Kim Anh
7405 Edmonds Street
Burnaby, BC
Blogging is a labour of love. We do it because we want to, even when people try to bash us for no reason other than probably because we disagree. At other times, it is draining – after all, there are only that many hours a day so there will be compromises. As a result of different reasons or circumstances, blogs come and go. While it will always remain popular, there is that eternal question of who will still be there five years or more down the road. So, to a certain extent, I was a bit perplexed when Karl of The Friday Lunch stopped blogging for a while. See, I believe that Karl to be a down-to-earth guy and, in a sea of Asian born/x-generation Asian descend bloggers, he (along with Jonathan of Food and Tell) stood out because, well, he is your average “white guy” (no offence!). But, fortunately, it seems he is back and has started writing about places here and there. One such place was Lost in the 50′s drive, previously blogged by shokutsu (of Foodosophy). It seems there was a renaissance of sorts and has (re?)opened, and while it had your basic burgers, it also had its share of “F” items (“F” as in fusion…). Alas, the day I went, they were not open yet so I had to turn around and look for *anything* to eat. And suddenly, right next to me was Kim Anh.
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Tagged as:
Burnaby,
Noodles,
Vietnamese
Delightful Cuisine
1745 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC
For good or for bad, in the couple of blocks near the corner of Robson and Denman in the West End, you tend to get more ethnic restaurant than other parts of Downtown Vancouver. For Japanese, you have different ramen places like Santouka, Kintaro and Motomachi, izakaya like Kingyo and Guu. Then you have several Korean restaurants like Kim Bob Chun Gook, Nor Boo Korean Restaurant, Ap Gu Jung and so on. For Thai, you have Khunnai Chang and Tangthai. However, given there is only that much space in the West End, this growth has come to the expense of others restaurants. For example, Rooster’s Quarters in Denman closed some time ago to be replaced by Pomegrante, which failed as well to now be replaced by Dajia, a Japanese restaurant, which over saturates the existing market. Notice I didn’t mention some that, otherwise, would be ubiquitous like Chinese (there is Main Dining Restaurant, Chongqing, Hon’s and Legendary Noodles) and Vietnamese. Ah, Vietnamese, the one that a lot of times is overshadow by the other ones mentioned above. But, then again, their presence in Downtown is a bit muted and it seems they focus more in the Kingsway and Fraser Street area instead. So, to a certain extent, having one nearby seems to be a good thing. When Delightful Cuisine took over the former spot of a French restaurant (which confirms the above), the question was would it fulfill those expectations?
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Tagged as:
Downtown,
Pho,
Vietnamese,
West End
Pho Tam
10302 135 Street
Surrey, BC
In what seems to be a crazy trend for posts on this week, similar to what happened on my post on Tuesday, for today’s post, I ended up in the Whalley area of Surrey. Now, to those not familiar, this used to be (and, to a certain extent, still) considered a criminalised area. However, times have changed and with the SFU campus in the area plus new condo constructions, it can be considered an upcoming area of sorts. After running an errand in the area (which did not involve anything green, leafy or powdery), it was close to lunch time and had to consider possibilities. Given that I am not that familiar with the area, I dropped a text message to Sherman asking for suggestions. After all, he frequents the area so often that have had close encounters with the police! 
His first suggestion? “Pho Tam”. OK, that was good enough for me!
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Tagged as:
Pho,
Surrey,
Vietnamese
Tràng Tiên
9449 Jasper Ave
Edmonton, AB
Finally, my posts from Edmonton! As suggested a couple of weeks ago, I went to Edmonton for BC Day/Heritage Day long weekend and, finally, I am catching up with those posts, hehehehe. Actually, at this point, I am starting to wonder if the posts in this month of August will be mostly non-BC based… Other than Minoas Greek Taverna (a min-gathering suggested by Elaine) and Mui Ngo Gai, all the posts so far have been from Tacoma and Edmonton. But, wait, what about the rest of the month, there are still weeks to go, right? Well, yeah… In part! Because, as possibly suggested by some tweets (here and here), I just came back from Portland! (And, yes, there will be some food carts!).
But back to Tràng Tiên… Not sure if you might have or might not have caught up but, when I wrote in last Friday’s post of Mui Ngo Gai, I made reference to “a reader” suggesting order other dishes in addition to pho or banh mi. That reader happened to be Trinh who was my host during my trip in Edmonton. So, putting things to test, I asked Trinh if she could take us to a place she would go for pho or, in her case, bún bò hue. And that’s how we ended up going to Tràng Tiên
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Tagged as:
Edmonton,
Pho,
Vietnamese
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
Green Leaf Vietnamese Restaurant
418 8th Ave South
Seattle, WA
I apologize for making things so stereotypical at times. You see, whenever I am down in the US, I try to go to restaurants unique to that place. For example, when I was in New York City, I went to Carnegie Deli; when I was in Panama, there was Mi Ranchito – and that was among a lot of restaurants. The “problem” is that Seattle is ~300 Km from Vancouver and, for the most part, you can find an equivalent here. To make the most of it, the key is to find cuisines/known restaurants not available here, which, more often than not, it translates to American or Latin-American restaurants – or even tacos, though I am not that enthusiastic to try this. So, just for kicks, this time, I tried to look for a form of Asian and, in the end, I decided to go for Vietnamese. That’s how I ended up going to Green Leaf Vietnamese restaurant.
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Tagged as:
Duck,
Pho,
Seattle,
Vietnamese
Pho Hoa
Several locations in the US and Canada
5505 Kingsway (location visited)
Burnaby, BC
Last week, on my Thursday post, I made reference to a post I had to reshuffle because it would have made that week too focused in one area of Metro Vancouver. One of the posts I had to do so is that of Pho Hoa, a restaurant in… Well, several places over Vancouver! While they do have several locations, I went to the one in Burnaby. That, of course, brings the question: why go to Pho Hoa? Well, the reason is similar to why I have been going to several restaurants in Kingsway in the Burnaby side: because of several errands and what not, I have been spending a lot of time in the area which translates into eating in places nearby. Hmmmm… Why suddenly I start to sound like Sherman??? 
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Tagged as:
Burnaby,
Pho,
Vietnamese
