There’s been a dearth of posts lately from me lately, but for a good reason. However, next week I’ll be on vacation to San Francisco, and am in desperate need of restaurant suggestions. So, dear readers, any personal food experiences worth sharing, or heard of any good eats in the city of love?
Alas, EatSnapRepeat.ca now features rantings from both unmarried and married bloggers.
Congrats Anny and Daniel :)
PS: the food at the banquet was excellent.
I’ve associated Italian food too closely with pastas in the past. Pastas which are usually done in such a pedestrian way at most places that its become the backup plan, never the goal. Like chow mein, there’s little surprise to it. Presto Panini on Hornby showed me I simply had my eyes closed.
I really enjoyed their lunch combo of minestrone soup and cheese tortellini in fresh fruit cream sauce.
Topped with fresh parmesan, and about two servings of vegetables in the bowl, the minestrone soup is a hearty meal on its own.
This is one of the most interesting sauces I’ve had. In a good way. (I’ve been accused of using the word ‘interesting’ too often). Admittedly, I have no idea how the sauce is made. Its pure cream. Thick and a little foamy. I went with the cranberry topping this time, but had it with fresh mangos on a previous visit. I cannot imagine a better pasta to eat on a hot summer day while sitting in a tiny Vancouver cafe. The sauce is light and airy. The slightly sweet and fragrant bits of grated cheese is well complemented by the tanginess of the fresh fruit.
Its a small operation, one lone chef, closes early (7pm), crowded most of the lunch hour, great authentic Italian food, no twitter.
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We’re way overdue for another ESR Trivia! We’re going to start again with a short and sweet one:
“panini” is the plural form of “panino” (Italian for small bread)
Educations make smart.
We talk a lot about the Summer Night Market (aka. Richmond Night Market), but it’s not the only game in town. The Chinatown Night Market has been going on for 14 years now. It amazes me that a city could support not just one, but two weekly Asian night markets.
The 2009 Chinatown Night Market…
…runs from May 15, 2009 to September 6, 2009.
…is open from 6:30PM to 11:00PM every Friday, Saturday, & Sunday.
…is located on Keefer St. between Main St. & Columbia St. (map).
The reason we haven’t talked about it is because we haven’t gone for years.
I actually never go to Chinatown. Not a fan of the downtown eastside and Richmond more than satifies my Chinese cravings. However, I was in the area last Saturday and decided to finally check out the night market. I had low expectations.
I arrived around 6:30PM: minutes after the vendors finished setting up their booths so the pictures might look more like a Chinatown Day Market. Fantastic weekend weather we’ve been having eh?
This market is very tiny compared to the Richmond Night Market. There are about 10 food booths and 10 non-food booths. Its footprint is a single city block stretch down Keefer St. It’s quite nice. The night market in Richmond is located on a warehouse parking lot behind a Home Depot whereas this one has historic Chinatown as a backdrop.
As usual, I skipped past the non-food booths selling crappy merchandise (check out the 8-ball PiMP stick in that pic) and went straight for the food booths.
Pretty standard stuff here. Curry fish balls, takoyaki fritters, bubble tea, chow mein, dim sum, bbq pork buns, spring rolls, meat skewers, gai dan jai (chinese egg pastry), etc. Things are generally priced from $2 – $5 each. I had me some curry fish balls (tangy), siu mai dimsum (yum), mango bubble tea (bland and artificial), gai dan jai (great!), and deep fried tofu (crispy and fresh). BBT aside, everything was great.
The real star of the show were the rice noodle rolls aka. chee cheong fun.
You’ve probably had rice noodle rolls before. They are a popular dim sum dish. They’re made from rolled rice noodle sheets which in turn are made from rice flour and water. You can buy pre-made packs at any grocery store for a few bucks.
One of the booths here has rice noodle rolls individually made to order. I’ve never seen the process done before – it’s pretty cool. They were probably the best rice noodle rolls I’ve ever had.
The entire process takes a couple minutes. First, they pour a viscous rice flour and water mixture onto a shallow metal sheet (pictured left). They add dried shrimp or fresh shrimp or beef to the mixture depending on which flavour you ordered (I got beef). You can also add an egg. The metal sheet and mixture is then slotted into a metal box steamer. See that box covered with Beat 94.5fm stickers in the right picture? That’s the steamer (do the stickers add flavour?). The mixture is steamed for a couple minutes in the box until it turns into rice noodles.
After it’s taken out of the box, they’re not rolled into noodles but simply scrapped off the sheet onto your plate. As the noodles are scrapped, they get folded into an interesting texture. This is the finished product, after adding some sweet soy sauce.
