Blossom Teas

Blossom Teas is situated in a residential area in North Burnaby, next to Mountain Shadow Pub. Most people only know of Blossom Teas if they live in North Burnaby or by word of mouth. The bubble tea establishment offers an extensive menu from real fruit smoothies, ice cream and yogurt shakes, ice shave, coffee and tea lattes to dessert.

The atmosphere at Blossom Teas is very homey and non-rushed (although the place was not busy when we arrived). There is a fair amount of tables, a sofa, and even a couple of Japanese dart machines. The only reason I chose to visit Blossom Teas is because they offer shaved frozen yogurt! I am not a fan of shaved ice at all because shaved milk/snow ice is way better. Way. Better!

Sushi Giwa

Formerly know as Domenico's Italian along Hastings Street in North Burnaby, is now a newly renovated Korean operated Japanese restaurant. Does North Burnaby need another Japanese restaurant? Well, yes and no. Despite that there are plenty of Japanese restaurants (good, average and bad) in the area, how many are worth revisiting that is not based on convenience?

When we pulled up to the front, I loved the balloon arch along with the balloon flowers! This is definitely something different compared to the usual bouquets of flower that are left outside during restaurant grand openings. As for the interior, there are booth seating arrangements along the walls and the restaurant does not look cramped. In addition, there are a couple of faux trees. From what I remember, the Sushi Mori franchise restaurants were the first to have faux trees.

Sushi Yoi

Finding a really good Japanese restaurant in North Burnaby is a bit harder than it looks, despite the plentiful supply of sushi restaurants in the area! Do not get me wrong, there are a few average restaurants that occasionally serves fresh (not the freshest) sashimi… but I need consistency. Revisiting a restaurant only to discover that the quality of food is not the same compared to a former visit (Sushi UOmo) is a big pet peeve of mine, and I am fairly selective towards Japanese cuisine. Why else would I revisit if it was not for the former positive experience, right?

So as I was looking through some Japanese restaurants in North Burnaby, Sushi Yoi caught my attention. No, the restaurant is fortunately not related to "Yo Sushi" In North Burnaby! The Chinese owned and operated restaurant is located near the Madison Centre, and is one of the newer restaurants in the area. What lured me in is a photo of their hamachi sashimi, which was uploaded on Urbanspoon from someone related to the restaurant. The photo shows hamachi at its best and with their reasonable prices, I declared the restaurant as a must visit.

I was really excited about trying Sushi Yoi too because asides from the aforementioned photo, the last sushi restaurant I went to a couple of days before was Sushi Hiro *cringe*. The interior of restaurant looks clean, modern and relaxing. The sushi bar is located at the back of the restaurant, there are booth seats along the walls, and the seating arrangements are not too tight. On our visit, the restaurant was not busy and the food arrived very fast, within minutes. This is always disappointing because I do not like too much food on the table at once, but it is understandable.

Lucky Star Chinese Restaurant 辣子紅南北私房菜

Lucky Star is located in North Burnaby and the restaurant serves Cantonese style Chinese cuisine as well as Szechuan. The interior of the restaurant looks better than the exterior and there are comfortable seating arrangements. In addition, there are a few chandeliers, a large television screen, and all the furnishings appear to be custom made and imported from China. The seats are fairly comfortable too because of the padding.

As for the food, the restaurant offers a variety of dishes and the menu is not limited at all. There are choices from dim sum, soup, congee, prawns, chicken, duck, beef, lamb, scallops, pork, sizzling hot pots, chow mein, handmade noodles and rice. But the thing is, there are more than only a few choices under each category! For example, the restaurant has five kinds of scallop dishes. Lucky Star also has a few frog dishes, but we passed because I am way too picky when it comes to that.

Hiro Sushi

You know how stubborn some people can be? Well, I can sometimes be one of them when it comes to food. When meeting a friend for a late lunch, neither of us had anywhere in mind because we thought the other person already chose a restaurant. So as half an hour passed driving along Hastings Street and both of us tight on a schedule, my friend practically forced Hiro Sushi on me (she really did). Sushi Hiro is a Chinese owned and operated Japanese cuisine restaurant that replaced the former No.1 Chinese Restaurant (which had one of the best cream and butter sauce live seafood, along with the friendliest owners!).

Hiro Sushi has completely renovated, but the owners decided to keep the mural paintings of Italy which were originally from an Italian restaurant before the Chinese cuisine one. As for the seating arrangements, there are booth seats along the wall, tables in the centre and seats by the sushi bar. After seating, my former negative thought of "this restaurant is not going to be good" disappeared as I noticed the restaurant offers a daily special! The special includes uni and red tuna, which I admit to being biased by assuming only "better" Japanese restaurants offer. Unfortunately the restaurant did not have any though.

