Brado Restaurant (Revisit) and Cake-Ya

Brado Restaurant
1399 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC

Cake-Ya
2415 Clarke Street
Port Moody, BC

Last week, there were a couple of post featuring meals I had with people I have met while food blogging. For the most part, these were events I organized myself. But, in an interesting twist, how about something organized by another food blogger whom I haven’t met previously? Specifically, somebody who, currently, is not even here in Vancouver? It just happen that Phyllis of me Hungry! was in town (who happens to have lived here in Vancouver) and Jessica of Yumorama organized a mini-meeting of sorts, which, in the end, only Sherman and me showed up. Because of a poutine run she had last time she was here, the suggested place was, once again, another poutine place! And one I visited in the past… Brado Restaurant. But, that brings the question… How is Cake-Ya, a small dessert shop located in Port Moody has to do with Brado?! Read to find out more!

First, what we went for in Brado… In my previous visit to this restaurant, I had the wings and poutine. While it is also a pizza parlour, the ones under the lamp didn’t look appetizing at all. This time, we went for something that combine both. Yup, you read it correctly – Brado combines pizza with poutine. Let me try again…

I will have to say it was a touch of genius. After all, it shares a common ingredient: cheese. And, given that pizza uses a sauce, how about using gravy in lieu of it? Tastewise, it was aided by some “extras” added to the crust – these included some oil and what tasted like garlic. Might be wrong on that one but there was *something* in it that made it really savoury. However, what really failed in this concoction was, oddly, the fries. There wasn’t anything wrong with it; instead, it was the fact it was carb (from the pizza crust) + carb (from the fries). More of the same didn’t really work for me.

So, from a pizza perspective, the fact it was baked to order would certainly have an impact on the end result, specially compared to what I saw on the night I went there. So, if you would order the whole pie, well, it might be interesting. As a poutine pizza, unfortunately no… too much of the same type of ingredient detracted from the overall dish. That brings then the next question: how is the poutine by itself then? Well, on that always search for good eats, Sherman ordered a plate of poutine. Specifically…

Montreal smoked meat poutine. The smoked meat was in the form of shave pieces of the meat rather than chunks (as served in some other places). It was on the salty side but, oh, well, what do you expected from this type of meats…. One thing that was was noticed almost right away by Phyllis was the fact the gravy was on the darker side. It seems people likes them that way here, hence the tone. Finally, the texture of the curds. It started to melt away to the point we were wondering if it was mozzarella instead.

In the end, Brado can be a rough gem but the fact that you need to be here in a group (to have things made to order) detracts me from going back there by myself. However, the one thing that would certainly prevent me from doing so isn’t Brado itself but its neighbour who runs a Middle Eastern/shawarma place. We were there around 3:00 p.m. and, while there were customers, he was cleaning his area with industrial strength bleach. How the !@#!@#$ you can do that when customers are there eating? It is literally shooting himself on the food (either than or he was trying to piss of Brado…). >_<

And now, the reason this post also contains Cake-Ya…

Given that Phyllis had only that much time here, I thought I should try to find something unique, something that she won’t have quick access of during her short visit to Vancouver. Given that Sherman recently wrote about this Japanese dessert place in Port Moody, I thought, hey, why not! So, I went to Cake-Ya and grabbed some goodies including…

Shortbread, regular and matcha

Matcha roll

Creme caramel, different versions

Just in case for shokutsu, sorry, they didn’t have daifuku ready yet eathat day… >_<

Now, they actually didn’t have the matcha roll, by the time we started to eat these, we were starting to get quite full. And I personally didn’t have any of the shortbread so I won’t comment on those! The roll was quite light but the I thought the beans tasted a bit hard (could have been softer). As for the creme caramel, it was a bit of mixed thoughts, however it might be more related to me preferring savoury dishes over sweet. In my case, I thought they were quite thin/light plus the fact some of the flavoured taste of the creme caramel wasn’t that noticeable (matcha, et al). However, others where a lot better, like the cheese version. Acquired taste? It is possible I might come back, alas, it is in Port Moody…

To close this post, Jessica, thanks for organization it, Sherman, thanks for inviting us for the poutine and, Phyllis, it was really nice to meet you and thanks for the pizza!

Tagged under: Dessert • Japanese • Pizza • Port Moody • Vancouver