Tasting Journey #23 - Chewie

Chewie
2201 West 1st Ave.
Vancouver, BC
www.chewies.ca


Located in the heart of Kitsilano community, Chewie is a sheek restaurant that serves fresh local seafood.  As it is located only a few blocks from work, Asmin & I had originally planned to make it a lunch stopover.  Who knew that they are only open for dinner on weeknights?  Highly praised for its oyster bar, we attempted to dine here a 2nd time.  Tonight is it. We arrived shortly after work (5:45pm), and the place was already bustling with people...a weeknight.  The crowd varied from parents carrying a newborn, to young couples, and to middle aged friends looking for a fun evening out.  Doing a quick scan of the food on the tables, I instantly picked up a pattern - oyster, beer, oyster, beer, oyester.  I guess this is THE routine, as a preamp to dinner.


Chewie has a contemporary interior decor, an open-kitchen, and white walls with paintings hung in a simple clean row.  Modernity.  Immediately as you enter the restaurant, you notice people chatting cheerfully and swagging in rhythm with the upbeat background music.  It was like walking into a Jamaican festival.  The vibe of the party and jive of the music instantly make you fall in sync with mood, and the day's crappiness disappears. 

As soon as we sat down, the waiter came by, dropped off the menu and explained to us that "blah blah blah" and "bleh bleh bleh" were $1.50 each today, during the 5-7pm Happy Hour.  Giving us a few minutes to look over the menu, we quickly glimpsed through the wine and beer selection.  We did not see the blah and bleh.  No idea what they were.  When he returned again for the order, it was then we realized that the "blah and bleh's" were not beer, but fresh oysters. HAHA. This tells you how much I know about oysters.  It's all good and fun.  I asked him which one's better, and he explained that as an amateur in oyster-tasting, I would not be able to tell the difference.  So I guess I just had to try them both ^^.  He's right.  The difference between blah and bleh is just a small alphabet difference.  For the entree, we decided to go with the waiter's recommendation of: Gumbo, Southern Fried Chicken, and fried Okra.  According to their website, Chewie showcases "fresh and local seafood inspired by the delicious taste of New Orleans".  I thought it looked more Mexican, hm.  Now come to think of it, maybe New Orleans has some Mexican influence?  Anyways, the food was awesome, irrespective where it was inspired from.  The Southern Fried Chicken is the most popular (yes, we did see that almost 90% of the tables ordered this dish), and Gumbo was the next best choice.  Perfect.

fresh oyster

Fried Okra

The serving speed was quite fast.  The fried chicken was juicy, well-fried (quite similar to Church's Chicken maybe?) and is served on some buttery creamy mash potato.  The Gumbo was sinfully tasty.  It was spicy and full of rich flavouring.  Sausage & prawns & fried chicken all blended in a spicy BBQ sauce that made eating a large bowl of rice feel like only a spoon full of of rice.  The deep fried okra was interesting.  Coated in thick, crispy batter, this "cheese-stick" dish came with a dipping sauce that tasted like thousand island salad dressing.

Southern Fried Chicken

Gumbo

I fully enjoyed the meal.  The food was well-prepared, the service was welcoming, and the music was great. What more can you ask for?  This meal ended up costing ~$60. Pricey but well-earned.   I will definitely come back.  Well, maybe once in a while. ^^

Tasting Journey #22 - Deutsches Haus

Deutsches Haus
4875 Victoria Dr.
Vancouver, BC
http://www.vancouveralpenclub.ca/restaurant.html


Deutsches Haus is a German restaurant located in the German club house in East Vancouver.  I've passed by this place quite a few times and have never even noticed that there is a restaurant in this community centre.  From Victoria Drive, you wouldn't even know such a place existed (no signs) unless you walked down a long steep flight of stairs towards the back of the building.  The entrance to the restaurant is in the back, from the parking lot. 

The restaurant itself is quite interestingly built;  All wood, sort of an old pub/lounge type of feel to it, and fully carpeted.  The waitress were all dressed in dirndl, traditional German dresses - a dress, an apron, and a low-cut ruffly white blouse.

The guests were quite of a mixed crowd.  It wasn't busy, but again, it could be because it was a weeknight.  There were people in their 70's, and there were people in their 20's.  I even saw a table of 4 seniors whom ended up playing maybe some sort of poker game there.  The guests to me looked like people who lives in the neighbourhood, and are there to relax.  I guess since this is more like a diner in a community centre, people felt comfortable and so at ease that it only seemed too normal to be doing activities as if you were in your own home. 

