Vancouver Foodster Tasting Plates Vancouver - Part Two

Having just left Mumbai Local and being suitably impressed, I crossed the road to a place I've already enjoyed a couple of times in the past, Davie Dosa Company. No one shouted, "Mike!" as I walked in the door but I felt like I was greeted as a somewhat familiar face!

The offering here was perhaps a bit more rustic and made for a nice contrast to the offering at Mumbai Local. Sprouted Lentil Pancakes were tasty and comforting and the Coconut Veg Avial served as a perfect dip for them. We also enjoyed a couple of Chettinad Kara Paniyaram savory muffins. Dessert was Kesari, a semolina pudding. Very nice!

Davie Dosa is a comfortable place and one always feels welcomed!

Next came another decent hike to the corner of Robson and Denman. This had the advantage of allowing my appetite to be somewhat restored for Pacific Poke. Everything looked good at Pacific Poke and so the answer was to order right off the menu and let these guys do their stuff.

So I tried their Keefer Bowl with Quinoa (lots of options) and a coconut drink.

It is a bit of a  wee place with a few tables upstairs that were occupied. I enjoyed my poke at the counter, said my thank yous and set off on my longest trek yet, all the way to Granville and Davie!. Not exactly brilliant planning but I enjoy the exercise! I arrived at Donnellan's Chipper, excited to try this deep fried Irish treats haven that has been blowing up on Instagram and in the blogs since opening a couple of months ago. As I stepped in through the door, I knew that I was in trouble. The place was packed and there were people waiting for food at many and more waiting at the door. Long story short....40 minutes for a table. Eventually, I was given permission to come back another time and try the goods. So that where I stand now! I'll let you know how it goes!

Vancouver Foodster Tasting Plates Vancouver - Part One

Another Vanfoodster Tasting Plates event! These are good fun and a chance meet fellow foodies and to try some new restaurants! We met inside and out of the cold at Bonus Bakery Cafe to pick up our tickets and maps. Bonus was good enough to send us on our way with a few of their plant based treats!

I carried mine around in a box all evening and ended up eating it on the sky train ride home!

A chocolate chip cookie (with a little touch of salt in pretzel form), a blueberry muffin and a brownie and they were all very good. I love the plant-based thing. 

I inadvertently managed to plan myself into the longest walk possible over the course of the evening. I volunteered to start at the Davie Street restaurants because everyone else was starting at Pacific Poke and  (the plan was for not everyone to show up at the same place at the same time as apparently, we were 140 participants!)

So I skipped across to Davie Street and Mumbai Local. This is a fairly new place that has been getting some foodie attention and for good reason.

Their offering included my second foray into the tasty world of "Chaat" in the form of Shev Puri, then a Prawn Rava, a Chicken Lollipop and Shrikhand. I had to Google the last one and it turned out to be a traditional sweet starting with yogurt and in  this case, ending with pineapple. Very tasty! We will definitely be back to Mumbai Local to try more!

Stay tuned for part two and some real walking (and waiting).

Jerusalem Grill - Langley

I have been wanting to go to the Jerusalem Grill for some time. They have 2 locations, the other being in Fleetwood area and this one being the newer (and closer) of them. This gruesomely cold Sunday (no matter how much the rest of Canada thinks we are wimps, it was cold!), we finally got there.

Trapped in the shadow of Boston Pizza on the By-pass just west of Fraser Hwy, it was worth finding and parking is easy. The menu is pretty typical middle eastern and prices are very good.

This quarter chicken - dark meat plate was $9.49 and came with basmati rice, 2 excellent salads including Fatoush, and a couple of dips, namely Houmus and the amazing Toum (garlic sauce to surpass all garlic sauce on the planet). The chicken is available grilled or fried. I was curious about their fried chicken but Marie got all health conscious on me and so we had the grilled. It was not a mistake as the chicken was tender and slightly salty and very tasty!

We also tried the Roasted Lamb Shank plate which was also a bargain at $13.99. This was the same plate but with a wonderful tender fall of the bone lamb shank. Of course, there was pita and each plate also came with a soft drink!

