Mushroom Burger
I’ve been going to the Pit Burger Bar a lot for dinners when I have exams at school on a late night, and decided to try the Mushroom Burger. Usually they have specials each day which comes along with a drink and fries for around $5, but I didn’t want that day’s special so ended up just getting the burger on itself. It’s okay – probably just really typical A&W style burger, but it was loaded with mushrooms. I guess I was really hungry, so it tasted pretty good to me.
Caramel & Chocolate Brownie Cake
Chocolate pecan brownie, caramel cremeux and caramel Bavarian
Totally haven’t been updating since I’ve been so busy with school and exams! But I’m back! I’m guessing they usually have specials that they have for a certain time, since they had a chalkboard with specials written on it. And of course I decided to try something new and special! Here’s a Caramel & Chocolate Brownie Cake. It’s supposed to look much nicer than this, but unfortunately I had probably swayed the box around too much, which I guess wasn’t the best idea… But hey, it still tasted great! The caramel made it a little more special than just regular chocolate cake, although I found it a little sweet for my personal liking.There were also pecans at the bottom which gave the cake a great crunch. Be sure to try it out before they aren’t on the menu anymore!
If you want to read about my first experience at Thomas Haas, check out the previous post: http://everydayisafoodday.tumblr.com/post/16270765615/thomas-haas
Friend of mine brought me some sweets from The Sweet Spot Bakery! I’ve been talking about trying this place for ages but they’re closed on Mondays, and somehow I always end up in that area on a Monday, so never got the chance to try it out! I don’t know what the names of these sweets are on the menu, but I’ll give a guess to what I think are in them. Top Left hand corner was a dark chocolate cake, that kind of had mousse in it I believe? Whatever it was, it was delicious! The bottom left hand corner was a hazelnut cake. The bottom was crunchy as it had some type of wafer at the bottom, and a few nuts (I believe they were pecans) along the bottom. Also very good, but I would choose the dark chocolate cake over the hazelnut one! On the right, we have a homemade ice cream. It’s called Malted Kulfi, according to the label, and I really had no idea what it was. So I did some googling, and found that Kulfi is an Indian dessert, that is quite like western ice cream, except that it is not whipped, and therefore is much more solid and dense compared to ice cream. It is also the reason why it doesn’t melt as quickly as western ice cream. No wonder it took forever for me to even be able to grab a scoop! The colourful little grains are what I believe are malted candies. It had an interesting flavour, maybe not something that I’m extremely fond of, as it almost tasted like licorice. But then again, it was interesting! I have never tried a dessert quite like this before. Now I really want to go to the bakery again on my own to see all these wonderful desserts!
I actually never even knew Pho Tai Hoa existed to be honest, until my friend brought me there. We wanted to go to Pho Hoa, which is on Alexandra, but of course parking was limited and we had to go somewhere else. So we ended up at Pho Tai Hoa, which is in the mall near Capstan Way. I never even realized this place at the corner! Well, now I know another Pho place to go to! The decor inside was really interesting. It had a lot of cruise ship decor, with painted sky walls, cruise ship railings, and wooden plank floors. I wonder if this was just the decor left from the previous restaurant or they designed it. Kind of weird actually…But okay, let’s get to the food. I usually get the House Special at Pho places, so I got a small Pho Dac Biet. I like getting House Specials since it usually includes an assortment of ingredients, from tripe, beef balls, beef tendon, to beef flank. It was alright, nothing too special about it, and the size was normal. Soup did taste a little different, but it wasn’t something that I extremely liked or disliked. Not bad I guess, but I will have to try their other food to get a better taste of this place. There were probably only 4 other tables occupied though, but then again, it was a weekday and a little early. Maybe I’ll give it another try!
Assam Red Milk Tea with Agar Aloe
Taiwanese Road Side Fried Noodle
Special Deep-Fried Tofu
Mayo Dried Pork Egg Roll
Three Spice Chicken
Popcorn Chicken
Second visit to Sunway Restaurant now! Sunway is a very small Taiwanese restaurant located in Empire Center in Richmond. I believe it is a small family owned business. The whole atmosphere makes you feel like you’re at home. The restaurant it extremely small and they probably only make one round of business during dinner hours, so be sure to go early to grab a seat! Tried their Assam Red Milk Tea this time, and it was so good! They use a special red tea that is called “Assam”, which I really like the taste of! The Agar Aloe was a good addition to it and having it hot was great on a chilly day. The Taiwanese Road Side Fried Noodle was just okay. I expected more from it as it had the words ‘road side’ in the name, but it was definitely lacking some flavour. Quite bland for my taste, and I don’t even eat very feisty food usually! Next, we got the Special Deep Fried Tofu which was so delicious! The sauce made it extra tasty, but after my second tofu, I found the spiciness of the chili sauce starting to kick in! Good regardless though! Next up was the Mayo Dried Pork Egg Roll. I really enjoyed this! It reminded me of those Taiwanese beef rolls, but it had dried pork and egg inside instead. The mayo on top was a great complement to it. We also decided to try the Three Spice Chicken, which I felt was made and tasted a little differently than the ones I have tried elsewhere. They had a lot of vegetables with it, but I found it not to be as flavourful. Lastly, I had to get the Popcorn Chicken again! I swear that I looked around and every single table had this dish. It was pretty much why I wanted to come back. Their popcorn chicken is made so differently that it is to die for. I find that it is not as oily as others, and the fried coating tastes so different from other restaurants! I don’t know what it is, but I would definitely get that again. Delicious meal! And pricing is quite reasonable. I find it a better deal than other bubble tea places like Pearl Castle. Only downside is that seats are limited so go early!
