Estea Beverage Club

This is from a few weeks back when one of our badminton sessions went a little longer than usual and we had to find a place to eat that opens late somewhere in Burnaby. My friend picked Estea.

Pearl Castle (Richmond Centre)

It was another girls' day out. We decided on having lunch at Richmond Center's Pearl Castle.

Well Tea Downtown

I've been going to Well Tea for lunch for quite a few times already, I just haven't had the time to write about it yet. Located next to BCIT downtown campus, this is the Well Tea downtown location.

4 Stones Vegetarian Cuisine

4 Stones is always packed with people at meal times, I can't remember if it was late lunch or early dinner when we decided to go, but we were very glad we did not have to wait for a table and also that their parking spots were actually available. The restaurant is located in a small plaza where they only have two customer parking spots and they are always taken.

Re-revisit - The One Restaurant

A few more late dinners at The One Restaurant after badminton result in the following...

Korean Kimchi Fried Rice. This dish has meat so we asked them to make it vegetarian.



Dry Noodle With Sesame Paste. I like this :D Just can't go wrong with sesame paste.



5908 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC V5J1H2
Tel : 604-569-1866

The One Restaurant

BBT Cafe

My friend came by to hang out the other day, one of the rare chances we get to hang out in the day time and just right before she starts her new job next week too. So we thought we would go for lunch. My other friends have told me that BBT Cafe has a good vegetarian selection on the menu but I've never had the chance to try it out, so I wanted to give it a try.

No.1 Beef Noodle House

It was a Saturday evening date with two girls, one very pregnant lady and one high school friend who I haven't seen in a couple of years. Pregnant lady picked our meet up place, No.1 Beef Noodle House, because she felt like beef noodles(without the beef :P). It's a little busy place but we didn't have to wait. We got the last empty table when we walked in. I have to say I really don't like how I smelled like beef afterwards... but otherwise the place was alright, service was pretty good and the meal was decent too. As for the pudding bubble tea I had, it was not good... it was made with pudding powder, no real pudding inside :( I think they have about three or four vegetarian dishes on their menu, the standard fried rice, fried noodle and such. The one I got was Enoki with Bean Curd Skin with Rice. I probably only took two bites of the meal and packed the rest home, but not because it was terrible, it was because I ate right before. Oh, just want to share an interesting fact I learned from my high school friend that night. She went to Iraq for nine months to teach English there and she said the people there are friendly to Korean people because they watch Korean TV drama on TV all the time. True story!

Pictures~







No.1 Beef Noodle House (Urban Spoon)

The One Restaurant - Revisit

Another visit back to The One Restaurant after badminton, it is like our new food place after badminton now. We always had trouble finding a place that opens late and offers more than a couple vegetarian dishes. So The One is a pretty good option for us. This time I wanted to try what my friend ordered last time, the Seasonal Vegetable With Noodle In Soup and we also wanted to try The One Egg Roll With Vegetable. Then we saw our friend's Pina Colada Slush that looked so good, so we ordered one ourselves too... Pictures :P

Flo Tea Room

When I found out there's another bubble tea/food place close to where I live, I was excited to try it out. The other ones I've tried so far I can't say I'm too impressed with their veggie food :( Hopefully I will go back to those again and write about them later on. But yeah, Flo Tea Room is my latest discovery... and I'm sorry to say, I was quite disappointed. But please don't stop reading, lol. After we were seated, the waitress brought us two cups of tea right away and I thought that was nice because a lot of times they don't give you water or tea at bbtea places. We then looked over the menu and ordered the Stir Fried Dual Mushroom And Fungi On Rice from the set lunch menu. You have the option of adding 2 dollars for a bubble tea with items from the set lunch menu, so we got the Matcha Milk Tea. From the regular menu, there is a page of vegetarian dishes and we ordered the Mixed Vegetable Fried Rice With Pine Nut. I can only say the drink was alright and the food was just... hmm... one was too salty and the other was just not very good. Oh and I think our set meal was supposed to come with a soup, which they did give it to us but I guess the waitress was having a bad day that she just put it down and walked away that we weren't able to catch her in time and ask if it was vegetarian, so we had to ask another waitress and it turned out it had seafood or something in there. I actually wasn't sure why I kept apologizing for being a vegetarian but I did and they just took the soup away without asking if we wanted anything else instead... Anyways, I like how they have a list of vegetarian dishes but I hope their food will improve in time so I would go back again.

