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.

Samsoonie Noodle & Rice - Richmond

Samsoonie is a small Korean restaurant located in a strip mall along Westminster Highway just across the street from the Richmond Public Market.  We heard some good reviews about this place from friends and family so we decided to come try it out Sunday morning.  We arrived just past 11am which looked like it just opened as the restaurant was still empty.

The menu had the typical Korean cuisines that you hear about elsewhere, except for Korean BBQ. 

We were pleased to know they didn’t have BBQ since we didn’t want out clothes to get too smelly in the summer heat.

We were served a couple of dishes of the cold side plates. This is kimchi and some potatoes.

We started with some pan fried dumplings.

They were large, plump and flavorful with a nice crisp.  It comes with a vinegar sauce for dipping.

We also ordered a Korean seafood pancake, small size.

This was one of the best Korean pancakes we’ve had.  It is fully loaded with lots of seafood.  It was also not too oily and did not contain too much batter.  It is served on a hot pan, but not too hot that it would burn the pancake.

Next is the beef Bibimbap.  It is served on a hot stone bowl which you can still hear sizzling.

You have to mix this together before it cools down because there is  raw egg cracked in the bowl.  It had lots of flavourful beef and veggies.  Usually we add Korean hot sauce to this rice to give it an extra kick.

Next we ordered a Korean rice cake plate.

This was only so so. We found it was drowned in sauce.  Also the rice cakes were rather doughy and bland.

Lastly we got the pork bone soup.

This comes with 3 big pieces of pork bone. The bone usually has lots of meat on it for you to enjoy. It comes with a small bowl of rice too.

Overall we enjoyed Samsoonie.  The service here was also polite and attentive.The prices were good and selection was vast. However, if you are expecting Korean BBQ, then this place is not for you.

There were only 3 of us and we couldn’t even finish all the food.    The parking lot here is not that great, so come early if you are visiting on a weekend. The restaurant filled up shortly after we got all our food so it seems to be a popular place.

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.

Jacob's Noodle & Cutlet - Downtown Kamloops

On our way back from our Calgary road trip, we stopped by Downtown Kamloops for dinner at Jacob’s Noodle.  It’s located in cozy downtown Kamloops.  We got there late in the evening and there weren’t a lot of customers at that time.

They serve a mix of Japanese and Korean dishes.  The restaurant is quite spacious but a bit dark in lighting.  It appears to be family run.

We ordered chicken Yakisoba.

It was served on a hot sizzling plate.  It was not sizzling as much as we’d like but was a good sized portion.  It would have been better if the noodles were a bit chewier though.  The flavoring was fine as it was not too salty.

Next is the Nabeyaki Udon. 

It has the usual egg, some chicken and 2 prawn tempuras.  The udon however was soggy and overcooked so that will need to be improved. 

Next is a Korean stone pot rice Bimbimbap with chicken.  It was well rounded and colorful with good portions of meat and veggies.

Finally we had a chicken udon. Strangely, the udon was not soggy like the Nabayaki above.  It was nice and chewy.  The soup was also a nice clear broth and was not too overwhelmingly rich.

Overall the service was pleasant and I guess the food is considered good for a small city of Kamloops.  We are always skeptical about restaurants that serve hybrid foods such as here having both Korean and Japanese but we didn’t have a lot of choices as it was late in the evening.   Prices were quite reasonable.

SFDD gives 3 out of 5 Delights.

Insadong Korean BBQ - Coquitlam

Insadong is in the heart of Korean town of the North Road neighborhood.  We got there just after 5pm on Saturday after a nice 2 hour hike, so we were very hungry.  The restaurant was not very full as we were early.

The restaurant feels very big as you can see  multiple levels with private rooms available for parties.

The usual Korean cold appetizer dishes were served.  They are usually refillable if you ask.

We started with a Korean seafood pancake. It is a small size but had lots of filling.  One seafood item missing was oyster.  It was about the size of a small pizza.  It was still sizzling on the cast iron hot plate when it came so the bottom had a nice crisp by the time we picked it up to eat.

We ordered the hot stone beef rice.  It also came with s small bowl of soup.  It had a nice balance of flavors for the veggies and a good amount of beef.

We also shared this pork bone soup.  They placed the pot right on the gas grill to keep it hot.  It had lots of pork bone pieces to chew on.  What we found unusual were the giant pieces of potatoes.  It would have been nice if the cut it into smaller pieces.  The potatoes were bland as it did not have a chance to soak up the soup flavour.  The soup was good though.

The soup also comes with 2 bowls of rice.  If we had known, we would not have ordered the beef stone pot rice.

The service was reasonably good since we went early we did not have to wait too long for the food to arrive.  The parking lot is not very pleasant though because it is in a shared strip mall so spaces are limited.  It would be better to find street parking on the side streets if you don't mind walking.

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.

Sushi Yen - New Westminster

A couple of my friends and I were craving for some sushi so we checked out this relatively new Sushi place on 6th Street in New West.

We got there on Friday just a few minutes past noon and the restaurant was rather quiet since they usually open at 11:30am.  We were seated in a cozy corner giving us a good overview of the restaurant.

