A&W

August 3, 2015August 3, 2015Leave a comment

Sriracha Burger

If you haven’t already heard, A&W had been offering coupons to redeem their new Sriracha Teen Burger for free. Unfortunately, the coupons have run out, but if you were lucky to get the coupon, but didn’t redeem it by their previous deadline, July 31, 2015, they extended it until August 9, 2015! The Sriracha Teen Burger features a sesame seed bun, filled with a pure beef patty, processed cheddar cheese, bacon, sriracha aioli, roasted red pepper, tomato and lettuce. It really tastes just like a teen burger but has the roasted red peppers and a hint of that sriracha aioli. I was expecting it to be more spicy, but it really wasn’t. I did like the roasted red peppers in it though.

Onion Rings

When you sign up with A&W online, they also post various coupons in your account. One of them was upgrading to Onion Rings for free when you purchased fries. So for $2.50, we got onion rings, compared to around $4.50 normally. Not bad! Their onion rings are also always crispy and sweet.

Chubby Chicken Strips

The must order for S at A&W are the Chubby Chicken Strips. They claim that they use 100% chicken breast from chicken raised without the use of antibiotics. I did think that the chicken tasted much more like real chicken without other random ingredients. They batter and bread the chicken with toasted wheat crumbs, wheat flour and spices. Quite crispy indeed, but I personally think they are quite pricey at around $8 for 5 small strips.

Poutine

On another visit, K brought take out home and I got to sample their Poutine. This was another deal where she used a coupon to upgrade her fries to a poutine for free. The poutine features Russet thick-cut fries with cheese curds and a poutine gravy sauce. We thought these were just average. The fries were a bit soggy and I would choose New York Fries over these for sure.

Overall, A&W’s new Srircha Burger is worth a try and I would probably order it again. I also like how when you dine in, your food looks pretty fancy in their little fryer baskets. Seems like a bit of an upgrade compared to your typical fast food restaurants. You don’t get this at the food court though, and we noticed that the food court’s quality was not as good as their restaurants with the food being cold and fries being fried in old oil.

Pros:
– Sriracha Teen Burger and Onion Rings are good
– Good deals when you sign up for their online coupons

Cons:
– Can be a bit pricey for fast food without the coupons

Price Range: $10-15

1: Terrible 2: Poor 3: Average 4: Good 5: Excellent

Food: 3 Service: N/A Ambiance: 2 Parking: 3 Overall: 3

Japanese Snacks

September 17, 2014Leave a comment

Last post to wrap up my trip in Japan is going to be about all the random snacks I had along the way. First up, was MOS Burger near the Shibuya station. We grabbed a quick bite here while waiting for our Airbnb host. MOS Burger is a fast food chain and the second largest in Japan after McDonald’s. I got the beef, onion and cheese melt. Tons of flavour from the onions and the cheese was really good.

In the mornings, we would sometimes go down to Family Mart to grab a quick snack. Family Mart is a convenience store, similar to 7-Eleven. We got the onigiris, which are rice shaped like triangles and wrapped with seaweed. Inside, they are filled with different ingredients, but ume or pickled plum is probably the most common. I chose the Spicy Tuna Onigiri, which was super delicious! It’s under 200 yen for one as well! Such a steal.

At Family Mart, we also found many alcoholic beverages. We got this lychee cider, which was so good! Wish we have this in Vancouver. Only 4% of alcohol content, so the lychee fruity flavour really comes through.

We also checked out Tokyu Food Show, which is connected to the Shibuya station. It’s located inside the Tokyu Toyoko Department store and offers many different stalls with food. We decided to get some nigiris at one of the stall. Here is the Tuna Nigiri, which was slightly disappointing. It wasn’t as fresh as the ones we had in restaurants and slightly overpriced.

We also got the Geoduck Nigiri, but it was only alright as well. All the ingredients didn’t seem very fresh for the price we paid.

