Crepe Delicious– Oakridge

We were doing some shopping at Oakridge Mall and got attracted to the smell of crepes at the food court.

Aside from crepes, they also have a selection of sorbet and gelatos on display.

We decided to go with a simple strawberry with icing sugar crepe.  It took about 5 minutes for them to prepare it.  They asked if we wanted it to-go, or for here, in which case they would have served it on a paper plate.  We opted for to-go so it was wrapped for us.

At the beginning, things looked good. The crepe was wrapped comfortably and it smelled nice.  Things changed as soon as we took a few bites of our crepe.

The crepe was way too sticky, like it was too moist.  It was too chewy, almost rubberlike because you have to really pull on it when taking each bite.  As we got into the crepe, that checkered paper you see in the pic stuck onto the crepe like crazy glue! 

It was so awkward to eat it.  Furthermore, they did not use fresh strawberries.  It was like a cooked strawberry jam sauce.

Perhaps the crepe was undercooked causing it to stick and be so hard to chew on.  This was not a very pleasant crepe experience.  Hopefully, this was just a one time mishap but certainly we won’t be coming back until improvements are made soon.

SFDD  gives 2 out of 5 Delights.

Bubbies Homemade Ice Cream – Honolulu Special

After our late lunch at Fatboy’s, we found a very popular ice cream parlour called Bubbies within the same strip mall here at Koko Marina Centre.

It’s a very nicely maintained shop with wood themed furniture and counter.

Here is a closer look at the popular items on their menu behind the counter:

Aside from ice cream, the other popular item they sell here are different flavours of ice cream mochi.  To simply describe, this is like ice cream inside of a glutinous rice ball so it’s quite chewy on the outside before you get inside to the ice cream.  We ordered 3 mochis to try:

They were about the size of a golf ball.  It had a moderate layer of glutinous wrap and a big ball of ice cream inside. We chose 2 pistachios and one chocolate.  The glutinous wrap was a bit too rough and you can feel some lumps, perhaps it was not mixed well enough.  The ice cream inside was smooth.

We also ordered two different ice cream flavours to share:

We got mango on the left, which was actually a sorbet and lychee on the right which was indeed ice cream.  Both had strong natural flavor so it did not taste artificial at all.

Bubbies is a nice place to pop in for ice cream.  They have a variety of flavours to choose from while the shop is nicely organized and cozy for you to enjoy the desserts.

SFDD gives 3.5 out of 5 Delights.

Yama Cafe – East Vancouver

Yama Cafe is located on Hastings near Victoria Drive.  We were here last year when it was called “Basho”.  It seems to look exactly the same, also run by Japanese staff. Other food blogs have indicated that there was a change in ownership.

Yama is a small cozy coffee shop with tables, a counter by the window and also a small sofa on one corner.   They have their menu on a chalkboard up on the wall:

Yama also has daily specials written on separate boards behind the counter.  They also have a variety of Japanese inspired bakeries up on the counter.  Most appear to be small bite sized cookies.

I was alone and ordered the matcha latte.  You can have it sweetened or unsweetened.  I went for half sweet to be safe.

I was quite surprised by the large size of the latte.  It only comes in one size and is served in a very nice Japanese tea cup which actually looks more like a bowl since it was quite wide.  The staff took their time to make it look really pretty with the latte art.

At first I thought it was just the top layer that was dark green with matcha powder.  However as I sipped through it,  I realized the dark green was consistent throughout.   This is truly a matcha latte as it was deep with green tea flavour throughout.

It was not too busy when I arrived late Friday afternoon and I was in no hurry.  It did take a while for the drink to be prepared but it was worth waiting for.  It got a little bit busier later on and I noticed people had to wait longer for their hand crafted drinks.

The service was good and the drink was superb.  We will try their baked goods next time.  Be forewarned that if you drop in while busy, be prepared to wait as they will take time to make the drinks, but know it will be worth waiting for.

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights. 

Chatime–East Hastings

Chatime is a chain of bubble tea beverage shops that recently started popping up around the lower mainland.  They opened up a shop on East Hastings near Renfrew.  This is at the old Radio Shack location, if you’ve been in Vancouver long enough, then you’d know what we mean.

They have quite a bit of seating inside. It was not too busy Friday afternoon when we arrived and there was no line up so we took our time browsing the menu.

We ordered a mango smoothie with pearls. This is a large.

The pearls were chewy with slight sweetness to it.  We were not able to see if they actually put in fresh mangoes into the smoothie or if it was a pre mixed powder.  Maybe Chatime can clarify if they read this.

This one is a mango slush:

It’s like a Slurpee with pearls.  They didn’t get it right the first time since they forgot to put in pearls.  When we addressed it, they simply opened up the cup and poured it into another cup with pearls. 

It didn’t look very pleasant the way they corrected this since the girl just popped the top open with a fork, and pealed away the plastic with her bare hands to pour into another cup.  The store was not even busy and the cup clearly shows “+pearls”, so staff must have been dozing when they prepared our drinks.

There is a tiny parking lot at this location but it’s shared with other tenants of this small strip mall.  Better to park on the street if you want to try this location.

The drinks took a long time to be ready and they got one of the drinks wrong even with hardly any customers waiting.  I can’t imagine how they can handle a long line up.  Perhaps they need more staffing or training to get things right and operating smoothly.  We hope to see improvements next time we visit.

SFDD gives 2.5 out of 5 Delights.

Meet Fresh–Downtown Vancouver

Meet Fresh serves Chinese style hot and cold desserts.  They opened up on Robson Street in Downtown Vancouver.

It was rather busy. It was a small so not much seating was available.  This is the type of dessert you can order:

They had about 3 people preparing the food at the counter.

