Coast Restaurant : Cocktail Hour

Coast is my favourite Glowbal Collection restaurant and the reason as to why will sound pretty silly. It is my favourite restaurant out of the collection because the hostesses are very well trained! Every time I pass by Coast or before entering, the hostesses always smile and say hello every single time. Every. Singe. Time. Including whenever I am only passing by and have no intention of dining at the restaurant. Yet I can never say the same for Black + Blue or Italian Kitchen, including when I have plans to dine at those restaurants! Weird right? I honestly love the hostesses at Coast.

Another reason as to why I prefer Coast is because of the atmosphere, which has a lot of potential to be more extravagant. Coast has a private dining area, lounge, seafood bar at the centre of the restaurant, heated patio seats and two floors. The dark blue tiffany seats allure me the most and I feel like it adds a feminine touch making it a great restaurant choice for a girls night out. My sister and I dropped by after work to try Coast's Cocktail Hour however, which offers a selection of food at 50% off.

Cafe Salade de Fruits

Tucked in the French Cultural Centre on West 7th is a casual French bistro serving good quality food with fine dining service, Cafe Salade de Fruits. For a few years now I have heard a lot of about the bistro such as the prices are reasonable, mussels are a must order and the place is small so make sure to make reservations. Fortunately arriving out of the blue on a weeknight reservations were not needed! I still recommend reservations however since there are not many seats.

Cafe Salade has a homey and inviting atmosphere from the friendly staff with authentic thick French accents to the dim lighting. When you walk in, you notice the high ceiling immediately along with the brick wall above the kitchen and the wooden tables along with chairs. After seating, our server took our order and when we asked if she could make sure not all the dishes are sent out at once, she responded, "why would anyone ever do that?". And I was like girl... every restaurant always does that to us! So I knew we were off to a great start for dinner already.

Angie's Malaysian Eatery

Angie's Malaysian Eatery is a small family run restaurant where the husband is the chef, the wife handles the front of the house and their children help out whenever needed. The restaurant is small with less than ten tables available and has a homey atmosphere, as if you are having dinner at a friend's. From the fabric table cloths to how place mats are placed underneath every plate, the little things add to the homey vibe.

A chalkboard menu is posted at the back of the restaurant with photographs attached and the owners also came by to show us pictures of each dish that the restaurant has to offer. On top of that, the owners provided a thorough description and were helpful in explaining what each dish was like, which we found helpful for those who are not familiar with Bruneian cuisine.

Shirakawa by Itoh Dining

RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED

It is pretty evident that I fell off the blogging world for a while and writing about older restaurant experiences do not always work out, especially in this case because Shirakawa closed their doors. Shirakawa was a Japanese restaurant located in Gastown, Downtown Vancouver that offered modern and traditional cuisine. And of course the authenticity of the restaurant appeared to be a wow factor as well.

Floor to ceiling glass windows, an open kitchen and the irezumi mural were my biggest eye catchers when I walked in to the restaurant. The atmosphere also makes Shirakawa one of those Japanese restaurants that are not on the top of my list to visit because I worry the quality is not there or the quality does not match the higher prices, but I decided to make a visit for lunch. You never know until you try right?

Sushi Loku

Sushi Loku has been on my list of restaurants to try for the longest time, like two years! It is one restaurant where I have very high expectations for because after spending hours looking through every photo I could find on Zomato, Yelp and Instagram, I determined that Sushi Loku is one restaurant that will consistently serve fresh sashimi. From the sashimi to the nigiri and even the carpaccio that Sushi Loku offers, I could not find one slice of oxidized Hamachi. And hamachi is one type of sashimi where the freshness cannot be questioned because the color does not lie.

So after sampling ten wine chickens to determine which restaurant offers the best for the Chinese Restaurant Awards of 2016, Sherman and I headed to Sushi Loku for dinner. The restaurant is not very big and there are around less than fifteen tables. The seating arrangements are not cramped however and there are a a couple of seats by the sushi bar. A thank you to Sherman for taking some of the photos for me too!