Legend House: It's like they dropped a salt bomb!

Annnd I'm back! Wasn't very busy today, but I guess it's because there's no lunch special and less people working around here on a Saturday =P

Restaurant: Legend House (visit their website here)

Location: 140-1169 Pacific Street, Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese, Northern Chinese, Sichuan
Price range: <$10 for lunch special



Date of visit: May 30, 2015
Atmosphere: 2/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 1/5
Buck worthy? 2/5

They were very nice in seating us, one waitress brought us some water because she saw my grandma had some medication to take (without us asking for it), so thoughtful =) Went straight in to order my usual Shanghai "XiaoLongBao" Soup Dumplings ($7.50 for 8 pieces). But to our surprise today... it was super salty! I'm not kidding, it was as if they had added two to three times the normal amount that it stung our throats going down! Flagged someone down but all she could do was give us sympathetic looks =/

Hoping for better, I tried something new today, Xi'an Cold Steamed Noodles ($6.95) less spicy. It looked really good when it arrived, but oh gosh. This was super salty AND super spicy. Shaking my head, I couldn't feel my mouth anymore. Super disappointed that less spicy turned into extra spicy. At least the noodles were very chewy!

Again, we ordered Shanghai Wontons ($6.95) for my grandma. Lo and behold these were salty as well. Super salty. We told a waitress that everything was far too salty, and she asked me if I'd had them before. Wow. Really? Why yes, I was just here two times this past week, ordering the same two dishes. No solution to our salty problem, we poured all the soup into our bowls and asked them for cups of hot water to hopefully rinse out the salt. But when the meat is overseasoned-- it's hard to take out of wontons. Either way, eventually ate these with many rinses of water.

The only decent dish was the Mu-Shu Stir Fried Noodles ($11.95) with dragging noodles. It had pork, wood ear, onions and celery. This was on the salty side, but not as disastrous as the other dishes. Noodles were chewy and al dente.

Definitely going to be a little while before I come back here again. One of the waitresses eventually remembered how often we were here and apologized that our meal had a super dose of salt and that they'll work on it and how sorry she was. Also gave us 10% off for all our troubles of rinsing our food with water =/ Usually I just let it go, but my grandma really can't handle too much salt in her diet for obvious reasons. *sigh* Another good place down the hatch. I just wish they could've stayed amazing, but all things come to an end...

Legend House: Juicy and Delicious XLB!!

Getting bored of going to the same dim sum place lately, so we came here for some variety! Super busy at lunch time, looking good!

Restaurant: Legend House (visit their website here)

Location: 140-1169 Pacific Street, Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese, Northern Chinese, Sichuan
Price range: <$10 for lunch special



Date of visit: May 27, 2015
Atmosphere: 2/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 4.5/5
Buck worthy? 5/5

Came here with family, so we were able to order a bit more variety! We like ordering their Prawns and Tofu with Dragging Noodles ($7.50) from the lunch special menu (Mon-Fri). It comes with soup of the day. Today the portion was a lot smaller than usual, but the flavors were great, fresh shrimp and the noodles were al dente. There's also tofu, snow peas, and carrots!

Next, my favorite here, their Shanghai "XiaoLongBao" Soup Dumplings ($7.50 for 8 pieces). They came piping hot, wrapping was thin, meat was fresh and there was a lot of juice in there! I like it because it's not too oily nor salty.

We also enjoy getting their Shanghai Wontons ($6.95) because it's easy for my grandma to eat. The soup is extraordinary because they put in little shrimps, veggies, and tastes amazing! The flavors compliment the dumplings well, as the wrapping is smooth and chewy with the meat inside being just the right amount.

This time, we thought we'd try their Pan-Fried Pork Buns ($6.95) as well. These were less spectacular and rather disappointing. Juice was spilling out of them, although perfectly golden at the bottom. The bun itself was too soggy but the meat tasted good.

Finally, we got an order of Legend Beef Rolls ($6.95). These guys are so photogenic! The pancake part was very crispy and chewy, nice and moist! However I found there to be too much hoisin sauce that overwhelmed the flavors of the beef.

Overall it was a good meal, but the restaurant was pretty smokey inside and made the air quality poor. I could see the smoke just hang around, but otherwise the service is great, they're really nice and attentive.

