Marulilu Cafe

Last month, my lovely took me to a new Japanese breakfast place. Marulilu Cafe is on the corner of Cambie and Broadway (451 West Broadway). It's very accessible as it is right across from the Broadway-City Hall skytrain station.

When she said, Japanese breakfast, I didn't really know what to expect. I was like, sushi for breakfast?? hahaha but I was pleasantly surprised, we were promptly greeted by 2 very friendly staff. We order at the counter and then they bring you your order. The place isn't huge either, it could probably seat about 25 - 30 people.
Everything on the menu was reasonably priced.
Here is my order:

Eggs Benny with one hashbrown with my choice of ham

I must say these are the best tasting eggs benny I've ever had. I've only had eggs benny maybe 5 times in my life, but this one tops them all.

Presentation is superb and the taste was very delicious, served warm as it should be.

I believe my dish was just under $8.

Here is Hambie's order: a Japanese style Breakfast

It came with a bowl of steamed white rice, miso soup, tofu, plain egg omelet and her choice of salmon. I believe everything was tasty, but I do recall her mentioning that the tofu was kind of dry and would've been nice with a sauce.

Well presented dish as well

We are happy happy! and so are our tummies! :)

The only concern I had was that I don't think there was air conditioning, it was pretty stuffy inside especially with the sun shining through the window.

I know that my opinions on this place aren't fresh, seeing as I'm writing this post almost 2 months later, but it's to the best that I can remember.

All in all, I give Marulilu Cafe an 8.5 out of 10 and will definitely come back again to try some other items on the menu.

Bon Chaz Bakery Cafe

I know it's been a looong while since our last post, but we've superduper busy. But we're here now :)
Our next stop is at Bon Chaz on 426 West Hastings Street downtown Vancouver. We've been here a few times now and also their other location on the corner of Main St and Broadway.

It's a cute little place to grab a warm drink and a treat or even some lunch. Aside from baked pastries, they also serve daily soups, sandwiches and pastas.
There was a bunch to choose from on our first visit, but we were definitely going to satisfy our sweet tooth.
Their 'bonchaz" buns are made of buttery goodness and you can choose from original and other flavors depending on the day, like matcha or chocolate. We had a coupon for a free one (which is also what led us to this place!) so we tried an original.

It's a cute little bun regularly $1.95. It was so-so for me, but it definitely was moist and just the right amount of sweet.

I was more excited when we also got these!

Oh.My. Gosh. Bryan and I could not get over how good the chocolate croissant is!!! Heaven! The croissant is so soft and buttery and with the chocolate baked into the inside as well, you can't not like it! definitely worth the $3.95

Next up, we had the pecan and brown sugar cupcake. I believe every day they have a different cupcake. It's a regular sized cupcake and we thought it was a little expensive for $3.95, but we wanted to go for it anyways. wow, is that ever sweet. The brown sugar was a little overwhelming actually. You couldn't really enjoy it much because it was overly sweet. 

And lastly, the black and white cookie. It's a pretty big double chocolate cookie. The texture is more of a cake to us, but nonetheless, deeelicious. This one is definitely a winner.

 

The prices are little up there for us, although they do have a different deal every day. For example, every Friday, pastries are 10% off. The people that work there are really nice too, very friendly.

We give BonChaz an 8 out of 10 overall. The croissant gets an 11 out of 10 ;)

*we went back to BonChaz specifically for a chocolate croissant the other day only to find out that they wont be making them anymore :( 

Happy Eating, xoxo

Dina & Bryan

Ki Sushi

I have a little extra time before it gets all hectic before our trip to CUBA!! (sooooo excited! yeeee =D)
Yesterday, I had a lunch date with Grace - it was looooooong overdue and we headed over to Ki Sushi at 31 8th Street New Westminster. The location is very convenient: right across from the skytrain station.
The restaurant gave off a fresh modern feeling and was clean. Grace was already waiting for me at a table, but we both wanted to request a booth and they were able to grant our wish with a smile. So we transferred over to a booth table by the window. We took a look at the menu and everything was reasonably priced, I've seen cheaper but I've also seen much more expensive menus so this was just right.

