PaoPao

Yoy sat down in LA Chicken?? That little curtain that seperates the kitchen (passthru) from the front counter always kinda freaked me out. As an ex-Richmondite, I can tell ya, some damn fine chix to be had for sure. John PS: I lived around 4 & Cambie so I'd go there quite often! ← It's a long haul back to downtown from Richmond. so we pushed a few of their tiny tables together for the 3 of us and chow'd down. My friend now is in a real dilemma only working about 5 minutes away from there. He's trying to eat well now, but the revelation of LA Chicken and how good it is might put forth to him a formidable obstacle.

Not yet, but our first visit to Ganache certainly wasn't our last! We were so fixated on les patisseries that taste-driving the truffles was relegated to our next visit by default. Which flavours does your wife like best? (Of course, a true chocoholic's answer to that question would simply be "Yes.") ← She's definetly a purist and goes for the basic dark chocolate truffle.

We booked Gu'u on Robson for my B-day and reserved the upper room for the 16 of us. I absolutely love this place, it is hands down my favourite place to eat out. They have a daily fresh sheet as well as their regular menu items. That night we we're ordering complete pages of menu's at a time, along with ample amounts of beer and Sake. We ate and ate. Items ranged from braised Halibut Cheek, Jellyfish salad, Salmon, Tuna, a really interesting pumpkin dish with an egg inside, Deep fried Prawns, Broiled Calamari, an interesting chewy rice dish. I can't remember it all because all the mixing with the Sake made things fuzzy. While the party forged on after Gu'u, and it did involve food and A LOT of drinking, I think I should end this description here.... Lunch a few days later at YaoHan center in the food court on Richmond. Strawberry Bubble Tea from the Juice King, deep fried smelt, and a plate of BBQ Pork w/ rice. My bride had a tasty noodle soup with shrimp wontons. Overall very satisfying for very little money Dinner tonight at LA Chicken in Richmond at No. 5 road and Cambie. This is some damn good fried chicken! We tried a mix of their regular and spicy chicken. It was an excellent combination of crispiness and juiciness. Our tastes leaned more towards the spicy. So good I bought a box of 12 pieces to take home after we we're done eating.

Wow, good work and great images. I haven't had the Caramel Chocolat yet, so I will have to make up for this lapse. My two favourites so far have been the Opera (obviously I like it more than your tasting panel did - I really like the combination of textures and flavours) and the Concord Framboise. ← Did any of you by chance try the Truffles that they offer? My wife who's a true chocoholic swears by them. She can't eat the Hershey's, etc. because low grade chocolate gives her a stomach ache. But the ones at Ganache are her favorite and eating them for her is ache free. Her cravings for these Truffles come on so suddenly that before I know it she is briskly walking out of the house to get some around the corner.

Wow, a lot of these desserts look pretty fancy. As for my current obsession, it is the Buttermilk Chocolate Cake at Lillykate in Yaletown. They serve a very generous serving with no less than 3/4 inch thick of delicious frosting. When picking up two pieces today, I also took home a delicious cupcake with cream cheese frosting. Having these desserts practically at my front door is going to make loosing my winter layer very difficult. This week I am also dropping off an Appolina recipe to the Italian Pastry Chefs at Yaletown Gelato. Hopefully they can refine these as good as when I had them in Florence. I'll be chief taster if they need the help. If they can get these right, watch out, they are sure to give Neil a run for his money on his patrons converting to a new addiction for dessert.

It's been about 5 months or so since I have eaten at Nyala for their buffet. While not spectacular food, it fit the bill nicely to try something different. I also enjoy the eating style with ripping the bread and grabbing tasty lamb chunks. Went well with a nice beer. I'm looking forward to trying the House of Selassie, thanks for the suggestion!

Wow, this place brings back the memories. Unfortunately mine are delivering bicycles from the local bike shop I worked at in St. Helena to the guests. I'll never forget dropping 4 bikes off to this one family who we're just finishing breakfast in the restaurant. Their bill and tip was approx. equal to a weeks pay for me at the time. Absolutely amazing place though.

Talking to a great friend of mine last night, he mentioned that he and his girlfriend consider a certain restaurant "their" special place. In the same vein as a couple referring to a song as "their" song. A place where you take your Honey Bunny to that always bring's out the Amore. Theirs by the way is Le Crocodile. I'm not sure we are as loyal to just one because of our constant 'hunger' to discover new places. Anyone else hold a special eatery in a regard of considering it "your" special place?