Jägerschnitzel

Everything on the menu looked like alien words to me.  Having not too many experiences in trying out German cuisine, I did not know what to order.  Deutsches Haus is known for their schnitzel, a pounded thin sheet of pork/chicken, all breaded and deep fried.  I asked the waitress for her recommendation on food, and ended up going for the dish - "Jägerschnitzel" - schnitzel with mushroom gravy, red cabbage and spaetzle.  To me, the schnitzel was well marinated and juicy, but it wasn't extraodinaire, as it tasted like a thin version of the tonkatsu - a common food in Japanese cuisine.  The red cabbage was chopped and pickled so that it tasted sour and sweet.  I thought it would've gone really well together with mash potato.  My favourite on the dish was the spaetzle.  Though made of egg, it tasted very cheesy.  If I did not know that it was a type of noodle, I thought it was a probably mozarella cheese made into long skinny udon sized noodle.  Chewy and flavourful.  As for drinks, I did not get a chance to try their beer, but I did notice that many of the other guests had dark beer (or could be because it was the special of the day). 

Overall, I would say that this place is cozy...maybe a place worth trying out.  Do I have the urge to go back? Not really.  but do I dislike the place? Not really either.  It is a so-so place I guess...

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Tasting Journey #21 - iNCENDiO

iNCENDiO
103 Columbia St.
Vancouver, BC
604-688-8694
www.incendio.ca


iNCENDiO, a restaurant highly recommended for its delicious pizza by someone whose favourite food is pizza.  Can't get any better credential than that.  This restaurant serves mainly Italian soul food - pizza and pasta.

Friday night dinners with Zofia have always been very lovely;  random chats about work, about how our week's been, and about what we plan to do over the weekend.  It is a nice way to end the last working day of the week.  Today, we talked about an even more exciting topic - HER book. Zofia's goal by the end of this year is to write a 300 page novel.  Zofia is a beautiful writer.  Her blogs are always an easy read and her writing flows so naturally.  Ever since little, I've always find writing difficult.  I am so used to writing lab reports and technical essays that "point form" seems to be MY way of expressing what I think and how I feel.  Every time I update this blog, I always wonder how Zofia comes up with words that sing vs. how I constantly ponder over what I can say and what there is to say.

Calamari  w Capers & Olives

I've been thinking more and more often lately, as I approach the completion of my goal, about what I will do with this blog once that this challenge is finished.  Will I continue to blog or will I shut this down?  I do enjoy the experience of trying out new restaurants, but the task (yes, it indeed is a task) of recording it is mundane.  I am challenged with words, with expressions, with how to realistically portray what I had experienced and how I really felt.  If I were writing a lab report, all I simply had to do was to document what I had eaten. A mere stating of facts.  I do not have to share my thoughts about what the food taste like, and how it made me feel.  This is a challenge.  An opportunity to practice expressing myself.  A push for me to be outside my normal comfort zone.  Whatever I decide to do, we'll soon find out.  We'll soon see.  I still have the time of 4 more restaurants to ponder over with...

Rare Sesame Tuna

Oven-roasted Potato

iNCENDiO is a restaurant that provided a comfortable setting for conversations like this.  An atmosphere that allowed Zofia & I to exchange our thoughts.  We had arrived before the actual dinner crowd, so the restaurant was quiet.  We sat next to the window and were able to see the day go dark.  A perfect place to converse while sipping on wine and indulging in food.

Volcana Pizza

We ordered 3 appetizers & a pizza to share: oven roasted potato, pan-fried calamari, rare sesame tuna, and a pizza loaded with bursts of spicy chili sauce.  The oven roasted potato was served with a sweet mayonnaise sauce blended with rosemary, lime and garlic.  The potato was well roasted, fries-like, crunchy on the outside and quite dense on the inside.  The rosemary flavoured mayo really complimented the potato.  I usually try to eat less carbs for dinner, but this dish was so tasty that I had to make an exception tonight ^^.  The calamari was stir-fried with capers & olives.  I love capers & olives, but found the calamari a bit rubbery.  It was an OK dish.  The black sesame crusted tuna was beautifully seared and was served with wasabi mayo.  This was a dish very well prepared with the quality of what you would see in a fusion Japanese restaurant.  I was pleasantly surprised to see this at an Italian restaurant that served pasta & pizza as its main entree.  Pizza was great.  The spicy chili sauce was volcanic.  As soon as you bit down, the burst of spiciness explodes in your mouth.   I think the red wine might have helped with simmering down the flames slightly, but though a bit too spicy for me, I still fully enjoyed it.

Overall, I would say that my favourite dish would be the roasted potato.  Oftentimes, it is the simplicity that creates the perfect balance.  A definite thumbs up to this place.

Tasting Journey #20 - The BiBo Italian Restaurant

The BiBo Italian Restaurant
1835 W. 4th Ave.
Vancouver, BC
604-568-6177
www.thebibo.com


As many of you know, I pretty much don't do anything after work.  My daily routine after work is typically heading straight home, eating dinner, surfing the net, and stalking people on FB, ha.  Boring.  And being so close to finishing my restaurant goal, I decided to accept the invitation to tag along a dinner date with Catherine and her friend from school.


