Hanafubuki Sushi 花吹雪

We had a dinner-for-two voucher for Hanafubuki Sushi, so we picked a night and went to try it out. We were a little surprised when we found the place because the dining area only seats 6. Luckily for us, one of the three tables in the restaurant was empty, so we didn't have to wait.

Takoyaki

Our voucher was good for 2 miso soups, a share plate of takoyaki (equivalent to 2 orders), and a dinner plate for each of us consisting of 2 pieces of aburi toro sushi, a side salad, and a Magma roll (BBQ salmon, cucumber, avocado, imitation crab, and cream cheese topped with baked yam, green onion and specialty sauce).

The food quality was pretty good. The salad and the greens in the Magma roll tasted fresh. The takoyaki was a little soggy but delicious nonetheless. I thought that a single order would have been sufficient as J and I were counting how many we each already had as we got down to the last couple.

Magma Roll Dinner

The aburi toro was fresh tasting and stole the show from the Magma roll which took center place on the dinner plate. The ingredients in the roll didn't go together quite well. There was a little too much rice which took away from the other ingredients and flavours. Also, the specialty sauce was a little bland, which didn't complement the baked yam or the green onion well. The BBQ salmon could have used more seasoning as well. All in all, most of the ingredients were either dry or starchy (naturally, not in a bad way), so it really depended on the sauce to bring it together, which is where it didn't really shine.

The quantity of food was good, even though I was quite hungry when we arrived. Service was good and attentive (although one would hope so when there are only a maximum of 6 people in the restaurant). Parking is typical for Robson Street, so expect to pay a couple of bucks for a parking meter.

Overall, the food wasn't bad but the location and size coupled with the un-extraordinary food aren't screaming for me to make a return visit anytime soon.

Summary
Food: Average. Good quality but the execution was lacking on the Magma roll.

Service: Good.

Setting: Average. Very small restaurant (6 seats total).

Value: Average.

Matoi Sushi

When we're out in Coquitlam visiting our friends, we usually head to Matoi for dinner. It's a Japanese restaurant run by Japanese (rarer than it sounds in the Lower Mainland).  The food isn't spectacular or anything, but it's always fresh and the quality is good and consistent.

On our latest visit I ordered the beef teriyaki dinner box which comes with salad and rice. The variety in the box is fairly typical for a dinner box, but as I mentioned it's the quality of the food that keeps me going back.

The teriyaki is not overly salty or drowning in sauce as some places tend to do. The tempura has a good amount of batter (not too much and not too little) and it always comes out looking bright light yellow, indicating the oil used is pretty fresh.

If you're picky about the rice used for the sushi and maki rolls, it's also good to know that they use Japanese rice and a good ratio of rice to rice vinegar. Some places use too much or none at all and try to pass it off as Japanese.

Service is pretty average. It's not bad but it's not anything to highlight. It's not hard to get a server's attention as the dining area is a large room with a couple of semi-private rooms along one wall. 

The restaurant is in a plaza with plenty of parking available so you never has to fight for parking or worry about paying a meter. 

Overall, Matoi is good Japanese restaurant that is consistent in qulality and service. If you don't feel like restaurant gambling and leaving your dining experience to chance, I definitely recommend this restaurant.

Summary
Food: Good. Fresh ingredients and consistently good quality.

Service: Good.

Setting: Good. The restaurant is clean and parking is quick and easy.

Value: Good. You pay for the ingredients and quality. 

Pearl Castle Café 圓香生活餐飲

This review is for the Pearl Castle chain, although my most recent visit was the Richmond Centre location.

Milky Seafood Hotpot

Pearl Castle was a long-time favourite of mine, but in recent years they have spread themselves quite thin and lost the focus on quality. They regularly raise their prices and keep opening new locations. 

My most recent visit was to the Richmond Centre location. Their menu is pretty consistent across locations and they have quite a bit of variety. I decided to try their milky seafood hotpot for a change and was a little disappointed. 

Milky Seafood Hotpot

The pot was rather large but most of it was soup and lots of cabbage. There were a few pieces of seafood in the pot including a shrimp and a mussel. The soup was rich with milk and pretty flavorful. However, overall I wasn't impressed and probably won't ever order it again. 

Service is standard for a Chinese restaurant, and the setting is pretty average. The only bonus for the Richmond Centre location is that it's in a mall so parking and shopping are readily available. 

