fish soup, with pork intestine and fish ball with shrimp. The first couple sips of soup were pretty good, but that slowly diminished as I went on eating. It wasn't particularly bad or anything, just nothing special. There was good amount of noodles and vegetables, as well as pork intestines. The fish balls with shrimp were very disappointing -- bland and boring. I was expecting a savory, juicy center...but all I got was some mush that didn't even taste like shrimp. Overall, I didn't really enjoy this dish as much as I expected to, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't stomach it.

LULU: Wow, I would not have known that those were fish balls with shrimp if Amy hadn't mentioned it. I agree with the fish balls being unsatisfactory, since I was totally expecting hot flavoury stuff gushing out when I chewed on the fish balls. 

Beef Teppanyaki Rice Meal   $7.50 + tax  (includes hot drink)

Faubourg? Fauboring!

LULU: Amy and I have been talking about Faubourg literally since the day it opened. I still remember how excited Amy was when she told me about it, since afternoon tea has always been one of our favourite activities. For the longest time, I couldn't even pronounce the name of the place! Nonetheless, we were both really excited when we finally got the chance to visit this place.

The store is split into two sections - the front is like a normal coffee/pastry shop, while the back of the store is a secluded section that is exclusively for afternoon tea customers. The first time we wanted to go for afternoon tea, they were full and said we would have to make reservations the day before. When we made reservations the next time, they said they only had one time slot left and so we took it. When we got there, the entire back section was empty and stayed fairly empty the entire 2 hours we were there. I couldn't help but wonder if it was their strategy in faking that they were busy to make it seem really popular and generate the sense of exclusivity and prestige.
AMY: When you sit down, Faubourg lays out a selection of teas to choose from. All of them were fairly aromatic, and we ended up picking one that smelled like strawberries. However, the actual tea itself was mediocre, nothing like that I had imagined.

AMY: Their teapots were a major disappointment! This is purely a personal preference, but when I think high-tea, I imagine pretty ceramic teapots adorned with florals. I suppose this adds a more modern touch?
LULU: As I kept staring at the teapot, I realized that the metal part was only a cover, which we assumed was to keep the tea warm. When I lifted up the cover, I was surprised to find that the teapot looked just like the teapot at dimsum yesterday! 

Top (from left): raspberry souffle - mini lemon tart - choclate mousse - mini  opéra - parfait - mini apple cinnamon muffin. Bottom (from left): Scone with cream and jam - chicken, apple, and country ranch dressing sandwich - smoked salmon and wasabi cream sandwich - cucumber, roast beef, and coriander cream sandwich

A Boiling Pot of Yum at Boiling Point

AMY: Being Taiwanese girls at heart, Lulu and I were super excited when we first found out about Boiling Point, a hotpot restaurant whose main attraction was ... Stinky Tofu! Stinky tofu is one of my absolute favorite foods but unfortunately very hard to come by in Vancouver. Now with Boiling Point, I don't have to wait until the summer night market to get my fix!

LULU: Stinky tofu has always been well at the top of my list of favourite foods (with many others because I can never decide on my number 1). The stinky tofu was the only reason for our first visit and since then we've fallen in love with this place - it is a must-go whenever I visit Vancouver.

House Special Hot Soup 招牌臭臭鍋 $8.99

We Love You, Ebisu

After a long semester scrounging two ends of Canada for great food, Amy and Lulu have come together in Vancouver to bring you a series of co-blogs.  We hope you enjoy!

LULU: After finally going back to Vancouver, the first place I wanted to visit was Ebisu. I've heard Amy mention it several times and was especially interested because of the rumoured free shots on the house when the Canucks score a goal. That being said, what better place to watch a Canucks game while enjoying great food than Ebisu on Robson?

Tuna Tataki Supreme  $8.95

Tuna tataki is a dish that we both love and I had high expectations for it because Amy said their's was good. Indeed, Ebisu didn't let me down. The tuna was fresh and I liked the fact that it was really cold because I find raw fish to be a little weird when it's served warm. The diced raddish and green onion on top as well as the ponzu sauce definitely added to the great taste of the dish and got rid of any bad fishy smell/taste if there was any.
AMY: Whenever I visit any Japanese restaurant, tuna tataki is always a must-order. For Ebisu, it's one of the main reasons why I come. As Lulu mentioned, the tuna is always fresh and pairs perfectly with its tangy ponzu sauce.