Golden Sweets & Restaurant

On the painful road from Langley to Newton (64th) I have many times noticed an Indian restaurant in a strip mall seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

One afternoon, with no particular plan for lunch, it seemed like a good idea to stop because, well, is Indian food ever not a good idea?

As usual, we showed little imagination in ordering, starting with the Fish Pakora. There is nothing on an Indian menu that I would not love but we seem to stick to our boring plan. I guess it allows us to compare one place to another. This was a generous serving for $10 and the chutney and what I would call tartar sauce served alongside were very good. We munched down all the onions, cabbage and daikon that were on the plate too! Call it a salad.

Butter Chicken is our next go to. It seems a little to me that Butter Chicken is like Indian food made for Caucasian people but I don't mind. Do you Indo-Canadian people love Butter Chicken also? This one was maybe a touch on the salty side but there was a pretty good amount of chicken making it chicken with sauce instead of sauce with chicken.

We tried their Lamb Biryani which was wonderful. Lots of tender lamb and very flavourful rice.

And of course Naan. This was pretty good and a bit charred which is what we want. It all came to about $40 and we had enough leftovers for my dinner the next day. Good prices and good food! 

I enjoyed the fact that the food was served on Correll Living Ware circa 1970 (?). Do they still make that stuff? It launched me into some reminiscences about my Mother's kitchen.

This is a comfortable enough place and our server was attentive and friendly. Next time consider stopping in instead of just driving by!

For what it's worth, we give Golden Sweets and Restaurant 3 1/2 out of 5.

Earnest Ice Cream

So I have started listening to a local ice cream food podcast (Yes, there is such a thing. Or at least there was for 3 months in 2017) called Rain City Scoop. This mean of course, that we will be eating much more ice cream in the future (or maybe only for 3 months). That is both a good and bad thing. At least we'll be eating the best ice cream.

Earnest Ice Cream ended up being our first foray into the world of really, really good ice cream at the recommendation of Rain City Scoop. We stopped at the store on Quebec near East Second. I love the look of this place both inside and out.

I am not sure when it became OK to spend $7.50 for an ice cream cone. The folks in the podcast took responsibility for this as millennials and said it may have started with Starbucks (not ice cream but just premium prices). I guess that I don't mind that much as it will keep us from buying ice cream every day and, at least, in this case, it means a very good experience. 

To be fair, the $7.50 was for a double in a waffle cone. This was some spectacular ice cream also. Marie chose Cookies and Cream and Salted Caramel. The available flavours change daily and are made in house. You can check their web site. In lieu of Vanilla, according to the podcast, they have what they call Sweet Cream. Artificial vanilla (99% of all vanilla) is a product which demands a process entirely unfriendly to the environment to produce. So Earnest has gone a different direction.

We also tried the Vegan Chocolate Fudge Sundae. This is not only for vegans but for the 15 to 30 per cent of North Americans who are lactose intolerant. Stop pretending that you are gluten sensitive (unless your doctor has confirmed it) and recognize the very real possibility that lactose may be messing you up. Again talk to your doctor instead of just consulting Web MD. Your stomach and your friends will thank you! I chose Peanut Butter vegan ice cream for my sundae (coconut cream based) and again, spectacular! The sundae was topped off with lots of chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce and nuts and of course, fudge! Again $7.50 but we're not going to eat one every day, are we?

The folks I spoke to here were friendly and enthusiastic about their  product. When you go out for ice cream, make it an experience. For what it's worth we give Earnest Ice Cream 4 1/2 out of 5.

Heritage Asian Eatery

The measure of Heritage Asian Eatery's successful take on some unique Asian eats, is the fact that they opened their second location in Mount Pleasant sometime this past winter (Feb 2019?).

Heritage serves a variety of comforting dishes with a few refinements and creative twists including the use of local ingredients. The result is that we would have liked to try everything on their menu but some things will have to wait until our next visit. First up was their Pork Belly Bao served with kimchi, hoisin and crispy onions. It is one of three baos on the current menu.

It arrived, as several things did, in a bamboo steamer basket with a paper liner. I thought that was kind of cool (not like earth shattering or anything ).  This was a rich and flavourful treat with a nice hit of sweetness and spice.

We loved the Five Spice Wings. They were hot out of the fryer, tender and juicy. I enjoy the way five spice stays with you! I need to start using it more at home!

We went ahead and ignored the rule about only ordering Xia Long Bao in Shanghaisese restaurants and we did not regret it at all. We are not the ultimate judges of how thick the wrapper should be or anything like that but we thought they were very good. Delicate yet they held together until we could suck out the soup. Lovely pork flavour for the stock and filling. Nice!