There is much more to this menu including skewers and wraps and so on. We ordered a Lamb Cube wrap to go which was lovely and tender with sauce and a pickle and lettuce etc. It was not the most photogenic (not meant to be unwrapped once it is wrapped) so after debating, I chose not to include my picture. I would definitely order it again though.

There are a few tables and chairs including a higher communal table and you can watch the game (I expect that the Superbowl was on later).  The owner (and our cook and server this day) was all business when we arrived but warmed up as we asked him about his restaurant.

For value and wonderful food, we are giving this a 4 out of 5.

Mahek Chaat House

While I kind of believed that chaat was a south Indian thing, it turns out to be common to all the regional cuisines of the country. More or less a savoury snack, often served from road side carts and derived from words that mean among other things, "to devour with relish, eat noisily." And so we did!

Located on Scott Road in Surrey, in a strip mall around 86th Avenue, Mahek Chaat House seems to be well regarded in the South Asian community. We were on the hunt for dosa and the chaat story is just a bonus.

So we started with the above mentioned savoury snack, I believe it was called Mahek Chaat (there are several options on their menu). It didn't quite look like the menu photo which showed it covered with yogurt but it was delicious. What they call crispy flakes were basically a puffed and fried tiny flat bread which made a wonderful crunchy base for the potatoes, onions, chick peas, tomato, chutney, yogurt and coriander.  And we did eat it with relish and noisily! If you are not yet a fan of chaat, I'm going to go ahead and recommend it!

During our dosa explorations, we have also gotten into the habit of ordering the pillowy steamed idli and the little doughnut like vada that come with sambar and coconut chutney for dipping! As much as we enjoy this, I should remember that the dosa will always come with the sambar and chutney as well. We need to try something different next time.

We tried the Masala Potato Dosa. I'm not sure why it came as a triangle rather than rolled, but the crepe itself was still lovely and crispy on the outside. This one had the masala potato filling but it was way on the mild side and not strongly flavoured compared to what we have had in the past. I sometimes wonder if, when they see a non Indian face coming through the door, some take it as a sign to tone things down, possibly out of consideration for our inexperienced pallets? I hope that is not the case. At any rate, not the earth shaking experience but tasty enough.

We had room for a little dessert for a change and tried their Gulab Jamun. These tasty little balls are served in syrup. Two in a bowl was enough to pleasantly spike our blood sugar and round out our meal experience. Mahek is a pleasant, comfortable and airy little place. I like the home country home life type art on the walls. Our server was very pleasant and attentive.

I've been asked to add some sort of a rating to our blog posts. I was hoping that Blogger might offer some sort of gadget along those lines but if so, I haven't found it. So I though I would just add the old, rating out of 5 at the bottom of each post. 

For what its worth, we give Mehak Chaat House, 3.5 out of 5.

ZenQ

We made a monster! The challenge was too tempting as we stepped in the door and so we accepted!

Actually, someone else made the monster. All we did was choose Taro flavour for the shave ice base, and then 3 side flavours. We chose red bean, melon jello and mango ice cream. The tasty creation also came with a bottle of sweetened condensed milk (? I am guessing on that last thing). I'm not sure if we were maybe supposed to continue decorating with the side items? Anyway, we ate it all including the sides except for the Bugle ears!

I didn't find our monster overly frightening at $9.70 and it was very refreshing and maybe a little creamier than I expected for shave ice and enough dessert for the 2 of us. The novelty alone made us happy.

ZenQ offers quite a few different Taiwanese Deserts, including some waffle or glutinous rice-based items. They also offer bubble tea. We enjoyed the Original Milk Tea with Pearls.

There is some room and its comfortable enough here which is good as I expect they can be quite busy when the weather calls for cool desserts. We were greeted by a friendly and helpful person who walked us through the monster creating odyssey.

The one drawback is parking. Although not the worst example, ZenQ is in one of those Richmond strip malls where each parking spot is designated for a particular business. I always chalk this up to cranky business owners who only notice when someone parks in front of their business and goes elsewhere but do not see when their customers have parked elsewhere! The result is that an occasionally half half-empty parking lot still only allows for a limited number of customers for each business. Silly cranky business owners! I have in the past, driven out of such parking lots out of frustration (spying empty stalls but being unable to park in them), and taken my business elsewhere! If you can find parking or walk from around the corner ( you need the exercise, right?) then this is a fun place for dessert.