It didn't take very long for our food to come out, which was very nice because I was very hungry!

I ordered, I believe it's "Set B" Lunch box

It included chicken yakisoba, 4 california roll, salad and vegetable/prawn tempura. All for just $7.95 :)

The yakisoba had a somewhat dry texture but as if it is meant to be like that because it was really tasty in my opinion. It was a also a good portion with enough pieces of chicken. I was expecting not much noodles because of the price but I was pleasantly surprised :) The california roll was average and so was the salad. I actually didn't like the way the salad was shredded, the taste was lost. But I really liked the assortment of tempura you get: yam, eggplant, mushroom, and 2 pieces of prawn. Yummy!!

Grace ordered the Beef teriyaki bento box.

 Her's included a good portion of beef teriyaki on rice, assorted veggie and prawn tempura, miso soup, 2 california roll, and 3 tuna maki.

Grace said she found that there was too much teriyaki sauce, but I on the other hand like it saucy and moist so I tried a bit of it and I quite like it :) I guess it's based on personal preference. We both thought that perhaps next time you could order the sauce on the side and dip/pour as much to your liking. Again, a great deal at $8.95

The service was pretty good too. The servers came by twice to refill tea/water and had a pleasant attitude-always important!!

I think I would definitely come back here again if I was in the area. I believe they also have free customer parking which is a plus in that part of New Westminster.

Ki Sushi restaurant deserves a solid 9 out of 10.

Happy Eating! xoxo,

Dina

Benny's Cafe

Last week, Bryan and I took our cruisers out for a ride and rode down to Kitsilano to pick up some of our favourite chocolates from Thomas Haas and to have a late lunch here at Benny's Cafe. I believe it was formerly known as Benny's Bagels, and I found out why when we were there. They have a wide assortment of fresh bagels :)
The place has wood furnishings with touches of a funky modern feel. It's really cozy in there and also has seating upstairs. Really cool vibe! Only problem we had was that there wasn't any air conditioning inside and with it being 19degrees outside and us warm from the bike ride, it felt really cooped up inside with humid air.

So we walk up to the counter and place our orders. What to choose?..what to choose?...The menu had a lot of things I wanted to try :) I gave my name and Bryan and I took a seat upstairs in the loft. We found a table by an open door so that was accomodating to us, letting a cool breeze in. 10 minutes later and they bring our food to us.

Bryan ordered a "Benny's Benny"

Eggs benedict with ham on a pizza bagel (Bryan's choice!)

I stole half of one! It was mouthwatering delicious!! The pizza bagel went really nice with it and the egg with the sauce was heaven!! We both love it!! 

I had a Turkey BLT on a Sundried Tomato bagel

Wow! I loved it! The bagel was sliced into 3 layers. All the ingredients were so fresh and had a great crunch to it. Very delicious! The sauce they used was nice too it had a tangy and almost spicy, but not spicy taste lol.

We both really enjoyed this place, both the food and the atmosphere. Will definitely be back numerous times!

We rate Benny's Cafe a 9 out of 10.

See you soon Benny! :)

Happy Eating! xoxo,

Dina & Bryan

Applebee's

We were running errands in Coquitlam and came across Applebee's. This location in Port Coquitlam is the closest I think and one of the few in BC without having to cross the border. It's style is like Red Robin or the Pantry; a typical American-food family restaurant.
We came in at about 2:30pm for a late lunch/early dinner so there was hardly anyone else in there. I think we only saw 3 other tables occupied, so it was real quiet. It was kind of dark in there too and no liveliness.
Nonetheless, we decided to go with their 2 for $25 deal. You get to choose 2 entrees plus an appetizer (from a separate list/menu) for $25.

First up, for our appetizer we chose Cheese Quesadillas!

Melted cheese and freshly made pico de gallo between 2 large flour tortillas. This was cheesey ooey gooey goodness! This could easily be an entree for me, it was huge! and filling too! 

