ShuRaku Sake Bar and Bistro

For F’s birthday dinner, I chose for us to head to Downtown via the Canada Line.  It’s convenient and since F and O haven’t been on it before, I thought it’ll be fun.

My restaurant choice that night was ShuRaku Japanese Bistro.

Just get off at Vancouver City Centre Station and walk 1.5 blocks and you’re there.  Directly across from Urban Outfitters.

The restaurant is basically one long corridor.  It’s not too dark so it’s great for taking pictures.  I love this kind of ambiant lighting.  Although it was a Wednesday night, it didn’t take long for this place to fill up.

Chapinlandia Guatemalan Restaurant & Bakery

Wendy and I really enjoy coming to Washington States many times a year.  One is to get away from the city, and more importantly, we love the deals that can be found at the malls and outlets!  We also get to try things that are not available back home as well.  This time, we went out of our well to visit Chapinlandia Guatemalan.  It is located in downtown Renton which seems to be under development as there are some new buildings that have been erected quite recently.  Let’s hope this development continues to spawn new places for us to try.

Right in the corner of the street.  Pretty easy to find (even easier with a GPS).

We had to park in the street behind the restaurant.   It was early evening, the store was quiet and we didn’t have a problem finding a spot.  The area was peaceful and the houses seem quite new.  A safe place to park.  Again, this is the heart of Downtown Renton.

Gyo-O 魚王

Wendy likes to check out the Klip magazine where they feature local restaurants and other interesting items.  The front cover to a recent issue had Gyo-O as one of the featured places (it sure pays to be on the front cover)!  Gyo-O is at a good location inside the usually busy Continental Centre in Richmond.  It is basically facing the ever-popular Pearl Castle, so it will be an easy find.

A nice night view from the outside.  I particularly enjoy the attempt for an authentic Japanese feel with the board signs, etc.

That wall just memorizes me.  I have no diea what it says, but it is pretty darn cool.  Unfortunately, they were playing an ancient Japanese show from possibly the early 80s and being a techie, the VCD quality of the show doesn’t do the TV justice (sorry, just a pet peeve).

Wendy thinks this place is more of a Sashimi Bar/Cafe than an izakaya.  They don’t really have tapas, but more sashimi rice bowls and noodle bowls.

This is their specials menu for the day.  The item that I ordered was the “Spicy Tuna & Salmon Bukkake Udon”.  I nearly bursted out in laughter after reading that (and took a pick and sent it to my male friends for a good laugh).  It was interesting that I could not not order it.

Koon Bo 冠寶

Koon Bo is one of those restaurants that if you don’t know about it, you would never think to go there.  After all, the location pretty much sucks, the parking sucks, the decor sucks, the waiting area sucks, you get the drift.  So why is it so popular?  Of course it’s the food.  It’s not the cheapest, but for some reason it is special enough to bring people back time and again.

Like I said, the place is CROWDED.  The waiting area is just in the little pseudo-room right at the front door where they’ve put in an extra door to keep out the cold.  It’s small.  Sometimes, you would be standing right behind of seated people while they’re eating.  But that’s normal for a popular authentic Chinese restaurant isn’t it?

As for the food, they have a few signature dishes that they do very well.  We come back everytime and order the same thing everytime.

First up is the signature soup.  This has to be pre-ordered.  Now I’m not quite sure what fish it is, it could be Tilapia.  It’s a Tilapia-2-ways.  The soup is made with tofu and siu tong choi and boiled to a nice white color.  This is the stuff that gets plated afterwards for you to nibble on.  It’s great.

Ruby’s Diner

Wendy and I have been in Washington State quite a bit this year.  We usually stay the night at her relative’s home and then roam the highways of the I5.   The funny thing is that we usually end up at Alderwood Mall.  Wendy loves her Sephora and I like sitting in that one shop with all the massage chairs and devices.  One thing we did this time but never before was to visit Ruby’s Diner.  It is basically at one end of the food court.  You really can’t miss it.

