Shishinori: Hungry for More

Recently, I've noticed that Shishinori has been hitting Urbanspoon's homepage top ten "Talk of the Town" list. After browsing through a couple of food pictures, I was sold. Shishinori is a small and cute restaurant located on Cambie near Save-On-Foods. This restaurant reminded me of Marulilu Cafe, a nearby cafe that's also fairly cute. Even both are Japanese, their menus are completely different. 

It was the pictures of all the different and refreshing salads that attracted me to this place. As I'm trying to include lots more vegetables into my diet, I find it quite difficult to do that in typical restaurants. So, I decided to come here for dinner on a Sunday night. I got their wild salmon paradise bowl and I loved it, especially the appetizing dressing. This bowl contained brown rice, edamame beans, alfalfa sprouts, carrots, grape tomatoes, spinach, red radish, half an egg, and pieces of salmon sashimi. 

wild salmon paradise bowl $10.50

wild salmon paradise bowl

I loved how they have brown rice instead of white rice in this dish! Even though I enjoyed this dish, I was definitely not full. I wish there was more rice in it to go with the dressing as there was like just a small scoop of rice. (or perhaps I'm just a big eater) Oh, and there could also be a bit more salmon too.

wild salmon paradise bowl

The second dish we got was the ahi tuna carpaccio bowl. With any order, you can simply add $2.50 make it into a meal, in which you'll get a drink and miso soup or dessert.

ahi tuna carpaccio bowl with enoki portobello mushroom miso soup and green tea $12 + $2.50

I found that the ahi tuna was a little bland. Again, this "meal" was fairly small, and it seemed more like an appetizer to me.

ahi tuna carpaccio

Besides the presentation of the food, another aspect I really liked of this place is the wooden utensils and cutleries that they used. On the wall, they also have a projector that plays anime. As winter is creeping around the corner, I'd advise you to wear more if you are planning to visit this place! They had their doors wide open to show that they are indeed, open. However, I got chilly sitting there so I asked if they could close the doors. They told me they'd turn on the heat higher because they wanted to keep the door opened, but I didn't feel a difference. 

I'd definitely be come back to Shishinori to try other dishes or to even have the wild salmon paradise bowl again. Though portions are small and I wouldn't really say prices are cheap, but they are affordable and a much healthier choice. 

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Twisted Fork Bistro: I ate for free!

I love weekend brunches, whether it's at home with my family or out with my friends. This weekend, we decided to go to Twisted Fork Bistro in Yaletown. It's a fairly small place and only have about 8 tables with an open bar. We were told that the wait was 45 minutes and we decided to wait as we had set our mind to it already. They have an electronic waiting list and you can even request a phone call or text message in which you'd be notified several minutes before your table is ready. What I don't understand is that another group came in after us, and they were offered the bar so they didn't have to wait. I would have totally be OK with sitting there. 

Twisted Fork Bistro

Why is it called Twisted Fork? I have no idea, but I think it's very unique and they actually have twisted forks as decorations which I thought was pretty cool! (But no, the forks you're given to eat with aren't twisted.)

All their brunch items are now $14.00 each. (They were $13.50 before June 2014.) I had quite a hard time choosing as I wanted to try basically everything on their menu. Finally, I decided to go with the Gruyere Baked Eggs and my friend was set on the Eggs Benedicts, but guess what was brought to me? 

Eggs Benny

Two plates of Egg Benedicts! Yup, they got my order wrong. They're so busy, they didn't seem like they wanted to make a new one for me because they said that "this is very popular and it'd be on the house, are you ok with that?" I said yes, even though I'm not a fan of bacon. I didn't mind trying their Eggs Benny, especially when they're $0 and I was starving from all the waiting. Also, I'd feel bad if they throw that plate away and have to hold up their waiting list.

Eggs Benny with bacon

Eggs Benny with bacon - toasted brioche, poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, sautéed spinach, rosti, and baked beans. Only one of my poached eggs was perfectly done; the other one was overcooked, perhaps it was sitting there a bit too long before being served and got cooked. The hollandaise sauce was perfect and I also loved the baked beans.

