Favourite Restaurant in Victoria: Bon Rouge

If you are looking for best bang for your buck restaurants, Bon Rouge is a gem in each and every way.  Located on the corner of Courtney street, the bistro outside decor is warm and inviting.  The parisian style decor, the comfort food, and jazz music softly played have made Bon Rouge my all time favourite place to go for brunch.  

Summer features menu

Two menus are offered, the summer features and the brunch menu.

The decor

The bistro is divided into 3 sections; the patio, the bistro interior, and the restaurant interior.  Jazz music. Casual and relaxed. Friendly service.

Champaign cocktails - $5

Drinks specials are champaign cocktails for $5 until 4 pm every weekend and a glass of wine for $5 every wednesday.  Martinis are $7.50 for 2 oz. and are exquisitely named after famous French figures; Coco Chanel, Yves Saint-Laurant, Bridgette Bardot, etc.

Freshly baked french loaf, complimentary

We were already excited about the french bread as its freshly baked aroma swarmed us. As we pulled the bread apart, we could hear the crunch and the softness of the inside dough softly pulling apart.  Crispy on the outside, warm and fluffy on the inside. Wow.

Prawn crepe $12 - Pan seared with fennel shallot and garlic cream sauce

6 giant succulent prawns nestled inside!

I do mean it when I say the prawn crepe at Bon Rouge was the best crepe I've ever had.   The giant prawns are cooked perfectly and in perfect harmony with sauteed vegetables in fennel and garlic cream sauce.  We appreciated each and every single bite.  For the sheer size and for only $12, it was truly amazing.

Croque Monsieur $12 - Baked ham and gruyere cheese on house made brioche loaf and mornay sauce, with a side of fennel soup

I've always been more accustomed to traditional Croque Monsieur with baked cheddar or swiss cheese  on top.  Instead, the mornay sauce, which is made up of half parmesan and half gruyere, offered a subtle  texture that complemented the brioche loaf.  It was light, creamy and not overwhelming.  The fennel soup was aromatic but was a bit too salty.  However, the intensity was brought down a couple notches when alternating between the Croque Monsieur or the french loaf.

French Onion Soup $8 - Gruyere on crostini

We were debating on what to order for the dessert but we kept thinking about the French Onion soup.  Since I'm a fan, I knew I would have to try.  So we ended up getting it as a dessert instead (lol).  The broth was rich and, again, still a tad too salty for me.  But if you are a cheese lover like me, you would really enjoy the thick layer of melted gruyere and added bread made up for it.   

As we stumbled out of the restaurant an hour and a half later, though I may have easily gained 5 lbs, I was ecstatic and could not wait to come back again.

Visit their website here.

Cattle Cafe: no longer yummy

I used to enjoy going to Cattle Cafe on Alexandra Road in Richmond. It was well known for it's ginormous noodle soup which you have to option to select everything from soup base, type of noodles, toppings, drinks and sides.  I was more than excited to re-visit the cafe to indulge in a big bowl of laksa that seemed to pack with flavours and seemingly bottomless.

A lot of the restaurants, as they get more and more busy, I guess they often overlook or replace the quality of their food to cut costs.  Or perhaps it was just the inconsistency of the kitchen.  Either way, what used to be my favourite places in Richmond has become an abomination with this one last time visit.

Laksa noodle soup, still seemingly as big and looking just as delicious.  But after tasting the soup, I wondered how many times they watered the pot down and reused the same broth over and over.  Where were the flavours this time! I was pretty much drinking slightly flavoured water with oil drizzled on top.
To add an extra punch, that estranged strand of hair we found didn't improve the situation much.  Remember,  it's an asian place.  Sending a plate back will only result in a look of disdain and you will still get the same plate back (with the hair removed with someone's bare hand).

We also ordered their recommended pork chop with demi-glaced onion sauce.  It looked fantastic in the picture!  Since it's popular, sure we would try it!

 This is what came out. 

