Shining Garden 麥田餐廳

REVISIT POST ON SHINING GARDEN [HERE]

SECOND REVISIT POST ON SHINING GARDEN [HERE]

THIRD REVISIT POST ON SHINING GARDEN [HERE]

FOURTH REVISIT PST ON SHINING GARDEN [HERE]

On the way to dinner for Japanese, my friend and I noticed a new restaurant, Shining Garden. Shining Garden is the new replacement of Ming Dynasty which I have never visited, but have always wanted to. Walking up to the banner, my first impression, live seafood? Hmm, perhaps a newly renovated upscale Chinese restaurant. My second impression, wonton noodle and bubble tea? Maybe not so upscale after all. Giving up the option of going for Japanese, we decided to try the new restaurant. Plus, the photo of the claypot rice sausage posted outside restaurant is what sold my friend.

Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted as well as seated by the friendly and welcoming staff. On a weeknight, there was a birthday party going on with an extended family that used up three private rooms. The restaurant's interior is spacious as well as comfortable, and booth seating arrangements are available along the far wall.

Jeong Ga Nae

After having dinner at Wang Ga Ma, I was craving for BBQ meat which they do not serve. So, the next day I made a trip to Jeong Ga Nae. Searching for some Korean restaurants, Jeong Ga Nae caught my attention. Well, the restaurant did not catch my attention, the slightly cheaper $23.95 pork bone hot pot caught my attention.

The restaurant is located by Coquitlam Centre, and is pretty small with less than fifteen tables and one private room. We were seated immediately, neglected for only a short period of time (not a big deal), and had to move tables because only certain tables are set up for table top barbecuing.

Wang Ga Ma

Wang Ga Ma is located in Korea Town at the Hainan Plaza in Burquitlam. The restaurant was actually a first choice on the night I visited Toe Dam Korean (which is located at the Hainan Plaza as well), but I passed because Wang Ga Ma does not serve BBQ meat dishes. I have mentioned before on my first Korean restaurant post (Jang Mo Jib) that I am not a fan of Korean cuisine, other than their BBQ meat dishes. However, lately I have been craving for Korean food. Is it because I am used to eating Korean food, or that I am having too much Chinese food? Either way, on a cold and dark evening, Wang Ga Ma sounded good for some soup.

The menu is quite limited compared to other Korean restaurants, which gives the impression that any dish will taste good because the restaurant chooses to specialize in only a few dishes. When entering the restaurant, the staff is extremely friendly, greets you in Korean, and continues speaking Korean when letting you pick any seat you want. Wang Ga Ma has a welcoming homestyle vibe, and only booth seating options.

Malay Curry House 馬拉星

Malay Curry House is the only Malaysian cuisine restaurant on Kingsway. After reading a few reviews, the restaurant seemed worthy to visit.

The restaurant's interior resembles a small bubble tea joint and has four tables for two, and four tables for four. I appreciate that the restaurant is quite spacious (even though it is smaller restaurant) and they do not try to squeeze a few extra tables in.

DRINK, MALAYSIAN ROTI WITH CURRY SAUCE, BONELESS HAINAN CHICKEN, BAH-KUT-T, HERBAL PORK RIB SOUP, SZECHUAN BEEF BRISKET POT, BEEF, LAMB, AND CHICKEN SATAY, HOUSE SPECIAL LAMB CURRY, AND COCONUT STEAMED RICE.

Spicy Legend 紅錦天

RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED

Spicy Legend is an all you can eat hot pot restaurant on Kingsway, next to the busy Congee Noodle King. Oddly enough, the idea of coming here has never been welcomed by anyone that I know (why?!). Also, I always assume that since Congee Noodle King gets random long line ups, a lot of customers would pass and walk next door to Spicy Legend because I know I have wanted to many times. So, finally after a few years, one of my friends caved and decided to try the restaurant with me. On a Saturday evening, the restaurant was quite empty which I prefer, but many find it "odd" or claim there must be something wrong with the restaurant. The restaurant's interior is very spacious and the chairs as well as tables stick to a red and black theme.

