The Boss Restaurant
Metropolis at Metrotown
4720 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

After two weeks of New Jersey/New York posts, now, it is back to Vancouver posts! And to start of, my first meal after I got home. After deplanning, pick up my luggage and get back home, I was starting to get hungry… REALLY hungry. That was because I used a strategy similar to the one I used in my flight to New Jersey, i.e., starve myself to make me feel hungry and tired to accelerate my “recovery” time. To hold myself, during the flight, I only had snacks in the form of True North almond clusters.

Once I arrived home, I had to go out to buy some food. Yup, unfortunately, I couldn’t fix anything at home since I emptied my fridge before the trip. No bread (not even a frozen bagel), no (soy) milk for cereal, no eggs, nothing! Heck, I did not even have a pack of ramen… Shame on me, shame on me. So, I decided to drive to Metrotown to get something to eat and then do grocery shopping. Kill two birds with one stone? Actually the main reason was that I did not want to fight for parking in a strip mall… While I could have gone to the food court (or Crystal Mall’s food court for that matter), I decided to go to The Boss Restaurant. The reason will be somewhat evident in a moment, hehehehe.

It is pretty safe to say The Boss is your typical HK Style cafe. If you have been to one, you have been to pretty much most of them. The differences might be how some dishes are executed and how much abuse you get with the food. Nah, just kidding but you know there is a bit of truth in it, hehehehe.

You might wonder what is so particular with the picture above. Sure, I have done condiment pictures in the past but, this time, there is something… Different. Specifically, that piece of paper at the bottom right. While some restaurants will leave one to keep track of the items you ordered, the one here is not such piece of paper but the bill. WTF?! C’mon, I haven’t even received the food! Or could it be they weren’t comfortable I was seated by myself on the booth closest to the entrance (and would then eat and dash???). Hmmmmmm…..

Given all the food I had eaten during the trip, I decided to order something really simple, in this case, beef congee. I know this is a dish I could have made at home but I was impatient and hungry… Come to think about it, had they had plain congee, I would have order it instead. As for this dish, it was a bit more savoury than what I thought. I believe the main reason is that ring of sesame oil you see in the middle – It gave that strong aromatic flavour to the bowl. Other than it felt slightly more “oily” than your average congee, it is the average bowl of congee.

To go along, I wanted to order some vegetables; however, I ended up going for chicken wings. So much for trying to eat something light! They were fried in an odd way – crispy, yet it wasn’t hot and the meat was still clinging to the bones. Some sweetness on top rounded up the morsels. Not the best wings I had but not the worst either

In the grand scheme of things, the food was edible and did what it was supposed to do. However, there are reasons why I do not have that many posts on HK style cafe and The Boss did not change my opinion. Would I come back. Nah, not even in a hurry.

Angel Cake Cafe
5995 Fraser Street
Vancouver, BC

Note: cash only!

A lot of times, no matter how well plans are laid out, there are variables we might overlook and, as a result, these plans just crumble down. This is what happened a couple of Monday’s ago when I checked with some friends to visit a Filipino restaurant, Pinpin in Fraser Street. After we arrived, we found out it is not open in Monday’s… Ouch. After a quick “vote”, we went to the closest open place: Angel Cake Cafe (listed also as Angel Cafe).

For this area, I think it was quite busy. Since we were a party of four, they had to shuffle a little bit to accomodate us. In a funny way, parties of two were given the booths (which would fit 4 customers) rather than a table. Oh, well, I guess they know better.

It has been a while since I have seen such container for sugar

It took us a while to decide what to order; we were debating between sharing or order individually. In the end, despite we agreed to order individually, the dishes ordered could easily be shared. After we made our order, we decided to order some additional items as appetizers but… OK, in this type of restaurants, let’s just say funny things will happen. First, soup, which comes with most of the dishes we ordered:

Likewise, the items we ordered come with rice and, again, rather than individual bowls, we were given a container with it.

Now, as for the actual dishes:

If you say “What da…”, in a way, that was my reaction was well. Yes, that is congee – rice porridge – with slices of beef. I was wondering why this was ordered but I did not really push that issue. I did not taste it and did not ask about it either.

I don’t recall the name of the dish but they are fried slices of fish with a corn sauce (as in “corn niblets”, not creamed). It was interesting in its own way, mainly because it was sweet (obviously, due to the corn).

This is the dish I ordered, curry beef brisket. At this point I think I am starting to be predictive. Yes, a lot of times, in Chinese restaurants, I order brisket… Anyway, back to the food: if you had Indian curry previously, this will be a disappointment. It is not fiery spicy; rather, it is a bit sweet.

At this point, our appetizer arrived (!): 6 satay (3 chicken, 3 lamb). I only had a lamb satay. It was not really game-y but tasty nonetheless.

The final dish, lemon chicken, battered and fried pieces of chicken with a orange-like sauce. I had a couple of pieces and, unlike the fish above, the chicken morsels were heavily battered. In my opinion, it was OK.

After that, my companions went to the side cake shop and ordered dessert. I did not have any myself but here is what was ordered.

Taro cake

Mango cheesecake

Cheesecake

Let’s just say all of them enjoyed their dessert.

Now, couple of things I have to say about the food:

1) As mentioned above, dishes did not show up at the same time. I will assume this is because some items are prepared in advance and it is a matter of re-heating them. I mean, how else would the plate of fish came out so fast?
2) I don’t think it is really noticeable but ought to mention it: The portions are big! We all agree that instead of 4 dishes, 3 would have done. In fact, we did not finish the chicken and there was enough for a meal the following day.

Overall, the food was OK though, obviously, it could be better. After all, you should leave space for improvement. Also, it was relatively cheap. All the food above was under $60. Would I come back? Well, maybe; there are a lot of other similar restaurants I might want to visit so there is no reason for me to stick to this one only. Just give the other ones a chance.

Curry King Cafe
4250 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC V5H

Sometimes, I just want a simple meal. And by simple I mean, nothing exotic, fuzzy or complicated. Added to the fact I was supposed to travel the following day meant eating out (hey, not dishes to clean, trash to take out, etc.). That’s how I ended up in Curry King Cafe.

When I arrived, only a couple of tables were occupied. Not necessarily bad, not necessarily good either. However, in their defence, it was already past 9:00 p.m….

Now, before I continue, to those uninformed about HK cafe, I will highly recommend you to read this article in Wikipedia (will open in a new window – I will still be here, OK?). Are you back? Good!

This is what I ordered: Beef brisket with Thai curry sauce ($8).

Did I say simple? Well, just pour the curry over some steamed rice and I think we are set:

I will not say it was REALLY good nor I will say it was bad. Given I had an idea of what I came for, my expectations weren’t high to begin with so, unless I was given some extremely bad, I would have eaten almost anything. It is good for what it is; just don’t raise expectations and you should be set.