At first glance, no, it doesn't look like anything in the picture.  And I was expecting a demi-glace sauce to be more brownish and gravy like, not creamy and rose like.  Kkkk, it's an asian place, maybe it's fusion right? Their own interpretation. If it tasted good, then all would be forgiven.  We still had to bounce back from that last bowl of laksa.  Although, this one didn't look promising either.  And as we took a bite, our thought was unanimous "people "like" eating this?".....Really?  I mean we were in Richmond where hundreds of asian restaurants compete on price and quality to stay on top.  You're telling me that this dish that looked and tasted like it was made by a 10 year old girl is your best selling dish?

Needless to say, I am never going back again.  Could it be one bad day? Maybe. The inconsistency, though, and that pork chop though, I just couldn't bring myself to forgiveness.  So this is my goodbye. The quest for next best laksa ensues.

What to eat in Kamakura: Doria and Curry Beef Stew

While my sister and I were travelling in Kamakura, Japan, a town famous for the great Buddha statue, Daibutsu. We were enroute from Kita-Kamakura station to Engakuji temple.  Along the way, we stumbled upon a small cute cafe shop called Cafe Sakura.  Starving and enticed by their photo of green tea mont blanc, we decided to go in and check it out.  The shop is small but very cozy and inviting with outside patio.  Decorated in white with lace and flower arrangements, there are few tables and they were all filled.  I noticed very high customer turnover during the course that we were there.  The shop does attract lots of passerby's on the street. There are only 2 women working there.  I assumed they are co-owners, one works in the kitchen and one serves and helps out in the kitchen.  There are only 2 entrees offered in the menu, doria (1,300 yen), baked rice in cream sauce and parmesan, and curry beef stew served with rice.  In the beginning, my sister and I ordered one doria to share (as a snack before lunch) since we saw their portion is fairly big.  While we were waiting, we couldn't help but glance over at the 2 ladies sitting beside us cleaning out their curry stew plate.  As we observed more around us, curry beef stewed is ordered at every table.  We realized what was needed to be done and ordered the curry.

We waited for about 20 minutes for each dish to arrive.  As we looked over, we could see the kitchen and the ladies working hard to carefully craft each order.  It was really nice to see much attention paid to each dish being served.  Once the doria arrived, I didn't hesitate to dig my spoon in and taste the creamy, cheesy baked rice.  It tasted just as good as it looked.  The rice was well seasoned with the right cream consistency.  I felt like I was eating risotto.  The mushroom and shrimp added texture and complement well.  I was about half way done with the doria when the giant plate of curry beef stew (1,000 yen) arrived.  We were arguing that we have overdone ourselves.

I waited for my sister to take the first bite, and when she did, she was silent.  Her eyes may have rolled back a little bit.  "Well, how is it?" I asked. Her reply was "It's simply the best curry stew I've ever had in my life!" Of course, I jumped in and scoop a generous amount of rice and a chunk of beef in my mouth.  My palette went into overdrive as savoury and bold flavours spread all over my mouth, blending in perfect harmony with Japanese rice.  I'm not usually a fan of beef stew as they are often overcooked and have hard and chewy texture.  This time, the beef was so tender and flaky and there should've been more on the plate.  We ended up clearing both dishes in a short amount of time.  As agreed, we ended our course with a green tea mont blanc (800 yen).  

To be honest, we were both most pleased with the curry beef stew, then the doria.  The green tea mont blanc looked very appealing.  However, we couldn't taste anything else but sweet cream.  The green tea flavour was very faint and there is more cream filling inside.  I found that it was just too heavy.  Perhaps, the original mont blanc would have been a better choice.  Overall, I have to say that this little shop is a hidden gem in Kamakura.  It is a great spot to take a short break from sightseeing just to enjoy a cup of coffee and delicious curry beef stew.  

Homemade Thai snack: Curry Puffs

When I was in Thailand, my favourite nanny was gracious and patient enough to teach us her infamous curry puff recipe.  Curry puff is a traditional, yet fusion, thai pastry.  The filling is made of ground pork fried with diced carrots, onions, potatoes, seasoning, and curry.  I guess it is a Thai version of samosa.
The curry puffs my nanny makes are amazing in so many ways.  First, the pastry has many layers of crispy and is very flaky.  Next, the filling is a burst of flavours.  It is an intense blend of sweet and savoury with a perfect caramelized texture.

