Original Tandoori Kitchen (Burnaby)

Address: 110-3790 Canada Way
Burnaby, BC
V5G 1G4
Ethnicity: Indian

This particular restaurant was a recommendation by my cousin Audj. It used to be Planet India, which has gone somewhere else (?)

From outside looking in the restaurant looks very clean. They have nice mood-lighting tho it was a little dark for me. The aroma hits you hard when the door is opened, you may find yourself struggling to contain your drool :p

We were kind of questioning the restaurant as we were the only patrons there. It was empty when we got in. hmm. It was around dinner time as well, so we weren't quite sure what was going on. The Menus were very nice, and the list is pretty typical for an Indian restaurant.

For our appetizers AK decided on the Veggie Samosas and a plate of Indian Fries (Battered-fried potato fingers). The Fries were nice, I love anything with Indian herbs/spices, both dishes also came with a dipping sauce... I'm not sure what it was tho. Forgot to ask too.

Our main course consisted of Roti, Garlic Naan, Chicken Vindaloo, Butter Chicken & Rice :) What dinner is complete without rice? We had a choice of mild, medium or hot when it came to the currys. AK choose to have his Vindaloo mild and I chose hot for the Butter Chicken. Our waiter warned me that it was 'Indian hot' and I said that's fine. The Garlic Naan was suggested to us later by one of the waiters... more of an upsell than anything, but it was not too bad. I preferred the Roti, myself. AK enjoyed the Vindaloo, now he knows what Lister (Red Dwarf) eats for breakfast, lunch & dinner. The Butter Chicken really hit the spot for me :D it's been ages since the last time I had Butter Chicken and this was among the best that I've had... It wasn't very hot despite the warning. AK sweating from his Vindaloo (?) hehe. Unfortunately I had eaten a bit earlier so I didn't finish it all. We ended up taking some of the food to go.


Blurry picture of my Mango Lassi
For desert we ordered one of each: Gulab Jamun (Indian doughnut in warm sugar and rose water), Mango Ice Cream, Ras Malai (Home-made cheese patty, served cold with pistachios). AK had the ice cream and I tried one of the Gulab Jamun... I'm pretty sure I'd had it before, very sweet, nice flavor. And the Ras Malai I had not had for over 2 years! Wow, I must learn how to make it :p, fat chance.

I guess I'll just have to go back ;)

No.1 Beef Noodle House (Burnaby)

Address: 4741 Willingdon Ave. Burnaby BC
(SW corner of Moscrop & Willingdon)
Ethnicity: Taiwanese

Fortunately for me my parents often enjoy dining out and as a result many recommendations have been thrown my way. This particular restaurant is pretty easy to miss as it is located in the back-corner of the 'square' almost behind the convenience store.

What used to be in its place was a Malaysian/Singaporean restaurant called Orchid Delight. I'm not certain why it's gone now, the food was not bad by Canadian standards. I suppose it might have been a combination of location+price of food+price of rent that ultimately did them in.

My first impression upon entering the establishment was surprise. They've completely renovated the restaurant, wow, have they ever... unfortunately I forgot to take a snap. It looks more like a BBT place now, but pretty contemporary. There's a long bench along the South wall, seating room for about 30-or-so patrons and the counter is along the back. The menu was pretty nice too =p hehe, I know menu appearance doesn't exactly make or break a restaurant, but it gives you an idea on how much the owners care about their restaurant (does for me anyway).

The atmosphere was nice as well. It wasn't noisy like some of the other BBT spots in Vancouver. I didn't have to compete with the music or other patrons (who in other places would be shouting to be heard over the music or other patrons... ya). Upon ordering our food I wasn't sure what to expect regarding food quality or portion size. I'm happy to tell you that I was quite pleased, shocked actually because they are very generous and porvided some little extras that I was not expecting.

Me being my non-adventurous self ordered a Milk Tea w/ Pearls ($3+.50 for pearls) to drink and the Wonton in Chili Sauce (10pcs $4.50) to start.


