Hubbub Sandwiches

March 25, 2012April 25, 2013Leave a comment

Pork Sandwich

Marinated for 24 hours to be spicy and tender, then perfectly slow roasted.

Such a lovely day in Vancouver, but still pretty chilly. Went downtown to try Hubbub Sandwiches since people have been talking about these gourmet sandwiches. And of course I go on my food expedition with Steph! It was actually their 1st anniversary last week, which is when I went so they were having daily promos and giveaways all week! That day, if you bought any item on the menu that had chicken in it, you would be entered for a chance to win a gift basket! Unfortunately, Steph and I had come here hearing about the pulled pork sandwich and desperately wanted to try that! So no contest for us… Anyways, their concept is that there is “the sandwich” and then your “protein.” So basically, every sandwich starts off with the same base: pickled jalapenos, creamy garlic sauce, romaine lettuce, cilantro, and crunchy caramelized onions on top of a toasty baguette. And then you choose your protein, which they offer pork, turkey sausage, chicken breast, veggie or prawn! You would think how special can a pulled pork sandwich be, but believe me, it was amazing. First bite, i thought the baguette was a little tough and hard for my liking, but the pulled pork which was moist worked well with the tougher bread. It became easier to bite afterwards, and oh did it get really spicy too! I can’t usually take spice, and I could literally see jalapenos in my sandwich, but I still chewed on. The spice gave such a nice punch to the sandwich and the marinade had such a good flavour to it! They even had cilantro and onions in it, which I was never a big fan of, but I ate everything. All the ingredients just worked so well with each other. Now I know why they can just use the same base for every sandwich they make. Portions were also quite filling, as I only shared one sandwich with Steph and was already quite filled. So definitely go try it out when you’re in downtown since it’s extremely close to the shops and skytrain too. $9 for a sandwich is pretty pricy, but it’s definitely worth it.

Miura Waffle Milk Bar

March 22, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Cookies & Cream Waffle
oreo, whipped cream & chocolate sauce

Banana Caramel Waffle
banana, whipped cream, cookie crumbs & caramel sauce

Tiramisu Waffle
cream cheese custard cream, coffee jelly & chocolate sauce

Finally got to try the well talked about Miura Waffle Milk Bar! They are apparently family owned and operated, and upon entering, we were greeted by a very friendly waitress. I believe they are Japanese owned. They basically offer both savoury and sweet “waffle sandos,” which basically means waffle sandwiches in Japanese. They also specialize in flavoured milks and drinks, which I never got a chance to try. I did a little digging on their site and found that they have flavoured milks and yoggy milks. It’s pretty cool since they actually have milk that are flavoured with real fruits and juices, and the yoggy milk are yogurty milk drinks that are thicker than plain milk. Next time, I will definitely try. All my friends got sweet waffle sandwiches since we were really look for a dessert place. However, I believe that their savoury ones are quite popular since most customers had ordered them… I never got to try the Banana Caramel, but I did prefer the Cookies and Cream to the Tiramisu one. I found the Tiramisu to be a little bland since the coffee jelly was not strong in flavour. The Cookies and Cream actually had a good crunch to it and was much more flavourful. Overall, they were still very good, and I would love to try their savoury waffles and drinks next time. The store is quite small, but people seem to always be going in and out, so that’s a good sign!

Thomas Haas

March 17, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Caramel & Chocolate Brownie Cake
Chocolate pecan brownie, caramel cremeux and caramel Bavarian

Totally haven’t been updating since I’ve been so busy with school and exams! But I’m back! I’m guessing they usually have specials that they have for a certain time, since they had a chalkboard with specials written on it. And of course I decided to try something new and special! Here’s a Caramel & Chocolate Brownie Cake. It’s supposed to look much nicer than this, but unfortunately I had probably swayed the box around too much, which I guess wasn’t the best idea… But hey, it still tasted great! The caramel made it a little more special than just regular chocolate cake, although I found it a little sweet for my personal liking.There were also pecans at the bottom which gave the cake a great crunch. Be sure to try it out before they aren’t on the menu anymore!

If you want to read about my first experience at Thomas Haas, check out the previous post: http://everydayisafoodday.tumblr.com/post/16270765615/thomas-haas

Mom’s Grilled Cheese

February 28, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Mom’s Classic: Marbled Rye with Havarti and Double Smoked Bacon
2 Shots of Roasted Tomato Soup – topped with basil mascarpone
Pineapple Pop Shoppe Pop

Sunny day in Vancouver the other day! Okay actually, weather has been acting weird here, with hail and snow in end of February… but this was before that crazy weekend happened…So it was actually a nice sunny day, but windy and cold! Decided to head downtown to try out Mom’s Grilled Cheese! I have heard such great things about them, and who can resist grilled cheese sandwiches… I can just never get them cooked perfectly at home! Did a little google mapping, and realized that it was so close to Pacific Center! I guess I just never walk on that side of the street normally! We approached the truck with a lot of people surrounding it waiting for their food. Apparently, they are only open on weekdays during lunch hours. Steph and I shared a Mom’s Classic, where we got to choose our choice of bread and cheese. We chose the Marbled Rye with Havarti, and added $1.50 for some Double Smoked Bacon! Mmmm, mouths were already watering with the aroma coming from the truck! While we were waiting in the freezing cold, we saw other customers buying shots of Roasted Tomato Soup, and thought it would be a great idea to warm up! Good choice because it was so delicious!!! I’m not sure if it’s just because I was freezing cold, but the basil mascarpone topped on the soup made everything so much better! We waited for probably 5 minutes or more til our food came since there were a lot of people ahead of us, but when it got to ours, they had forgot to put bacon in ours. They however, quickly apologized and redid our sandwich. Something about their friendliness didn’t make me mad about the wait though. It seemed like they had regular customers as they knew each others names, and everything seemed so personalized when they presented your food with your name. They seemed like such fun and friendly people to talk to, and they even joked with customers that they are always illegally parked here, and to look out for the cops… I don’t know if they were joking or what, but they gave me a good laugh. We went back to Pacific Center to eat since it was freezing cold, and yum! It was so good! They also came with two pickles, and potato chips at the bottom that had the Ms. Vickie’s texture, but I think they are homemade. Also tried the Pineapple Pop Shoppe, which was actually pretty good! Reminded me of Jones Soda, with the colour and cool, vintage looking bottle. Really fizzy though, and probably not the healthiest thing. I will definitely be back for some Mom’s Grilled Cheese! I just wish they opened during the weekends!

