Super excited to be invited to this event through being a food blogger! (such a noob, I was super s) Global Gala was a dinner with six competing restaurants for the title of "Best Asian Food in Vancouver", as voted by guests. Greeted at the door by models in various traditional wear.
Brought along my parents for this exciting event! It was held at The Portside Pub in Gastown. We were there early and had to wait in the car for them to be ready before entering. Anyhow, it was a nice place with two levels, they had separated seating (not many seats btw) downstairs with food and stage upstairs.
Although the ticket told us it would start at 7pm, it didn't mention when we'd be eating, so we sat around until after 8 before someone ventured upstairs to find out people were already eating and it was self-serve. Or so we thought. Turns out it wasn't really ready but everyone rushed up there for food anyways. Either way, confusion ensued, food was obtained. First we tried
Sala Thai (Thai). Look at their pretty carving!
They offered Sala Thai
Fried Rice, Green Curry, and
Pad Thai. I quite
liked their curry, it was
fragrant,
milky, and loaded with ingredients. The
pad thai was a bit off though, I think they used a lot of ketchup and made it too sweet. Texture was good. Fried rice went well with the curry.
Then I tried
Hand-Shredded Chicken with Cucumbers and Spicy Peanut Sauce from
The Original Chongqing Bistro Bar & Grill at Tinseltown (Chinese). The chicken was
average, the
sauce was super spicy x.x At least they
plated it nicely for everyone.
Then was from
Siddhartha's Indian Kitchen (Indian) with
Butter Chicken, Rice, Naan Bread, and
Sweet Lassi. They were very impressive with the setup and
super friendly service. I must say, the
naan bread was the
highlight for me, it was
chewy and
soft.
AMAZING.
Butter chicken was
too sweet for my liking, lassi confused me, and rice was...rice.
There were
Spring Rolls and
Vermicelli with curry dip from
Pho Tan Vietnamese Restaurant (Vietnamese). The
spring rolls tasted great, but the
wrapping was way too hard, might've been good when it was fresh =( The
curry dip was super spicy but the
vermicelli was nicely cooked. Too bad.
Either way,
Umeda Japanese Cuisine (Japanese) brought in a lot of sushi which was gone quickly. I wanted to try one of each roll and ended up with a whole plate full of food! Looked like such a glutton x.x The
rice was seasoned well,
chewy and
delicious. Most of the rolls were up to par except the
odd tofu roll. It was tasteless and.... unique.
I didn't even know what it was, but it was the least popular dish of the night and I felt it was utterly underwhelming and not representative of true
Korean cuisine. From
Chamnamoo Korean Restaurant, there was
Kimchi Fried Rice.
Loads and loads of undercooked fried rice. The rice was
hard in the middle and
soggy on the outside. Taste was just salt and not memorable. To add salt to the injury, they
didn't even label it and took most of us a long time to figure out who this dish belonged to =/
After the food, the evening ended with the raffle draw for a plane ticket and announcement of the winning restaurants, presented by none other than the special guest Miss. Canada, Cäsar Jacobson.
In t
hird place was... The Original Chongqing Bistro Bar & Grill at Tinseltown! Coming in
second (my fav of the night)
was... Sala Thai! And *drumroll*
first place went to Siddhartha's Indian Kitchen. Congrats!
Fun evening, quite the experience! Super thankful for the free tickets and the surprise mention during introductions, just totally made my day.
