The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant

June 25, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Pan Fried Oysters – chili lime aïoli, tobiko

Island Club – shrimp & crab salad, bacon, guacamole

Blue Shell Mussels – steamed with coconut red curry sauce

It was finally a nice sunny day in Vancouver last Friday, and a day off for me, so of course I had to go out to enjoy the weather. I hadn’t gone to Granville Island in a very long time, so off I went to look for food. Granville Island’s market itself has tons of food stalls and fresh food, but we ended up at The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant. We chose to sit outside since it was such a nice day out (although it did get gloomy very fast), but they had a fireplace in the outdoor patio, which kept us very warm. They also have little blankets for you if it gets too cold. It was definitely a place with great service and of course, a great view.

We started off with the Pan Fried Oysters, which came with tobiko and an ailoi sauce. I thought it was just decent, and not anything amazing. I found it a little dry. I tried a bit of the Island Club too, which I thought was pretty good. I really liked the shrimp and crab filling and there were quite a lot of it too. And for myself, I had the Blue Shell Mussels. The mussels were tiny, but very fresh and sweet. It had a nice coconut red curry sauce that wasn’t too spicy, but strong in coconut flavour.

The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant definitely has got good food, especially if you’re looking for seafood. And of course a wonderful view and service! Highly recommend!

Bengali Fish & Curry

June 14, 2012April 25, 2013Leave a comment

Naan Bread, Chicken Curry, Saffron Rice, Butter Chicken

Off I went to Surrey to try some authentic Indian cuisine. I’m no expert for Indian cuisine, so bear with me, but I felt this was probably pretty authentic. Bengali Fish & Curry is situated near an office area, and isn’t really out on the streets where all the rest of the restaurants are. I read online that it was a hidden gem, so decided to give it a try. I believe lots of people take out here, since when you first enter, you can basically order food there. But we were led to the dining area, which was pretty nice. There was probably around only 2 other tables with us though, but everyone eating there were Indian, so I took a guess that the food would be pretty legit.

I ordered the Butter Chicken, and thought that it would come with rice or something, but to my surprise, it was just the butter chicken. We had ordered some Naan Bread too, but I was craving some rice with my sauce, so we ordered a bowl of Saffron Rice, which was huge. I think we ended up ordering too much food, but it was good to try the rice too, since it tasted quite differently from the rice I normally eat at Chinese or Western places. They had a lot of herbs in the rice, and it smelt pretty good too. I had the butter chicken non-spicy since I can’t take spice, and it came with lots of chicken. Jack had the Chicken Curry, and had it very spicy. I tried a bit of it, and found it too spicy for my liking of course.

Overall, food was really good, and service was also extremely friendly. They played some Indian music videos on the TV too, which gets you into the Indian mood. I honestly can’t say much about the food though, since I haven’t tried many authentic Indian restaurants before, but it was pretty good in my opinion!

Shark Club

June 8, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Oven Roasted Chicken Wings: Golden Shark, Jack Daniels BBQ, Teriyaki, Honey Garlic, and Salt & Pepper

Wednesdays are always a great day to go grab some wings since most pubs or lounges offer Wings Wednesdays where the wings are half price. My friends and I decided to go to Shark Club last week, and it was pretty packed and noisy too since there were a few sports games going on I guess.

We decided to just order a bunch of different flavoured wings and share. We got the Golden Shark, Jack Daniels BBQ, Teriyaki, Honey Garlic, and Salt & Pepper. Honestly, I thought all the wings weren’t good at all. I don’t know if it’s different on a non-wings night, but they were seriously not up to standard. The Golden Shark was supposed to be a mix of BBQ and spicy, but it was really just a fried wing with a little spice to it. Nothing special. I think the Jack Daniels BBQ was probably the most flavourful. It actually had a strong BBQ sauce, but I’ve had better BBQ wings before. As for the Teriyaki, I could not taste a single bit of Teriyaki sauce. It was covered full of “sauce”, but the sauce had no taste at all. Honey Garlic is usually my favourite flavour for wings, but it was really bland, and didn’t taste that great. As for the Salt & Pepper, it wasn’t even peppery or salty. It just tasted like a normal fried wing with little seasoning.