Sunny day in Vancouver the other day! Okay actually, weather has been acting weird here, with hail and snow in end of February… but this was before that crazy weekend happened…So it was actually a nice sunny day, but windy and cold! Decided to head downtown to try out Mom’s Grilled Cheese! I have heard such great things about them, and who can resist grilled cheese sandwiches… I can just never get them cooked perfectly at home! Did a little google mapping, and realized that it was so close to Pacific Center! I guess I just never walk on that side of the street normally! We approached the truck with a lot of people surrounding it waiting for their food. Apparently, they are only open on weekdays during lunch hours. Steph and I shared a Mom’s Classic, where we got to choose our choice of bread and cheese. We chose the Marbled Rye with Havarti, and added $1.50 for some Double Smoked Bacon! Mmmm, mouths were already watering with the aroma coming from the truck! While we were waiting in the freezing cold, we saw other customers buying shots of Roasted Tomato Soup, and thought it would be a great idea to warm up! Good choice because it was so delicious!!! I’m not sure if it’s just because I was freezing cold, but the basil mascarpone topped on the soup made everything so much better! We waited for probably 5 minutes or more til our food came since there were a lot of people ahead of us, but when it got to ours, they had forgot to put bacon in ours. They however, quickly apologized and redid our sandwich. Something about their friendliness didn’t make me mad about the wait though. It seemed like they had regular customers as they knew each others names, and everything seemed so personalized when they presented your food with your name. They seemed like such fun and friendly people to talk to, and they even joked with customers that they are always illegally parked here, and to look out for the cops… I don’t know if they were joking or what, but they gave me a good laugh. We went back to Pacific Center to eat since it was freezing cold, and yum! It was so good! They also came with two pickles, and potato chips at the bottom that had the Ms. Vickie’s texture, but I think they are homemade. Also tried the Pineapple Pop Shoppe, which was actually pretty good! Reminded me of Jones Soda, with the colour and cool, vintage looking bottle. Really fizzy though, and probably not the healthiest thing. I will definitely be back for some Mom’s Grilled Cheese! I just wish they opened during the weekends!
Plain Cheesecake and Blueberry Cheesecake
I was craving for some cheesecake the other day on a random weekday afternoon, but everywhere was closed during that time! So I ended up going to the library to buy some cheesecake for Steph and myself so we wouldn’t starve ourselves during our meeting. And by library, I mean the Richmond Public Library, where there’s a little cafe you see everytime you walk by. It’s called Trees Organic, which is also the same one that is in downtown, Yaletown and Gastown! They say that they’re Vancouver’s Best Cheesecake, but I think that might be a little overrated. Definitely not the best I’ve had in Vancouver, but not bad! I’ve had the one in downtown before, and it was pretty good. I had the mango one back then, and at this location, they only had three flavours to choose from. There was the Plain Cheesecake, Mocha Cheesecake, or Blueberry Cheesecake. I always have trouble deciding what to get, so I just decided to go by how many pieces were left in the fridge. The less pieces left must mean that they’re the best sellers… well at least I like to think so! So I ended up with the Plain and Blueberry flavours, with whip cream on the side. The lady working was very nice, although service was a little slow since she was the only one on shift. After a long ride to UBC, I open the containers up to see my whip cream had totally smushed everywhere. Not so appealing, but it was still pretty good! I think I prefer the plain one to the blueberry one, but I think the mango one I had last time was better than these two… Not bad! At least it satisfied my cheesecake craving!
Boiled Seasonal Vegetable
Braised Beef Flank with Noodle In Soup (Small)
Braised Beef Flank And Tendon with Noodle In Spicy Soup (Large)
After a early shopping trip at Metrotown, my friend brought be to a Taiwanese Noodle House nearby that was claimed to be really good. Apparently, it’s supposed to be the best Taiwanese noodles in Vancouver! To be honest, I think it wasn’t THAT amazing, but I have to say, the noodles are really good. You can tell that they’re handmade, and not like the ones you get at bubble tea places. The vegetables were a dish that I actually hadn’t had before. I’m not sure if it’s some typical Taiwanese dish, but it tasted really good. They had like bits of onion and garlic chips as well as a special sauce in it. Quite different from the Cantonese style dishes I’m used to. The size of a small was already very big, and when my friend’s large came, I was in shock. It was huge! That would probably be enough for two. The soup base was very good, and they say that there isn’t any MSG, which I trust, as I wasn’t thirsty afterwards. They have a lot of seasoned radish type of things on top which gave it a nice crunch while eating the noodles. Overall, pretty good, but I don’t know if it’s the BEST.
Every Day is a Food Day 