Potter’s Garden

October 4, 2014October 4, 2014Leave a comment

Since we were in the Metrotown area, we decided to grab some food after hiking. We ended up going to Potter’s Garden. There were customers constantly coming in, which is always a good sign! I believe the owners are Korean as well, but they can speak fluent English, so no problem with ordering here!

They first start you off with some appetizers. Here, we have marinated seaweed salad, beansprouts, sweet potatoes, and kimchi. We actually got two sets of these for 5 people, and I’m pretty sure you can ask for a refill.

They also provide you with lettuce so you can wrap your grilled meat, some dipping sauces, and my favourite ssamjang.

Bulgogi

We started off with the Bulgogi, which is just stir fried marinated tender beer with vegetables. Since we only ordered two grilled dishes, they did not open up the grill for us to grill on our own. I actually prefer that since I don’t exactly enjoy the grilling part and smelling like grilled food afterwards. The meat was very tender and flavourful. Along with ssamjang and wrapped with lettuce, it was very delicious!

LA Galbi Jui

Next, we got the LA Galbi Jui, which are grilled marinated prime ribs. I found the ribs to be slightly disappointing as the meat was a bit tough to chew. And of course, there weren’t too much meat as well. The sauce was very good though.

Nakji-dolsot-bibimbap – rice mixed with assorted vegetables, octopus, optional red pepper paste in a hot stone pot

My favourite of the night was the Nakji-dolsot-bibimbap. This was your typical bibimbap or rice in hot stone bowl with a twist. It has assorted vegetables like bean sprouts, carrots, and zucchini, but also octopus! The octopus was very tender and easy to chew. It was also dressed with the red pepper paste so it was very flavourful and feisty! Recommend!

Japchae

We got our all time favourite Japchae, which is potato noodles stir-fried with vegetables and beef. This was a small size and was a good portion to share so everyone could get some. It was filled with lots of vegetables and beef, so you would get some crunch to it.

Haemul Pajeon (seafood)

Lastly, we got the Haemul Pajeon, which is the Korean style pancake with seafood. Again, this was the mall size. I thought this was done very well as the top was crispy, and they didn’t cheap out on the seafood. It had a mix of squid, shrimp, and of course lots of chives.

Overall, Potter’s Garden was quite good for the value. Nothing too outstanding, but I would probably revisit again when I want Korean food near Kingsway. I believe they are also open until 2 a.m., so a perfect place to get some drinks and late night snacks.

Kamamarui Ramen & Don

August 1, 2014August 1, 20142 Comments

J, S, and K had intended to surprise me with an afternoon of kayaking in the Burnaby Deer Lake, but unfortunately, it began pouring. We ended up going to Metrotown to walk around, and the sun decided to come out… As lunch time passed, we got hungry and began looking for food on our phones. After what seemed forever, we finally decided to go to Kamamarui. There’s barely any parking in the lot, so you may need to park somewhere further away. The restaurant is extremely small. It fits probably under 20 diners. It’s also run by only two young Korean men, so service is definitely much slower. One cooks, while the other serves. However, service is friendly and the decor is simple but clean. We waited roughly 15 minutes, and was able to get a seat.

Tonkotsu Cha-shu Ramen

They basically only have 3 types of ramen. Two pork soup based ramens, with one flavoured with soy sauce and one flavoured with miso. The other is the Veggie Ramen, which is miso soup based. Then you have the option to add cha-shu or sliced pork to it. For myself, I chose the Tonkotsu Cha-Shu Ramen, which was pork soup based and seasoned with soy flavour. It had green onions, bean sprouts and cha-shu (sliced pork). You get quite a lot of cha-shu compared to other ramen shops, but they were quite different. These were more marinated and flavoured. They were also slightly seared or grilled on the sides. I enjoy the traditional cha-shu much more than this modernized version. As for noodles, you get a decent amount, and the texture is chewy, just how I like it. On the table, there are three sauces. There is a chili sauce, a spicy sauce, and a ramen sauce. You can add these sauces as you wish if you find that you want more flavour, saltiness, or spiciness. To be honest, I found that the broth lacked flavour and depth. It wasn’t rich like the ones at Kintaro. I found it rather bland, and had to add quite a bit of the ramen sauce to bring more flavour to the soup.

Miso Cha-shu Ramen

J got the Miso Cha-shu Ramen, which is a miso & pork soup base seasoned with miso flavour. Again, it had green onions, bean sprouts, and cha-shu. Both the miso and tonkotsu ramen come to $11.50 if you choose to add the cha-shu. For each ramen, we also added the Special Nigiri Bomb, so the total became $13 for the set. I’ll speak more about the bomb below.

Vege Ramen

K got the Vege Ramen, which was miso soup based seasoned with miso flavour and topped with green onions, bean sprouts and corn. I actually wish my ramen had come with corn as well, but you had to pay for extra toppings for the non-vegetarian ramens. K said her vege ramen was quite delicious.

