Eat Me!
Showing posts with label lunch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lunch. Show all posts

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

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Donburiya

#5-1329 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC

Service: Interior Atmosphere: Pricing:

This is a tiny take-out style restaurant situated where Ezogiku Noodle Cafe used to be. They serve a range of small- medium sized ramen bowls, rice bowls, and the usual sushi. I'm not sure exactly why people would come here since there are so many more proper, quality ramen restaurants in the area. I wasn't impressed by their offerings, but I was craving some takoyaki so that's what I ordered. I probably won't come here again unless I was desperate for food and all the other places are too crowded.

Donburiya
Takoyaki 10pcs ~$6
Your standard size/flavour of takoyaki. It didn't have the extra condiments such as seaweed flecks or bonito flakes.

Others' Input:
Donburiya on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Benkei Ramen Noodle Shop (弁慶 ラメン)

1741 Robson St
Vancouver, BC V6G1C9
Tel: (604) 688-6980
Fax: (604) 681-6633

Service: Interior Atmosphere: Pricing:

I tried this place one month after it opened in January 2008. They got our orders mixed up, the broth was SUPER OILY, and didn't have any taste besides being overly salty. The meats were super fatty and thinly sliced. Gyoza's were laughable. The only thing that was good was the barbeque pork onigiri flavoured with soy sauce. Ever since that experience, I've avoided coming back because it was so horrible .

So now, 2 years later, I've returned to see if its any good... I'll have to say its alright, but I probably won't go back again.. unless other people I'm with want to try it. I find their broth to be a bit on the overly-oily side.

Benkei Ramen Shio Tonkotsu
Shio Tonkotsu Ramen ~ $7
This is their more popular flavour, and it tastes quite smooth. On their menu, it says this flavour being good for women's skin because its got a lot of collagen (from the pork bone). The taste of this tonkotsu ramen comes second to the one from Kenzo Ramen.

Benkei Ramen Shoyu
Shoyu Ramen ~$7
The soup broth was slightly saltier than what I would like it would be. Their Chashu was good! Their bamboo shoot didn't taste as well with the noodles. The green onions tasted good in it.

Others' Input:
Benkei Ramen Noodle Shop on Urbanspoon