Benjarong Thai: Mini portions, all too sweet

Been craving pad thai for a while now, so why not use my Groupon deal?

Restaurant: Benjarong Thai Cuisine (visit their website here)

Location: 2120 West Broadway, Vancouver
Cuisine: Thai
Price range: $25+ per person



Date of visit: September 9, 2015
Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 3/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 2/5
Buck worthy? 2/5

The Groupon was $25 for a Three-Course Thai Dinner for Two (one shared appetizer, two entrees, and one shared dessert). Felt like a pretty good deal, and we also ordered a bit more on the side. Our first appie was Crispy Calamari ($6.00). There were four pieces on the plate, the batter was soggy and oily-- and the mayo sauce made it more sickeningly unappetizing. Honestly expected a crispier experience with more pieces.

Our other appie was the New Zealand Mussel with Thai Herb ($6.50). This was less disappointing, but again, tiny portion with 6 mussels in the pot. The broth the mussels were cooked in was overwhelmingly herby to the point the mussels didn't taste like mussels. Neither were the mussels fresh... they were just frozen mussels. The house special spicy seafood dipping sauce was good though, with a hint of mint in it!

Onto the mains, I ordered a Pad Thai with Chicken ($12.00) to curb my cravings. I think they have an abundance of sugar in the kitchen, as this was super sweet. I felt like I was having dessert for a main. Aside from that, the noodles were nice and chewy and the beansprouts added a refreshing texture to the dish. Might I also mention is was very oily?

Our second main was a Choo Chee Prawn and Scallop Curry ($15.00). This had 4 large prawns, 4 scallops, and some veggies. It came with a bowl of rice and again, the curry itself was too sweet. The scallops were cooked well and the shrimp were fresh. Didn't quite care for this curry but it was one of the better things of the meal.

I ordered a Guava Juice ($2.50) to go with my meal and this was definitely from a can and well, nothing special. Adorables had an equally underwhelming Thai Iced Coffee ($3.00).

The Mango Sticky Rice 1P ($5.95) was by far the highest ranked item on the list of things I'd like to send back to the kitchen. Aside it from being tiny, the rice was hard. Yes, it had undercooked bits mixed with overcooked bits. They got the flavor down, but how can you mess up opening up a can of coconut milk to pour over dessert? The mango was sweet and perfectly ripe though, quite the MVP of this meal.

I don't know if portion sizes are different if we're using a Groupon, but if they weren't... Their prices aren't a good reflection of the quality and quantity delivered. Service was mediocre, they were friendly but it did take some effort to flag anyone down for anything. And as much as I love sweets, I won't be back.

Penang Delight: Mouth on fire

Having fond memories of the food here, and had a craving of laksa, I wandered here with Adorables, hoping to find that delicious laksa I had once upon a time...

Restaurant: Penang Delight Cafe 來檳城美食,  (visit their website here)

Location: 1316 West 73rd Avenue, Vancouver
Cuisine: Malaysian, Singaporean
Price range: $15-30 per person





Date of visit: August 14, 2014
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 4/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

Ordered a Seafood Laksa ($13.95) because I remember how authentic it was the last time I had it. This time looked the same authenticity, but added extra spice. Far spicier than last time for sure =( Anyhow, besides my mouth being on fire, loved the taste of it. They have two kinds of noodles included: vermicelli and egg noodle. I like the mix of noodles with the creamy curry soup base. On top there were some fishcakes, tofu puffs, egg, squid, shrimp, and fish. Not a bad mix but kinda pricey.

Also got an order of Roti Canai ($5.95). These were delicious. Flakey and chewy, the curry dip paired nicely. However, compared to other places, this was quite the expensive dish =(

Staff were quite friendly albeit slow and the food was a bit pricey for my wallet. I kinda knew before, but with the spiciness in the laksa, I found it less worthy of my dollars ^^"

Spoon Kitchen: Keep spooning!

Took us a while to finally arrive here, but here we are! Heard lots of good things about Spoon Kitchen from SexyNapkins, so I decided to snag the coupon deal from BigCityPerks and try it out with Adorables.

Restaurant: Spoon Kitchen (visit their website here)

Location: 1909 W. 4th Avenue, Vancouver
Cuisine: Thai, Malaysian
Price range: $15-20





Date of visit: June 17, 2014
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 3.5/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 3.75/5
Buck worthy? 4.5/5

So the dealio online said 9 courses, but after asking the waiter, he said it was a typo, and it was $25 for 8-course meal for 2 people. I was fine with that, since there was no point arguing anyways xD First to arrive were the appetizers (3 courses).

