THIS IS A RESTAURANT BLOG

Got way too behind to even think of catching up with all the places I've been, which got discouraging. So, fresh start now that I'm freshly married and back in Vancouver. I have a couple of places from our honeymoon I'd like to review, but I'll get back into things with a Vancouver review.

THIS IS A REVIEW:
Bo Laksa King is a great place to have laksa, said the internet! Hmm, ok, thought I, but what the heck is laksa? Oh well, it's near to where we're going to be anyway, let's try it!

They serve it to you in two bowls, as shown above. You squeeze the lime and pour the soup over the whole thing. That was the helpful instructions of the one-woman team running everything.

If you don't know what laksa is either, it's a Chinese-Malaysian specialty. Bo Laksa King's version is a rich, curry and coconut milk soup over shrimp, fish balls, tofu puffs, chicken, a hard-boiled egg, and your choice of rice vermicelli or yellow wheat noodles. We chose yellow wheat at the nice lady's recommendation. ($7.50)

Bo Laksa King has a nice combo deal where you can get a wrap with your laksa $2 off, so we got an Asian Beef Wrap:


Bo Laksa King does most of their business takeout, which they have to, because it's just a counter within a tiny grocery, and there's only three tiny tables outside. But I have to say that eating there, or at least nearby, might be worth it. The contrast between the hot beef and sauce, and the cool crisp vegetables, was lovely, and that's the kind of thing that just doesn't survive a trip home. ($4.50)

Our favorite part of the meal, however, was the Roti Canai ($5.99 for a large).

Once again, I would hate to have to take this very far before digging in. Hot, hot, hot and so stretchy and crispy and fresh and OMG, I want another order now. *salivates* Just by itself it would be worth the price, so to have that bowl of curry chicken dipping sauce is just... gah. Hungry now.

THIS IS A SUMMARY:
Name: Bo Laksa King
Location: 4910 Joyce St Vancouver BC
Prices: <$10 per person. No drinks, but it's in a grocery so you can buy a cold drink.
Service: Very, very friendly, but there was only one person there and she was doing EVERYTHING (taking orders, cooking, cleaning up, bringing you your order etc), so you must be patient!
Food: Amazing Chinese-Malaysian food at great prices. With a smile!
Recommended?: Yes, and please send me an order of roti canai while you're there?

THIS IS A REVIEW:
Vancouver's weather lately has been oppressively, unreasonably hot, and because of this I was craving my favorite Taiwanese summer food: 涼麵 liangmian, or cold noodles.

I Googled for it, but I wasn't finding anything but Korean and Japanese style cold noodles. Then I had the brilliant (or obvious, or possibly a combination of the two) idea to search in Chinese, and I found a page talking about Wang's Beef Noodle House in Marpole as having great liangmian. This was about 1am, JUST LIKE IT IS NOW, because the heat makes it so hard to stay asleep. I immediately resolved to kidnap The Boyfriend when he got off of work and take him to this place.

We got there about 3pm, a slow period for most restaurants. I kicked things off by responding to the waitress's question of how many with “兩位" which means "two people", and after that I never actually spoke to the waitress in English.

I glanced at the menu only to find the liangmian and immediately ordered a bowl. The Boyfriend had been hoping to order salt and pepper chicken (鹽酥雞) but it wasn't on the menu. The waitress recommended him (through me) several dishes, so here's the scoop if you want it: the #1 and #2 rice dishes, which I can't remember what they are; the #3 and #5 dim sum, which was the scallion pancake beef rolls (餅夾牛肉) and I think a kind of dumpling; and of course, the beef noodle soup!

If you can't tell by the fact that I don't remember the names of the other dishes, we ordered the beef rolls. The Boyfriend also ordered a bowl of liangmian since he had never had cold noodles Chinese-style before.



Was it good? Was it good. WAS IT GOOD.

The picture is post-stirring and eating a few bites because I was just overcome with "DO WANT." It's a very simple and healthy style: cold noodles topped with a mildly spicy sesame-ginger sauce (and I think I also detected some peanut), topped with julienned cucumber, carrot, and cilantro. I am not a fan of cilantro so I scraped all of mine into my boyfriend's bowl; the waitress noticed and said I could tell them next time not to put it on.

I had asked the waitress upon coming in if the song that was playing was by Fahrenheit (a Taiwanese boy band) but she checked the iPod and found that it was Super Junior M (another boy band). Not long after we received our bowls, she asked me who my favorite singer was. I told her Landy Wen Lan (溫嵐). She immediately went and changed the iPod to play all Landy all the time! <3 So I spent half the time eating and half the time singing along, which amused The Boyfriend greatly.



I know I gushed about the liangmian but the bing jia niurou was EVEN BETTER. As a matter of fact, it was the best beef roll I have ever had, and I'm speaking as a girl who lived in Taipei an entire year, ate out at least two meals every day, and absolutely adores scallion pancake. It was the quality of the beef and the sauce that made it soar to unimagined heights of deliciousness. The absolute perfect combination of crispy, thin scallion pancake, tender beef, and rich, savory sauce.