Eggs Benny with honey lager sausage

Eggs Benny with honey lager sausage - Basically the same as mine, but instead of bacon, my friend had chosen honey lager sausage. If I had chosen Egg Bennys, I would have gotten the honey lager sausages instead as I prefer sausages over bacon. Again, same problem with the poached eggs.

Remember to ask for their homemade ketchup! I just gotta eat rosti with ketchup (same as with fries, hash browns, etc.)

homemade ketchup

I've heard so many good things about their ("best ever") banana bread that I had to order some to go.  $4 for 2 slices which came with homemade jam and whipped cream. They packaged it nicely in a box. Their banana bread was very moist and had walnuts in them - my favourite! They were indeed very good, especially with their homemade cranberry jam, but I wasn't blown away.

Overall, I think this is a fairly cute place for brunch, but be prepare to wait or go earlier to put your name down first. The food also took about 30 minutes to arrive so there was a lot of waiting to eat here. I was pleased with the food, but I don't think it justifies the wait time entirely.

Menu

Menu

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Pâtisserie Für Elise: High Tea in a Super Cute House!

Think pink. Think princesses. Think tea party. Pâtisserie Für Elise in Yaletown is all that, and more. This is absolutely the perfect place for a bridal shower - so it was exactly what we did. We held a bridal shower here for my friend and they had a special room for us for 2 hours, which was perfect.

Because Pâtisserie Für Elise is actually in a heritage home itself, there are 2 floors of this high tea location. The main floor is a bakery shop where people can just go in and buy their products while high tea is on the second floor.

Once I stepped inside the house, I felt like I was in a dreamland of a princess. Everything was so detailed, adorable, and looked delicate, including their waitresses, whom were all wearing a very cute dress. I wish I had taken some pictures of the decor, but I was just too focussed on surprising my friend and living in the moment! Pâtisserie Für Elise offers their afternoon tea set menu for $30 per person with your own choice of tea.



Their menu of teas has an elaborate description of the teas, so you can get a good idea of your tea. Their selection of tea included the classics: honey scented black tea (apparently exclusively imported by them), Jasmine green tea, Earl Grey, and the more unique: creme brûlée, blueberry yogurt, to name a few.

First, we were our choice of tea with our own tea pots. It also came with a sandglass timer which is exactly 2 minutes so we know when the tea is done seeping. On our tea cups, we got a little birdie strainer for catching the tea leaves. Look at how delicate the cups look!



Secondly, we were then served a very delicious blueberry panna cotta. Smooth and creamy, light and refreshing, and not too sweet - absolutely perfect.

blueberry panna cotta

Then came our 2-tier of goodies! The bottom tier consisted of the savouries and the top tier were all the sweets. There were 4 of everything as we sat 4 per table.

Afternoon Tea at Patisserie Fur Elise

Savouries (bottom):

Proscuitto, brie, and fresh basil in a croissant - very yummy and a great start to the platter

Cucumber dill finger sandwich - simple, yet refreshing

Asparagus and mushroom quiche - loved the flaky pastry

Almond strusel scone - especially good with their homemade jam

Cheddar and pancetta scone - really liked the tad bits of green onion and pancetta

savouries

Almond strusel scone and proscuitto, brie, fresh basil sandwich croissant

Ok, so after the platter of savouries, I already felt quite full. Probably from all the butter. But as the saying goes, we girls have a second stomach for dessert! The top platter consisted of:

Honey madeleine 

Macaron

Maple pecan daisy tartlet

Tiramisu

Mini Für Elise

Sweets

From the sweet platter, I especially liked the maple pecan daisy tartlet and the mini Für Elise, similar to a strawberry mousse. It was smooth and had great strawberry flavour. 

I was absolutely stuffed after all the savouries and sweets! Overall, I really liked this place because of the atmosphere and the fancy, princess feeling I got while having high tea here. It was absolutely perfect to hold my friend's bridal shower with all the girls. We also had privacy as we had the private room in which we could place gifts and party favours, which I shall show in another post. In fact, I also played a couple of videos I made from my laptop here. Here is a group picture!