Taking cues from some of the good advice on the board, we strategically formulated an evening last night that turned out to be a fantastic, belly bulging, good time. Started out at The Irish Heather with their Neil's Yard Cheese Sampler Plate, Guinness, and some samples from their whisky selection. Their patio in the back was a great place to hang out and relax. Then we headed to Da Francescos on Hastings to try out some of this purported "Great" pizza. Going in with very high expectations we we're thoroughly impressed with the Deep Fried Calamari, a large #5 pizza (forgot the name - capricoso I think) and a bottle of their Chianti. The service and the food we're over the top great, and we will without a doubt be back often. We ended up closing the place, and after saying our good bye's to the very friendly Chef and staff we we're off to...... The Hamilton Street Grill for dessert for what else...? Yup, of course the famous Gingerbread pudding. Accompanied by a few espresso's, this was the perfect cap to the evening. Saying how great the dessert was just seems so redundant from all the gushing that's been written about the Gingerbread pudding. But all that gushing is bulls eye on target. I had a chance to meet and briefly talk to Neil. He's a super friendly guy and runs a great establishment. Rolling our big belly’s out of the car and back into the house was a monumental task .... but sooooo worth it!

If you like Malaysian Street Vendor type food at great prices head to Hawker's Delight. It's very good.

Never had any either, but I was just in Urban Fare and they had them as well.

The Atlantic Trap and Gill has whole lobster for $19.99 everyday: http://www.trapandgill.com/menu.htm

My first real job out of High School was spending a year as a waiter at Red Robin. It was alot of fun and I worked my ass of. Lots of 10+ hour shifts until closing. The manager would always do these little contests to boost "sales" from the wait staff. Usually the prize was a free dinner that night. On one night I won and after my shift started to ring in the order for my dinner. I started out with a "Monster Burger" which I believe still is the biggest burger they make. They I began with the add ons which range form $1 to $3 each. Bacon, extra patties, eggs, ham, Guac, different types of cheeses, and so on. When I was done I had a $30 Hamburger with about 15 add ons. The order went through to the kitchen and a resounding laugh came from the grill. 15 minutes later I was looking at the creation. Literally 12 inches high, so tall in fact they had to rest it sideways on an oval platter. Man that was good. I shared it with my other compadres and we all ate well that night. Things we're good until the next day when the GM asked to see me in his office. Technically I didn't do anything wrong but he wasn't pleased with me. Right as I was leaving his office, after being thoroughly scolded, he asked "By the way, was it good?" Then started laughing. After that dinner contests we're amended to be menu items only w/o add-ons. Always nice to be a catalyst for change .....

LilyKate is open now. It was empty so about 3 employees we're helping us with our selections. We had a chance to try some of the take away tonight. We tried the Southern Fried Chicken, BBQ Ribs, and Green Beans with Bacon bits. While everything looked very good, we thought it was pretty average. Their desserts we're very tasty though. We tried the Coconut layer cake with a Marshmallow frosting, their Carrot Cake, and a piece of the Chocolate cake. They have a limited selection of grocery items to purchase so for now I would consider this more of a eating / takeout place. Maybe they will add more in the future. The menu looks quite extensive and I'm looking forward to trying many of the other things that they have to offer. For the above items it was just over $55.00. Kind of pricey IMO. It's a beautiful store though!

Umm, I trust we know that Caesar salad is generally considered to have originated in Mexico (Tijuana to be specific), not Italy? The restaurateur who came up with it was of Italian descent, however. More info than you need here: http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/SaladHistory.htm and here: http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/caesar.htm ← I didn't know that but it makes sense. The best tableside Caesar we ever had was at a restaurant located outside of our El Cid beachfront hotel in Mazatlan. It was an amazingly impressive show. I wish I remembered the name of the place.....

Ponchos at 1162 Denman Street has both Beef and Chicken Fajitas. As I remember they serve them sizzling and steaming as well. Quality wise I would rate the food as fair to good. If you go there you need to try the Margaritas though, IMO they are excellent. After drinking many pitchers there I think I finally cracked the secret ingredient which I think is Lime-ade. Like Lemonade but with Limes you can buy frozen. They have a Fajita Burrito there that I prefer over the regular Fajitas. They also have a Seafood Paella that is pretty good as well.

Apparently PaoPao sufffers from short term memory loss A. ← That's what I get for speed reading ....doh!