After walking up to the waitress, she tells us where to sit and hands us an order sheet. The menu has a large  variety of dishes that are not normally offered at hot pot restaurants, such as frog, rabbit, and a lot of cooked dishes. Although unfortunately, those dishes are crossed out so ordering them was no longer an option. Spicy Legend does have a few items such as cauliflower, rice cake, chicken heart, chicken and duck gizzard, and pork membrane for those who are interested.

ADULT $18.95 CHILDREN (4-12) $14.95

BROTH $7.95-$8.95, $10.95 OR $2.00 MORE FOR LARGE

POP $1.50

Red Robin : Burnaby location

The only reason I am here, to collect BIRTHDAY BURGERS! For those who sign up for Red Robin's subscription, you recieve a coupon for a free burger to use a week before or after your birthday. Obviously I signed up before my birthday, who would not (actually many people..)? Since I have the fortunate opportunity to dine out everyday, my original plan was to sign up for discounted or free meals at a few restaurants and to share the discounts. However, due to my laziness (plus I was sick on my birthday week), I never got the chance to claim anything except for Red Robin's burgers. The good news is, BF and I's birthday are close to each others and we claimed both our birthday burgers at the same time, bonus.

Red Robin is a family friendly chain restaurant known for their burgers and bottomless fries. The restaurant is very spacious and the clientele pretty much runs from seniors to adults, university to high school students, and families. After waiting fifteen minutes at the foyer, a hostess shows up but was occupied and the waitress following her said, "she has a system, I don't want to seat you guys and have her move you after." I was a bit surprised hearing that, has that happened? I never had or heard of any table having to move after being seated due to a hostess's preference (especially if the restaurant was empty).

Red Robin is the only family friendly restaurant (I know of) that provides individually wrapped crayons and I like that children can take them home after. The downside, if children do not take them home, it is pretty much garbage for the restaurant and not re-used which is a wasteful.

SAUTEED 'SHROOM MURGER, R'Rs BUZZARD WINGS, ULTIMATE CAESAR, AND BONZAI BURGER.

Top Gun Hot Pot 尖東火鍋

Top Gun Hot Pot is a part of the Top Gun chain which includes Kingsway Sushi, Richmond Sushi (my favourite AYCE Japanese restaurant), Top Gun J&C and Garden City Hot Pot. The restaurant is located in Crystal Mall and I believe this is the priciest AYCE hot pot joint. I used to come here a lot in high school based on convenience and despite the average food, it is the unlimited sauce cart that is the highlight! However, there is no more sauce cart. As for the menu, there is a regular along with a deluxe option now. The biggest differences would be the deluxe menu offers salmon sashimi, hokkigai, angus beef, top grade beef and quail eggs.

As for the interior, the restaurant is fairly large, spacious, and has comfortable seating arrangements. Moreover, there is a large amount of booth seats available and quite a few tables for larger parties of eight to ten. I definitely recommend reservations if you are picky and prefer a booth seat (like me). 

DELUXE $27.97 || CHILD (5-9) $16.95 || ADULT $21.95 || CHILD (5-9) $12.95

BROTH $9.95 || POP $2.25

Cattle Hot Pot Restaurant 牛仔火鍋

A rainy night in Vancouver calls for hot pot and I want to kill my cravings until I am sick of it. Any hot pot restaurant gets extremely busy in the winter, thirty minutes to an hour and a half wait? No thanks! Plus, most AYCE hot pot restaurants are the same to me and the only reason I visit certain ones, are for certain dishes. Why Cattle Hot Pot? I like their deep fried tofu skin and deep fried buns! However, I try to avoid coming here because the restaurant is smaller than most hot pot restaurants and the wait times are quite long. Also, the waitresses are not very friendly either.

Cattle Hot Pot is a restaurant that gets busy fast, or there are the random dinner times when they only have two seated tables (which happened the next day when we visited Old Buddie's Seafood). The restaurant has around ten to twelve tables for two to four, and four larger tables for six or more. I definitely recommend reservations for those who have no patience or hate waiting. Fortunately we were lucky and there was one table available. Unfortunately though, that one table took twenty five minutes for someone to finally clean up.

