American Buds: Baodown, To Dine For

Some American buddies decided to watch the Apink concert...such dedicated fans.

I took these noobs to some of the best places. Ever. 

Bao Dowwwnnn is super awesome. For some reason, the order took really long to come, so we got extra baos and extra fries :O Free food always makes up for late food.

One of my friends ordered the Flipside with Kung Fu fries. I tried her fries...it has bok choi with garlic mayo, some sweet soy sauce, and chili. This is why I love fusion restaurants; people can get so creative. This is how perfection is born (just like halfie children). 

This is the YVR with sweet potato fries (they call them Kumote).

Here is the order that came late. Since my friend owed me, he paid for all of this. I think the whole thing costs $25 CAD? We weren't supposed to get an extra bao or extra fries. We weren't complaining :)
From right to left, clockwise: Japoyaki fries, VeVo, and another Flipside. I had the VeVo, since I think that was the only vegetarian bao, lol. It has very typical ingredients for a vegetarian dish; it reminded me of rice bowls served at the Naam and at Green Moustache. It comes with kale, sprouts, beets, and carrots, but the peanut sauce and shiitake mushrooms make it stand out. I guess those two ingredients are the "Asian" influence. The filling was crunchy and fresh, just the way I like my veggies :)

They also serve street sandwiches. I got the Vancity Fresh (which is the only vegetarian sub). I think the best part about this sandwich was the sauces and the avocado. It has edamame hummus and ginger sesame sauce, which makes it quite addictive (sesame oil and hummus make vegetables taste amazing. The avocado was just an added plus). The bread was crispy, and the insides were smooth and crunchy. Texture was an A+.

To Dine For is another fusion restaurant. This place is well known for their burgers; I saw an article that called this place the best burger place in 2014. I loved this place.

I think my friend got Bob's burger. which has bacon, cheese, mushrooms, onions, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce and their "special" sauce.

I got the only vegetarian burger, called Ravi's burger. It's like Bob's, but the beef patty and bacon is replaced with avocado slices. The mushrooms were quite juicy; I think the mushrooms and the special house sauce made this burger shine. The buns are also crispy and not too soft.
The fries remind me of the ones at the Tipsy Cow in Redmond; they're not too skinny or thick, and they're super crispy. Don't pack the fries, because otherwise they'll get soggy. With fries as good as these, do your best to finish them because they'll never be the same if you bring them home.

My friend's snapchat. Noob.

This is him at the concert. I couldn't believe it was at the Orpheum Theatre...just think of all the litter from those fan boys in such a classy place .___.

I actually wanted to have the rice bowl, but it wasn't going to be available until January 11th :/ However, I'm glad I got the burger. It sounds like this rice bowl is just bibimbap, but I'm not sure. I bet they had their own way of Westernizing it.

Free Food and Konbinya

This post of from a looong time ago, when my school's orchestra went to perform at Surrey. Somehow this got lost :P But, well here it is.

There was so much leftover food. Our TA ordered a massive amount of food from Subway and a nearby grocery store, so of course I had to take advantage of free food <3 

I may have taken one of the boxes of brownies >__> A close locker mate kept asking me for brownies every day, lol. (ahemsunnyahem).

I haven't been to Kobinya, so...I'm back :P Kobinya is simply the Japanese abbreviation for "Convenience", which refers to convenience store. The onigiris and small food items are super cheap; it's the epitome of college food/cheap eats in Asia, lol. The prices were even cheaper because there was a 2 for $3 deal. Not that much of a discount, but every cent counts.

Perilla is a kind of leaf that Asians eat. The leaf was shredded and mixed with the rice.

This is just an omelet with rice inside.

These are my favorite to unwrap, because it's really fun to do. It's designed like this to preserve the crispiness of the seaweed (because otherwise the rice will make the seaweed soggy and chewy, and it'll be difficult to take clean bites).

There's a small tab at the top of the triangle that you pull down, and then you pull apart the two halves. What this does is it removes the plastic that separates the seaweed and rice. Man, Japanese people have the coolest ideas :P

Going Back to Vancouver: Chinese Food in Bellevue and Main Street

Usually, I stay away from Chinese food because I always ate it so often when I was young...but you miss it once in a while.