Address: 2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

Hokkaido Milk is very popular, so we had to give it a try. Hokkaido milk has a very unique taste and is very creamy, but light at the same time. It has to do with what they feed the cows. You could definitely immediately taste a distinct flavour, which was very good!

While in the Harajuku area, we got hungry and spotted a crepe kiosk. It’s called Cafe Crepe Harajuku, and offers many pretty looking crepes. We chose the Matcha Tiramisu Crepe. The crepe was thin and filled with a slice of matcha tiramisu, topped with whipped cream and matcha powder. It was actually very good! Not too sweet!

While in Yokohama, I picked up this super cute bag of ramen at a shop in World Potters. It features the Sapporo Maruyama Zoo Bear. So cute! I have yet to try it, but hopefully it’s as good as how the package looks!

At the Cup Noodle Museum, we purchased this cute box of ramen. You add eggs on top of it, and it’s supposed to be sort of like a ramen pancake. However, we made it the other day, and it kind of failed. Definitely did not look as good as the picture. Perhaps it was because we couldn’t read the instructions properly. It wasn’t bad though.

At the Narita International Airport, we did some Duty Free shopping. We picked up this bottle of Sparkling Ume Wine. The packaging definitely caught our attention. We had it on the plane and it was really good! Sweet and fizzy!

We also picked up a box of the Yubari Melon Pocky. They were the giant Pockys, so they are individually packed inside. It actually had a very strong cantaloupe flavour. Yummy!

At the Narita International Airport, after you pass security and customs, there isn’t much to eat in our terminal. We ended up having a last meal of Japanese food. K got the Soba Noodles which came with a side of fried potato croquettes.

For myself, I got the Shoyu Ramen. It was quite salty and very oily! Not good at all…

This probably shouldn’t be in this post, since it was a Korean snack we bought, but I’ll throw it in here anyways. These were banana puffs! Crispy and light chips with a strong banana flavour. It’s weird how Koreans make banana flavoured everything… So weird, but so good. We found it at Walmart in Vancouver!

And here were our suitcase filled with our goodies. Just some of them actually… A trip to Asia isn’t complete if you don’t bring back tons of goodies!

Yoshisoba (Shibuya) – Tokyo

September 13, 2014September 11, 2014Leave a comment

There are tons of restaurants near the Shibuya station. For breakfast, we decided to head to the street where the Standing Sushi Bar is and look for some food. We came across Yoshisoba, which is a standing noodle bar. The prices definitely drew us in. For under 600 yen, you can get a don and soba set! What a steal. First, you must insert your money in the vending machine and choose your food. A ticket will print out and you hand it to the chef. He will ask you whether you want soba or udon.

Squid Tempura Don

I went for the set, which first consisted of the Squid Tempura Don. I was utterly disappointed with this. The tempura is not fresh at all. You can see a bunch of tempura already premade on the shelf. All he does is heat it up a little and dip it in a tempura sauce. It is then served on rice. I could barely finish this because of how soggy and cold the tempura was. The squid itself was very tender, but the batter was gross. Do not order!

Soba in Cold Soup

The set also came with the Soba in Cold Soup. Luckily this was more decent, but still not the best I’ve had. The soba is already put in the broth. Usually the broth or dipping sauce is separate, so that you dip your noodles in as you eat. It was just average and tasted like soba you can buy at the grocery store.

Overall, we were all very disappointed with Yoshisoba. It is cheap and will fill you up, but none of us finished our food because of how bad it was… Stay away!

Address: 4-26-5 Sendagaya, Shibuya, Tokyo

Standing Sushi Bar Uogashi Nihon-ichi (Shibuya) – Tokyo

September 9, 2014September 8, 2014Leave a comment

Prior to our trip, I had done some quick Googling to see which restaurants would be great for sushi, specifically nigiri sushi. There was the popular but expensive Jiro, and a popular one was the Standing Sushi Bar Uogashi Nihon-ichi. Luckily, there are two in the Shibuya area, and one was literally right across the street of our airbnb. It is also extremely close to the Shibuya metro station. K and I decided to head here for a late night snack.

