Spicy Weekend

What a wonderful weekend: perfect weather, long weekend, and lots of food!

Restaurant

We went to Ikea to return an item and on our way back, we were indecisive of what to have for lunch. Initially, we would like to eat Indian buffet but changed our mind because we had some decent size breakfast and were not ready for a buffet, let alone Indian food with lots of rice and flour.

We passed by a Thai restaurant and were toying the idea of eating there since our regular Thai restaurant, Thai House at Metrotown, has closed down indefinitely.

We passed by another restaurant, this time it's a Mexican restaurant. We were thinking of having Mexican as well since it has been a while since the last time we had a proper Mexican food aside the street tacos we got from La Taqueria.

Outside

Due to the unappealing exterior appearance of the restaurant, we drove away for a few minutes before I turned back and gave it a try.

Apparently they were having their 13th anniversary (or so the sign said).

Feels like in Mexico: colorful and bright

We had our doubts when we were inside because we were the first diners and it took a while for them to prepare the food. But hey, they say not to judge the book by its cover right?

Chimichanga

Wife ordered Chimichanga. She was expecting the Chimichanga to have some sort of sauce.

Beef Burrito

I got the usual Burrito with mild sauce. I should have gotten the extra spicy instead of the mild. Mild doesn't taste spicy enough.

We. Love. The. Refried. Beans. It was so darn good!

Little did we know, this place has a lot of rave reviews even though it was empty when we came there.

Reviews:

• http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/14/181306/restaurant/Vancouver/Ole-Ole-Mexican-Deli-New-Westminster 
• http://dinehere.ca/new-westminster/ole-ole-mexican-deli

We learned that the restaurant really served traditional and original Mexican food. Not the one that has been "adapted" to the local tongue.

Las Margaritas on 4th Ave is our regular Mexican restaurant but unfortunately it is a wee bit too far from our house so we are very grateful that we stumbled upon Ole Ole very close from our place.

Easter Sunday

We started Sunday with a trip to the House of the Man Above and it was jam packed. So packed that they have to open another big room to contain the overflow of people.

After the sermon, we decided to grab our lunch.

Thanks!

We've been blessed. The above sign is absolutely a divine intervention. It makes our life easier when it comes to parking lot: there's always some empty spots close to the entrance.

Nando for lunch to continue the theme of spicy weekend.

We happened to have a coupon for this particular combo: full chicken and 2 side dishes for $18.99 (excl. tax). We requested half of the chicken to be hot (left) and the other half mild (right).

So yummy, we haven't had Nando's for at least 5 years. It's about time!

Snacks

We haven't bought snacks for a while so we decided to stock up some for the long weekend.

Without us noticing (we did the grocery first before eating out), some of the snacks we bought were hot/spciy.

Both snacks taste a little bit similar.

Sunburst is wife's favorite. Once in a while wouldn't hurt :)

Shrimp Cracker was on sale, $0.79, haven't had this since ages.

I noticed that Quaker is expanding to snacks as well. We decided to give it a try.

Speaking of Takoyaki, the annual Richmond Night Market is about to open soon.

Last but not least, Pringles with less Salt :).

Happy Easter!

A Cake, a Bread, and a Fiery Dim Sum Manager

Central Station

Had a chance to snap a picture of Central Station when it was not too busy.

We may go back and explore the inside of the building in the future. 

Bread and Cake

Wife is on the roll for 2 weeks straight making bread and cake from leftover.

Banana Bread with Chocolate Bits

She made Banana Bread last week from very ripe bananas.

Somehow we managed to have a break from hunting baby needs thus able to set aside some time.

The next on the menu was Steamed Marble Cake that we made yesterday.

 Helping wife is a blessing in disguise. I find these activities as a stress reliever and I also picked up basic kitchen skills as well.

Steaming the Marble Cake

It was a little bit challenging to scoop out the cake out of the bundt pan despite the extra oil to make it not too sticky

We had to make a small wedge cut and separate the cake into two big portions.

