Every Day Is a Food Day

5 Alarm Burger with Yam Fries - Pepper-Jack cheese, jalapeños, fresh tangy salsa layered on a juicy beef burger and topped with crisp lettuce, tomatoes and chipotle mayo

Calamarvelous - lightly seasoned tender calamari fresh-fried golden, topped with red onions and served with tzatziki

I haven’t had Red Robin in quite some time now, so we decided to make a stop for a quick snack while shopping downtown. Red Robin always seems to have people eating no matter what time. I decided to get the Calamarvelous since I was craving some calamari. I thought it was just decent though. The batter wasn’t that amazing, and wasn’t as fluffy as I would have liked it to be. I’ve definitely had better calamari before. I never got a chance to try the burger, but it looked pretty delicious.

Swedish Meatballs with Pasta - ($1.99 for past + $1.49 for 5 meatballs)

The new Ikea has been opened for a quite a while now, and I always seem to pass by it, but still hadn’t gone to have a look. I finally decided to check it out, and it definitely is much larger. Everything still looks pretty much the same though, except for the huge Ikea Food Service cafeteria. It is actually quite gigantic! There are basically two lineups to get food, and the beginning has desserts, drinks, and such that you can just grab and place on your tray. Then the hot food comes along, and you let the food service people know what you want. Lastly, you lineup at the cash register to pay. And then there is a huge seating area, with different styles of furniture, from children furniture, to couches to more classic furniture. And of course they are all featuring Ikea’s furniture. 

So I have always wanted to try their Swedish Meatballs since I see it on those flyers all the time. And they are always advertised so cheap too! I saw the menu saying that I could get a pasta for $1.99 and add 5 meatballs for another $1.49 and decided to get that. To my disappointment, the pasta was horrific. It was hard, and some of the pasta wasn’t even cooked yet. The sauce was good and helped the terrible pasta a bit, but it was still pretty horrible. The meatballs were much better, but not anything amazing. For that price, I guess it’s pretty decent. I’m not sure if I would want to come back for their food again, but I still remember their hot dogs and ice cream that were really delicious and delicious at the old store. I’m not sure if they were at the new store though, since I didn’t seem to see it on the menu.

Pan Fried Oysters - chili lime aïoli, tobiko

Island Club - shrimp & crab salad, bacon, guacamole

Blue Shell Mussels - steamed with coconut red curry sauce

It was finally a nice sunny day in Vancouver last Friday, and a day off for me, so of course I had to go out to enjoy the weather. I hadn’t gone to Granville Island in a very long time, so off I went to look for food. Granville Island’s market itself has tons of food stalls and fresh food, but we ended up at The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant. We chose to sit outside since it was such a nice day out (although it did get gloomy very fast), but they had a fireplace in the outdoor patio, which kept us very warm. They also have little blankets for you if it gets too cold. It was definitely a place with great service and of course, a great view.

We started off with the Pan Fried Oysters, which came with tobiko and an ailoi sauce. I thought it was just decent, and not anything amazing. I found it a little dry. I tried a bit of the Island Club too, which I thought was pretty good. I really liked the shrimp and crab filling and there were quite a lot of it too. And for myself, I had the Blue Shell Mussels. The mussels were tiny, but very fresh and sweet. It had a nice coconut red curry sauce that wasn’t too spicy, but strong in coconut flavour.

The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant definitely has got good food, especially if you’re looking for seafood. And of course a wonderful view and service! Highly recommend!

Half Order of Salmon Sashimi

Bill’s Roll (Yam & Smoked Salmon) $3.95, Island Roll (Cooked Tuna, Fish Flake with Fresh Kiwi Sauce) $4.95

Filet-O-Fish Roll (breaded fish fillet, cheese) $3.95, Crab <3s Papaya (Deep Fried Crab Meat) $3.95

Steph and I had been seeing pictures of Sushi Garden all over our Facebook feed, and were determined to try this place out. Everyone was raving about how good it was, but it was all the way in Burnaby, so we set out to try it with a day of shopping at Metrotown after! It’s literally across Metropolis, where a bunch of other restaurants were located on Kingsway. When we entered, there were quite a lot of people waiting. We learned that we had to go to the cashier up in the front to let them know we wanted a seat. We waited for probably around 5 minutes, and quickly got a seat. Mind you, we went at around 1, so it’s probably much more packed earlier. We were seated in a tiny table, which was very cramped and close to the table next to us.  All their tables were put together extremely close to cater for the line ups.

