DOV 2018: Fishworks, wonderful staff and seafood!

Restaurant: Fishworks (visit their website here)

Location: 91 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver
Cuisine: Seafood
Dineout Price: $30 lunch and dinner menu

Date of visit: January 20, 2018
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 5/5
Food variety: 4.5/5
Food quality: 4/5
Buck worthy? 4/5

For our second dineout, Adorables and I had a double date with my parents in scenic Lonsdale. I apologize in advance for the quality of photos this time as our key equipment (the camera) was left at home for safety due to heavy rain. I was quite excited about the menu, with three selections for each course and dominant in seafood. A nice intimate storefront, we felt welcomed by the friendly staff. 

While waiting for our meals to arrive, we were served warm foccacia bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar dip. I missed the explanation of what the creamy ball on top was, but it was delicious with hints of sesame oil and chickpea-based. This went well with the soft fragrant bread.

Appetizers

Albacore Tuna Poke
avocado, mango, edamame, mixed greens, sesame seeds, tamari, wasabi aioli, brown rice
Presented in a large clear bowl, this was a colorful dish, albeit a tad messy. A good balance of every ingredient. The salad portion had bigger pieces which didn't go well with other finer ingredients. Everyone agreed it was too saucy and could have been more tart. Fresh and refreshing though!

Prawns Po'Boy Taco
fresh tomato salsa, cilantro aioli, pickled Spanish onion
This beauty came with two golden prawns stacked high and topped with the fresh salsa and onion on a bed of cilantro aioli and soft taco. The shrimp was fresh, had good crunch, and went well with the whole taco. Favorite appy out of them all!

Vegan Cream of Mushroom
coconut milk, wild mushroom, leeks
Adorables asked why I took a photo of soup because it was just soup, but we need photo evidence for everything eaten right? A simple soup of literally minced wild mushroom and coconut milk with some shredded leeks, this was as simple as it got. The coconut milk was fragrant and dominant in the soup, you taste the mushroom after a little while.

Bonus: Crabcakes
We were informed of this fourth option by our server when he was explaining the dineout menu for us, what a treat! More variety! This appeared with a small salad and tartar sauce spread beside the browned crabcake. He mentioned a wasabi aoili with the crabcakes but we didn't taste any traces of that. It was packed full of crab and fresh, however didn't scream anything spectacular to us.

Entrees

Pork Osso Bucco
pork crackling, carrot, celery, potato puree, red wine sauce
Ok. I knew this was a seafood restaurant, but had to try everything in their offerings so this was also ordered. Presentation-wise, perfectly traditional-looking osso bucco. The sauce is runny and made the dish look a bit messy with everything splattered. However, it looked succulent atop the potato puree in red wine sauce. Pork was dry in some parts and too salty for our liking. Pork crackling needed more presence in the dish, almost had to dig around to find it, but it was light and crispy when found.

Wild Salmon
poached lobster, sauce American, winter vegetable
The highlight of the entrees, the salmon was presented beautifully atop perfectly seasoned and cooked winter veggies. I was actually expecting a poached lobster tail instead of the little bits scattered on top, but enjoyed the buttery bites nonetheless. The salmon was perfectly cooked and paired well with the sauce. A dish full of flavor, my mouth still remembers the rich buttery lobster mixed with the salmon.

Mussels & Risotto
fresh basil, sweet peas, sardo cheese
I admired the detail they put into placing all the mussels open-side up to receive the risotto. A deceivingly simple dish, this was remarkably full of flavor. The mussels were fresh and delectable. The risotto was rich, creamy, and exquisite. Some grains weren't cooked through and we found it almost too overpowering in flavors (too salty).

Desserts

Tiramisu
coffee syrup
Ah, onto my favorite part of the meal-- dessert! Now, this tiramisu wasn't outstanding in appearance, but it was light, not overly sweet, and perfectly balanced with the coffee and cream. Everyone enjoyed this dish. One note is that it is a bit too moist.

Pistachio Ice Cream
saffron biscuits
This was neatly arranged in a cup but partially melted already. Unsure if the biscuit had saffron, not too strong. The ice cream itself was marvelous. A light cream swirled in with crushed pistachio to create a memorable icy treat. Contrasted well with the tart berries for an indulgent experience.

Vanilla Panna Cotta
strawberry compote
My personal favorite, this beautiful panna cotta was simple and delicately plated. I dug into the creamy panna cotta and topped it with the sweet and tangy strawberry compote for a heavenly combination of flavors. Alone, the strawberry compote would've been too sweet but with the panna cotta it was perfect.

Our server was attentive, funny, interactive and quite interested in NotMooStachio's story! Definitely enjoyed our meal more at Fishworks because of him! Portion sizes were on the smaller side, but we all went home stuffed.