The first two tries were challenging even with her coaching me.  I also discovered that I am handicapped at folding the dough to make the twists at the end.  Now that I am back to Canada, I decided to give it a try and do everything on my own.  It turns out that making curry puffs is a 2 day process for me.  The filling is the easiest part, while the pastry is the hardest, and let me tell you why.  There are two types of dough you have to make in the process.  Eventually you wrap one type of dough which is more dry, over the more moist one.  Then, you flatten the dough and roll it together like you are making a croissant.  Afterwards, you flatten that rolled up dough again then repeat.  

After chopping up the rolled up dough, this is what it looks like.

Then, you flatten that slice of dough again and put in the filling, close up the end by twisting around the edges.  That is something I learned I can never do correctly or perfectly.  I almost feel somewhat handicapped when everyone else around me has no problem doing it.  Also, another problem is my dough is too dry so the pastry keeps breaking apart when I try twisting the end together.  As a solution, I used a fork to press around the edges instead.  So some of them are half twisted, and some look like chinese dumplings.  You can probably also tell that they come in all shape and sizes.  

Finally, the finished products.  The pastry turned out crispy! Sure each looks different,  and could have been more seasoned with salt and sugar.  Same goes with the filling, no lustrous caramelization like my nanny's.  I guess you should never be afraid of over seasoning, especially in Thai cooking.  Anyways, they are not perfect but for the difficulty level and first trial, I'm pretty happy with the result.

Oysters anyone??

I think it's fair to say I had a lot of oysters lately.

A&W Chicken waffle!

It was such a delightful treat that I had to write about it! I was envious of my sister when she presented me with Harlem's famous chicken waffle photos. Little did I know that I would come across it at A&W in Bangkok, Thailand. In North America, the fast food joint is well known for their thick cut onion rings and family named burgers. But in Thailand, A&W is more known for their waffles! Served at any given time of day, their famous waffles are served with 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream, a choice of chocolate sauce or strawberry sauce, and a side of maple syrup. It is more of a sit down dish, of course. This time around, I notice chicken waffle is up on the menu along with other infused dishes like fried chicken curry with rice. For only 57 bath (less than 2 US dollars), you get a crispy fried chicken fillet sandwiched between 2 waffles. I was quite baffled by how crispy and well seasoned the fried chicken was. Coupled with spicy barbecue sauce with a hint of mayo, it is bursting with savoury flavour.

Caffe Nougat woe - the disappearing candy

Probably just a glitch in the packaging process, but it made me doubt how precise the manufacturing process by Golden Bonbon a little bit. This one candy disappeared from the package entirely, another one not featured was half gone in an opened package. Hmmm... did someone eat it?? or worse... did something else eat it?!?! I hope it was just a machinery glitch.

Som Tum (papaya salad) how to MV

This is just a quick how to. I don't have a precise measurements for ingredients since this batch was made for about 30 servings or more. Som tum, sticky rice, and charcoal grilled chicken are the best combo. Enjoy!

First Youtube vid!

I had so much time on my hand that I edited the video from last November's trip to Mexico. Xel-Ha is located in Riviera Maya and is now my favourite attractions to go to. There are many land and water activities offered in the park that it would take you the whole entire day to go through everything. The habitats and ecosystems of the river are well preserved and maintained. As many other natural attractions in the area, visitors are only allowed to use biodegradable sunscreens. Some of the fun activities I definitely will try on my next trip to Xel-Ha includes swimming with the dolphins and spending quality time with manatees.

For more information, visit http://www.xelha.com.

Another exciting attraction that I would like to recommend is Xplor. Zip-lining over 2 miles over the forest and through 2 water landings, (climbing up towers after towers, it's more tiring than you would expect!), and swimming through stalactite rivers made it quite an amazing experience. Last but not least, the buffet at Xplor, in my opinion, ranked the best from my trip to Riviera Maya. I don't know how they did it, but the buffet offered very healthy selections of fusion and contemporary cuisine. Even something simple like the teriyaki rice was perfectly seasoned and I swear it wasn't because I was hungry. Fresh fruits and vegetables are used and the dishes are low in saturated fat. The tamarind and mango sorbet are also made from fruit juices and I can't describe enough how refreshing they are. Moreover, they offered a delicious variety of fresh fruit juices as well.