According to the menu, all orders come with a free miso soup.  So we got a few of these served with our order.  My friend commented that this is the sweeter type of miso soup. I don’ t think I’ve tried it before but it was indeed, less salty and had a tad of sweetness to it.  It had not seaweed in it, but some visible pieces of tofu.

We ordered some fried octopus (karaage). It came with a spicy mayo dipping sauce.  The octopus came fried in a very light batter so it was quite good.

We ordered a couple of their knock off Japadogs to share. This one is the Orishi Ponzu.  It has some grated daikon inside of it.  I thought the raw daikon was a bit strange, I usually have it cooked and never had it inside a hot dog before.  Both of the hotdogs had a thick full sized wiener.

This one is the Teri-Mayo.  It had a couple of different sauces inside and similar to the one above it had seaweed scattered on the top.

This is Korean Style fried chicken. There are a couple of flavours to choose from.  We got the sweet and spicy  one.  It comes with about 12 large pieces. They are boneless and had a light batter with some sesame sprinkled on top.  It had a unique zing to it and was complemented well with the sweetness too.  It was not overly saucy too.  This dish would have went well with a bowl of rice.

We also got a BC roll to try.  It was a bit small.  They put some sweet sauce on the top which tasted well with the salmon inside the BC roll.

This restaurant appears to be family run.  Service was attentive but one hiccup was that they could not provide us with a table knife as we wanted to cut the hotdog ourselves.  The server was apologetic about not having a knife available so we didn’t think much of it.

We’d certainly like to come back soon to try their other Korean style fried chicken as that was the best part of our meal.

SFDD gives 3.5 out of 5 Delights.

Hanwoori Korean Restaurant - Burnaby

Hanwoori is a popular Korean restaurant located east of Metrotropolis.  It is unusually next to a couple of car repair shops.  We’ve been here a couple of times before so we are aware they have relatively large portions.  Although this time there were 3 of us, we were still conservative with our order since didn’t want to take any food back to our car as we had planned to see the movie Interstellar afterwards.  Surely the car would stink up with food after sitting for 3 to 4 hours.

It seems very common that Korean restaurants will have a little button on the table that works like a doorbell for you to push when you need to call the server to your table.

The appetizer sides were small compared to Potter’s Garden; however they allow one refill.  What we noticed is that the amount and type of appetizers served is quite inconsistent from our previous visits.  I’m pretty sure we got seaweed, bean sprouts and broccoli too.  Why only 3 dishes this time?

This is the seafood pancake that comes on a hot stone plate.  It is quite large even for 3 people. It came sizzling and is about the size of a medium pizza.  It has oysters, shrimp, various veggies and green onion cooked in an egg type batter.  The pancake had a light crisp to it on the outside.  The main ingredients are well balanced in terms of quantity and flavour.

The only main dish we got was the JapChea. JapChea are potato noodles which are very chewy.  IT comes with ground meat and veggies.  This JapChea was a bit on the salty side but overall was OK.  The noodles were very chewy which we like.

We went for lunch this time and it was not too busy.  The service was efficient and friendly.  Portions are large but rather pricey.  The inconsistency of the appetizer plates was a bit annoying seeing that other tables got additional dishes too. 

We prefer Potter’s Garden because they have options for smaller portions available.  Hanwoori will better fit larger parties as you can order more to share.  But with 2 or 3 people, you won’t be able to order too much to try in the same sitting unless you want to take stuff home to re-heat the next day.

SFDD gives 3 out of 4 Delights.

Potter's Garden Korean BBQ – Burnaby

There are a couple of popular Korean restaurants in the South Burnaby Neighbourhood, just about across the street from each other.  Potter’s garden is located in a strip mall that has a furniture store as well as a Korean supermarket.

We went in the middle of the week for lunch and the place was not too busy probably because of the holiday season.  We had a party of 3 and were seated promptly.  The first thing we noticed about the menu is that a lot of the dishes come in 2 sizes, medium and large.  This was great as other Korean restaurants we’ve been to usually serves very large portions so it was difficult to order more to share.  This time, at least we were able to get 3 lunch size dishes.

We were served 3 different appetizers below.  We got sweet flavoured potatoes, kimchi and bean sprouts.  You are allowed one refill for the appetizers.  The potatoes were very sweet so it was not popular at our table.  The kimchi and bean sprouts were standard.  We would have preferred the kimchi to be a tad more spicier.

 

The first dish arriving was the Kimchi – Jigae.  It was still boiling hot in the bowl when it arrived. This is a soup based dish with lots of kimchi, veggies and tofu in the pot.  It came with a bowl of rice and scissors for you to cut down the veggies.  This would be a great dish for those who like spicy food.

Next came the rice in stone pots.  We chose the original Bibimbab which has beef, veggies, mushrooms over rice.

The next rice dish was similar to the above except the stone pot was hot with a sunny side up egg.  The egg was quite runny because the purpose is for you to mix it into the hot rice and stone pot to let it cook a bit more. It was $3 more but had a bigger portion of beef. 

The beef was nicely tender on both.  They also came with a small bowl of soup on the side.

Service was attentive and the food was very fresh.  This place had a wide variety of items to try, and having a smaller lunch size portion available was a big advantage if you want to try more without breaking the bank.

SFDD gives 3.5 out of 4 Delights.