Bob Likes Thai Food
3755 Main Street
Vancouver, BC

We have had discussions about authenticity for a long time. How important is it? Does it matter if it is authentic is people enjoy the resulting dish? Over the last couple of years, my perception has changed: If people is enjoying it, I think that some leeway can be given. But, at times, when the modified version is a hacked job that you simply can’t help but shake your head. Such is case with Thai food, specifically Pad Thai. For the longest, we have “complained” a lot of restaurants serving Thai food making that dish using catsup rather than tamarind sauce; but, would people “know” any better? In fact, what if a restaurant make it the original version. Would people accept it for what it is? With that in mind, I kept hearing about Bob Likes Thai Food and that meant I should drop by one of these days…

Yes, you have to wonder where that name comes from. I myself didn’t inquire but, regardless of its origin, if I were to ask myself “do I like Thai food?”, the answer would be, for the most part, yes! Of course, I have made only dent on some stereotypical ones, from their pad see ew or pad thai to curries and so on so that “yes” might not necessarily be 100% true… But, in the end, and as usual, it is me falling back to what I ordered in this visit rather than generalizing to everything in their ethnic culture.

Arriving at Bob’s, I had some odd feeling about it’s location. For one, given the buzz, I was expecting this restaurant to be closer to the “usual suspects” area (Downtown, Gastown, Yaletown, Kits) but this is located instead in Main Street, near King Edward Ave. But, not only that, I have been to this place before. As in way back before it was Bob Likes Thai Food. Instead, I visited this locale when it was City Temple of Shanghai! When I arrived – around lunchtime on a weekday – I found it odd it was almost empty. Again, given it’s location, should I be surprised? Again, if it was closer to “the usual suspect” places…

Moving to the food, despite I was by myself, I started off with an appetizer. Here, their satay, off their “regular” menu. For $4.5, you get two chicken skewers with their peanut sauce. In the grander perspective of things, this can’t be considered a cheap appetizer but, at the end of the day, the major question would be: is it good? And in this case, it was sort of middle of the road. First, I would have preferred dark meat. There was a visible char and good coconut hint behind it. The peanut sauce was a bit of a mixed blessing. It added some different type of nuttiness compared to the coconut; however, at the same time, I thought it was a bit too sweet. In the end, I am not sure if I were to order it again…

Given all the “noise” about Pad Thai, it was destined I would order that dish, right? So, here it is from their lunch menu ($7.50 from their lunch menu). At first, I thought it would be carbs only; however, they added some side salad as well as fried wonton skin. This last one was a bit of an oddity but I will take it for what it is. The only “bad’ part was that it was a bit too oily. Then again, given I wasn’t expecting it…

As for the Pad Thai itself… Starting off with the consistency of the noodles, it came out drier to others, which I thought was a good starting point. I did feel a light pungent taste; just wasn’t sure if it was due to the tamarind or fish sauce or other ingredient(s). And, based on the picture, everything was there: tofu was there, shrimp was there, peanuts were there and so on. However, for some odd reason, something didn’t work. It was as if the ingredients didn’t “meld” together. Was it better than the catsup-y Pad Thai? Yup, from that perspective it was; just that it felt slightly short.

Then again, it begs the major question… Short (or better) compared to what? Given the yardstick is a bit of a blur (Khunnai Chang and Thai Basil, for instance), the answer will be extremely relative to my personal tastes. As for Bob, I feel it is a place I would do a revisit, not to mention I saw several dishes from their regular menu I would like to give try. And, if I were in the area around lunch time, I actually won’t mind, considering price seemed right (for lunch dishes).

Green Basil
4623 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

Finally, back to Vancouver! OK, not really, aside from this post being from Burnaby, the visit to Green Basil occurred way before my trip to San Francisco. In other words, this post is about a place over a month ago! Under normal circumstances, I might have as well scratched it; however, there was a particular reason I kept it: I went there with a group of ex-colleagues and ordered one of their combos. While the individual dishes could be ordered separately, it was the question of the combined execution.

Now, here are some initial details as to why here: it just happens one of my ex-colleagues was coming all the way from Surrey, which a baby in a stroller. Asking her to go all the way to Downtown would have been an issue. And then there is the fact that another ex-colleague husband (TB) is your steak-and-potatoes type of person, though starting to enjoy Thai. And given I am the “restaurant expert” (not sure how that came to be), I had to come up with a place to suit all these needs. Metrotown was a place that would work, given it is sort of accessible to everybody and Green Basil over Thai House (among others) because it was a test for TB.

After we all arrived, we were a bit more interesting in catching up; however, we had to take a decision on what to order. Given it was six of us (plus the baby who was sleeping for the most part), their combo for six took away any decision taking process of individual dishes. So, to start off…

Beef lettuce wrap. Sorry, didn’t take a picture of the (iceberg) lettuce used to make the wrap. The mix was OK, with a good contrast of the meat and crunchy vegetables; however, considering this is not necessarily a difficult one to make, I will given them credit instead for not messing it up!

The seafood combo appetizer had shrimp cake, fish cake, fried prawn and calamari. I ended up cutting these into pieces for everybody to share. The fish cake ended up being the least favourite of all due to texture and taste: there was none. The next one on the list was the shrimp cake which again due to texture. The prawns and the calamari were better received. The only complain would have been fried over fried but, in the end, it is what it is.

Stir-fried prawns with seasonal vegetables in Thai black bean sauce. Here is where things started to go sideways. I am not sure about you but aside from it looking horrible, this looked something on the lines you would in Kent’s Kitchen (despite it is being a “Thai” dish, it looks more on the lines of a Chinese dish). Actually, Kent’s Kitchen might be better! Now, it wasn’t necessarily that it was wrong, but, for a sit down restaurant in Vancouver with so many Asian restaurants, I thought this could be better. As for the dish itself, prawns were OK and the vegetable were crunchy. It just didn’t mix very well or worked together.

Green curry ostrich with eggplant, green basil, lychee, green beans and coconut milk. I will have to say that most Thai curry seldom goes wrong and that applies here as well. Now, I am not sure if it really had ostrich but the crunchy vegetables and the sweet curry worked well for all of us.