Visit Xplor website here.

Thai salad rolls

The thai salad roll is one of my favourites since it is low in saturated fat and high in fibers, not to mention it tastes super refreshing and addictive. It is different from the vietnamese style because the flat rice noodle is used instead of the rice paper. The filling is 80% herbs vegetables,and that is the winning point for me. The ingredients are practically everything you can find in any typical asian market. The one I have here is filled with lettuce, bean sprouts, cilantro, green onion, mint, basil, grated carrots, and some kind of a long leaf that I don't even know what it's called but I will investigate. For the meat, we filled it with chopped up shrimp and ground pork. The sauce is much more packed with flavour. Instead of your typical thai lime and fish sauce dressing, this one require you to blend up all the ingredients and here goes the recipe:

2 cloves of garlic

1.5 tbsp of fish sauce

juice from 1 whole lime

1-2 chilli depending how spicy you want it to be

1 tpsp of sugar

a cup of choped up cilantro

In a food processor, blend the ingredients together to a light green consistency.

Easy Calamari, Bruchetta, and Panko walnut crusted tilapia recipes

Calamari with bruchetta

I love deep fried food, especially calamari. I didn’t realize that they are so easy to make that even a lazy mofo like me can succeed in making them at home too.

To make these delicious home-made calamari, just following these steps.

You’ll need 3 bowls. First bowl, season half a cup of flour with salt, pepper, garlic salt and cajun spices. Then, beat one egg into the second bowl.

Mix Panko breadcrumbs with basil (and other herbs like oregano if you like) in the third bowl.

Preheat canola oil in a deep frying pan and bring it to about medium heat, you don’t want the oil too hot or the batter will quickly burn.

Dust defrosted squid rings into the first bowl with flour, shake off excess. Dip the squid into the egg bowl and then the panko breadcrumbs. Make sure the squids are fully covered in batter.

Deep fry the calamari until they turn golden brown. Place the calamari on paper towel to absorb the oil, you can add more salt and pepper to taste at this time.

Served hot on bed of arugula and a wedge of lime or lemon.

You can enjoy calamari with all kinds of sauces or dips. I decided to go with bruchetta for a more refreshing taste.

To make a quick and easy bruchetta, all you need are:

1 whole tomatoe diced

1 clove of garlic

chopped of fresh basil

1 tbsp. olive oil

pinch of salt and pepper

In a small bowl, add all the ingredients and set aside for about half and hour or so for all the flavours to blend in together.

Panko and walnut crusted tilapia with pesto

Crusted Tilapia

Spray vegetable oil on of both sides the tilapia (you can coat it with melted butter as well). Season tilapia with salt and pepper. I actually went all out with every spice I had at home; basil, oregano, paprika, garlic salt, lemon pepper, etc. The more flavour on the fish the better. Place the tilapia on the baking sheet, top the fish with crushed walnuts and panko breadcrumbs. Preheat oven to 350 c and once it’s ready, pop those babies in for about 12-15 minutes until the crust turns golden and the fish is flaky.

Pesto

100 g pine nuts (or you can substitute walnuts cuz they’re way cheaper)

olive oil

chopped basil

a pinch of salt

1-2 clove of garlic

chopped sun-dried tomatoes

In a food processor, puree garlic, pine nuts/walnuts, salt, and basil together, drizzling olive oil so it becomes a smooth paste. I add a bit of sun-tomatoes in there just for extra kick in flavour. Once all the ingredients blend together, scoop pesto over a bed of your favorite pasta. Grate Parmesan on top for extra creaminess. Lay the baked tilapia on top with a slice of lemon.

Easy and tasty Italian garden salad

It’s the exact same recipe from Italian restaurants that serve the exact same dish for 7-10 dollars!

In a large bowl mix, organic baby arugula, fresh prosciutto, halved grape tomatoes, chopped garlic together. Drizzle with olive oil and fresh lemon juice, and toss everything together. Season with salt and pepper, and add shaved Parmesan. Voila! So crisp and so fresh, I could eat this salad everyday.

