Leisure Tea & Coffee

August 23, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Shaved Ice with caramel pudding, tapioca pearls, red bean, peanuts, raisins and much more..I don’t remember!

Strawberry Crepe

Revisit for Leisure again! I swear I revisit this place too often… But that’s cause the food and drinks are so good! This time, I decided to try their crepes. I got the Strawberry Crepe and it was presented really nicely. The middle was filled with lots of strawberries, and then it was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. I found the strawberries a little sour, but the ice cream helped add some sweetness to it. Not bad!

Bella Gelateria Handcrafted Gelato

August 16, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Matcha Organic Green Tea, Earl Grey Tea, Lavender

Espresso ‘La Futura’ – Milano Coffee

J got me a gift card to Bella Gelateria Handcrafted Gelato, and I must say it was my favourite gift card out of all of them! I didn’t even know of this place, but I looked on Urbanspoon after and found it was one of the top places! I was extremely excited to try it since my favourite dessert is ice cream! And so why not get three flavours at once…I wanted more, but the biggest size only contained three flavours, unless I wanted to get a second cup… We got there around dinner time, but it was packed! There was a line up, but it moved fairly quickly as they make you pay first, and then you can try and decide what flavours you want.

So many flavours to choose from, but I knew I wanted to try the Matcha Organic Green Tea, Earl Grey Tea, Lavender, although I still want to try the sesame flavour. Next time! Anyways, The Matcha was definitely my favourite. My next favourite was the Lavender. I personally love anything lavender, as I think it smells so good! It had a strong floral flavour to it, and I found it really interesting. I don’t think J really liked it though. The earl grey was alright too. Not my favourite, but pretty interesting. I find that earl grey flavours are usually pretty bland for most desserts though. J got the Milano Coffee, which was pretty good. It was really strong in coffee flavour.

Bella is a great place to get genuine Italian gelato, and although it is a bit pricey, it is definitely worth it!

Facing East Taiwanese Restaurant

August 6, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Milk Tea with Tapioca

Five Spiced Beef Wrap

Soy Flavoured Chicken – (Three Cup Chicken) with fresh basil

Shrimp Fried Rice

Off I went to Bellevue for the weekend to do some shopping for the weekend. It seems to be a tradition by now that we head down to the south for some shopping during the summer. And even when I’m on vacation, I love to try new food, so of course I urbanspooned some places to eat! My sister ended up finding Facing East Taiwanese Restaurant, which is basically sort of like our Pearl Castle, where they offer bubble tea and Taiwanese food. It was rated 93% on Urbansppon, so we thought it better be good!

The mall was quite small, but was jam packed with cars, and we basically had nowhere to park during the lunch hours. We ended up having to park a few blocks down and walked over to restaurant. The restaurant was quite packed with families and young adolescents eating, but we got a seat quite fast.

We had just ate breakfast during a stop on our way, so we weren’t too hungry. We ended up just sharing a few dishes among ourselves. My sister and I decided to share the Milk Tea with Tapioca, and I have to say I was extremely disappointed. It’s not even up to par with some of the worse bubble tea places I’ve had back in Richmond. We could see the milk tea powder floating up, and when we tried to stir it in, we realized there was no point since our drink was cold. So they basically didn’t even dissolve all the powder to begin with before adding the ice. You could taste the powder, and it definitely wasn’t great. We also got the Five Spiced Beef Wrap as an appetizer, and it was alright. I personally don’t like cilantro, so it wasn’t exactly my favourite. I’ve definitely had better at Chef Hung as well. Next up, we got the Soy Flavoured Chicken. I found it a little too salty and the chicken was a little overcooked, so it was a bit rough. The chicken pieces were however huge. Lastly, we got the Shrimp Fried Rice, which I found was the best dish out of the 3. The flavour was just right, not too bland and not too salty. It also had loads of shrimp, and the rice was cooked well.

Overall, I don’t really understand why Facing East has such high ratings, because I honestly think it was just average. I’ve definitely had better in Richmond, but maybe that’s because Richmond is full of good eats!

Outpost Mini Donut Co.

July 25, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Vancouver weather has finally been more pleasant and a sunny day meant heading over to the Steveston Village for a walk. Everyone has been talking about these donuts at Outpost Mini Donu Co. for a while, but I never even noticed this donut shop although I walk past it almost every time I’m there. The interior is really cute and cozy, and you can see the making of donuts coming fresh out of the oven. I got half a dozen of a variety of donuts, including chocolate, vanilla, pink lemonade and cinnamon to name a few. Although they have all these flavours, my favourites are still the original cinnamon sugar coated donuts. Overall, great fresh donuts in a lovely area!

Leisure Tea & Coffee

July 5, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Caramel Pudding on Shaved Ice

Honey Milk Tea?

Coffee

Combo of Taiwanese Chicken, Deep Fried Tofu, and Fishcake

Ice Cream Waffle

French Fries

We had a big group hangout before Jane left for vacation a few weeks ago at Leisure since they always have good food and drinks. Taiwanese owned and has a very nice vintage feel to it, which attracts both young and older crowds.

I didn’t try all the food above at this sitting, although I have tried many of them in the past. The Caramel Pudding on Shaved Ice is one of my favourites. The sweet caramel works well with shaved ice, although I can get a brain freeze after too many spoonfuls. It’s still a great dessert to share though. Another one of my favourites is the Ice Cream Waffle. The waffle is served warm, and accompanied with the ice cream, making a delicious dessert. I’ve also tried the French Fries which are also really good. They aren’t too oily, yet they are crispy. This time, I tried something new though. I got their Combo of Taiwanese Fried Chicken, Fried Tofu, and Fishcake. I have to say, I was a little disappointed with this dish, as it wasn’t presented too well, and was extremely oily. I’ve had their Taiwanese Fried Chicken as a separate dish before, and I thought it was really delicious. I didn’t find that tofu or fishcake to be any special, and they were way too oily. The whole dish was also spicy, which was good, but I also found it a little too salty. I would definitely recommend getting the chicken on its own though.