Pad thai – or as they have it listed, phat thai noodle with shrimp, scallops, ground peanuts and bean sprouts in tamarind sauce. For the most part, it was OK: the texture was there, the ingredients were there, except for one… The tamarind sauce. Sorry, it still tasted like the catsup based ones, as it was on the sweet, tomato-ey side.

Stir fried pork with fresh mushroom, onions and chopped ginger. This once again falls in the same category as the Thai black bean sauce stir fry above: Nothing wrong with the dish, though a bit more wok-hei would have been “better”; however, it once again made me wonder about Kent’s Kitchen… :/

And yet another stir fry dish: stir fried chicken with cashew nuts and Thai chili sauce. I might be repeating myself a bit too much here but the execution again is more on the lines of Chinese. Could it be the excessive fillers in the form of celery, pepper or onion? I know, I know, there is supposed to be a Thai version just that it just felt something… Chinese?

Out of dishes that went sideways, it didn’t work because it was too similar to the Chinese versions and, as such, I had to draw that comparison. If it was different, I would have accepted it better. But, given that wasn’t the case, it didn’t work for me. However, there is one more important question: For my steak-and-potato guest, did he liked it? Actually, he ate everything, not a single complain which surprised us a little bit. Given that that was a victory by itself, I will leave it at that. As for me… Nah.

Sala Thai
3364 Cambie Street
888 Burrard Street (Location visited)
Vancouver, BC

After weeks of travelling, it was time to meet once again with former co-workers. After all, never burn the bridges! The fact we were all working in the Downtown Vancouver area, made things slightly easier; however, there was still the usual question… Where? Given my reluctance of going to places like Cactus Club or Joey’s made things slightly more “difficult” (as it is usually a safe option, thought safe might not necessarily work for me). That threw a wrench to the organizer but, eventually, a place was decided: Sala Thai.

This is not my first personal experience in Sala Thai. I have been here previously but didn’t blog about it for several reasons. However, there was some level of expectations, considering it is supposed to be a relatively good place for Thai. Still, what to order? In the end, we decided that every one would choose a dish and, in our usual way, share the dishes. But, of course, before going to the food, we have drinks.

Penang Island and Iced Coffee. I won’t say much about the Penang Island, other it was the drink special of the day. I simply wasn’t in the mood of alcoholic drinks… As for the iced coffee, it was actually quite decent. It was sweet but not extremely overly so and you could taste some coffee in it. It was OK just to set the mood for the rest of the meal.

In addition to all our dishes, we also ordered tom yum soup (chicken version) to share. It had a strong lemon grass taste to start follow by some light acidic tones. Our Korean companion, who is a Thai food neophyte, was slightly caught off guard by this combination of flavours but, otherwise, thought it was good. As for myself, I am not necessarily a big fan of it but, oh, well. I think I would rather not say much!

Given we were in a Thai restaurant, I thought we should order this: Pad Thai. However, in the confusion of who orders what, somebody decided to order this instead. Why there was the need to order this? A yardstick! Now, unfortunately, in that confusion, it seems the “wrong” one was ordered. See, they have two version of Pad Thai, the “regular” one seen above and one called Pad Thai Chao Wang – An original noodle dish using ingredients of the Thai palace. Stir-fried rice noodles with tiger prawns, tofu, bean sprouts and tamarind sauce accompanied by sliced egg, chives and ground peanut. Aside from using prawns vs. tiger prawns, the major difference would be that, here, it makes a specific mention of tamarind sauce. I make emphasis on this particular note because I thought this Pad Thai was average. Now, it does have some high points; for example, it had a sticky consistency without that catsup taste. However, I simply can’t avoid saying that I have had better Pad Thai. The main issue here is that, given this is supposed to be a highly regarded Thai place, average simply does not cut it.

Moving along, we ordered green curry, which, in an odd note, was served with these two bundles of noodle. For the most part, the curry was well received, though the noodles weren’t much so. As per the staff suggestion, we would to dump them; however, that resulted in really sloppy noodles and dampened the flavours a little bit. Next time, just stick with the curry.

In lieu of the Pad Thai, I ended up ordering larb – minced beef, pork or chicken tossed with toasted chilies, grounded roasted rice, onion & mint leaves in limejuice served with lettuce (In this case, pork). While my dining companions refused to tell me, this dish wasn’t a hit with them, most likely due to the nature of the dish or its view. It is almost as if serving the dish this way was foreign to them! Of course, if you have a table with Westerners, I would happily accept that explanation… Except that, in the table, we had a Malay, Korean, Japanese and myself. In other words, we should have a better appreciation/understanding of dishes like this. Anyway, as for me, I thought it was cooked fine; however, I wished it had some more acidity to it. Acquired taste?

Finally, Poh Tun – Seafood combinations of fish, squid, tiger prawns and mussels sautéed with chili paste oil, bell peppers, onions, basil leaves & served on a sizzling plate. For the most part, the seafood was OK but I couldn’t tell there was anything outstanding. The fish was cooked fine but nothing else; the shell fish was there but, again, nothing else. Now, as for sizzling, that might be a misnomer. Unless I completely overlooked the first 30 seconds, I couldn’t hear or smell such action.

After we finished them meal and we were talking about other stuff, that’s when we realized something: at no time, we were asked about the spiciness level of the dishes. That’s when I realized that, when our order was taken, at no moment we were asked about spiciness and what not. So, that begs the question: did they believe we couldn’t take it? Regardless of the possible answer, I thought it was a bit subpar. As mentioned above, I didn’t believe it was better than some other cheaper (and less hyped) places. In fact, I would rather go to Thai Basil a couple of blocks away. While a really smaller place, at least, I preferred the dishes there a bit more. At least, it is way better than Thai House…

Nong’s Khao Man Gai
SW 10th and Alder Street
Portland, OR

In a way, it was doomed to happen. Given my (somewhat unfair?) comparison of street food from outside North American to the ones in North America, it was almost certain that I had to visit an Asian one for comparison sake. And that brought the eternal question of… Which one(s)? I mean, given that the US can be as multi-cultural as Canada and, in part, I didn’t want to disappoint, I kept looking and looking around. While searching in other sites (Urbanspoon included), all of them seemd to point to two locations: Koi Fusion, which served Tex-Mex dishes with a Korean twish (take that Roaming Dragon, you are NOT the first! ) and Nong’s Khao Man Gai, a cart that sells one and only one dish. While I am sure a lot of you would think that Koi Fusion would have been a better choice (due to a direct comparison with Roaming Dragon), the fact is that I wanted instead showcase what street food ought to be. And, in that case, Nong’s Khao Man Gai was a better option.

