LA Grill and Bistro

LA Grill and Bistro is located in a popular strip mall on the corner of Blundell and No 2 Rd. 

This place has been around for a few years now and is best known for its value.  It has quite a variety on its menu including pastas, burgers, sandwiches and a fair list of appetizers and drinks.  The atmosphere is quite nice that you would not expect these prices for the amount and quality of food you get.

Tonight we ordered hot wings to start off.  These hot wings were full of flavor.  The only drawback is that the wings were fried first.  Then it was dipped in the hot bbq sauce and we think it went back into the oven for a few minutes for the sauce to get heated onto the wing.  There were twelve pieces on this order.

For our main dishes, we ordered a Cajun chicken burger and Spaghetti with chicken breast.  The burger had a big piece of chicken breast presented open face.  The chicken was full of flavor.  Lettuce, tomato, onions and mayo made up the rest of the burger.  The burger comes with potatoes and a side salad.  I paid an extra $1 to get Caesar salad because I did not like the taste of their house vinegar dressing that comes with the regular salad.  The downside is this place does not have fries. I love fries so that is too bad.

The pasta came with a piece of garlic bread and also a nicely sized chicken breast.  The sauce was spicier than other places but still packed good flavor.  The pasta is not al Dante as it was more towards the soft side.

Service was responsive as we went on a weekday.  If you go on the weekend, be prepared to wait as line ups will be normal.  Overall, we enjoyed our meals because you get a lot for what you pay for and the service is good.

SFDD gives 4.5 out of 5 Delights

Wang’s Beef Noodle House

Vancouver has quite a few places where you can dine Taiwanese style.  Most of these places serve a variety of noodles and rice and Taiwan style dim sums.  The place we went to today is called Wang’s Beef Noodle House. 

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This place is located on 8390 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC.  A few years ago this place was a 24/7 operation but back then it was called Taiwan Beef Noodle House.  The food is similar than before.  I think the new staff and bubble tea are the new addition since the new ownership.

Today we chose a variety of items to report.  First up is the noodles with fried pork chop.  The great thing about the noodles is that it is chewy (al Dante) and the soup is really hot.  Some places will serve luke warm soup. 

                    The pork chops is flavorful but be careful, we had an experience one time where the pork was still raw underneath the fried batter.  I think this happened before the new ownership.  The one today was cooked well but a bit too crunchy.

We also ordered the fried tofu.  This is an exceptional dish because it comes with a unique garlic dip which is really really garlicky.  Be careful if you are a Twilight fan who despises garlic.  It has so much garlic that your body and breath will wreak of garlic for the rest of the day.

The last item we ordered was the pork pot stickers.  This was pan fried quite tasty but was a bit too rich for us.  I think two pieces of the pot stickers would have been enough for me.  This is certainly better than the crap-stickers served at Hon’s which comes with a bonus hair last time I checked.

The other item which was ordered but not reported was the house minced pork on rice. It always comes first but I was too hungry and ate it too quickly.  I’m sorry to say I’m unable to present a picture here. It was delicious so I will go back again so to get a picture of it.

SFDD gives

4.75 out of 5 Delights.

Pizza Hut – Panormous!

Pizza Hut has a new pizza called the Panormous.  This is a two sided pizza which claims to be 40% larger than a regular large pan pizza.  A standard one topping (on each side) costs $16.79.  The ad says $14.99 but I think it depends on what part of the country you are in. 

For dinner, we placed the order online for the first time to take advantage of the 50 free MP3s. 

We picked up at the Terra Nova Location here:

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While playing with the order, I found that it was only $20.xx or so to get a Pizza Hut Specialty flavor on each side.  This was a great deal since the standard 1 topping would have been quite boring.  We chose Hawaiian on one side and triple crown on the other.

When I went to pick up the pizza, I was very surprised how large it was. It was certainly 40% more than a regular large.  I was very excited to take it home and eat it right away.  It was quite heavy too!  As you can see, the pizzas are rectangular shaped. 

As usual, it was generously filled with toppings and cheese.

 

We enjoyed each bite of the pizza but could not finish it.  This was left over but it still tasted great the next day after ten minutes in a mini conventional oven.

We really hope this Panormous pizza will stay.  In the past, their new pizza promos were always only temporary.  It would even be better if we had a choice of crust.  We normally like to have the hand tossed crust as it is less oily and more fluffy.

SFDD gives 4.65 out of 5 Delights.

Banana Leaf - Kitsilano

A friend of ours was departing Vancouver so we treated him for a lunch at the Banana Leaf restaurant in Kits located at 3005 W Broadway, Vancouver.

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Banana Leaf specializes in Malay cuisine.  We got there at about 11:30pm on a Saturday morning.  There were not a lot of customers at that time so it must have just opened for the day.  There were just the three us so we did not order that much since we were not that hungry this morning. 

We started off with an appetizer platter which came with a variety of items to satisfy the three of us.  This platter included chicken satay, spring rolls, fried calamari and a grilled Malay thin pancake.  This was served with three types of dips.