For Bryan's entree, he chose Provolone stuffed Meatballs with Fettucine. That sounds delicious to me without even looking at the picture!

But to my surprise, Bryan wasn't very satisfied. He was complaining that the meatball tasted bland and fake. So I had a bite...I thought it was just okay, but with the melted cheese stuffed inside it was definitely better. But he kept insisting that even the meatballs at Subway were ten times better! The fettucine itself was not bad, it was moist and tasty. This dish was so-so and gets 6 out of 10 stars. 

I went for the Double Crunch Shrimp basket.

It really was a heaping platter of succulent shrimp fried to perfection. It's served with coleslaw, fries and tangy cocktail sauce. This was a yummy meal! Great taste and crunch of the shrimp and the sauce makes it so much better. I've had better fries , but I wasn't complaining too much about those.

These are the prices if bought separately: Provolone stuffed meatballs with fettucine $15.99, Double Crunch Shrimp $13.99 and the appetizer would be $9.99.  So we saved about $15! 

Our waitress wasn't extraordinary, pretty much just did her job with no extra effort and sometimes not even saying anything when she gave us our plates, so minus points on that, which reflected on how much we tipped. We also waited about 15 minutes for our food which seemed long to us since there was hardly anyone there! Seeing as this location is pretty far from home and the food and service wasn't spectacular, we probably won't be back, sorry Applebee's!

Overall, including Bryan's dissatisfaction lol, we rate Applebee's a 6.5 out of 10.

Happy Eating! xoxo,

Dina & Bryan

Lucy's Eastside Diner

This diner is pretty yummy :) It was Bryan's first time here, but I had come here a couple times before. It's located in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood at 2708 Main Street.

 It's a really cute diner and easy for us to get to.

They have those classic diner bar stools that you look for at a diner. love it! We came here after work so we were there at about 1:30pm for a late lunch. There were a few others there so it wasn't too crowded. The server brought us  a couple waters with the menus already waiting at the table. We waited about 8 minutes for our food to arrive.

I ordered the Montecristo sandwich with fries. $8. A chicken, ham and cheese sandwich dunked in egg and grilled to perfection. SOOOO GOOD! Fresh off the grill goodnes, and the shoestring fries were great with their special dipping sauce. WIN!

Bryan went with one of their footlong "HoooDogs"

"Chili n Chips" 

Topped with homemade meat chili, a splash of hot sauce, avocado, monterey jack cheese and crumbled tortilla chips. $7. Bryan said it was deeelicious. The chili was really the star of the meal. It was steaming hot too when it came. One big dog with big taste :)

I believe I'm correct when I say they are open 24hours and serve breakfast all day! There's so many choices, take a look at their menu! I won't be surprised if Bryan and I find ourselves in here again!
 Overall, Lucy's Diner is 9 out of 10 stars.

Happy Eating! xoxo,

Dina & Bryan

Donburi Ya Robson Street

I've been a bit lazy the past month-ish and haven't been keeping up with the blog, but we're here now :) This one was from a while ago at Donburiya for lunch after some shopping on Robson. It's like a fast food style restaurant where you order your food at the counter and you sit and wait, but they bring the food to you. We didn't wait any longer than 5 minutes for the food. I ordered a simple chicken teriyaki don in a small size. I like how they have different sizes of the bowls so you can choose according to how hungry you are and how much you can eat. It wasn't anything special, just a regular tasting don. I was still satisfied because I was craving teriyaki at the time.

Bryan ordered from their curry menu. I can't remember what his was called (this is what happens when I put off a food blog! :/ ) But I think it had croquettes in it with the curry, well anyways he enjoyed it a lot!

Both our meals together came to about $14, which wasn't too bad. It's a small restaurant though, could probably only fit about 18-20 people at one time..tiny! We'd come back here only if we were in a hurry and we were near it.

Donburi Ya gets a rating of 7 out 10.

Happy Eating! xoxo,
Bryan & Dina