As I said, it taste fantastic. Super fresh. And it only costs $3 (+75 cents if you add an egg).
The Richmond Night Market doesn’t have this. They have normal rice noodle rolls that are great, but they’re not made to order from scratch. The night market in Richmond does have bigger and more obnoxious crowds, more expensive headache-inducing parking, and more booths selling crappy merchandise.
I came here with low expectations, but I left pleasantly surprised. There’s not much to do in Chinatown – especially at night – so you’ll have to find something else to do after visiting this night market. If the weather is nice and your stomach is empty, I’d definitely recommend stopping by the Chinatown Night Market for some fast food.
Irashaimase!!
Sound familiar? It should if you’re a fan of Japanese restaurants.
It means “welcome” in Japanese and it’s how businesses greet their customers.
Lucky us. Irashai Grill, located in Coal Harbour @ 1368 West Pender Street, was in a welcoming mood and graciously invited Dan and I to a Vancouver Bloggers meet-up dinner last week. We’ve never been to or even heard of Irashai Grill before so we jumped at the opportunity. They assured us that Irashai was armed with super tasty food and a chic decor. Frankly Irashai, you had us at free Japanese food.
It was a fun night. Dan and I were joined by friendly Vancouver bloggers Sherman, Joyce, Rebbecca, John,and Heather. Finally, a dinner where snapping pics of the dishes before digging in was not only tolerated but encouraged! We were also joined by Danielle, the event organizer and Irashai’s #1 fan.
We were treated with a wide range of meticulously plated items from their regular menu. Below are a few dishes that stood out for us, dishes that we would order again.
Hamachi Sashimi (served with daikon salad and Pommery mustard dressing).
ed: Yum! Super thin-sliced hamachi, crunchy daikons, and a tangy sauce. Really great summer dish. I don’t order things like this often so this was a nice change of pace for me. As you can see from the pics, all the dishes were gorgeous. Preferential treatment perhaps, but when I looked over at another table, their food looked just as good.
Summer Roll & (deepfried!) Alaska Crab Leg Roll
ed: I love fusion rolls that taste great. I hate fusion rolls that are funky simply for the sake of being funky *cough*. Thankfully, these rolls fall into the category of the former. They weren’t mindblowing, but the ingredients were fresh and the portions were generous. And you gotta give them courage points for deep-frying a roll.
Pearl Chicken Karaage
dan: Here’s something we’ve never seen, batter fried chicken rolled in crunchy rice cracker balls. The texture reminds me of the asian rice cracker snacks I like to buy at T&T. It lightens up the dish and makes an old favorite interesting again. These would make great street food come to think of it. I wouldn’t mind sitting down with a plate of these and an Asahi in the summer.
BC Spot Prawn Sashimi
ed: My favorite dish of the night by far. BC Spot Prawn season is from May 1 – July 1. These giant prawns were sweet! Literally. When I tried prawn sashimi at Happa last year, I hated it. It was bitter and slimy. I tried it again at Guu a few months ago: better, but still bitter. But these guys were great! They weren’t slimy, they were huge, and they were super sweet. After we ate the sashimi, the waitress took the heads back to the kitchen, deep fried them, and gave them back to us. They were like deepfried miniature lobsters – nice.
Yam Fries
dan: Another classic dish done in a new way. These are basically french fry cut yam tempura with a light batter, served with two tasty dipping sauces. (really wanted to double dip….) It’s dishes like these that show how Irashai can raise normally bland traditional dishes to a higher level.
dan: I like the open feeling of the interior, the high ceilings and half circle booths are spacious and intimate. There are TV’s scattered around the room, with every table in clear view of a few of them at once. I think it’d be fitting if they had Kill Bill playing on repeat, but that’s just me.
ed: Irashai’s decor is very Coal Harbour-ish to me. It’s shiny, modern, and peaceful. Personally, when I’m eating downtown on a weekend night, I’m usually in more of a Robson Street-ish kind of mood. I love the energetic ambiance of places like Guu and Gyoza King; they’re not as clean-cut as Irashai, but they have a bit more attitude.
But that’s okay. I don’t think Irashai is trying to compete head-on with the izakayas. Irashai is doing its own thing, and is worth checking out if you’re into tasty Japanese food that cautiously and successfully straddles the line between fusion and traditional. Obviously, we can’t comment on value based on this meal, but the prices/proportions looked fair. The service was top-notch as well.
Thanks again @Irashai!