We enjoyed the Malay pancake very much so we placed an additional order.  The side order comes with 2 pieces cut in half and also a curry dip sauce.

It was so good that we could have chomped down even more except we had to save space for the main dishes.  We ordered three dishes in total.  The first was a curry chicken with rice.  The curry had lots of veggies along with pieces of white chicken meat.  The curry was quite spicy and flavorful.  This was served with a round shaped ball of rice and some more curry veggies on a side dish.

The other two dishes were the Laksa.  The Laksa is a popular Malay soup/noodle dish and was quite spicy.  It contained a variety of ingredients such as chicken, prawns, squid and veggies.

The food was fresh and the staff was attentive.  We were a bit distracted by a neighboring table where a father was teaching his 1 year old how to use the zoom function and auto face detection on a digital camera.  The decor was nice and warm and a big plus was that we did not have to wait for a table since it was early in the day.  We even used an entertainment coupon which helped us save a few bucks.

For today’s lunch:

SFDD gives 4.75 out of 5 Delights.

BanZai Sushi

So we were craving for sushi this evening and decided to get take out at a local shop.   There are quite a few in Richmond, most run by non Japanese so the quality is pretty much the same.  The one we chose tonight was called BanZai Sushi. 

It is located at #40-8251 Westminster Hwy, Richmond, in a tiny strip mall.  This place is run by Vietnamese people which is not the first time I’ve experienced this culture clash.  The Kishu chain of Japanese restaurants in downtown Vancouver are also run by the Vietnamese owners. 

The shop had its tables full and they were also catering to a lot of people waiting for take out.  People in front of us were carrying out boxes and boxes of the sushi home.  With so much business there must be something great about BanZai.

Anyway, we finally got our take out and when we got home to open our boxes, our eyes nearly popped out seeing the gigantic sized pieces of sushi rolls.  The size of the sushi definitely fit the name of the shop.

We ordered a California roll, Avocado roll, Dynamite roll and Tamago roll.

These are the Cali and Ava rolls:

These are the Dyna and Tama rolls.

The prices were pretty similar to other places where a roll of six pieces above cost from $2 to $2.95.  The difference here is the size.  I was already felt full after chomping down 3 of these gigantic pieces of sushi.

If you are looking for value and don’t really care for the artful attention to detail of sushi, then this place is for you.  Our advice is not to get carried away and order too much because after all, it is just huge chunks of rice so one can fill up quite quickly with these unusually sized pieces.

For tonight’s meal SFDD gives:

1.25 out of 5 delights.

We just didn’t like the giant sized sushi.

Washington State: Applebee’s

Applebee’s is a family style restaurant with locations all over Washington State.  I believe there is also a couple of locations here in the Lower Mainland.

                    There was an Applebee’s location near our hotel in Everett.  We wanted to try Applebee’s because they had a promotion where you get a choice of appetizer and two dinner entrees for $20.

 

To start, we had the buffalo chicken.  These were not wings, they were bite sized chunks of chicken breast.  It was served with some celery and ranch dip.  It was nice and spicy.  The meat was tender and cooked just about right. It came with twelve pieces.

 

For our dinner entrees, we went with a bacon burger with fries, and a New York steak with mashed potatoes and veggies.

Our entrees came right after we finished our appetizer. Unlike many steak houses, the steak at Applebee’s was seasoned already. However, it was way too salty that San thought she was eating those Chinese BBQ salty pork. Other than that, everything else was okay, nothing spectacular. We came mainly for the promotion.  Overall, the service was good, the menu had quite a variety to fit different taste and the food came right.

Fan gives 3.75 out of 5 Delights.

San gives 2.5 gives out of 5 Delights.

Washington State : Cheesecake Factory Bellevue

We normally drive down to Seattle whenever we head down south for our shopping trips.  This time we wanted to go someplace new so we chose Bellevue.  Bellevue is about the same distance to Seattle except you have to take a different highway to get there.  Bellevue is east of Seattle.  Bellevue Square is the place all will go to as it is a huge shopping mall with lots of brand name stores.  The parking lot was gigantic.  We still had to circle up near the top to find a spot though. 

We got here on Saturday afternoon after visiting Boeing in Everett in the morning.  From Everett, Bellevue Square was about a 45 minute leisurely drive on the highway.

Both of us were hungry after doing so much walking on the Boeing tour.  We had planned on going to the Cheesecake Factory in Bellevue Square since it has been more than six months since our last visit.  We have gone to the Seattle and the Las Vegas branches of this restaurant and thought the food and service quality was quite consistent and well done.

The Cheesecake Factory had its own entrance from the outside of the mall.  It looked dark from the outside.  We thought it was closed or empty.  As soon as we entered we saw that it was quite packed with hungry patrons. 

We only had to wait about five minutes for a table.  While waiting, we enjoyed looking at the numerous cheesecakes and desserts near the entrance to decide what we were going to have after our lunch.

After being seated, we had water and dinner bread brought to us.   They usually give you a small loaf of white as well as a rye type of warm bread to get you started.

