Caramel Brulee Frappuccino
Finally decided to try the frappuccino version of the Caramel Brulée Latte. For some reason, it just wasn’t that great. I felt that the flavour was not as strong and I would much rather get a Green Tea Frappuccino instead. It was either that the flavour was not strong enough or my barrista put too much ice in it. I still enjoyed the caramel sprinkles at the top which added some sweetness to the coffee taste.
Butter Chicken Poutine
Ever since Richmond Center’s food court began renovating, I never got my dose of poutine from New York Fries. But now that they are back in the new dining terrace, I get to devour that fatty goodness again! Always so delicious!
Crispy Chicken Sandwich
I’ve revisited Leisure way too many times by now. But there still seems to be items that I haven’t tried. I always tend to go for my favourites, but this time I decided to try some other menu items. These are actually two separate visits, but I’ll just put it in one post. The first item was the Crispy Chicken Sandwich. I’ve heard great things about their Club Sandwich, but I was curious to see what a Crispy Chicken Sandwich was. So glad I got this because it was really delicious! They come in a plate of four triangular sandwiches in white bread. Each sandwich has three layers of bread, so it makes it quite large in size. With the crispy chicken inside, which is really their famous Taiwanese chicken, the sandwiches are too big to take a whole bite of. But I didn’t mind that. Inside was also tomatoes, cucumbers and mayo. I would definitely recommend this.
Crispy Chicken Waffle
Then, on Christmas night after my Christmas potluck, I joined some friends to go to Leisure again… Only Asian restaurants are open on Christmas, so the place was surprisingly quite packed. With all Asians of course. Sadly, I wasn’t too satisfied with my potluck dinner, so I was actually craving some more food by then. I’ve had their Ice Cream Waffle before, but what was a Crispy Chicken Waffle?! I decided to give that a try and it was oh so delicious! It’s really the same thing as the Crispy Chicken Sandwich but in a waffle form. The waffle also had a lot more chicken than the sandwiches. It wasn’t too salty and all the ingredients just worked well together with the vegetables giving a refreshing feel.
Overall, extremely satisfied with both visits again. The food never seem to disappoint!
Butter Chicken and Rice Combo
Dining Terrace has been open for around a month now! I was quite late in actually going to try out their food. I went a week after to check it out while doing some shopping, but never actually tried out any of the food. So finally, during my break at work, I decided to head upstairs and look for a small dinner. The dining terrace is huge, and for someone who is always so indecisive, it’s terrible. I swear I could’ve walked around five times and my break would’ve ended by then. So I decided to head straight to Curry Express. I mean, with work every week, I’m sure to try out every place sooner or later.
Curry Express is also at Lansdowne Centre, but I seldom go there so I’m guessing the last time I had it was when I was a kid. I decided to get a curry and rice combo. There were so many different types of curries in the heating trays, so I asked the cashier what was the most recommended. She immediately said Butter Chicken, so that’s what I went with! I found that the butter chicken was a little more on the watery side, and I would have probably preferred it to be a little thicker. The chicken however, was extremely tender. The sauce was good – quite typical, but I felt it lacked some spices that would be present when you eat at an Indian restaurant. The portion was also less than I had imagined, but I guess that’s food court portions. Overall, I would just say it was average.
My parents wanted to go for dim sum last Sunday, but my mom forgot to make reservations the night before. And if you go to dim sum often, you know that dim sum restaurants are packed on Sundays. So we gave some calls to a few restaurants, but they all said the earliest would be 1pm, which meant I would be rushed to get to work. My mom ended up calling Good Eat, and they said we could get seats. I later realized that I had gone to Good Eat with a couple of friends a few years back. I remember the food was ridiculously cheap, but I didn’t exactly remember how the quality of food was. I was skeptical, since the outside of the restaurant is definitely not as classy as some of the other dim sum restaurants in Richmond. But I guess I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Anyways, parking is terrible here. You can basically park in front of other cars because the lot is so small. The manager would then call your license plate when a customer needs you to move your car so they can get out.
Seafood Fried Rice
We started with the Steamed Fried Rice. I think it was $7.99, which is a pretty good deal. The rice came in an unattractive and not very presentable way on the dish, and I got skeptical about the food. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad! There was lots of shrimp and scallops, and was actually pretty flavourful. Not bad!
