Eh! Restaurant

Wendy and I had a WagJag deal for Eh! Restaurant so we decided to head down to the Alberni & Thurlow location to check it out.  Prices seemed quite reasonable for this area with many entrees on the rather sparse menu under $10 before the discount.

The decor was kind of a cafe meets japanese restaurant vibe with a good mix of electro-house playing on the sound system at a reasonable volume.  The staff seemed to have been plucked from the ESL school down the hall; when I ordered my main dish I had great difficulty conveying my request for a whole wheat tortilla with the waitress questioning me about whether it was a type of sauce   Despite communication barriers they were very friendly however noone came around to ask if our food or drinks were ok except to warn us when the kitchen was about to close.

To start we tried the Vegetarian Spring Rolls.  The shell was nicely crisp and they were twice the size of your usual spring roll.  The mango chili sauce wasn’t bad, basically a sweet & sour sauce with a mild kick to it.  The pickled ginger didn’t add anything to the flavour so after trying a piece of the ginger we left the rest untouched.  Overall fairly satisfying but a bit steep at $7.95 considering it’s a meat free dish and when compared to the pricing for the rest of the menu.

Arashiyama 嵐山

One of our excursion during out time in Kyoto was to the district of Arashiyama 嵐山.  It was a touristy, extremely picturesque destination with a lovely river running between two small mountains.  A bridge connects the two sides.

A semi-hidden attraction is the natural bamboo forest.  For L and I it took a little bit to find, but along the way you get to walk around the little town and try bits and pieces of food.  Particularily I tried the black soy soft serve ice cream.  It was indeed very fragrant of soy bean and was definitely one of the more interesting items I ate on this trip.

As for the bamboo forest, it was very serene and awe-inspiring.  Although not very big, the tall shoots provided enough cover to fully immerse you into the ambiance.  Too bad you weren’t allowed to actually walk through the forest though.

Surrey Fusion Fest

Anyone else went to the Surrey Fusion Fest over the summer?  It was held over the weekend of July 16-17 and it’s basically a mini world cuisine/cultural event that included many food stalls and cultural presentations such as Korean drumming, belly-dancing, etc.  The big-ticket event was the 9pm show Sunday night featuring Jay Sean.  Bedouin Soundclash was featured the night before.

It was actually pretty big and featured quite a bit of stalls from different countries.  Some of whom I’ve never seen at other events of the like.  A downer was that it rained the whole weekend which explains the sorry amount of pictures I took as it was just too miserable to take out my camera and eat and handle things at the same time…plus my Tom’s got wet =(

One of my favorites was definitely the El Salvador stall. I went to the fest with Hitman and he actually recommended me try what’s called a pupusa, which is a traditional Salvadorean dish of handmade corn tortillas stuffed with various ingredients.

At this stall they offered either meat, cheese, or mix.  On my first try I tried the mix.

It was crumbly but very flavorful and savory.  I’m actually not sure what meat is in it but it was a ground meat of some sort.  The homemade salsas were pretty spicy though, especially the green stuff.  I enjoyed this so much we went back the next day and I had another one.

No this is not urine in a bag.

At the same stall I also got an import mango soda.  I actually wanted the mango juice but a miscommunication between Hitman and I and the guy resulted in the soda version.  It was interestingly served in a little flimsy plastic bag with a straw.  Actually I had to ask for the straw LOL.

Actually now that I think about it, what I REALLY wanted was the Tamarind juice but again…miscommunication….

Hitman  visited the Kenyan stall next and got a platter of curry plus a tortilla of some sort.  I tried a little and it really wasn’t that good.  The tortilla was premade and kept warm so it was a bit dry.  As for the curry, let’s just say I still prefer Indian/HK versions much, much more.

We actually tried more food the next day but the weather was just so damn miserable I didn’t take any pictures.  I did recall trying momo’s from the Tibetan stall, got Hitman to try some “Fries” from the Taiwan stall which really were deep-fried fish cake (‘tempura’) and Salt & Pepper Chicken nuggets.

All-in-all it was a nice event for spending a weekend on.

Miura Waffle Milk Bar

When S saw my Facebook album of the foods I ate in Japan, she was especially intrigued by the waffles over there.  So apparently she feverishly googled for a local source of Japanese-style waffle.  Miura Waffle Milk Bar was what she found.

It’s located near Yaletown but I thought it’s quite inconspicuous, so make sure you look out for it.  Small, quaint little cafe and the owners (?) were very friendly.

Guu with Garlic

Oh Guu~~ I always have such a good time at your place!  What’s your secret?

For this particular visit, I’m sure the culprit must be the pitcher of Aloe Vera Mojito ($16.5) shared among two girls.  Yep.  That must be it.

This was refreshing.  I liked chewing on the mint leaves but there really aren’t that much aloe vera bits.  Also, despite downing the whole pitcher, we didn’t really get that drunk, which means there really wasn’t that much booze in it.  We did still manage to get a decent light buzz though.

I’m addicted to avocados lately so anything with that in it catches my attention.  I picked this Prawns & Avocado Wasabi mayo Tartar ($6.80) because of that.

It was a light, refreshing dish.  The prawns were actually cooked which surprised me as I was expecting sashimi-style like how a tuna/beef/salmon tartar would’ve been.  The fact that it’s cooked prawns and contributes to the fact that it yields little prawn taste to this.  It was more avocado than anything.

The wasabi aspect was detectable but not overwhelmingly-so, which was fine my me.  This tasted awesome when eaten atop the supplied prawn chips…but now that I think about it…it’s probably because the prawn chips had more flavor than the main attraction.

We knew from the get-go we wanted deep-fried prawn heads, so we ordered the Amaebi sashimi ($6.80).

Sabai Thai

A friend from Surrey repaid a favor by taking me out for Thai dinner (actually I might’ve made him buy me dinner LOL…).  He suggested Sabai Thai from the Guildford area as he’s been there before and they seem authentic, as in it’s actually owned and operated by Thai’s.

We had quite an early dinner but the place was already half-full.  It got progressively fuller afterwards.  We also noticed that the clientele was all Caucasians, with me (and the owners/servers) being the only Asians.  We deduced that that could mean something about the authenticity of the food as in the actual supposed spiciness and such.

I had been craving Thai Tea for the longest time and so far the only place I’m able to get it is from Tapioca Express in Richmond.  I was happy to see that it was offered here too, but it certainly wasn’t cheap.  I believe it was around $3.50-4.

As with the authentic Thai Teas, this became a bright orange after mixing, and I was happy to see that.  Only wish the picture would do it justice in the bright “neon-ness” of the orange.  I was surprised that my friend hadn’t tried this before, having visited Thailand a few times…he wasn’t too impressed with it though.

I loved it.  It has a very distinct, almost herb-y flavor which I can’t quite describe.  You really gotta try it to appreciate it.

Random Eatings – Kyoto, Japan

Here’s just some more pictures from the rest of the food I ate in Kyoto.  This will be quite the wordless post.  Sorry~

This is from the food department at Daimaru 大丸 department store.  Fujiya 不二家 here in Canada is mostly known for their milky caramel candy.  There they have complete restaurants (which I’ll get to later) and also sells other confectioneries, cakes, etc.  This is the milk pudding.  It comes with that adorable mug.

This was more like a cooked flan though, not as Japanese-pudding-y as I would’ve liked.

Their famous Sweet Potatoe Pie.  It would’ve been much better if we could’ve heated it up somehow, it was kinda dry.