Here is their menu with pictures of the dessert:

We ordered the red bean taro ball dessert with fresh taro, red beans and pearls.

This one is the the same except it has sweet potato, barley and pearls as options.  The black balls are the pearls, and they are sort of like tapioca you can find in bubble tea.

Both were served luke warm which was terribly disappointed.  Furthermore, there were hardly any red bean paste at all.  Apparently they scooped up our orders from the bottom of the barrel.  The desserts ordered by people after us received a steaming hot dessert, with the bowl full of toppings compared to ours.

We were very disappointed at the quality of these $10 desserts served to us in particular because it was obvious to us that we were treated differently.  We would not have minded to wait for a fresh pot of dessert, but why give us the bottom of the barrel crap?

We do not recommend and will not be coming back.

SFDD gives 1 out of 5 Delights.

Snowy Village Dessert Cafe - Richmond

During a hot August day, we stopped by a relatively new Korean dessert cafe located in the Alexandra food street.

They specialize in shaved ice desserts with premium toppings.  A bit pricey considering that you are eating ice.

It was already quite busy when we got there late in the afternoon.  We had to wait about 15 minutes before being seated.

We started with the baked toast with a fish imprint. 

Inside was a red bean filling.  It looked nice but upon tasting, it turned out to be just made out of regular bread squished together probably in a fish shaped panini maker.

We ordered their special mango shaved ice.  This is a large size.

It did have a huge amount of mango.  Also, the ice itself is quite creamy.  During our visit, we saw a big delivery of 4 litre jugs of homo milk.  Looks like they do make the ice by using the milk.  This ice dessert is nice to try but not something we would eat regularly like we would with ice cream.

This location is a bit crowded and does not seat very many people. Going back to the milk delivery, they had all the jugs delivered and placed on the dirty floor behind the counter. We didn’t feel this was a very hygienic place to store the milk and hope they will change their practice after witnessing this ourselves.  They were not shy about it either as it was easily visible to all.

SFDD gives 3 out of 5 Delights.

Pallet Coffee Roasters–Kitsilano Vancouver

We wandered into Pallet for a morning coffee break while in the neighborhood.  This is a very high end looking coffee shop with nicely decorated wooden tables. 

It was quite busy on this Friday morning but we managed to find some seats in the large natural wood table.  The shop is very bright with big windows letting in natural light.  It is also very spacious.  They’ve got an indoor living wall growing too.

 

The baristas here are pros when it comes down to latte art.  We ordered a mocha:

Very detailed oriented art with even a heart shape floating on the left side.  They roast their own beans and with this mocha, it had a great balance, not too bitter.

We also ordered a brewed coffee.

The brewed coffee had the perfect taste that I like. Strong, but not bitter and with just the right amount of acidity.

They only have one size for most of their drinks.  They are equivalent to a medium size if compared to other shops.

We also ordered a salted chocolate cookie. 

The cookie was still hot like it just came out of the oven.  It was superb, not overly sweet.  It was large enough for the two of us to share.

After our cookie we wanted to get some water at their really neat looking self serve water station:

Surfing their website we learned there are actually 2 other stores in Vancouver.  We were quite satisfied with our visit and look forward to returning to this location as well as visiting their other outlets in East Vancouver.

SFDD gives 4.5 out of 5 Delights.

Jean-Philippe Pâtisserie–Las Vegas

While we were in Vegas in June, it was 47 degrees Celsius.  Despite the dessert heat, the strip was always crowded with people day and night.  With this heat, we craved for something sweet and cold so we headed into the Bellagio to get some gelato here at JPP.

Aside from the ice cream and gelato, this place has all sorts of desserts and pastries too.

They also have pre-packed goodies on the shelf too:

You can order crepes too:

Don’t miss the chocolate fountain outside their store:

The much awaited frozen section to cool us down:

We ordered 2 flavours, pistachio and mango.

There is plenty of seating around the hotel where you can sit comfortably to enjoy.  Both of the flavours were very deep, not too sweet and very creamy. A very perfect gelato.  JPP looks pretty busy so be prepared to line up for a bit.  If you are coming out from a buffet, save some space for some sweet delights here.

SFDD gives 5 out of 5 Delights.

Chez Christophe Chocolaterie Patisserie

Chez Christophe is located in the Burnaby Hastings area just east of Willingdon.  It’s a cozy little neighborhood with newer condos built in the surrounding area. 

They got a small outdoor seating area, however the morning sun was just too bright this morning.  Too bad they didn’t have table umbrellas up for the tables.  Luckily they had plenty of comfortable seating indoors including a few at the counter if you want to chat with the baristas.

We got here on a weekend morning just when it opened.  Just when you walk in you will smell the aroma of  freshly baked goods.This place serves some high end looking French style pastries including different croissants macaroons, beverages, and of course, chocolates!

Pastry Selection:

Chocolate Selection:

Maybe it was still too early but there wasn’t a big selection of macaroons so no pictures unfortunately.

We ordered a small latte.  The barista as you can see is quite an expert with the latte art.

The drink itself was not strong enough for my liking though.  It didn’t have enough acidity for me.  I still enjoy the ones served at Caffe Artigiano.

This is their basil berry tea.  It’s quite a fresh looking iced tea. It’s unsweetened and really does have many pieces of basil inside.

We also ordered this apple pastry.  It is like a cross between an apple strudel and a croissant.

It was very crispy on the outside, just like the the croissants you get in Paris.  The apple filling inside was also very tasty and was not overly sweet.

The service here was very good and the prices were very reasonable.  Too bad it was too early in the morning to try more of the other good looking sweets and pastries.  Definitely we will be interested to come back at a later date to try more.

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.