Hue

Thanks for the pictures! They are making me terribly homesick these days. One of my fondest childhood memory is at Ding Tai Fung, where the family decided to beat the crowd in order to get a seat...I think we were too enthusiastic as we walked in and discovered that everyone single staff member was lying, literally, on those long benches or tables taking a nap. I forgot what time we actually went in and how on earth they'd let us in, but that image stayed with everyone of our family til this day. I am so glad you noticed the 7-11s! Even though they are ubiquitous in Taiwan, I still love being able to get all those things especially the variety of drinks. All kinds of flavoured teas you can imagine with cheap price too. I remember eating those fish roe as a kid, and not really appreciating them. I remember just eating them cut into little pieces (as they are on the salty side) and the adults eat them with raw green onion slivers. I think I'd love them now! Street food~ Man, I love them but my stomach/immune system needs to be toughened up a little bit in order to enjoy them... Did you see all those bubble tea shops that are literally just store fronts with no seats inside? Last time I was there they were everywhere!

I've had them as well, but not in Vancouver. I think it's an interesting twist, and if you life rice, you'd probably like them. The rice bun definitely resemble glutinous rice balls more so than rice cakes--it's chewy and sticky.

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but Harlo Burger on Cambie St. has been replaced by a Vietnamese restaurant called Green Pepper.

Ate at Dem Bonese about 2 years ago, and the ribs were forgettable, but what I do remember was finding a piece of blue plastic in our "fried potato stack"(in quotation because I don't remember what's it's actually called). Also remember how everyone was wearing bibs ...[

Thast IS a nice looking souffle......gotta put DINER on my to-try list now! Thanks!

Wow, those are great looking pictures! I have eaten at both places, but have not tried the soup buns.Thanks!

For the crispy rice dish, my friends and I prefer pouring our own sauce and eat it right away, or having them separate and then dip the crispy rice in sauce ourselves, otherwise you get these soggy/mushy rice mess. But some people like that. Definitely try it if you are adventurous!

Finally hit Shanghai Wind for the first time today with boss and co-workers. We must have been the oddest table in the restaurant, with 2 Chinese, 1 Caucasian, 1 Hindu, and 1 half Japanese half Caucasian. There were 2 printed menus, one with dim sum items, rice and noodles, and soup. This menu is with both Chinese and English. However, the other menu, which has the other dishes, was entirely in Chinese. Makes it a lot harder when one co-worker wanted to know the name of the dish so she doesn't have to order sweet and sour pork all the time! We ordered the juicy pork buns, and because we have a non-beef/pork eater, we also ordered vegetable buns. The pork buns were not as overly oily as I've tried at other places, which was nice. The vegetable buns were very interesting: the filling was sweet! It was as if they add sugar instead of salt by accident or something. We also had a chicken dish cooked with alcohol, hot and sour seafood soup, and sui choy with butter sauce. Finished the meal with cirspy pancake with red bean paste. Very nice! Oh yeah, for those of you interested in those pork buns, I found out that they sell them uncooked too! Same price as the steamed ones, 6 for $3.60 (I think).

From what I understand, each Chinese restaurants has a different system when it comes to tips, but most of the time the tip is divided evenly to all staff, so each server gets the same amount regardless of his/her service.

I hit the shop as well...tried the dulce de leche filled one, upon the lady's recommendation (she said it was milk jam(?)). Apparently they made it after you order it, since I had to wait a while, but it was hot and fresh.

Okay...I'm giving it more thought. If I am asking myself if I'd go back just for the same pie again, I'd say no.

Finally had time today to go to West Vancouver in search of pie...The Savary Island Pie!. The place was jammed with people at noon, and not a single empty seat in sight. But I had to have my pie...so I sat outside on the tiny patio, looking out at the pouring rain. Anyway, I had the lemon buttermilk pie with berries, but since I never really eat pie, so I can't compare it to others I've had and say whether it was good or not... A few steps down from Savary Island is a cafe called Amadeo. I had something called "Mocha Delight". Oh. My. God. It was so good! Mocha cream dipped in chocolate. I could really make the effort to go to North shore just for that!

So of course I had to try the Chocolate Danish....Yum Yum Yum! I was pleasantly surprised, since I don't really like any of the other Tim Horton's offerings. Really flaky pastry.

I went to Notte's Bon Ton to have my chocolate fix... Tried the Chocolate Progress, Chocolate Ganache, Spaghetti(weird name), and a Pineapple one(can't remember the name). All the chocolate ones are really good! The chocolate ganache filling is not as dense, but creamy nonetheless. Oh, another gem at Pane From Heaven is their fruit and nut scone. It's probably the best scone I've tasted ever!

Lunch at Fortune Restaurant with my mom. My mom has been doing a lot of dim sum with her Cantonese friends, whose idea for dim sum is precisely "less eating, more chatting". They usualy only order 3~4 dishes for a table of 3! Anyway, so my mom and I only ordered 3 savory dim sum and 1 dessert. We had the bake pork pastry, deep fried taro balls, bean curd wrapper with veggies, and crushed peanuts sesame dumplings--everything my mom likes. The taro dumplings had pork in it and too little taro, so I didn't really like it. The sweet sesame dumplings were very good; hot filing!

