Hana Sushi

It was quite a nice snowy Saturday and we decided to eat dinner before heading back home.

We decided to stop by at The Crystal Mall food court and I ordered from a place called Hana Sushi.

This is the Katsu Curry. You can see half of the picture on the menu sign up top on the left side. The pork itself was very good, both moist inside and crispy on the outside. As for the curry, I'm not sure how I should put it. At first taste, it's quite salty. You get hints of it being curry, but it's not flavorful. The sauce tasted like a curry cream paste. I didn't enjoy the salty curry, but the pork was very good. My dad ordered from the same place and said his dish was salty as well. Everywhere you go nowadays, people have such a high tolerance of salt. The more salted items we eat, the less salty we think it really is.



Location:

Hana Sushi (The Crystal Mall Food Court)
4500 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC
1-604-434-1772
1-604-438-6263 (The Crystal Mall's #)
http://www.thecrystalmall.ca

i Café

Today's entry is semi-late, but it'll be short and simple.

This past Saturday, my parents and I went to i Café for dinner. They have a stairway leading up to their entrance and you would notice their giant decor to the right of it. The overall place is really simple, but spacious and with a nice view if you're seated by the window. I've never had any problems with their service, but their food is average. If you ever decide to order any of their beef dishes like prime rib, sirloin or their pork/beef combo set, you definitely won't regret it.

I ordered their Ying Yang Steak Rice. I've tried it before and it's really delicious. I can't really complain. This dish has always been consistent in flavor and taste. The carrots were a bit too soft, but they were still sweet and tasty.

My dad had ordered the Prime Rib set and the beef tasted fresh and flavorful. It tasted like it's supposed to. Most beef steaks nowadays lacks that beef flavor and taste.

For once, we ordered dessert and it's Tiramisu. I don't know whether they made it or had them made and shipped to the restaurant, but as for someone such as myself, who knows a bit about desserts, this is definitely not the typical Tiramisu. The texture was very different from the ones I'm used to tasting. It was more gelatin like than light and fluffy and dense in flavor. It just didn't seem very fulfilling.

Since I'm getting back into the work mode, I won't be updating as much, as I won't be free to go out as often as I like. The place I work is basically a 24/7 operation, so that will keep me quite occupied.



Location:

i Café
2525 Heather Street
Vancouver, BC
V5Z 3J2
1-604-630-0238

Mui Garden Restaurant

I'll be keeping today's entry short. We went to Mui Garden Restaurant last night and upon walking into the place, the surroundings looked so out of place. It seems as if, half of the restaurant was closed off or something. Service has always been bad there and I don't think they're planning on improving it either.

We ordered the usual and it came with flavorless Condiments.

The Free Range Chicken was tough. I really disliked this.

It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. Just a tad bit too salty.

The rice was gummy because it had been cooked in too much liquid.

I don't really like Lamb Hot Pot. I just ate the bean curd and one piece of lamb, which seemed quite tender. The flavor was light and medicinal tasting.

I hope I never have to go back to this restaurant. Well, only this particular location.



Location:

Mui Garden Resturant
4327 North Road
Burnaby, BC
1-604-421-1822
http://www.muigarden.com

Tower of muffins!

On Thursday, I decided to bake some muffins since I have an unopened container of sour cream sitting in the fridge. Here are my results.

Isn't it pretty? Eh, just humor me. It had a bit too much blueberries in it, so you guys can reduced the amount of blueberries used or not. Also, since I didn't have Pastry Flour I just used All Purpose Flour. The difference of not using Pastry Flour wasn't too noticeable, but a slight change of texture in the outcome. Originally, the recipe is for 6 dozen and I re-calculated it to make 1 dozen instead. Here is the recipe.

Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins (Yield: 1 Dozen)

Ingredients:
100g Granulated Sugar
112.5g Softened Butter
1.67g Salt
12.5g Lemon Zest
66.67g Whole Eggs
66.67g Sour Cream
141.67g Milk
250g Pastry Flour
7.5g Baking Powder
1.67g Baking Soda
166.67g Frozen Blueberries

Procedures:
1) Cream sugar, butter and salt.
2) Add eggs slowly and scrape bowl frequently.
3) Add sour cream, again scrape bowl.
4) Add milk and dry ingredients in alternating stages (1/3 at a time) starting with milk and following with flour.
5) Fold in frozen blueberries. A tip I learned in school is to dust the frozen blueberries with a bit of flour before folding it into the mixture. That way the mixture will grab onto the dusted flour. It's the same as breading items for deep frying.
6) Pipe or drop into prepared muffin tins.
7) Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 20 - 25 minutes or until done.