Soft Egg

I love soft boiled eggs in my ramen, since I love that runny yolk in the middle. Plus, it’s not something I would spend time making for breakfast in the mornings at home. For an extra $1.50, I chose to add the “Soft Egg“. We were all sad to realize that the soft egg wasn’t what we were hoping for. Instead, it came in it’s own separate dish, and looked like it had been pre-made. It had a runny yolk in the middle, and the whites were also very runny. It was topped with a teriyaki sauce and some green onions. I didn’t really like it and wouldn’t order it again.

Special Nigiri Bomb

Lastly, the Bombs arrived! They were seasoned seaweed with rice and teriyaki sauce and they were my favourite part of the meal! The rice was seasoned so well, and it wasn’t too sticky. Absolutely loved the flavouring!

All in all, the ramens are average, but if you’re in the Burnaby area, it’s not a bad choice. I would still choose the downtown ramen shops as I find the broth more flavourful. I really like the bombs though, so that’s something I would definitely re-order. They also have several donburi choices, so perhaps that would be something to try next time.

Sushi Garden (Revisit)

May 28, 2013Leave a comment

Spicy Salmon Sashimi (1/2 order)

With my friends living in Vancouver or Coquitlam and myself in Richmond, we needed to find a meeting point right in the middle! And Burnaby seems to do the job! However, I’m not familiar with the restaurants in Burnaby, so I never know where to go… We ended up going to Sushi Garden since the food is cheap. Don’t expect amazing quality, but the price does it justice. SP and I shared half an order of Spicy Salmon Sashimi. I usually don’t order spicy sashimi because I can’t take much spice, but decided to give this a try. It didn’t end up to be too spicy and I loved the cucumbers that came along with it. Zesty flavour and I enjoyed the sauce. Definitely a good variation to typical salmon sashimi I always get.

Alaska Roll & Chopped Scallop Roll

We also ordered two rolls. I didn’t go for the unique rolls this time, but opted for the Chopped Scallop Roll. The rolls are a little on the smaller side, but it was decent. I wouldn’t say the scallops were too fresh. SP recommended the Alaska Roll, which had avocado, tobiko and was topped with salmon sashimi and a special sauce. This was quite good as the sauce was delicious, but I found that it was a little on the mushy side.

Takoyaki

SK ordered an udon as well as the Takoyaki. I took a piece of the Takoyaki and it was decent. Not a lot of filling, but at least the batter wasn’t mushy. Not bad for the price I guess.

Yaki Udon (Udon noodles stir fried with beef and veggies)

Lastly, SP and I shared the Yaki Udon with beef and veggies. It was topped with a large amount of shredded seaweed as well. The beef was definitely overcooked, and therefore extremely tough. The udon was decent although I wish it has a bit more sauce. Portion-wise, it was huge for only $7. Definitely not the best udon I’ve had though.

If you’re near the Metrotown area and looking for cheap sushi, then Sushi Garden is the place to go. Don’t expect outstanding service or quality, and you’ll be happy. The wait is quite long as they don’t take reservations, so we had to wait around 15 minutes for a table for 3. Oh, and let me remind you that the place is extremely cramped! So privacy isn’t the top priority here. I would suggest take-out if you want to eat comfortably!

BG Urban Cafe

April 2, 2013April 27, 2013Leave a comment

Santa Fe Smoked Turkey Wrap

I’ve actually never ate at BG Urban Cafe but this chain cafe is everywhere. I didn’t know what was good so decided to grab a wrap. I got the Santa Fe Smoked Turkey Wrap which they grilled for me. I found that it was way too soggy after a bit though, and the sauce which was watery kept dripping everywhere. I’ve never had so much difficult eating a wrap! The flavour was a little bland which I was fine with since the sour cream helped it a bit.

Jang Mo Jib (Burnaby)

July 24, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Complimentary Assorted Appetizers – Sweet Potato, Kimchi, Bean Sprouts, Spicy Radish

Dol Sot Bee Bim Bahb – Assorted preserved vegetables, beef, sauteed Kimchi, onions and fried egg served on rice in a hot stone bowl, served with homemade hot chili paste on the side

Jab Che – Stir-fried sweet potato noodle with assorted vegetables and beef cooked in a house special marinade sauce

Hae Mool Pah Jun – Assorted seafood pancake with green onions and egg, served with house special soy sauce to dip

Jing Uh Bool Go Gee – Korean Traditional stir-fried squid and vegetables in spicy house special BBQ sauce

After more than probably a year, Steph, Sharmaine, Chris and I finally got together to celebrate our HR paper…well not that we didn’t see each other again, but we kept saying we would get together for dinner to celebrate finishing HR class! And since we all lived in different parts of Vancouver, we had to figure our which would be the closest for all of us. And so we met in between, and ended up in Burnaby, and decided to go for Jang Mo Jib.

I’ve had Jang Mo Jib in Richmond, but never before elsewhere, so I was curious to see what the menu was like here. Sadly, from what I recall, the menu is pretty much the same. We had originally wanted Korean BBQ I think, but we didn’t see the little cooking area built on our table and were a bit confused, so we ended up just ordering some Korean dishes.