Ikea's breakfast and dinner specials are crazy. We did some furniture shopping Tuesday and had dinner there. Pasta with Marinara and meatballs for $1.99! Total bill for both of us with 2 Dinners, extra veggies and Potato Latke's, and drinks was about $8.00 . I felt like I was stealing or something ...... and the food was decent too.

Someone told me the wait staff at DV8 during this event uses Night Vision goggles to navigate their way around.

We had a really nice dinner at Sakana Bistro on Mainland in Yaletown. They had a Crunchy Lobster Role special that was very good. We also had the Crunchy Sashimi salad that had greens, salmon and tuna sashimi, deep fried Lotus Root slices with grated carrot in a mustard vinaigrette. Then we had Unagi and Chirishi Don (sp?) which is assorted Sashimi in a bowl over sushi rice. Washed all this down with a couple large Sapporo's. With only two wait staff for the restaurant, tea service was lacking because it was busy. Overall though the food was tasty and it was a very nice meal especially with my beautiful Valentine. After finishing we we're off to see the AMAZING Kodo Taiko Drummers at the QE.

After just getting back from 3 weeks away for Carnaval in Rio we we're ready to eat at some of our old favs. The restaurants are great there and they are the undisputed masters of Meat dishes. Soooo good. Ok, back to topic....... First stop was the Congee Noodle House on Broadway near Main. They have an amazing crunchy, spicy, chicken wing dish that IMHO are the best around and we had to have it. Then moved on to the BBQ Pork, and the Soy Sauce Chicken Noodle Soup. All was excellent in quality, service, and especially value. Next was Pink Pearl on Hastings for Dim Sum. It just amazes me the quantity of people they feed there for Sunday Brunch. All the Dim Sum we had was very fresh and tasty. I especially like the Taro filled with BBQ Pork and the Pot Stickers. We always have to put in a special order for their small chilli’s in Soy Sauce which brings in new levels of heat, and flavour to the dishes. The 3 of us we're rolling out of there stuffed for about $40 including tip. Another great value. Last night a friend was really craving the sourdough bread at The Keg on Thurlow, so we went for dinner. It had been awhile since I've been there and it was very good. I had a Baseball Steak which is an extra thick Filet Mignon cooked Medium Rare and A double baked potato. Both we're excellent. We sat and ate in the lounge by the fireplace. We had a great time and enjoyed it there very much. On a different note ..... it was interesting getting back in town and reading the hoopla about peoples opinions of their DOV experiences. Just have to say to Ling et all that I have appreciated your honest dining appraisals and hope the defensive responses don't dissuade you from continuing to post your opinions.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions again! We are just ending our almost 3 weeks in Rio and we are waiting in the lounge now at the airport to return to Vancouver. Have to say we had a blast! Loved Rio, loved Carnaval, loved our whole holiday. We tried to eat at a different place each night. With notable exceptions "Porcau" for it´s all you can eat skewered meats. Ohhh soo good. The Brazilians have the corner on BBQ´d meats in my book. Another stand out was in Leblon called Nam Thai. An excellent meal and the best Pad Thai I´ve ever tasted. We had our share of Skol, and Caprihinies, (forgive my sp) also. If anybody wants more detail just pm me ....

Haven't heard it mean Grandmother in Chinese before, I thought that was Pho Pho. Actually it means Baby Bear, but I've heard lots of variations ..... I'll stick with mine. The bread was extra $$$, don't remember how much though and you had to ask. Normally that really chaps my ass when restaurants do that, but I thought everything else was such a great value so I didn't mind. It was worth getting it though to get those small bits of bacon and onion with the remaining juices .....

We had a late night seating at Chambar last night. The menu, food and service that we had we're very parallel to plunk's, excellent. We did however also indulge in the on tap Belgian Beers which we're all excellent. The first was a Bellevue Kreik which was a bit too sweet for my tastes, but all the ladies liked it. It had interesting berry overtones to it. The second was a Leffe which was a very good, smooth flavour without too much bite. Then third, one of my fovorites, Stella. I actually had that one with Dessert. Unfortunately we went for the lamb but at the time we arrived, 10:30 ish, they were sold out. The mussles that I had were excellent, especially with bread to sop up the tasty juices. When the bill came we had all anticipated that this was one of the $35 restaurants but we're pleasently surprised at the $25 pp charges. Excellent value for the meal. We are looking forward to returning to try their full menu in the near future.

Ok, haven't done this for a few years, but it's still tempting to me: Eating frozen Duncan Hines Fudge Frosting straight from the can with a big soup spoon. It never really freezes, it just gets REALLY thick.