Overall, I would recommend the Pearl Castle chain of restaurants, but I would stick with the Sexsmith location and some of the other dishes that you everyone else ordering like the crispy peppery chicken nuggets or the three spice chicken.

I find that in general, the Minoru (Richmond Centre) location is slower on service and the food quality isn't at the same level as their original location on Sexsmith. 

Summary

Food: Good

Service: Average

Setting: Good

Value: Average

Chongqing Restaurant 重慶飯店

Chicken Corn Soup

It's been quite some time since we went to Chongqing Restaurant on Kingsway (10 months!) so we decided to head there for lunch after H's gymnastics class. We arrived around 12:30pm and the restaurant wasn't very busy (yet).

Hot and Sour Soup

I asked for a high chair so the server directed us to sit at a table near the entrance so there's more walking room around the chair. However, the new booth he gave us was in direct sun. Even with the blinds down and closed, J and I were feeling the heat and asked to move. With a much cooler booth, we sat down and put in our orders.

Seafood Chow Mein - standard chow mein with some seafood included. It wasn't bad but it wasn't memorable either.

Seafood Chow Mein

Tan Tan Noodles with Pork Chop - I ordered this one because I like comparing Tan Tan Noodles at various restaurants. I have to admit that I really liked the way they made it. The soup is very thick but there's enough of it that the noodles don't absorb everything. This is important for me since I spend a long time feeding H while I eat. Some places, the noodles absorb all the soup and it's like eating dry noodles. Anyway, the noodles are good and the soup is a bit spicy. I would like to try the Deluxe version next time, which comes with ground meat in the noodles. The pork chop that was served on the side was pretty good. It's dipped in a curry sauce before being fried, so there's a curry taste to the meat which is actually quite original. H really loved the pork chop and ate all but one piece that she let me have..

Tan Tan Noodles

Pork Chop (c/w Tan Tan Noodles)

All lunch special menu dishes come with your choice of soup: hot and sour or chicken corn. We ordered one of each since H can't handle spicy. The chicken corn soup was very thick and had some egg swirl, shredded chicken and bean sprout tips. It was a little too thick and would have been better if there was more substance to it.

Service wasn't bad overall. It was very apparent that they didn't turn on the AC until sometime later when someone probably complained or the employees realized it. It also get pretty busy in there as the lunch crowd started to arrive.

I'm going to make an effort to try out Chongqing for dinner as they have a lot of Szechuan dishes that I really want to try and the food is pretty good.

Summary
Food: Good. Everything is average or better (more better). Soup can be skipped.

Service: Good. Nothing to write home about.

Setting: Good. They have their own parking lot and there's quite a bit of street parking nearby. The restaurant is pretty clean.

Value: Good. The lunch specials were $8.45 and a decent size. Food is good too.

Malay Curry House 馬拉星

Malay Curry House is quickly becoming one of my go-to restaurants for a hot bowl of noodles. They are located on Kingsway a block from Boundary and they specialize in Malaysian style curries. They also have a killer Hainan Chicken that's boneless and comes with your choice of 2 sauces from a pretty lengthy list of options.

My favorite items on their menu are the curry soup noodles. They have a kick and very deep flavours from the various spices that they use. On my last visit, it was a little bit on the salty side, but it was still very delicious. You get your option of a couple of different kinds of noodles, but I usually go with the oil noodles because they are thicker and don't absorb too much of the soup which I like drinking along with the noodles. You can get mixed noodles as well, which is what J usually does. You also get to choose what kind of meat you want in it. I tried the lamb and I have to say that I still prefer the beef brisket. The lamb was mostly bone and fat, so it took away from the dish. The beef on the other hand, is very good. The meat is on the fatty side, but they more than make up for it in the quantity that they give you. Their soup noodles all come with napa, fish cakes, and tofu puffs.

The Hainan Chicken is one of their specialties and they actually run out of it sometimes. When we go with a larger party, we usually order a half or whole chicken in advance to ensure that we have one for the kids. They serve their chicken boneless which is great for the kids, and the chicken oil rice is flavourful while not being too oily. The chicken comes with some pickled carrots, radish, and a couple of chunks of pineapple. Soup is also included but it's very light and a bit salty so it's nutritional value is questionable at best.

