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.

True Confections

February 18, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Love their little quote on the side of the box! “Life is Short, Eat Dessert First”

Milk Chocolate Hazelnut

Chocolate cake, chocolate hazelnut filling and Frangelico

I have to say, I have some of the best friends out there! So sweet of them to drop off some cake for me after a tiring day. I’ve always wanted to try True Confections, but never got the chance to! They got a me a slice of Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Cake that was huge! The slice seems thin, but it is actually so filling! It’s actually surprisingly not too sweet too! Now I really want to go there myself to try all those cakes out! Yummy!

Pit Burger Bar (UBC)

February 17, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Waffle Fries

Barbeque Wings

Went to the Pit Burger Bar to grab some snacks to share with my foodie bff, Steph again. This is like our go to place for snacks during our long breaks now. I kept hearing from other friends that the waffle fries are really good, so I had to try them. They reminded me of the curly fries back in high school. So oily and unhealthy, but yet so good! We also decided to try the wings, but we both thought they were just average. Nothing too special, and not the best we’ve had. Mmmm… more to come from the Pit Burger Bar! We’ll be trying more of their foods in the future for sure!

Thierry Patisserie

February 14, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Passion Fruit Mousse – biscuit roulade + passion fruit mousse

Tiramisu – mascarpone sabayon + coffee/kahlua soak

It’s no surprise that I love desserts, and I was really excited when I knew I was going to Thierry! Thierry is located on Alberni, where many of the Glowball restaurants like Coast and Italian Kitchen are. The entrance to Thierry was really nice! They had large wooden doors and something about the layout of the shop was extremely comforting. So many desserts to choose from! I kind of wanted to try the macarons, but I was more attracted to the cakes. The passion fruit mousse was my favourite. I loved the mini macarons around it, and the mousse was very smooth. It was a little sour, but it’s passion fruit, so it was acceptable. It actually had a very strong passion fruit flavour and even had little seeds at the top, although I would’ve rather it not. The tiramisu was also extremely delicious. It was presented very nicely, and the alcohol was not too strong. Delicious! And i like how Thierry is open til midnight, so you can always go there for some late night desserts!

Hapa Umi

February 8, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

ALBERTA AAA BEEF TATAKI
Garlic ponzu, green onion oil, spicy daikon

Ahi Tuna

SCALLOP
Scallops, cucumber, ume mayonnaise, egg crepe wrapping

DYNAMITE
Tempura shrimp, green beans, mayonnaise, teriyaki sauce

KAKUNI AND SCALLOP
Soy-braised pork belly, seared scallop

WARM CHOCOLATE CAKE
Banana tempura, ginger caramel, coconut ice cream

I saw that there was a Groupon for Hapa Umi for $30 for $60 worth of food and thought that was a pretty good deal and decided to get it. Even though I had my Groupon, I really don’t think the food was worth its price. Portions were quite small, and there weren’t many choices to choose from on the menu. The sashimi selection was very limited and they didn’t even serve tuna toro. It seemed like they were trying to westernize their menu, so it wasn’t a lot of authentic Japanese food. Food was however quite fresh, and the desserts were okay. The beef carpaciccio was not bad, but nothing spectacular about it. I guess nothing was bad, but just not good enough to make me want to keep coming back. Going in with the perception that Hapa Umi was a higher end izakaya, which the ambiance gives and their price points prove to be, I was left disappointed and felt the food really wasn’t worth the price. I think if you want to go to a good izakaya place, I would recommend to go to Guu instead!

The Pit Burger Bar (UBC)

February 6, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Belgian Fries with Garlic Mayo

Mozza Sticks with Marinara Sauce

Decided to get some snacks at the Pit Burger Bar in the SUB at UBC the other day, and ended up trying their Belgian Fries and Mozza Sticks. I actually didn’t know what belgian fries were, but I decided to give them a try anyways. Both my friend and I found that there was too much seasoning, and therefore was actually really salty! The garlic mayo was really good though. So perhaps, just fries without seasoning plus the mayo would have been perfect. The Mozza Sticks were not bad, but they were probably just frozen and heated up. Being curious what Belgian Fries really were, I actually quickly googled it and found that Belgian Fries are different from normal french fries, because they are freshly cut, cut thicker than usual, and are baked twice! Now I know!

Kaneda Japanese Restaurant

January 31, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Assorted Sashimi, including Salmon, Tuna, Hokkigai, Tako (Octopous)

Beef Sashimi

Lobster/Kani, Chopped Scallop, Shark Fin, Mirugai Nigiri Sushi

Tobiko, Toro, Unagi Nigiri Sushi

Dynamite Roll, Alaska Roll, California Roll, Chopped Scallop Roll

Fresh Oyster, Gomae, Agedashi Tofu, Fish Soup, Prawn Tempura

Yakitori (Chicken Skewer), Beef Short Ribs

I was flipping through an asian food magazine and found that a new restaurant called Kaneda Japanese Restaurant had opened on West Broadway. I hadn’t had all you can eat sushi for a very long time since I hate that feeling of stuffing myself just to get my money’s worth, but I was definitely craving some this weekend. Decided to give it a try, but I have to say I was quite disappointed. I looked at the reviews and I saw that they had pretty good reviews, but I have to say that the food and service is not up to par. The food took extremely long to arrive and the order of food came in an awkward order. You would expect to get all your sashimi and salads first, but no, things like beef short ribs came before salmon sashimi was served. Salads as simple as gomae and shrimp sunomono took what felt like 30 minutes to come. You would assume that all you can eat places would have things like salad all prepared ahead of time since they need to send them out in bulk amounts. But no, they took forever, and they didn’t taste any better than other all you can eat places that served them right away. Our sushi was also all mixed up, or it was either that they didn’t have it and just substituted our food without asking. We ordered lobster nigiri sushi, but it tasted like imitation crab, and our albalone nigiri sushi never came, but something that was clearly chopped scallop, which we had not ordered, came. Would’ve appreciated if they let us know beforehand there wasn’t the items and they shouldn’t have just substituted it for something else. All the cook food, like skewers and agedashi tofu were pretty good though, and they presented the sashimi on a very nice platter. Food just took way too long to come though, and we had to even ask our server where our food was. He replied that there was only one chef preparing the sushi. Understaffed on a Saturday night? The restarurant wasn’t even full too though, so maybe that’s why. Service was just way too slow, and even when we asked for our bill, it took them 10 minutes to get it to us. Definitely not going back, but I have to say they have a large variety of food to choose from for all you can eat at around $25 a person.

Bubble World

January 18, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Tofu Dessert with Red Bean

Matcha Ice Cream Slush with Agar Jelly

Been to the Bubble World in Richmond a few times already actually, but never really took pictures in the past… Bubble World is usually really packed during after dinner hours, especially on weekends. I went on a random weekday in the afternoon though, so it was basically my table and another table. Quite empty so service was really quick. They’re similar to Pearl Castle, with a variety of food and drinks to choose from. I tried their Matcha Ice Cream Slush with Agar Jelly which was quite large in size to my surprise. The Matcha was not bad, but I wish it actually had ice cream in it. I didn’t really get the ice cream texture, and it was more like all slush and ice instead. It was my first time trying agar jelly, which I heard was pretty good. I wanted a change from the normal pearls and coconut jelly. To my surprise, it didn’t really have any flavour to it, but it had a very nice chewy texture – not as chewy as pearls or coconut jelly. Nice change for once, but I think I still prefer coconut jelly!