Mui Ngo Gai
2408 Nanaimo Street
Vancouver, BC
For quite some time already, I have wondered about dishes representatives of a culture. This is somewhat “important” because, when we go to an ethnic restaurant, we want to go there to have a taste of that culture. So, not sure how or why, in the case of Japanese, it ends up being sushi, though there is a showing of izakaya places lately. In the case of Greek, it shouts lamb. But similar to NY style pizza, chicago deep dish pizza (which, technically is a casserole), St Louis style or California style, each region has its unique version. So in a chain of emails with a reader who prefers not to comment, she made a note that “whenever you (as in food bloggers in general) go to a Vietnamese restaurant, you always end up ordering pho or bánh mì and, in-lieu, we should give bún bò hue a try instead. While I have unknowingly tried it once in Pho Maxima, when I went to Mui Ngo Gai, I consciously decided to give this dish a try instead. So, would it change my thoughts of pho and start ordering this other dish instead (if available)?
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Tagged as:
Pho,
Soup,
Vietnamese
Giovane
1038 Canada Place
Vancouver, BC
For some reason, embedded in my head is that concept that most hotel restaurants are… Well, disappointed. Of course, given that I travel on a budget, the hotels I end up staying aren’t necessarily a five star hotel; instead, they are usually your regular hotel chains, i.e., Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton, et al. And, then again, even if they have fancy locations, I seldom end up staying in those. After all, why should I? If travelling on business, it is my customer’s money, not to mention I spend the whole day at the customer’s site; if it is leisure, chances are I am only there to sleep and some basic necessities.
But, even when I stay in the “fancier” locations of those hotel chains, more often than not, the food has been average at best. But, then again, Fairmont is a luxury hotel chain so comparing them to the other chains might be akin to comparing apples to oranges. With that in mind, I went to Giovane, the “cafeteria” located in the recently opened Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel and little sibling to Oru, the main restaurant in the hotel. Hey, I wasn’t in mood to fork big bucks to Oru, given the mixed feedback!
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Tagged as:
Eggs,
Hotel,
Italian,
Sandwich,
Soup,
Vancouver
The One Restaurant
5908 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC
On Tuesday’s “bonus” post, I showed some pictures of “interesting” dishes and hinted they will be for next week. I am sure some of you suspect what is coming but (and probably) overstating the obvious, yes, I was out of town. OK, let me rephrase that: I was out of the country/North America. But, as usual, there is that “last meal” concept, a place you might want to visit before leaving town. In my case, there was no particular reason for going out and getting something to eat (which, by now is not necessarily and excuse). Instead, I was too lazy to do dishes and throw the garbage afterwards… So, in this instance of laziness, I chose to visit one place that I suggested Anita the day we ended up going to Burgoo: The One Restaurant (TOR), which is a fork of a Burnaby favourite – Lao Shan Dong (LSD). The question is of course whether it lives up to its roots…
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Tagged as:
Burnaby,
Chicken,
Chinese,
Late Night,
Noodles,
Soup
Huaxi Noodle
2126 – 4500 Kingsway
Crystal Mall
Burnaby, BC
Chong Lee Market Kitchen
3308 E 22nd Avenue
Vancouver, BC
This was supposed to be two short post but I thought, rather than two short posts, how about having a longer one, specially considering these two places shared some things in common? Namely, me needing a meal; however, I wasn’t THAT hungry? OK, that might be an overstatement… Basically, I had a somewhat heavy meal earlier that day and needed a snack/light meal. And based on posts from other fellow bloggers, I thought I should drop by Huaxi Noodle (in Crystal Mall’s food court) and Chong Lee Market…
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Tagged as:
Burnaby,
Chinese,
Food Court,
Noodles,
Sandwich,
Soup,
Vancouver,
Vietnamese
Bernie’s Balkan Kitchen
7340 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC
In the last couple of weeks, I have been going to Edmonds area for some errands. It is both good and bad – if you go a bit past Highgate to the east, there isn’t much to see. If you go the other ways, specially north east and west, there are some interesting places to go, like Lhy Thai. On one of these errands, I decided to stop in a place that I have meant to go for some time: Bernie’s Balkan Kitchen. However, due to their odd schedule, it has been in to go list for a while. But, one day… 
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Tagged as:
Burnaby,
European,
Soup
Le Petit Saigon
2783 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
Let me put this one out right away: the fact that my last post prior to my trip to Florida happens to be Vietnamese and the first post afterwards is also Vietnamese, not to mention they are located a block or so away from each other is pure coincidence. I just happened to be in the same area for the same reason and, rather than go to the same place again, I though “hey, let’s go somewhere else!”. So, there you go, that’s why I ended up in Le Petit Saigon.
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Tagged as:
Lunch,
Noodles,
Soup,
Vancouver,
Vietnamese
Angkor Restaurant
4884 Victoria Drive
Vancouver, BC
First, an apology to reader Annie. See, some time ago, when I wrote about Takarabune, Annie mentioned it was her neighborhood and mentioned about other good eats in the area. However, when I found a possible good eats, rather than dropping an email to meet at that place, I chose to go on my own… -_-;;; Still, there was another issue: is Angkor Restaurant really a good eats place to begin with? I guess it would have been safer to go by myself, then… 
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Tagged as:
Cambodian,
Chicken,
Soup,
Vancouver