I was quite fortunate to go there on a sunny day. The days prior to my visit were a bit gloomy (nothing wrong with that) but a sunny day provides better light conditions! Now, I am not talking about direct sunlight – for comparison purposes, check the ones I took in Mississippi Marketplace (yesterday’s post), where all the pictures of the food were take in such conditions. I am referring to those where you have some form of natural shading to diffuse the light. And, hey, it was mild, it was sunny, what better conditions to be outside for lunch!

The good part was that I arrived at around 11:45 a.m. I parked a block away and could easily see them. What I wasn’t prepared was the line that already formed. C’mon, I know that a lot of people choose to go for lunch “early” to beat the lunch rush but this was starting to get ridiculous! Of course, it might be also due to the fact that Nong’s Khao Man Gai has a really interesting set of hours: while the opening hours were set to be at 10:00 a.m. on weekdays and 12:00 on Saturday, their closing time were not set. Rather, in a true Asian street food fashion, until you run out of ingredients! I guess that added another incentive to be there early enough.

So, after I queued, I had a small wait and there was Nong herself taking orders in a heavily accented English. I will have to admit, for such a thin petite woman, she can certainly command the people inside that 8×8 cart! What was really hilarious though was what followed. At one time, she had to step away for a moment and her second was in charge of the kitchen. Well, nothing wrong with that. Except that is, they were talking in Spanish! Now, I am not being bias or stereotyped or anything. Instead, I will give them kudos. Despite all it is being said about them, you can’t deny they provide a huge percentage of the workforce, specially those that people otherwise won’t do. Now, I am not saying other race/ethnic groups do not do their part: just that the Latino community is more noticeable than the rest. And, the fact that Nong (according to the site, she is Thai) is another example that proves the case. And now, to the food!

First the drink. Now, I could have easily survived with some bottled water I have in the car (hint: always keep some bottles of water in the trunk of your car), I said “why not!”. So, here is their lychee drink. It was OK, not something I will necessarily be crazy about. At least, it wasn’t crazy sweet!

I mentioned above they serve one and only one dish. Here, their Khao Man Gai or, as Nong puts it, chicken and rice. If you have had Hainanese Chicken Rice, you pretty much have an idea of what to expect here. I apologize for not taking a picture of it in wrapped state (yup, it is not served in a container, just wrapped in butcher paper!). This is one of the few cases I was a bit too excited and opened it right away rather than take the picture first. And, while they serve only one dish, they do have some additions, like chicken liver (hey, you are cooking the whole chicken anyway. You might as well server everything!) and, on that day, fried chicken skin (alas, I didn’t noticed it until after I ordered). Also, they serve it in two sizes: a “regular” size and piset which is more of everything. I ended ordering the later.

The order came also with an order of soup on the side which is mostly a broth. It would be a bit difficult to me to describe it as I gulped it relatively fast. I know I was a glutton when I did it; however, I blame it to the fact I was partially choking myself while eating and the soup was closer than the lychee drink at that moment! (Yeah, shame on me). Still, it does follow the same lines my mom did whenever she prepared white cut chicken or Hainanese Chicken Rice: have a side soup along.

Now, back to the main dish. The cucumber I will have to say it was token, nothing wrong with that. If you choose not to eat it, well, nobody will say anything. The liver was dry as expected; however, it wasn’t extremely dry. Now, it is a bit of an acquired taste (probably “metallic” would be my best description) so, if you don’t like liver (and I am not talking foei gras), you will not like this. The good thing is that, if you don’t, just tell them and they will add more chicken!

I made mention above of Hainanese Chicken Rice and you can have an idea of what to expect, i.e. poached chicken. In my case, a direct comparison on my side can’t be avoided. For one, their dipping sauce was almost sweet (despite they mention it is spicy), which contrasts the often ginger-y, almost spicy tones of the dipping sauce used served with the Hainanese Chicken Rice. And despite I got two such sauce containers, I only used half of one – the chicken was good enough on its own. The chicken was tender and moist; however, I would have preferred the chicken a bit more rare. I know some of you might be looking at me strange right now. Rare chicken? Salmonella?! I am not saying rare in that sense, rather the chicken was cooked slightly past a certain point I prefer. I will assume it was done that way as a cover-your-ass safeguard in the case somebody does get sick. So, from that perspective, better safe than sorry approach work for me. Finally, the rice… Given that it is a staple for several Asian countries, different likes/dislikes have certainly developed depending on the region. For me, I have sort of a “depends on the dish I will be eating it with” but, in the case of Hainanese Chicken Rice, I prefer them slightly broken so that, when I put a piece of chicken dipped in the sauce on the rice, it can easily soak that sauce. Here, the rice was a bit more on the whole grain side. In fact, it still had a slight bite to it. Even then, the rice was quite fragrant and easily eaten. So, while not my top choice, it was still good.

Given the limited seats, when I got my order, I asked somebody who was seated by himself if I could join him. He certainly let me. At that point, the somewhat inquisitive nature of me kicked in and asked how he liked his. He said he really enjoyed it and the fact that he is new to the area (moved a couple of months later) but he has been coming here with certain frequency sort of tells me what I needed to know. And the long queues that was formed outside was just confirming it. To me, Nong’s Khao Man Gai does indeed showcase what I believe street food should be: One, probably two or three, dish(es) made well. Though, it wasn’t the cheapest meal (the regular is at $6, piset for $10), it is still relatively cheap given the amount of food provided and how good it was. For that reason, I will certainly come back without much hesitation (other than the ~650 Km drive from Vancouver to Portland).