ADULT $18.95 CHILDREN (3-11) $14.95

BROTH $7.00, MIX $10.00, POP 2/$1.00

Old Buddies Seafood Restaurant 尚品海鮮麵館

Old Buddies Seafood is a newly opened restaurant on Alexandra Road in Richmond, next to Cattle Hot Pot. The restaurant is a lower middle class Chinese restaurant with fancy decor and the interior looks modern, following a colour scheme of taupe, grey and beige. Also, the restaurant is quite large with eight to ten faux leather booth seatings and a lot of tables with custom made chairs.

TOFU PUDDING, READ BEAN SOUP, SALTY EGG AND MUSTARD VEGETABLE WITH SLICED PORK SOUP, LAMB AND TOFU SKIN HOT POT , HOUSE SPECIAL PLATTER, CREAM AND BUTTER SAUCE, AND STEAMED EGG YOLK AND MINCED PORK ON CUCUMBER.

Toe Dam Korean Fusion BBQ

REVISIT POST ON TOE DAM KOREAN FUSION BBQ [HERE]

"Hey, I'm going to do laundry in a bit, wanna go for Korean BBQ right now?". North Road in Burquitlam is known as Korea town, the location of many Korean cuisine restaurants. So, having trouble picking which Korean restaurant to visit, we chose Toe Dam because of their advertised table top BBQ outside the restaurant.

Coming on a Saturday around 5:30pm, we were second in line with five other people following shortly. The restaurant's interior is long and narrow with private rooms along one side, and booth seatings on the other. The restaurant is a bit small with only five private rooms for six to eight people, and five to seven booths. 

Hong Sushi

Hong Sushi is a small Chinese owned, Japanese cuisine restaurant in North Burnaby on Hastings Street. I have passed the restaurant numerous times but never thought much of them. However, after reading a few posts on Urbanspoon, I decided to visit the restaurant for a late lunch. As we entered the restaurant, the staff was having lunch and one of them immediately got up to grab us tea. The restaurant has geisha photos on one side of the wall and photos of their dishes on the other. Since the restaurant is a small sushi joint, most people grabbed take out or had a quick five to ten minute meal. The restaurant only has six single chairs, two tables for four, and one table for two. 

The larger tables have plastic spoons, containers for wasabi and soy sauce, chopsticks and napkins. After waiting a while for the menu, I realized they are on the table! The most mentioned thing about the restaurant are the styrofoam plates. Am I fan? I consider them more sanitary but also a waste for the environment.. I do like them though.

COMBO A (CALIFORNIA ROLL, SALMON NIGIRI, TUNA NIGIRI, EBI NIGIRI, AND TAMAGO NIGIRI), TUNA AND SALMON SASHIMI, ASSORTED SASHIMI, CHEF ROLL, PASSION ROLL, AND SOFT SHELL CRAB TEMPURA.

Onyx Steakhouse and Lounge : Port Moody location

"Our certified premium black angus signature reserve steaks are seasoned with our signature onyx rub and are a minimum of 40 day dry aged." Since the end of June I have visited the following steakhouses, Keg Coquitlam, Gotham, Chop, Hy's, Keg Burnaby, Joe Fortes and Little Billy's Steak House (uhhh does Hawkworth's $125.00 crappy steak count even though the restaurant is not a steakhouse?). With the idea of visiting every steakhouse, the next restaurant on the list was Onyx. Onyx is located in Port Moody and the restaurant's location somewhat resembles a mini neighbourhood with high rise apartments and a variety of stores.

Coming on a weeknight at 8:00pm, the restaurant was quite empty with only one seated table. Although I assumed that the restaurant would be empty, I still made reservations through OpenTable for 100 points. When entering the restaurant, I was surprised to see an electric fire place in the foyer. For those looking for a job as a host, this is the restaurant to choose! Speaking of host, we waited seven to ten minutes until the cook said, "there's people at the door" which got his attention. The host was friendly as well as informative and asked if this was our first visit, also mentioning that Onyx started a new menu since last Tuesday (although I was a bit confused since I remember looking at their menu a month ago and it was the same). The restaurant has two floors and reservations are definitely recommend, the seating arrangements on the first floor look cramped. Plus, booth seats are probably the most comfortable and spacious option.