Good Eats in Vancouver

I'll update this post often as I go to Vancouver a lot , solely for the food.

Wo Fung Dessert Aberdeen Centre, Richmond, BC



I was extremely heartbroken when Little Bean which had the crispiest and juiciest fried chicken wings no longer serve chicken.

Then, I heard rumours that the best fried chicken wings are at the food court and Aberdeen Centre. It took me a couple trips before I found where this joint was located. Finally, one day when as I was making another hunt for chicken wings I came across something peculiar. While other food joints were waiting for one customers to come and order, only one had a lineup of about 10 people. I quickly observed to see what people are ordering and behold, fried chicken wings are flying out of the kitchen. It seemed to be the only thing patrons are ordering from Wo Fung Dessert. I think the "Dessert" part is what threw me off and why I never found this hidden treasure. Anywho, I took one bite of the freshly fried wings and I think one single tear of joy came out. It was crispy, juicy and the skin and the meat are perfectly seasoned and marinated. There's tons of flavour but not over powering and you can just taste a hint of ginger.

Frappe Bliss

If you walk a few steps over across the food court you will find a shop called Frappe Bliss which offers all different kinds of shaved ice dessert. It may sound too simple but their secret ingredient lies in the shaved ice which is made of milk, a combination fresh ingredients and milk, or yogurt. The texture of the shaved ice is very smooth, almost velvet and has creamy flavour. Aside from the different flavoured shaved ice you can also pick different toppings to go on the dessert. It's very different from all the other shaved ice desserts and extremely refreshing even after a full meal. I didn't find their website having a lot of information but you can click here to see their selections and reviews.



Steveston Pizza Co. Steveston, BC



Steveston Pizza Co. is a small shop on the corner of Moncton and 3rd Ave in Steveston and only does takeouts. In the summertime, it's a perfect spot to stop by and picnic by the beach which has a scenic harbour view. Steveston Pizza Co. is well known among the locals for using fresh and gourmet ingredients. It's hard to make a selection from the menu when everything sounds fantastic. My favourite is the simple Margerite One but I'm still making it my mission to sample everything on the menu.

Cheesy leftover!!

Tenku Richmond, BC


I call it the giant takoyaki, but the apprporiate name is actually "Bakudanyaki". The giant ball is sold at 500 cents a pop and is consisted of rice cake, shrimp, calamari, cabbage, quail egg, and different toppings. Look for a Tenku stand when you are hungry for bakudanyaki at 7100 Elmbridge Way (in a parking lot) from 11-8 pm everyday. Here is the website for the delicious menu and location.

Gmen Ramen Richmond, BC



G-Men Ramen is achain of Gyoza King and is known as Kintaro's biggest competition in Vancouver. The key here is the broth; shoyu, torigara (chicken) shoyu, and miso; all of which are rich and packed with flavour. Cheese lovers should try the Miso, Cheese & Kimchi Ae Soba. Aside from ramen, there are also donburi (rice) dishes such as bbq eel, salted cod roe, or marinated pork on rice. The only downer is that the space is extremly limited and there's always lineups. If you are planning to go with a bigger group of people, all party must be present once your table is available, otherwise they'll give up your table. Inside the restaurant, the decor is kinda cute. They make the kitchen to look like a street vendor, reminiscent of authentic ramen stands in Japan.

Japadog downtown Vancouver

Located on Burrard street, (one location on Burrard and Smithe, the other on Burrard and Penderstreet, Japadog is probably the most famous hot dog stand in Canada, having been aired by CBC, Global, and CBC, not to include published in various magazines. some of the past clients include Steven Seagal, Daniel Dae Kim, and Ice Cube. The lineup on any regular day may be long but nobody seems to mind the wait. You can find all sorts of people from businessman to tourist sitting down on the pavement and enjoying the delicious fusion between Japanese flavour toppings and a North American staple. The most popular being the Terimayo, which branches into different types, and the Oroshi. Patrons can check on their website before embarking on the search for Japadog as they maybe opened or closed depending on the weather.