Went into Pane from Heaven today wanting to try the now-so-famous chocolate ganache cake. I was blown away by the nice looking selection of sweets there. I have to be honest, if it wasn't for the "pimpin'" for that cake, I probably would have chosen something else..but alas, I was here for the chocolate ganache cake, I shall have it. It was really creamy and rich, nice chocolatey flavour and I could do without the strawberry on top. Compare to the other chocolate desserts I've had, this one is better than the one at Mix I've tried (Chocolate Oblivion). However, there was one that I had try at Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts (no name was on display). It has a hard cookie base at the bottom which made a great contrast to me. And I like that, but this one is definitely not bad! Thanks for the recommendation!

I have been thinking about this actually. I have a group of friends that always celebrate birthdays with dinner together (about once a month...our birthdays are, quite nicely, all in different months!). We always go through the same tradition of procedure with cake, song, wish, photo, unwrapping of presents, photo again, etc. We always bring our own cake (whole cake), and we have a cutting ritual that I don't even though who came up with. Anyhow, I've been concerned with whether it is insulting to do so or not. But as I raise my concern to my friends, they all think it's fine. Some restaurants were extremely eager in celebrating with us: kitchen crew came out with candles lit, extra writing with sauce, and singing happy birthday. Some times they were less than eager: they gave us a big spoon with the cake still in the box and plastic bag even when we had told them what we wanted. Mind you, a lot of the restaurants we go to are ethnic restaurants that don't usually have cakes: Japanese Sushi place, Korean BBQ, etc.

I went last year. Interesting for me because I ddidn't know many "foodie" and it was nice to be around people who are as much into food as I am! Mostly vendors, a few stages with cooking competition, and saw Rob Feenie and Karen Barnaby (sp?) demonstrating.

I've always wanted to try Sweet Revenge, but too bad they only open at night, when I'm usually at home.... I love Mix's chocolate scone too! Only had it once, and all the other times I've been there they weren't selling them!

I guess Capers stopped carrying those Eco Il Pane buns! I'm sorry, I had them last year. I had a pain au chocolat at PHAT today, courtesy of another thread. They have many different kinds: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white choloate! They also have one that is called "The Ultimate Chocolate Croissant"...

I know that Capers sell some Eco Il Pane buns. I've had their sour cherry and chocolate bun before, and I'm sure there are some other ones.....

I've mentioned to my mom(who is doing most of the dining out for the house) about Ba Guo Bu Yi, but she wasn't impressed at all. She and her friends had tried many other Chinese restaurants in the Richmond area, and found Shanghai River to be good, as least in the xiao long bao area, so we went today for lunch. The three of us had the pork dumplings (xiao long bao), sesame cake with beef, crispy smoked fish, a duck dish, and a crispy yellow noodle dish. One comment we all have: SUPER SALTY! Really, everything is sooooo salty. We were drinking tea cup after cup. The pork dumplings were the only one not as salty, but there were nothing speical about them. They are also the tiniest ones I've ever seen (I don't mind their sizes actually). Almost every dish, funny enough, comes with a bed of shredded cucumber, including those beef seseme cake! It was very crowded. We had a reservation at 11:00, and people were lining up by 12:00. Will no go back again, I don't think.

Finally got my three... Friend's birthday dinner at Boston Pizza. Waited for over an hour since our reservation go cancelled. Everyone ordered pizza except me. Nothing on the menu intrigued me and I wasn't that hungry, so I had stuffed mushroom caps only. Another friend's birthday dinner at Seoul House Korean Restaurant on Broadway. Many tatami rooms, with karaoke upstairs. Menu has everything from sushi, udon and Japanese dishes to Korean barbecue. Birthday girl wanted to have barbecue, so we ordered two 2-people combos for the six of us. Experience told us that we'd have left over. We did. After dinner, we were looking for another place close by to sit and chat. Walked to a newly opened tea lounge called STEEPS. Very nicely decorated room, relaxed atmosphere. We were told if we each want a small pot of pressed tea, we could select one from their "tea tree", where they have a variety of tins of tea that we can smell. And the sniffing and awwing ensued. I chose a pina colada tea, friends chose English rose, strawberry kiwi, and three ordered Belgium white chocolate (not tea, just hot chocolate). I know, none of us are the adventurous types, but there are some more exotic teas. We were actually very glad to find a new place that we can hang out in the future, some place close and open late (til midnight on Saturday).

May I ask where on Commercial St. is Prado?

Can't add anything since haven't dine out for so long...but just want to say that all this talk about "Tomato Cafe in my neighborhood" is creepy me out...Are you all living right beside me or what? It's in MY neighborhood! Quick anecdote about the place: my parents, who are unfamiliar with many Western food, once wandered into Tomato Cafe and wanted to have something sweet to go with their coffee...they ordered the only cookie-looking thing they could spot: biscotti. Of course, they couldn't bite into the darn thing, and came home and complained about this terribly hard cookie....and told me never to step into that place again!