What’s cool about a standing sushi bar is that there are no seats at all. You must stand in front of a bar table to eat, so it’s not the ideal place if you’ve walked too much and need a seat. Perfect if you want to just eat and go though. You meal will usually last from 10 to 20 minutes. Plates and chopsticks are on the lower bar table. On a higher level, they place a lotus leaf where they place the sushi on. You also make your own tea here. There is a hot water dispenser, and you just add a bit of green tea powder in your cup. You tell the chef what you want to order, and he will make it for you on the spot. They provided us with an English menu and we just pointed.

Squid (Ika)

First up was the Squid, which was probably the best ika I’ve had! It was very fresh and had a nice bite to it without being too chewy.

Red Tuna

One of my favourite was the Red Tuna. I liked it because it wasn’t as soft as normal tuna. It had more of a chew, similar to salmon. Very fresh again!

Egg (Tamago)

Next, K wanted to try the Tamago. I didn’t end up trying this since she wanted both. She said it was very good! As you can see, all nigiri come in a pair. The above three items were all only 150 yen for the two pieces. That comes to only 75 yen a piece! That’s like impossible to get in Vancouver! Such a great deal!

Scallop (Hotate)

Next, we got the Scallop, which was also one of my favourites. Each nigiri had two pieces of scallop. All nigiris come with wasabi already placed inside. It’s usually the perfect amount, but I found that they put more in the Scallop one. It might be to remove the fishier taste that scallop usually has. Nevertheless, the scallop was smooth and fresh.

Grilled Squid Tentacles

We then realized many customers were ordering nigiri that were lightly seared with the torch to make it aburi-style. We decided to order the Grilled Squid Tentacles, which was delicious! The tentacles were lightly grilled and topped with some mayo and torched. Loved the grilled flavour and the squid had a nice chew. These were roughly 200 yen, so only 100 yen per piece! A good deal again!

Toro

Since we enjoyed most of the food so far, we decided to just go for it and purchase one of the pricier items on the menu. The Toro! Tuna belly is expensive in Vancouver, and here, they sold the pair for 400 yen. The toro was very smooth and buttery, but I felt like I’ve had better in Vancouver. To be honest, we thought that the red tuna was more worth it! We ended up getting more of the red tuna instead since it’s of much better value. The chef also served us another pair of the red tuna, but didn’t charge us. Super nice!

Grilled Salmon

Since the aburi nigiri was so good, we also got the Grilled Salmon. Again, the salmon was topped with mayo and lightly seared. Loved how the salmon would now melt in your mouth. Yummy!

Overall, I would definitely recommend coming to the Standing Sushi Bar. There are many locations all over Tokyo. Great value and great quality. The service was also extremely friendly! I think we paid less than 1,500 yen each and were more than full! I’d definitely come back here again!

Address: 2-9-1 Dogen, Shibuya, Tokyo

Kindenmaru 金伝丸 (Shibuya) – Tokyo

September 5, 20142 Comments

The next morning, we woke up early to take the airport limousine to Incheon Airport. We had the worst luck ever and were stuck in a huge lineup for check in. Luckily, after some speedy runs, we made it to the gate and boarded our Asiana flight. Super happy with the service on Asiana Airlines and I would definitely recommend it! We had great meals even for a 2-3 hour flight, and the flight attendants were extremely friendly! Next thing you know, we were in Tokyo, and we took an airport bus to Shibuya station. We had a terrible encounter dealing with our Airbnb host, but we finally settled in. We stayed literally on the streets of Shibuya, so it was extremely convenient.

For dinner, we walked across the street and found a bunch of restaurants. Shibuya is filled with restaurants, but the shops are also very small! Most of them were actually all occupied. We ended up at Kindenmaru 金伝丸, where we luckily snatched four seats at the bar table. Here, you can watch the chefs prepare your noodles.

