Steak at Home

Man, I have totally neglected this blog.  I tried to get back into it a while ago, but I fell off the wagon and thought it was sort of mendokusai to keep blogging.  I was sort of bored of it, and there was also the issue of taking too many pictures and not having the time to organize them and upload them. I think I was also getting more concerned with ranking on Urban Spoon than just writing.  From now on, I'll try to stick with why I started this blog:  to take shiny pictures of food I eat and maybe write a bit about it.

My buddy Eric comes into town once or twice a year, and he always buys too much food for his short stays.  Instead of letting the food go to waste, haha, sometimes I pick up his scraps.  This is a dinner I slapped together based on 100 Eric leftovers:  Steak, mini potatos, asparagus and garlic prawns from M&M Meat Shop:

I don't know why, but this particular steak wasn't very red and came out almost looking like pork in these pictures, but I assure you that it once mooed.  Despite the color, it came out pretty damned tasty.

The prawns and asparagus.

I was going to par-boil the potatos and pan fry them a bit, but had a craving for garlic mashed potatoes so I ended up doing that instead.....as if there wasn't enough garlic in the prawns and the pan fried asparagus. 

These pictures were taken with a Nikon P100.  I think I ended up trading it in for a P500 shortly after because the P100 really, really sucked.  I'm currently using the P500 and the Olympus EPL-2 that Eric gave me.

I think I gave up and ended up using the flash to get a better shot.

Jade Seafood Restaurant - I WILL NEVER EAT HERE

Well, I haven't posted any reviews for a while, and I've pretty much dropped out of the food blogging scene but I read this article titled "Inter-Chinese race row in Vancouver over shark's fin soup" and it kind of bothered me. 

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1074402/inter-chinese-race-row-vancouver-over-sharks-fin-soup

I don't have a particular politcal stance over this Shark Fin's Soup business, I could care less to tell you the truth (but then again, I am a HUGE fan of Foie Gras) but this David Chung character is a bit of a moron if you ask me.  He's trashing Vancouver City Councillor Kerry Jang for trying to get cheap polical votes, but this David Chung comes across to be as a greedy businessman only interested in lining his own pockets.  Sure, go ahead and not vote for Jang, see if we care.  But what about all the Canadian Born Chinese you've just insulted with your comment about us not being Chinese?

That split was emphasised recently by David Chung, head of the BC (British Columbia) Asian Restaurant and Cafe Owners Association, who said that Jang was not equipped to represent the Chinese community, or understand the importance of shark fin to Chinese culture.

"He was born in Canada, influenced by Western culture from a young age and is totally unfamiliar with Chinese culture - unable to understand the historical relationship Chinese have had with shark fin and the innate bond we share," said Chung, owner of the Jade Seafood Restaurant in Vancouver's satellite city of Richmond.

"He is not Chinese, he is a banana. He is only doing this to get cheap political votes. Many people in our industry have already announced that we will not vote for him during the next election," said Chung in a Chinese-language interview with Ming Pao's local edition.

So, because I was made in Canada, I'm not Chinese?  This is my personal message to David Chung:
You sir, are an %^$&#, and I will never eat in your restaurant.  And I'll be sure to pass on your sentiments to all of my CBC friends and family. 

Here's another article on this clown:

http://straight.com/article-827016/vancouver/restaurant-owner-says-bananas-dont-get-importance-sharkfin-soup


“I think this kind of thing is none of the business of the city, and it should be the judge[ment] of the federal government,” Chung told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview today (November 5). “City council, what do they know about sharks, really? They know a lot of things about development, health, education. They do a good job, but what do they know about sharks? Kerry Jang for example, what does this guy know about sharks?”


But let me ask him this, what does this clown know about Sharks?  He knows they make him a ton of dollars, that's for sure. 

“His culture is totally Canadian, and he has no feeling for shark fin,” Chung reiterated to the Straight. “Canadian-born Chinese are based on Canadian culture....They’re called bananas for a good reason. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s not to be degrading. It just describes it well.”


Yes, I have no feeling for shark fin, only because an it's overpriced, bowl of stringy crap in a starch-based soup.  I love a ton of other Chinese food, but I guess according to Chung's scale, that's not quite enough to be Chinese.

Chung views the involvement of Vancouver city councillors in the proposed shark-fin ban as an attack on Chinese culture. He said that a ban would infringe on a person’s fundamental right to choose what to eat.


Attack on Chinese culture my $^%.  This logic is just about as stupid, rich condo-owners at UBC who
wre against the building of St John's Hospice for the dying because it was "bad luck"

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/vancouver-chinese-condo-owners-oppose-st-johns-hospice-dying-2747266.html

Here's another article about this moron:

http://www.theprovince.com/technology/Shark+shouting+match+erupts+over+soup+Richmond+Jade+Seafood/7130185/story.html

You can tell he's full of great manners.  Nobody pointed a gun at David Chung to come to Canada, if he doesn't like it here, there's still no gun pointed at him to stay.  The door is wide open for him to return to whereever he came from.

