Great Wall Mongolian BBQ
717 Denman Street
Vancouver, BC
I have bashed at times the all-you-can-eat concept a little bit too much at times. You have to admit it: How much “quality” you can provide when you charge a fix price and there is almost no limit as to how much a diner can eat? OK, sure, hotel buffets charge an arm and a leg and the food can be quite good. But, then, they have mastered it to a certain extent. For the rest, it is a matter of balance things out: calculate based on the average case scenario (though leaning towards the worst case scenario) and hoping most of the customers won’t consume as much.
With that in mind, PO and I went one day to Great Wall Mongolian BBQ (name of the restaurant) for Mongolian BBQ (type of cuisine). The twist in this case is that you fill up a bowl with different meats, vegetables and noodles. Add some sauce and it is then cooked for you on a large griddle. What’s so funny about this? Because Mongolian BBQ (the cuisine), despite the pamphlet they provide explaining their cuisine, is neither Mongolian nor it is “BBQ”! Anyway, we were up for it…
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Tagged as:
BBQ,
Lunch,
Taiwanese,
Vancouver,
West End
White Tower
1359 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC
If you are looking for Greek food in Vancouver, you can pretty much go anywhere. Probably you might have favourites but, if you go around town, there will be one every dozen or so blocks. In the case of Downtown Vancouver, for most people, there is even a “default”: Stepho’s, a restaurant that, in a way, has mastered the art of generating enough volume of customers to make it possible for them to lower there prices to an almost ridiculous level – to an extent that people are willing to queue up just for a plate of Greek food. But, then again, there is Takis Taverna a couple of doors from Stepho’s. If you move to Denman, there is Olympia Pizza and Pasta and Maria’s Taverna. After walking so many times in Robson, I thought there might not be any… That was until a day, PO and I were looking for something quick in the area and we ended up going to a place I believe has been there forever: White Tower.
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Tagged as:
Chicken,
Downtown,
Greek,
Italian,
Lunch,
Pasta,
Vancouver,
West End
The Dish
1068 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC
There are times when we “lament” restaurants do not do homestyle cooking. But, then again, why should it? I mean, if you can cook it at home, chances are, you might not want to get it in a restaurant! However, that is assuming you belong to that culture… For us Chinese, it is the issue of where you were born (or your parents were born) but, overall, you can find Cantonese and more recently Shanghai, Taiwan and Beijing. Some regions… Well, that might be more difficult. But, how about Western style home cooking? Given that “meat-and-potatoes” stereotype, I guess it would be “easier” to tackle that concept. And that’s more or less what is served at The Dish (plus, given we are in Vancouver, the concept of being “good” food).
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Tagged as:
Lunch,
Vancouver,
West End
Donair Dude
1172 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC
Last week, I wrote this tweet:
Just noticed/realized something: There are a lot of shawarma shops open/opening soon in the West End! Boom of Middle Eastern food?
Years ago, when I was living in the West End, I remember only a handful of such Middle Eastern eateries. There was Falafel King (with a second location in Davie) and Mediterranean Grill. Now, there are a couple of Babylon Cafe locations, Donair King, Sammy’s Hot Wing (which, could fall into the category of being there a long time as well), etc. etc. So, when FOODgrl wrote about yet-another such shops – Donair Dude – I was wondering… Was there anything that would make them stand out from the rest? Yes there was…
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Tagged as:
Lunch,
Middle Eastern,
Vancouver,
West End
Dover Arms Pub
961 Denman Street
Vancouver, BC
Following my post on Wednesday on Fogg N’ Suds, on another day, PO and I were out for lunch and, once again, we chose to go to a place were you could watch the football games. Of course, in the West End, that translated into a pub. Instead of going to a place in Robson, we chose to Denman and that resulted in Dover Arms Pub, an English theme restaurant/pub. With such a large exterior location, I can’t help wonder myself why it has taken me so long to visit it!
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Tagged as:
Lunch,
Pork,
pub,
Vancouver,
West End
Akira Sushi
1069 Denman Street
Vancouver, BC
We have had this eternal debate of whether authenticity matters. In my case, I have started to move to the camp of “as long as it follows the principle of the cuisine and, most importantly, tastes good”. While I try to keep that in mind, there are times where old habits die hard. That’s part of the reason I have walked by hundreds of times by two sushi restaurants in Denman Street which are almost facing each other but haven’t gone back – because I knew they weren’t Japanese operated. However, after reading an article by Mia Stainsby, who writes the Word of Mouth for the Vancouver Sun, about one of these two restaurants serving “black sushi”, I thought, hey, why not! So, for lunch one day, I went to Akira Sushi.
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Tagged as:
Japanese,
Lunch,
Sushi,
Vancouver,
West End
ChongQing on Robson
1260 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC
Here is a random, obvious note: My user name, KimHo, is a shortened version of my full name, with “Kim” being my “generation” name. If you are not familiar with traditional Chinese names, that means that any siblings I have would also be called Kim (and, yes, my sister can also call herself “Kim Ho”; however, she never uses it so they are no arguments about it, not to mention, me being the eldest, I have first picks!). The actual given name part is the part I have “dropped” from my user name for the sake of most people: For most Western languages, the transcription of my Cantonese name is constructed in a weird grammatical way which results in > 90% not being able pronounce it correctly, to the point that most attempts to say it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard… (Sorry, English does not sound as sexy as Romance languages, though German at times sounds even worst than English!)
So, what that has to do with this post? Well, a lot of restaurants seem to have a really fancy/strange name in (a) attempt to promote its ethnic identity, which at times can backfire as it seem to distance the rest of the population (at times, that seems to happen to me with Korean restaurants), or (b) try to be too cute which can also backfire in odd ways (like some Pho places…). I mean, there is nothing wrong with odd names but please be mindful of the general market. And that brings the name of today’s restaurant, which, for a long time, I swore it was spelled Chongoing until I looked really closely and then realized it ChongQing. (You have to look really close to notice there is a red stroke on the letter that seems to be the O; the fact that trailing stroke is red on a dark background doesn’t really help).
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Tagged as:
Chinese,
Downtown,
Lunch,
Vancouver
