Cafe de l'Orangerie: Japanese-style Spaghetti (Great First Date Location)

A hidden gem as it is located on West 73rd Ave in the residential areas, so I had not even heard of this French x Japanese cafe when my friend suggested it. French x Japanese reminds me of Moii Cafe, but that one specializes in crepes while this one features Japanese-style spaghetti, which is spaghetti with a much lighter sauce as compared to Italian sauces.

Creamy Tomato Spaghetti may look a bit plain as you can't even really tell if there's sauce or not, but trust me, it tasted very creamy (though not overwhelming). If you're a fan of creamy spaghetti like me, you'll enjoy this dish!

Creamy Tomato Spaghetti $9.80

Ponzu is water-based citrus sauce, kind of like vinegar. I know that ponzu is often used in Japanese cuisine, so I wanted to try it with the pork on rice. The pork was tender and I really liked it. The sauce was very appetizing and I loved the citrusy tinge that it brought to every bite.

Onion ponzu pork: pork sauté on rice with onion ponzu sauce $9.95

A popular item on their menu is the masago de creamy spaghetti. Even though this one is a creamy pasta with the same spaghetti, it wasn't as creamy as their Creamy Tomato Spaghetti. It had bits of seafood and masago mixed within the noodles, which created a unique texture to it.

Masago de creamy Spaghetti $9.80

A common Japanese dish, but one that you won't get bored of as I would call it a classic - chicken teriyaki on rice. It came with some fries and greens.

Chicken teriyaki on rice $8.50

When I saw chocolate fondant on the menu, I really wanted it because of 3 main reasons: 1. I love cutting open a dessert and having chocolate flowing out, 2. it was really cold in the restaurant and I wanted something warm, and 3. I wanted to see if it'd actually take 15 minutes (as the menu stated). 

All their desserts are made in the house, so I guess I can understand why it'd take 15 minutes to make this one. However, I was hoping it'd just come in a plate instead of a cup so that I could see the chocolate flowing out. It was nicely baked, but not the best I've had. 

Chocolate Fondant $4.95

I love matcha and I just had to try the matcha green tea pudding parfait (what a mouthful!). It came with a big scoop of ice-cream, sweetened red beans, and also my favourite mochi. So, basically it consisted of many things that I liked.

Matcha green tea parfait pudding $6.95

Even though this picture doesn't look very appetizing, but it shows the green tea pudding, which was very tasty as there were two different layers! I thought all the elements (ice-cream, pudding, mochi, and red beans) all went very well together. I would definitely choose this dessert over the chocolate fondant.

As it isn't in a busy location, this place wasn't busy when we were there. We got to stay as long as we wanted and it's a really nice cafe to meet up with friends to chat. However, we couldn't stand the temperature in the cafe - it was really cold! I don't know why, but they really should have cranked up some heat. I think the room temperature is just as important to guests because we couldn't enjoy the food or ourselves fully as the coldness was constantly in our minds. Also, I can't think of why they're a French x Japanese cafe other than the French name. Nevertheless, I'd definitely like to  come back to have some more Japanese-style spaghetti. 

P.S. I think this is a great first date location! Nice, cute, quiet, and affordable yummy food! Did I mention the tempting dessert too? :)

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Moii Cafe Cambie: An artsy Japanese x French cafe

I re-docorated my home!

Just kidding! This is actually the interior of Moii Cafe, a spacious coffee/snack cafe located on Cambie & Broadway. At first, I thought it was weird that it's "Moii" with two i's and how it translates to "me cafe". It is actually quite interesting and here is their explanation: "Moii is a combination word from French "moi" (I) and Japanese "なつでもいい" (It is ok/whatever) forms an idea and spirit of "it's ok to be myself; this is who i am." How creative! 

The entire place is very nicely decorated. Relatively, it is large and spacious, yet it gives a cozy and homey feeling once you step inside. Turns out that the owner is a graduate from Emily Carr University and wanted a place for artists to showcase their work for others to enjoy. What a great idea that I'd totally support. Already liking this place. Now on to the food. 

This is the tuna and cheese crepe and a cup of green tea. Now I think I prefer sweet crepes over savoury crepes. Nonetheless, I always find myself ordering savoury ones - probably so that I don't feel like I'm having dessert. The crepe was pretty good but I cannot say it's the best I've had. Though I do love the fact that it's freshly made.  So, once in a while, the shop would be overflowed with a very nice smell that'll suck you into ordering a crepe. 

Tuna and cheese crepe

They also have a variety of drinks. I got the matcha green tea - I love matcha. This was very good - creamy and not too sweet. The only thing I'd change is to add less milk. 

matcha green tea latte

 School has been back for almost a month now and I'm sure coffee shops have gotten busier as well. When I was a student, I did not really like studying in coffee shops because I get distracted easily. However, I'd be up for catch up with a friend or for "people watching" anytime at a coffee shop! I think this is a perfect place for those who enjoy studying in cafes. Look at the space and they even have a study room for group meetings/projects. 

Study room/ group meeting

Thirsty? They have complimentary lemon water! Have I mentioned that it's perfect for studying? Homey feel, crepes to order, study room, spacious... it's the whole package.

If I knew about this place earlier, I'd probably love studying here. I wouldn't be too surprised if this place gets busy during exam periods. 

Moii Cafe Menu

Moii Cafe menu

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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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