Go ahead and drool at that picture a little. I'll wait.

Finished? Okay. While we were eating, I noticed that a family eating nearby had ordered a bowl of what was most certainly mango baobing. However, it hadn't been on the menu, at least not that I saw (it's quite possible I was blinded by "MUST HAVE LIANGMIAN NOW" though). I asked the waitress how much it was for a bowl, and she said $4.50. We said "Ummmmmmm yes bring that now plzkthx."

She went back to the kitchen to tell us our order, but then came out to say that the mango was sold out. Awwww. But that's okay because she'll go get some more! If we're willing to wait a little? Surprised, we agreed.

Sure enough, about ten minutes later I saw her come back in the front door with a plastic shopping bag containing two mangoes. Now THAT is service!

Also I have to point out here that in addition to our 超可愛 (super cute) waitress, there was another waitress who was freakin' hilarious. I spent any time I did not spend eating and singing along with the music translating her brusque scoldings and quips for The Boyfriend. For example:

Other Waitress: Where were you?
Our Waitress: We ran out of mangoes. I went to get more.
Other Waitress: These mangoes aren't ripe enough!
Our Waitress: I think...
Other Waitress: You don't know how to pick mangoes!

Okay it is not nearly as hilarious written down. Probably a lot of it was that it took me right back to certain balls-busting Taiwanese women I knew, who were undisputed masters of their domains and the terrified souls who cowered within them.

They were also gossipping about whether a certain Chinese singer were gay, and she snapped, "Well, of course he is! Who else would wear so many clothes?" LMAO.

Anywhoozle, back to the mango baobing! It was, to be precise, mangguo niunai bing (芒果牛奶冰), which means "mango milk ice", but here "milk" actually refers to sweetened condensed milk.

Once again, Wang's did not disappoint me. The most difficult part of making baobing is getting a good texture for the ice. It's not supposed to be hard crunchy granules of ice like in a snowcone. Chinese restaurants in North America that use snow cone makers for their baobing are the bane of my culinary life. It's supposed to be shaved ice, with a softer texture, something that won't hurt your teeth, and that melts relatively quickly on a hot day, forming a delicious super-cold liquid mixed with the condensed milk and fruit flavor.

Despite the other waitress's scolding, the mango tasted perfectly ripe to me. Another bane is restaurants that use canned mango in syrup. This was quite demonstratively not the case at Wang's.

The entire meal with tax came to a little over $20. The entire meal, as long as I didn't look out the window, I could imagine I was in Taipei. The music, the food, the sound of a Taiwanese woman bitching people out... ahhhhh. Nostalgia.

I want to go back. ;_;

But, while I can't go back to Taipei right now, The Boyfriend and I have resolved to come back here before I leave. Which is in two weeks, so that should let you know how much we loved this place.

THIS IS A SUMMARY:
Name: Wang's Beef Noodle House (王記台灣牛肉麵)
Location: 8390 Granville St Vancouver BC (604) 266-7966
Prices: <$10 person
Service: Our waitress did everything short of carry our food out to us on her knees. When the restaurant ran out of an item we wanted, she actually went so far as to run to the market and buy the ingredient needed. See, Hapa Izakaya? That's how you do it!
Food: Not only is it authentic Taiwanese food, if this restaurant were in Taipei, I would patronize it above others. It ranks with the best of Taipei.
Recommended?: No, not at all. Haha, just kidding. C'mon, did you read the review or not? GO HERE.

VANCOUVER. You are irritating me with your lack of clearly defined neighborhoods. If you ask Pittsburghers what neighborhood a place is, they'll answer "Squirrel Hill" or "Shadyside" or "the Strip" or "Fox Chapel" or whatever without hesitation. People know these things. I ask Vancouverites what neighborhood a place is, and unless it's in one of the clearly defined areas like Kitsilano or Granville Island, they stare at me with wide eyes and make noises that sound like "West Broadway?" or "South Main?"

So I have zero clue how to tag this post. Officially the area it is in is called "Riley Park-Little Mountain." I asked my roommate, who grew up in this area, if she had any idea where "Riley Park-Little Mountain" was. She hadn't a clue. Neither did the boyfriend, who's lived in Vancouver for 3 years.

The boyfriend tells me that this area is sometimes called "South Main," or "SoMa" if you want to sound like an idiot. Look, I understand that you want to be SoHo, but you can't, alright? Stop it with the So prefixes for hipster hang-outs. Soma is a drug from Brave New World, not a place to buy $100 pairs of distressed jeans.

I hope you'll excuse this rant because HEY CHEAP DIM SUM!


THIS IS A REVIEW:
Yes! All of that ranting was leading up to some of the best and most affordable dim sum I have ever had. The boyfriend and I met his aunt and her boyfriend there for lunch. When they got there (I was a little late) there wasn't an empty table in the place, and the average age of the table occupants was probably about 67, and everyone was speaking Cantonese.