Sun Sui Wa - Richmond

You know a blog is in decline when posts come up only every few months and the only pictures that are posted are from a crappy phone cam, haha!  But I promised a friend I would get back into it so here we are.  My buddy Eric was in town and we hit a couple of places like Le Crocodile, and The Keg, but I've reviewed those places already and this time around, I only had my phone cam so I'm not going to repost.  We still have to go to Bishop's one of these days, but that will have to wait till his next visit.

So the night before Eric went back, he tells me he has a craving for seafood.  I was thinking ok, let's go to Alleluiah and he can have the baked seafood on rice but he had other things in mind.  We ended up at Sun Sui Wa, a place that evidently has no late night combos of baked seafood on rice that comes with a cream soup and ice lemon tea.  I let Eric do the ordering and we started off with this scallop and mushroom soup (at least I think there were mushrooms in it).  I guess they were using dried scallops to make it, so the first thing I thought of was how I was going to replicate this and my mind drifted to the Chinese medicine shops in Chinatown that sell dried scallops.  I figure dried scallops, enoki mushrooms and cornstarch?  Anyway, it tasted good.

Eric ordered Alaskan King Crab steamed with garlic and green onions.  It was a medium sized one apparently, but there was enough to feed about ten people and there were only three of us this night.  I have to tell you, I don't eat much Alaskan King Crab, maybe a few times a decade.  It sure is a step up from dungeness crab, which is already a treat so when Eric ordered this, I couldn't stop grinning.  The three of us stuffed ourselves to the point where we actually had about a quarter of the dish left.  The crab was steamed perfectly and the meat came out from the shell without much effort.  Surprisingly, the garlic didn't overwhelm the flavour of the crab.  Since we had leftovers, when the staff were packing it all up, I made sure that they didn't pour out the drippings.  It's packed full of flavour that you could easily make a crab bisque with it, or dump it into pasta, or cook veggies with it.  It would be criminal not to.

On top of ordering crab, Ercic also ordered scallops steamed in a similar sauce of garlic and green onions.  The three of us were on sensory overload from the crab already and the scallops came half-way through.  Surprisingly, we were still able to enjoy the scallops.  Again, steamed perfectly, not rubbery at all.

Another shot of the crab.  I know we had veggies at some point in the evening, but I guess I was so distracted by the seafood, I must have neglected to take a picture of it.  The food at Sun Sui Wa was pretty good, as was the service.  The staff was always there to make sure we had clean plates, the dishes came quick and they were always friendly.  You know it's a better than average Chinese restaurant when they give you the wet wipes before and after your meal, haha!

Parker Place Food Court - Shanghai Goodies and Lai Taste

Well, it's a month of firsts.  First the Beaver Tails, now Viet Namese Subs.  Can you believe I've never had a Viet Namese Sub?  Anyway, I'll get to that later.  I was out with my parents and they were giving me the Parker Place Food Court tour.  They go for walks everyday and part of their routine is to go someplace to get a snack.  It used to be Richmond Public Market for the longest time, now it's Parker Place for XLB and and Viet Namese Subs.  I decided to meet up with them after one of their walks and was really, really hungry so we ordered a bunch of stuff to try.

I usually can't handle spicy, but sometimes I like to tempt fate like here with the Hong You Cao Sou (No idea how to write it properly).  Anyway, essentially it's wonton noodles in a spicy sauce.  It wasn't too bad considering it was a food court, and you really can't complain about the pricing.

Sen Jian Bao (again, no idea how you're supposed to spell it) were okay, but a bit dry inside compared to some other places that serve it.  Still, they were tasty overall and for the price, it's hard to complain.

XLB!  I can't believe I'm using this acronym, because I always thought of them as Shao Long Bao, but then again, I guess that depends on what part of the world you're from.  I could never figure out how the hell you get a "sh" sound out of an "x", but whatever, that's opening a whole other can of worms.  The XLB were not too bad, skin was a bit thick, but still tasty.  They had a decent about of soup inside so more or less made right.  There's this place in the Aberdeen Food Court that makes better food-court xlb, but that's just my opintion.  These are definitely still good enough to eat that I won't bother walking to Aberdeen if I'm already in Parker Place.  Decent food, cheap, quick and easy.  Chinese fast food at it's finest.  Yeah, I'd go back.

Part two of the tour was my introduction to Viet Namese Subs.  Now, being in the Parker Place Food Court, some might question the authenticity of this Viet Namese shop.  For me, I couldn't care less who made it, as long as it tasted good.