We ended our meal with complimentary fish-shaped truffles, which were rich, smooth, and deliciously bitter. Bravo!

Captain's Boil: Pricey but fresh!

A new Captain's Boil in Coquitlam! Much excite =D Since we got a coupon in the mail for a free pound of shrimp/mussels/clams, I've been itching to come!







Restaurant: The Captain's Boil (visit their website here)

Location: 1111 Ponderosa Street, Coquitlam
Cuisine: Seafood, Cajun/Creole, Asian Fusion
Price range: $20+/person




Date of visit: December 15, 2017
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 1.5/5
Food variety: 2/5
Food quality: 4.5/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

Found some time to bring my parents to try, we waited about 15 minutes for seats. They cover their table with a paper sheet and have plastic bibs and gloves placed on the table.

They have a simple menu with seafood, flavor, and heat.

Look at the cute sailor bibs!

Anyhow, I wanted to try the clams, but they had just run out *cries* so we ended up with two items with the same flavor. First to arrive was our Mussels in a bag ($13/lb) in mild garlic sauce. I found it quite spicy already, loved the strong garlic though. If only it weren't so salty! Mussels were fresh and felt like more than one pound. There were 16 nicely sized mussels in the bag.

The downer of the meal was the Fish Dinner ($10.95), otherwise known as Teriyaki Fish on their menu. It comes on a sizzling plate with white rice and deep fried fish. The fish was salty and dry inside a thick layer of batter which was made even drier by the hot plate. It came with soy sauce for the rice. Not a big portion of rice. But to be fair, they're not known for their sizzling plates.

And then finally we ordered the King Crab (seasonal price, tonight it was $44.95/lb). I was impressed with the one leg that came in a bag, the garlic sauce didn't quite touch the leg but that's ok, we just opened it to dip. I expected a frozen leg but this was fresh and the meat was nice and flush to the shell. A giant leg, succulent flesh, it was moist and meaty.

Look at the size of it in my hand (it's de-shelled!)

And this was the damage, they claim to use biodegradable bags, so kudos to them! I really don't hope to see all this waste end up polluting the oceans =(

Alas, it was a pricey meal but satisfying. Service is a bit slow, but the servers were friendly. I know people are complaining about the paper/plastic cups and lack of true utensils, but perhaps they're forgetting the fun of eating with our hands-- which I feel is the reason why I'm paying so much money to eat at The Captain's Boil in the first place!

Yoon's Kitchen: New Korean Fusion in the neighborhood!

Seeing Sushi & Roll close down was disheartening to me, since I did enjoy their food, but seeing a new Korean restaurant in this area was equally exciting (I think it just opened this month, not even Yelp/Zomato official yet!). There aren't many Korean joints around this location, so it's a wonderful addition (I hope they can continue and stay!).



Restaurant:  Yoon's Kitchen

Location: 3017 St. John's Street
Cuisine: Korean, Japanese, Asian fusion
Price range: $20+ per person




Date of visit: November 29, 2017
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4.5/5
Food variety: 5/5
Food quality: 4/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

The place was pretty empty when we got there around 6pm, 3 tables of people. We were greeted warmly and seated promptly. The place looked clean and neat. I guess the fusion part is that they still offer some Japanese sushi.

First to arrive was the Bossam ($18.99) which is a boiled pork belly dish with sauce and wrapped in greens. The pork was nicely marbled and seasoned well. The napa cabbage it came with was crisp and contrasted well with the soft, melt-in-your-mouth pork belly. I'm not sure what the spicy dish was but it tasted like radish, and added crunch and flavor to the bite. Side dishes weren't remarkable, there was kimchi, bean sprouts, zucchini slices, and a ball of sweet mashed potato.

I couldn't resist getting a sushi roll and I love scallops so I got Under the Sea ($6.95). This is a torched spicy chopped scallop roll with surprise cream cheese. I say surprise because it wasn't a listed item on the menu. Overall the taste was average, fresh scallops were overwhelmed by the cream cheese and sauce. I wish they had went easy on the spicy sauce, otherwise a well made roll.

Can't forget the Korean style rolls so we settled on the original Gyori Kimbab ($5.25) with fried egg, spinach, crabmeat, fishcake, pickled radish, burdock, and carrot. This was the only dish that was good bang for its buck. The roll was quite large in comparison the the previous and although simple, the flavors went well together and in good proportion. I enjoyed this quite a bit!

Onto hot foods! We got their Soon Dubu Jjigae ($11.99)--otherwise known as soft tofu stew. We chose the mix, which included seafood and beef. Considering how much I'm paying for it, I was disappointed with the quality of this. It wasn't as rich as I'd had at other places and a little on the salty side. No egg went with it either.

