Anni Adventures

It was my bae's birthday a week  ago and in the middle of all the celebrations lasting a week long, we went out to dinner at Tojo's. Tojo's is a VERY high end Japanese restaurant owned by Hidekazu Tojo on Broadway. Who's he you may ask? He is the person who invented the California roll back in the 70s. That is something to boast about. He essentially westernized sushi. I made reservations weeks in advance.

We arrived early on the day of  and were promptly seated. We had an idea going in what the prices were like. To give YOU an idea of  the prices at this restaurant, the green tea cost $6 per person. While we enjoyed the service, which was top notch that pricing can really hurt the wallet.  We wanted to go with the Omakase, which is meant to be served at the bar in front of the chef. He serves you as soon as we preps the food. However, it would be $80 per person for a 5 course meal. We decided on a la carte and ordered the following food:

Tojo's Tuna $20







Tojo's Selection of Sashimi $48

Assorted Sushi $55



Celebration 2010 Roll $26



Honestly, I was really disappointed with the food. My bae and I have had top notch sushi in Japan before so our expectations were high. Besides Tojo's tuna having a unique taste, the sashimi and assorted sushi didn't really taste any better than what you can get at say, Sushi Town. They weren't that out of the park. It was fresh, but that same freshness taste could be experienced at other restaurants for less than half what we paid. Perhaps we're too used to westernized sushi where they put loads of fillings into the sushi or spoiled by what we tasted in Japan, but I just couldn't see the roll justifying the price tag.  I really wouldn't recommend coming here to anyone unfortunately. For the price tag, we could have went across the street and had all you can eat sushi of decent quality three times together and be VERY full and STILL be cheaper. Well, lesson learned and next time, we will definitely not be coming back. 

I'm starting to get into a routine with school and what not. Although it isn't easy. Because a couple of my classes start at 6:30, I don't get off until 9:30. I always think that I can last and make it home to eat, but by break time, I'm always starving. So the other night, after class ended, my dad picked me up in Burnaby on my way home from class. Gotta love him <3. We went to Estea. Estea as my family likes to refer to it as our second kitchen. We don't actually cook there. no. However, we eat there so often, that it has essentially become our kitchen. The owner is a nice lady that gives us a permanent 10% discount. Come to think of it, I don't think I've eaten at home in a long time due to classes and church and time spent with niu.

In the olden days, we'd come every Friday night and order our staple food of marinaJimited platter, siu mai, and thick toast with peanut butter. Tonight, because I was really starved, so we ordered a braised beef noodle soup, a thick toast with peanut butter (for my daddy) and a milk tea.

It was actually my first time trying the noodle soup there, and I was actually surprised it was quite good. The soup is light but rich in flavor. The noodles are al dente just like it should be. Had they been more generous with the beef portions and the beef flavor, it would have been perfect. But when you're as hungry as I was, you aren't going to complain and will eat anything :)


I actually have to say for me though, the milk tea isn't the greatest. But that is a personal preference. It has too much of a tea flavor and not enough of the milky flavor. This isn't to say its bad. It just isn't my preferred taste.

A couple of days ago (Friday), a group of friends and I decided to try out one of the new escape games in town. There's so many now I've lost count. Unfortunately for us, the time slot we wanted was completely booked. So we were only able to book for the 9:30 slot. Since the escape game was in Richmond, we decided to eat in Richmond after work as well. Initially we decided to cook pasta at my co-worker's place, but then we ended up trying out a ramen place called Yah Yah Ya.

This restaurant is Japanese owned and even has locations in Tokyo. The location of the restaurant used to be a Taiwanese place, which I actually quite liked. The inside of the restuarant was redecorated and really had a ramen restaurant feel. We all ordered ramens. I ordered the Shoyu ramen this time and also got the mini chasu donbori on the side.

The Chasu in my opinion wasn't as good as Ramengers, but isn't considered bad either. The soup was rich in flavor and the noodles were al dente. I didn't end up finishing the noodles though as I was already somewhat full from before dinner.