All is well, we have our snacks despite our hard work (by our, I mean my wife's hard work... isn't that right?).

Dim Sum at Po King Restaurant

Wife also had a sudden craving for Dim Sum after church yesterday. Driving around Metrotown to try out new places yielded unsuccessful result, we decided to go to our usual hangout place: Po King Seafood restaurant, which is located right next to Denny's. (Have to admit that we're lucky to live very close to these two restaurants as we can have multi-cultural choices for our breakfast).

Our all-time favorite is the giant Har Gows (Shrimp Dumpling).

Har Gow (Shrimp Dumpling)

Our next all-time favorite is the Chang Fen (Shrimp as well).

Chang Fen

Eating in this particular Dim-Sum restaurant can be a surprising experience for North Americans because in this place, you don't wait to be served: if you want a spoon or an extra napkin or chopsticks, you have to walk to the counter and help yourself. 

Perhaps one of the reasons is because the waitresses are too busy pushing the Dim-Sum carts around and nobody is around to help except the floor manager, who happen to be busy dealing with the table and reservations.

Speaking of the floor manager, check out this funny review from Yelp:

There is a very fiery Dim Sum manager running the place and she yells very loud with lots of passions while holding a wireless phone (a very common scene in the 90's Hong Kong movies) to schedule reservations. Watching her in action made us had to hold our laugh and to continue chewing the shrimp in our mouth at the same time.

Sometimes, if the place is jam packed, you might be asked if you'd like to share the table with another parties or wait for a long time. We learned that this may not be uncommon practice.While others may be offended, we find all of these to be entertaining.

In case people don't get the reviewer's humor, check out the following video: http://youtu.be/uVqBzP0xdKk

Saturday at Ikea

We went to Ikea last Saturday to finalize our shopping for the special one.

There are 2 Ikeas in the lower mainland one in Richmond and the other in Coquitlam. We went to the Coquitlam location because the Ikea in Richmond is about to be relocated and they had a massive sales to reduce their supplies.

We went there just before lunch so we went directly to their restaurant.

Salad

I ordered a combo: Salad, Soda, and 10 pieces of Meatballs with mash potato and gravy.

Meatballs, mashed potato, Lingonberry sauce and Gravy

Wife ordered Roasted Chicken and mashed potato (with gravy as well).



Once our tummies were filled, we wandered around the children section.

Miniature Kitchen

We saw miniature kitchen sink and workbench. Ikea seems to want to hook these kids to become craftsman as early as possible... and if that fails, a visit to Ikea followed by purchases of easy-to-assemble household items would be the next logical step.

Miniature Workbench

We're still undecided whether we want to decorate the special one's room with colorful lights or not.

Stars would be a better choice?

Cars

Definitely cars. Non-negotiable, done-deal. Little one must play with cars. Wife told me that the little one couldn't stay still. Perhaps little one had eyes set on this toy?

We were looking for storage boxes to put under the changing table. We ended up buying the plastic type as the ones above were too soft and might break down easily.

Ikea's own Baby!

We bought a mattress but decided to return it back in favor of another one from Sears. Ikea's mattresses are less firm compare to Sears'.

As usual, we did our grocery before everything else and we bought a few snacks.

One of our favorite snacks was on sale. So tempting, so delicious, and not so expensive. Must buy.

Cheetos from our hometown

We also found this snack slipped somewhere in our Snack storage space. We almost forgot we bought it a few weeks ago. It is a type of Cheetos, Grilled Chicken flavor, from our hometown.

Marie Regal Biscuits

Marie Regal biscuits is my all-time favorite since I was a toddler. My mother used to tell me a story that one time when I was a wee little kid, I would not take my eyes away from those biscuits every single time we went to a supermarket. She would hide to "scare" me a little bit ("where's mommy!") and I wouldn't even budge or noticed she wasn't around. Perhaps the packaging attracts children than Fisher Price toys.