Corner Kitchen

My hit list of restaurants and cafes to visit is ridiculous. Every time I hear or read a good review, get a recommendation or see something that looks tasty on Instagram, the place goes on my list. Obviously, this is the recipe for a long list. Often, when I finally get back to the name, I can't remember why it is there or what it is known for. So in a way, I kind of feel like its a brand new find and that we may be revealing to the world a hidden gem that no one has been to yet! Not usually the case I know, but let me enjoy the moment!

Corner Kitchen is one of those places that I would like to claim to have discovered, although we didn't start out so keen. After a nice stroll along the Terra Nova Park dyke on a brisk Sunday morning, we sought sustenance at the nearby Corner Kitchen, a cafe with an interesting Taiwanese menu. Although their web site says that they open at 11:30, Google says that they open at 11:30 and even the sign on their front door says that they open at 11:30, somehow they just couldn't get the doors open until noon, even with prompting by telephone (Only so much prompting is appropriate if people are going to be handling your food later). Crisis averted as once we were inside, we were quickly seated and served lovely warming tea!

A couple of appetizers were ordered, the first of which was their Deep Fried Squid. This was excellent! Although the tentacles were of the larger variety, they were tender, crisply fried and tasty. A few tentacles survived and were finished at the end of our meal and yet suffered no ill effects (I.e. they did not become tougher or greasy). The Japanese Mayo on the side served them well.

Also, on the side, we tried the Chinese Golden Pickled Cabbage. A generous bowl arrived and we were hopelessly hooked! Marie and I immediately scurried to Google in search of recipes (found one!) which was followed by an exhaustive search later at T and T. Where can we get this? It was such a delightful slightly sweet, sour and crunchy flavour. Wonderful!

Mentaiko Stir Fried Udon was next and delicious! When all mixed together (they were kind enough to remind us to do this), then the roe, nori and other ingredients formed a wonderfully rich and slightly spicy mixture with lots of wood ear and a few shitake mushrooms. We really enjoyed this dish.

Finally came Stir Fired Tofu with Three Cup Sauce. This dish also made us very happy! There were many slices of ginger and whole garlic cloves and lots of basil. The tofu slices were crisp and soaked up the sauce well. We ordered a side of rice as well so as to leave no sauce behind!

Amazingly, when it was time to go, our server offered to pack our leftovers, rather than just provide a container. I forgot that people could do that!

We are now big fans of Corner Kitchen (thanks for not spelling Corner with a K!). The folks were friendly and service efficient. The restaurant was light and sharply decorated with comfortable chairs and tables. The menu is not long but there were a few other things that we will return to try. Let's just hope they can get those doors open on time!

Thai Delicious - Cloverdale

We decided that it had been too long since we had gone for Thai food. Thai Delicious is open for lunch on Sunday and that's when we got this clever thought so that's where we ended up!

It's a homey, comfortable place that could use a little updating as a few places in Cloverdale could, but we didn't mind. We started with a couple of appetizers.

The Deep Fried Wontons were just what you'd expect. They were crispy and the pork filling was tasty enough but nothing that made us stand up and sing. Served with Sweet Thai Chili Sauce, it was a decent start considering that we were pretty hungry!

Also, some tasty enough wings with the same sweet chilli sauce. These were crispy and hot again.

What they do have at Thai Delicious are pretty decent lunch specials that are even available Sunday.

The Pad Thai with chicken was $9.50 including a spring roll. The salad had seen better days and was showing a bit of brown on the cut edges but the pad thai itself was peanuty with just a tiny bit of spice. The menu allows you to choose mild, medium or hot but we weren't asked and forgot to give out preference. No problem.

Finally, the Pad Krapraw was quite good. A generous serving of beef and some nice crisp vegetables. The rich sauce had lots of shallot and garlic and had a little more punch than the Pad Thai. This one came with rice and the fourth appearance of the sweet chilli sauce.

The mains took quite a long time to arrive which was mildly disconcerting but I observed that our hostess/server/ bus person was also our chef! Apparently, at lunchtime only on Sunday, she wears all the hats herself and that being the case, she does a very good job! A nice place for lunch. I would try it for dinner also.