I'm Only Here for the Food!

Alvin Garden
4850 Imperial Street
Burnaby, BC

A bit over a month ago, a group of food bloggers went to Long’s Noodle House (you can see my post on that gathering here). We agreed we should do this again and the responsibility to organize the next event felt into the shoulders of Sherman of Sherman’s Food Adventures. But, soon after, other bloggers expressed their interest on joining us and, in the end, we had a relatively large group (in alpha order of their site):

Edit: Links to individual post on Alvin Garden added.

• Kevin of 604 Foodtography – post for this visit, here.
• Christina and ET of Doesn’t Tazte Like Chicken
• TS of [eatingclub]vancouver
• Gigi and Jenkins of Ho Yummy – post for this visit, here.
• Wilson of La Petite Vancouver – post for this visit, here.
• Sherman and Viv of Sherman’s Food Adventures – post for this visit, here.
• Drea of The Best Damn Food Blog There Is™ – post for this visit, here.
• Jessica and M of Yum-O-Rama – post for this visit, here.

And, of course, myself. Absent from our previous gathering were Ben and Suanne of ChowTimes and Angie of Sea Salt with Food, who had prior commitments.

And now, the place… Alvin Garden, listed as bronze award winner by Vancouver Magazine in the Best Casual category. If it is a winner, we ought to blog it, right? ^_^

After everybody was gathered, discussion went sideways: rather than talking about food, some of us were talking about cameras! And, in my case, I was carrying two cameras, my D40 and a Sony Alpha 200 I borrowed from a friend for testing purposes. But, eventually, we decided it was time to make our order. So, here are the dishes we had (I don’t remember the name of all the dishes so I will apologize for that).

Hunan Style Braised Pork. This was really tasty! Soft pieces of fatty pork with a deep soy sauce-like taste. Hmmmmmm… Pork…. ^_^

Duck Braised with Beer. I found this a bit too bony and not the usual duck taste. Feel free to call it acquired taste… Oh, feel free to guess whose finger is that!

Broiled fish in chili soup. I got a taste of this but it was later during the mealso I won’t comment on it…^_^;;;

Pan Fried Spicy Chicken. The pieces of chicken were cut a bit too smal. And, despite all the chili, it was not as spicy as I though.

Mapo tofu. I thought they would make the spicy version but it seems the mild version was ordered instead.

Daily Soup. This was actually quite good: It has corn among other vegetable and was on the sweet side which gave an interesting contrast to the spicy food we were having.

Green beans with minced pork.

Double cooked pork with garlic and chili. Despite it was “double cooked” you could still see chunks of fat around the pork. Hmmmmmm…. Pork! ^_^;;;

Pumpkin cake. Despite this came in the middle of the meal, at least it served to balance all the spicy food I was having at that moment.

Steamed eggs with minced pork. This dish is a personal favourite; however, I found Alvin Garden’s a bit too watery. My mom makes it to the texture of silk tofu.

Lin cod head with chili oil. Others mentioned it was spicy but either I was partially numbed due to all the chilis or my tolerance was a bit higher.

Corn cake, in this case: undercooked.

Despite I was not paying too much attention to food, I found some of the dishes were good; others could have been better. However, while I was sweating hard (I brought some towels just in case!), I was expecting the food to be spicier – it just wasn’t as spicy as I was thought it could have been. (This is considering I was eating the chili from the pan fried chicken!). Regardless, the food turned even “better” because of the great company we had. As for what I think is the most priceless moment of all dinner was at the very start, when all of us started to take pictures. I am sure diners from other tables were looking at us funny. Can you imagine? Over 6 of us snapping their cameras (including, in some cases, flash from Wilson’s Speedlite)! Overall, it was a really fun night, specially considering we were breaking bread with others who share the same passion. I mean, where else would topics like “where is more difficult to park: Aberdeen Centre or Crystal Mall” (Answer: Aberdeen; if you go to Crystal Mall, you park in Metrotown!) or “why do sushi spots in Vancouver focus more on rolls than nigiri/sashimi?” (Question still open to debate) end up being the topic of conversation?

I am sure this won’t be the last of our gatherings and hope looking forward for future gatherings! ^_^