L.A. Chicken

July 10, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

8 piece Family Meal (1/2 regular, 1/2 spicy)

Everyone has been talking about L.A. Chicken and raving that their chicken is better than KFC’s and Church’s. I finally tried it and was surprised to see that the location wasn’t as sketch as I had imagined it to be. I was also greeted by an Asian lady at the counter who knew how to speak Cantonese. We first got the first tray of gravy, fries, and 4 pieces of regular chicken. I have to agree that the chicken was actually so much better than KFC’s or Church’s. The batter was pretty thin and I didn’t find it to be too oily. The seasoning also wasn’t too salty. The fries were just alright, and I think I prefer KFC’s more, since I like their fries with the potato skin. Then, the lady brought us out the other 4 pieces of spicy chicken, except she gave us one extra piece for free! No idea why, but that was very kind of her. Way too much food for us though! The spicy one had a different batter, and it reminded me of the KFC chicken when you ask for “crispy”. So it was basically crispy and spicy together, which made really good chicken! I brought the leftovers home for my parents, and they loved them too. I should mention that I went around 5pm, and people were all lining up to get take out, as well. Definitely will go there for some fried chicken again, although it’s a little far for me compared to Church’s.

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.

Ikea

June 29, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Swedish Meatballs with Pasta – ($1.99 for past + $1.49 for 5 meatballs)

The new Ikea has been opened for a quite a while now, and I always seem to pass by it, but still hadn’t gone to have a look. I finally decided to check it out, and it definitely is much larger. Everything still looks pretty much the same though, except for the huge Ikea Food Service cafeteria. It is actually quite gigantic! There are basically two lineups to get food, and the beginning has desserts, drinks, and such that you can just grab and place on your tray. Then the hot food comes along, and you let the food service people know what you want. Lastly, you lineup at the cash register to pay. And then there is a huge seating area, with different styles of furniture, from children furniture, to couches to more classic furniture. And of course they are all featuring Ikea’s furniture.

So I have always wanted to try their Swedish Meatballs since I see it on those flyers all the time. And they are always advertised so cheap too! I saw the menu saying that I could get a pasta for $1.99 and add 5 meatballs for another $1.49 and decided to get that. To my disappointment, the pasta was horrific. It was hard, and some of the pasta wasn’t even cooked yet. The sauce was good and helped the terrible pasta a bit, but it was still pretty horrible. The meatballs were much better, but not anything amazing. For that price, I guess it’s pretty decent. I’m not sure if I would want to come back for their food again, but I still remember their hot dogs and ice cream that were really delicious and delicious at the old store. I’m not sure if they were at the new store though, since I didn’t seem to see it on the menu.

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!

Charcoal Sushi & BBQ (Revisit)

May 30, 2012May 17, 2014Leave a comment

Wakame Salad – marinated seaweed

Tokyo Roll – prawn tempura & cucumber topped with salmon & tobiko

Rainbow Roll – imitation crab, avacado, salmon, tuna, snapper, prawns, hokkigai

The Submarine – salmon, avocado & tobiko topped with seaweed salad

Lotus Roll – chopped scallop, imitation crab & avocado topped with tobiko, wrapped in cucumber

My parents were deciding where to have dinner on the long weekend, but realized many smaller sushi shops were closed that day. And so I ended up suggesting to go to Charcoal Sushi & BBQ since they always have some pretty unique rolls.

We waited for quite a while for our orders to appear on the table, and I guess the server/owner saw us getting a little impatient, so he gave us a Wakame Salad for free. Perfect – since we were actually thinking of ordering it before. Refreshing and had a little spice to it. Finally, we got our Tokyo Roll. It had prawn tempura inside, topped with salmon and tobiko and a sauce that was a little spicy, but gave the whole roll a great flavour. Next we had the Rainbow Roll, which consisted of salmon, tuna and hokkigai on the top of the roll. Looked really pretty! The third roll we got was the Submarine Roll. It had salmon inside and was topped with more seaweed salad. The seaweed gave it a great bite, as well as flavour to the whole roll. Lastly, we got the Lotus Roll, which I had already tried before. It was basically imitation crab wrapped with a very thin piece of cucumber. The menu description also claimed that there was chopped scallop inside, but it was the tiniest bit ever. Still, the Lotus Roll was extremely refreshing and had a great crunch with the cucumber slice.

Overall, Charcoal Sushi & BBQ was quite good with a large assortment of interesting rolls, and I would love to try the BBQ next time.

Izumi-Tei at Izumi-Ya Japanese Marketplace

May 25, 2012April 25, 2013Leave a comment

After hearing about the crazy buzz about Izumi-Ya’s new all you can eat, I decided to go give it a try. It’s called Izumi-Tei and this was probably just two weeks after it had opened, but it was packed already! I arrived at the marketplace to see that they had sectioned an area off for the buffet. There were already crowds of people waiting for a seat, but luckily we only waited for maybe a short 15 minutes and we were given a seat. The interior was very small, with most tables only fitting probably 4 people max. The workers were also not quite organized, probably because it had just opened.

For dinner or lunch, it was only $9.99 for adults! I heard rumours that they have increased the price now though. My friends who had just went recently were giving me such good reviews about it, so I guess I went in having some high expectations, which was a bad idea. It ended up to be a buffet style all you can eat, but the selection wasn’t too large. Food wasn’t prepared quick enough, so a lot of times, there wasn’t much food left when I went up to get food. And most of the food were just greasy, fried items, which I’m not a huge fan of. They did have an oden section, which was quite different from other Japanese all you can eat places. Sushi selection was limited to dynamite, california, salmon, tamago, and cucumber rolls. There wasn’t sashimi either, but what can I expect with the price I paid. Another interesting item they served were takoyakis! You also got to add the toppings yourself, which was pretty fun. Lastly, they served soft-serve ice cream, which wasn’t anything special again.

They only let you eat for an hour as well, and they stick a little tag on your table with the time you must leave when you’re brought to your table. Overall, was the food anything amazing? I don’t think so, and I would probably choose to pay a few more bucks to eat better all you can eat. But with this price, it is definitely a place to go to if you want to fill up your stomach.

Haroo

May 24, 2012May 5, 2013Leave a comment

Bulgogi Soup and Rice Cake

Bibimbap and Rice Cake

I actually discovered Haroo on Urbanspoon while looking for a Korean place to eat with a friend in Richmond. Finally ended up going, and the place is so cute! It gives you the feeling like you walked into a Korean family’s house. Super homey and comfy! The man who served us, whom I’m guessing is the owner, was so sweet and friendly too. Reminded me of those Korean dads on Korean dramas! Parking at the mall is terrible though, even though it was just a weekday.

But anyways, let’s talk about the food. We ordered the Lunch Sets, since that was really what was only offered during lunch time I think. I found that the food actually tasted quite differently from the dishes I’ve had at places such as Jang Mo Jib and Kyung Bok Palace. The kimchi was slightly more spicy with a different seasoning, and the rice cakes were cooked quite differently. The Rice Cakes weren’t in a spicy sauce, but rather a beef stew type of sauce. I had the Bulgogi Soup which had some potato noodles, beef, veggies and a very sweet and delicious soup. For $10, each dish was in a smaller portion, but everything together made it a filling meal. I didn’t find that the food was anything special or extra delicious in any way though, but I really did like the service and the atmosphere. It felt like home and was a great place to chat with friends.