Pho Boi: A Taste of Attitude (Burnaby location)

Wendy was quite excited to spot the transition of Pho Hoa on Kingsway to its new incarnation, Pho Boi: A Taste of Vietnam about a week ago.  We agreed to try it ASAP.  It seems this chain has its roots in Victoria, so in hindsight that should have been a red flag right there…

PS-I found this sadly defunct but hilariously named Victoria food blog recently…the front page pic is priceless 😛

We were invited to pick our own seat when we walked in so we pulled up a chair and got down to business with Pho Boi’s menu.  It looked interesting enough so we ordered our pho from the “Adventures’ choice section”.  We also were interested in their version of the Vietnamese spring roll, cha gio, but Wendy wanted to know if they were made with the traditional rice paper or Chinese style spring roll wrappers.  It’s pretty common for local Viet places to use the wheat version, but there were some authentic looking menu items so it was worth asking.  Here’s the convo:

U & I Thai take 2

Wendy decided to take advantage of the Living Social voucher this evening so that I could try U & I Thai for myself.  It was busy when we arrived but luckily Wendy had made reservations and we were seated immediately.  They had the place done up nicely for Christmas with ornaments and wreaths etc.

We started with Isaan Lettuce Wraps (Yom Nam Khao Tod) ($10.95).  They throw everything but the kitchen sink into this one: pork, fried rice balls, egg, curry paste, ginger, cilantro, red peppers, onion and toasted peanuts.  The menu says it’s served with sweet basil sauce but they gave us fresh basil instead (not that I’m complaining, the basil was fresh and tasted great in the wraps).  It also came with both iceberg and green leaf lettuce, which was nice.  It was also nice that there was more than enough lettuce to go around since we’ve run out before the filling is done at other places.  This dish reminded me of the yam naam we had at Maenam a while back but the flavours were more balanced so the salty and sour aspects didn’t overpower the sweet and spicy.
We both thoroughly enjoyed it.

U & I Thai

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It’s very difficult to get Fannypack to make a choice…with me anyways. However for her birthday I finally got her to choose a place to eat.  She ended up picking U & I Thai in Cambie so a date was set!

We were supposed to pick a dish each but I of course ended up picking most of them.

On another note, it seems like the servers were Thai, so that gave me comfort on the authenticity of this place.

For appy I picked the Green Papaya Salad (Som Tum) ($10.95). The green Papaya shreds had the right amount of crunch. The dressing was a bit tart for me but it all melded very well together. Portion was a bit small.

Next up was the Authentic Pad Thai ($12.95). Why is it ‘authentic’ you ask?? Well it’s because instead of the usual ketchup-based sauce most other restaurants use, here they use a Tamarind sauce. Also interesting is the addition of banana flowers.

For the obligatory curry dish I picked the Red Curry Duck with Lychee ($15.95). It was a sweet curry, likely due to the lychee. However there weren’t many pieces of them… Probably just 3? The duck was also in smaller shreds. Otherwise the sauce went quite well with rice.

Mr. Ho Wonton House

When it gets really cold I always crave a hot bowl of pho.  Last night was no exception.  But somehow we ended up at Mr. Ho Wonton House.  How did that happen??  Well blame me and my trait of easily distractedness.  As Hitman and I were going along Kingsway I got distracted by the neon signs of the local Korean restaurants, so I then suggested we do Korean instead.  Then I made a joke and suggested we could try On On’s Wonton House, to which Hitman in all seriousness suggested we try Mr. Ho’s, since it was voted best Chinese food in Burnaby.

I cringed my nose and suggested that the votes may not have been cast by Chinese people…  However, I am always in search of a good wonton house within reach, so I agreed.  Why not?  So off to Mr. Ho’s we went.

Upon entering my suspicions were somewhat confirmed: there weren’t any Asian patrons in the house, and there was sweet and sour pork and wonton soup everywhere.  However I found a bit (a little bit) of comfort in the fact that all the servers there were Cantonese, much like the servers at Hon’s Wun Ton House or other similar establishments in Richmond.

I felt like having a big plate of chow mein though.  “Comfort food”, I told Hitman.  So I ordered the Shredded Pork and Bean Sprouts Chow Mein ($8.95).  Hitman decided on the Pan fried Rice Noodle  with Beef and XO Sauce ($7.95) plus a personal order of Wonton Soup and Egg Roll (+$1.50 each).

The small items came first obviously.  Which is actually different from other Asian establishments as usually they don’t seem to really put much effort in to making sure that appies come before the mains!  The egg roll was your standard fair.  Nicely crisp, fresh tasting, and the oil didn’t seem old (old overused oil would make the roll dark in color and you would definitely taste it).  I could even see some strands of meat in it.

Bo Laksa King’s Bubbles & Bits

I was pretty surprised and excited when my Dad told me that there’s a place called Bo Laksa King which serves traditional Myanmar cuisine here in Vancouver.  Up until quite recently Myanmar has been very closed off to the world and so I didn’t know we had any sort of Burmese community here.  But, Vancouver being the multicultural tapestry that it is, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  Wendy and I checked the menu online and it looked fascinating, so we trekked down to Hastings-Sunrise for a lunch date.

It’s a pretty unassuming little place, and you might not expect much if you haven’t heard Bo Laksa’s reputation, (it’s won itself a few awards over the past couple of years).  However we learned that Bo no longer owns the place as he’s sold it along with his name.  We think maybe his recipes too…but we haven’t been here while Bo was still here so we had nothing to compare to.  Now this Bo Laksa King is owned by a nice couple with the husband manning the front and the wife cooking in the back.