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.

OPA! of Greece – Tsawwassen Mills

After walking around the huge Tsawwassen Mills outlet mall, we got hungry and needed to rest up at the food court.  Tsawwassen Mills has a huge seating area at the food court, but in comparison to other large malls, it actually does not have a lot of food vendors.

We decided to go for OPA! of Greece.  They had souvlaki plates for around $10.  They had a promotion happening for wild salmon souvlaki so we gave that a try too.

We watched them cook the salmon so we know it would be hot.  There were 5 pieces of salmon on the skewer.  The salmon itself didn’t have a lot of flavour so this is where the tzatziki  sauce came in handy.

For the 2nd plate we ordered chicken.  The chicken had good flavour but it was just warm.  We didn’t see them cook the chicken as they took it out of a warmed container.

Both plates had a generous serving of rice.  The rice was very good and was not too wet or soggy.  The potatoes were also fully flavoured with the lemon zing throughout.  The Greek salads were fresh too.   Each plate comes with a full piece of pita bread freshly pan fried.

Overall it was OK and is basically food court quality.  It would have been better if they didn’t precook the chicken.  We would not have minded to wait for it to come straight out of the pan.

We saw many people ordering the fried calamari and it smelled really good.  We certainly would like to try calamari next time.

SFDD gives 3.5 out of 5 Delights.

Boudin Bakery & Cafe –San Francisco Airport

On our way to Maui, we had a 2 hour stopover at SFO.  Food was not going to be served on our flight, so we picked up a bite to eat at the airport.  There were plenty to choose from, but we went with Boudin after some good experience several years ago when we visited another Boudin location at the Fisherman’s Wharf area.

 

This is the place known for their sourdough breads.  It’s also popular for getting a clam chowder in a bread bowl.  One thing that stood out at our visit was that the order taker seemed to be in a very bad mood so we felt she was very rude.  Not a good place to be rude when you are working at the airport with so many visitors and tourists passing through!

We didn’t want to spend that much for a late lunch so we got their combo special where you can choose your own selection from the special menu.

The first combo was the turkey provolone with clam chowder.

The sandwich was served on a half sourdough bun and it was very fresh.  It had a generous serving of turkey as well.  The clam chowder was a small bowl but was just the right size for a late lunch. 

The soup was hot and creamy.  It could have used more clams though. 

For the second combo, we got the turkey avocado and spring salad.

This one was served on sourdough bread which was also fresh like the bun in our other sandwich.  The spring salad had walnuts, apples, cranberry raisins, and crumbled goat cheese. It was tossed in a berry vinaigrette dressing. 

The berry dressing seemed to have gone quite well with the cheese and the nuts.  We felt extra healthy seeing this delicious salad.

The bread and the other ingredients in our food were quite fresh and prepared as expected.  The only hiccup was the unfriendly attitude we experienced from the order taker at this location.  Having a nice smile and warm welcome should be moved to the front of this location's training manual.

SFDD gives 3 out of 5 Delights.

A&W Richmond Centre Food Court

While running some errands at Richmond Centre mall with empty stomachs, we got hungry and needed to get a quick breakfast. 

We had one of those A&W weekly coupons, so we went up to the food court to grab a couple of breakfasts.  The coupon provided a free drink and hash brown so it was a couple of bucks saved.   The food court was relatively quiet as it was before 11am.

There was not a lot of people in line at A&W, but the clerks seemed quite overwhelmed and frazzled with the current orders and bumping into each other at the counter while grabbing orders and drinks.  We had to wait a few minutes before the clerks had time to take our orders.

We both got bacon and eggs classic breakfasts.  This one has over-hard eggs.  We got hot chocolate for the drink. 

The eggs and bacon were great.  A&W is still claiming to source from hormone free meats and eggs which is nice bonus.  The toast however was not toasted enough.  The hot chocolate was too watery so we exchanged it for a tea.  The staff did not give us any trouble when exchanging.

Our second breakfast had over easy eggs.  It was made to order.  The toast was a bit better, but could have used another 30 seconds in the toaster. 

Coffee was A&W’s Van Houtte Brew it was quite flavourful.  If comparing fast food coffee, I’d definitely prefer A&W’s coffee over TH or MacD’s coffee.  The hash brown was fresh and did not seem as oily as the ones you get at MacD’s or TH’s breakfasts.

In summary, most of the items in our order was fine.  Toast needs to be toasted longer for it to look like toast.  The staff can use some training to keep things calm and in order on their side of the counter.  I can imagine things may get messy during a lunch time rush. 

SFDD Gives 2.5 out of 4 Delights

New York Fries – Richmond Centre Food Court

It’s another fresh year for the popular Entertainment Coupon book which we like to pick up a couple every year.  You’ll see lots of different fast food restaurants offering coupon deals in the book such as this NY Fries BOGO.  We went to the Richmond Centre location located in their food court on the 2nd floor.  I like their food court as it is spacious, lots of seats and rather clean compared to their old one that was on the ground floor.

The Entertainment coupon only mentioned regular fries, but after clarifying with the counter staff, he said it can be used for their poutine so that is what we got.  We have never tried poutine before so we were rather excited to see what it was all about.  NY fries has a variety of poutine choices, even butter chicken! 

The first one we got was The Works poutine.  This has beef chilli over New York Fries, topped with sour cream, cheese sauce, fresh green onions and bacon.

The 2nd one we got was the Veggie Works poutine.  It is similar to the above except it does not have chilli and instead of bacon bits it has fresh healthy tomatoes.

The fries were rather fresh as we can hear them making it in the back.  Before the fryer was at the front where the customer can see them making it but this location has moved it behind the scenes.  You’ll notice that one key ingredient missing from the orders were the cheese curds.  Well it turns out that the curds are only available on their other 3 Poutine options so it was bad luck that the 2 we wanted had no curds.  A bit unusual as curds are supposed to be mandatory ingredient isn't it?  Also missing was gravy…

Overall, this tasted more like a fully loaded baked potato.  It was not horrible in fact it tasted OK, but the fact that it was called a poutine made it rather misleading and disappointing.  The cheese sauce they used reminded us of CheezWiz.

The staff taking the order was quick and helpful.  However, the 2 female staff who were preparing the food were horsing around and throwing bits of food at each other. They were doing this while preparing our poutine!  I thought that was a bit disturbing to see since they were not teenagers.  They were adults!  Nevertheless,  I had to keep my eye on them throughout the poutine preparation because I was concerned they may throw a piece of dirty food into our order.

This was a disappointing first time experience with poutine.  However, seeing we have multiple BOGO NY Fries coupons, we will still come back to try their other poutine options that do have curds and gravy.

SFDD gives 2.5 out of 4 Delights.