After dinner, we went over to my co-worker's place to kill some time before heading to the escape game.

This escape game location was unique in the sense that it only had one room. No themes. You were given an extended amount of time of 1 hour and at the end of it all the person goes through explaining all the puzzles with you. We had a group of eight with us playing. I won't go into details about the room but I will say we started it off handcuffed to a partner. In the end, we managed to escape from the room with 2 minutes and 15 seconds left to spare. Talk about close timing. The guy told us we were the second group out of roughly 8 to succeed. And for succeeding, we all could choose a key off the wall and write our names on it. All in all, the escape game was interesting as it was not all numerical questions and required more thinking, but it wasn't particularly hard. However, that could be because we had 8 minds.


We ended the night grabbing drinks at Pearl Castle several blocks away. We didn't get home till 1 am that night! But it was definitely a fun night.

Yah Yah Ya
8388 Capstan Way
Richmond, BC

Escape Key
5951 Minoru Blvd
Richmond, BC

It's Dine Out Vancouver season in Vancouver! The event runs from January 16 - February 1. For those of you who don't know what it is, I don't think there is anyone who doesn't, BUT, it's an event in Vancouver where participating restaurants prepare a three course menu at tiered pricing. There is an $18 tier, $28 tier, and $38 tier. There are lots of restaurants that participate and you really get to try places they you wouldn't normally eat at because normal prices are usually a lot more.


My coworkers and I decided to try one out after work yesterday, we had omitted all Asian cuisines and anywhere that was too inconvenient to reach. In the end, we opted for Cork and Fin. Which Dine Out Vancouver had categorized as a seafood cuisine restaurant. The restaurant is situated just on the edge of gastown in downtown Vancouver. We made a reservation for 5:15 and arrived shortly after. The restaurant had a nice exterior look to it and the interior was elegant in its own nature. Definitely towards the finer dining class. There was only one other table seated then. We were told that we were originally reserved to seat upstairs but he had us down by the window on the first floor. It provided us with a nice view of the outside.


The restaurant had a $28 menu for the Dine Out Vancouver event. but instead of a appetizer, an entree and a dessert, they had what looks to be more like two appetizers followed by an entree. For the first course there were three options to choose from. 3 pieces of fresh oysters, or half a dozen or more at an added cost, arugula and Parmesan salad and lobster bisque.



One of my co-workers had the salad while the other co-work and I had the lobster bisque. The portions were very small. The salad came on a full plate but they only filled half the plate. Presentation-wise, they could have done it on a smaller plate to make it look fuller. The bisque was the same. It was a very small portion. My co-worker and I both found the soup to be extremely salty while the lobster itself was actually quite good. When the waiter came to ask us how the food was, we explained that it was too salty and my co-worker had explained she couldn't finish it (it was that salty), with more than half the bowl still remaining. The waiter asked me as well and I agreed. No alternatives were offered. For me I was okay with that because as bad as it was, I finished mine.

For the second course, the choices were Pate Breton, Octopus and Chorizo, and Smoked Ricotta Croquette. Again, one co-worker opted for the Octopus and Chorizo and the other co-worker and myself had the smoked ricotta croquette. The Octopus and Chorizo looked great and was definitely of better taste, according to my friend. I wish I could have said the same for the smoke ricotta croquette. It was very bland. No taste to it. the croquette was cooked well though, and had good texture, but it really lacked flavor. I had to keep applying what miniscule sauce there was on the plate to the croquette to make it taste better.

The final course, the main course had a selection of Wild Mushroom Cavatelli, Sous Vide Flank Steak, and an Arctic Char with Gnocchi. We opted for the Wild Mushroom Cavatelli and the arctic char. The arctic char was cooked well and had a nice crisp to the skin, unfortunately not what I ordered. I had the cavatelli. I was severely disappointed. The cream sauce was nice, but there wasn't enough mushrooms. maybe two or three pieces tops. The cavatelli itself was far from perfect. Like the chef didn't even try it. It tasted like it was really under-cooked and the more I ate of it, the harder it became. I didn't end up finishing the plate and didn't even want to bother with taking the rest home.