Got our dinner from Curry King Cafe. We're not sure if they're affiliated with Curry King Express in Crystal Mall food court or not but our guess they're not.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

I ordered the Hainanese  Chicken Rice to compare with other restaurants around and was a little bit disappointed.

Scallop and Shrimp Fried Rice

Wife ordered Scallop and Shrimp Fried Rice. It was a lot of rice. A lot of rice. A lot... of rice.

We were very tired that day that we barely did anything, other than to take shower and to go to sleep, after the dinner.

What a day. The little one seemed happy that day as wife told me the level of activity was off the chart.

Restaurant: Au Wing Kee

Had a quick lunch with wife last week in a restaurant near our place because I was craving for comfort food that known as Congee.

Big Fat Juicy Chicken

Au Wing Kee looks very old from the outside and dingy from the inside. The place also smells a bit but we are used to of these kinds of restaurants especially when they have a great speciality.

Wife ordered Beef Congee while I had the Chinese Mushroom and Chicken Congee. Pay attention at those oil/fat, it's darn delicious!

Chinese Mushroom

They prepare various congees ranging from plain until the extravagant. Both of ours are considered one level away from the plain and each of ours cost $4.50/bowl. I'd say it's a catch for a quick lunch!

Actual Serving

Vancouver has a few restaurants that prepare Congee of this type where it is almost pure soup and you can't feel the rice anymore. It is  different than the congee from our hometown in which it is focused on the condiments, such as: the Chinese doughnut, the fried onion, the green onion, a bit of chicken, and spicy hot sauce, and you can still taste the rice since the preparation is different.

Hometown Congee

We definitely will come back if we were in the mood for a bowl of Congee.

Ramen and Instant Noodles

Few days ago wife and I went out for lunch at our favorite ramen place - Motomachi Shokudo - somewhere in the Downtown area near Stanley Park.

In case people don't know it is a Ramen place

We haven't been there for a while and wife wanted ramen so bad that day and there was nothing that could've held her back. Not to mention that day was cold and gloomy; a good excuse to fill our stomach.

Those wooden chairs remind us of Chinese noodle shops

It is rather small inside, I believe the maximum capacity is about 20 people. Because of such limitation, we always try to be the first guests - lining up 5 minutes before it opens.

For some reason, wife was in the mood for their Cold Ramen instead of the hot soupy version.

While I ordered our usual favourite - Nama-Shoyu Ramen.

Motomachi Shokudo is the sister "Ramen Shop" of Kintaro, which is located about 4-6 shops down the road. While Kintaro is known for its sinful pork fat (not so healthy) and a budget-friendly menu, Motomachi is the total opposite. It's more expensive, uses organic ingredients and chicken broth (instead of pork), and is not as greasy Kintaro. Still sinful though, but it's probably the place to experiment with some mod style Ramen.

VanMag wrote an article about the chef/owner behind both Ramen shops back in 2008: http://www.vanmag.com/Restaurants/Chef_Profiles/Mr_Noodle

We saw these funny looking mopeds on our way back to the parking lot. This shop rents out bikes for people who want to enjoy a day in Stanley Park without the hassle of bringing your own bike from your home to Stanley Park. Solid business model I'd say!

Speaking of Ramen, not too long ago we replenished our stock of instant noodles for the rainy days in case we were running out of food. We normally don't eat them unless we really really have to (which is very rare). I have been reducing my instant noodles consumption probably since a few years ago while wife isn't big on them except on a few rare occasions when she had a sudden craving.

This time around, we decided to get some of the unusual flavours of our favorite brands.

We also bought a few more because Ramen Rater had asked us to send him a few exotic flavors not available around his neck of woods. I was a little bit hesitant to do this at first due to the strict rule of U.S. customs and to know that there was a big chance that they will be confiscated but no pain no gain I suppose. Luckily he received them all.