[Vancity Eats] – Swiss Bakery: Frissant, The Fattening

 

Where Main Street and 3rd ave meets is this lovely little bakery call Swiss Bakery. It’s in a sort of odd area. Anyone that knows Vancouver, this is more of an industrial area of Vancouver. Though tall residential buildings are popping up in the area, this area isn’t exactly known for it’s good food, nor the quaint atmosphere cafes usually have. But this little gem in the debris is a nice find. We only knew about it because, apparently, it was the only bakery in Van City that had “The Cronuts” that is all the rage right now in American (or was it just New York?). In any case, we decided to check it out.

I can’t be sure, but I suspect the cafe is connected to the factory part of the bakery, and that was why it was in this somewhat odd area of town. The hipster decor gives away the customer base for this cafe, and it was actually quite busy when we walked in at 2pm on a Saturday.

The Menu is written on a huge wall of black board. I’ve always liked the idea of black board wall, and honestly really liked the look of it.

Next to the counter are 2 display cases full of deserts and baked goods….yummmmm

They even have little macaroons! It was easy to get distracted, but we had to focus on our mission: cronuts! Though at this bakery they call them Frissants, which I think sounds nicer, though essentially the same.

The bakery had 2 flavours when we went. Apple cinnamon and spiced pumpkin. I have never been a big fan of pumpkin anything, but we ordered one each, though the pumpkin with hesitation. Funny enough, we both ended up like the pumpkin better than the apple. The apple one was a bit too sweet. I saw on instagram some other people sharing pictures of their frissants, and there were many other flavours…which just means we’ll need to go back and try more!

And without further adieu, here’s a profile picture of the frissant in all it’s glorious oily sweetness. YUM!

For those that would like to try one on their own:

143 East 3rd Avenue (off Main Street)
Vancouver, BC V5T 1C7

Phone:       604.736.8785
Fax:            604.736.8762

Monday to Friday:                        7 am –  6 pm
Saturday:                                          8 am – 5 pm
Sunday and Holidays:                             Closed

 

[Restaurant Review] Boiling Point

August 31, 2011

Having nothing to do on my weekday weekend (I get Mondays and Tuesdays off), me and some other friends that also had Monday off decided to go bowling. The weather was just cool enough to have some hot pot, so we headed over to Boiling Point afterwards.

I had actually read a review by Chow Times on the restaurant, but wasn’t far too excited about it when I first knew of its existence. A few days back I was browsing on what Taiwanese restaurants I have not yet try in the Richmond area (because that’s the only place you can get decent Taiwanese food), and I ran into the name of this restaurant on Urbanspoon. It was perfect! As summer was dying down, and with the weather cooling, hot pot season is just around the corner. I sent the link to my friend that I know LOOOOVVEEESSS hot pot. And so it became our dinner of choice on Monday.

So we each ordered a small pot, and I ordered a lychee slush.

The lychee slush. It was pretty good, and was pretty lychee-y. But because they topped it over the glass, the slush started melting and pooled on the table (oops!). There was also coconut jelly in it, and this was only $3.00. Normally at a regular bubble tea restaurant it would be around $4.75-ish. I mean it’s still expensive if you are going to compare to the price of slush in Taiwan, but relatively it’s pretty cheap.

This was what I ordered, the Kimchi hot pot. I was deciding on the Kimchi or the Stinky pot, and went with Kimchi  cause my friend wanted the Stinky pot and I can always dip in hers. I ordered it with mild spiciness, because 1. Kimchi itself is already spicy, and 2. I don’t know how spicy their spicy is. It wasn’t bad, and I actually didn’t find it spicy at all, but then I can take pretty spicy food.  The kimchi flavour definitely soaked into the soup. There were a lot of kimchi, by the end all I had left in the pot was kimchi. For the price ($9.99) it wasn’t bad at all. There weren’t a lot of meat, but it was still pretty filling.

