One More Sushi

I had a work dinner at One More Sushi, located at the village of UBC's campus. I wouldn't say the restaurant is small, but my workplace had the entire restaurant booked so there wasn't anybody there who wasn't with us. 

Here, I got the bento box. Bento boxes are one of my favourite items to order because you get a bit of everything. 

Bento Box B with teriyaki beef, tempura, California roll, salad and oranges

Tempura from Bento Box B

Teriyaki beef

Salad

Rice is a huge part in the Japanese culture, even in their alcoholic beverages. Fermented rice is what's used to make sake. The sake was served warm. It was nice to try the sake, but not a fan of it.

Sake

While the California rolls and teriyaki beef with rice in the bento box was delicious, it was typical and mediocre. However, the green tea ice-cream amazed me. Usually I hesitate to get green tea ice-cream because I find that it's not like vanilla or chocolate ice-cream where it tastes good regardless of where it's from. With green tea ice-cream, I've had ones where I did not want more than a spoonful. I figured that since I was in a Japanese restaurant, I'd give the green tea ice-cream a try. This one was absolutely delicious and I wanted seconds.

Green tea ice-cream

Though there are a handful of places for sushi on campus, One More Sushi is a convenient and affordable restaurant for students who are looking to dine-out on campus.

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City 1 Cafe: Laksa Soup Noodles

City 1 Cafe is located in the King Edward Safeway Square and can be easily missed. This place have never really caught my eye so I'm so glad my friend suggested to eat here. Yes, I'm trying to be more observant now. Their menu is simple and their specialty seemed to be the Hainanese chicken as their menu features these: few pieces of chicken with a bowl of rice, half a chicken with 3 bowls of rice, or a whole chicken with 5 bowls of rice. I couldn't make up my mind whether to try the Hainanese chicken or the laksa noodle soup, but I ended up ordering the noodle soup and decided to try the Hainanese chicken next time with a larger group.

Laksa noodle soup

I was happy to see that the laksa noodle soup came with two pieces of Hainanese chicken as well as fried tofu, fish cake, and some parsley. It was very flavourful and of course, a little spicy. The boneless Hainanese chicken was extremely tender and I definitely wanted more.

I will definitely come back here for their Hainanese chicken!

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Landmark Hot Pot House 春秋火鍋: Fresh ingredients, nice cars, & birthday song

At a hot pot restaurant, aren't customers their own chefs? The chefs in the kitchen....don't they just wash the veggies and slice up some meat? Yup, I totally forgot about the seasoning and crafting up the soup base. Chef Raymond Cheung of Landmark Hot Pot House is one of the 8 who has achieved the title of the 2013 Chinese MasterChefs. The restaurant has also won numerous awards for being the "Best Hot Pot Restaurant" and for some of their signature dishes. 

We were at a table of 8 so we had two hot pot bowls. On my side, we decided to get two different soup bases: SiChuan Mala spicy (四州麻辣) and preserved eggs and parsley (皮蛋莞茜). This was convenient so that the spicy eaters and the non-spicy eaters were both happy. 

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A Whiter & Brighter Smile: Crest 3D White + Oral-B 3D White [Product Review]

A white smile is much more pleasant to look at than a yellow-ish smile. There are many causes of yellow teeth such as staining from drinking coffee/tea, medications, aging, presence of plaque, and of course, genetics. I'd like to think my yellowish teeth are due to genetics, and unfortunately not something I can change. However, there are so many products on the market these days for "whitening" teeth that it's not a hopeless cause anymore. I was thrilled to be selected to do a product review for Crest 3D White (Glamorous White) multi-care whitening oral rinse and toothpaste, as well as Oral-B 3D White Vivid toothbrush.

Crest 3D White (Glamorous White) multi-care whitening oral rinse & toothpaste
+ Oral-B 3D White Vivid toothbrush

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Salade de Fruits Café: The Night I Got 'Musseled'

My birthday falls two days after one of my good friends' birthday, and it's the first time in 5 years that we're in the same city! Hence, a celebration awaited. We decided to go to Salade de Fruits Café for fancy-ish dinner with another one of our good friends from high school. Salade de Fruits Café is a very small French bistro located inside the French Cultural Centre building on 7th Ave.

Salade de Fruits Café

It was packed with people on a Saturday night so reservations are highly recommended. The waiter asked us whether we wanted the table outside of the restaurant (still inside the building) or the smaller one inside. Great minds think alike, we decided to take the cozier one to enjoy the atmosphere as well. 

French bread

We were served with hot-out-of-the-oven French bread. Extremely fresh, extremely soft. Have I mentioned I love restaurant bread? Already couldn't stop eating.

For appetizer, we got l'escargot à l'ail (snails with garlic) to share. This was my first time eating snails. It came with 8 snails, which were already out of their shells and soaked in strong garlic and oil, so I couldn't really tell what snails taste like. The texture was like mushrooms though. 

Escargot à l'ail $8

With a full house, our main dishes took a while to arrive, so the waiter served us more French bread. That didn't help with saving space for my main course.

We sat at the Place de la Tour Eiffel table! A little small for three of us though. 

Hearing from many other foodie blogs that their mussels are good, I wanted to try their mussels. Since my friends wanted to as well, we got the large size and with fries instead of salad. 

Moules et frites (Mussels and fries) Large $22

Each one of the mussels in the pot were extremely juicy and plump. The picture above does not justify so here is a picture of one of them close up (and personal).

A juicy, plump mussel

As you start digging in, you'll see that the mussels are actually in creamy soup, which added a nice taste too them (a bit too salty imo though). This is definitely not great as a dish for one person, but perhaps great for sharing. As this was my main dish, I ate it the most.  Man, I have no idea how many mussels I ate, but it was A LOT. I'm really bad with estimations but I'm going to throw a number out here anyways, I think well over 20. I say there were well over 40 mussels in there? No idea. Just a lot. Because I felt so sick of mussels by the end of this. 

The New York steak was juicy, nicely seasoned, and huge. 

New York Steak

I'm not a fan of lamb as I don't like that unique taste. Though it wasn't very strong in this dish. The meat was very tender and I liked the sauce.

Carré d'agneau (lamb rack) $29

It's horrible that I'm basically uncontrollable when it comes to eating. I simply can't stop until there's no food in front of me. Even my friend tried to move the fries away from me, but that didn't stop me - I just had to reach a bit farther. Stuffed my face. Note to self: get salad as a side next time. 

Ok, so the food was really good. The service was great - the waiter was nice and he also told us about the specials of the day (which we did not order). There seem to be some nice decorations in there, but it was too dark to see. It was loud in the small place, so it may be difficult to chat. One thing I don't like about this place is that they only accept cash. No cards. 

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