Pattaya Thai
406 Sixth Street
New Westminster, BC

It makes me wonder at times what is the general perception of the general readership about blogs. This is specially considering when I was personally attacked in two posts because my “lack of knowledge” on the subject. The funny thing is that I have never claimed expertise! (Even funnier is the fact some points in the comments are plain incorrect). Of course, that does not give me a free pass to freely say what I want, instead, I want readers to held me accountable, as I have mentioned previously. Of course, as long as you don’t go calling names, everything is fair game. With that in mind, that brings the question, what are the standards of printed publications? For example, when Karl wrote about Pattaya Thai, an editor from a local magazine attacks him. I have know Karl for some time and, while we might disagree on some things, I will have to also say he has really interesting insight and opinions about the food – and I respect him for that. But, still I knew I had to visit this restaurant and find out by myself what is so “special” about it. And that opportunity came when Sherman‘s hockey team (who, other than “Gadget Girl”, I won’t even try to list their names, on that note, Sherman’s post is here!) went there one night and checked with me to see if I wanted to tag along.

Given that I had a heads up notice of place and time, it won’t be a surprise I arrived first and snatched the parking spot right in front of the restaurant. And, indeed, it is a small place. Given Sherman’s team had already made reservations in advance, it was just a matter for me to look for the largest tables they set up together. The rest of the restaurant? It was mostly booths for 4 adults at most. Interestingly, if your party is greater than four, they may put a regular table next to it to “fit” the additional customers. Anyway, once Sherman’s team arrived, it was time to check for the food and drinks and what not.

Thai Iced Coffee to the left; Thai Ice Tea to the right.

Considering my recent dinners meals with Victoria, our Vancouver Thai food expert, there has been some dishes/drinks I wanted to try ever since and, in this case, I started off with Thai iced tea. OK, this drink might be almost a staple but, let’s just say, prior to me meeting here, I wouldn’t have really thought about it. In this case, it was OK. If I had to compare it to the one I had in Tangthai, this one would be inferior. At least, it didn’t have that extremely sugary taste as the one in Thai House… And, probably not to be outdone, Emily asked for Thai iced coffee. For the most part, it was about the same but, rather than a more subtle tea taste, it had a coffee taste. It was also OK…

Now, here is the reason why I made mention of a printed publication earlier this post. According to Vancouver Magazine’s, Best Things to Eat and Drink – 2009 edition, Pattaya Thai’s prawn and crab roll is the number 1 item. At $10 for four rolls (we ended ordering two orders so everybody in the party had one), these are not cheap and expectations were high. The end result? Epic fail. First of all, if you compare the one we were served compared to the ones served for VanMag, you will see the shrimp tail is barely noticeable, which made me wonder about the shrimp count used here. After breaking it apart, I think I saw one little piece of it. But… But… No crab meat on sight… With a bit of skepticism, I took one bite and the only thing I was able to taste was the cream cheese… Take another bite just to double check. Once again, cream cheese. I am sorry guys… True, the spring roll was well constructed (i.e., retained is shape and it was hot, etc.); however, past that, I don’t think there was anything else positive worth saying to try to justify a $2.50/piece spring roll. Please, do not bring the price issue here. I had $3/piece spring roll at Spices and I thought they were actually good… Moving on to the rest of the menu.

As in my previous trips to Thai restaurants with Victoria, here is a dish she has ordered in the past which I would only order if there was a large group (as, I was certain the others will order the more well known fare): Larb Moo. Compared to the ones I had in Thaitang, they were pretty much the same, though here I did not notice as much pungency. That is when it hit me: Victoria added fish sauce to it. Since we already ate half of it already, I wasn’t sure if asking for it by then would be a great idea. Oddly, most people chose take only token scoops “just to taste” it. I wonder if there was another reason why they didn’t seem too keen on trying it… >_<

Moving on to other dishes, we have two stir fries – Pad Cashew Nuts, the first dish; and Pad Gra Prao, the second dish – and to tell you the truth, either we messed up by ordering dishes with somewhat similar descriptions or there was a lost in translation here. If you took out that cashews from the first dish and the thai basil from the second one, they would end up being your basic stir fry. To composite the problem, I didn’t find anything exciting about them. The one part that I found strange was the “doneness” level of the onions: it still had some bite to it, which indicates they wre not completely cooked through. In fact, some decided to leave the onions aside for that reason.

One somewhat odd dish was the pineapple rice. I call it odd because, well, it is odd! OK, that is no real explanation. Instead, this dish reminded me of eating fried rice with catsup. Feel free to call it wacky but that is what I though: regular fried rice with some sweet overtone thanks to the pineapple finished by some “wetness” provided by a sweet tomato like sauce. Meh in my books…

And then there were the curries. While this group was more adventurous that the group that went to Azia, they were still not willing to go all-in with some dishes. In this case, they asked the curries to be made mild, rather than having it hurt-me-bad spicy hot. As a result, I can’t say I really enjoyed it as some tones were a bit mute but, then, I won’t blame the restaurant for it. While I could live with that, the fact it was more vegetables than the meat was a bit disappointing. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not asking for a meat stew; however, when you have to mix it around just to find two or three significant pieces to take a picture, there is something skewed here.

Pad Thai (top) and Pad see iew (bottom). The pad thai was a bit bland, though, once again, I am not sure if it was because we ask for it mild. While the doneness of the rice noodles were good (slightly past al-dente but I can live with that in this dish), I found it a bit uninspiring. At least the pad see iew worked better, as the colour actually translated into some flavour.

And one dish to make it “different”: garlic pork. The best way to describe it would be stir fried pork with some garlic (or garlic sauce) over a bed of cabbage. Nothing too exotic and wished it had more wok hei notes to the pork. It wasn’t bad, just that it wasn’t good either.

While I can give them some slack on some of the dishes because they were asked mild, the execution of the rest of them were… Dubious for the lack of better word. But, my main pet peeve is that of the shrimp crab spring roll which they even have listed in their website and frontpage. If they were making so much fuzz, better be prepared to support it. In this case, the buzz given to them was exaggerated. Overall, there are some opportunities for improvement but given the current choices, Pattaya Thai is far from the top.

As for Vancouver Magazine, tell me guys, was it the same dish??? C’mon, really???? Did we eat the same dish?????

Thai Basil
1215 Thurlow Street
Vancouver, BC

I am not sure if it is a good thing or bad thing that I don’t tell people I do food blogging. Yes, unlike other fellow bloggers, I prefer not to “broadcast” what I do on the sides. Of course, there are times that is unavoidable, for example, PO is well aware of what I do. A similar case is EP, whom I have been friends with for a long time already. And, because I helped him finish a collection plus getting him some tickets, he invited me for lunch. Unlike other type of invitations (read: PR from restaurants), this was out of gratitude so no strings attached. Originally, he wanted to go to Shabusen in Burrard. However, when we arrived early without reservations, we were turned away. (Yes, it was a WTF?! situation). In the end, walking to Davie Street (with Stepho’s in mind), I did a quick check in my head and went to Thai Basil instead.