This is the Stinky pot. The stink was there, but wasn’t over powering, I think to be authentic Taiwanese it needs a bit more stinkiness to it, but I suppose they don’t want people complaining about the smell. I had the broth and a meat ball from this pot. The meatball wasn’t really stinky, but the broth had a bit of stinkiness to it. It was good broth.

And lastly, this is the Lamb with mustard hot pot. Again the broth had a lot of taste to it, I loved this one, would have liked it s bit spicy, but my friend that ordered it doesn’t enjoy spicy as much as I do.

I think their win point for all the pots is the broth. The broth had a bit of seafood taste to it as well as all the different ingredients. The price we paid was reasonable and we were all pretty full. What I found interesting was that you can actually get new flame if your flame dies (I never knew that!). The only thing I didn’t like was probably how shallow the pot was. It was basically a tiny wok, and it looked like it would spill over any time. The service of the restaurant was decent, although they sat us down in a corner and didn’t come over till 20 or so minutes later. I also found it odd that it was trying to sell the fact that the restaurant is Taiwanese, yet all the servers in there were Chinese mainlanders. Not to be racist or anything, but I do find a lot of Chinese mainlanders to be rude and unhelpful in terms of restaurant services. But this restaurant was ok, perhaps because we weren’t horrible customers. LOL.

That being said, I fully enjoyed the food, and will be back again. I will try either the beef hot pot or the seafood hot pot.

–>click here for Boiling Point’s website <–

 

8500ft Above

May 23, 2011

I was told that 8500ft was the height that rain freezes. Why is this important? Because ice is yummy.

If you live in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, you probably know about the Richmond night market. I for one am not a big fan of it. The food is over priced and often not as good as I expect it to be. This is coming from a person born in Taiwan, where some of the best night market food comes from. That being said, I haven’t been back for 6 years and will take what I can get. The food this year was just as expensive, but there are a few stalls worth trying out. In particular is the 8500ft flavoured ice. I am not saying this just because friends of mine owns and operates this stall, but simply because, it’s damn good.

Those not so familiar with flavoured ice maybe hesitant to try it, but I assure you, it’s better than ice cream. It’s refreshing and flavourful. No heavy creamy taste to gross you out after a few licks.  Unlike the traditional shaved ice we normally get in a lot of Asian food courts, this type of ice (for the sake of differentiating, let’s call it frappe ice) is more powder snow like. The texture of it is almost cottony, and melts in your mouth.

If you know about the Frappe Bliss store in the food court of Aberdeen Centre in Richmond, and love that place, you’ll be happy to know that 8500ft uses the exact same ice. So why should you go to the night market instead of Aberdeen? Cuz its cheaper of course! Plus it opens later.

In general they have three flavours to pick from, of course you can omit things that you do not wish to have.

So the most popular is the “Fruit Basket” which has mango ice with fruits (not sure what kind exactly). This is probably one of the normal sounding ones that less adventurous people would be willing to try.Does it not look yummy?? (that’s not my hand by the way)

The other options are the macha ice with red bean, condensed milk, lychee, and coconut jelly. I tried this one with a milk ice sub in, because I am not a big fan of macha anything. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of that, so here’s a picture of the picture they have at the stall.

I have to admit that it may look strange and unappetizing to people not familiar with the toppings and ice. But I assure you it is good.

The next option is the Egg Roll (I dont remember the names of these things). Which has milk ice with crushed egg rolls (the Chinese tube shaped cookies), roasted peanuts, sesame sauce, and peanut sauce. I tried this one without the roasted peanuts, as I had a bad experience with them, and am of the firm belief that roasted peanuts should not appear on ice (LOL)

So this is my version, without the peanuts (and half eaten)

Their version, with the peanuts. This is probably the one I liked the least. I think the best one is still the red bean with the sub in of milk ice. That’s more traditional style shaved ice from Taiwan, and fits my palate the best.

