The Lion’s Den Cafe
651 East 15th Ave
Vancouver, BC

Not sure where the idea came originally. It might be thanks to a comment from jlomein in my Delicias de Alicia post or probably because he wanted to go there from the very beginning but Karl organized a mini-gathering of sorts in The Lion’s Den Cafe. Originally, it was supposed to be Sherman, Karl and myself; however, since Jessica joined us last time in Royal City Thai, we thought we should check on her as well. And, guess what? Elaine asked if we were up for lunch on the same day and we told her of our plans. Result? An additional person in this mini-gathering!

Of course, it begs the question: what is so particular about Lion’s Den? Well, it has Caribbean food! Wait, that is not all… How about Japanese food as well? Yup, Lion’s Den has both Caribbean AND Japanese in the same menu! (Or, as they call it “Japaribbean”). With such odd combination, one of them quite popular in Vancouver, the question is how well would both combine…

Update: below are the links for everybody’s posts!

Elaine
Jessica
Karl
Sherman

Originally, we were supposed to be there by 12:30 p.m.; however, due to a snafu on my part and due to people not knowing how to park (a couple of SUVs took the equivalent of four parking spots), I was late. Of course, with a group of food bloggers, hunger could cause riots! Anyway, with such a “large” group, we were set up outside, rather than inside the restaurant. See that table in the picture above? Yup, we were seated there under the sun and the falling cherry blossom petals… Too bad none of them fell on the food or any of the glasses of water – I am sure it would have been a really good photo opportunity. And talking about drinks…

Both Karl and Sherman (whom, BTW, wasn’t 100% healthy that day) ordered ginger beer, while the rest of us went for eau de Vancouver. Unfortunately, since I didn’t try it, I can’t really comment much on it. Sorry!

As for the food, we were having a long debate of what to order. Since we were sharing, the “problem” was to order different enough dishes. Some of them are easy to share while others not necessarily so. For example, how do you share a roti??? Eventually, we “agreed” on the dishes and made the orders. Now, if there is a big flaw of the restaurant, it was experienced as soon after we ordered our dishes. It took *forever* for the food to arrive. In fact, the owner even had to go out to fetch some ingredients! Of course, it could also be the Caribbean lax attitude but, as mentioned above, when you have a group of hungry food bloggers… ^_^;;;

Eventually, they started serving us food, starting with some green salad. The one thing I am not sure is that we were given one portion of each one of us; this is because one of the dishes does not technically come with salad. I guess that, as a courtesy, they added one more serving so we all had one. As for the salad itself, it is your generic green salad and, in my case, it was overdressed. Not much to comment about….

The first dish to arrive was the jerk chicken – spicy Jamaican style chicken roasted with 18 different herbs and spices”. Somebody (M?) mentioned the chicken was served in pieces, rather than chunks, as a result, we ordered two plates instead. The chicken was full of flavour and it was agreed that this was the best dish of the whole meal. The Caribbean rice and beans was on the lines of what I would expect from such dish – difficult to explain but made up its task as a filler.

The next dish is another “classical” Jamaican dish, curry goat. Unfortunately, it did not live up to expectations. It was a bit too boney and the curry did not have too much “punch” in it. In fact, had I wasn’t told this was a curry goat, I would have said it was a regular stew. Ouch…

At the beginning of the post, I mentioned share a roti. OK, here are the roti shells, which was filled with a yellow split pea. On its own, it might be an acquired taste, as it really needed some sauce (like the curry above). It was OK but, if I compare the roti shell from the roti I had in Rehanah’s Roti, this was a bit drier and not as stretchy/doughy.

Followed by the roti was the oxtail stew, yet another Jamaican “classic” dish. Similar to the curry goat, the chunks here were boney; however, in this case, it was sort of expected. It had a gelatinous texture in it, which I found quite pleasant to eat. However, once again, similar to the curry goat, we thought it needed some additional seasoning.

Given they have Japanese dishes, needless to say, we had to order a Japanese dish. Originally, we ordered ginger beef; however, they didn’t have it. The other dish we ordered was this, okonomiyaki (in this case, the pork version), sometimes referred to as Japanese pizza. One thing that became quite evident when it was cut was the pieces of pork. Make no mistake – these are actual pieces of pork, not ground pork. And, as a result, it provided that pork goodness taste to it. Alas, too bad the batter didn’t really lived up to the pork, as it was quite doughy and couldn’t taste much of the vegetables in it. The sauce also didn’t add much, which was a bit disappointing.

After the meal, when we were about to pay, we were asked to go inside for Ken, the owner, to tell us the story of the restaurant, including its name and a mounted lion in the restaurant itself. I won’t spoil the story: if you haven’t been there before, go just to find out about the story.

As for the food itself, there were some hits and some misses. Regardless of this, I am surprised at how the food was produced, mainly because of the chaotic kitchen. Because it has a charm of its own, I think it is worth coming back. However, the question is: how hungry should I come back? Given the time it took for the food to come, if I am too hungry, due to their pace, I might consider crossing the street for some banh mi instead. If I am not that hungry, I might miss some of the dishes. I guess if I can find partners in crime like this time…

Taste Nice Caribbean Restaurant
13448 108th Avenue
Surrey, BC

Surrey, BC… No offence to anybody who lives there but it is one of those places in Metro Vancouver in try not to go to. It has nothing to do with the culture or population or what not. Rather, I find it lacking… As a result, it shouldn’t be any surprise I have not blogged any restaurants over there. OK, I have not blogged the other neighboring cities (Coquitlam, Port Moody and so on) but given the population in Surrey, there ought to be good eats there, right? A couple of days ago, I had to go to the Whalley area of Surrey and that gave me a perfect excuse to drop by a restaurant. ANY restaurant, as it was around lunch time and I was hungry!

