Sugarholic Cafe - Surprisingly Delicious!

Sugarholic Cafe is located inside Aberdeen Mall on the ground floor. It's been open for quite some time now and is a restaurant you can't ignore. Why? It shines of fluorescent white with long sheer drapes, chandeliers, and plump couches. On numerous times, I've seen people peer in, curious as to what the heck this restaurant/cafe is all about.

Going in, my expectations were very low. I mean, it's pretty hard not to when every single business before this lasted only a year or two at most.

I've got to say, I love their visual bright menus. Pictures speak louder than words so I naturally gravitate towards menus with big large pictures. :P

They actually have a pretty good "Lunch Special" menu for weekdays only between 12:30-2:30 (something like that). For $12.50, you get a choice of an entree and a drink. Of course, there are limitations to what you can choose for both entree and drink.

Their honey toast tower looks freakin' amazing... and sinful...and ridiculous.

They also offer various levels of high tea.

My mom got the Creamy Masago Pasta with Crab Meat ($9.95). It comes spicy but you can order it without any spiciness. The flavours were prominent and definitely on the heavy side. My mom found it almost too salty, but she likes her flavours on the bland side. I thought it was a good version of the classic Japanese fusion masago spaghetti.

Cheese Omelette Beef Fried Rice with Black Pepper Sauce ($10.95) was my choice and it was hella peppery!! Just the way I like it!

I liked the rice and frozen veggies throughout. The omelette was thin and acted as a good barrier between the rice and black pepper sauce.

In the end, Sugarholic Cafe surpassed my expectations and I found their items quite delicious and affordable. The atmosphere is much nicer than a typical Hong Kong style cafe so I will definitely be back to try their lunch menu on a weekday.

Service Rating: 4/5
Food Rating: 4/5
Price: $$

Overall Rating: 4/5

Happy Eating!


                                         I am SAO fancy

 

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Icepik Shavery - So Refreshing During the Summer

Icepik Shavery is another shaved ice restaurant on Kingsway, similar to Icy Bar. I came here on two occasions to try out their frozen treats since the weather has been getting really nice here. 

On my first visit, I came with Diana, Amy, and Curtis. We all tried to get different combos so we could try a bit of everything. On my second visit, I came with Meta Knight after a run and OH MY GOD it was amazing.

Meta Knight and I shared a Large Emperor's Pik ($6.85) which consists of matcha shaved ice, diced mango, grass jelly, rice cakes, and coconut jelly. This combination is fantastic and tastes even better with condensed milk (you can grab the bottle from the counter).

This is also the Emperor's Pik but in regular size.

The Fresh Pik'd Fruit ($5.85) is the fruitiest combination of all with mangoes, strawberries, housemade rice cakes, and mango jelly, all on top of mango shaved ice.

This one is called Penguin Pik ($5.85), probably because it's completely black and white. This one has black sesame shaved ice, rice cakes, oreo crumble, grass jelly, and pearls. It looks delicious but Curtis thought the sesame shaved ice was really bland.

I think the toppings on this ice pik combo is really good, but next time I might try this with a different flavour of shaved ice. Perhaps green tea or 'original' yogurt flavour.

The matcha shaved ice flavour is my favourite so I definitely would recommend that!

Service Rating: 3/5
Food Rating: 3/5
Price: $

Overall Rating: 3/5


             the weather is too hot to handle... :D

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Hakkasan Bistro Cafe - MUST GET THE SOUP!

You know... sometimes I forget how much of a food crazed nerd I am until I hang around similar, like minded people and we ALL talk about one thing. Food. T'was the story of this Chinese Bites dinner at Hakkasan Bistro Cafe. Myself, along with almost 16 other food bloggers in the Vancouver area had the privilege of trying out this mom and pop restaurant and their specialty items.

Hakkasan is located in the most obscure place imaginable. It's literally at the end of No. 5 Road near River Road where all the industrial companies are. They've been open since 2007 and have just recently gone through a major renovation with dining room area.

When I first walked in, I marveled at their interior design. Such unexpected contemporary furniture from a little mom and pop shop on No. 5 Road!

We started off with the Honey Roasted Pork Cheeks ($20). It was very well executed and tasted kind of like BBQ Char Siu except with pork cheeks instead. The honey flavour was more prominent and the meat definitely had more 'snap' to it than regular pork.

This, ladies and gentlemen, would be the single greatest reason why I would bring my whole family back to try this restaurant. This is called Chef's Signature Whole Coconut Pork and Snow Fungus Soup ($22/coconut). 

Even though this is not cheap by any means, the price is a direct reflection of the quality you'll get in the soup. It's hard to explain the flavour of the broth, but trust me, they were so complex it was like a friggin party in your mouth. You can also scrape and eat all the young coconut meat as well which were filled with chicken-y goodness.

This is another one of Hakkasan's Specialty dishes. The Steamed Specialty Odorless Lobster ($22/ half a lobster) is made with 'odorless' garlic which is less pungent and makes your breath less stinky. Even though this is cool, I actually really like pungent, over-the-top smelling garlic in my food, so I wish it wasn't odorless. It would've been nice to have the option of going with regular garlic! :D

It was served over a huge bed of unflavoured jasmine rice which was good but not flavourful enough to bring the lobster to the next level. 

The Ancient Style Salt Baked Chicken ($55) needs to be reserved in advance and is made with a technique I don't often see in restaurants. 

The chicken is marinated in over ten different herbs and spices, then wrapped and cooked in a traditional clay pot filled with coarse salt.

The salt keeps the chicken moist and juicy, while instilling a type of umami flavour that is impossible to replicate with any other type of cooking style (let's say, just rubbing the chicken with salt prior to cooking).