Of course, if you would just like the ice, they are more than happy to give you a bowl without toppings, just ask.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that they lugged the shaved ice machine from Taiwan, so it’s authentic shaved ice.

So if you are planning to drop by the night market this year, give them a try, they won’t disappoint.

 

Vancouver Dineout Event Part II – Carmichael’s @ Hilton Hotel in Richmond

February 03, 2011

Out of the three dine out restaurants I went to, this was by far the best service I had received. It’s not the best service ever! but it’s quite high up the ladder. I asked for a cup of hot water, and the waitress came out with a pot of hot water and some lemon slices, she didn’t force the lemon on me, but asked me if I wanted some. I am sure had I said no she would have brought it back in, but there is no harm in bring extra stuff! The food came quite quickly. By the end of the dinner, one of us had requested for a cup of coffee, the waitress asked the rest of us if we wanted coffee or tea, we replied no. 5 mins later another person ordered another coffee. Then 5 mins after that I wanted some tea and asked what kinds of tea they have. She listed out about 10 kinds. There was no annoyance in her voice, which I give her credit for, because if it were me, I’d so soooo annoyed (LOL). I tipped 15% 🙂

I didn’t take a picture of the menu for this one, so let’s just dive right into the food!This was pretty much a 5 course meal, I was FULL at the end. As in uncomfortably FULL. But the food was oh-so-good.

This was part of the first appetizer: “Amuse Bouche: Seared Qualicum Bay Scallop smoky creamed corn and crispy bacon.”

OMG were the scallop good! I also love corn, especially cream corn. This was pretty much a dish made for me!

This is the other part of the Amuse Bouche: “Mozzarella Arancini roasted garlic red pepper jelly.”

I didn’t like this as much. The red pepper jelly over powered the whole dish, it tasted kinda like “White Chinese food” because the jelly tasted like sweet and sour sauce.

The second appetizer: “Roasted Carrot Soup grilled apple with thyme and butter fried walnut crostini.”

The apple slice was a bit odd, but other than that, the soup was really good. The consistency of the soup was creamy, almost congee like. I love cream soup (actually I love soup in general LOL)

This was my entree: “Crispy Skin Boneless Half Hen baked creamy garlic potato and rapini with corn puree, almond milk and thyme.”

The veggie up top was a bit salty, but the chicken was good. For white meat it was not dry at all, and I love the contrasting texture of the crispy skin (I love crispy chicken skin! YUM!). The sauce on the side was good for dipping with the chicken The baked potato is my favourite part!! It was mashed up, but baked to a crisp.

A friend has this entree: “raised Lamb Cheeks roasted tomato and natural jus, risotto with crushed green olive and parmesan, sautéed shoestring vegetables.”

I took a bite of the lamb. It was still a bit “lamby.” I think I am getting sick of lamb…

The third entree: “Roasted Smoked Sable Fish broad beans, leek and haricot verte with carrot jus and butter.”

Normally for dine outs I avoid ordering fish because if not cooked right, fish is not very good at all. This dish I also had a bite. It wasn’t too bad, although I do think the fish was a bit over cooked. But I only had a tiny bite so I can’t really judge.

The dessert: “Orange Milk Chocolate Ganache Tart served with praline and vanilla cream”

So the reason I took 2 pictures of this, these are the same dessert but different plates. Mine is the second one, I don’t know what it was, but mine had a lot less praline than the one my friend had (top pic). It was just odd. Nevertheless, this dessert was really good. I think I might even go back just for this dessert haha.The ganache was not overly sweet, the tart itself was crunchy and not soggy. I was so full 1/3 of the way though this dessert, but I just couldn’t abandon it!

The other dessert: “Three Chocolate Truffles handmade with cranberry, chestnut with cream and ginger vanilla fillings”

well..reading the description I did not expect this. It was very pretty though. I had a bit of the “leaf” it was good chocolate, again not overly sweet. But I think the selling point is the prettiness of it.

ok, that’s it for part 2 of dine out. Just one more coming up. I have pictures all uploaded and ready to go, hopefully I’ll post it up soon 🙂 Until next time, live well and eat LOTS!

