Munchin' around Vancouver

Just a quick update on where we've been eating!

Between school and work E and I have been chowing down at a few restaurants in the last couple of weeks. I would love to cook dinner at home more often but I find that once I'm home I just want to watch the Food Network and eat ice cream all night. Who has time to cook anyways?

Oyster – Seafood & Raw Bar

475 Howe St  Vancouver (604) 899-0323

This little raw bar is located in the old stock exchange building on Pender and Howe. Tiny little place. A bunch of us tried out their happy hour “a buck-a-shuck” oyster specials. We had their Summer Breeze and Royal Miyagi oysters. It's a nice cozy little place if you just want to grab a quick snack and a glass of wine after work. But if your looking to sit down longer and have a bigger dinner I would suggest Rodney's in Yaletown, because I enjoy the people that work there and the atmosphere is livelier.

Tangent Cafe

2095 Commercial Dr  Vancouver, BC (604) 558-4641

Beef Rengdeng, Roti Canai with a chicken curry sauce, the Vancouver Smoked Meat Sandwich served with Pickles and Tangent's special mustard and a plate of Truffle Fries. The service was great, our server was very accommodating  but we weren't a big fan of the Beef Rengdeng. Would we go back? Maybe, if we were craving truffle fries.

Hapa Izakaya

909 W Cordova St Vancouver BC (604) 420-4272

I always find myself at one of the four Hapa’s whenever there’s a birthday and everyone just wants drinks and tapas. I always have a good time at Hapa Izakaya, but I can never document my entire meal because by the time I take one picture of a dish 2 other dishes have already been gobbled up by someone. So this is what I documented during B’s birthday. There were 15 of us and we easily had 40-plus dishes of tapas. Tuna Carpaccio, Sockeye Salmon and Scallop Tartare.

The Naam

2724 W 4th Ave  Vancouver (604) 738-7151

Milano Quesadillas – sundried tomatoes, green onions, jalapenos and cheese on grilled whole wheat tortillas. The Naam Burger Plater – served with sesame fries, miso gravy and a salad. The Naam is a quaint little Vegetarian restaurant that’s open 24/7! I quite like this place, can’t wait to try their breakfast!

Enjoy, because we sure did.

HYBRIDS - Triton Films/Directed by Patrick Kalyn

It's been a while since our friends at Triton Films have released something 
and now I know why: Hybrids.

Written and Directed by: Patrick Kalyn

Cinematographer: Cliff Hokanson
Produced by: Gabriel Paul Napora / Triton Films
Music by: Sam Hulick

HYBRIDS from wsp on Vimeo.

The Earth is devastated by an alien invasion. Innocent children everywhere are being murdered for the purpose of finding some sort of genetic key. An ex-special forces soldier is on the path of revenge after her child is killed by one of the Hybrid Aliens.

http://vimeo.com/64532461

Enjoy!

Burgoo - Kitsilano

Burgoo 

2272 West 4th Avenue 

Vancouver, BC

It’s been pretty gloomy lately in Vancouver so I've been craving for something hardy and comforting. I've been to Burgoo twice but it was always at their Main Street location, and that was probably a good two or three years ago. So D and I decided to check out Burgoo in Kitsilano for a nice hardy meal.

What I love about the Kitsilano location is their interior. I absolutely love all the wood they used, it just felt so nice and cozy! After looking at the menu I ordered the Mac 'n' Cheese and the Butternut Squash soup. D being the more adventurous diner decided to try Burgoo's Soup of the Day which was a Split Pea soup with Spinach and Mint. He also ordered the Burgoo Clubhouse sandwich, which consists of roast chicken, bacon, tomato and cucumbers with a house made onion marmalade, served open faced on toasted filone bread. The Butternut Squash soup was pretty tasty, but I think the consistency of the soup was a little bit on the heavy side for my liking. I got a chance to steal a few spoonful’s of D's Split Pea Soup with Spinach and Mint and surprisingly it was pretty good (wish I'd ordered that). I thought his soup was going to taste very minty and gritty because of the spinach and the mint leaves but it didn't. D's soup was savoury and had just the right amount of earthiness to it. My Mac 'n' Cheese was very cheesy, and I am the type of person who would eat anything that's smothered in cheddar so no complaints there.