The One Restaurant

After Thai, my friends suggested moving over to another place for drinks and desserts. They told us about this bubble tea place called The One. When we got there it was full of young people, well, just like any other bubble tea place I guess :P It was a really hot day that day and we wanted something COLD. So we all ordered shaved ice. We got the Deluxe Shaved Ice with added pudding, my friends got Pudding & Milk Shaved Ice, Fresh Mango Shaved Ice and Fresh Strawberry Shaved Ice. I think we pretty much covered every shaved ice on the menu. The bowl was big, only one of my friends who ate by himself managed to finish the whole bowl, all others had to stop because they got too cold after eating so much ice. I haven't had shaved ice for a long long time and I enjoyed it even though I got cold too :P

Chill Restaurant and Lounge

We have been to Chill a few times after our weekly badminton play. They really only have two main vegetarian meals, one is the Spicy Tofu Hot Pot and the other, Vegetarian Donburi. I have only ordered the donburi once and it tasted pretty bland and it had a lot of onions. All other times I've had the spicy tofu hot pot, it is good but it is pretty spicy. Ordering it as a set meal it would come with a soup, salad and rice. Ordering it alone as a hot pot, you will need to order rice separately. It is a bit tricky for vegetarians because the soup might not be vegetarian nor the salad. If you want to order it as a set, you should ask the waitress to make sure they make everything vegetarian for you. I think ordering the hot pot by itself and add a bowl of rice is a better option and value. Last time we ordered it as a set, we got Iceberg Lettuce Salad because they ran out of the Mixed Greens and they didn't even offer us a vegetarian soup substitute. I like the spicy hot pot but I wish they would have more vegetarian dishes on the menu. I'm sure we will be back more often if they did. We also ordered the Cill Tofu(deep fried tofu) that time.

Leaving Vancouver, Washington and Going Home - Well Tea

Last day of our long weekend trip, it was time to go home. The first thing we wanted to do as soon as we got back was to have some real asian food. It's funny I think this is the first time I've had such bad cravings for asian food on a trip. We needed to make a detour to Richmond, so we went to Well Tea. Well Tea has a good selection of vegetarian dishes and their food is decent, that's why we go there often with non-vegetarian friends. Aside from their one page long vegetarian section, they also have a couple omurice dishes that contain no meat. We picked one of them, the Curry Omurice and Veggie Chicken in Three Spices from the veggie menu section. One of my friends also ordered a veggie dish, the Teppanyaki Tofu with Shredded Bean Curd.

Veggie Bunch Vegetarian Restaurant - Taiwanese Vegetarian Buffet

We've been waiting for Veggie Bunch to reopen ever since it decided to relocate. It's been reopened for a couple months now at its new location on Buswell Street, between Park and Cook Road.

I find that their food is even better than before. The dishes are less greasy and even more delicate. My favourites have always been the stir fried cabbages and veggie sweet and sour porks. Couldn't find cabbages this time, but the sweet and sour porks are still great :) Their soups are yummy too. Hot and sour soup and Chinese herbal medicine soup were the choices that day and I had both. Oh, and they also have the sweet red bean soup, steamed dumplings inside bamboo steamers as well as a big selection of tasty vegetarian dishes. And of course, how can a buffet be completed without ice creams :P Yes, they have a fridge full of buckets of ice creams too!

Some pictures I took of my plates :D and the buffet dishes.

Ali Shan Restaurant (Crystal Mall)

This Taiwanese restaurant is pretty small so I would recommend avoiding the crowds so you don't have to wait to get a seat. It's funny that one of the big reasons why I like this place a lot is because there was this waitress who's really polite, but I don't think she works there anymore. But the biggest reason we keep going back is that they have very good food for pretty good prices and they can make a lot of things on their menu vegetarian.

We would always get the Soy Bean Hotpot. It is vegetarian but the dipping sauce has garlic in it so if you don't like that, I think you can just ask them to give you some plain hot sauce. The hot pot comes with a bowl or rice and has plenty of good stuff in it. It is really a big yummy meal for under 7 dollars. We usually get the Hawaiian fried rice too but this time we felt like trying something new so we ordered the Japanese Style Curry Fried Rice Omelette with no meat.





Sorry I forgot to take pictures before we digged in. After the first few bites I remembered I wanted to start writing a food blog, but like this time, I always forget to take pictures. So I just thought I should take pictures anyway as a start.



Ali Shan (Urban Spoon)