The rice that accompanied the dish was really well made though, and they pour cold water (which the waitress leaked all over my jacket and didn't notice, but we'll let that slide) over the hot stone bowl with the remaining rice to make a soft rice stew thing. The pot was so hot it boiled out of the pot!

Silly us, we got another rice dish, the Hot Stone Bibimbab ($12.99) had mixed veggies, beef, and an egg atop rice. Bowl was big but the ingredients only filled half the bowl, which kinda makes it look bad. It tasted good though! The hot stone kept the rice warm for the duration of our meal and we got crispy rice at the end, one of my dad's favorite parts of the meal!

Before we got our bill, the waitress brought us a sweet rice drink (on the house). I hear that rice water brightens and whitens the skin, so maybe this is the secret to how Koreans maintain their beautiful complexions! Anyways, it was a light sweet drink and quite nice to end the meal. My mom thought it was a little too sweet for her liking.

Overall, I enjoyed the meal. The food was above average and flavors were great. Service was friendly and almost the right amount (sometimes it was hard to find anyone since there's only two people running the front). Not that great quantity-to-price-wise because this isn't Vancouver, people will expect more food for the same price since there's a lot of competition around with equal quality and price but more quantity-- people want good food for a good price. Alas, they're still pretty new, I don't even know when they officially opened (or maybe they're not), a good location for them though and I see a lot of potential!

Castle BBQ: Fresh, affordable Korean BBQ

Happy Canada Day, and surprise! We're in LA for Anime Expo =D (semi-sad we're missing out on our own 150th anniversary celebrations in the homeland) Had a long day of shoots, and finally finished around 9:30pm. Famished, we decided some AYCE KBbq was much needed to fill our empty tummies.

Restaurant: Castle B.B.Q.

Location: 473 North Western Avenue, Los Angeles
Cuisine: Korean, BBQ, AYCE
Price range: $15-30 per person (depending which tier you choose)

Date of visit: July 1, 2017
Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 4.5/5
Food variety: 3/5
Food quality: 5/5
Buck worthy? 5/5

I don't know how Adorables found this gem of a place, but we got here and waited around 10 minutes to get a spot. We had a chance to look at their menu outside, they have three options for AYCE ($11.99, $14.99, and $18.99). We got AYCE B which was $14.99 with 21 items to choose from. AYCE A has 10 items, AYCE C has 25 items.

The waitress keyed in my items as I ordered, which was very efficient. It was unclear until we go the bill how many orders of everything I had gotten because we got quite a few pieces (which freaked me out as the meat started appearing in large sizes and portions). The table was already set up with a giant bowl of rice, salad, and six side dishes.

The food arrived super fast, we got all the meats within 5 minutes of ordering then the steamed egg and corn cheese took a little longer. First to arrive was the Rib Finger Meat which was placed on the grill upon arrival. The meat was fresh and tender, evenly marbled, and lightly marinated. Delicious with a bite of rice!

Next was the LA Rib (limited to 2 per person), this was a bit fatty and not great cuts. However, still tender and yummy marinated in traditional sweet soy sauce.

Then the Herb Pork Belly arrived and that's when I started panicking since the pork belly slices were HUGE! And there were 4 pieces too! Oh goodness. The meat itself was very fresh and beautifully marbled layers of fat and pork. This was not marinated, so it got a bit boring to chew on near the end.

Here's my reaction face:

One might ask what Prime Flower Steak is, but for me, I just order it to try because, why not? This was a lean cut of meat with no marinating. I quite liked it since it was tender even though it was so lean. Strong bold beef flavors could be tasted in this cut.

We saw Corn Cheese was a new menu item for an added $2.99 and thought, sure-- best was when we found out it was part of our menu (1 per 2 people) at no extra charge! This was literally cheese on top of corn. Very sweet corn, soft, and an adequate amount of cheese. Great for us especially since we're on vacation-- source of fibre xD

I had to try their Steamed egg as well, which was delicious! Basically steamed egg in a hotpot with some seasoning. The egg was fragrant, fluffy, and smooth. It got a bit filling after a few bites though.

Back to those side dishes that existed on the table before we were seated (freshly pre-placed at the table). Nothing special about them, there was bean sprouts, sliced cucumber, kimchi, macaroni salad, pickled raddish, and rice roll (for wrapping meats in).

The salad was tossed in a mild kimchi vinaigrette sauce, proving to be quite refreshing after many bites of pork belly.

Overall it was a great experience with friendly and quick service, fresh food, and a happy wallet. We paid around $38USD for two people including tax and tips.