Neverland: I never wanna grow up!

What better location for a girly date than a classy high tea with a buy one get one free coupon? =P

Restaurant: Neverland Tea Salon (visit their website here)

Location: 3066 West Broadway, Vancouver
Cuisine: Cafe, Teas
Price range: $15-30 per person




Date of visit: May 22, 2015
Atmosphere: 4.5/5
Staff/service: 3/5
Food variety: 5/5 (lots of teas to choose from!)
Food quality: 3.5/5
Buck worthy? 4/5

I booked online for two with JCXXX, and we were seated at a cute couch in the corner of the store. The store was bright and comfortable, I really liked the lights, tea sets, and overall decor! Eventually it got a bit loud inside as it got busier, guess all the hard surfaces don't absorb sound well ^^"

We ordered their High Tea ($30.00) with came with 5 sandwiches, 4 pastries, scone with cream and jam, and never-ending tea. We didn't know what they meant by "never-ending tea", but were pleasantly surprised that we were allowed to switch teas as many times as we wanted! So if we could drink that much, we could've sampled every tea from their list! (Which was quite a lot)

I forgot to take a picture of the tea list, but they had a nice comprehensive list of many tea blends of white, green, black, herbal, and rooibos teas! I got a green tea one (something about Peter Pan) which was light and fragrant.

We started on the sandwich layer first!

The first one was an open-faced breakfast sandwich, with egg, bacon, and I think it was hollandaise sauce. The bun was really crispy, almost a bit hard. Flavors of the egg and bacon were great with the bun!

Next was a sandwich with arugula and cream cheese. The flavors were kind of bland and neither of us liked this one.

This was an interesting one with tuna/chicken, mayo, onions, and herbs. It was moist and I liked the flavors. Just really couldn't figure out what the protein was ^^" (and I forgot what I was told when introduced to the items)

Then was a croissant sandwich with cheese, apple, and a sweet sauce. I liked the mixture of flavors of the cheese and apple mingling together. JCXXX isn't a fan of cheese though, so all the cheesy ones just weren't her forte =P

Last sandwich was another open-faced sandwich on focaccia bread. There were tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and spinach drizzled with olive oil. The flavors of the tomato overwhelmed the rest of the sandwich with the cheese part being quite tasteless and rubbery. The flavors balanced each other out but alone were quite unappetizing.

With not enough room for much more, we went onto the dessert layer.

Only got to try the chocolate mousse. This was amazing! I really liked the smooth and rich chocolate layers with the crunchy base. Not overly sweet either, the crunchy base and velvety chocolate made for great texture in my mouth!

There were other sweets that I packed home, my parents quite enjoyed their coconut lemon meringue tart but found the raspberry cheesecake a bit too sweet. Banana bread was average.

Scones were also quite fluffy and buttery, too bad I didn't have a chance to try their devonshire cream and jam =(

Second set of teas, we got something with the name of Tinkerbell in it, and it was quite delicious! The flavors were tart and bright, definitely a highlight out of the four teas we chose!

The bill came in a beautiful container!

Overall it was an enjoyable visit aside from our server being far too attentive when we wanted some girl talk time (he kept coming by to ask if we needed anything every 15 minutes). He was MIA when we wanted to pay and leave though ^^"

Hai Phong: How are they so highly rated?!

After our failed escape from Locked Canada's Asylum puzzle room, we were famished (and high on adrenaline)! BeautyQueen suggested a place nearby and here we were! There's lots of free parking up front, which is great!

Restaurant: Hai Phong Vietnamese Restaurant (visit their website here)

Location: 1246 Kingsway, Vancouver
Cuisine: Vietnamese, Noodle Soup
Price range: $10-15



Date of visit: May 14, 2015
Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 2/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 1.5/5
Buck worthy? 1/5

It was quite empty for a Friday night around 7pm, which kinda took me by surprise since they were so highly rated on Urbanspoon. Anyways, looked through the menu, there was a lot of variety for each person's liking. Their Garlic Butter Chicken Wings ($7.95 for 6 wings) sounded delicious! Utterly disappointed at how they looked when they arrived and disgusted when I tasted it. They were fresh and hot, but so salty it stung my mouth and throat. They were overcooked and dry, not crispy on the outside either. The lemon pepper sauce didn't have the pepper mixed in either =/.

