Let’s Go For Dinner: r.tl

It has been a while since I’ve been to r.tl.  I was first introduced to this restaurant when they held a foodie night early last year.  I had a good impression of the place but never got the chance to go back until now, as my good cousin came to visit from Hong Kong, Pretty Sis and I took her out for dinner in Yaletown.  Also since the introduction of the Canada Line, it’s much more convenient for me to get down there as I don’t have to worry about parking.

And as the title suggests, this is also a “Let’s Go For Dinner” participating restaurant.  If you don’t already know what this is, basically you can get gift certificates to certain restaurants for 50% off.  With a shameless plug…please use my referral code RAF315892 if you decide to sign up!  We’ll both get some goodies!

As mentioned before, they change up their menu approximately every 3 months (but I haven’t been keeping track for obvious reasons).  For this visit, they are featuring Basque (BQ), Morocco (MC) and B.C. (BC).

Not sure if they serve bread at the beginning of the meal since we ordered a bread from the menu.  This is the House made Moroccan Spiced Bread ($6).  Weird thing was, the name clearly suggests Moroccan but the menu says it’s BC style.  Perhaps it’s a typo.

Anyways this was served with a caraway & cardamom butter.  It was very fragrant and the cardamom aroma suggests a sweet taste to the butter but it was just a mild sweetness.  In fact, I wasn’t sure if I was just imagining it or it was in fact sweet-ish.  Nonetheless it was very good.

The bread itself was also spiced and made perfectly.  It was served warm and the crust was lightly crisp which is perfect for me as I normally do not eat the crust of the bread served at these types of restaurants since I find them too hard.  But again, this was perfect, the insides were soft and fluffy.  However I suggest that you eat this up while it’s warm since it get kind of chewy and tougher as it cools.

The menu also offers a 3-course $25 menu.  And the way you choose is that some of the dishes are numbered 1, 2, and 3.  You pick one of each number and that makes up your 3-course menu.  We ended up doing 2 of those and then picking 2 more items.

Above was a 1st course of the $25 menu.  They are basically skewers but is decribed as “Spikes served pintxos style (BQ)” (normally $3.50 each, which is pretty expensive but it’s Yaletown…).  They have 6 choices and we picked the Lamb Sirloin in a lime mint confit.

The meat was very juicy and tender.  The lime mint, however, was not very evident.  I did wish we had more though.

The other 1st course was the Bacalhau fritters (BQ) (normally $8) which is something we had before at Foodie night, only that time it was considered Portuguese style.  It is a deep-fried salt cod, potato and onion mash served with a pretty spicy piri piri sauce.

It was better this time for me, but I’m not sure why.  However we did comment on how dark it looked, almost as if it’s burnt (but it wasn’t, probably just old oil or dark spices).

The Cannery Seafood Restaurant est. 1971

One of the more famous restaurants in Vancouver is closing up shop soon due to its lease ending. I have heard about this restaurant for years but never had the opportunity to go. It is fantastic that I get to share this experience with Wendy in the restaurant’s final days. On top of that, Wendy won a raffle draw from Sherman’s blog for a $50 gift certificate which sweetens the experience even more!  So thanks Sherman!

It was a bit unclear how to get there as we didn’t know if we should go up the ramp at the end of Clark or not.  We had to pass through the port authority (quite a confusing experience itself) and had to wait for quite a while for a long train to pass at a crawling rate – and I do mean crawling.  I felt like I was driving in one of those movies where the entire city has been abandoned and I have to make it to a safe-point (sorry, too much Left 4 Dead gaming lately).  We finally arrived and I know for sure that if we were there during the day, the scenery of the water would be beautiful, but tonight it was almost pitch black so we did not have the pleasure in seeing it.

We were led to a cozy spot in the corner by a window. Once we sat down, we knew that there may be trouble. Why? the chair sank in incredibly low once we sat in it. It was like no one replaced these chair since 1971. I could feel the stress on my lower back right away.  Needless to say, Wendy too.  Later into the dinner we ended up just sitting on the front wooden bar/frame of the chair.  Not good at all.

We ordered one appy and two entrees. Our server was a waitress whom declared that she’d been there for ‘very long time’. She definitely knew her menu as we were able to hear her inform other tables what were the best things the Cannery had to serve.

We were served the bread soon after we ordered.  The waiter poured the “lobster oil” mix into a sauce plate in front of us.  It was supposed to be one of Cannery’s famous offerings.  The second bottle was balsamic vinegar and a bit was added into the mix.  The bread itself was largely uneventful (and cold!) but I really enjoyed the lobster oil.  It had a good mix of saltiness and sweetness.  I would like to buy a bottle home but I don’t think I would use it all too often.

Peanuts 花生米

On the topic of Richmond Public Market (RPM), it’s also home to one of the earliest and original bubble tea places in Richmond/Lower Mainland.

Xi’An Cuisine 西安小吃 @ Richmond Public Market

Richmond Public Market is probably one of the worst managed “shopping centres” in the Lower Mainland.  It kinda reminds me of a wet market in Hong Kong where you’re sure that’s rodents and other things scurrying right under your feet.  The lower level tenants probably has it the worst.  They had to put up tarp above their stalls to stop the influx of garbage being thrown from the upper level.