Steamed Chicken Feet
And then we got the infamous $2.50 dim sum. Yes! Most of the dim sum here is only $2.50-$2.95. What a deal! Most dim sum restaurants charge you around $4 a dish. So then again, I was a little worried about the food. How can dim sum be so cheap?! But again, the Steamed Chicken Feet were surprisingly flavourful and not bad at all. The only issue I had with it, was that I think it was overcooked. It sort of broke off when I picked it up with my chopsticks, which doesn’t normally happen.
Sticky Rice Wrapped w/ Bamboo Leaf
My favourite dim sum is the Sticky Rice Wrapped with Bamboo Leaf. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of dim sum in general, but this is one of the few items I enjoy. It’s simple and filling, but the ingredients inside and slight bamboo aroma is what makes it delicious. These usually come three in an order, but of course, since they are only charging $2.50, they came with only two. They were still quite large in size and had lots of filling. Good!
Deep Fried Tofu
My mom wanted to get the Deep Fried Tofu. The tofu inside was really soft, and the sauce was tasty. I didn’t find it too special though. It was just average.
Steamed Rice Rolls with Dried Shrimp
Lastly, we got the Steamed Rice Rolls with Dried Shrimp. The steamed rice rolls were extremely smooth and soft. This is key to good steamed rice rolls. However, the dried shrimp were what annoyed me. I had multiple shrimps with either some sort of hard shell still on it, or just something that was hard inside my steamed rice rolls! It almost felt like it was sand or bits of rock… It was pretty annoying and distracted me from the great texture that it had!
Overall, I have to say I was pretty impressed by Good Eat. The food is actually decent, and for the price, it is definitely a great value! I’ve had much worse dim sum before at a much higher price. I think the only reason the place isn’t packed is because of the poor parking area. For a starter, I wouldn’t come here on my own, since I would have a headache trying to park. I guess cheap dim sum comes with other costs!
Caramel Brulée Latte – Espresso and steamed milk flavored with caramel Brulée sauce, topped with sweetened whipped cream and caramel Brulée topping
With school ending, I couldn’t resist myself and decided to get another holiday drink from Starbucks. This time I got the Caramel Brulée Latte, which is one of my favourite Starbucks holiday drinks. I’ve gotten this in the past years, and it has never disappointed me. I love the caramel sweetness at the top, and I find it creamy all throughout. I do find that the sweetness sort of disappears as you get lower and lower. It’s basically since the caramel Brulée toppings melt, so the sweetness disperses throughout the drink. Great drink to warm up during the holidays!
Pulled Pork Poutine – poutine smothered with pulled pork in a tangy BBQ sauce, cheese curds, gravy and drizzled with ranch
When I’m hungry at school and I’m too lazy to walk all the way to the SUB, I always end up at Triple O’s just because it’s the closest. I was about to just get a Caesar salad, but the new ad for the Pulled Pork Poutine caught my attention. That advertisement just looked too good to resist. And to be honest, I was still having a few coughs, but I had not had a poutine for months… And so of course, I ended up getting it. It was quite a large portion and had tons of ranch, BBQ sauce and gravy drizzled on top of the cheese curds. I wish the cheese curds were a little more melted, since I like the stringy cheese on my fries. I also found the sauces to be a bit too salty for my liking. The pulled pork was great though. There was just enough to accompany the fries. However, I still prefer the ones at New York Fries. Their Butter Chicken Poutine is the bomb! Still, the Triple O’s poutines are a great alternative when I’m at school.
Pumpkin Spice Latte
I’m not a coffee drinker, so I really can’t judge what a good coffee is, but I love getting Starbucks’ espresso beverages. I don’t even know if they are really considered “coffee”, but I don’t drink their freshly brewed coffee for sure. I just love getting their frappuccinos, lattes, mochas and teas! And now that the holidays are here, I get super excited to try out the holiday drinks! This time, I chose to try their Pumpkin Spice Latte because I’ve been hearing really good things about it. People say even if you don’t like pumpkin or coffee, you’ll like this since it apparently doesn’t even taste like pumpkin. To be honest, I just thought it was average. It wasn’t really a taste that I absolutely loved. I don’t normally like drinks with spice, and even though the spice wasn’t strong, it was still there. It was alright, but I would probably choose another drink next time.
Every Day is a Food Day 