Overall, Leisure is always one of my favourite places to go to for late night desserts or bubble tea. They are also always extremely packed at night, especially on weekends.

What8ever Cafe

April 12, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Vanilla Ice Cream Toast

Taiwanese Deep Fried Tofu

Hadn’t gone to What8ever Cafe for a while so decided to go on a weekday night. It’s almost assumed that you’ll be waiting if you go on a Friday or weekend night as the place is extremely small and everyone loves going there. What8ever Cafe is famous for their Ice Cream Toast, which is a must try if you have not tried it yet. It’s basically a loaf of bread with the center taken out and cut into french toast sticks and put back in, then layered with ice cream and all sorts of treats. This one was the Vanilla, which I believe was the first one they started with. They now have strawberry and green tea too. Would love to try the green tea next time! Also got some Taiwanese Deep Fried Tofu, but found them not up to par. They were quite deflated as you can see in the picture, and I’ve had better ones at other bubble tea shops. Overall, great place to hang out, but does get quite busy so it’s not a place where you can talk the night away.

The One Restaurant

April 9, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Matcha Slush

Cheesecake

I’ve been seeing these pictures of gigantic slushes on Facebook everywhere and now I finally got to see it in real life! The One Restaurant is famous for their gigantic slushes, and I’m guessing their gigantic plates of food too… Although I never got to try their actual food, I saw the other tables’ with enormous portions of food! The Matcha Slush was huge! And I believe it was only $5.50, which is the price of normal sized bubble teas at other shops. So definitely a good deal! And the slush is so tall that it starts to fall when it melts, so the waitress brought another cup for us to take the top portion off for us. The matcha was actually surprisingly not too sweet which was good, and for some reason, it actually tasted even better when it was melted. It was almost like matcha milk or something and it was really good! As for the Cheesecake, it was a total disappointment as I believe it was just a store bought frozen cheesecake. The blueberries were still frozen, and the cake was just of bad quality. We were also quite unsatisfied with the service. We had come here for just the matcha slush to share, but we knew that most bubble tea restaurants probably would have a minimum charge. We looked around their menus and they didn’t have it written, so we just decided to order the slush for now. We totally understood that it is acceptable to have a minimum charge, but we weren’t sure if this was the case. Minutes later, the waitress came back and kept asking if we wanted to order more, but she never mentioned a minimum charge. What felt like 2 minutes more, she came back interrupting our conversation, finally stating that we had a minimum charge of one order per person. We told her we would take a look and order in a bit, but we were in deep conversation so thought we could wait for a bit. But she came back literally 2 minutes later to ask if we were ready again. Totally annoyed us as we were planning to get more drinks and food but she wouldn’t even give us time. So service is definitely not so great, but food was decent for the price and portions.

Soirette Macarons & Tea

April 7, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Tried all 21 flavours with a double for matcha, lavender and rocher 🙂

Rocher

Lavender Earl Grey Tea

Lavender Earl Grey Latte

Bought another box home 🙂

Matcha Macaron

Soirette Macarons & Tea has been so talked about around Vancouver as one of the newest and top macaron shop in town! I had it on my wishlist on Urbanspoon and can definitely check that off now! And yes, I’ve got to agree with all those bloggers out there. It seems like they have the largest selection of macarons, and they are really specialized in them, as they only sell a few desserts on the side. I got a sneak peak in the kitchen when I was on my way to the bathroom and also saw the owner of the shop. Pretty cool! Soirette is located near the Coal Harbour area, and the store is furnished so that it feels extremely clean and bright. Everything is white and modern, and the colours of the macarons totally steal the spotlight. It can seat around 10 people max, but many people get them to go.

Seeing all those different flavours, my friends and I wanted to try all of them, and we ended up getting all 21 flavours and cutting them into quarters! Yes, quite small pieces, but I don’t think we would’ve been able to finish all 21 individually on our own… The 21 flavours included: Matcha, Lavender, Cappucino, Rocher, Chocolate, White Truffle, Raspberry, Passion Fruit, Black Rose, Vanilla, Guinness, Orange Blossom, Malibu, Pistachio, Earl Grey, Violette, Maple, Lemon, Pink Peppercorn, Jasmine, Rose, and Caramel. So let me tell you which ones really caught my attention, and which ones I disliked! I left with another box of 6, so let me tell you which were my top 6! In order beginning with my favourite would be: Matcha, Lavender, Rocher, Pistachio, Cappuccino, Raspberry, Chocolate. Matcha is one of my favourite all-time flavours for almost anything…but I loved how this macaron had just a hint of matcha flavour and it worked really well against the white chocolate cream. Lavender surprisingly wasn’t too flowery and had just the perfect amount of flavour so it wasn’t too strong. Now let’s go on to the ones I disliked the most. Number one would have to be white truffle. The flavour was way too pungent and although it was supposed to be a savory macaron, I didn’t like it. Black Rose also had a very weird flavour to it, and pink peppercorn had a spice that I wish wasn’t paired with a macaron. Surprisingly, Passion Fruit and Vanilla really let me down. I thought they would be very original flavours, so should be quite typical, but I found Passion Fruit to be too sour, and Vanilla to be really bland and lacking even vanilla flavour. Both beverages were also very good with a lovely hint of lavender that I loved! Overall, this is the place to be if you want to try the most talked about macarons in Vancouver!

Macarons are $2 each, or you can purchase them in boxes of 6 or 12 at a discount.