We decided to try a bunch of different rolls, especially the ones that sounded more interesting. For a starter, I decided to get the Salmon Sashimi. Steph doesn’t eat sashimi, so I ended up getting half an order for myself. It ended up being 5 fatty pieces of salmon that were extremely fresh. I could not resist not trying them since it seemed like every table ordered it, and it was only around $4 for half an order! What a deal. Next up, I tried the Bill’s Roll. It was basically yam and smoked salmon, and it was difficult to eat everything together since the roll was so big. When I did manage to get the two ingredients together in one bite, the yam’s flavour totally covered the smoked salmon. It was still a pretty interesting combination and I enjoyed the tobiko on the top. The Island Roll was fresh and appetizing. The kiwi gave the tuna a slight tang, but it somehow worked pretty well. Not bad! And then came the Filet-O-Fish Roll. It was very saucy and was such an interesting roll, but it worked. Who knew you could put fried filet-o-fish and cheese in a sushi roll! And lastly, we had the Crab <3s Papaya Roll. To my disappointment, it was just intimation crab, but what can I expect with that price. The papaya also didn’t quite taste like papaya. It wasn’t exactly ripe, so it was still pretty hard. It kind of reminded me of a mango roll actually. I also have to add that all the rolls did not need soy sauce, as they either had a sauce already or all the ingredients already worked well enough to prevent it from lacking flavour.

We definitely had ordered way too much food for the two of us, but it was still very satisfying and the prices were very reasonable for the portions. It kind of reminded us of Banzai in Richmond, with large portions and cheap price. Don’t expect amazing service and a good atmosphere or comfortable seating, but food came prompt and was of quality for the price you pay. Definitely would stop by again if I’m in Burnaby again.

Off I went to Surrey to try some authentic Indian cuisine. I’m no expert for Indian cuisine, so bear with me, but I felt this was probably pretty authentic. Bengali Fish & Curry is situated near an office area, and isn’t really out on the streets where all the rest of the restaurants are. I read online that it was a hidden gem, so decided to give it a try. I believe lots of people take out here, since when you first enter, you can basically order food there. But we were led to the dining area, which was pretty nice. There was probably around only 2 other tables with us though, but everyone eating there were Indian, so I took a guess that the food would be pretty legit.

I ordered the Butter Chicken, and thought that it would come with rice or something, but to my surprise, it was just the butter chicken. We had ordered some Naan Bread too, but I was craving some rice with my sauce, so we ordered a bowl of Saffron Rice, which was huge. I think we ended up ordering too much food, but it was good to try the rice too, since it tasted quite differently from the rice I normally eat at Chinese or Western places. They had a lot of herbs in the rice, and it smelt pretty good too. I had the butter chicken non-spicy since I can’t take spice, and it came with lots of chicken. Jack had the Chicken Curry, and had it very spicy. I tried a bit of it, and found it too spicy for my liking of course.

Overall, food was really good, and service was also extremely friendly. They played some Indian music videos on the TV too, which gets you into the Indian mood. I honestly can’t say much about the food though, since I haven’t tried many authentic Indian restaurants before, but it was pretty good in my opinion!

Oven Roasted Chicken Wings: Golden Shark, Jack Daniels BBQ, Teriyaki, Honey Garlic, and Salt & Pepper

Wednesdays are always a great day to go grab some wings since most pubs or lounges offer Wings Wednesdays where the wings are half price. My friends and I decided to go to Shark Club last week, and it was pretty packed and noisy too since there were a few sports games going on I guess.

We decided to just order a bunch of different flavoured wings and share. We got the Golden Shark, Jack Daniels BBQ, Teriyaki, Honey Garlic, and Salt & Pepper. Honestly, I thought all the wings weren’t good at all. I don’t know if it’s different on a non-wings night, but they were seriously not up to standard. The Golden Shark was supposed to be a mix of BBQ and spicy, but it was really just a fried wing with a little spice to it. Nothing special. I think the Jack Daniels BBQ was probably the most flavourful. It actually had a strong BBQ sauce, but I’ve had better BBQ wings before. As for the Teriyaki, I could not taste a single bit of Teriyaki sauce. It was covered full of “sauce”, but the sauce had no taste at all. Honey Garlic is usually my favourite flavour for wings, but it was really bland, and didn’t taste that great. As for the Salt & Pepper, it wasn’t even peppery or salty. It just tasted like a normal fried wing with little seasoning.

Overall, I was quite disappointed in the wings, and would definitely not go back for their Wings Wednesdays. Shark Club serves their wings in orders of 10 for 9.99, but since it was Wings Wednesday, it was half price. I would still rather go to another pub for the wings though.