Jan-chan’s Tidbits

For those that live or have been to HK, you’d know there are dessert places called “tong sui dim” 糖水店 (literally translated as “sweet soup store”). There are a lot of dessert places in Vancouver that serves a variety of cakes and other baked sweets but I have been looking for a place that sells sweet soups for the longest time. Sure there are those red bean or green bean soup you get after your meal at a Chinese restaurant or the ones my mom makes at home which is usually Coconut Sago (西米露) or sweet potato soup (番薯糖水) but I wanted something different, like  bean curd (or tofu skin) with ginko nuts and egg (腐竹白果鷄蛋糖水) or a mango dessert with tapioca and grapefruit (楊支金露 ).

In the summer I can get my craving fix at the night marketing. There’s a vendor there which sells a variety of sweet soups but I have no idea where their store is located. Last summer, being the foodie that we are (more like “wai sik guai”), Nel and I asked for their address. We didn’t take it down but remembered roughly that it’s behind the Richmond Public Market. Last weekend we decide to search for this mysterious dessert place and found it! Well more like we all recognized the banner it used at the night market with the name 桂花林 and a list of their desserts.

It was pretty busy on a Saturday night. We ordered tofu pudding with ginger syrup (豆腐花), sweet almond soup (杏仁糊) and two mango dessert with tapioca and grapefruit (楊支金露). They were all very very yummy. They also have some light snacks such as pork sandwiches, noodles and bubble tea.

Mango dessert (楊支金露)

Tofu pudding with ginger syrup. (豆腐花)

I also had a pork sandwich.

Info: Bubble Fruity 桂花林 (180-8188 Saba Road) Tel: 604-233-1130

We didn’t bring a camera to HK so I only took some snap shots with my phone whenever I remembered. Here’s the collection:

Dai Pai Dong - Our dinner on the first night in HK. Need a flash for iPhone.

Dai Pai Dong - This is just a small portion of the tables for this restaurant. You have to look for tables yourself by waiting for people to leave (basically you stand near a table there looks like they are almost done and claim it as yours once they leave).

Korean BBQ Cuttlefish. I couldn't see or taste any special seasoning but it was really good. I like the chewy texture.

A combo from Cafe De Coral, a chain fast food restaurant.

Another combo from Cafe De Coral. This one has chicken and shitake mushroom.

Yes...more food photos from Cafe De Coral. It's Al's favourite place for a quick "snack". This is the BBQ duck.

Che Jai Mian from this hole in the wall place. You can see the wall in the photo (lol) the table, or bench I should say, is only about a foot wide. To place an order, you pick your noodles (thick cut or thin noodles) and your topics (there are around 8-12 to choose from). Once the noodle is ready you pay and pick it up from a window.

Durian Pancake from Moon House Dessert (chain restaurant). Basically it's a crepe with cream and fresh durian filling. The crepe does not have durian flavour, that's just green colouring.

Here's another durian pancake, but it's from a little dessert place in Kowloon Tong area. I like this one more than the one from Moon House Dessert. The crepe is freshly made and there isn't a lot of cream in the filling.

Here's another dessert from the place in Kowloon Tong (forgot the name). It's strawberry souffle with a scoop of mango ice cream and lavender tea. The souffle was really good! I love Asian dessert because it's usually less sweet than Western ones.

This is the honey aloe drink I mentioned in the previous post. My throat was always dry and I found this the perfect remedy. I bought it at a food court above a supermarket (I believe it's City Super) in Central.

Coffee from McDonald. Not only do they look good, McDonalds in Hong Kong (and probably in many places in Asia) also have lattes, mocha and other specialty coffee. Wish we have that here.

I mentioned environmental bags in the previous post. Here's what the strawberry ones look like. Just unflip them and they'll turn into a decent size shopping bag, great for grocery shopping.

Doggy photo #1, this is Chiko. He loves it when people massage his head. If you stop, he'd use his nose to nudge your hand above his head to continue the massage.

Doggy photo #2: this is Magic, my aunt's dog. He's super friendly and playful.

I got to meet Kaya during my HK visit. Our lunch was pretty short but it was great to finally get to meet up! Can't wait till the next time. ♥

Earlier this month on our anniversary Al took me to the C Restaurant. I’ve always wanted to go there because I heard they have very good seafood. The weather was perfect for dining outdoor, so we ordered a couple of drinks and enjoyed the beautiful view of Grandville Island and the sunset while waiting for our food.

For appetizer, I ordered the scallop tataki. I love scallop and whenever it’s on the menu I usually order it. This is probably one of the most interesting scallop dishes I’ve ever had. The jelly fish and the seaweed along with the thinnly sliced scallop really brought the taste of the ocean to my tastebuds.

Scallop Tataki

Al ordered the lobster bisque. It was very rich but slightly on the salty side.

Lobster Bisque

I ordered a scallop dish for main course too. The potato crusted scallops which came with root veggies and spot prawn were really tasty. I really liked the turnip and the scallops were cooked just right. (Sorry photo is a bit dark as the sun was hiding behind the bridge while I was taking the photo.)

Potato Crusted Scallops

I don’t remember what was the fish that Al had but it was very yummy.

Some fish dish [sorry forgot the name...

For dessert we shared the roasted apples and flower. I picked it because it sounded interested and it was very good. The floral flavored cream filled cookies were actually very light and I love the presentation.

Roasted Apple and Flower

I had a great time dining at C Restaurant. There were also two tasters and some interesting bread served at the beginning of the meal. Here are some more photos.

Oh look! It's spork!

This last photo is an inside joke. Please ignore my silliness.

The menu cover.

To celebrate a pair of birthdays we went to A Kettle of Fish for dinner. Its our first time there and I heard from several people that the food there is pretty good. They had a special three course menu that night but since I’m more of a shellfish person I got jumbo prawns for mains with pulled pork as my appetizer.

Kurobuta Pulled Pork Rillettes

Wild Jumbo Prawn Pappardelle

Before the start of our meals they offered us a little treat. It was a shrimp ravioli in shrimp broth. It was so good that we were tempted to ask if it could be our main dish. Here are more pictures of the food. I ordered cheesecake since I haven’t had any in ages.

Nel came up just before CNY and we hooked up for dinner on. We had planned to go to Burgoo but it was packed so we ended up moving to Crave on Main. However the wait was just as long! We got there around 8:10 and didn’t sit down at the table till around 9:00pm. The food was pretty good and I liked my shorty poutine. The amount of cheese was just right and it was not drowning in gravy.

That night's special, steak with two jumbo prawns. I liked the sauce.

Chipotle bbq lacquered baby back ribs

Braised lamb shank - photo credit: Nel

Shorty poutine - photo credit: Nel

We were also fooling around with our cameras, check out Nel’s camera and his giant lens. It makes mine look so tiny…

Me & my tiny camera...

...vs...Nel and his "fat" lens

While we were waiting for the food, Nel and I were fooling around with our cameras and took some random shots…

Oh ya, Nel gave us a bag of peanut candies he brought back from his trip to Japan/HK/Macau. They were pretty addictive…chewy and just the right sweetness. I couldn’t stop chomping on them >”< Thanks Nel for bringing them for us.

Yummy peanut candies

Here's another shot.