Out of Town

Sanfan’s currently travelling in the far east.  We will be back at the end of November to post some interesting eats enjoyed in Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong.  Check back soon!

All updated

SFDD has finally posted a back log of delightful meals over the last few months.  Note that the posting date has been backdated to the day of the meal you may have to scroll back to see these new postings.  Since Google street view has now been updated to include Vancouver, we will also try to update the previous maps in our previous postings to show the street view version.  Hope this will make the posts a bit more interesting.

Domino’s Pizza

We like to order pizza on days when we want to eat at home and we don’t want to mess up the kitchen.  We normally order it from their 9471 No. 2 Road Richmond location.  This is about five minutes further away from our local Panago.  According to wiki, Domino’s was started in 1960 and is the currently the second-largest pizza chain behind Pizza Hut.

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We had an entertainment coupon for Domino’s pizza so we took advantage of it by ordering a couple of their famous ‘feast’ pizzas.  They have a selection of 12 pizzas to choose from.  From our experience, they are quite generous with the toppings on the feast pizzas.

Tonight we ordered a Hawaiian Feast and a Deluxe Feast Pizza.  The Hawaiian was full of sliced ham and pineapples blanketed by a thick layer of mozzarella.

The deluxe had a more variety of toppings on it including sausage, pepperoni, green peppers, onions and mushrooms.

The pizzas just came out of the oven when we went to pick it up and were still hot when we got home.  Toppings were generous as usual.  The hand tossed is their default crust and it was nice, light and fluffy.  I can certainly tell the big difference between these Dominos pizzas versus the $1-$1.50 per slice downtown Vancouver pizzas.

For tonight’s pizzas:

SFDD gives 4.5 out of 5 Delights.

Added to Urbanspoon

We’ve joined urbanspoon Vancouver to help generate some more traffic for our blog.  We will be updating our blogs with the urbanspoon ratings.  I think this will help with our rookie reviews as we can link to other people’s thoughts on the food and restaurants on our blog.

Kerkis Greek Taverna

Kerkis is a Greek restaurant located about 10 minutes away from UBC.  Their address is 3605 West 4th Ave located on the northwest corner. 

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We first visited this place last year during the Vancouver Dine Out event.  We enjoyed it very much and made this restaurant our top choice whenever we craved for Greek food.  Vancouver’s Entertainment book also has a great coupon for use at Kerkis.  We came for an early dinner at 5’ish.  The place was still empty as we were the first customers.  We were seated quickly and the wait staff brought us menus and water immediately. 

Tonight we ordered the chicken souvlakia and the Dolmathes dinner.  Both meals came with a generous bowl of Greek salad.  The best part of the salad was that it had a big amount of feta cheese.  It had a tad too much olive oil though.  

They also brought us pita bread along with the salad.  The bread was warmed and oiled up just right.

Once our salads were done, we smelled the food getting closer to our table.  The smell of the chicken and the Greek rice made me feel hungrier.

The chicken was very juicy while the rice was nice and moist.  It came with a large potato and a mix of cooked veggies.  I’m a big fan of the Tzatziki dip.  I can never get enough of it but too bad Kerkis charges $1.00 for extra dip.

The Dolmathes dinner came with four pieces of the wrapped up beef/rice.  It came with a sour lemony type sauce.  This dish also came with rice, potato and cooked veggies.

The food was very fresh and tasty while the service was friendly and responsive. The price was a bit high at $18 per plate but the portions were respectful.

For tonight’s meal:

SFDD gives 4.8 out of 5 delights.

Cheesecake Factory – Seattle

We were back in Washington for the long weekend so we again hit up the Cheesecake Factory out in downtown Seattle.  The precise location is at 700 Pike St, Seattle WA.

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It was a Sunday afternoon so it was quite packed.  The hostess quoted a 45 min wait but after standing around it ended up only being a 20 minute wait. 

After the wait we were seated with water and bread brought to us not too long afterwards.

 

The both of us ordered from their special lunch menu where the meals are a smaller version of their regular size.  As we review our last entry from Bellevue, it turns out we ordered the exact same meals!

First came the turkey club with broccoli soup.  This was not small at all. It was consistent with the order from the Bellevue location.  It came with a tossed salad and ranch dressing.  The sandwich had a big portion of turkey slices, veggies and mayo.  The soup was creamy and flavorful.  My only gripe was that the salad was not as fresh as it should be.  It was too bitter to be called a fresh salad.

Our second meal was spaghetti with meat sauce.  Sauce was good and the pasta was ‘al dante.’  The portion was also quite large to be considered a miniaturized version of their regular dish.

The service was friendly and the wait was not too long despite being a Sunday afternoon.  Aside from the not so fresh salad, everything else went well.  You may have noticed that we did not order cheesecake this time.  This was because we were way too full after finishing up our meals.

For this lunch,

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.

Outback Steakhouse – Everett, WA

Our dinner on the first night was at Outback Everett. It was our first time at this location. The address for this location is at 10121 Evergreen Way, Everett, WA.