Jang Mo Jib always provides complimentary appetizers as our side dishes. This consists of Sweet Potatoes, Kimchi, Bean Sprouts, Spicy Radishes, and a bowl of Rice. I love their sweet potatoes, but to this day, I’m still not sure what kind of sauce it’s in. As for our first dish, we got the Dol Sot Bee Bim BahbDol. It’s basically like a stone bowl, with rice, and you mix all the veggies and eggs that are on top together. Interestingly though, it had an interesting taste to it that we were all aware of. Now that I look back on the menu, I think we ordered the wrong one! This one was a different Bee Bim Bahp from the traditional one, as it included sauteed kimchi in it, hence the unique flavour. I love Jab Che, so I chose to order that. Enormous portion! But I love the texture of those sweet potato noodles. Definitely a lot of carbs too! And then we also got that Hae Mool Pah Jun, which is the popular seafood pancake. It was filled with lots of squid and green onions, and was crispy at the top. And lastly, we decided to try the Jing Uh Bool Go Gee, which was stir-fried squid in a slightly spicy sauce. We found the squid a little tough, but it was still very delicious.

We went on a weekday, so it actually wasn’t too busy. We basically sat there till we were given the bill, since we were catching up and lost track of time. That was probably like 3 hours! So I guess it’s a nice place to sit around for on a weekday. But I hear that it gets really busy on the weekends, especially since it’s located very central, near Metrotown.

Sushi Garden

June 15, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Half Order of Salmon Sashimi

Bill’s Roll (Yam & Smoked Salmon) $3.95, Island Roll (Cooked Tuna, Fish Flake with Fresh Kiwi Sauce) $4.95

Filet-O-Fish Roll (breaded fish fillet, cheese) $3.95, Crab <3s Papaya (Deep Fried Crab Meat) $3.95

Steph and I had been seeing pictures of Sushi Garden all over our Facebook feed, and were determined to try this place out. Everyone was raving about how good it was, but it was all the way in Burnaby, so we set out to try it with a day of shopping at Metrotown after! It’s literally across Metropolis, where a bunch of other restaurants were located on Kingsway. When we entered, there were quite a lot of people waiting. We learned that we had to go to the cashier up in the front to let them know we wanted a seat. We waited for probably around 5 minutes, and quickly got a seat. Mind you, we went at around 1, so it’s probably much more packed earlier. We were seated in a tiny table, which was very cramped and close to the table next to us. All their tables were put together extremely close to cater for the line ups.

We decided to try a bunch of different rolls, especially the ones that sounded more interesting. For a starter, I decided to get the Salmon Sashimi. Steph doesn’t eat sashimi, so I ended up getting half an order for myself. It ended up being 5 fatty pieces of salmon that were extremely fresh. I could not resist not trying them since it seemed like every table ordered it, and it was only around $4 for half an order! What a deal. Next up, I tried the Bill’s Roll. It was basically yam and smoked salmon, and it was difficult to eat everything together since the roll was so big. When I did manage to get the two ingredients together in one bite, the yam’s flavour totally covered the smoked salmon. It was still a pretty interesting combination and I enjoyed the tobiko on the top. The Island Roll was fresh and appetizing. The kiwi gave the tuna a slight tang, but it somehow worked pretty well. Not bad! And then came the Filet-O-Fish Roll. It was very saucy and was such an interesting roll, but it worked. Who knew you could put fried filet-o-fish and cheese in a sushi roll! And lastly, we had the Crab <3s Papaya Roll. To my disappointment, it was just intimation crab, but what can I expect with that price. The papaya also didn’t quite taste like papaya. It wasn’t exactly ripe, so it was still pretty hard. It kind of reminded me of a mango roll actually. I also have to add that all the rolls did not need soy sauce, as they either had a sauce already or all the ingredients already worked well enough to prevent it from lacking flavour.

We definitely had ordered way too much food for the two of us, but it was still very satisfying and the prices were very reasonable for the portions. It kind of reminded us of Banzai in Richmond, with large portions and cheap price. Don’t expect amazing service and a good atmosphere or comfortable seating, but food came prompt and was of quality for the price you pay. Definitely would stop by again if I’m in Burnaby again.

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.

Lao Shan Dong Homemade Noodle House

February 24, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Boiled Seasonal Vegetable

Braised Beef Flank with Noodle In Soup (Small)

Braised Beef Flank And Tendon with Noodle In Spicy Soup (Large)

After a early shopping trip at Metrotown, my friend brought be to a Taiwanese Noodle House nearby that was claimed to be really good. Apparently, it’s supposed to be the best Taiwanese noodles in Vancouver! To be honest, I think it wasn’t THAT amazing, but I have to say, the noodles are really good. You can tell that they’re handmade, and not like the ones you get at bubble tea places. The vegetables were a dish that I actually hadn’t had before. I’m not sure if it’s some typical Taiwanese dish, but it tasted really good. They had like bits of onion and garlic chips as well as a special sauce in it. Quite different from the Cantonese style dishes I’m used to. The size of a small was already very big, and when my friend’s large came, I was in shock. It was huge! That would probably be enough for two. The soup base was very good, and they say that there isn’t any MSG, which I trust, as I wasn’t thirsty afterwards. They have a lot of seasoned radish type of things on top which gave it a nice crunch while eating the noodles. Overall, pretty good, but I don’t know if it’s the BEST.