The both of us ordered from their lunch special menu.  They had sandwiches, pizzas and salads to choose from which are discounted from their regular menu. 

We ordered a turkey sandwich which came with a salad and a creamy vegetable soup.  We also ordered a spaghetti with meat sauce.  From our experience, we knew their dinner portions are really huge so you get good value for your money.  To our surprise, the portions of these discounted lunch specials were also very huge!

Sandwich:

Pasta:

We enjoyed both of these lunch meals very much.  We finished off by ordering a raspberry lemon cheesecake.  We normally order the plain but I insisted on trying something new this time.  This cheesecake was a bit on the sour side due to the inclusion of lemon.  Overall it was not bad as it was not too filling like other cheesecakes. But the original cheesecake is still our favorite.

Food, service and quality was consistent with other locations of Cheesecake Factory.  We enjoyed our lunch very much and would love to come back again.

SFDD gives 4.8 out of 5 Delights.

Washington State: IHOP

On the Easter long weekend, we took a nice drive down to Washington state.  We had a few places in mind to visit including the Boeing factory, Microsoft and Bellevue.  As always, outlet shopping was also going part of the trip.  We visited a few restaurants which will be part of the next few blog entries.

We expected the border crossings to be packed since it was a long weekend.  To make it interesting, we decided to try the Aldergrove crossing for the first time hoping that the wait will be shorter.  From our place, Aldergrove was an extra 35-40 minute drive from the Peach Arch.  To our surprise, Aldergrove was also extremely busy.  The total wait was about 4.5 hours on the Good Friday.  We kept our ears on the radio while waiting in line to learn that other folks at the Peace Arch also had to wait similar hours.

We were extremely hungry after finally crossing the border in the mid afternoon since we skipped breakfast.  We had planned on going to IHOP for our usual breakfast but it turned out to be a late lunch. Luckily breakfast is available all day at IHOP.  This IHOP is relatively new.  It is a few miles away from Bellis Fair in a nice looking strip mall.  It was not very busy at the time we were there.

IHOP was running a special on the loaded country hash browns breakfast.  These are made with a choice of meat and cheese cooked together with country style hash browns.  It came with an order of pancakes and two eggs. 

We ordered one with bacon and another with ham.  It was quite delicious.   The pancakes were also nice and fluffy. I especially enjoyed my order with bacon because it came with green onions and some sour cream.

With ham and eggs over hard:

With bacon and scrambled eggs:

On the table was also a variety of syrup flavors which I would think represents how pancakes like to be eaten around the world.

We didn’t spend a lot of time here since we were behind schedule from the long border wait.  We chomped down the food quickly so we can have enough time to grab some Starbucks beverages a block away.  Overall, this IHOP had good service, clean and free wireless internet if you care for it.

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights

Nando’s Chicken, Richmond BC

Nando’s is famous for its flame grilled chicken.  It is a good alternative if you don’t want the fast food style fried chicken.  Nando’s has various locations in the lower mainland, two of which are in Richmond.  We wanted something healthy on Friday night so we took a drive to the Richmond-Ackroyd location for dinner. 

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Anyhow, this location was renovated less than a year ago. It looks really clean with new booths and nice comfortable lighting.

We were always perplexed at the service style of Nando’s.  They are somewhat of a semi full service restaurant.  You place your order when you walk in at the counter just like what you would do at a fast food joint.  You then pay for your order, take your number and sit down and wait for one of their servers to bring you the food when it is ready. What is this style called? 

Meals at Nando’s come with a choice of sides.  The choices are fries, peri fries, baked potato, spice rice, coleslaw and corn (seasonal).  You also get to choose the spiciness of the chicken.  You can get lemon and herb, medium, hot, or extra hot peri peri.  We did not feel so adventurous tonight so we went with the medium.

We ordered two meals. Normally I would remind the person not to make the chicken so black/charred as it would ruin the taste of the chicken.  We had a bad experience a couple of years ago with charred chicken, so we always make a note of this when ordering.

The first meal that we ordered was the Quarter Chicken - Breast with one side for $8.99.  We added $0.75 to get the spring salad as a side instead. 

 

The second was the Peri Plate which came with 1/4 chicken, kebab and 4 wings.  We chose the leg and thigh and 2 sides for $14.49.  For the sides, we went with peri fries and rice. 

The thing we liked about the fries was of course, the ‘peri’.  I think peri is the special spice they use on their recipes.  The rice is kind of like east Indian long grain rice. Not east Asian style for sure.  As you will see in the picture, the rice is yellowish which I think is the result of some secret peri spices.

 

One good thing on the table are the sauces. You can add these to your chicken if you want to add some more degrees of spiciness to your meal.  They have bottles of hot peri peri and garlic peri peri for your use.  I normally pour a bit of each to give the meal an extra punch.  It is important to have a big glass of ice water ready to drink if you choose to add the extra sauce.

The restaurant was clean, service was good good and overall the meal was delicious, full of flavor and variety.  This is a location which we will definitely go back to again and again.  Perhaps, we should upgrade to the hot level next time.

SFDD gives 4.5 out of 5 delights.