King Mahal Restaurant

King Mahal has been around for twenty years and the restaurant was formerly located by UBC. Then a few years ago, the restaurant moved to North Burnaby and their $9.99 all you can eat lunch buffet is very popular. Also like many Indian restaurants, King Mahal is a family operated business and the father as well as son runs the front of the house.

Walking in, we noticed King Mahal is a very clean restaurant and perhaps even the cleanest Indian restaurant I have been to (the table glass tops are squeaky clean and shinny too!). The interior also looks traditional and there are Indian tapestries along the walls. Since we were the first to arrive, we had the option of choosing any seat and ours had glasses with red cloth napkins.

After seating, we ordered our drinks and of course I went for the hot water. As the owner was pouring hot water in the glass, I was thinking oh my god… what if it breaks? I am too used to restaurants serving hot water in a mug that I actually felt awkward having hot water in a glass! However, the restaurant uses quality glasses and the glass did not break. In addition, he even brought over a kettle! This is a dream come true because I honestly drink a lot of water, it is really ridiculous.

Sushi UOmo (2nd visit)

FIRST POST ON SUSHI UOMO [HERE]

After my first visit to Sushi UOmo, I declared the restaurant as probably the best choice for Japanese on Hastings street! The food as well as the service was great and having said that, I have been wanting to revisit for quite a while and finally found time to. Plus, I was craving for red tuna and uni!

Walking in, the sushi chefs along with the front of the house staff were friendly and greeted us. The interior is clean as well as simple, and the seating arrangements are not cramped. In addition, there are also a couple of televisions.

Double One Chinese Restaurant 美味閣

Driving from Burnaby to Vancouver along Hastings street which is literally only ten minutes, there is a large variety of restaurants. Competition wise, it is very competitive as most restaurants step up their promotions or quality of food; whether it be a lunch special or promotional prices regarding live seafood. However, at some restaurants, the quality of food along with the service is a total fail (IPOH Asian House).

When I heard the sentence "lets go for Chinese on Hastings Street", I could not think of which restaurant BF was talking about. Pelican? Um… we only go for late night. James on Hasting? Isn't that another late night restaurant? Golden Lake? The food was not good enough for a revisit after trying them out twice. Tung Sing Chin? NO. What else is there? Double One? Where is that? By Burgers Etc? Huh?

After doing the usual when we pull up to a restaurant that I am not interested in trying but yet, have nowhere else in mind, "oh… is that what you really want? Are you sure? No… I do not care what we eat. Really? Chinese? You sure? How about sushi? No… really, whatever you want it is fine… Italian? Oh Chinese? So Chinese right? You sure?" LOL. We headed to Double One and decided to check out the menu first. After seeing scallops on the menu, yup, let's do it and we took our seat. Well, more like stood at the front for a while until a friendly owner (the husband) came up to seat us.

The interior is very simple and there is nothing fancy. Double One appears to be family operated with the husband along with the son, working at the front of the house.

Glenburn Soda Fountain & Confectionery

A few months ago during a late lunch at Burgers Etc, I noticed an old school ice cream shop across the street and knew we had to make a visit. So, months later after revisiting Burgers Etc, we stopped by Glenburn Soda Fountain & Confectionery after dinner. The ice cream shop is located in North Burnaby along Hastings Street, and has a very homey old fashioned atmosphere. Walking in, we noticed the extensive chalkboard menus plastered on the wall with attractive as well as easy to read font, and the shop offers ice cream from Birchwood Dairy, floats, milkshakes as well as sundaes, and other goodies.

As for the seating arrangements, there are only a few seats by the counter which would be my first choice (however, some kiddies already took them!) and around three to four tables.

Burgers Etc. BBQ House (2nd visit)

FIRST POST ON BURGERS ETC [HERE]

Ever had that feeling when EVERYTHING on the table tastes extremely good, so good that you take a bite of one item, move onto the next and continue the rotation like a greedy cartoon character? Well, it happened to me on my previous visit at Burgers Etc. In addition from my previous visit, I concluded that everything was a must order except for the brisket (which was not bad). Meaning, go for the ribs, wings and housemade brisket soup! Although unfortunately, the restaurant was sold out of the brisket soup and not going to lie, we were pretty upset because it tastes so good! 

Coming on a Saturday evening, Burgers Etc was packed! Also, the atmosphere was a lot different than our previous visit, it was loud, filled with energy, and the owners actually checked up on almost every table.