Have fun baking!

So, earlier today my family went to Happy King Seafood Restaurant for lunch again and I ordered this dish.

Free Range Chicken on Rice. One word, YUCK! I don't care if it was average tasting or not, just don't order it. Look at it; the pinkish color is enough to make you gag. *please ignore my sarcasm* But you have to admit, it holds some truth to it. It may not seem too bad, but up close and personal it's pink. I don't even want to comment on this. Tomorrow, I'll blog about what I had for dinner today.



Location:

Happy King Seafood Restaurant
#258 - 2800 East 1st. Avenue
Vancouver, BC
V5M 4P2
1-604-215-3338

Bad Experiences

Just as the title says, I had a bad experience with what I ordered on Saturday at both places. For lunch, we went to Golden Oscar and I ordered Curry Beef Brisket.

I've been to Golden Oscar numerous times and ordered the same thing before, as well. However, I was very disappointed with how it turned out this time around. The meat was tough and the curry itself was so salty. The dishes my family ordered was actually pretty tasty.

For dinner, we went to this Taiwanese Restaurant beside Richmond Sushi. I think. I'm really not too sure and I don't remember the name of the place, but I will probably never go back. We ordered some side dishes that weren't bad, but the main meal was pretty bad for all three of us.

This is Deep Fried Tofu with a chili soy sauce. It's not bad, just average.

Next up we have, Deep Fried Pork Intestine. Very crispy on the outside. I ate the very small pieces since I'm not too fond of pork intestines.

I ordered this Vermicelli with cuttlefish and fish paste in soup. The mouth feel of this, kind of reminds me of the sour and spicy soup. It had so much vinegar added to it that I almost wanted to gag. It's a healthy portion of vegetables, but everything was just drenched in vinegar and cornstarch thicken soup. It was nasty. I tasted the cuttlefish and its rubbery texture, but the fish paste wasn't really fish paste. It was more like, bits of cuttlefish tossed in a batter and deep fried. It was all soggy. My parents weren't very impressed with what they ordered, either.



Location:

Golden Oscar Cafe And Restaurant
3868 Rupert
Vancouver, BC
1-604-437-8138

Angel Cafe

I should call this my weekly blog more than anything, since I usually post on the weekends. Another Saturday lunch with the family. This time we ordered three dishes to share. It came with either, a Tomato Vegetable Soup or Cream Soup.

As you can see, we went for the Cream Soup. It was below the average cream of corn soup with bits of ham and there were tons of small flour lumps in it. Cream soups aren't usually done well, unless you go to some expensive restaurant.

The first dish that came was, Szechuan Beef Brisket Fried Noodles. At first glance, it looks fine, but there's at least half a cup of oil at the bottom of the dish. I would considered this un-edible and disgusting. The noodles were not only fried, but they were soaking in more oil. I feel a clogged artery coming. There was nothing about the dish that screams, Szechuan. I could be wrong...

The second dish was, Salted Fish Fried Rice. It's a bit moist for fried rice and the salted fish wasn't evenly spread throughout the rice. I've had better Salted Fish Fried Rice, elsewhere. I think the salted fish was either, bad or extremely cheap because it had this weird awful smell to it. Usually, salted fish has a nice and aromatic salt smell.

The last dish was, Malay Stir Fry Noodles. It was the only dish that I like. It was sweet and spicy. Although, it would have been better if it was just a tad more spicier, but that's just my personal opinion. I have no complaints on this one and I'm not sure how authentic it actually is, but it tasted really good.

Tonight, I'll be home alone and I plan on making a sandwich for dinner. It's much more healthier for me, anyway. I'll also be watching "Da Ge Da which is, Fei Ge" on channel 229 (shaw cable). The theme of the show is, guess their talent. Basically, famous people (mostly females because the host is a big pervert =p) are invited to the show to guess around 4 - 5 people's talents. Whoever guesses right, wins the chance to eat a specific dish done by a specific chef. There is a total of 4 - 5 chances and 4 - 5 dishes and it's a one hour show. It's quite comical.



Location:

Angel Cafe
5995 Fraser Street at 44th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
V5W 2Z6
1-604-323-8948