 

Vancouver Dineout Event Part I – Monk McQueen

February 01, 2011

With the end of January comes the yearly Vancouver Dineout Event. I go to at least one restaurant every year, this year, I went to three! My stomach is happy, but my wallet? not so much. LOL

The first dine out I went to this year was Monk McQueen’s. The location of the restaurant was kinda odd, but the view was indeed very pretty.

As per usual, i must talk about the service of this restaurant. Being somewhat of a higher end (high-low end) restaurant, I expected good service. Was it good? yeah, I guess; but it’s definitely not one of the best service I got. They promptly seated us, but when the other 2 friends arrived after us, they were seated else where (why? we are not sure, maybe just stupidity…). Then while one of them was clearing away the dishes, she spilled some soy sauce on the table’s edge, and YEP! you guessed it! Right into my purse (GREAT!). Other then that, there’s not much else to complain about. I gave 11% tip (normally with good service I’d go as high as 15%; the bare minimum for me is 10%, unless it’s absolutely horrible service, then it’d be a penny, nothing more, nothing less).

And here’s the dine out menu. I am not going to bother listing out what is on the menu, since I didn’t eat everything.

Here’s the view we got. Sorry about the shaky picture, my phone camera isn’t that great with stabilization.

The mandatory bread. I love bread, this was pretty good, but I would like it better if it was whipped butter and warm bread (I am very demanding about my free bread! LOL)

Again, apologies for the blurriness. The restaurant was dark and I didn’t realize the pictures were blurry until I posted it online. This appetizer is the “Surf & Turf : pork belly confit & pan seared scallops apple fennel salad, sweet & sour cherry gastrique”

The scallop was pretty good, it was soft and flavourful. The pork belly was a bit tough and over cooked, and was too big of a chunk for it to be a bite size appi. The worst thing is we didn’t get a knife for this, I had a hard time devouring the pork. It’s a fairly odd combination. The salad on the bottom was cold, sour and sweet at the same time. It was very refreshing after the greasy pork belly.

This is my entree: “Braised Lamb Farfelle: braised lamb, asparagus, and spinach red peppers, shiitake, ancho sauce & parmesan.” It was funny when we ordered this the waitress told us “Just a word of warning, the lamb is pasta. It’s very good though.” ….ok….if it’s really good why are you warning us? I suppose people see braised lamb they expect a lamb steak (I actually did expect a lamb steak). The pasta was a bit too “lamby” for me. I don’t know how else to explain it. They sure did not stinge on the lamb in this dish. By the end I was pretty full and there was still a pile of lamb. i would have liked more cheese. Another thing I didnt like about this dish was the veggie. I think it was the asparagus. I had a stem that was very “fibery” I didn’t even bother trying to swallow it.

This is another friend’s entree: “Artichoke & Goat Cheese: Crusted Salmon wild mushroom polenta, sundried tomato buerre blanc.” I can’t tell you how good this was, because I did not take a bite. What I can say is that when I saw the dish arrive, I thought to myself “I should have ordered that.” yeah.

This was probably the best dish of the night! The dessert: “Warm Banana & Chocolate: Bread Pudding with caramel ice cream.” The bread pudding is not sweet at all, but it was warm. The sweetness of the dessert came solely from the ice cream on top. The mix of the two is soooooo goood. I am drooling as i type. I did not taste any banana though, that was a bit of a disappointment.

This is the other dessert: “Lemon Pudding Cake coconut butter cookie.” I had a bite of the cake but not the cookie. The cake was soft and warm as well. But, both my friend and i thought it was overly sweet. She couldn’t finish it, it got too gross in the end. It’s one of those good for one or two bites dessert.

Well, that’s it for today. Look forward to part 2 and 3 :). Until next time live well and eat LOTS!