There was Thai Shrimp Cakes, which were very crispy and fresh. Crispy Fried Calamari was tender and moist inside but I prefer it to be crispier on the outside; the sauces complimented both dishes well. Then there was Roti Canai with coconut curry dipping sauce, both very generic and average. I enjoyed this dish a lot though =)

The Shredded Mango Salad with lime dressing arrived shortly after. It was hard to find the mango, and when I did, they weren't very good. The mango was hard and tart. The whole salad was tart actually. And hard. There were carrots, cucumber, shallots, jicama and mango.

Then came the main dishes (3 courses). Having arrived at the same time, I couldn't decide what to eat first! Everything was getting cold =(

Anyhow, nibbled on the House Green Beans first, they were crunchy and well-done. There was dried shrimp and tomato with some sauce. A little salty for my liking, would've been delicious with some white rice! :)

Moved onto the Gulai Seafood, which was delicious. Could've been spicier but it was plentifully packed with seafood such as squid, shrimp, fish, and mussels. The pineapple, string beans, and peppers complimented the dish well to add some color and tanginess to the sauce. The sauce itself was flavorful with spices and the coconut curry base just shone. I ended up mixing the sauce with the Nasi Goreng, and it was quite interestingly delicious.

Last of the mains was the Nasi Goreng. It was moist and appetizing, great way to finish off my meal before dessert! Tasted even better when I mixed it with the Gulai Seafood hehe =D It was sweet and sour, kinda tomato-y, rice was a bit too soft and broken though.

Finally, dessert! The Pisang Goreng turned out to be deep fried banana with ice cream. It was really good! The banana was lightly battered, crispy, and not overcooked. Ice cream cooled it down just enough in my mouth not to be burned by the freshly deep fried banana! Yum yum!

Oh! Also ordered a Guava Juice ($2.75), tasted like the Sun Tropics stuff you can get from grocery stores haha, but it wasn't too overpriced, so I was fine with it :)

Very satisfied with the meal, took some stuff home as we couldn't finish it, so I would say it's a pretty sweet deal!! Servers were nice albeit a bit hard to flag down (it was nearly empty by the time we got there).

Penang Delight Cafe, Marpole: Delightful indeed!

Night out with my girls! Someone suggested Malaysian which led to Penang being brought up =) Decided to go for the one with a higher rating on Urbanspoon, and glad we did, it was not disappointing!









Restaurant: Penang Delight Cafe 馬來檳城美食 (visit their website here)

Location: 1316 West 73rd Ave., Vancouver
Cuisine: Malaysian
Price range: $20+




Date of visit: July 25, 2013
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 5/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 4.5/5
Buck worthy? 4/5

Wanting to try more variety, we opted to share our food. One thing they lack from the menu are more vegetarian dishes, since CM is vegetarian, there were few choices for us to pick from. They had some interesting drinks, such as the Grass Jelly Soya Bean ($2.95) that DC ordered. Might want to try making it at home too hehe, she said it was good.

Others ordered Teh Tarik ($2.95), which was a Malaysian styled milk tea, and is smoother than your Hong Kong style milk tea. Positive feedback from CM and AH. I ordered a Honey Lemon ($2.30) which was basically Kumquat with honey, a bit bland, could've had a bit more flavor in it =)

Ordered some appies since they included the few vegetarian dishes, first was the Roti Canai ($5.95). There were two fairly large pieces. I quite liked it, very chewy, soft, and flaky at the same time with the curry dip, it was delicious! The dip was a flavorful and rich milky curry. I felt the dish portion itself was not worth $5.95 though.

Then there were Vegetarian Spring Rolls ($4.95) which weren't that amazing. They were pretty tiny and there were four pieces. Freshly made though, and filled with carrot and cabbage, I believe, definitely did not contain everything mentioned on the menu (or it was just my luck in my spring roll).

I really enjoyed their Malaysia Specialty Vegetables ($11.95) which contained okra, eggplant, and string beans with dried shrimp and chili. I think we ordered non-spicy, since it wasn't spicy when I had it. The okra was cooked perfectly, not not slimy and had some crunch to it without it being too raw. The sauce was flavorful but a bit salty and oily, otherwise, executed beautifully.

We were intrigued by their Marmite Shrimp ($18.95) because in Chinese, it translated to "Mommy Shrimp" (literally written like that!). There were 6 shrimp, but they were all very large.

Mines was greater than 3 inches in diameter! They tasted great too, the sauce was a soy saucey base but was sweeter and I think they added a bit more herbs to it. Albeit $18.95 for six shrimps is a bit steep for my financial status =P

For our carbs, we decided on a Curry Laksa with Mixed Vegetables ($9.95). This was the first time I've had something closer to an authentic laksa, since there were two kinds of noodles, yellow egg noodles and rice vermicelli. It was pretty full of ingredients and our server was quite honest that the vegetable option only contained lettuce and tofu.