This is one of those places that are near main streets but you can easily pass by hundred of times without noticing it is there. So, how come I knew about it? Thanks to Mijune and this post she wrote some time ago… Since it sounded like agood deal, I thought, it would be a good option for Stepho’s. Since we arrived for lunch, EP ordered from their lunch menu. In my case… Well, more about that in a moment. Anyway, we started with some appetizers first:

I don’t think I saw a open gas grill; instead, I saw something similar to a panini grill. Oh, well, I guess that is a reasonable substitute. As for these, they were nicely cooked, though I wished it has something more in the chicken itself. Sure, the sauce did add some sense of nuttiness and sweetness; just that I wanted something else. Still, these would be something I would order.

EP ordered the Pad See Iew (or pad see eew or whichever way you prefer to spell it). While the salad was plain, it had a nice dressing on top. Still, not much to comment. It is a plain salad at the end of the day. As for the noodles, these were actually quite well cooked. It still retained some bite but, in a sort of contradiction, it still had some stickiness associated to the starch released. And, the best part was that there was a bit of wok hei characteristics. Overall, I thought these were nicely prepared.

As for myself, I would have ordered pad thai or something like a curry. However, rather than ordering that, I went for something that Mijune highly suggested: Pad Gra Pao (or Pad Kra Pao). The description from Mijune was a bit odd but, that works for me! What about that description? “Stir fried minced chicken, garlic, & holy basil served with a fried egg on a bed of rice“. They didn’t ask me how I wanted the egg and, while I would have preferred a runnier egg to mix it with the rice, it was still good to balance the minced chicken. On the note of the chicken, it had some strong peppery notes (from the holy thai basil) and some noticeable garlic taste. That was a really good stir fried minced chicken! The only part I was a bit disappointed with was the sauce; I wished it was slightly drier (or a thicker sauce). Still, this is something I would easily overlook without any problem.

All in all, EP quite enjoyed the food and so was I. It is a small cramped location and slightly out of the way but, still, we both thought that walk there was worth it. The only “problem” is the space: if it is full, chances are you might end up ordering takeout which impacts on the stir-fried items. Of course, I could as well order take out and eat it just across the street!

Royal City Thai
634 Columbia Street
New Westminster, BC

The first time we met Karl (of The Friday Lunch) was at the bò 7 món (beef seven ways) in Thai Hang. Being the good fellow blogger he is, when he was aware of a new Thai restaurant in New Westminster, he decided to check with Jessica, Sherman and myself if we wanted to give it a try. Hey, food? I am there!

Aside from it being in New Westminster, in my opinion, a place that can have good eats but you must know where to look (Burger Burger, Burger Heaven, Ki Sushi, et al), it was the fact they offer buffet lunch on Saturdays and Sundays. What?! All-you-can-eat? In a way, this is the first time I heard of a Thai restaurant offering this so I was curious as well.

When we arrived, there was something “not right” about the buffet part: there wasn’t any hot plates outside! Instead, we found out they prepare each individual dish you order. I am certain this generates a lot of overhead; however, from a customer perspective, at least that provides some guarantee the food will be fresh. Once all of us arrived, we made one thing that we never thought we would do in a restaurant: we ordered everything (literally) in the menu! Given that there were 5 of us (plus Sherman’s little daughter), we were sure we would be able to tackle that easily there 15 dishes available. And, we started with…

(Sidenote, Sherman and I make a swap here: all the food pictures below were taken with *his* Canon XSi. If some pictures look strange/different/odd, that is because I was in the process of changing camera settings.)

Tom Kah Gai – hot and sour soup with coconut milk, galanga, lemon grass and mushroom. Gai (chicken). Now, I am not a Thai food expert but I am sure this is your normal Tom Yum soup, given the comparison between the description and what was served. This is because I don’t think there was any coconut milk at all, instead the pungency I am more used to in the tom yum. Regardless, it was an interesting way to start off things.

They have a set of appetizers type dishes and this is their calamari. I wished they were using smaller ones rather than these. That is because I prefer the crunchy tentacle side rather than the ring side. Regardless, these were not cooked fine without any hint of it being rubbery. Unfortunately, I wished they added something (herbs, spices, et al) to the flour mixed they used before frying them, as it was a bit on the bland side.

Spring rolls. These were quite interesting, as they were quite well packed. It had a mix of noodles, cabbage and carrots, which works fine. Not necessarily the best but workable.

There is one additional dish we also had but it seems I don’t have a picture of it and that was the chicken wings. They were better seasoned than the calamari and well fried. It was quite good to the point we ordered a second (big) plate!

I guess they had to have some salad and this is their dish. It was decent but, given it is just putting some raw vegetables together, and some dressing, that is all I can say.

Since the curries can be ordered in three types – yellow, red and green – plus different types of meats – pork, beef, chicken or mixed veggies – I will admit that I got confused with the three. For some reason, some of the characteristics of some of the curries didn’t really develop, like the sweetness and spiciness of the green, the creaminess of the yellow and so on. Now, I liked them, just that, colour aside, I had problems telling them apart from a taste perspective. The collective thought was that, to try to satisfy the masses, they dumbed down them a little bit which resulted in similar dishes.

Pad Bai Grapao (basil) or Pad Khing (ginger), again with the same option of chicken, pork or beef for meat. Probably because I wasn’t paying attention, I don’t recall if it was one or the other (or I didn’t take a picture of the “other”). My best guess is that this is the pad bai grapao given it had basil in it. I will have to say this is almost your standard stir-fry, though they did manage to cook the meat very well, aka, certain degree of wok hei – the meat was caramelized yet it was still tender.

Chili Pepper Fried Rice with vegetables and egg. Not sure about the egg part but there was vegetables. Now, I thought it was odd baby corn and cabbage out of all possible veggies. I guess cost might be an issue here. Regardless, there wasn’t that much of egg I could tell but I liked how the rice was able to retain the shape. It wasn’t bad but, then again, it is fried rice…

Sorry, I took this picture after it was, ahem, “attacked”. Here we have Gai Pad Namman – boneless chicken with seasonal vegetable, pineapple and black bean sauce. Once again, similar to the Pad Bai Grapao/Pad Khing mentioned above, this was your regular stir fry, though the sweetness of the pineapple was odd.