In Japan, it’s pretty neat how many ramen shops just place a vending machine, and you can insert your money and click on the dish you want. A little ticket will print out, and you just give it to the server or chef. It’s not about the service at these shops, but rather about the efficiency. You can sit down, get your food, and leave. We realized that most Japanese people don’t linger around and chat at these shops. The ramens at Kindenmaru were roughly 800 to 1000 yen, which was actually a bit pricier than many of the other ramen shops.

Garlic Ramen

T got the Garlic Ramen, which had a deep brown coloured broth. I had a taste of it, and I really enjoyed the flavour! Very rich and thick. If you like more flavourful broths, this is the one for you.

Miso Ramen

K and C both got the Miso Ramen. As you can see, the broth is again very cloudy, showing that the stock had probably simmered for many hours.

Shoyu Ramen

For myself, I chose the Shoyu Ramen, which is soy sauce based. Like the other ramen, it came with a soft boiled egg split in two. The yolk could have been more runny as I found that it was starting to become more of a hard boiled egg. It also came with two slices of cha-shu (pork), beansprouts, corn, kelp, and green onions. The noodles were bouncy and chewy. Loved it! There was also quite a lot of ramen and I was thoroughly full. The only downside was that I found the broth to be a little too salty. Otherwise, it was a delicious bowl of ramen!

Address: 2-9-2 Dogenzaka, Shibuya, Tokyo

Street Food & More – Seoul

September 2, 2014Leave a comment

A trip to Seoul isn’t done properly if you don’t have some street food! I was actually surprised that there weren’t as many street food stalls as I had imagined. Anyways, if you’re looking for street food, Myeongdong is a good option since you can shop and eat. However, most of the stalls don’t come out until the evening time. I love grilled sausages, so this stall caught my eyes immediately.

Grilled Sausages stuffed with Rice Cake

This sausage skewer isn’t your typical American sausage skewer. We had some spicy beef sausages, but there were also pork sausages that were filled with rice cake! I thought that was pretty neat! Yummy too!

Another stall in Myeongdong offered a large variety of grilled squid, octopus, and fish.

Some seemed to already be grilled, while others needed to be grilled.

Grilled Octopus

We had originally wanted to get grilled squid, but we couldn’t really figure out what was written on the signs. I believe that we ended up ordering grilled octopus. They placed these slices on the grill right away for a few minutes to heat it up. Honestly, these were terrible! They were so hard and tough that I’m pretty sure I had a difficult time digesting it. Won’t recommend this!

Another area with lots of street food is the Dongdaemun area which is filled with shopping malls like Doota and is filled with many wholesale shops. We found a stall with more sausage like skewers. These were dipped in a red sauce!

On the left is a fish cake wrapped around squid. To the right, I got a skewer with a variety of sausage, rice cake, fish cake, and meatballs. The sauce was not even very spicy. It was more sweet than spicy. Cheap and delicious!

Green Tea Parfait – O’sulloc

O’sulloc Tea House is a modern looking tea house that offers Korean traditional teas. It specializes in green tea, but also offers many other items like ice cream, desserts, and juices. They have several shops, but we stopped by the one in Myeongdong. I decided to share the Green Tea Parfait with K. The parfaits are quite expensive, at more than 8,000 won! Honestly, I didn’t think it was that good. The bottom was green tea ice topped with lots of whipped cream and red bean. It was then topped with a scoop of green tea ice cream, some green tea cake, and a tea biscuit. We found that the parfait just tasted like cream. I would’ve much preferred the parfaits at Mimibuloveme in Vancouver. I find that O’sulloc is overrated with high prices! I know they specialize in green tea, so I’m guessing their teas are probably more on the right track. Definitely not going back for the desserts though.

Dumplings in Oxtail Soup

On another day, K and I went out early in the morning and walked over to Insadong to look for some quick breakfast. We ended up heading up to this random cafe on the second floor of a building. I never got the name, but it was filled with office people! It’s more like a fast food/ cafeteria type of setting but still with full service. I chose the Dumplings in Oxtail Soup, which was absolutely delicious! Filled with roughly 6 dumplings, and topped with onions, seaweed, and egg, the broth was the best part! It didn’t taste like MSG, but rather a hearty broth filled with flavour. As for the dumplings, they were pork and chive dumplings, and a great way to start the morning! Must try!