Now, the funny thing about D is that apparently he's a very picky eater. When his Clubhouse sandwich arrived I watched him eat the roast chicken, bacon, tomato, and cucumbers off the toasted filone and that was it. I asked him how come he's not eating the bread, and his answer was because there's onions touching the filone bread. Ha! D, you might as well have ordered a salad. Anyways, now I know to never share a French onion soup with him.

Bye for now.

The Famous Warehouse with J

Update - April 8th 2013

Back for more with a different J! 

This time, I came here with a different J and a bunch of friends. Everyone ordered either The Works Burger or The Mushroom and Swiss Burger. We also ordered 2 plates of Salt & Pepper Wings and 1 plate of Honey Garlic Wings, all three plates came with a ranch dipping sauce. The wings were pretty good, maybe slightly on the dry side, we probably needed a couple of beers to wash down the wings. 

I cant wait till my next visit because I would love to try their Nachos. According to T, The Famous Warehouse has amazing Nachos!

The Famous Warehouse

989 Granville St 

Vancouver, BC - visited on March 12 2013

Warehouse is this funky little bar that serves up a great burger for $4.95 with a choice of a side, this totally beats eating at McDonald's any day. In fact, their entire food menu is practically $4.95, this is incentive enough for people to grab a couple of beers and hang out and listen to their funky music. I always have a good time hanging out at Warehouse, unless on one of those rare occasions where you get a frazzled server who has absolutely no sense of priorities, (but again, that's rare). There is always a line up, especially in the late afternoons when all the hungry students flock to Warehouse for a cheap bite to eat and usually late at night right after clubbing, because people (me especially) get the munchies after lots of dancing.

I always order the Mushroom and Swiss Burger with a side of Salad, this never disappoints and J ordered the Works Burger instead of mushroom and Swiss he gets deep fried onions and Cheddar cheese. He also got Yam fries instead of regular fries. The fries came in this awesome little tin bucket, that I thought was super adorable. 

So if you're ever in downtown and you feel like a burger I would suggest stopping by Warehouse, it's a much better alternative than MacDonald's, and the salad is probably real...fresh.

Happy eating.

Shi-Art Chinese Cuisine 食藝海鮮酒家

Happy Tuesday Everyone.

Our long weekend ended with dim sum at Shi-Art Chinese Cuisine located inside Richmond Centre Mall. Dim Sum to a lot of people usually means breakfast, but to the 5 of us that day it meant a very late lunch. I've never been to Shi-Art before, but D and his friend V seem to frequent this place often enough that we immediately got a table once we arrived. The place was bustling, which to me is a good sign because that means the food must be tasty or it could be because it's Easter Monday and no one had to work like the 5 of us. Did I also mention the exceptionally good service we had at Shi-Art? Well that service was particularly directed towards D and V. While those two played nice with the servers the rest of us ate. It didn't look like much on the piece of paper when we were ordering but as always, we over ordered.

Now on to the food. Let's start with what I liked best, the egg tarts! (I ate 3 egg tarts out of the 4 that was on the plate) V was the only one that ate the last egg tart. I had to share unfortunately  What I really liked about Shi-Art's egg tarts  was their filling. It was filled with an eggy steamed-milk center which was very good, especially when the egg tarts were still warm. The other two dishes which I really enjoyed were the sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves and the stir-fry gai lan. The sticky rice was cooked evenly and well-seasoned. The gai lan had a nice crunch to it and the leaves were crisp and not wilted.

The deep fried dough wrapped in a steamed rice crepe was a little bit on the dry side for my liking but the boys still devoured it. The meat paste stuffed eggplant was a crowd pleaser everyone took a piece including me. I normally don't like the texture of an eggplant but this dish was pretty good, I loved the sauce and the meat paste was well seasoned (I could of done without the eggplant, but that's just me). 

Remember how I said we ordered way too much food, this usually happens when you have dim sum. We didn't want to waste any food so we all divided up the left-overs but no one wanted to finish the yam pastry with red bean paste. This dish was very oily and overly sweet. I think we can all agree that it was our least favourite dish from Shi-Art. 

Overall, I did enjoy myself at Shi-Art. Would I come back? I don't see why not, I would like to try their dinner menu and for sure I would drag D and V along since the servers seem to like them so much.

I am on the look-out for a good place to have Alaskan King Crab. Suggestions anyone?

Bye for now.