Pad See-Iew. Now, there is reason why there are two pictures here: in the second “round” we asked to kick it up a notch and asked for them to make it extra spicy. Hence, the reason the second picture has some chili peppers in it. It was when I was eating the second version that I finally started to sweat a little bit! Regardless, I thought these crunchy vegetables didn’t work with the rice noodles as well as leafy vegetables. But, then again, it is the issue of cost…

Similar to what happened to the chicken wings above, there is (at least?) one more dish that I don’t think I took a picture of and that might have been the mixed season vegetables. If that was the case or not, it does not matter that much as I don’t it made that much of an impression. And just when we thought we over did it, “dessert” came…

In the form of Coconut Tapioca. For a moment, we all thought this will be a cold version (similar to mango tapioca) but, surprise, it was hot version! It wasn’t that sweet but served to finished the meal.

In perspective, I believe the restaurant went quite far by providing a buffet menu of this type, specially by cooking the (small) dishes individually. Some defaults decisions taken were a bit odd until we actually requested them to be made differently (i.e., the spiciness level). However, again, that was probably because they want to attract the masses. If it was located in next neighbour Burnaby or, hell, Vancouver, the food will be subpar but, considering this is New Westminster, it is actually a decent option. As for myself, if I am back, I will go for a la carte rather than the buffet. Sure, it gives better options, just that, several of them didn’t really work for me.

Lhy Thai
7357 Edmonds Street
Burnaby, BC

In the last couple of weeks, I think we have had a good share of blog posts of Thai restaurants. I am not talking about myself, I only visited Tangthai with Victoria (and was also visited by other food bloggers) but Victoria also visited Maenam. And prior to that, shokutsu of Foodosophy, visited Lhy Thai. So, in its own funny way, I chose to semi-continue that trend by visiting that same restaurant, Lhy Thai.

Aside from its claim of authenticity, there were even some certificates hanging at the entrance, the other claim is that of cheap lunches. How cheap? How about $7? Sure, you can go for cheaper *cough*Kent’s Kitchen*cough*; however, we might be comparing apples to oranges. That begs the question: if there was such claim, how come I haven’t been here before? It happens they only have lunch Monday to Friday. On Saturdays, they are only open for dinner and closed on Sundays. I guess they are quite confident on what they serve, combined with several factors, which then allows them to fully control their hours. So, on a weekday I had off, I chose to have lunch there instead of almost any place I could think of.

Out of all their lunch options, I ended up going for their green curry. The reason was simple: out of all items from the lunch menu, it provides different unique components you could try. How many? How about…

Click on the picture for a larger version in a new window

From top left, clockwise, pickled cucumber, spring roll, slice of orange and pork satay. The cucumber was slightly acidic and had some hints of sugar. That worked fine for me, as it provided some balance for the rest of what was on the plate. The spring roll was average. It had some sauce already on top and, while it was crispy, there wasn’t much other characteristics to it. I will skip to orange because… Well, it is orange. And finally, the satay was strange. Notice that the one in the picture was flipped, i.e., as served, it had a blob of peanut sauce on top which was a bit too sweet for my liking. Fortunately, that did not kill the pork goodness of that satay. And then…

The curry. At first, I was disappointed with what was served. If you look at the second picture notice there weren’t that many pieces of chicken. Instead, there seemed to be an overload of bamboo shoots. After a couple of spoonfuls on top of the rice, I started to notice the coconut taste with some sweetness in it. There was a bit of spiciness at the very end and I barely broke a sweat (a reminder, I tend to sweat when eating spicy food). No, it wasn’t THAT spicy, rather, there was some lingering at the very end. Now, that does not really explain how good it is so, instead, I will defer it to the fact I finished the rice but barely made it to half of bowl of curry! So I ended up asking for another bowl of rice and finish the rest. Make your own conclusion based on this!

While curry is a single dish, I did something I do in somewhat rare occasions: Do a revisit before even posting about it. What happens is that on a Saturday night, I was doing some errands in the area and stopped to grab some dinner before heading home. When I walk in and mentioned I wanted to order take out, I was told there will be a 15+ minutes wait. WTH?! OK, that is fine as that would give me some time to get some groceries so I made my order, went shopping and came back, all that in ~20 minutes. What, the food is still not ready? After almost 30 minutes, I was given a big paper bag with two containers. In the first tone…

Phat Thai Goong, aka, pad that with prawns. When I opened it, I was a bit disappointed by the reddish colour. However, then I noticed something… Strange… In previous instances where I had disappointing pad thai, it was more often than not, orange but also there was pool of sauce at the bottom. Not here. Sure, it was orange-y but it was somewhat dry as well. Also, the strands of noodles were not clumped to each other and you could easily separate one from each other if you wanted to. And one funny note: I was asked how spicy I wanted it to be and I told them “as spicy as you would eat it”. It was spicy, made me break a sweat but it was “good” spiciness. The one thing I thought it was missing was a lime/lemon wedge; fortunately, I had some at home so I just squeezed some on top.

To round things up, some stuffed chicken wings. One thing to note: they do not make a claim of boneless, so I was partially expecting to find some bones in it – and I wasn’t mistaken. There was some but I am used to eating meats with bone-in so I wasn’t bothered at all.

That aside, there were still pieces of chicken and skin (which was what kept the “shape”) filled with a mixed of some noodles and what I thought to minced pork (might be wrong here, though). It was fried crispy and, rather than the dipping sauce, I thought the lime juice worked better.

Overall, the food had some highs and some lows; however, based on the price, I thought it was a really good deal. Sure, timing was not the best but, given it is not such a large operation, they deliver on thing well: good food.

East is East
4413 Main Street
3243 West Broadway (location visited)
Vancouver, BC

Sherman (of Sherman’s Food Adventures) is “the man”. It was his turn to organize the next Vancouver food bloggers gathering and he managed to pull out the largest one ever. How large? I was able to get 8 food bloggers (plus guest) us in a Long Table Series at the Irish Heather. This time, he was able to get writers of 15 blogs (plus guests) of us! In attendance….

