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

Tamarind Hill

Early last month, I had blogged about eating Malaysian Cuisine at Tamarind Hill and how I was rather disappointed in their inconsistency. However, this time around, everything tasted great. I suggest people read the Malaysian Cuisine entry before continuing to read this one. It will fill you in on what I've said about their Restaurant.

This time around, I will be showing some photos of their interior decor.

The picture above and below shows a section where people can wait before being seated.

Here's a view of the counter/divider.

We decided to try some new dishes, but we did order the Malaysian Calamari and the Roti Canai again. The Malaysian Calamari was nice and crispy and the Roti Canai wasn't as bitter as last time. I sure love the dipping sauce that comes with the Malaysian Calamari.

This is Soto Assam. It's spicy hot and sour seafood soup with cut up tomato and papaya. It wasn't even that spicy, but it's quite acidic in taste and flavor. Quite appetizing.

This is a blurry photo of Mixed Seafood Sambal with a bit of onions and various peppers. Sweet and tasty.

This is the Malaysian Curry Laksa. It has egg noodle with dried shrimp, tiger prawns, chicken, bean sprout, egg and fish cake in spicy zesty curry broth. You can choose from three types of noodles for this one. I must admit, this was probably my favorite besides the Malaysian Calamari. The broth was aromatic and flavorful. The only thing we wished for, was for it to be a bit more spicier. I've tried the Singapore Laksa before and it's coconut base. I'm not a big fan of coconut, but it really did taste good. I still prefer the Malaysian Curry Laksa over the Singapore Laksa.

I think what they serve is moderate in heat and that the general public can easily accept it. As for my family, we can take a lot more heat than what's served at Tamarind Hill, but their dishes are really tasty and flavorful. There's still one place that serves Malaysian Food I have yet to try. Hopefully one day, I will be able to try it. I also recommended some really good restaurants that serves Malaysian/Singaporean Food in this Malaysian Cuisine entry. So go check it out.



Location:

Tamarind Hill
103 - 628 6th Avenue
New Westminster, BC
1-604-526-3000

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

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