Rediscovery

Okay, so I lied about blogging the day after my last entry, but I sort of got distracted with other things that were more important.

Anyway, long story short, my dad thought it was a good idea to bring the whole family back to the same restaurant that my dad and I had went to the week before last Saturday. For those who missed it, you can read about it here. Obviously, I'm not going to post pictures that's already been seen. We're here for the new ones. When I walked into the restaurant on Saturday, I was a bit disappointed to see the servers back to normal without the bunny ears/tails and butterfly wings. I guess they only dressed up for Halloween.

We pretty much ordered the same thing as last time except for the Pan Fried Pork Dumplings and again, I forgot to take pictures of the Pork Pot Stickers.

Here we have a small tray of various condiments. There's chili oil, black vinegar, thinly shredded ginger and toothpicks.

Braised Beef Tripe. I didn't try this.

Shredded Pork And Hoisin Sauce Pancakes with shredded cucumbers underneath. My only major complaint is not enough pancakes to go around and after awhile the dish itself just gets kind of disgusting. Not that it's not good or anything, I just think the dish could have been cooked a bit longer with less Hoisin Sauce. The mixture was a bit too wet for my liking.

I'm usually not a big fan of noodles, but this dish was really good. I don't even need the vegetables or seafood there. The squid was rubber. I could be wrong about it being squid. It could have been cuttlefish and they're within the same species.

Cold Wined Chicken was not good at all. Didn't like the texture or the taste.



Location:

Dinesty Chinese Restaurant
160 - 8111 Ackroyd Road
Richmond, BC
V6X 3K1
1-604-303-7772

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

Happy Halloween!

Today marks a special occasion and also, the end of October. So I decided to share some photos taken back when I was in College. It was a fall theme involving the ingredient, pumpkin. So, please enjoy and have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Tarts: topped with a marzipan pumpkin, piped rosette of whipped whipping cream, shaved chocolate and a dusting of cinnamon powder.

Pumpkin Pie: topped with marzipan pumpkins, piped rosettes of whipped whipping cream, shaved chocolate and a dusting of cinnamon powder.

Pumpkin Cake: topped with marzipan pumpkins, shaved chocolate and decorative border with rosettes of whipped whipping cream.

Pumpkin Cheesecake: topped with marzipan pumpkins, shaved chocolate, chocolate motifs, whipped whipping cream border and some toasted, crushed, sliced almonds on the sides.

Choose any two items...

I chose chicken wings and fish. It comes with a bun and a sad looking dry coleslaw with a dollop of sauce. I believe the sauce is a mixture of sour cream and mayo. I ordered this meal on Sunday for brunch and if I was at the restaurant around noon, I would have ordered the wings and sirloin steak instead of the fish. Not that I don't like fish, it's just too much fried items in one dish. The menu changes around noon, as well as the prices. It's a cheap meal for $5.85 and it comes with a drink.

I asked for Milk Tea and I'm pretty sure they use the Lipton Rose. Usually, the portion is slightly larger, but it's still a good deal. You can't go wrong with fried foods and for those with a weak heart, please exit this blog.

Kam Do Restaurant & Bakery has been around for quite a long time and if any one generally goes to Richmond to eat, they'll know this place. People would be better off getting a table if they go there earlier because it gets packed quickly. The food isn't anything extra-ordinary, but it's their portions that brings in business.

That's it for today, but stay tune tomorrow because I will be showing you goodies made from pumpkin.



Location:

Kam Do Restaurant & Bakery
1120.1130.1140 - 9391 Alexandra Road
Richmond, BC
V6X 3W5
1-604-231-9216

An interesting Discovery

It's Saturday and we're always thinking of where we want to go for our meal. Either for lunch or dinner and since I did an entry of what I had at Happy King Seafood Restaurant before, I won't blog about my lunch on Saturday because I ordered the same thing. Fast forwarding to night time, my dad and I wandered aimlessly around Richmond and we were always caught in by the heavy traffic on the No. 3 Road with all the construction happening there. It's quite understandable when the 2010 Winter Olympics event is nearing that people are rushing to finish Canada Line and among other things, as well.

We found ourselves parked at the Save-On-Foods parking lot and ready to go try this small Shanghai restaurant, but only to find out it's packed and there was a line of people waiting to be seated. So we decided to walk across the street to check out Ebisu. My dad scanned the restaurant from outside and decided he wasn't in the mood for Japanese Cuisine. There are numerous restaurants around like White Spot, Nando's Chicken and other smaller Chinese restaurant. When we were just about to stop looking for something different and go to White Spot, we saw a restaurant filled with people eating Xiao Long Bao. There was still some empty tables so we decided to go and try this place out.

Upon walking into this restaurant called Dinesty, I was quickly intrigued by the servers. Some of them were wearing bunny ears/tails and some were wearing butterfly wings. My thought was, "could this be a cosplay cafe?" I'm not sure it is since they didn't wear any of the typical outfits, but I was definitely amused. The overall design of the place was very clean, simple, spacious and modern. One perks of this place is, you get to see the kitchen staff in action. It's an open kitchen with glass panels acting as a barrier between the main sitting area and the kitchen. Here's two videos I recorded while I was there.

Did anyone catch any of the servers with their bunny ears/tails and the butterfly wings? You can clearly see the kitchen from the videos.

So, we obviously ordered the Xiao Long Bao. The skin had the perfect thickness, but the flavor of the meat inside wasn't awesome. However, it has the most liquid inside than any other Xiao Long Bao I have ever tasted.

I had to order this Fried Mantou, it's one of my favorites. The outer texture is definitely crispy and crunchy. However, the inside just didn't taste like a regular mantou. It was so light and fluffy, but usually it's firmer than that and it has a real distinct flavor and taste to it. It's still tasty, though.

This was the Beef Wrap. The wraps are Green Onion flat bread/pancake. Overall, this was a good dish minus the scallions inside. It's just a personal preference and I happen to dislike eating raw scallions. It was lacking a bit of sauce, though.

Now this dish was interesting. If anyone ever decides to order this Pan Fried Steamed Pork Dumpling, I suggest poking at it when it arrives. It's like poking a light and fluffy sponge like bun. It's been nicely pan fried as you can see from the lovely color on it. The filling is basically the same as what you get in the Xiao Long Bao and they used a bit too much oil to pan fry it.

We also ordered the Pork Pot Stickers, but I forgot to take a picture. I'll remember to next time.

At the end of the meal, you get this cold refreshing teaser drink that comes in their own paper mini cup. I can't quite figure out what exactly I was actually drinking, but it was good. I'm calling it quits for today, there will be another post tomorrow. It'll be short, I promise.



Location:

Dinesty Chinese Restaurant
160 - 8111 Ackroyd Road
Richmond, BC
V6X 3K1
1-604-303-7772