Sherman of Sherman’s Food Adventures – Post is up!
Mijune of Follow Me Foodie – Post is up!
Kevin of 604 Foodtography
Jenny of My Secret Eden – Post is up!
Victoria of Victoria’s Food Secrets – Post is up!
Jonathan of Food and Tell
Jessica of Yum-o-Rama – Post is up!
Joyce and Frank of Van Foodies
Wilson of La Petite Vancouver
Anita of La Petite Foodie
Darina of Gratinée – Musings on Food & Culture
Melody of Gourmet Fury
TS of [eatingclub]Vancouver
Angie of Sea Salt with Food (home of the infamous Hasselback potatoes recipe!)

Of course, myself…

In total, we were about ~20 of us. How come I don’t know the exact number? Since our party was so large, they couldn’t really sit us in a long table (a la LTS) or in a round table (a la Chinese restaurant). As a result, we were broken down into two groups. Furthermore, at the end of the night, when we were outside chatting, the manager/owner even came out asking Sherman if everything was fine. O_o

Due to somewhat bad timing on my part, I did not arrive at 7:00 p.m. sharp, the time we were supposed to meet there. But, in the end, we were able to shuffle in the group. I ended up seated with Ricky, Jenny, Kevin, Anita, Mijune and W (Mijune’s guest). Because of that delay, we ordered way after the others. After I was seated, we were presented with these:

These were two mini cups of heavily spiced Chai tea. I drink half of one (there were two types) and chose to stop as it was starting to overload my palette. It was quite interesting but, to me, too rich to start off with. Anyway, once orders were made, I received my drink:

Rangoon Rain, which is a yogurt lassie with peach, lychee, pineapple, coconut and banana. As a drink, it was OK; the problem was that I couldn’t really taste much of the ingredients except the banana. No, not even the coconut! While it did have some texture of some fruits, it was hardly noticeable. My biggest peeve of this drink is its size. At $5 and around 8 ounces, I would expect something more than 8 or so ounces, specially considering this is not an alcoholic drink! (On that note, they did not have alcoholic drinks in their menu to the consternation of at least two bloggers!).  Furthermore, I ordered the large and got the small one instead. When I told them about the error, I was told I could get a “refill”. However, it seems that a refill is not exactly a refill: you pay a full glass. Now, I know this is not pop and unlimited refill, I wasn’t expecting it to be. However, it it was just confusing.

Ricky (Jenny’s guest) ordered Peshawari Bazaar, another lassie which has cucumber, mint, salt and cumin. Salt???? In a drink? Yup, that is no typo, ladies and gentlemen! Now, I have had odd drinks with cucumber in the past and I will have to admit this one tasted really strange. I think it was Kevin who mentioned this tasted like a “drink version of a Tzatsiki”. I think that description suits it perfectly…

Now, to the food! Actually, a small detour here… Before we went there, I checked on-line and, well, I wasn’t sure what to order. When we arrived, the partially dim lights and the joking we were doing with other food bloggers did not help with the thought process. However, somebody said something on the lines of “do you want to not-share?”. I know, this sounds really strange, given that, at times, we do go in group and share our meals because we want to try different dishes. The concept of “not sharing” is foreign to us! I will get back to this topic in a moment; just keep in mind we were “not sharing”, OK?

Anita had the Afghan Nomad which I will summarize it as a lamb burrito. No, really! There was some rice, beans and pieces of lamb inside that wrap. Aside from a strong gamey taste, I found it was OK at best. Sorry not much to comment on this one!

This is Kevin’s order: Khichiri – brown dill rice w/ ground beef, spinach & mushrooms, topped with dehydrated yogurt, tomato & onions. I will have to admit it was a really odd dish at first. Dehydrated yogurt? Regardless of their odd description, at the first bite… Well, if I didn’t know it was ground beef, I might have said it was lamb instead. Why? I had a gamey taste to it! Not sure how they make that but it worked in its own ways. It tasted similar to eating a stew where you added some barley into it and then topped by the yogurt. A dish I might order, if I was there by myself.

Mijune’s dish – It was a form of vegertarian dumpling… OK, let me try again: imagine a really soft version of a spinach ravioli; however, it contains no meat and had a gamey taste. Does that sound like a contradiction? Well, that is because it is a contradiction! It was really soft and that gamey taste was quite good, though I am not sure how vegetarian it is considering the gamey taste. Once again, something I would order.

The following set of pictures is what I ordered. More details in a moment so, please, bare with me, OK?

Eastern Platter

Clockwise from 12 o’clock: lambe kebab, saag paneer,afghan and coconut rice, dhal soup

Clockwise: Lamb kebab, Afghan eggplant and the Afghan rice

Clockwise: Afghan and coconut rice, dhal, lamb kebab and baked salmon

Dishes in the middle: Afghan eggpland and chicken masala (?)

Baked salmon

Thai tofu and, once again… Eggplant!

Eggplant and peas and cheese

Chickpeas

There were three dishes in the menu as part of the Eastern Platter that I did not take pictures: the minced beef kebab (which looks like meatballs), alu gobi and mango butter squash.

Now, here is the “not sharing” portion. According to the menu, the Eastern Platter comes with the two versions of the rice, a roti, salad, dhal soup and two of the dishes above. If eating by yourself, you can re-order any of the other dishes – after all they are small dishes. However, if you are sharing, you are “locked” by your two initial selections. So, as a joke, when we were ordering, we made emphasis on the we are “not sharing”. Figure THAT out. Of course, also as a joke, we were telling Sherman that he took us to an all-you-can-eat!

But, jokes aside, some of these dishes were hit or miss. While I did not take written notes, I have a lot of mental notes. I could write down most of them but that might be a bit of a chore given all these dishes. Instead, I will provide a quick summary:

• Lamb kebab: Really gamey, not chewy at all but weak sauce
• Chicken masala: Dark meat (though, for some reason, my initial piece was white), weak sauce.
  Minced beef kebab (not pictured): In practical terms, meatballs. It had a good texture but, again, weak sauce.
  Baked salmon: Slightly overcooked (still good, though) but, I think I am repeating myself here… The sauce did not do much.
• Saag paneer: The “cheese” did not really work as it was grated on top but, despite its mushiness, it was something I would expect from a spinach dish.
• Afghan eggplant: The winner of the night. Soft eggplant but it was better seasoned. Probably because of the fact it was eggplant?
• Alu Gobi (not pictured): I don’t recall eating this one so… No comments.
• Thai tofu: The sauce did nothing to improve the usually bland taste of the tofu.
• Peas and cheese: Might be a bit misleading here, the cheese is not a cheese sauce or cheese cubes but paneer. It was OK but… Weak sauce?
• Mango butter squash (not pictured): The oddball of the night. To quote Kevin, it looked like baby food. Past that, it was quite decent due to its unique sweetness.
• Chickpeas: Did not get to try.