If you aren't aware these three factors mean CHEAP and GOOD.



You can order from the menu if there's something you want in particular, or you can get something from the trays being brought around. We did a combination of both.



Prices range here from $2.30 to $4.75 per dish, with the cheaper dishes being things like shiu mai, and the more "expensive" ones being the staple or special dishes.



The pictures aren't very good this time as I forgot my camera and had to borrow Gordon's Aunt's. I'm skipping some other pictures that didn't turn out well at all, but I think this gives at least an idea of the portion sizes.

We were all quite stuffed and happy and the bill for four came to less than $30! This would be a great place to bring a big group and eat well without spending a fortune. The BBQ pork buns were probably my favorite, but the sticky rice was really good too.

THIS IS A SUMMARY:
Name: King's Chinese Cuisine
Location: 4488 Main St Vancouver BC 604 874-3525
Prices: $2.30-$4.75/dish, if you eat about like what I do, probably about $7.50/person
Service: It's dim sum, so you don't have a waiter, you just have harried people rushing about with trays.
Food: Large portions of authentic Cantonese dim sum with all the favorites and a few specialties.
Recommended?: If it were twice as expensive it would be worth the price. As it is, this is a steal. Fight your way through the Cantonese grandmas and grab a table.

THIS IS A REVIEW:
In April of 2008, I took a break from Taiwan to go see my lovely boyfriend here in Vancouver. I flew in and out of Seattle because flying in and out of YVR costs anything from an arm to a firstborn child.

On the way back, my boyfriend went with me, as he had not been to Seattle for some time, and I had never actually gotten to see the city. Despite the fact that I was soon returning to Taiwan, I developed a craving for xiaolongbao (小籠包 a soup dumpling originally from Shanghai) and had to have some OMG now.

My boyfriend, who loves Chinese food even if he can't speak a word of Chinese, was game. We were in the International District (or ID as the cool Seattle locals call it), checking out a bookstore. I picked up a book whose cover claimed it to be a guide to Seattle dining and flipped to the back to look at the cuisines. Under "Chinese" was a listing for "Shanghai Garden". I figured with that name, they had to have xiaolongbao. I flipped to the actual blurb in the book and it claimed that the restaurant not only served authentic xiaolongbao but also was known for wheatgrass daoxiaomian (刀削麵 knife-shaved noodles).

This was a cute coincidence because I had just had my first ever shot of wheatgrass juice that trip in Pike Place Market (I loved it; I'm planning on doing a mega-review of all the places we hit there sometime). Not only that, but the restaurant was not two blocks from where we were standing. Who were we to fight fate? We walked over.



The book was not lying when it said the food was authentic. This is a good restaurant to visit if you have a stereotype of Chinese food being greasy, salty and unhealthy because the food here was fresh and light. The food was so amazing that I said "Shoot! I forgot to take a picture of that!" both after our appetizers (xiaolongbao) and our soup (egg drop for me, hot and sour for him, IIRC) had disappeared down our gullets.

But, by the main course I was ready by God. Here you can see their "barley green" (from the leaves of the barley plant, basically the same thing flavor and nutrition-wise as wheat grass) daoxiaomian with beef. The light, almost gravy-like sauce was mostly absorbed into the noodles, which had just the right amount of resistance to the teeth.

The waitress had a very cute personality and chatted with me about Taiwan. She attentively made sure our tea pot was always full. The food came out fast, but at a Chinese restaurant I expect that.

The restaurant had nice high ceilings which gave it a rather airy feeling, which I found refreshing on the spring day. I also liked the large tropical fish tanks they used as decoration.

Our meal ended with fortune cookies, which I don't eat (I'm not a sugar cookie person) but my boyfriend happily munched on.

Daoxiaomian seems to be a type of Chinese cuisine many Westerners aren't familiar with, so if that's the case for you, I highly recommend you try it, and Shanghai Garden does it perfectly. Daoxiaomian is made by scraping noodles off a block of dough directly into the boiling water. This results in a thick, chewy texture that is unlike any other kind of Chinese noodle.

My grandfather (a German-American who loved to cook) used to make noodles the same exact way, holding the dough over a big pot of soup and slicing them right in. So my first time trying daoxiaomian in Taiwan was strangely nostalgic. "These are Baba's noodles!" I exclaimed. Yep, my brother and I called our grandfather Baba, which you might know is the Chinese word for "daddy". Maybe he was more Chinese than he knew! :3

THIS IS A SUMMARY:
Name: Shanghai Garden
Location: 524 6th Ave S Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 625-1689
Prices: $13-20; serves beer and wine
Service: Prompt, attentive and smiling. Nice clean restroom.
Food: Fantastic, healthy Chinese food in Shanghai-style. Don't miss their xiaolongbao or barleygreen daoxiaomian.
Recommended?: Emphatically!