The BiBo Italian restaurant is highly recommended from Catherine.  According to her, not only did her school teacher of Italian ethnicity gave this place a stamp of approval, she also commented that the tastes offered here is the closest match to what she had experienced in Italy (but then, there's also gotta be diversity in Italy as well right?).  I've never been to Italy before, so I guess I have to give her the benefit of the doubt here.



The atmosphere of the restaurant is quite contemporary - silver table top, sleek furniture, and a wall lined with wine bottles.  Guest turnout is at 80% capacity tonight.  This is quite a crowd considering that today is only Tuesday. 

As soon as we sat down, we were offered bread & olives.  The olives were molto delizioso - a mouth full of rich aromatic and buttery taste.  I have to say that it is the 2nd best olives I've ever had (the buttery olives from Granville Island is still my favourite).  The menu selection at BiBo is either pizza or pasta.  The maximize our tasting experience,  three of us decided to order the dishes to share: chicken salad, BiBo Matteo, a Margherita pizza...and to complete the Italian fine dining experience, there's gotta be a Tiramisu for dessert.

BiBo Matteo

Chicken Salad

The chicken salad is nothing extraodinary, but you can't really go wrong with a salad as long as the greens are fresh. On the contrary, the BiBo Matteo, fresh-made pasta paired with porcini mushroom sauce, was extraodinary.  Unlike most other mushroom-based sauce where they all taste like a creation from a can of Campbell Cream of Mushroom, this one tastes rather like a mushroom puree, a highly concentrated dose of flavouring  - perfect for mushroom lovers like myself. The margherita pizza was unique as well.  It literally is a melt in your mouth pizza!  The thin crust is crispy on the outside yet chewy on the inside.  The molten cheese is so gooey that it can easily flow and roll off your pizza dough.  Just pure tasting pleasure from A-Z.  Lastly, tiramisu perfectly completed the meal.  A failed tiramisu tastes like a wet sponge cake.  This one rather, offered tastes of heavenly blended cream & cocoa.

Tiramisu

Margherita Pizza

 
Overall, I have to say that my taste buds were well satisfied though the portion was conservative, and that the service was a mere so-so.  But as all fine dining comes with a price - 3 dishes plus a dessert came out to a total of $64 (excluding tips).  Would I come back? Definitely a yes.

Tasting Journey #19 - Deer Garden Signatures

Deer Garden Signatures
Continental Central
1118-3779 Sexsmith Road
Richmond, BC
604-278-3779
www.deergarden.ca

Known for its fish broth soup noodle (魚湯米線), Deer Garden was recommended by a few friends on several different occasions.   Deer Garden has two stores, both located in Richmond, and both crazily packed during peak meal hours.  So what exactly is this signature fish soup?  According to google, the origin of this dish came from Cambodia, and is known for its flavourful fish broth.  

Chaochou style dried fish & minced pork fish soup

We arrived at Deer Garden approx 20min after it opened and already, the restaurant was full, and had a short line up.  While waiting to be seated, I decided to study its menu (though I already knew what I wanted - its signature fish noodle soup). I was expecting the selections to be short, but to my surprise, it was like an a la carte menu.  Aside from the rice and spaghetti dishes that are also offered by most other HK-style restaurant in Vancouver, the fish noodle soup comes in many combination that you can't imagine.  A bit too much thinking required for my brain on a Sunday morning ^^...First, you need to pick one of the 6 soup base offered; Then you select the type of noodle to add to your broth, another 9 options;  Finally, you choose Add caption2 of the 30 toppings available.

Original fish soup

As soon as we sat down, we placed our orders, and the food came.  8/10 for serving speed, and an OK for the service - Typical, as what you would expect in a HK-style cafe.  The portion was very generous, both in the amount noodle and the amount of toppings (I was only able to finish half of the bowl).    I took a sip of the broth - rich in flavouring, yet light without grease.  Considering that the broth contains no MSG, it is extremely well made.  An excellent selection for those who are health-conscious. 

HK-style tea in a metal mug

While indulging myself in this bowl of noodle soup, I thought to myself: so how does this compare to my other soup noodle favourites such as Japanese ramen or Pho?  I would say that the broth is as delicious as the ramen soup minus the grease; and the flavouring is as tasty as the pho but less the MSG.  As a strong believer that delicious food tends to be higher in sugar/oil/sodium...etc, I have to admit that this healthy dish is very close to over-ruling my theory... (well, maybe adding a side order of fried chicken wings would have dotted the i's and crossed the t's).

Would I recommend this place? Yes.  Given the quality and price, it is definitely worth a visit.

