Fumisen

Top left: B, Top right: C, Bottom: Mine

A while back B, C, and I got the munchies so went to a spot where 3 food trailers (Fumisen, Shoryumen, and Tenku Bakudanyaki) are located, across RiverRock Casino to grab some Tenku Bakudanyaki - for those who don't know, Tenku Bakudanyaki is basically a really big takoyaki filled with various ingredients such as vegetables, shrimp, octopus, quail egg, and etc. Unfortunately for us, the trailer was out being serviced, so we opted for Fumisen instead. Fumisen is the customizable sushi cone trailer! There are a few sizes at different prices, ranging from $3.75-$8.50, and you can fill them up with various ingredients. B went for a medium cone filled with salmon rice, BBQ unagi, sweet egg, tobiko, and topped with wasamayo. I had a medium cone as well with salmon rice, salmon sashimi, avocado, tobiko, and wasamayo. C chose a combination of both of ours: salmon rice, BBQ unagi, avocado, tobiko and wasamayo for the sauce also.

Fumisen

I love how, unlike most sushi restaurants, these cones are not rice balls with all the toppings literally on the top. You get a good bite of both rice and topping from the beginning of the cone all the way to the end. It's not our first time at Fumisen, and each time I come, I always feel like one cone is never enough. Good thing I have a bit of self-discipline or I'll be hopping over to trailer after trailer!

Fumisen Menu

P.S. Although these food trailers are located outdoors, they do have an enclosed sit-down area; complete with mismatched seating arrangements and a heater!

Ginger Fried Rice

I figure it won't be a surprise to my readers to find out that I follow a lot of food blogs. Just the other day I discovered an amazing blog: Smitten Kitchen. I couldn't take my eyes off this blog, I was completely smitten Haha, see what I did there? It took all the will power I had to not press "previous post", and I had book marked so many recipes, that it will probably take me a year to get through all of them.

On this blog I found a recipe for ginger fried rice with a French twist. Now this brings back a lot of memories, as my mom usually makes this when we have a lot of left over rice and it would become my breakfast, lunch, and snack for the next few days. My moms recipe was very simple: eggs, soy sauce, ginger. Smitten's recipe included a few more ingredients such as leeks, garlic, and sprinkled the ginger and placed an egg on top instead of mixing it in with the rice. I combined both recipes using what I had in my fridge - leaning more towards the traditional one - and was really happy with the results.

Ginger Fried Rice

Eggs, Ginger minced, Garlic minced, Green Onion sliced, Day old rice, Soy sauce, Fish sauce, Olive oil, Sesame oil. Outside of baking, I don't measure anything.

First, I sauteed the minced ginger and garlic together in a skillet on medium heat with a bit of Olive oil. Make sure you continuously stir the ginger and garlic or it will burn quickly. When it becomes a golden color, throw in the rice and mixed it up a bit to get rid of any lumps. Add some soy sauce and fish sauce to taste. Take the pan off the burner, crack an egg directly on the rice, stir it in, and then place it back onto the burner. What you are trying to do here is coat each grain of rice with the egg. If you did this correctly you should not see chunks of egg in your rice. Turn the heat up back to high for a few minutes or seconds - depending on how moist you like your rice. After this turn off the heat, mix in the green onion and a dash of sesame oil.

In the same skillet, after you plate the rice, pour some vegetable oil and fry an egg which ever way you like - I did sunny-side up. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Place the egg on top of your rice and sprinkle on a bit of green onion for garnish. Serve.

Dine Out Vancouver: Water St. Cafe

Our second dine-out location was at Water St. Cafe. The service was friendly and I really liked the decor - classy, with lots of windows that shows off historic Gastown - but when it came to the food, I was a bit disappointed.