Finally, we had the Duck Rice Bowl. This is one of several noodle or rice bowls with tempting toppings. Roasted with Peking sauce, the duck came sliced from the breast and pulled from the leg. It was tender and delicious. Served over rice with some crispy onions, a nice slaw, nicely soft boiled egg, and a few micro greens for garnish. I would order this again. All of this came to $38 with tax but before tips. A wee bit on the expensive side as if we had ordered a couple of bowls but fewer side dishes (which would have filled us up and made more sense for lunch), it probably would have been closer to $50. Still not bad for eats that are definitely on the upscale side of things.

You order at the counter and your food is delivered to you as things are ready. This is a nice bright space with skylights and chic decor.

I am a fan of the food they serve here and their creativity and for what its worth, we give Heritage Asian Eatery 4 out of 5.

Max's Restaurant

We tend to think of Jollibee as the iconic Filipino restaurant. Yes, probably it holds the crown as the most popular and all you need to do is check out the line up at the nearest location in Tukwila, any given Sunday morning. The good news is that Max's holds its own with over 200 locations in the Philippines and the nearest being on Kingsway near Boundary in Burnaby!

While Jollibee is more or less a fast food restaurant, Max's tends to be more family style and featuring many Filipino favourites. Mharie wanted to take the kids out for lunch so we found ourselves at noon on Sunday at Max's.

As usual, we ordered way more than we could eat, starting with Lumpiang Sariwa. These are fresh spring rolls with a thin crepe wrapper and a sweetish garlic sauce. Very nice!

One of the things that Max's has been known for since 1945 is their fried chicken. It is not battered but marinated in spices and deep fried with very crispy skin and nicely juicy meat. They have stuck to their recipe for 70 years as if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

You are bound to notice a pattern emerging as the next dish is a marinated, crispy skinned, deep fried pork hock known as Crispy Pata. Served with a soy dipping sauce, it's hard not to love this.

Continuing on the theme of crispy skinned, deep fried meats is my personal favourite, Bicol Express. Pork belly this time and served with a spicy coconut and shrimp paste sauce. Not too spicy and not overwhelmed by the shrimp paste, I would eat this daily if didn't think my doctor would find out!

Sisig, of course, arrived on a sizzling platter filling the immediate area with the wonderful aroma of garlic. Pork jowls are broiled after being marinated in soy and calamansi. It should be present at every Filipino feast!

Mharie is fond of Max's Pancit Canton and I didn't feel bad about seeing a few vegetables on the table! Nicely just cooked both the noodles and vegetables had a bit of al dente to them.

Rounding out the meal was Kare Kare another of my Filipino favourite dishes but I found this dish to be disappointing! Could have been peanutier for sure and this dish was short on the beef shank. Looked a bit more like soup than a stew so I would give this a miss on the next go around. There was rice too but you know what that looks like. 

Despite all the leftovers, some of us had room to at least share dessert.

Halo-Halo is a sort of shave ice and ube ice cream dish with condensed milk and all sorts of surprises.

Max's is busy and noisy. Service is not brilliant. We sat with finished dishes for a long time and some dishes arrived quickly while desserts took a long time. We were not expecting Joe Fortes service though and they were friendly enough. 

This is accessible Filipino food. If you're not familiar, it's a pretty good introduction to the cuisine.

For what it's worth, we give Max's 3 1/2 out of 5.

Did's Pizza

In my continuing exploration of Scout Magazine's, "Never heard of it" list, I found myself at Did's Pizza. I would not normally seek out a pizza by the slice place but it can be sort of a guilty pleasure, can't it? There is an interesting and extensive back story which you can read on Scout, making the purveyor almost more of an attraction than the purveyed. I felt like I was meeting a bit of a rock star!

The 3 slices and a soft drink for $9.99 is a good place to start. Did is a man of opinions, as many of us get to be as the years go by. Scout magazine suggested that he can be gruff but I found him to be most friendly, eager to share his opinions and proud of his craft.  

The slices themselves are large but not overly loaded with toppings. I asked for his apparently best-known pesto pizza which he created for me, adding his house-made pesto to an existing slice and giving all 3 of my choices a blast in the oven. The real impressive thing here is the pizza crust (other than the house-made pesto). Crispy and thin yet retaining some chew. The crust was worth the price of admission. Did explained the flour in the crust as Monsanto free. I assume that might mean organic but I couldn't say for sure.

Whatever the case, it is an impressive foundation for a decent slice. Pesto, Pepperoni and Mushroom (with a healthy dose of garlic) and a grapefruit flavoured sparkling water made for a pretty good deal for $10!

Did's also serves pasta (which I'm sure I would try) and ice cream (some folks came in, got cones and took selfies while I was there).

Open until 3 am on Friday and Saturday nights, Did's continues to be an after night club place as it was so many years ago. It's not a bad place for a quick lunch or snack at any time.

For what it's worth, we give Did's 3 out of 5.