Overall, I was quite disappointed in the wings, and would definitely not go back for their Wings Wednesdays. Shark Club serves their wings in orders of 10 for 9.99, but since it was Wings Wednesday, it was half price. I would still rather go to another pub for the wings though.

Richmond Night Market

June 1, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

The Richmond Night Market opened around 2 weeks ago, and I’ve already gone twice! There isn’t much to do in Richmond, so what better than to go take a stroll and grab some food. I ended up going again the second week it opened, and went there on a mission to fill myself up for dinner. Admission is $1, but there’s free parking and quite a huge lot, compared to the $5 parking at the Summer Night Market by Vulcan Way. It gets quite trafficky along the River Rock Casino area though, but they have people patrolling, so it’s not too bad.

Chef James Xin Jiang Man BBQ – Chicken and Lamb Skewers

Any 3 skewers for $6.75 or 5 for $11
We saw that the line up was long, but decided it must’ve been good for it to be so long, so we lined up. Waited for probably at least 15 minutes before we got called for our order, but the girl told us that there weren’t any beef skewers left, and we could either wait a little longer, or just choose another skewer. We ended up choosing another chicken skewer, but I was still pretty disappointed with not getting what I had ordered!
Both Chicken and Lamb Skewers were still really delicious though, with tender meat, and a great flavour. This was probably one of the better stands of the night.

Takoyaki

$5 for 6 mini takoyakis
Probably one of the worse takoyakis I’ve had! It was all dough, with one tiny piece of octopus. The dough felt as though it wasn’t even cooked properly. It was all mushy as you can see from the above picture.

Bakudanyaki – Original Giant Takoyaki

$5 each
Since we were so disappointed with the takoyakis at the last stand, we ended up going to Bakudanyaki to get a Giant Takoyaki. Their poster claimed that there would be squid, cabbage, corn, red ginger, shrimp, rice cake, quail egg, and green onion, which were no lies. The Giant Takoyaki was filled with all these ingredients and the dough was thin and crispy on the outside. Wasn’t mushy like the last stand. I thought the quail egg inside was pretty interesting too!
They had 4 flavours: Original, Curry, Chili, Wasabi

Dim Sum Express

What’s night market without my favourite Curry Fish Balls? There were quite a few Dim Sum stands, but we just ended up at Dim Sum Express since it was close by and there seemed to be quite a crowd too.

Curry Fish Balls

6 for $3.00
Wasn’t anything amazing, and have had better ones before. Not very saucy, and not as spicy as most stands would serve. Spice was just right for me though, since I can’t take spice, but I wish it were a little more saucy.

Shrimp Dumplings

4 for $3.50
Didn’t try this so can’t comment 🙂

I ❤ Tofu – Sweet Taro Cold Tofu Pudding

$3.50 for just Tofu Pudding; add $0.50 for each topping
Smooth tofu and the sweet taro was a good compliment with a bit of chewiness to it. Perfect dessert after all the greasy food.

BBQ Squid

$6 a bowl
Last item I really wanted was the BBQ Squid. We looked around different aisles to find a good place for it, and many had large line ups. We ended up at the stand named BBQ Squid, which seemed to only sell BBQ Squid, and there was quite a large line up, so we assumed it would be good.
This had to be the worse item we had of the night. After waiting around 5 minutes, we got our Squid, which was freshly grilled in front of us. It tasted full of this curry powder that I had saw them sprinkle while grilling, but that was probably the only seasoning they used. The squids were also not cooked properly or not to the type I had wanted. I wanted the squid to be crispy at the ends, but they were totally not. So disappointed and definitely not going back here again. We even ended up throwing more than half of it away since it was so bad!