For appetizers, B and I both chose the Baked Portobello Mushrooms. B also got a Alize/Vodka Martini, the Veal Scaloppine and the Cheesecake for dessert. I picked the West Coast Crab Cakes and Tiramisu. After ordering we were given our bread. I wasn't sure what kind of bread it was, but it was cold and really dense with a bit of herbs in it. We both had a piece each and didn't like it. Our appetizer wasn't that memorable. It was really wet, probably because it was sitting on a plate of olive oil, pesto and tomato sauce. The pesto/basil taste was strong and with all the vegetables on top, it overpowered the earthy taste of the portobello. I felt that the mushroom was there, but couldn't taste it. Our entree's were a bit better; good, but nothing amazing. My crab cakes were served with some wild rice, green beans and a few more vegetables, and topped with corn salsa. The crab cakes were good and definitely made with real crab. It had a crunchy golden brown crust and was warm and soft and full of flavour when bitten into. B's veal came with a side of mashed potatoes and vegetables as well. The veal was tender and had a nice tang to it when combined with the butter sauce. What I did really like was the fact that they served the food on warm, almost hot, plates. We were able to enjoy our meal and have a conversation without our food getting too cold too fast.

Finally, we had our desserts. Their desserts is probably what will keep me coming to Water St. Cafe. I don't remember what flavour cheesecake it was, but it was a New York style cake on a graham cracker crumb crust. The cheesecake was smooth and creamy, without being too moist or sweet like Cheesecake Etc. cakes. It had a hint of citrus and some other kind of fruit that I can't figure out, but it blended really nicely with the taste of the cream cheese. My Tiramisu was really good as well, I would say better than Joe Fortes. There was a good ratio of Mascarpone cream and lady fingers, as well as espresso taste. The lady fingers were also perfectly soaked with espresso - not too soggy and not too crispy.     

Overall, Water St. Cafe wasn't amazing but wasn't bad either. I did really like the dessert and probably will go to Water St. Cafe for a slice of cheesecake if I was in the neighbourhood.

Mid-term Munchies

Mid-terms for me are over. Hurrah. Well, considering the fact that I only had one, it wasn't too bad. Nonetheless though, I still munched out like I usually do when I study. I don't know if it's just me, but nibbling on something while I furiously hammer in numbers into my calculator really helps. So what have I been munching on? Mostly cookies. Butter biscuits to be exact - oh and seaweed. Can't forget about seaweed. I love that stuff. My Mom recently brought home a package of Butter Biscuits from Anna's Cake House. Originally I thought these were Napoleon Cookies until I read the label, but in my defense that is what they really tasted like minus the cream - light and flakey, sweet but not tooth-achingly sweet, and loaded with walnuts galore. They were delicate but were able to hold their shape nicely even when bitten into. The top was soft, and flaky like pie crust but once you bit through to the center there was a definite crunch. If you ever had those Asian butterfly cookies as a kid, this is the adult 2.0 version of it. Oh, and you can definitely taste the butter, hence the name butter biscuit.

Aside from stuffing my face with Anna's butter biscuits, I also devoured sheets of seaweed like a manatee. I absolutely adore seaweed snacks and have tried my fair share. For awhile, the Edo brand was my go-to for all my seaweed snack cravings. They tasted fairly good and came in convenient little packs, however I felt like they go stale quite fast - usually getting really sticky. So I have moved on from that and discovered my new love. It's a Korean brand and I have no clue what it is called because I don't speak Korean. It came in a pack of 12 for roughly $5. 12 packs might seem like a lot, but believe me, it gets really addicting. I finished more than half my package on the first day. There were three flavors: sunflower oil, grape-seed oil, and olive oil. Having said that, this brand of seaweed is a bit oily as well as salty, but hey, aren't these oils good for you? Anyways, each package had 12 sheets and they were all thin and crispy without it being deep-fried. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, deep fried seaweed? It exists. I tried it. It's okay. So that's about all I have to say for now. Tomorrow I have reservations at Water St. Cafe in Gastown, which I'm looking forwards to and tonight is Chinese New Years Eve. So much food! I love it. See you when I see you, and 新年快乐!