Shameless Buns Food Truck

Back in February of this year, Shameless Buns showed up as an idea on Instagram. As fully 50% of "Yes! We're Eating  Again" is Filipina, I was excited to see what they would come up with as their intention was to serve "unapologetically Filipino" eats. It took us a while but on Monday, we finally made it our to meet Corvette and Matt and to sample their food.

The Filipino touches start with the food truck itself which is based on a "jeepney", a convenient form of transportation in the Philippines. The Shameless Buns truck is not quite as outrageous as some of the vehicles you might see in  Manila but it might be as close as is legal here! Monday was wet and rainy as Victoria Day so often is but we were welcomed to sit down inside Yellow Dog Brewing Company to enjoy our food. 

We started with Adobo Fries which was an all-round crowd pleaser! Decent crispy fries were the vehicle for a generous amount of adobo braised chicken. As the national dish of the Philippines, adobo is meat that is marinated in vinegar, soy, garlic and black pepper and then slow roasted. S.B. serves all this with their adobo gravy and a garlic calamansi aioli for more distinctly Filipino tangy flavour. Seriously delicious!

The main event was one of their feature Shameless Buns. At Corvette's urging (she helped us with a strategy to try as much as we could in one meal!), we had The Little Sausage! This longaniza sausage,  another Filipino favourite is served on the slightly sweet iconic pandesal bread. Sweet and spicy, its hard not to love longaniza by itself but add in a fried egg, siracha mayo, pickled papaya and garlic chips and you have something comforting and delicious. 

In order to get a taste of the other sandwiches, we ordered the 3Some (Yes.I said 3some). Basically wee sliders that give you a taste. These featured spam (more on that later), more chicken adobo and Jackfruit Coconut Adobo. Just a taste of the latter told me that I could live the rest of my life on it. Almost vegan (I am guessing that the aioli has egg) jackfruit is an ingredient that becomes another  vehicle for the Filipino flavours.

I still wanted to try at least one more thing so when the weather improved a bit I sought out Shameless Buns at the end of the VCC Clarke skytrain line.

My goal was to try their Spam Fries. This was a lovely salty, pleasantly fatty greasy, slightly crispy treat. Spam in Filipino cuisine is the result of American forces being based on the islands for many years (not unlike Hawaiian cuisine). Deep fried (OMG! Is there anything that is not better when deep fried?), served with house-made banana ketchup ( A Filipino condiment developed to offset wartime shortage of tomatoes. The bottled stuff is colored red to imitate tomato ketchup) and garlic aioli. Try this! Oh my God!

If you are Filipino, don't come expecting the food that your mother made but open your mind to flavours that will remind you of home. If you are not Filipino, this is a good introduction to the flavours of one of the 3 most populous immigrant groups in Metro Vancouver (We will worry about introducing you to balut later).

For what it's worth (and obviously, we're a little biased here), we give Shamelss Buns 4 1/2 out of 5.

Look for them on the Street Food ap.

Chong Qing Xiao Mian

Scoutmagazine.ca is a food, culture and travel website that maintains a list called, "Never Heard Of It". It is a list of not so well known but very good restaurants (if they were crap, there would be no point to the list, would there?) in Metro Vancouver. By the time I had discovered the list, I found that we had already eaten at a few of the places including Taste of Africa and Epic Grill Silogs and had others on our radar. What more noble goal than to work our way through the whole group? That's what brought us to Chong Qing Xiao Mian. Chong Quing is another region in China, adjacent to Sichuan and with similarly bold and spicy flavours.

We would never have found it had Scout Magazine not provided the explanation that the shingle of the previous restaurant was still hanging above the door. Let's just say, across from Metro Town, north of the sex shop! We arrived as we often do, at the weird hour of 3 pm at the restaurant labelled Qin Ma Grill, and so had the place to ourselves.

We started off with their chicken wings because every meal should have something deep fried. These were very lightly battered, very crispy and not over spiced. It put me in mind of the White Spot fried chicken of my youth and I mean that in a good way! We would order this again.

We had their Pork Ribs with Rice. Marie really enjoyed the bok choy, which seemed to have picked up the flavour of the spice mixture used on the pork and rice and was perfectly cooked al dente. The ribs themselves were tender and tasty.

The Meat Sauce Noodle was our final dish and was very tasty. We asked for medium spice and this was just enough to impart some warmth while components were all memorable. The broth was rich and bold; complex in flavour. The meat sauce and the noodles were the perfect partners. This was outstanding. 

Several add ons are available including a pork foot for only $2.99 (with the soup). This was a fatty, tendony,  delightful addition that is not to be missed. We finished and left behind quite a considerable pile of bones that I would gladly tackle again. The restaurant is smallish. I have read that the lunchtime line up can be long but folks move through fairly quickly. I guess we can't really say, never heard of it as at least some people have.

For what our opinion is worth, we give Chong Qing Xiao Mian (or Qin Ma Grill if you prefer) 4 1/2 out of 5.