RetroGirl and I got their small Rare Beef, Brisket, Tendon, and Tripe Rice Noodle Soup ($7.50), I got it without the rare beef. This was average, it met the norm but I wouldn't say it was exceptional. Broth was hot, rich and meaty, and there was a good amount of beef in it.

GoddessV ordered a Small Shrimp and Crab Patty Noodle Soup ($8.50) without the pork feet and pork blood. It actually looked pretty good and she said the broth was really yummy. She got really thirsty as she continued eating it though, probably too much MSG =(

Overall I wasn't impressed and felt scammed that they were so highly rated (maybe I ordered the wrong things). BigGuns tried many attempts at flagging down a waitress to get our bill but they completely ignored him. Not even a busy night, there were around 5 small tables of people and two waitresses managing the storefront. Quite disappointing for a Vancouver restaurant to operate so poorly. At least Locked Canada was fun, and I was with great company ^-^

Capilano Sushi: Hidden yummy sushis =D

After working hard and doing the BCMC at Grouse (hike beside Grouse grind), we treated ourselves to...sushi! =D

Restaurant: Capilano Sushi (visit their website here)

Location: 1240 Marine Drive, North Vancouver
Cuisine: Japanese, Sushi, Seafood
Price range: $10-20 per person




Date of visit: May 8, 2015
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 4.5/5
Buck worthy? 5/5

This was definitely a hole in the wall, as I almost missed the place, but its in a little strip mall near Marine Drive with some parking in front of the place. It looked quite clean inside and we figured the owners were either Taiwanese or from Hong Kong =P

We ordered from their lunch specials, which were all relatively cheap! GoddessV ordered a Chicken Teriyaki Lunch Special ($7.99) which came with a lot of food! There was miso soup, chicken teriyaki, a salad, rice, yam fries, and a California roll. Great deal! The food looked really good, and I liked the yam fries!

I ordered their Takoyaki ($5.99) which was very round, fresh, and delicious! The outside was crispy, the insides fluffy and creamy, and good size. I really enjoyed them!

RetroGirl and I both ordered the Everything Combo ($9.99). It comes with miso soup, 2 tuna and 2 salmon sashimi, 1 ebi, 1 tuna and 1 salmon sushi, and a dynamite roll. They had run out of tuna so we just got 4 pieces of salmon sashimi (which I don't mind at all). I swapped out my ebi for another piece of salmon. Everything was very fresh and the salmon was wild salmon. The dynamite roll didn't use crab meat, which was quite refreshing with the crunchy shrimp tempura.

Overall, I really enjoyed the food. If I had stayed with the cheaper options, my meal could easily have been under $10-- pretty amazing for quality Japanese food! =D

Pepper Lunch: Simple meat, rice, sizzle-- but salty.

After a whole afternoon of AYCS (all-you-can-sing), we were famished! We found our way over to Pepper Lunch as I've been super excited to try it and TheVoice approved.

Restaurant: Pepper Lunch Canada (visit their website here)

Location: 5951 No. 3 Road, Richmond
Cuisine: Teppanyaki
Price range: $15 (on average)




Date of visit: May 4, 2015
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4.5/5
Food variety: 3/5
Food quality: 4/5
Buck worthy? 4/5

TheVoice recommended Kobe Beef Burger and Sliced Angus Steak ($12.95), and Adorables ordered it (and didn't take a picture, shame on him). It was actually quite a good portion, the beef burger was moist and full of umami. The sliced Angus steak was similarly tender and juicy, went super well with the rice.

I got their Pork Pepper Rice ($8.50) and combo'd it up to get miso soup and pop for $2.75. The pork was raw and cooking, when i flipped it over, it was a nice golden color. Sizzle sizzle! Deliciously juicy, but I added extra garlic sauce (came in a bottle) which was a bad idea. The whole thing became too salty =/ It came with rice in the middle, corn, some beige paste, and pepper. Tasty where I didn't over sauce =P It was big enough that I couldn't finish it myself.

I would say it's good food for the price, with some fun to it. They come really quickly too, so the longest part was waiting for a table! TheVoice said that the crazy expensive dishes aren't worth it though, heard something similar from another friend too, so I would say, stick to the basics! It's solid. Sizzle on!