After reading quite a few mixed reviews, I was hesitant on bringing BF here since he is against the whole "trying new restaurants", especially if most reviews are not good. However, I persuaded him to try Onyx because of a free coupon from their subscription for a free entree up to $20.00.

ONYX TUNA TACOS, 10oz FILET MIGNON, ROLLS, 16oz BONE IN RIB STEAK, MUSHROOMS DUO, CREAMED CORN AND BACON, AND BUTTERMILK CALAMARI.

Empire Chinese Cuisine 金粵軒海鮮酒家 : Alaskan King Crab

ALASKAN KING CRAB POST AT TOP CANTONESE [HERE]

ALASKAN KING CRAB POST AT GOLDEN SWAN [HERE]

Empire Chinese Cuisine used to be one restaurant serving two types of cuisine, Cantonese Chinese and Hong Kong western style. The restaurant closed for a year or two due to lack of business and is now categorized as a middle class Chinese restaurant (pretty sure with same the owners). My family and family friends claim that the dishes at Empire Chinese are slightly cheaper than Kirin by $1.00 or so, and the quality is better. "So… why not king crab?", that is how the dinner started. 

Hearing from quite a few people (mainly parents and family friends), apparently Chinese restaurants advertise in the Chinese newspaper! We already arrived at Sun Sui Wah but thought why not save some money and take a look? Leaving to a gas station and spending $0.85 on the newspaper, we looked through the deals offered by a few restaurants. Most of the prices for king crab ranged from $14.99/lb to $23.95/lb and we chose the Empire ($19.80/lb) because it is a middle class restaurant. Plus, the price is cheaper than the $23.95/lb and it is more of a thrill when you get a better deal LOL. Also, most of the cheaper priced king crabs were at dive restaurants and I rather pay an extra $3.00/lb for a "nicer" restaurant. When I saw the Empire in the newspaper, I assumed it was the Empire Seafood on No. 3 and was quite excited to try their dinner since the dim sum is not so great there. However, the ad was for Empire Chinese on Alexandra and this would be my first visit.

Since Empire Chinese previously served two different styles of Chinese cuisine, the restaurant has two sides which look quite different. One side has wooden chairs with cushions, gold coloured drapes and nice chandeliers… while the other side has very cheap looking banquet chairs (resembles Sing Kee's LOL), no chandeliers (there is a dome roof though) and long plain red drapes. We got stuck on the uglier side.

SPICY ALASKAN KING CRAB KNUCKLES, STEAMED ALASKAN KING CRAB LEGS WITH GARLIC, BAKED ALASKAN KING CRAB FRIED RICE WITH PORTUGUESE CURRY SAUCE, DRIED SEAFOOD AND SHREDDED DUCK SOUP, SAUTEED CHINESE SAUSAGE WITH GAI LAN, RED BEAN SOUP, CHINESE ALMOND COOKIES AND CHINESE SESAME BALL COOKIES.

Come Along Seafood Restaurant 金龍船海鮮酒家 : Dinner

DIM SUM POST ON COME ALONG [HERE]

REVISIT POST FOR DINNER ON COME ALONG [HERE]

Passing Come Along on the way to Chong's for dinner, we noticed a sign outside the restaurant, "large crabs for $9.99/lb". After reading that, of course we had to come along (...) for dinner the next evening. As for my previous visits, dim sum at Come Along has always been inconsistent with more misses than hits (not horrible misses) and for dinner (actually dim sum too), the staff is not very friendly. 

Furthermore, my "personal grudges" for not revisiting is due to one of the waiters who constantly changes plates more often than needed (not in the nice offered way, more like.. it is my job, give me your plate so I can get it over with), and threw out two untouched crab legs. Sounds silly but with the dim sum experiences added up, the last straw was the loss of crab legs LOL.  Plus, it is not a loss for me if I stop coming here. Anyways, this visit was an exception though, who can pass on $9.99/lb for crab?!

The interior of the restaurant sticks to a colour scheme of red as well as gold, and white. As for the seating arrangements, the restaurant is not necessarily spacious or cramped, and there are quite a few larger tables for parties of eight to ten. Side note, from all the Chinese restaurant "finds" that I have been dining at recently, it does feel more comfortable having dinner at a cleaner restaurant LOL.