In fact, the day that we went, the Buswell side of the first floor of the parkade was completely flooded with what smelled like garbage water.  It was horrible.  Nonetheless, we just turned around and went in the other entrance haha.

So it’s only natural that we decide to have lunch there!

Actually they have a pretty decent food court.  There is such a variety of food here that you can’t find anywhere else.  One of my favorite places is Xi’An Cuisine first introduced to me by my Mom.  They specialize in handmade/hand-pulled noodles in an authentic lamb broth.

They do offer a variety of other items too.  Some of them I’m afraid to try just because the name sounds weird.  One such was called 油茶 which literally translates to oil tea, but the English name/description (as most Chinese eateries make up the English names to their dishes according to what’s in it or how it’s made) was Fried Flour with garlic and sesame seeds.  Totally unexpected.

Anyway, I ordered what I usually have here, and that’s the Knife-cut Noodle with Lamb in Soup ($5.75).

However, I read on one of the newspaper clippings they had on their counter that actually a signature dish of Xi’An is actually something called Shredded Dough with Lamb in Soup 羊肉泡饃 (it’s written on the glass).  I think I’m going to try that next time.

This is also one of the few places where you actually get to see the chef hand-pull the noodles.  Actually did you know that that’s where the Japanese term Ramen came from?  Ramen is the actually phonetic sound of 拉面 (lai-meen) which quite simply, means “pulled noodle”.  However I don’t believe the Japanese version is actually pulled too.  They just borrowed the name.

Beef Noodle @ Well Tea

Wendy and I have been crazing Taiwanese food for some time.  We really wanted to go back to Well Tea for their Beef Noodle and hot pots!  Recently, Wendy tried the Hot Pot seafood with Soy Milk from Pearl Castle but she reported that it was rather bland.  We thought that perhaps Well Tea can make a version of that.

The Beef Noodle (Spicy version) arrives!  It smelled so darn good….

Here’s a close up! I quickly snatched my spoon to have a taste of the soup base.  I was blown away at how rich the flavor was.  It was the BEST soup base I have had for a Beef Noodle.  It had a really strong flavor and yet not too salty and also with a tinge of spiciness.  The noodle quality was good as usual and the Beef Briskets were tender and easy to chew.  Thumbs up!  WAY UP!!

Felicos Greek Restaurant

Happy New Year, y’all!  I hope everyone had a fantastic time during the crossover to the 2010.  I had the opportunity to visit a Felicos on the last day of 2009.  It was a small gathering my family and a couple of family friends.  We did not know where to go until my mom brought it up during midday.  Since I have not been there before (despite driving past it a million times), I thought “heck, why not?!”

The first thing I liked about the place was that it had sufficient parking in the back.  It was a chilly, drizzling night and entering the ‘tavern’ was warm and welcoming.  We made reservations and were quickly escorted to our seats.  Being that the lighting is relative low in the restaurant, I only managed to take a picture of three separate entrees.   We did, however, order some Bellini’s and Virgin Cocktails to start off but no appies.

My father ordered the Seafood Sautee.  The sauce had a strong aroma which gave life to the rather ordinary selections of seafood and rice.  The seafood ‘collection’ included some fish, scallops and crab meat.  I think it was alright but probably would not order again.

I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures.  It was pretty dim, Wendy wasn’t there and I had to use my dad’s iPhone.  Anyways, my mother tried the Rack of Lamb.  It had about 7 ‘racks’ of lamb served along with the usual asparagus, carrot and mashed potatoes (same as my dad and myself, btw).  The lamb was roasted and had a nice seasoning cover the seared skin.  It was done ‘medium-rare’, so it was very juicy and carried quite a bit of taste as I chewed through it (yes, I took some!).  Great stuff!

Society Dining Lounge

Do these symbols together conjure up a specific place or restaurant?  Well Glowbal Group certainly hopes so, as it’s the marketing strategy for their new venture in Yaletown, Society.

Eat ‘n About was sent an invitation to partake in the Grand Opening Media Access party a while ago.  And it indeed was a while ago.  We’ve recently received an invite for Glowbal’s Relaunch party also which made me finally “pick up my pen” and write this.  I’m ashamed to say it’s taken me so long to write this up.  It’s mostly due to the amount of pictures I’ve taken and I didn’t know where to start!  But anyway here it is.

And obviously this is not a real review as it’s an opening party so it is not a realistic view of how the service and food quality of the restaurant part of Society is going to be like.  On the other hand, hopefully it’s give a taste of what’s to come.

“Media” (we’re “media”!  Who would’ve thought??) was to arrive earlier.  By the time we left, there was a lineup so obviously the event was a success.  Despite the crowd, the event was executed flawlessly, unlike an other opening I’ve been to.

It is very kitschy like most Glowbal venues but it is quite small, explained by its location of course.

But they do have an upstairs which offers a bit more space.