We didn’t really plan to come here, but we knew it would a place to blog about.  It has a 1950-60s decorum and all the waitresses were dressed similarly.

As evidence of my above statement regarding the waitresses.

Yum.  First meal of the day for us were milkshakes!  Wendy chose the Vanilla Blackcherry while I got the Butterfinger.  Both were definitely sweet as expected.  I REALLY enjoyed the Butterfinger bits and loves chewing on them.  The Vanilla Blackcherry shake had bits of cherry pieces in there as well.  A nice start to our meals.

Pearl Castle 圓香 @ Richmond Centre

Pearl Castle at Richmond Centre has finally opened and Boyfriend and I took the chance to visit it on a weekday for lunch.  Boy it was packed.  But we still managed to get a seat right away.  Oh it’s located in the same corridor where McDonald’s is, at the space that was previously Richmond Farm Market.

The lighting theme at this location is a bit darker than the one in the Golden Village, but it’s not dark-dark.  On the other side of the room, is a wavy-patterned wall that has lights that changes color.  Quite cool.

First a funny story.  The couple that sat next to us were an old caucasian couple and the whole time I was doing a Sherman (here and here).  It seemed like it was their first time for Chinese food and they each ordered a Ginseng Chicken Hotpot plus an Oolong Tea to share.  When the server stuck the printed order sheet to the table, the old man read it and said “Bubble oolong tea?!  When did we order bubble oolong tea??”.  Also, when their hotpots finally came, they were just HORRIFIED and the large size of the meal as a whole (I guess the pot looked tall and with all the extras like rice and the dessert it looked huge) and he was just annoyed that he wasn’t informed that one hotpot was enough for sharing.  Later, he kept picking pieces of legitimate chicken and saying “They just put every part of the chicken in this!  Even the inedibles!” and I thought “to us, they are edibles…” Besides, the pieces he was holding up, while not looking particularily appetizing (if you’ve been to Pearl Castle you’ll know how some pieces are boiled grey), are legitimate pieces of actual meat.  I was so annoyed.  He was talking about how there were INTESTINES in there!!!  They never put chicken intestines in anything!!!  All this time though, the old lady was silently eating everything.

Now while I commend him for trying new foods, he didn’t really try new foods.  I was so extremely annoyed.  But in the end, something funnier happened.  As we were paying, I think he saw that we left very little tips (in his opinion, we left 10%).  What he saw was that I put in an extra quarter and then took it back.  So he asked Boyfriend how much tips was needed.  We told him 10%.  He was so shocked as he says he usually does 20%.

Anyways now back to the food.

For drink Boyfriend chose the Green Milk Tea with Pudding to share.  This is supposed to be the large size ($5.50) but it really didn’t seem that large to us.  It was good though.  Their normal drinks are always on par.  We especially love their pudding.  Taste is the same as the original locations.

As Boyfriend had already eaten breakfast earlier he opted for something small and simple.  It was only when it arrived that he realized he ordered the wrong thing.  Instead of the one with the fluffy crusty topping, he ordered the Thick Toast with Condensed Milk ($3.50) instead.  It was still very good.  The bread was fresh and fluffy, and it was loaded with butter so it was very aromatic and it was toasted just right, crispy and not too hard.

Bubble Queen

You take a long-time classic like “Milk Tea”, throw some tapioca balls (and then call them precious pearls) in there and thus, creating one of the most popular modern beverage in the last 15 years.   We call it simply ‘Bubble Tea’ – its existence permeates the lives of most Asians around the world.   Today, we present to you yet another bubble tea place.  This place is a bit different than others that we have visited.  Sure enough, it’s got your classics (Milk Tea, Taro, etc), but these guys (er….queens?)  at Bubble Queen surely put their minds in something different.

Looking from Cambie Street.  It’s kinda hidden but it’s there!

The view from the door.  Not that roomy but hey, I’m not sleeping here.

More internals.