Soft Peaks Ice Cream - Dat Honeycomb Doe.

Soft Peaks Ice Cream just opened up in Gastown on Feb 5th and already they are taking Vancouver by storm. It's already the most talked about place on Urbanspoon and I hear they have line ups every single day!

Soft Peaks began when brothers Dan and Ken Kim left their corporate jobs to invest in the concept of gourmet organic soft serve ice-cream in Vancouver. They wanted to offer fresh flavours unlike any other soft serve you would normally get and top it off with cool ingredients like Fraser Valley honeycomb.

Meta Knight and I came on Valentine's Day after dinner and the line up was through the door! There were easily 30 people in front of us and we waited for roughly 30-40 minutes. Boo. Good thing it wasn't raining.

Their menu is simple and I love the whole 'honeycomb' decor. Their most popular soft serve is obviously the 'Honeycomb Peak', but they also offer some cool combinations like matcha/ red bean, and yuzu marmalade. Avalon organic milk is what they use as the base of the ice-cream.

I've never had real honeycomb before so I was super ecstatic to give it a try.

It seemed like they only had one or two ice-cream machines going at once so that could have been the reason why it took so long. Meta Knight commented on the hipster-ness of the place because he saw mason jars. Haha.

We ordered the Salty Himalayan ($6) which consists of a syrup of your choice (we got the Organic Maple Syrup) and himalayan pink salt, as well as the Honeycomb Peak ($6.75) which consists of crunchy cereal and a piece of Fraser Valley honeycomb.

Both of us could really tell the difference between this and regular McDonald's soft serve. It was creamy, barely sweetened, and just, very...fresh. You can even say it tasted like freshly churned milk. As for the honeycomb, it was da bomb. That little piece is all you need to sweeten the entire cup of ice-cream. The maple syrup on the other hand was a little on the sweet side and personally for me, I would have loved a bit more Himalayan salt sprinkled throughout and not just on the top.

Overall, Soft Peaks is a great addition to the Vancouver hipster food scene. I just hope the hype eventually dies down so I won't have to wait 40 minutes for ice-cream.

Service Rating: 3.5/5
Food Rating: 4/5
Price: $

Overall Rating: 4/5

Happy Eating!


       I wish my hair did that when I eat ice cream

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Bake My Day Cafe - Pastries and Cookies...Yum

With so many patisseries and bakeries popping up all over Vancouver, it's always hard to choose just one to go to when I'm craving a sweet treat. Luckily for me, I found out about a new bakery in downtown called Bake My Day Cafe.

This little French/German bakery is in a very unassuming location on Beatty street 15 minutes away from the Yaletown skytrain station.

 I don't know about you but I thought their sign and branding is super cute. It almost reminds me of those Polly Pocket dolls I used to play with.

See? SOOOO cute.

They sold macarons, cakes, pies, croissants, bread, and a variety of different carb-o-licious delights.

Their cakes have more of a homey vibe and are visually quite different from a lot of the other bakeries around. I actually quite like that fact because it adds a special touch and it looks like a cake I'd get from my grandma's home.

These Macarons ($1.85) were fresh out of the oven and extremely light and delicate. The only downside for me was that it was overly sweet.

I'm a sucker for anything double baked (twice baked potato from The Keg for example :P) so I naturally gravitated towards the Double Baked Almond Croissant 

If you like dense croissants with a good custard, sweet sticky topping, and crunchy almonds, then this pastry is for you. Curtis (foodobyte) and I both really enjoyed this though half was enough for us.

When it comes to Chocolate Chip Cookies, I like mine soft and chewy. These cookies however were more on the crispy side so if you like crunchy edges and dense centers, this one is for you.

The owners of the bakery, Fatima and Tim were kind enough to send us off with a sweet tart consisting of salted caramel cream, and three mini macarons.

Both Fatima and Tim are delightful and I'm so glad they invited me and Curtis to try out their pastries and sweets. You can really tell they both put a lot effort into make this cafe happen and I for one would love to support them and other local businesses.

Service Rating: 5/5

Food Rating: 3.5/5

Price: $$

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Happy Eating!

                     do you like cookies bro?

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The Bubble Tea Shop - Another Bubble Tea Competitor in Richmond

So I recently found out about a new bubble tea shop on Instagram and even though I knew they were still working out some kinks and pricing issues, I still decided to give them a try 5 days after their opening.



The Bubble Tea Shop (yes, that's the name) is located right underneath Superstore on No.3 road. They replaced the big orthopedic clinic if you know where that is.

One of the reasons why I was so enticed by this bbt shop is because of their mouth watering bubble waffle pictures on instagram. They have turned it up a notch by making these traditional HK bubble waffles into beautiful works of art. For example, they have one dish where you get a scoop of matcha ice-cream, fresh strawberries, red bean, and whipped cream on top of a freshly made matcha and yogurt chip egg waffle.

Eventually I would like to try their Signature Frozen Hot Chocolate bubble tea in their 'Speciality Drink' menu. It sounds delish.

Their 'Milk Tea Series' also intrigued me. In particular the Lavender Milk Tea. Not sure if it'll be a winner (because it's usually a hit or miss) but I'm willing to give it a try.

Apparently if you can solve this rubics cube, you win a free bubble tea!

Kirbro ordered the Matcha Frappe ($5.25) and he absolutely loved it! I took a sip and I knew exactly what he was talking about. The intense matcha flavour could've only been made possible with lots of pure matcha powder so I definitely appreciate that. Unfortunately I couldn't say the same for the Black Sesame Milk Tea ($4.25). It tasted bland and just a poor mixture of crushed black sesame and milk.