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Matcha Green Tea Waffles [Recipe]: Super easy!

I finally tried making waffles! Waffles are one of my favourites - either for breakfast, afternoon snack, or dessert! Recipe below!

Ingredients

I used the Hamilton Beach Waffle Maker. It's very easy to use, and extremely easy to clean as well. Put in batter, flip, wait, flip, done!

Matcha Green Tea Waffles

Ingredients: 

1 egg

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup milk (I used Flax Delight)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp matcha powder
2 tbsp sugar
Topped with: Raspberries + Nestle Chocolate Syrup

Procedure:

1. In a bowl, mix together sifted flour, baking powder, matcha powder, and sugar thoroughly.

2. Make a hole in the middle and crack in the egg and pour in milk. Mix it until you get a smooth batter.

3. Depending on your waffle maker, you may want to butter the inside. Heat up the waffle maker and when ready, place 2 scoops of batter in the centre. Close the lid, wait for a minute, flip it over, and wait another 2 minutes. The waffle should be crispy on the outside, while soft in the inside.

4. Serve with chocolate syrup (or maple syrup) with fruits of your choice.

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Kiss Me Organic Matcha Green Tea Powder [Product Review]

Green tea is not only one of my favourite teas, but also one of my favourite flavours to go to when it comes to bubble tea, ice-cream, mochi, etc. Also, whenever there's the option of matcha, I'd always choose matcha because it has a much stronger and smoother green tea taste when compared to "green tea". This is because matcha is a finely grounded up powder of the leaf, so when you use matcha, you actually have the whole leaf, rather than just the brewed water. Believe it or not, there are many different grades of matcha, depending on the location of the leaves, the grounding technique, oxidation, etc. Today, I'm going to talk about a matcha green tea powder that I've tried - Kiss Me Organic Matcha Green Tea Powder.

Kiss Me Organic Matcha

Matcha green tea is said to 

• be high in antioxidants (specifically 137 times the antioxidants of brewed green tea for this one)
• detoxifies the body
• improve cholesterol (decreasing the "bad" LDL cholesterol)
• be a metabolism boost - believe to contain a thermogenic component
• increase energy and focus - yes, there is some caffeine in matcha, but apparently it also contains relaxing properties which counterbalances the caffeine effect (Buddhist monks drank it to remain focussed and calm during long hours of meditation!) 

And specifically this one, it is 

• USDA certified organic - leaves are lab-tested to ensure the purest form and that they're free from pesticides, herbicides, harmful fertilizers

Kiss Me Organic Matcha Green Tea Powder comes in resealable bags of 113g of matcha powder. In addition, you also get a downloadable recipe book that includes a variety of recipes including cocktails, smoothies, muffins, truffles, cookies, dips, curry, soups, and the list goes on! 

Now, I know some of you may be reading this and doubting all the benefits that I've listed. (I did too, because they sound too good to be true). However, do you really need all of them to be true or to have scientific evidence in order to love matcha? Personally, I think if just 1 of the above reasons is true, then that's already enough. With so many benefits, so many recipes, and the unique flavour, there is no reason to not love matcha. 

Here's the matcha latte I made, super easy!

matcha green tea latte

1 tablespoon of matcha green tea powder

melt the powder with hot water (~4 tbsp)

steam 3/4 cups of milk (hot!)

pour into your cup along with foam

sprinkle with powder

drizzle with honey (optional)

Kiss Me Organic Matcha green tea powder brought a rich, authentic taste into my cup of latte. The aroma from the powder is strong, yet pleasing. There is also a slight bitterness that comes along with it, so do add some honey if you don't like that. Personally, I like that slight taste of bitterness. This was so easy and so deliciously good! You can also easily customize the amount of matcha green tea powder to your liking. 

Since I couldn't do any fancy latte art......

I also made matcha green tea waffles from scratch! 

Kiss Me Organic Matcha Green Tea Powder is exclusively available on Amazon.ca ($29 CAD) and Amazon.com ($25USD). 

