Every Day Is a Food Day

Butter Chicken and Rice Combo

Dining Terrace has been open for around a month now! I was quite late in actually going to try out their food. I went a week after to check it out while doing some shopping, but never actually tried out any of the food. So finally, during my break at work, I decided to head upstairs and look for a small dinner. The dining terrace is huge, and for someone who is always so indecisive, it’s terrible. I swear I could’ve walked around five times and my break would’ve ended by then. So I decided to head straight to Curry Express. I mean, with work every week, I’m sure to try out every place sooner or later.

Curry Express is also at Lansdowne Centre, but I seldom go there so I’m guessing the last time I had it was when I was a kid. I decided to get a curry and rice combo. There were so many different types of curries in the heating trays, so I asked the cashier what was the most recommended. She immediately said Butter Chicken, so that’s what I went with! I found that the butter chicken was a little more on the watery side, and I would have probably preferred it to be a little thicker. The chicken however, was extremely tender. The sauce was good - quite typical, but I felt it lacked some spices that would be present when you eat at an Indian restaurant. The portion was also less than I had imagined, but I guess that’s food court portions. Overall, I would just say it was average.

Naan Bread, Chicken Curry, Saffron Rice, Butter Chicken

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!

Assorted Indian Snacks - Vegetable Pakora, Samosa, Chicken Tikka and Seek Kebab

Lamb Tikka - Marinated leg of lamb pieces

Spinach Naan - Leavened bread, stuffed with grated homemade cheese and chopped spinach and Naan - Leavened bread of fine flour

Aloo Gobhi - Fresh cauliflower and potatoes cooked with fresh onions, tomatoes and exotic spices, Curry Chicken - A traditional boneless chicken cooked in onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and exotic spices, and Butter Chicken - Boneless pieces of chicken marinated in ginger and garlic, cooked in a butter-tomato sauce

So I pretty much disappeared for a while after Christmas to New Years since I was celebrating my holidays up at Whistler!  Sadly I didn’t get many pictures of food up there as we didn’t eat out much or I was too hungry to bother taking pictures. So this is the only post about food up at Whistler! Last dinner before we left, we decided to have a nice Indian cuisine dinner at Tandoori Grill. About a 15 minute walk from where we lived and situated in the Village, we were all starving to get some good food. We had made reservations ahead of time, which probably was a good idea as it was quite packed. To our surprise, it was a really quiet with dimmed lights and probably one the more fancy restaurants up at Whistler. Excuse my poor lighting pictures, as it was very dim inside and I only had a phone to take pictures! Food was quite delicious although portions were on the smaller side for the price. But then again, it’s about quality over quantity!  I especially liked the assorted indian snacks as we got to sample a little of each, and the lamb was also very good. It came in a sizzling plate and had just enough spice. We asked for mild for all our dishes, but even so, the more we ate, it got a little too spicy for me to handle! Great place to have a lovely dinner up at Whistler!

Curry Chicken

Another late night at UBC means looking for food for dinner! A friend ended up grabbing me some take out at Curry Point which is in University Village.
Can’t comment much about the place since I wasn’t there but the food was just okay. The curry was much better than the one from the Delly, but the rice was kind of soggy. Still need to find a better curry place at UBC! 

Grilled Naan Bread - Hummus, garlic confit, mixed olives

Prawn Ceviche - mango papaya salsa

Mezze Platter - Mediterranean ribs, lamb kofta, black pepper calamari, grilled tandoori tiger prawns, braised shortrib crostini, tuna confit crostini, watermelon & valdeon salad

Butter Chicken

Sanafir offers a menu of exotic flavours showcasing North African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Indian. The Mezze Platter was really filling, but you have to order at least two portions. I came in thinking it was more of an Indian restaurant, but the flavours are very interesting and clearly showcases a fusion experience. The dining environment is also very interesting! The restaurant is basically open so flies coming in was a little frustrating. However, when you go upstairs, they have beds and also low couches that you can choose to dine on. Apparently you need to make reservations before hand for those special seatings though. Now that I think about it, it probably would be quite hard to eat on a bed, or at least I would make a mess. Great service and food! Check it out if you want to try something exotic!

Their Website: http://www.sanafir.ca/index.html