The sauces are the highlight of the chicken dish. The standard choices with Chinese oil chicken are present and they make them quite well. I am referring to the ginger and chives sauce, and the sweet chili sauce. I tried the lime sauce one time and while I was impressed, I still fall back on the standard sauces.

J has ordered a variety of their other soup noodles and she hasn't been disappointed yet. She loves variety and doesn't like eating at the same places very often, so it speaks volumes when she wants to revisit a restaurant within a couple of weeks.

Another feature that I like about Malay curry house is that you can add a cold drink to your meal for fifty cents. They only have one flavour available at a time, but so far it's always been something fruity like peach or passion fruit tea. It's quite good and balances the heat from the noodles very well (especially in the summer).

The restaurant is decently decorated and pretty clean with several tables and a bench by the window. It is quite spacious and I think they could probably fit a few more tables in there without much problem (although I can't comment on the legality of cramming more people in there).

Service is where a lot of people get turned off by the restaurant. The servers are not well trained and very inefficient. They are slow to respond to customers and they don't monitor the dining room very often. On one particular visit, our server took orders from 2 people at a time from our table of 8. She took 2 orders and went to the kitchen, came back for 2 more orders and went to the kitchen again, and then returned to take another 2 orders. It was quite bizarre and very inefficient.

We have had orders mixed up before too. I had ordered oil noodles and my friend ordered mixed noodles, but we ended up with each others' noodles in the soups that we each picked. They also forget small requests like additional plates or bowls. We end up just walking to the counter instead of requesting them from the servers.

Finally, and this is the biggest problem and probably a deal breaker for many people, the restaurant (or just the servers) often make mistakes on the bill. I know friends and relatives who have eaten there and been billed for more items than they ordered, or billed more for what they did order. This happened to me on both the last 2 visits I made there. Less than a month ago, we were billed for an extra meal. On my last visit, the prices on the bill were higher than on the menu, and we were billed for an entire Hainan chicken instead of just the meal. The number of mistakes we have experienced and have been reported by friends and family are quite high, but I will leave it at that. Make sure you read your bill carefully!

Summary
Food: Very good. Great noodles and Hainan chicken.

Service: Poor. Service is not great, even by Chinese restaurant standards.

Setting: Average. Parking on nearby streets and the dining room is spacious and clean.

Value: Good. Great food and decent prices.

Po Kong Vegetarian Restaurant 普光素食

Aside from dining with vegetarians, every once in a while we have a craving of the meatless variety and we pick from a short list of restaurants that serve no meat at all (because vegetarian options at regular restaurants often use the same cooking implements or even the same oil as that used for meat dishes). We've been to Po Kong on Kingsway once before and chose to go again this long weekend.

Jai (Gluten) Combination

The restaurant is located at a busy section of Kingsway near Knight Street, so parking can be challenging. We ended up a block away right on Kingsway, so it wasn't so bad. The restaurant has about 3 parking spots out back, unless you feel like double-parking and having to move your car if you box someone in, or get boxed in yourself.

Baked Vegetables in Portugese Sauce

The interior is very... green. They have quite a few tables of various sizes and on the Saturday that we went, it was half full when we arrived. Throughout our meal, more patrons showed up and a small line started to form by the entrance, which is almost always a sign of good business.

As a Chinese restaurant, you get your choice of tea as you sit down and we ended up ordering perhaps a little too much.

Jai (gluten) combination. A combination of different kinds of marinated wheat gluten. Spongy in texture and easy to chew, Bo Kong's wheat gluten is a great appetizer and goes well in the main dishes as well.

Enoki Mushrooms on Fried Tofu and Broccoli

House special chow mein. A myriad of vegetables and thick broth-like sauce over a bed of crispy fried noodles. Meat or no meat, this dish is excellent for the variety of vegetables and textures of the ingredients. There's bok choi, bamboo shoots, marinated wheat gluten, wood ear (a type of fungus), broccoli and carrots. I think there was bean sprouts in there too. There is so much variety in this dish that you forget there's no meat.

Sizzling Steak with Black Pepper Sauce

Baked vegetables in Portugese sauce. If you like Portugese sauce and the chewy, stringy taste and texture of baked cheese, order this one as soon as you sit down. There's a 20-30 minute preparation time for it, but it's well worth it. The dish is comprised of mostly broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and taro, baked with Portugese sauce and covered in cheese. The sauce works very well with the baked vegetables and the portion size is very generous.