Boiling Point

A lot of my friends are foodies - not necessarily bloggers, but they do like to share what they have been munching on via facebook mobile uploads. And that is how I discovered Boiling Point: a Taiwanese hotpot style type cafe that serves stinky tofu! Something that is rare in Vancouver. There use to be a stand at the Richmond Nightmarket that sells a fried version of stinky tofu, but they stopped selling those for a while now. Pity, I loved those crispy skewers of stinky tofu paired with a sweet chilli sauce and pickled carrots and daikon. From what I have heard, but never actually looked up on, the commercial production of stinky  tofu was banned from the lower mainland - so I am not really sure how Boiling Point can serve it, maybe it is just a rumor. Anyways, I paid Boiling Point a visit for on Saturday with B, and a new munchie, C. 

It wasn't busy when we walked in, so we were seated right away at a back table and me being picky about where I sit, requested for a booth. Surprisingly, I didn't smell the tofu or any hint of the tofu. Maybe it's because I was already use to the smell from before, or maybe because my definition of stinky is different from others - I think durian smells delicious! Haha. Their menu is in a flip-stand format, with a picture and description of each hotpot on each card. Each hotpot comes with predetermined items that vary, but you can buy add-on's for $0.50-3.50. As we were here for dinner, we missed out on the drink special and had to order drinks separately. B chose the Lamb hotpot with Honey Aloe jelly green tea, C had the House Special hotpot (the one with the stinky tofu!) with Honey Aloe as well. I ordered the same thing as C, but with a Yogurt green tea. When you order, you're asked how spicy you wish your hot pot to be - none, medium spicy and none, were our choices. They have a total of  five spice levels.

Our food came shortly after we ordered, followed by our drinks, followed by the complimentary bowls of rice. And while the boys went to mix some sauces up at the self-serve sauce cart, I started taking pictures of the food. I don't really remember what sauces were there, but there was only three kinds and one of them was garlic. Now onto the food.

My hot pot came with a fish ball, quail egg, a few slices of meat, pork blood, enoki mushrooms, and I'm sure there were a few other items. At first I was confused at where my stinky tofu was. I thought they forgot! But after some digging around, it's actually on the very bottom and yup, it stinks. In my opinion, the stink itself was only disturbingly overpowering if you bring it up close to your face, other than that, it added a nice flavour to the soup. The soup base was very flavorful and aromatic (in a good way) with the tofu smell. Each food item soaked up the flavour of the soup, so the sauce wasn't really necessary. Now comes for my most anticipated moment: the stinky tofu. It was a dense tofu and nicely saturated and flavored with the soup. It had a lingering-slightly-barely-noticeable sour aftertaste. I didn't like it. It wasn't so much the flavor that bothered me, it was the texture. It was a bit rubbery and combined with the moisture and smell... it just didn't work out. I think I preferred the deep fried version much more. C, on the other hand, loved it and ate my share as well.

B's hotpot looked amazing and was also full of food. His soup was flavourful as well, but I preferred mine. After taking a sip of mine and then his, his seemed like it was lacking something - something like stinky tofu! B's drink was nothing out of the ordinary, basic honey green tea with crunchy aloe cubes. My yogurt drink on the other hand is something I will order everytime I am there. I've tried a lot of yogurt drinks at different places, and it's usually too sweet or just not right. I, myself, work at a bubble tea/dessert cafe and find it hard to make a good yogurt drink. Boiling point's yogurt green tea tasted literally like those little bottles of yogurt drinks you get at Asian grocery stores. Yummy.

Dinner came to around $15 each person, and we were also given stamp cards and candies. Overall, I enjoyed boiling point but really only came here for the stinky tofu - which I wasn't a fan of. But their hot pots were fairly good and filling, so I think Boiling Point is worth another visit. I have my eye on the Seafood and Tofu hotpot next.