I'd never tried the Wonton in Chili Sauce before, so it was just a random pick. I'm not sure what to make of the taste... don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but we couldn't put or fingers on the taste exactly. Tasted sorta like Wonton with chicken, pork, sausage, chili, ketchup... ya, you get the idea. Not sure if I'd order it again ;) but I definitely don't regret trying it =)


For my main I ordered the Crispy Salty Peppery Chicken with Rice ($6.95). I wasn't expecting to get full off the order... I was wrong. The main came with an interesting (warm) salad, deep fried tofu (sprinkled w/ meat), a bowl of rice (topped with pork) and the chicken... to tell you the truth I think the salad had some sort of meat with it too.

Overall this was a nice experience. The menu was fairly extensive, here are the catagories: Noodle (17 items), Rice (25), Soup (10), Appetizer (24), Dim Sum (11), Toast (11), Green Tea/Black Tea (42), Milk Tea (33), Special Milk Tea (17), Special Series (16), Fresh Fruit (18), Calpis Slush/Juice (18), Slush/No Milk (18), Smoothy/with Milk (19). Price was very good considering the size of the portions. The average price for a main was about $6, Dimsum about $4, Appetizers about $4. But to give you an idea, 3 of us were stuffed for little over $20. Would I go back? Yes =)

agh.. just read my post :/ must rewrite some of it later... sleep time =p

Li & Jun Japanese restaurant (Coquitlam)

Address: I forgot to grab a card so I can't give you the exact address. It's in the stripmall on the south-east corner of Johnson St. and Glen Dr. *I'll update this as soon as I find out the correct address =p*.

We were actually on the way to another restaurant when we chanced upon this one. Apparently it's in the Soft Opening phase as they have not had their Grand Opening yet.

The first thing we noticed when we walked in was that it smells newly renovated it's got a nice atmosphere, and the decor is very contemporary. The place settings were also not what most of us are used to, nor are the menus.

You might look and say, "What's so different about this setting?". Well, there's usually a small plate for your food, a teacup, soy sauce dispenser and chopstick holder (occasionally). In this place they give you the little dish for the wasabi, that rectangle 'plate', a bowl for your tea (more Chinese style AFAIK) and a little polished rock for your chopsticks... whether or not they wash them after each use is yet to be determined =p when you need soy sauce, you've got to flag down a waiter and ask them to pour it for you.

Oh yeah, then there's the menu. It's neat, the cover is made out of wood... it's a little bulky and awkward to handle. The paper they decided to use didn't help either (it's on the thicker side, heh, reminded me of construction paper). The prices were pretty much average... I didn't take the time to pay attention to much, I was too hungry. But I did notice that the Unagi Don was almost $14 which (in my books) is on the steep side. Everything else was pretty much on par though. One thing that bothered us was the fact that the menu was not very descriptive when it came to many of the items, specifically the combos. For example one combo read something like, 'Comes with 6 pieces sushi' but failed to tell you what kind of sushi you'd be getting.

Presentation, on the other hand, was phenomenal! They actually asked me not to take photos of the food. At first I was a little peeved as to why someone would be so anal about something like that. But then the first dish arrived:


Do we eat it? or frame it? (Sunomono, in case you couldn't guess just by looking at it).
The rest of the food presented was just as impressive. Our salmon sashimi were shaped into 2 roses (6pcs). My kappa/oshinko rolls were laid out with a long piece of grass arced over the top end-to-end. EK and AF ordered a sushi platter or some sort and there were little bite-sized nigiri sushi :D

All-in-all it was a pretty good experience. The Miso soup is also complimentary which was a nice touch. That night we were also fortunate enough to each get a complimentary glass of white wine with our food. A shameless promotion of some sort I'm guessing ;) If you're in the area and you've got a hankering for some Japanese cuisine, give Li & Jun a try, if not for the way the food tastes, then go for the way the food looks! ;)

Vancouver Eats...

I'm hoping I'll be able to put up some small reviews of places (in & out of Vancouver) that I like to frequent. Actually I'm really hoping that this will be my excuse to try new places ;). Anyone that knows me also knows that I always like to go to the same places and order the same things :$. Yeah, boring.. I know. Maybe this will change things =)