Our disappointment was complete. While service wasn't horrible, the food really failed to impress. For the money, it really wasn't worth it. We didn't even want to stay around for dessert. After we'd paid for the meal, we set off to Organic Tree which was a few blocks away and well know for their cheesecakes. We all had a cheesecake. Which we all thought was more worth the money than dinner was.


Lesson of the day: Read up on yelp the reviews of any restaurant before you go.

Cork and Fin
221 Carrall Street
Vancouver BC

I met up with a dear friend of mine yesterday for dinner. We hadn't decided on a place beforehand so when she got in the car, we sat there for a good 5 to 10 minutes contemplating where to eat. After searching on yelp, we decided on Ramengers. 3 guesses what kind of food that is!

The place is located on Kingsway not too far from Joyce Street (address down below). It really isn't a huge restaurant. By the counter seats about 5 to 6 people whereas the table settings allow for 14 people, 16 tops. But they have the cutest menus I've EVER seen. They don't have much of a selection. There are about 4 or 5 different types of ramen to choose from and you can add additional toppings to it if you like. You can also add onigiris, which are triangular rice balls or mini donburis to the order. That was it. nothing else on the menu.

Actually I lied, they do have a pork bone ramen, but its only available Wednesdays and Thursdays  and I believe they limit it to 15 servings per day! Kinda odd don't you think?

I ended up with the shio ramen which is the salt based soup. My friend ordered the mini donburi which accompanied my ramen because she wasn't all that hungry.

I thought the overall taste of the ramen was good. The broth was nothing special. The chashu (pork) could have more fat to it, but they had a good grilled taste to it. The egg, which is my favorite part of ramen, was slightly overcooked, but otherwise perfect.

I would say this restaurant is good for if you're in the area, but it isn't somewhere you should go out of your way to try.

Ramengers
3520 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC
604.419.4400

Yesterday was niu's momma's birthday and in celebration we decided to go out to eat. Niu picked a place that we had gone to before but had recently changed ownerships. The place was now called "Seoul BBQ House", serving all you can eat Korean BBQ.  Under the previous ownerships (there has been rumored to be quite a few) we've had food here. Before the food was only okay but was slightly overpriced.

The ayce on a weeknight was $19.99 per person. You had the options to add extras, like vegetables, spicy tofu and a few specialty soups. Otherwise there was a buffet where you could help yourself to the food of your liking.

Their buffet actually had a wonderful array of Korean cuisine. There was the typical side dishes that you would get with any Korean meal, like kimchi, potato in sweet sauce, kimchi styled seafood/cucumber, takoyaki, karage, crystal noodles and more. They had a few soups out too.

Their meat selection was somewhat limiting though, with only a small cooler selection.


Tastes were hit and miss. There was some food that we had that was good but other's that weren't so.

At the end of it all, they also have ice cream for dessert. There was mango, coffee, vanilla and strawberry flavors. 

Overall, this place is definitely better than it was before. I would come again. The value is definitely there. I feel bad for the owners though because the place had a history of failures and not a lot of people were actually at the restaurant. You could really feel it too as the restaurant was pretty huge.

I can't even seem to find this place on google yet!

Seoul BBQ House
15155 101 Avenue
Surrey BC

Today I had a dinner date with a friend of mine after work in Richmond. I picked her up from her place and as we sat there. Contemplating on where we wanted to eat in a city full of Asian food. We settled on Little Ongpin. Little Ongpin is a Filipino restaurant I had ate at once before with my co-workers.

I admit when we sat down and started to look at the menu, we were clueless as to what to order. I had to call in back up to figure out what is the best choice. In the end, we decided on Sinigang Na Tiyang Na Halibut, a medium sized, Pork Pata  and a small bowl of garlic rice and java rice.