Ebisu on Broadway

Work's been eating my life, and I haven't really cooked in the last little bit. I made stew the other day, but it's an old recipe. All I did was add a can of diced tomatoes and it enhanced the flavours.

Cindy, Will and I went to Ebisu on Friday night. Poor Eddie was recuperating from a wisdom teeth extraction, and could not join us.

The food was good, but I still the old Hapa menu better.

The more interesting parts of dinner:

Mango California Roll

Healthy Dynamite Roll (brown rice and bean curd wrap)

Yam Tempura Roll

Enoki Beef and Bacon Asparagus

Tuna Taco

Thunder Fries (really good with mayo)

Menya (Broadway just East of Cambie)

Finally got a chance to try out this place.

Nice feel to it, and service was prompt and friendly.

To drink, we had the Asahi Black. It had a nutty finish, but was not as full bodied as some of the other stouts. I think I like Asahi Super Dry more.

Will had the tonkotsu miso ramen. As you can see, we're new to this taking pictures of our food; we had already mixed the onions and corn. The soup's richer than I'm used to, and it's decent, but I swear Kintaro is better.

I had the ramen salad. Absolutely delish! The ramen was a thinner variety, and the dressing was like a creamy sesame vinaigrette. There were spring greens, red & yellow pepper, red onions, beets, tomatoes, shredded egg and cucumber.There were also a couple slices of oranges to finish it off. Wow, so good, and look at how colourful and pretty it is! The set comes with 4 gyoza and a mushroom onigri. I really liked the onigiri.

Samosa Garden (Circle Square on Kingsway) & Tipper Restaurant (Kingsway @ Victoria)

Ange is going to India soon, and so we wanted to get together. She does, however, have a bajillion assignments to complete, so she couldn't do dinner.

Will, Cindy and I went and had Indian food at Samosa Garden. Our food:
Fried Mogo:
This is deep fried cassava, and it really tasted like potato fries. I used the tamarind sauce exclusively, as the hot and sour sauce was too hot. I was just happy to get a grease fix ^^

Butter Chicken:
Super creamy, and the chicken was super tender.

Shahi Paneer-something:
This was basically cheese in butter chicken sauce, and dude, it was good! The sauce had more tomato and spices, so it was really tasty. Definitely my new favourite, since I tend to find that there's too much chicken in butter chicken for me.

Naan:
I love their naan. Fluffy, chewy and soft--perfect for dipping and wrapping!


Then we went to the Tipper for drinks and dessert. It had a nice cozy feel. Unfortunately, a lot of our choices were not available: Strongbow, Trufflicious Cake, Classic European Cheesecake, and Ice Cream for the apple pie.

I mean seriously? It's a Saturday night. Most restaurants know to restock on Thursday for the weekend crowd. The wine and beer that were available were good, but the tiramisu cheesecake was definitely purchased.. the centre was frozen -_-;;

I think it would be a good place to go for casual lunch or dinner..burgers, fries, pasta.

Candia Taverna, W10 @ Sasamat

Last night, we finally addressed my Greek craving.

The place had a nice feel to it, and there were a few tables with guests; not bad for a Wednesday night.

Service was good, and prices reasonable, but the food itself was not as good as I am used to. Our selections:

Calamari:
The batter was too greasy and it was bland overall. The tzatziki was like hollandaise instead of sour cream or yogurt. weird.

Moussaka:

Their version was quite different. Instead of coming out as a lasagna-esque slab, it came in a metal dish. I would've liked it, if not for the fact that it was too salty.


Lamb Souvlaki:

Tasty, but the meat was poorly cut, so some pieces were ultra chewy.


I got my Greek fix, but next time, we'll go a little further down the street to Athene, or a few streets over to Kerkis.

Burgoo on 10th

Will took me to Burgoo today, and while I was originally going to try ratatouille, figuring I should know what something is supposed to taste like before attempting to make it, I decided to try out the mac and cheese.

We got there just shy of 6:30, and the place was mostly empty (yay! no wait time!).

A rundown of our food:
Bruschetta: the tomato was really good, and the garlic was not overpowering at all. I could, however, done with a softer bread.

Russian Borscht: had a bit of a twist in that it had cumin, or some sort of spice that was reminicient of curry. It could've been that there was so much pepper that my tastebuds had gone out of wack, but I can't be sure.

Irish Stew: I only had a couple bites, but it was good.

Mac & Cheese: The baked, browned cheese was great. The rest of it was ok. Maybe I had too much expectation going in, but I can't say I was wowed. I also think it was way too hot when it came out, and so, having delayed my gratification, I was knocking points off again.

Sticky Toffee Pudding: The top layer of sugar was way too sweet, but the bread/cake/pudding part was yummy.

Raven Cream Ale: as Will was saying, "you can't go wrong with a cream ale". In this case, it was true.

Black Mead: It was ok. I think part of the problem was that I didn't know what mead was supposed to taste like, and this had black currant in it, so I still don't know how mead is supposed to taste. It was kinda like vodka and juice.


Overall, the meal was good if you're really craving comfort food, but I think I'm much more of an ethnic cuisine kinda girl. I could've attained the comfort food from a pub.