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Tonight was a Saturday evening so it was a full house. We waited about 30 minutes for a table. After being seated we were greeted by a very energetic and friendly server. She brought us water and dinner bread right away.

 

We ordered from the special Autumn menu where the meals were slight discounted by a couple of dollars. We were quite indecisive about whether or not we should order their famous fried onion bloom appetizer.

 

At the end we decided that the two of us could not finish so we passed.  Instead we ended up chomping down on three loaves of deliciously warm dinner bread.

Both of us ordered the 6oz sirloin steak. This meal comes with two choice of sides.  For the first meal, we selected Caesar salad and fries.  For the second meal we chose house salad and cooked vegetables.

 

 

We did not have to wait very long for our meals to arrive. The steaks were cooked medium just like we wanted it to be.  The steaks were juicy, tender and tasty.

 

 

One thing I was disappointed with was that we did not get Aussie cheese fries.  We just got regular fries with ketchup.  We forgot there was a difference between the two. :(

 

We have tried locations in Hong Kong, Seattle and Burlington and think the service and food quality is quite consistent.  From our experience, weekends seem to be always packed at the Outback Steakhouse. Overall, service was friendly and the food was good.  Tonight's meals were well valued at $9.95 each.  The only downside was waiting for a table at the beginning. 

For tonight’s meal:

SFDD gives 4.5 out of 5 Delights.

IHOP Bellingham – Thanksgiving long weekend

We were back in Washington State for the Thanksgiving day long weekend.  This time we got through the border a lot earlier than in March.  It was only an hour or so at the Peace Arch border.  As usual we stopped by the IHOP in Bellingham for breakfast before heading further south.

The IHOP we visited is located at 420 West Bakerview Road
Bellingham, WA in a relatively new strip mall.

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IHOP seems to have a different promotion each time we visit.  Their promos are always in line with some festivity taking place.  This time it was NFL football.  All the wait staff wore a football jersey to mark the occasion.

We ordered bacon and scrambled eggs with hash browns here.  The eggs were fluffy and the hash browns were crispy on one side just how I like it.  The bacon was not too crispy and not too fat so no complaints in the bacon department.

We also ordered ham with over-easy eggs and hash browns.  The ham was large and thick while the eggs were cooked to order.

These breakfast meals also included an order of promo pancakes.  We selected the blueberry pancakes from their promo menu.  The pancakes were fluffy but maybe it had too much whip cream and sauce. We did not have to add much syrup since the blueberry sauce was sweet enough already.

 

I would have preferred toast with my breakfast but after all, we are eating at  IHOP so we should appreciate their specialty in pancakes, not toast.  The service was prompt and friendly and we always enjoy our meals before continuing on with our road trip.

SFDD gives 4.5 out of 5 Delights.

Thai House - Richmond

We had out of town guests tonight so we decided to take them out for some Thai food.  We chose Thai House Richmond since it was close by and we had an entertainment coupon for a free entree.  Thai House has several locations in the lower mainland.  The Richmond location is at: 129-4940 No. 3 Rd Richmond, BC within a strip mall just across the street from MacD’s and Lansdowne Mall.

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We made reservations and did not have to wait when we got there.  We were quickly seated and water was brought to us promptly.  They had quite a vast selection of dishes on the menu so it would be hard for the indecisive to pick out something to eat.

For starters we ordered crab cakes and Thai satay chicken.  There were two large pieces of crab cakes.  They were fried in a light tempura-like batter.  It came with a sweet/sour/spicy dip.

The satay chicken was grilled and came with a peanut sauce and a tiny side salad composed mostly of red onions in a very sweet vinaigrette type of dressing.  We thought the peanut sauce complimented the chicken quite well.  One problem we had was that one strip of the chicken seemed to be a bit too pink.  We asked the waiter to replace it for us and it was done quite promptly and politely.

We ordered three main dishes to share among the four of us.  The first was Pad Thai.  This is a Thai rice noodle fried with tomato sauce and seafood.  As you can see there are lots of raw bean spouts to top this dish.  This was sweet and sour and the noodles had just the right tenderness for our taste.

 

The next item was a pineapple fried rice.  This was a fried rice served in a hollowed out pineapple skin.  Yellow ginger rice was used to fry it with raisins, seafood and lots of pineapple pieces.  There was so much rice that it overflowed out of the pineapple.  We were wondering if the pineapples used in this dish was actually from that pineapple shell it was served in.  Anyone know?

Lastly, we ordered the green curry chicken.  Thai curry is a bit different than others because it is very watery but contains lots of ingredients.  This one had many pieces of chicken breast, green pepper, onions and eggplant. 

Tonight’s green curry seemed to be more spicy than usual, but still very flavorful.  Rice had to be ordered separately.

Prices are quite reasonable at Thai House but the entertainment coupon was certainly an added bonus.  Aside from the raw piece of satay chicken, service was friendly and prompt and the facilities were quite nice to enjoy a meal out with family.

For tonight’s meal:

SFDD gives 4.75 out of 5 delights.