Disclaimer: I was provided with the product for the review purposes. The opinions and content of this post are entirely mine.

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Sushi California (Broadway): Great rolls, but not great for long conversations

Every time I pass by Sushi California, whether it's 12pm, 4pm or 7pm, it's always packed. Hence, I just had to see what it was all about as I knew the previous restaurant at this same location had very little business since that area has many restaurants already. 

I went right when they opened and so we were seated quickly. Upon skimming through their menu, I already noticed why it may be so popular - their prices are very reasonable. I decided to get the Crunch House Roll and the Box Sushi. 

Crunch House Roll consisted of crab meat, avocado, tuna, salmon, wrapped and deep fried $4.50

Box Sushi had smoked salmon, shrimp, scallop, avocado and sliced lemon $4.95

Crunch House Roll and Box Sushi

The Crunch House roll was definitely phenomenal. Everything tastes better when deep friend. Outside was nice and crunch, while inside was filled with soft yummy crab meat.

The Box Sushi may look nice with the slice of lemon, but I didn't want to eat the peel so I had to take that off one by one. There was also very barely noticeable scallop. This is the first ever box sushi I've had and while I do agree that the presentation looks very nice, the chunk of rice is proportionally too much, as shown below.

Crunch House Roll and Box Sushi

Yes, there's a small bit of avocado in the middle of the rice (it's not wasabi).

Box Sushi

Crunch house roll  

Add caption

The Assorted Sashimi platter was beautifully presented.

Assorted Sashimi $14.95

Takoyaki is great for sharing as an appetizer, but I felt like these takoyaki here are small.

Takoyaki $3.95

By the time when we were done and on our way out, the restaurant was already full and had people waiting for seats! 

For such unique and creative rolls at super reasonable prices, I'd definitely come back here. Not to mention that it's super convenient and transit-friendly! However, I do not recommend this place if you're looking for a long chat with a friend or date, because they'll have people waiting for your seats. Nevertheless, you could go across the street to Marulilu Cafe or across Cambie street to Moii Cafe to carry on the conversation!

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Sushi Garden: Affordable, wide variety, but be prepared to wait!

When I talk about sushi in Burnaby, I hear Sushi Garden a lot. Hence, I had to go see what it was all about. The pictures and this post will actually reflect my second visit there as I did not take any pictures on my first visit. Yes, I've already returned to Sushi Garden once. If you do plan to meet up with friends at Sushi Garden, be sure to clarify which location as there are 2: one is right across from Metrotown Shopping Centre (4635 Kingsway) and the other is on Lougheed Highway (4269 Lougheed Hwy). Both times, I visited the one on Kingsway as it at a more convenient location for me. 

We got there on a Monday at around 6:30pm and it was packed! We waited for about 30 minutes before we got a seat for 2. As we got to look at the menu while we were waiting, we already knew what we wanted.

Recently, I've discovered spicy salmon sashimi and have been craving it since I last ate it. This is like a Korean x Japanese dish as the spiciness comes from the kimchi that the sashimi is mixed with. I loved it as it was very appetizing.

Spicy Sashimi $8.95

Their combos are super good deals as for less than $10, you get a roll and the common nigiri. In this dynamite combo, the nigiri included 2 salmon, 1 tuna, and 1 ebi (shrimp). As you can see, the piece of salmon sashimi is quite big, but as for quality and freshness, it was mediocre - like in typical average sushi restaurants reflecting the price.

Dynamite Combo: dynamite roll + nigiri $8.30

Now there is one more piece in that picture that is not included in the combo that I had ordered separately. Yup, that is the tobiko (fish roe) with quail egg.

Tobiko with quail egg $1.50

Even though I'm not a fan of fish roe, I wanted to try this combination with quail egg. Basically, you should eat this in one bite because you want to break open the yolk in your mouth and have the creamy yolk mix with the popping tobiko. I think this is a rather nice combination as they both complement each other to give a unique texture. 

I can see why Sushi Garden is rather popular. At a rather central location, their prices are super affordable and they have a wide variety of sushi catering to everyone's favourite sushi and rolls. 

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