Vancouver Day 2

Vancouver Day 2

Walking around Richmond in the morning is pretty dire. I was hungry it was around 8 am and I wanted a typical Hong Kong breakfast. On my adventures I went into malls and buildings where there were loads of elderly chinese people practicing Tai Chi, maybe that was why nothing was open yet!!!! This meal took me around an hour to find... Thank goodness for my GPS on the iphone <3

E-Canteen (a recommendation by Charles and Mike)

This is Chinese math and food at it's finest. They have a pretty confusing menu.. You get to figure out mathematical formulas for your meal. (Well sort of..) Say...

Section A is like Congee (A1), Noodles (A2), Condensed milk toast (A3)... and Section B

Eggs and toast (B1)..etc, etc.. then you get the Toast and cold drink (C2), Toast and hot drink (C3)...etc..etc.. The lady was going to deny me of my milk tea because i wanted to substitute my regular toast for toast with condensed milk... IT WAS MADNESS... but I got what I wanted =)

Sushi for lunch @____

This was an interesting bento, we have freshly bbq short ribs, a sunomono salad with shrimp, sashimi and chicken karrage. (The chicken was soooo good!)

My misoooo

I knew the ribs were freshly bbq because I saw him do it! Here is the chef bbqing the black cod... yum yum, I tried to make small talk with him about what he was making but he didn't budge and didn't give me any of this delicious looking black cod...

The Reef....

So this part of my blog will be commented on by my friend Jason who was the one who suggested to go to this restaurant and who also informed me that it was dine out week =)

However, he forgot about these bread pudding things.. These are sort of like corn fritters... they are delicious...

You cut them open and spread butter in them, yummm

plaintain chips - interesting starter, the plaintain chips thinly cut and deep-fried make a delectable snack to chomp on. The fried plaintain was crunchy yet slightly tender with a subtle starchy texture which wasn't at all oily. when combined with the wonderful "Jerk Mayo" (a nice mayo-consistancy dipping sauce, with carribean style flavors and bit of kick) made a great app.

Island Thyme Chicken - nice blackened style chicken, very large chicken breast cooked fairly well with an outer layer of different herbs and spices, served with caribbean-style rice. Good dish altogether.

Jerk Chicken - This one was a bit of a conundrum. I've had jerk chicken before and this was obviously not done traditional. Large chicken breast cooked well served with mashed potatoes, covered in supposed "Jerk" sauce with non-traditional spicing, the one thing caught me off guard in the "Jerk" sauce was the coconut milk they added, the sauce was also much thinner than a traditional jerk chicken sauce. However, I do like the "Jerk" sauce they used, it had well-rounded flavours and seemed very versatile (I'm assuming its the same sauce base used in their jerk mayo), didn't have much kick but that could easily be remedied with a bottle of Matouk's. I did like this dish and wouldn't mind it again, but not as a traditional "Jerk chicken".

Ox tail - hands down winner of the night for me. This was more traditional Jamaican style, with the flavours and cooking technique. The ox tail used in this dish was a little fatty but were big ox tail parts and had good meat on the bones. This dish reminded me of the ox tail my grandma used to make, slowly braised in various vegetables and stock to absorb their flavor. The ox tail was very succulent and tender, there wasn't much sauce as the ox tail had absorbed most of the flavours and didn't really require it, served with rice. If there's one dish I'd go back for it's this one, but I also lo' de ox tail man.

Banana Cream Pie - its a banana cream pie, not too sweet, which I like, good.

Overall: good experience. "The Reef" has a bad reputation for terrible service, I didn't really see much of that. Good food, large portions, decent service make a good experience. As long as I don't have to straighten out anybody, if its worth having some bad service for food that makes you feel good, I'm okay with that, you snobby westcoasters.

Pictured below is our fabulous commentator Jason and his hot sauce.

Candy and I =)