Enoki mushrooms on fried tofu and broccoli. The overall taste of this dish is similar to the house special chow mein, except it is a little more subtle. The enoki mushrooms are mixed with carrots and poured over a stack of fried tofu on a bed of broccoli. The tofu and broccoli aren't completely dry, but there wasn't quite enough sauce to spread around the whole dish. This dish was pretty average overall.

Plain Rice Roll 

Sizzling steak with black pepper sauce and broccoli and cauliflower. The steak is imitation meat or sausage (really made of tofu or other bean ingredients) and sliced up and pan fried on the sizzling plate. The black pepper sauce very good and adds a bit of kick to the 'meat' and the vegetables. It might be better with corn or cabbage to soak up the sauce, but it's a good pick regardless.

Plain rice roll with sesames. The rice rolls are pretty standard. The dipping sauce is pretty good with a peanut taste to it which goes well with the sesame seeds.

Sesame sticky rice balls with lotus paste. J had a craving for these so we ordered a small plate of them. The balls were served piping hot and we had to wait a few minutes for them to cool down. The sticky rice balls were thin, soft and not too sticky. My only criticism was that the amount of lotus paste inside was little more than the size of my pinky fingertip.

Service at Po Kong was pretty standard for a Chinese restaurant. The owner/manager (I think) was very active in playing the part of host for new guests and departing customers.

After this good experience, we will definitely be back.

Summary
Food: Very good. The food is made well with quality ingredients and not as greasy as average Chinese restaurants that serve meat.

Service: Good.

Setting: Good. The interior is brightly lit and spacious.

Value: Good. The prices are similar to meat-serving restaurants, but the food quality is on par, if not better, than many.

Green Lettuce 貴賓閣

Indian and Chinese fusion? Yes please!

It's been a few years, so we planned a dinner at Green Lettuce in Vancouver with our friends. We made reservations and showed up for dinner on a Friday night. We were surprised that the restaurant wasn't very busy, as in the past it was always packed for dinner.

Spicy Chili Garlic Wings

We started off with a couple of orders of Spicy Chili Garlic Wings. The wings were quite crispy depite being covered in their chili garlic sauce. They tasted fantastic and had a bit of kick to them. Peeling away the sauce and the skin, the kids had some as well.

On top of the wings, we put in our order for a few share plates.

Chili Beef

Chili Beef - This dish is listed with 3 chili peppers next it (the maximum), and When asked if we could turn down the heat level, the server said that it can't be adjusted for this dish. As it turned out, it was only mildly spicy. The beef was rolled in batter before being fried. As a result, we had a bit of difficulty discerning 'where's the beef'? The texture of the fried batter made it taste very much like fried fish. Upon closer examination, the beef was thinly sliced and likely pre-tenderized so there wasn't much beefiness spring to it.

Sweet & Sour Fish with Pineapple

Sweet & Sour Fish with Pineapple - This fish tasted very similar to the beef in that it was battered and fried as well. The blend of sweet and sour sauce mixing with the batter was quite delicious (even though the result was that it was hard to tell the difference between fish and batter). There could have been more pineapples though.

Vegetable Korma - This dish was quite simply a stir-fry of vegetables with some curry sauce. It wasn't spicy despite the chili rating in the menu. I would have preferred a thicker curry, but the vegetables were a good break from the other (fried) dishes.

Vegetable Korma

Service and setting weren't bad overall. When I spilled some water on H, our server came by quite quickly and gave us extra napkins (racial stereotype about Chinese and Indians purposely omitted). She also recommended a small bowl of rice which would be enough for all of us.

When the restaurant is full, it can be a little crowded. However, that Friday night it wasn't very crowded at all, so it was quite comfortable. Parking is also readily available in the nearby residential streets if you can't find a spot on Kingsway.

Overall, the dining experience was good, but I would definitely order some different dishes the next time so we don't end up with 75% of our dishes being fried.

Summary
Food: Good. The wings were excellent, but the heavy batter on 2 of our dishes was a little too much.

Service: Good.

Setting: Good. Restaurant is clean with many tables, and there is parking nearby.

Value: Good. The prices are moderate, with the popular dishes being a little pricier.