Kirbro and I also shared a Matcha Bubble Waffle ($3.75) which was unfortunately disappointing. I don't think they have perfected the recipe yet because it lacked the buoyancy and springiness of the regular good bubble waffles.

All in all, I think The Bubble Tea Shop has a lot of promise. Their menu consists of interesting combinations that cater to the growing population of foodies, and I'm not ashamed to say, I'm one of them so I'm hooked. I'll just wait until they perfect their recipes and menus before I return.

Service Rating: 4/5

Food Rating: 3/5

Price: $

Overall Rating: 3/5

Happy Eating!

                battle of the bubble tea houses



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The Cheesecake Factory (Las Vegas) - I Love Cheesecake Factory!

While in the states, one must go to The Cheesecake Factory. I absolutely love the Cheesecake Factory even though I know most of their dishes are incredibly heavy and probably over 1500 calories a dish. Oh well, indulging while on vacation is not new to anyone. :P

Do any of you guys always go to The Cheesecake Factory knowing you'll get a slice of cheesecake, but wind up being too full to order it? That t'was me.

This specific location is stationed inside Caesars Palace. In front is the talking statue performance and giant aquarium so you can't miss it.

I came here for lunch with my family and most of us ordered from the Lunch Specials section of the menu. It's a little cheaper and the portions are a bit more manageable.

And who can resist the cheesecake display case?!

 The Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake.... the most fattening cheesecake of their entire line. But no one cares because it's absolutely delicious!!

They always start off your meal with warm rye and white bread with butter. Delish!

Kirbro went off the regular menu and got the Smokehouse B.B.Q. Burger. It consisted of smoked bacon, melted cheddar, beef patty, crispy onion rings, and BBQ ranch sauce.

He really enjoyed it and said the barbecue sauce was surprisingly really good.

Kirpa ordered the Renee's Special ($10.95) which consisted of a cup of cream of turkey soup, small green salad, and one half of a fresh turkey sandwich.

I absolutely love their pastas (my favourite is called Garlic Pasta) so I chose their Lunch Pasta Special - Pasta Da Vinci ($12.50).

Although I loved the huge chunks of chicken breast, it was almost too much meat for me! It came with shittake mushrooms and the angel hair pasta had lots of delicious Madeira wine flavour. Yum yum yum! Can't say enough good things about it.

All in all, The Cheesecake Factory is a great option for lunch or dinner if you want lots of options to choose from and affordable prices. If you're worried about calories, they have a SkinnyLicious menu you can order from!

Service Rating: 3/5

Food Rating: 3.5/5

Price: $$

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Happy Eating!

                 who remembers this scene from Friends?!

Click here to check out my other Vegas post:
 - The Buffet at TI (Treasure Island)
- BurGR (by Chef Ramsey)

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Ten Ten Tapas (Dine Out Vancouver) - Come Here for Tapas only...Skip the Dinner

I like Dine Out Vancouver because it gives Vancouverites the opportunity to try out new restaurants at a relatively discounted price. I've accepted the fact that it's usually a hit or miss because set menus are usually never as good as ordering a la carte. Nonetheless it's still a good opportunity to taste a bit of everything.

With Ten Ten Tapas, I'll preface this with.. it was a miss. A pretty big miss. I'll try to be as constructive as possible.... but to be honest, (most of) my friends and I left this restaurant pretty disappointed.

Their menu looked promising on the dine out website, but I quickly realized the item I was most excited about got changed... :( More on that later.

I'm sad to say that the Spicy Tuna Barley Sushi was a complete disappointment. The presentation looked incredibly sloppy and I literally had less than half a typical spicy tuna roll. For an appetizer on a $28 menu, I expected MUCH more than this.

All my other friends got the Dungeness Crab Bisque and the general consensus was that it was bland. The soup lacked depth, seasoning, and overall crab flavour.

 I applaud their freshly made pasta for this Winter Squash Ravioli dish. However, the portion similar to the appetizer was quite small and none of us were close to being full after this.

Though the brown butter sauce and golden beets were quite good, the blanched spinach was really odd and felt like it was just put there to add some greenery.

These Braised Beef Short Ribs. I only have one thing to say about them: it tasted like Chinese style beef brisket in mash potatoes and blanched spinach.

Overall, it wasn't a horrible dish. It was solid and if I was paying something more reasonable and it was coming out of a casual restaurant, I'd be happy. But again, for $28, I expected the quality of the food to be higher and more compelling to eat.

This was the item I was most excited about and I can't believe it disappointed me as well. The menu on the dine out website described it as "Fudge Brownie S'more By Candlelight with Walnut Fudge Brownie and Graham Crumb, Ice Cream, Chocolate Sauce, Housemade Marshmallow to roast by candlelight". Where's the ice-cream, graham crumb, or roasting of marshmallow by candlelight?! Sigh.

Lil Sis's brownie was also cold so the marshmallow didn't melt. She left her dessert mostly untouched.

The (slightly) saving grace was the live music during our dinner. They were lively, great with the crowd, and sang the jazzy blues everyone knows and loves. Fon loved it so much she said she would come back just for the music.

Ten Ten Tapas seems to be a great place to have drinks, eat the occasional pita and dip, and enjoy live music. It's not a place for full meals or dine out so I definitely suggest coming with that in mind to avoid disappointment like us.

Service Rating: 2.5/5
Food Rating: 1.5/5
Price: $$$-$$$$

Overall Rating: 2/5

Happy Eating!


                  unimpressed face during dinner

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