The double-yolk egg made up for the sad lettuce. It was herby, just they way I like it. Curry base was delicious too, not too overwhelming on the curry part and a bit spicy. Perfect. One of the highlights of the meal.

We were going to order a Hainanese Chicken, but our server recommended the Crispy Duck ($25.95) -- not on the menu so we didn't know it was THAT pricey. Either way, it was very well made and fresh. The duck meat was tender and the skin was crispy. The plum sauce was tasted a little different than what I normally have at Chinese restaurants, but I can't quite put my finger on what. Overall I liked this dish, but $25.95 is too much to pay for half a duck =(

Last to arrive of our mains is another vegetarian dish, Curry Mix Vegetable ($12.95), which came in a nice clay pot. It was bubbling as it arrived, so very fresh! There were lots of onions and cabbage, in addition to okra and eggplant. The curry flavor itself was similar to the Roti's curry dip. It seems as though their vegetables are not very diverse, since most of our dishes consisted of the same veggies in different sauces. Nonetheless, not bad.

Ordered a White Rice ($2.00) to accompany the curry. Look at the tiny spoon =P

To finish our delightful evening, we ordered a Kuih Talam ($4.95), a glutinous steamed cake with pandan and coconut cream layers. This was very intersting because of its serving temperature. I've never had it before, but the temperature was luke-warm. Odd. Anyways, the texture was in between chewy and floury. The pandan flavor was well-balanced, although the coconut flavor was overwhelming the pandan flavor a bit.

The server and owner were all very friendly people, had some nice conversations with them. Enjoyed my evening and we all spent an average of $25 each. A little much for my wallet, but I feel the quality was not all unworthy of this money.

The lovely ladies hoho~

Munchie Adventure: JB Malaysian Cuisine 我來也, Burnaby

Brought my car in for an oil change one day and was in the Metrotown area, so under my aunt's recommendation, went to a tiny little restaurant called JB Malaysian. It wasn't actually that close to Metrotown, about 3-4 blocks away (if I remembered right), and tucked away behind HSBC (as I was walking to it).


Restaurant: JB Malaysian Cuisine
Location: 5212 Kingsway, Burnaby
Cuisine: Malaysian
Price range: less than $15 per dish for lunch
Date of visit: February 22, 2012

Atmosphere: 2/5
Staff/service: 2/5
Food variety: 2.5/5
Food quality: 2.75/5
Buck worthy? 3.75/5

I have to admit, I might be a bit biased because of the restaurant setting, it looked very old-fashioned (a little dirty-looking) inside, and not a lot of tables. When I went, there were two tables with people, and about 5 empty ones. The server looked very insincere, and her attitude showed it too, as if she didn't want to be there. She told us to sit anywhere, but none of the tables farther away from the door (it was windy and cold, so I didn't want to sit right by the door) looked available. We ended up clearing off a table with newspapers (ourselves!) and finally sat down. She brought us tea, which tasted funny-- there was this weird taste to it that I can't quite describe. But when she refilled our tea, I guessed why it tasted funny. Instead of using a teapot to refill our tea, she had this small plastic measuring cup (the 250mL kind), and took three trips to fill all our cups (there were three of us). I didn't mind that too much, but it looks bad, and she never said excuse me or anything when she just pushed between my parents to fill the tea... rather rude if you ask me.

Ok, that was just a lot of complaining about things that shouldn't be the highlight of this page. The food. We didn't know what to order, so we just ordered what we saw the other people were having. There were lunch specials and normal size versions of the dishes, so we ordered from the lunch menu, since it was a little cheaper.

First dish that came, Singaporean Laksa ($7.50):

 This wasn't anything special, you have your shrimp, tofu puffs, fish balls, squid, and noodles in the curry soup. It was a bit on the spicy side (as you'll come to know I can't handle spicy ^^") This turned out to be the best thing we ordered, but it was only mediocre.

Next was the Hainan Chicken ($7.50):

Glad I got a picture in before the rice collapsed-- which usually isn't a good sign. The rice itself was rather broken up, and wasn't cooked very well. The chicken was ok, but seemed like it had been there for a while. The meat was too tender-- almost to the point of over-tenderized. Taste was ok, accompanying carrots and daikon were too sour though.

Then came the Penang Fried Kway Teow ($10):

It didn't taste like the Kuitui one would get at Cantonese restaurants, this one had a soy-sauce base, and there were prawns, pork, fish sticks, scallions, carrots, egg, and bean sprouts with the flat rice noodles. This was ok, except a bit on the oily side.

Most memorable and enjoyable thing at this restaurant? The music in the background. They were playing old songs from probably the 60-70s ;) Until next time~ (sorry if this sounded very negative, but I'm trying to be truthful of my view ;D)