Sushi UOmo

What are some decent Japanese restaurants on Hastings Street? Well, there is Hong Sushi which I do not mind because their soft shell crab is almost perfect; Sushi Town and Tentasu that serves large portions (if that is your thing); and... I think that is it? Of course there are probably around ten more but I think these restaurants are the only ones I can remember, for a reason. Since I am picky about Japanese cuisine (unless it is a restaurant that focuses on larger portions), I do take my time looking through photos of what a restaurant has to offer, and then decide if I want to spend my time and money at the restaurant. So, Sushi UOmo? 

Being a new restaurant on Hastings Street, it was a gamble for me to try Sushi UOmo since there were no photos for me to judge. However, I am glad we tried the restaurant. Walking in, the staff was warm as well as welcoming, and friendly. As for the interior, it follows a warm color scheme and has a simple clean layout. There are two televisions along with some Japanese paintings of a koi, geisha as well as fans, and the seating arrangements are comfortable.

Burgers Etc. BBQ House

REVISIT POST ON BURGERS ETC [HERE]

Burgers Etc was a constant fail since I could never find the restaurant, despite having the correct address and saying "it should be here" numerous times. Well, "RIGHT HERE OMMG WHERE IS IT?!" was what I really said. After many frustrating failed attempts, an early evening trip around 5:00pm was much needed, hoping some daylight would help locate the restaurant. Side note, by "could never find", I was going 30km and still missed it! Walking in, the friendly waiter was welcoming, mentioned the daily soup and provided the option of seating anywhere. The restaurant's interior is squeaky clean and has less than ten tables.

PORK RIBS, BEEF BRISKET, SPICY CHICKEN WINGS, PULLED PORK SANDWICH, HOMEMADE BEEF BRISKET SOUP AND BOYLAN CANE COLA.

Bagel Street Cafe

Bagel Street Cafe is located in North Burnaby at the Kensington Square. The cafe has bagels, sandwiches, panini, baked goods, fresh orange juice and ice cream. The cafe is a small Korean owned family business and one of my favourite go to's in Burnaby. The only worthy places to eat at the Kensington Square is Cockney's and here.

The cafe has a large variety of bagel sandwiches and the staff has no problem accommodating any customer's request. Bagels are freshly made as well as baked every morning with no preservatives, and day old packages of bagels are sold at a discounted price for only $2.10. With nine options of cream cheese, spinach and feta, plain, chive and garlic, jalapeño, artichoke and sun dried tomato, greek, herb and spice, dill, and strawberry, even a picky eater can be satisfied.

Bagels get sold fast and the downside to visiting on a late weekday is that your options are limited. The newest addition to the cafe's menu is fresh turkey breast. Luckily I was here on the first day to try it.

Ayoub's Dried Fruits and Nuts : Burnaby location

One of the newest stores at the Kensington Square in North Burnaby is Ayoub's Dried Fruits and Nuts.

The interior of the store has nice cosmetics and bright lighting. Other than nuts, dried fruit and vegetable chips, the shop also sells turkish delight, chick pea cookies, nougat, toffee and butter cookies.

NUTS AND VEGETABLE CHIPS.

The store roasts nuts on site (not sure how often).

VANILLA NOUGAT ($5.00). The nougat tastes soft, chewy and has no slight hint of sweetness. Each piece of nougat has a good amount of pistachio but IMO these are nothing special and I have had a lot better nougat. I know the nougat is not stale but they honestly resemble a stale taste. The soft and chewy texture is more.. hardish and elastic, not very pleasant. A few other customers felt the same way.

DRIED FRUITS ($15.00/lb) AND VEGETABLE CHIPS ($10.00/lb). 

POSITIVES

- No sugar added to the dried fruits (some taste very sour)

- Vegetable chips are seasoned, tastes crunchy and can satisfy picky eaters

- Located next to a health store?

- Nice interior

NEGATIVES

- Some of the nuts taste overly salty (especially cashews)

- One of the worst nougat ever

- Service can improve

- Average items

LITTLE THINGS

- For a newly opened store, customer service should be better. Quite a few customers who were not familiar with Ayoub's seemed quite lost. When one asked the manager what she was making, she responded "a gift package" and gave the cold shoulder. If I was the manager, I would mention which items I was selecting and that gift packages are available. After a mini line up formed at the cashier, the manager continued making her gift packages and only came when the first customer asked to be helped. When it was my turn, I asked the manager if she was the owner (usually they are friendlier) and she mentioned that only her and the supervisor was here. I guess if the owner was around things would be different

- Meh, I rather visit another location 

Food: 2.5/5

Service: 1/5 (comparing to other Ayoub locations)

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.