Ice Cream Churros

$5
Didn’t get a picture of the stand, but it’s the only stand that sells Ice Cream Churros
I had this the first week I went to the night market, and thought that it would be pretty cool. I mean ice cream and churros? I had imagined the ice cream to be inside the churro, but clearly I was thinking too much.
It’s basically 4 churros with a scoop of ice cream, which you can choose the flavour of. I ended up with vanilla ice cream. I have to say it was a disappointment, as I felt that the churros weren’t even cooked fresh. They were pretty hard and seemed like they had sat there for a while. The ice cream just tasted like cheap Safeway ice cream, but I have to say the ice cream was probably the best part of it, which is pretty sad.
Nothing special, and definitely not worth $5!

Twisted Fork Bistro

May 27, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Snails – Tender garlic snails cooked with shallots, mushrooms, herbs and white wine served with tomato basil sauce, arrugula and crushed croutons

Scallops and Bacon – Pan seared scallops marinated in thyme and chipotle oil served with caramelized onion, potato puree, Vancouver Island’s double smoked bacon and house corn relish

Stuffed Portobello Mushroom – Filled with arrugula, and pesto vinaigrette, topped with a cashew dill crust served with lentils, baby carrots and tomato basil sauce

Fresh Mussels – One pound, with cream, herbs and fresh tomatoes, served with frites

Confit Duck – Crispy Confit duck served with bacon braised cabbage, duck jus and finished with fruit ketchup

Lavender Creme Brulee

Chocolate Terrine – Frozen dark chocolate mousse layered with raspberry sorbet, with biscotti crumbs and raspberry coulis

Twisted Fork Bistro has been on my go to list for quite a while now. I was so excited to try it finally since there’s always huge line ups for it. Waited a little more than 15 minutes and finally got a seat. The place is really small, so it usually gets packed quite fast. It’s got a warm, homey feeling to it which I love. They serve cozy French cuisine, and are known for their great desserts.

First off, we got the Escargots, which I didn’t find particularly special or anything. There were a lot of escargots, but the flavour was nothing special. The Scallops and Bacon had a sauce that basically tasted like salsa with corn, and I found it a little too sour for my liking. The Stuffed Portabello Mushroom was just alright again. Nothing too special. As for the Fresh Mussels, I found that there were not enough flavour. It was a little bland for me, and I usually don’t eat very feisty flavoured things too. My favourite dish had to be the Confit Duck. The duck was cooked really tender and the sauce complemented the duck breast very well. And finally, we ordered desserts! Tha Lavender Creme Brulee was really delicious! It was infused with a lavender flavour, which I found very special since not many restaurants serve creme brulee with lavender. The lavender actually worked very well with the creme brulee. Lastly, we also ordered a Chocolate Terrine, which had raspberry sauce, and was extremely rich and creamy.

Overall, the main dishes were just alright, but I really enjoyed the desserts, and would probably come back again for that. Always so packed though, so I’ve got to come here earlier!

Boston Pizza

May 18, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Long Island Iced Tea

Nachos – Freshly made, hand-cut tortilla chips layered with cheddar and pizza mozzarella, topped with chicken

This is from a while ago now, but went to Boston Pizza with Jack for some late night casual drinks and some food to chat. The Long Island Iced Tea was pretty watered down so it actually tasted pretty good with less alcohol in it. We shared a plate of Nachos which was a huge portion! So cheesy, and the jalapeno peppers were so spicy! Still really delicious, and a great place for some drinks and snacks!

Marble Slab Creamery

May 13, 2012April 25, 2013Leave a comment

Stopped by at Marble Slab Creamery, hoping to get some ice cream after dinner, but my friends and I got attracted to the poster above… Ice Cream Cupcakes! Two delicious things put into one? Definitely got our attention. So yes, we ended up buying the pack of 6 instead of ice cream. We were hoping that we could just all dig in and try the different flavours, but to our surprise, the ice cream was really frozen. And we could barely even dig our plastic spoons in it, so we ended up each choosing one to indulge in. I have to say we weren’t too satisfied. I had the Raspberry Cheesecake, and I found the ice cream just way too hard. It wasn’t anything special, and just felt like frozen ice cream with a waffle cone. Definitely will go for their regular ice cream instead next time.

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.