Tteokbokki with Cheese

We also found Tteokbokki with Cheese on the menu and thought it would be quite interesting. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a disappointment. There wasn’t enough cheese on it! They definitely skimped out here. There were only a few strings of melted cheese, but not enough to create a cheesy effect. The rice cakes were soft, and sitting in a spicy hot pepper sauce, and topped with white sesame. It also came with half a hard boiled egg. Overall, these were just decent. I would highly recommend trying their soups instead, since most of the locals were ordering that.

Chir Chir Fusion Chicken Factory (치르치르) – Seoul

September 1, 2014Leave a comment

After doing some night shopping in Myeongdong (again), we got a bit hungry. At the end of the Myeongdong street, we found a chicken and beer restaurant. We still hadn’t had chicken and beer in Seoul! We decided to go into Chir Chir Fusion Chicken Factory. It had a large selection of chicken dishes. The first level was for smoking, and the second level was non-smoking. The restaurant is actually quite huge and it was very packed.

Crispy Classic Fried Chicken

We wanted more of a snack, so we decided to order one order to share. It’s pretty huge! I believe there were roughly 8 pieces of chicken, so it’s perfect for 4 girls. We wanted something original, so we went for the Crispy Classic Fried Chicken. When I saw it, I thought it looked quite similar to KFC’s, but after eating one, I can see why people love their Korean fried chicken! The flavouring is so much more delicious! Plus, it didn’t feel too oily! Lightly battered so that it was crispy. It came with two sauces – a tartar sauce and a sweet chili sauce. It was delicious without the dipping sauces! I liked how it wasn’t too salty, and by the end of the night, I wasn’t even really thirsty. That’s always a good sign!

All orders come with some side dishes as well. It came with some salsa (which I really didn’t like because of the cilantro and raw onions), some corn, and some crackers. Wish we had gotten some beer to go with it, but we felt that they priced their beer a bit too high. I guess that’s how they make their money here!

Traveling in Vienna – Christmas Markets and Palaces

April 9, 20142 Comments

From Prague to Vienna, we took a bus called Student Agency that took around 5 hours. Flying in and out of Vienna is extremely pricey, so it seems that most travelers on a budget commute by bus. Student Agency was the cheapest bus out there and it was also one of the best bus I’ve been on! They had tons of movies to watch, free wi-fi, and even a cup of complimentary hot chocolate or coffee. Our bus did require us to switch to a different bus when we got to Brno, a city in Czech. The next bus wasn’t as fancy, but it was only another 1-2 hours, so we just slept it off. After dinner with K’s friends that night, they took us to the Vienna Christmas Market. Once again, there are multiple markets all around the city, but the most significant one is at Rathausplatz. It’s also where Vienna’s Town Hall is located. A gorgeous building both in the day and night. Here, the parks are decorated with lights and I feel like it was the nicest market I visited during my trip in Europe.

You’ll find that Mulled Wine or “Gluwein” stalls all over the market. It’s super popular in Vienna and they have a huge variety of flavours for their punches too.

I went for the original Gluwein, but I didn’t like it as much as my friends’ flavoured punches. The fruitier ones tasted much better. You pay a deposit and get it in a nice mug which you can keep if you don’t want your deposit back. Otherwise, just return your mug and you can get your deposit back. Other than drinks, there were a variety of food and arts and crafts.

The next day, we went to tackle all the major tourist sites. However, one of our friends were a huge Sigmund Freud fan since she took a few psychology classes, so we ended up going to the Sigmund Freud Museum first. He’s basically the founder of psychoanalysis, and although I didn’t know much about him, the museum was pretty interesting. You get an audio player to listen to while walking around the museum. Freud had lived there, but there really isn’t much of his furniture left now and it really looks more like a museum. I would advise people who are into psychology and such to visit if they have time. It takes around 2 hours. Then we began to hit up the typical tourist spots. Here is the Austrian Parliament Building, which is huge and spectacular! basically around this area, you’ll find a bunch of other important buildings. We had a look at the Museumsquartier, where there’s a bunch of modern art museums.