I tried the pho and the cuts of beef were quite different from what I'm used to.  Thicker, and more of it.  The quality of the beef was good, unfortunately the broth itself didn't have very much flavour (haha, maybe not enough MSG).  Anyway, the star of this shop isn't the "pho", it's the subs.  Authentic or not, they taste awesome, and there's no way to beat the price - cheaper than dirt.

We ordered two types of subs, the pork and the fish.  Both were absolutely amazing.  The pork was tender, with a thinly breaded coating.  It was like veal (yeah, I know, veal is baby cow and we're talking about pigs here).  The veg wasn't overwhelming the meat, and I think the combination of the pickled radish and carrot combo (sort of sweet and sour) along with the celantro is a perfect paring to the deep fried pork.  This combo comes wrapped in a lightly toasted French-style baguette.  It wasn't hard, it wasn't chewy, it didn't fall apart and every bite was suprisingly neat because none of the ingredients fought against the other as in some other subs.

 

The fish sub was also delectable.  Same veg ingredients, and a perfect blend of textures.  Best of all, a stupidly low price considering you get a very tasty and rewarding meal. 

Gonna try the brisket next time.  Had the beef, hope the brisket will be better.  Or maybe I'll just order more subs next time!  I never had a Viet Namese Sub before, so are they all this good?  I will definitely have to start experimenting with other places, but damn, Lai Taste really delivers for less than a fist full of dollars.

Beavertails - Holy %&$# these are good

How is it I was born in Canada, grew up in Canada, yet never experienced eating a beaver...tail?  Haha, all kidding aside, I got to partake in this magical experience for the first time at Lonsdale Quay Public Market.  I've seen people line up for these things, and now I sorta get why.  Apparently, they're not that high in fat and calories (less than a muffin or scone according to them), but something that tastes this good can't be good for you, haha!

I wonder how much fat and calories are in the Nutella one that I had?

So this was my taste of amazing.  I found it was light and fluffy with a thin crispy coating, every bite melting in my mouth, held together only by the generous coating of Nutella.  I could eat a dozen of these.  I can't remember if wheat was the only option, but mine was wheat and it helped assuage my guilt for eating such at thing.  I can't wait to go back, haha!

Alaskan King Crab at Lucky Tao

God, this should have been posted bak in April or something, haha!  I have really been neglecting this blog since I started that other hobby, but anyways, let's see if I can get back into it.

Alaskan King Crab was in season a few months back and all the Chinese restaurants were having their deals on.  The one we chose to try was Lucky Tao.  I haven't had Alaskan King Crab for ages and to be honest, I can't tell the diff between good quality and bad since I hardly ever have it.  Take dungeness crab meat, throw it in a pool of garlic butter and I doubt I could tell it from Alaskan.  But anyway, here we are at Lucky Tao.

The place was pretty crowded and considering we had a reservation, we still had to wait quite some time well past our reservation time.  The staff worked hurriedly, with no time for idle chit-chat or smiles.

Out waiter brought out a crab to show us that the meat was indeed real, and not pre-frozen.  I had my doubts originally because the tanks were filled to the brim, overcrowded even, with Alaskan King Crabs, yet everyone was ordering Alaskan King Crab.  Then I saw a delivery of live crab brought in unceremoniously through the center of the restaurant and saw that yes, they just had a steady supply crabs.....I know, that sounds weird.

The first course was the legs, all opened up for us and served in this buttery garlic sauce.  There were way too many of us, so I onyl had about two legs.  Garlic and butter is always a good combo, especially when added to just about any seafood, so yeah, it tasted good.  Not sure if it tasted $15.95 per pound good, but it tasted good.  Funny thing was, I swear I didn't get a pound's worth of crab, haha!

The set meal allowed for a side dish so we chose deep fried prawns in seasoning salt.  It was pretty tasty and the prawns were of a decent size.  Good thing everyone else was holding out for the next crab dish so I got most of the prawns, haha!

Some sort of meat and veg, not worth mentioning.

Next was the fried rice served in the crab head.  I honestly didn't detect much crab meat here, and the fried rice was a bit substandard.  And *uck!  What did they do with that gooey stuff some people call crab brains or Kani Miso?  Oh, if they threw it out, what a waste it would be.

No idea what this was....some sort of jello pallet cleanser.  The only reason I ate so much of it was because after our meal, I was still really, really hungry.  It worked out to about $45 per person, and I felt a bit scammed because I was still hungry at the end! 

Would I go back?  Well, probably not.  The service ended up being really good, two older gentlement were our primary servers and they were pretty nice.  But damn, Alaskan King Crab is pretty expensive for me, so on that alone, I would probably not go back.  The food tasted good overall and the service was decent, but to leave with $45 less in my wallet, and still be hungry is the biggest sin.