Eat Me!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Hokkaido Ramen Santouka 山頭火

1690 Robson St
Vancouver, BC V6G 1C7
Map | Website

Service: Interior Atmosphere: Pricing:

After hearing all the good things about this new ramen restaurant, I finally gave it a try. As expected, the place was packed at around 8pm on a cold rainy weekend, I guess that's the perfect time to have noodle soup! Their soup bases feature tonkotsu (pork bone) so its creamy, light colored and nutritious. Overall, the ramen here is tasty (a bit too oily for me) but I wouldn't purposely come all the way out just to have this ramen though..


Miso Ramen ~ $8
The flavour of the miso ramen (compared to the shio ramen) is too salty. First spoon might be okay, but after eating the rest of the noodles it's way too salty – ironically 'shio' which means salt wasn't as salty by far. It's got a strong miso flavour so it differs from the miso ramen from Kintaro.


Shio Ramen & gyoza ~$9
I'd have to say this was a solid bowl of ramen, the pork (chasiu) was very tasty and had an appropriate amount of fat attached to it. The noodles are a bit stringy compared to what I'm used to. Unfortunately, the soup has a distinctive layer of oil on it which makes me not want to drink the soup.

Other Input:
Hokkaido Ramen Santouka on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Hakone Sushi

80 Keefer Place (by Stadium/Tinseltown)
Vancouver, BC V6B 0C9
Map

Service: Interior Atmosphere: Pricing:

Located just across the street from Tinseltown, this is the only sushi place near Chinatown. The restaurant is tiny and pretty busy during lunch time. I have to say the only things worth eating here are their california rolls and negitoro rolls. Their dynamite roll was appalling (sorry I don't have a photo of it right now) with soggy prawn tempura and mushy rice. I only came here to eat because there aren't any other sushi restaurants around that was walking distance from Chinatown. I probably won't come here unless I had a major craving for negitoro rolls...


Negitoro roll, salmon roll, miso soup ~ $8
The only thing I like from this place was the negitoro roll, its arranged in a flower shape! The salmon roll was expensive for what it was so I definitely won't order that again.

Other Input:
Hakone Sushi on Urbanspoon

Monday, December 6, 2010

Lin Chinese Cuisine 林

1537 W. Broadway (near Granville St.)
Vancouver, BC V6J 5L1
Tel: (604) 733-9696
Map | Website

Service: Interior Atmosphere: Pricing:

A little Northern Chinese restaurant that's receive a lot of local attention is located by a busy intersection. Parking is difficult but that's expected of the Broadway/Granville area. This place is packed on a regular basis with lunch combos (miniature versions of various full size dishes) serving the local businessmen/women on their lunch breaks.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
上海砂锅菜饭
Shanghai vegetable hotpot rice $6.99
I actually really liked this rice even if it is a bit on the oily side. It tastes refereshing because its basically just rice and veggies, a good choice since most of the stuff on the menu is heavily meat-based. It also smelled really good.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
生煎包
Pan fried pork bun $4.99
This tastes average, a bit too oily for me. I guess my mouth isn't as used to the Northern Chinese food as it is to Southern Chinese.


Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
葱油饼
Pan-fried green onion cake $4.99
Sometimes referred as green onion pancake, its usually available at dimsum as well. There are generally two kinds, deep-fried or pan-fried. This one here had a strong green onion flavour which is perfect. A good pancake has many little layers inside with chopped green onion sprinkled in between. Interestingly enough, there are two pancakes stacked here when its usually served as one.


Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
小笼汤包 (Xiao Long Bao)
Shanghai juicy pork dumpling $4.99
You can't go to a Northern Chinese restaurant without ordering this staple menu item. As usual, the chef in charge of making these dumplings is situated inside the dining area behind a counter and glass window so customers can see how they're being made right before their eyes.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
蜜汁大虾
Honey Prawn $15.99
This dish looks like your typical 'lemon chicken' 'sweet & sour pork' aimed at Caucasian taste buds with one exception that this actually tastes really good! (No offense to those other 2 dishes, but coming from a more traditional Chinese food tasting background, I don't like them because they really misrepresent Chinese food) Anyway, this dish is seriously delicious, I might have eaten the whole plate myself if everyone else I was with didn't also like it too ...


Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
上海炒年糕
Shanghai style rice cake $9.99
They've got some good stir-frying skills because this dish, even though it looks simple, actually takes a lot of technique. The chewy rice cake pieces can stick together and form a giant blob if you're not careful. Its also easy to undercook them which causes them to be hard and impossible to chew.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
黄鱼响铃
Crispy tofu wrap fish $12.99
The server who took our order recommended we try this, and I'll have to say I wish we didn't. It was hard to eat because the outside yellow bean curd layers were crispy on the outer parts but unbreakable on the inside. The fish inside was tasty but because of the odd outer wrap, it made eating each wrap really difficult due to their large size. It was also the last lingering dish to arrive which was not impressing.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
肉末担担面
Tan Tan noodle soup with minced meat $6.59
This was alright. The name is misleading, and the noodle is underneath.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
牛肉烧饼
Beef sesame cake $4.99
Crispy wrap around sweet beef. Yum.

Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
蒸或炸银丝卷
Deep fried sliced roll $2.99
Can't really go wrong with this one, its a popular item. This comes in a deep fried version as well as the plain steamed version. Both types can be dipped in the condensed milk.


Lin's Chinese Cuisine and Tea house
上海粗炒
Shanghai style chow mein $8.99
This tastes really similar to the rice cake one, if not identical in flavour. It was pretty good except for the overly oiliness. I've had this dish at other restaurants and having it less oily but still great-tasting is entirely possible.


Others' Input:
Lin Chinese Cuisine on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Roman Ristorante

3399 Kingsway (near Joyce/Collingwood)
Vancouver, BC V5R
(604) 436 4748
Service: Interior Atmosphere: Pricing:

This is a small Italian restaurant, right across the street from Safeway. With generous food portions and some decent olive oil, this place is worth coming back to. Its quiet little place, they have some lunch combo specials available for take-out. The generally have 2 price offerings, either $8 or $13. The $13 is the larger size and the pile of food is simliar to the size at Anton's, but more flavourful. We ordered some appetizers just to try them out. They have an interesting menu, you basically get to mix and match. Choose a general flavor/meat, then the pasta type, then a size. You're not stuck with tradition combinations!

Focaccia & Olive Oil
Yummy! Toasted and crispy on the outside, soft and warm on the inside. This wasn't disappointing at all, not like some *ahem* other Italian restaurants (on Dunbar @ 17 ave).
Bruschetta
This was alright, not the best I've had. La Rocca's was pretty awesome.

Capellini alle Vongole
This was not what I expected, rarely do I have clams in a tomato sauce, but it was still yummy regardless. Can't really compare it to the garlic/white wine type that I usually get.


Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Linguine alla Venezia

Others' Input:
Roman Ristorante on Urbanspoon