Tasting Journey #18 - Fatty Cow Seafood Hot Pot

Fatty Cow 小肥牛火鍋專門店
5108 Victoria Drive
Vancouver, BC
604-568-6630
www.fattycowhotpot.com

Hot Pot

Delighted by a dinner invitation from Carol & Karen, I immediately said yes.  The infamous Fatty Cow is a hot pot chain in Taiwan.  I'm not sure if this Fatty Cow is affiliated with the Fatty Cow in Taiwan.  Being 4 asians, and being familiar with hotpots, we immediately ordered must-have's like the pork/beef meatballs, pork/beef meat slices, frozen tofu, soft tofu, tong hao (茼蒿), prune juice...etc.  Then there's also - I'm assuming HK-style hotpot must-haves - things like tripe, oyster, spinach, squid, fried fish skin (?)...

mango pudding

Like all other all-u-can-eat restaurants, an order sheet was provided where you check off the items you'd like to eat.  We ordered 鴛鴦鍋 where half of the broth is spicy and the other half non-spicy with preserved egg.  As soon as the food came,  we were so busy with the cooking, or in Japanese, the しゃぶしゃぶ-ing that I completely forgot to take photos.  It was only when we were fully stuffed and satisfied that I realized I need to log this for my goal.  Quickly, I snap a photo of what was remaining of the well-worked pot.  As there were already people waiting in line to get a table, the waitors quickly cleaned out table as soon as they noticed that we were slowing down.  Right away, they served the dessert - mango pudding - rich in mango flavouring.

I wouldn't say that this hot pot place is exceptional, but the ingredient is fresh.  Despite the crowd, it would be more than fair to say that the Fatty Cow is a mere grade of "B-".  Little Sheep Hot Pot (小肥羊) would beat Fatty Cow any other day in terms of flavouring and pricing.

Tasting Journey #17 - Maria's Taverna

Maria's Taverna
2324 W. 4th Ave.
Vancouver, BC
604-731-4722
www.mariastaverna.ca


We were originally planning on going to Chewies for lunch only to find out that they aren't open for lunch. Disappointed, we walked towards W.4th where there are other potential eateries suitable for lunch on a Friday.  Greek sounded like a good option.

I've read up on Maria's Taverna on quite a few online food reviews, and seem to recall that the rating's not too bad.  I think I've even visited their website a few times too.  The restaurant photos posted on their website seems to portray an image of an old family-style restaurant with minimal interior decor.  On the contrary, the restaurant is actually quite well-lit, and portrayed a Mediterranean setting full of blues+whites.  As soon as we sat down, the first thing I noticed was the music playing in the background.  It was loud, and was in a foreign language which I'm guessing is probably Greek pop (though it sounded like Indian pop).

Andrea ordered a vegetarian casserole; Asmin went with baked tortellini, and I decided to have a Greek burger.  Greek burger? I asked if it is wrong to order a burger at a Greek restaurant.  You never know if it'll be interesting different.  That was when we started a Wikipedia expedition to find out the origin of burger, then french fries, then hot dogs... Burgers apparently were founded in Hamburg, in Germany.  Hamburger = people from Hamburg.  Interesting.

Pleasantly surprised, the Greek burger had a Greek twist to it.  Unlike patties sandwiched in a thick bun where there is a possibility that the bun-to-patty ratio could be off, this burger was sandwiched between 2 thinly sliced layers of pita bread.  The bun-to-patty ratio was perfect.  My definition of a good burger consists of the following two criteria:  1. well balanced bun-to-patty ratio (I dread a burger where the bun is too dense and too thick, and that only two bites into the burger feels like you've eaten an entire loaf of bread), and 2. juiciness of the patty.  The Greek burger had juicy, well-marinated patty. Added bonuses are the condiments such as tomato slice, tzatziki sauce, and a melted layer of feta cheese. Awesome.  The only issue I have with this burger is the saltiness of this burger.  I'm not sure if it is normal for Greek food to be salty (just like how I find that all the food I had in Paris was on the salty side), but the first thought that came to mind after my first bite is that the chief had mistakenly sprinkled an excess of salt on the side of the burger. Nope, it was salty the entire way.  Many the patty was really well marinated that it ended up being too salty?  The dish came with a Greek salad on the side.  Comparatively, the salad was blend.  Not enough dressing, nor flavouring.  Andrea also found her salad to be slightly under-flavoured.  However, she said that her vegetarian casserole was very well made, and I assume that Asmin's tortellini was excellent as well since she had cleaned her plate entirely.

Would I come back? Maybe.  There are many Greek restaurants located in the Kitsilano neighbourhood.  I would be more tempted to try out the other ones first prior to commenting on whether it is worth going back.  Well, at least it is decently priced.=)