Actually wait, dumplings are great, I'm okay with having dumplings for life.

Din Tai Fung updated their menu and style :) I've been here every since...I think before my high school years. A lot has changed.

This is the bean curd that has really nice sauce. The sesame oil makes it super addictive.

Their vegetarian dumplings are now colored green! So cool.

I'm glad they didn't take this off the menu (actually, I don't think they took any items off). These are Shanghai rice cakes. They're like ddukbokki :P it's so satisfying to chew on these.

They now have vegetarian buns! Yay

They used to only serve taro and red bean dessert dumplings, but now they've included black sesame buns. I like the nutty taste of them, but they're super rich and sweet.

I don't remember what this one was called. It's basically a Chinese cake that's not overly sweet.

My parents and I went to Sun Sui Wah restaurant on Main Street. I believe there's one in Richmond too. It's basically dim sum.

I liked these taro cakes. They're pan-fried, so the outside tastes kind of like french fries.

This is my mom's favorite. They're just rolled up noodles in soy sauce, and you can dip them in sesame seed sauce (it's kind of like a runny nut butter) and hoisin.

This was something I've never seen before; it's salmon and fish cake and cucumbers wrapped in seaweed and them deep fried. It came with sweet and sour sauce.

Fried tofu, yum.

 Xiao Long Bao (obviously not as good as Din Tai Fung, just saying).

Classic chow mein, (which is always spelled in 99 different ways)

I actually don't really know what this is. :D The white stuff is Chinese bread that they use for buns, but the filling is kind of a mystery..I'm pretty sure there's egg yolk.

Ha chong, but without the "ha" (I believe is shrimp? I tried). It has mushrooms and vegetables inside.

Aaannnnd durian mochi!! They're pretty tiny...not a lot of durian. :(

Winter Break Part 2: Blu Sardina, Microsoft, etc. and Boxer Ramen in Portland (Part 1 and Part 2 are backwards :S )

I should've put these adventures first, since they came before Part 2...oh well :P

I had lunch at Microsoft. If only we had food like this in college cafeterias.

This is a baguette that costed under $4 USD. I like different flavors that are balanced, and they did a pretty good job with balancing the textures and taste.

Microsoft has free flavored water all over the cafeteria. Basil, strawberry, and citrus...quite refreshing.

There was a salad bar that offers different salads each day. My dad brought pomegranate and added it to the bowl :P I wanted just balsamic vinegar, but my mom asked for mango chili dressing as well. What a party...it was kind of spicy x__x

My brother and I, working out so we can eat more food.

We revisited Bangkok Basil again, and I ordered the red curry like my dad. Adrian got a noodle dish that comes with stir-fried egg and crab meat.

I also got my dessert wish :3 deep fried banana, crunchy and sweet.

In Bella Bottega of Redmond, there used to be a Tully's Coffee across Starbucks, but they went out of business. The place was empty for the longest time, until Blu Sardina came along. Even when I went back in the summer, I didn't even know this place existed already. It's fine dining, and it's Mediterranean food. My mom got the seafood risotto, and I got a basil pesto pizza with their daily soup.

We also got some pumpkin Mascarpone, oh yeeeeees <3

This is just a Vietnamese sandwich from Yummy Pho. It's pretty simple to make; just take a baguette with some carrots, cilantro, mayo, carrots, jalapenos, and marinated protein of your choice.

Also went back to Frying Fish. The sauce of the Mapo tofu was waayyy too salty and spicy. This was really hard to finish, and I had to add sugar to balance the spiciness.

The last time I went to this Korean restaurant called Western Garden in Federal Way was when I was still in high school. This place got really busy, so we ended up waiting for a really long time before we could sit down. To me, it's pretty much standard Korean food.

This is the third time I went to Boxer Ramen in Portland. The first was with my mom (she doesn't remember), the second time was with a good friend during our trip to Oregon by ourselves, and this past winter break was the third time. They finally added a drink menu.

I got the vegetarian curry ramen. It was really cool to see the broth and sweet soy sauce separate. The mushrooms were also marinated in the sweet soy sauce.

My brother got a Tonkotsu Shio

My mom ordered the Shiittake Shoyu ramen.

My dad got the super spicy Red Miso. He was sweating a lot :P