During the whole meal, we were having funny chats, me blinding people beside me with my Speedlight (though I wasn’t the only one firing their flashes – Sherman’s table was even worst!). A couple on the front where there was a couch were looking at us really funny the whole time while we were shooting. So there you go that sense of wackiness!

As for the food, in general, it was mostly hit or miss. If you try the platter, some of the dishes seems to have been watered down to appeal the masses, though, still there are gems in it (like the eggplant). The non-platter dishes suffer a similar hit or miss. Like the “lamb burrito” above was a dish I thought could have been better but felt flat. On the flip side, both Mijune and Kevin dishes were excellent. If I were to come back, I think I will stick with these more unique dishes instead.

So, Sherman, once again, thanks for organizing this. You have set up the bar way high for the next one!

Tangthai Cuisine of Thailand
1626 West Broadway
1779 Robson Street (Location visisted)
Vancouver, BC

Ah, so many new restaurants opening, yet so little times at times… Tangthai is one of the newest restaurants opening near the corner of Robson and Denman where it is already well known to be the epicentre of ramen in Vancouver – where you can find Kintaro, Motomachi Shokudo and Benkei Ramen, all of them in the same block (plus the soon to be open Santouka in the next block). Thai cuisine is one of those that I know can be really bold, yet, for other reasons, it seems to be continuously bastardised to the point I am not sure if it can be considered ethnic anymore. True, I am Chinese and not a Thai expert in any way. So, for this purpose, I have been bugging Victoria (of Victoria’s Food Secrets), the in-house Thai food blogger expert in Vancouver, to help me check Tangthai: Would it pass her litmus test?

Not the best picture. I might retake this one…

To avoid the same situation we had last time we met, where we ended up going to Thai House, Victoria made reservations, although she was told it wasn’t really necessary. In fact, when I arrived, it was mostly empty. Victoria, along with T and D arrive not long after. Now, since I arrived first, I made claim for what I thought would be the best spot to take pictures (due to lighting). Sorry D, you know this is business!

While deciding, I asked for a Thai iced tea – with the odd part that it is made with whipped cream… Now, I have heard it being made with evaporated milk or condensed milk but this is the first time with whipped cream. The resulting drink was quite rich and not that sweet. This is specially taken into consideration that Thai House’s Thai iced tea used a syrup. Interesting drink but not sure if I would order it again in the future.

Similar to our last visit, each one of us chose a dish and decided an appetizer, which ended up being…

Peek Kai Yud Sai or sutffed chicken wings. I was at first curious on how can chicken wings be stuffed. I mean, aren’t they somewhat small for that purpose? In a way, the second picture answered it. Since it was boneless, I guess they were boiled, the bones carefully pulled to not break the skin and then stuff it from there. As for taste, we pretty much agreed it was subpar. I myself couldn’t taste much of the chicken nor the filling (didn’t take a list of the exact ingredients in the filling). Hell, some more seasoning would have helped a lot!

In our visit to Thai House, Victoria expressed her disappointment they did not have Larb – a form of minced meat (cooked or raw) with ground toasted rice, chilli and other vegetables seasoned with some fish sauce and lime. However, this time she was excited to find out Tangthai had it. Translation: no way it won’t be ordered! However, Victoria was expecting it to have a chicken option but, alas, it was Larb Moo or pork larb. I will have to admit I couldn’t taste that much of the pork (as pork). However, the combination of the larb along with the rice (more of this in a moment) was quite interested, in the sense it had some acidity, pungency, meatiness and spicines in the same dish. In fact, it reminded me a little bit of ceviche. Regardless, a winner in the end.

The bowl of rice. Since it was four of us, we got this big bowl instead of individual servings. Now, we did not order plain steamed rice; rather we go coconut rice. Was there coconut? Well, it did smell like coconut! It was an odd good coincidence, as it had some slight hint of coconut sweetness that provided some odd contrast to the characteristics of the larb.

Pad Kee Mao – flat noodles with chicken, seafood and vegetables, this was ordered in-lieu of pad thai. Now, I am not sure if comparison should be made at all but, given what was served, I can say I like it and disliked it at the same time. On one side, it wasn’t laded with a red/catsup-like sauce; on the other side, it was a bit bland. However, there are some other positives: the texture of the noodles was quite nice as it still had some bite and the vegetables were still crispy (and without blisters, indicating it was oil blanched).

Nua Pad Takhai – Beef with lemongrass and vegetables. Similar to the Pad Kee Mao, it had also both its share of highs and lows. At first, I thought this looked quite similar to a Chinese stir fry but with more sauce. As a result, I would expect some wok hei characteristics – it wasn’t there. Sure, it was tender but did not try that caramelisation, specially considering I was hearing wok sounds in the background while we were waiting. The lemongrass did compensate, though, as it became the dominant flavour.

Green Curry Chicken, our final dish. In a way, this dish can be summed as a fail. To put it bluntly, it lacked much curry taste and sweetness. The chicken was barely OK (probably because I ended up picking mostly white meat?) and the vegetables did not add much – not to mention the mushrooms were a bit distracting. For some reason, I wished they were bamboo shoots instead.

I think the question of authenticity should not be asked here – of course, again, with the caveat I am not a Thai person. However, the question that should be asked is why they shot themselves by making dishes milder, hence more appealing to the masses. True, they have a star rating with five stars called “Welcome to Thailand” but that explain spiciness, not the lack of flavour/boldness of some of the dishes. Would I come back here? If the option is between Thai House (or similar bastardised restaurant) and Tangthai, it would be Tangthai hands down. However, there are some others that are still out there waiting for me to try.

Finally, what about Victoria? Well, you can check here post!