Now, before I continue, I must say there is a large South Asian population in Metro Vancouver. For some reason I am not aware of, a lot of them have chosen Surrey to be their home. Given that case, one would think I would end up in an Indian (or similar) restaurant, right? Well, not really! Although I have not really blogged any Indian restaurants yet, it is not because I don’t like their; rather it is because going solo to an Indian restaurant is an odd experience. But, I promise I will do that soon, OK? Back to this post: the first place that caught my attention was Taste Nice Caribbean Restaurant.

I must also mention there was a reason why I ended up in this place. A couple of months ago, I visited Kiss Yo Mama, a Caribbean restaurant in Burnaby. I was awaiting for a chance to visit another similar restaurant to make some comparisons and Taste Nice gave me that opportunity.

When I arrived, I was hesitant to walk in. See, although there was an “Open” sign blinking, on the door there was their schedule saying it was not open on Sundays (the day I was there). Seeing there were some customers seated, I took my chances. Hey, the worst that could happen? Getting myself kicked? Nah… ^_^;

The restaurant is small: 4 booths plus the two tables in the picture above and the table I was seated. I have the odd theory it might be because of (1) the area and (2) because takeout/delivery seems to be what they emphasize more on. In fact, their weekday/regular schedule goes from noon to ~8:00 p.m. (depending on the day). Anyway, I am writing about this chance encounter (literally because this was their first Sunday open!). Oh, yeah, the other customers were seated in one of the booths.

Now, the food. For drinks, I ordered Ting, a grapefruit flavoured pop/soda, popular in the Caribbean. At $3, it is not cheap for pop/soda, specially for a 350mL bottle which tastes like Squirt. But, I am not making any judgment on that… And the entree was… Goat curry!

I find it funy I was not in an Indian restaurant in Surrey but ended up ordering a curry! At first, I was not sure if I would like it or not. The problem being that the curry sauce was thin, really thin. It was almost like a soup (if not slightly thinner). I quickly found out it was not such a bad idea. The rice (with beans in it) quickly absorbed the curry sauce, hence, thickening it slightly. The meat was a bit bone-y but had enough chunks. If I must complain about this place, there are two things I could mention: First is the vegetable, or lack of. Aside from the two slits of tomatoes, it was the curry and the rice. That’s it. My second “complain” would be the spiciness. I was expecting it a bit more “hot”. OK, there was hot sauce on the table but it is not the same when they add some spices while preparing the curry.

During my meal, a person identified as Nigel, walked by and started to chit-chat a little bit. He was quite friendly, making myself welcome. But, I must warn anybody who would go there: service is really laid back. In fact, despite the restaurant was almost empty, it took several minutes to fetch anything – in my case, I ended up walking to the cashier to pay after asking and waiting the bill for over 5 minutes.

Now to the main question: how was the food compared to Kiss Yo Mama? I would say it is not exactly the same. Food was good but I found Kiss Yo Mama’s slightly better. Only slightly, as in razor thin…

Kiss Yo Mama
4926 Imperial St
Burnaby, BC

To me, Jamaican cuisine is a paradox: it is familiar yet it is foreign at the same time. On one side, for dishes like patties, rice and beans (or rice and peas) and escoveitch fish, there is a Panamanian equivalent. On the other hand, you have jerk chicken, curry goat and ackee and saltfish, well, there are none. So, in a way, it is akin to have Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as a friend. With that in mind, I went to Kiss Yo Mama.

I will go straight to the point: it took me a couple of tries to finally eat in. No, it is not related to the location (it is near Metrotown), rather, it was their schedule. Officially, they are open from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. plus brunch on Sundays (11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.). However, in an occasion, it was closed without notice and, in another, it was not locked but was told they were not going to have service that night. Call it odd if you want… Anyway, after a couple of attempts, I finally managed to eat in.

On the night I visited the place, there was only one person running the restaurant, Chef Liza Brown herself. Talk about streamlined operations… One thing I should mention though, the pictures above do not make a good representation of the decoration of the place. There were a lot of pictures of artists with Chef Brown. I thought I shouldn’t take picture of those…

Now, the food.

For drinks, I had Ting, a Jamaican soft-drink. The best way to describe it would be something similar to Squirt or Fresca. It was OK but not something I would order again.

A garden salad that came with my entree. It was OK, though I wish I had the option for vinagrete rather than the creamy, ranch-like dressing. Personal preference.

And some chips. Not much to talk about.

Finally, the main item… Goat curry, which comes with a piece of bread, rice and peas and a slice of watermelon. Oh, notice that reddish sauce at the bottom right of the plate? That’s hot sauce! Just in case, a close-up of the curry goat and rice and peas…

The food was excellent. Though a bit bone-y, it was really tasty. The bread was really soft and served well to soak the left-over curry. The rice and peas was similar to the rice and beans I had in Panama and, despite how it looks, it was not dry at all. Both the hot sauce and the curry were hot! I was sweating bullets when I finished the meal.

Overall, I really enjoyed the meal. It had some really interesting flavours and brought some memories. If I have to find a problem with my meal, I will have to say it is the price. At $14.50, I will not call it a cheap meal (nor $3 for the glass of Ting). Feel free to call me cheap if you want; is the fact I have similar dishes in Panama (rice, beans and beef) for cheap. Would I come back? Not sure! At this point, there are other Jamaican restaurants I want to try and will decide after that.