Chambar

February 21, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Iced Tea Infused with Rose Petals

Carpaccio de Chevreuil

Charred venison carpaccio, sesame soba noodle salad, pickled radishes, white soy & red wine reduction, garlic chips

L’omble de l’Artique nicois

Crispy Arctic char, sea asparagus, pea shoots, bacalao, lemon & grana padano concasse, tapanades

Moules Frites Vin Blanc

Mussels, white wine, butter, braised celery & leeks, coarse black pepper

Salted Chocolate Caramel Bar

Lemon Curd, Toasted Meringue, and Shortbread

Alright! Finally have my last post from Dine Out Vancouver 2012 in! I was so excited when I got reservations for Chambar since I’ve been hearing really good things about it! I guess it lived up to the reviews, but then again, I think I went in with too high of an expectation, so I only came out “satisfied”. But nonetheless, very good food! The Ice Tea was actually a special drink that wasn’t on the menu. I wanted an ice tea but they didn’t actually have it on the menu, so the bartender basically mixed up something for me and it was actually really good since it was rose infused! Something I hadn’t had before and pretty cool and of course good! Next, for appies, we got the carpaccio which was very fresh, and the soba noodle with the carpaccio was an interesting complement! It was of course presented very nicely too! The arctic char had a very nice texture and the fish was cooked very well. The sauces, like the olive sauce were kind of weird though. Wasn’t something I preferred. The mussels were pretty good, although they were overloaded with cilantro, and I have to say I dislike cilantro a lot, so it kind of ruined the dish for me. The mussels were really small, but extremely sweet, so that was good. Fries were just okay, nothing too special. Lastly, for desserts we had the caramel bar and lemon meringue. The caramel bar was kind of salty (well it was supposed to be), but I guess it’s just that I don’t extremely like salted chocolate. When you try to break it on the plate, it’s extremely hard and difficult to cut, but when you put it in your mouth, it just melts apart! And the good thing is it doesn’t stick to your teeth! The lemon meringue dessert was probably my favourite dish of the night. It almost tasted like a deconstructed lemon meringue pie. So delicious and you don’t see it on many menus around. Overall, I was quite satisfied with Chambar! For $38 for a 3 course meal, it was definitely worth it. It is quite pricey normally without dine out though, so perhaps I will only go back for a special occasion!

Kitsilano Daily Kitchen

February 20, 2012May 3, 2013Leave a comment

Sweet Potato Bread with Olive Oil & Vinegar, Kimchi, and Sea Salt

Scallop

Roasted Cream of Winter Cauliflower Soup

Butter poached king crab leg, trout caviar, truffle oil

Short Ribs

West Coast Seafood Cioppino

Yes, it’s my long overdue posts from Dine Out Vancouver 2012 that should’ve been uploaded long time ago! Well they are coming along! Here’s another dine out I went to. This one was a $38 set menu at the Kitsilano Daily Kitchen. This restaurant is so interesting because they change their menu everyday! I believe they post the menu up at a certain time, but if you don’t have a look beforehand, then you are going in for a surprise! Pretty cool twist, I personally think! Upon waiting for our food to arrive, we were given a jump fried squid as our amuse bouche. It was delicious as it was cooked in just the right amount of time, so it wasn’t hard to chew at all. We were also given complementary bread, which was a sweet potato bread with some complements to go with. We only used the olive oil though, as we thought kimchi and bread would taste funny..Maybe should’ve given it a try! The bread was alright, but it was a little on the mushy side. I’ll give props for it being different from bread that we are usually given though! Since the restaurant changes menus all the time, I couldn’t go online afterwards to look up the menu names, so I can’t quite remember the full names of the food. The scallops were cooked perfectly, and overall, I think they do a really good job with their seafood. The cioppino had very large pieces of fish in it, and they were very fresh. I found that the scallops in the cioppino weren’t cooked as well as the ones for the appetizer though. Perhaps it is because of the way it is cooked! The cioppino was cooked in a tomato base and had three types of sausages in it, which were all very spicy! For dessert, I did not get a picture of it, as we had it to go, but it was a chocolate tart, which we found to not be anything extraordinary. I know that most chocolates are paired with some sort of salt, like “salted chocolate”, but this was had a very strong salty taste to it, that became unpleasant. I have to say the dessert was my least favourite part of the meal, especially because it was nothing special. The place is kind of hidden as there are no large signages, so it was quite hard to find. You probably would’t notice the restaurant if you were walking by. However, the inside is very classy, like fine dining, but not as fancy as the downtown restaurants. Still has a very modern vibe to it though! Not bad and a great place to go if you want a surprise!

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!

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!