The chicken was OH MY GOD delicious and oh so tender. I got a breast piece and the white meat was so soft it tasted like dark meat. If I come back for a celebratory dinner, I am so ordering this again.

Another reservation only item, the Braised Pork Hock ($40) was tender and melted like butter in your mouth.

The Mui Choy Stirfry was not bad and filled our veggie quota for the night. I honestly didn't eat much of this because...why waste stomach space on veggies when there's so much meat in front of you!

As one of my favourite dishes of the night, the Steamed Egg with Pork and Duck Yolk ($18) is certainly something I'll order again. It goes great with rice and the addition of duck yolk/ground pork was a nice touch.

I'm personally not a fan of fried fish coated in sauce so I didn't really enjoy the Stir Fried Pickled Cabbage and Fish ($19).

For dessert we had the Steamed Milk Egg White Custard. It looks plain but it was done really really well. It was actually quite similar to the steamed milk custard served at the famous Australian Dairy Company in Hong Kong (post here).

All in all, I thought the food was fantastic and some dishes were truly one of a kind. I am super grateful to have been able to taste test Hakkasan's specialty dishes and I'll certainly bring my family back for more noms!

Disclaimer: I was invited by ChineseBites to attend this media event for Hakkasan Bistro. My meal was comped but the opinions are all my own and unbiased.

Service Rating: N/A (we were here for a media event)

Food Rating: 4.5/5

Price: $$-$$$$

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Happy Eating!

                      that chicken coconut soup was like...

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Kongee Dinesty (Richmond) - Not Just Congee

Recently, I was lucky enough to be invited to a try out the menu of a new Chinese restaurant that just opened up in Richmond (on Capstan Way, next to Manzo and Capstone). 

It's called Kongee Dinesty and it is playing on the fact that they specialize and serve congee in the morning (8am-5pm) while at night they switch to more traditional Cantonese dishes.

The owner of this establishment has really put her heart and soul into this restaurant. She's been working on this project for over a year and finally her dream is starting to come true. From the design of the faucet in the washroom, to the specific ingredients used in each dish, she has her hand in everything.

Similar to Western restaurants in downtown, they have the open kitchen concept which I really appreciate. It honestly takes a lot of courage to have everything out on display because you're providing customers full visibility. Only restaurants with nothing to hide will opt for a concept like this.

Their congee master cooking up some liver and pork congee for us.

For dinner, they have many seafood options, most of which are market price.

Their breakfast menu consists of primarily congee. For $8.95, you get a big bowl of congee, a side of your choice which can also be upgraded for a buck twenty five more.

To me, their lunch menu seems the most unique. Think Deer Garden or Cattle Cafe but with congee. You choose a base (I'd totally go for the black pepper base), two types of meats, a drink (black sesame soy milk?? Hell ya!), and unlimited garnishes. The owner even said you can ask the server for more garnishes if you want them mid way through too!

We all shared the Liver and Pork Congee and yeah... it was delicious. I normally don't love the taste of liver but they somehow got that weird taste out of it and made it pretty enjoyable. The pork too was also of really good quality.

If you're from Hong Kong, you would recognize these two Chinese Donuts. I don't know what it's called in English but the front one is sweet and the back one is salty (made with fermented soy bean).

 Chef making the chinese donuts by hand.

 This is the god almighty. The traditional, light, fluffy, freshly fried, chinese donut. It goes great with congee and tasted exceptionally good straight from the fryer.

If you have gone to a Chinese wedding or a really special dinner at a Chinese 'Seafood' Restaurant before, this may look familiar to you. In Cantonese it's called "Dong Gua Zhong" which means Melon Soup. You have to order this one day in advance because they have to carve out a gigantic winter melon, boil it for 6 hours with a billion other ingredients like chicken feet, ham, scallops, shrimp, crab, chicken, and stock so everything melds together.

The soup was beyond delicious and the flavours were really bright.This soup is quite a treat because it takes an incredible amount of effort to make.

Eight Treasure Duck was next on our list. This also has to be ordered one day in advance because they have to stuff a whole duck.

I love love love this dish! If you ever want a saucey, meat heavy, sinful dish, this eight treasure duck is the way to go. I can't recommend this enough.

Here comes the star of the show. This Russian King Crab comes in at about 7.5 lbs and is slightly different in taste and texture to the regular Alaskan King Crab. They served it to us two different ways: Steamed with garlic and onion (best way in my opinion), and deep fried with spicy salt and garlic.

The steamed version was glorious and the crab was juicy as hell. The texture of this Russian crab was slightly softer and less buoyant than the Alaskan one which is good for people who don't like to chew a lot. I like the bouncy chewy kind so I prefer the Alaskan.

The 'knuckles' of the crab were deep fried in spicy garlic and salt.

If you like the molten egg yolk buns from dim sum, you'll like this Prawn in Salty Egg Yolk dish. The prawns were super plump and went really well with the salty egg yolk sauce.

Because I was so full I didn't fully try the Honey Beef with Peppers in Birds Nest. The beef was really tender though.

The owner said she normally detests eating Sweet and Sour Pork outside at other restaurants. However, she wanted to serve it in her restaurant and she wanted to do it differently. She wanted to use quality meats (in her case, she uses Pork Cheek which is definitely of higher quality), and less batter to keep the dish healthy and unique. I have to agree with her. It was absolutely delicious.

We ended off the dinner with Red Bean Soup and Almond Tea.

I'll be returning to Kongee Dinesty for their unique breakfast congees and chinese donuts. My mom in particular is super intrigued by the 'choose your own' congee so I can't wait to come back to give it a try.

Happy Eating!


                      our dinner felt like this ;)

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