Then we came to Hofburg Palace, which used to house the Hasburg dynasty and rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today, it’s where President of Austria lives. The only problem was that by the time we got here, it started to snow! And quite heavily too! It was our first snowfall in Europe, but seriously, we just wanted to hide indoors. We weren’t dressed for this weather!

It took us forever to find food! Most places were packed with people since everyone wanted to wait for the snow to stop. We finally found this tiny mall on Mariahilfer Strasse called Gerngross. Inside, we found this restaurant called Brandauer with reasonably priced food. We found a seat and warmed up. I got the Ribs with Fries and they were so good! I felt like I was back in America eating that greasy food. It wasn’t even that greasy. Each rib had tons of meat on it too and it was roasted to perfection. It came with two dips too, which were perfect for the wedge-cut fries. After lunch, the snow stopped and we went to Karlsplatz, which is a square where the Karlskirche (St. Charles’ Church) is located. Also a must see!

After that, we met up with K’s friends again, and they took us to see the Belvedere Palace. Again, it’s a Baroque style palace and was built for Prince Eugene of Savoy. Today, it’s a museum with art from the Middle Ages to today. K went in to see the collection, but the rest of us weren’t too into art, so we ended up taking a look at the Christmas Market which was just outside the building. It was a much smaller scale market, and I wouldn’t come here just for the market. The palace was really pretty at night though! The girls and I also ended up heading to the Schonbrunn Palace since it was our last night. It’s the former imperial summer residence and is known as one of the most important cultural monuments in Austria. However, we didn’t find that the Schonbrunn Palace looked as nice as the Belvedere! It was a bit more simple compared to the Belvedere. We didn’t pay to go inside, but there was again another Christmas Market! This one was much larger than Belvedere and had quite a lot of food. Not bad!

We then met back up with the rest of the group, and they took us to Vapiano. It’s actually a German restaurant chain, but the largest restaurant is in Vienna! It’s a self-serve restaurant with Italian food like pasta and pizza. They make the food when you order which is really cool. I wish I took a picture of it. So what happens is when you walk in, they give you a little card. You find your own seat, then you go ahead and walk up to to kitchen to line up. There’s a pizza line and a pasta line. When it’s your turn, you scan your card on this machine and tell the chef what type of pasta you want, what sauce, and whether you want other toppings. Then the chef literally starts to cook it in front of you! Pasta doesn’t take long to cook, so you have your food ready in less than 5 minutes! You can add on drinks or other sides. Here, I got the Pesto Penne, which was quite delicious! Affordable pricing, and the quality wasn’t bad. They claim to have fresh pasta and such. I don’t think it’s the best pasta I’ve had, but definitely pretty good for what you pay. When you leave, you just give the cashier your card, and it’ll show how much you need to pay! Definitely a cool concept and the interior doesn’t even feel like a cafeteria! It looks pretty upscale!

At night, K went out to party with his friends. The girls and I wanted to have an easy night and we headed back to our hostel. We stayed at Hostel Ruthensteiner. It wasn’t our first choice and wasn’t exactly the cheapest, but everything else was booked up during that time! Always book early! Anyways, the hostel was fine and service was friendly. Definitely wasn’t the nicest one we’ve stayed at and it was also our first time where we had to share a bathroom with the rest of the floor. It’s fine when you’re the first one up in the morning, but once it’s the evening, the bathroom is a mess… Well we survived, and honestly I can say, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Also at our hostel had a mini bar where many students and travelers hung out. The girls and I went to the bar and got some Punch! It was much cheaper than the market, and we actually thought it tasted better! And that ended our night. The next day, we would begin our adventure to Budapest!

Every Day is a Food Day

Category: Fast Food

A&W