South Castle Korean Restaurant

Our Korean friends, Ana and Kay, took us to a new Korean restaurant called South Castle that had recently opened up on Austin  Avenue in Coquitlam. The original restaurant of the same name is in North Vancouver, and apparently the Coquitlam location is the second branch of this restaurant (around Austin Heights Pizza area - I didn't take down the address, and somehow there is no trace of this location in the internet!).

Our friends warned us that the restaurant is very specialized and caters to mostly Korean customers.

The restaurant is on Austin Avenue, and is the location of a string of failed restaurants. The decor is very typical for a Korean restaurant, with lots of wood, and booths. However, the first thing I noticed about this place as we walked in was how busy it was; all of the tables were nearly filled, and the servers were running around.  As a consequence, our service wasn't that great and was quite rushed.

There isn't your typical menu at this restaurant; in fact, the only menu they had was on one wall, and it was entirely in Korean. However, this doesn't seem to be a huge deal because the menu consists on variations of one dish - sausage encased in intestine, and soup with lots of intestines.

As usual, we were presented with an array of Korean side dishes. They were good, though not remarkable.

The only thing that didn't have intestines in it was the bulgogi soup, which is what Shane got ($8.99). This arrived in an impressive stone pot type vessel in full boil. In addition to the slices of marinated beef, the soup had lots of green onion, veggies,  a few strands of potato noodles. Shane enjoyed this, although for me, the soup had a bit too much sugary sweetness.

The rest of us went for their specialty, which is the intestine soup with sausage ($10.49). According to our friends, this is 'soul food' and the ultimate comfort food for Koreans. Apparently South Castle does a near gourmet version of the dish and is of a quality that you would unlikely find in Korea.  Like the other dish, it arrived in a rollicking boil. This too, was filled with onions, bean sprouts, and green onions. I was very surprised at the amount of pepper that was in the soup; it tasted overpoweringly peppery, which was a very different flavour than I'm used to.  Some of the intestines were enjoyable, and the sausage was pretty interesting, though the thick intestine casing made it a little too chewy. However, the dish had too much intestine for me. Near the end I couldn't really eat any more. 

I was very pleased that I was able to try this specialty dish. I definitely would try this again, though it's not a dish that I would crave on a regular basis. Judging from the number of customers, this restaurant seems here to stay.

Wings Tap and Grill

A few months ago, Wings Tap and Grill opened on the corner of North Road and Lougheed, taking over from the Greek restaurant that used to be there. One afternoon, we decided to pay this new location a visit.

The interior was shiny and new, with lots of black wood and comfy booths. There were flat screen TVs everywhere, and we noticed that every seat had a clear view of a screen.

Shane ordered the Fiji Blond by Lighthouse, and I ordered the Wings Flamin' Caesar. The beer was light and refreshing, and the Caesar was actually quite good, with a great kick and the right amount of seasoning. The only thing is that it was really sludgy at the bottom of the glass.

We ordered Nach'r Average Nachos ($8.99 + $1.49 for guacamole), which looked really impressive when it arrived at the table. However, there were many things wrong with this dish: the nachos were really thin, with a weird texture, and tasted very similar to cardboard. The cheese was tasteless, and ended up being more on the plate than on the chips. The salsa was obviously from a bottle, and the guacamole had no resemblance to avocado, being really runny and devoid of any taste. A huge disappointment.

The good thing about this place is that the namesake wings are really good. We were lucky enough to visit on Sunday, when the wings are on special for $0.39 each. We ordered ten wings of Maui Lime and ten of the buffalo hot sauce flavour. These were great - the outside was crispy and the wings were nicely cooked. The hot wings had just the right amount of hot sauce, and the Maui Lime and slightly sticky and sweet flavour. The wings were done right.

However, what came with our wings was something a lot less appetizing. Our server plopped a rusty metal bucket on our table, and it seeing the wet, barely rinsed, rusted bucket was a little...well, disgusting.

Nevertheless, the place is a great for casual eats and is pretty family friendly. A good addition to the neighborhood.

Me-N-Ed's Pizza Parlor

One Friday, equipped with our Entertainment Book, we decided to try Me-N-Ed's Pizza. We've had take-out from there, but for some reason we'd never visited the restaurant before, even though I grew up in the area. The Coquitlam location is located in the main drag of Austin Avenue, near the Safeway a bunch of little neighborhood stores.

We arrived on a Friday evening, and the place was really busy. There were lots of families and teenagers. Even though the restaurant has been there for as long as I could remember, the place looked pretty decent and felt new. There were wooden booths, and a large, open fireplace right in the middle of the restaurant. All in all, the atmosphere is extremely cozy and comfortable.

For an appetizer, we ordered the hot wings ($9.45 per dozen). Unlike a lot of places, the wings from Me-N-Ed's were baked, not deep-fried. This made the wings have a very soft texture which was different from the usual wing experience. However, the sauce wasn't very hot--the wings could have used a ton more hot sauce, but then again, that's my personal preference.

For the pizza, we ordered a half/half large ($26.55). Shane chose the Soprano (Bocconcini, fresh tomatoes, capicollo, onions), and I chose the Roasted Garlic and Smoked salmon (roasted garlic, smoked salmon, goat cheese, capers, dill). The pizza came piping hot and looked really good. I loved the Smoked Salmon half--the smoky saltiness of the salmon, the briny saltiness of the capers, the creaminess of the goat cheese, the sweetness of the roasted garlic. It was so, so good. I was less impressed by the Soprano (though it was Shane's favorite)--the whole thing tasted a little bland to me, but then again, I prefer stronger flavours.

What's unique about Me-N- Ed's pizzas is their crust. It's quite thin and crunchy, but there were crisp layers to the crust, almost like phyllo dough. It gives the pizza a really crispy texture. It's not at all 'doughy'.

We would come back to Me-N-Ed's for sure for their pizza (not the wings though). Our experience was only marred by really slow service--we must have waited about 25 minutes for the wings to arrive. The pizzas themselves are on the pricey side, but then again, the product is different from the usual pizza joints.

The restaurant does quite a feat for distinguishing itself from its competitors.

The Pantry - Coquitlam

The Pantry is one of those chain restaurants that's been around for quite a long time. We don't come here very often, but sometimes it can be interesting to visit and experience quite the throwback to an earlier time.

The restaurant is located at the Best Western on North Road, and it has the feel of a motel restaurant in a small town.

The decor is very 1980's, with plushy, wildly patterned booths, and pictures of happy, smiling people. Very 'family restaurant'.

We arrived in the morning, so Shane ordered the Pantry's Special Breakfast (around $10) with 2 eggs, bacon, sausage, shredded hash brown, and two pancakes. The meal was pretty comparable to what you would get at Denny's or IHOP. It's lots of food that tastes okay, but not necessarily of the best quality.

As I recall, the Pantry used to have a great Clubhouse ($9.95), so I opted for that instead of breakfast. The sandwich was pretty good. My only criticism was the turkey. Although it definitely was real turkey, it wasn't the roasted and carved type of turkey which is best, in my opinion. However, the bread was nicely toasted without being so hard that it cuts your mouth (this characteristic I call 'stabby'), and the bacon was really well cooked and still had a slight chewiness. The fries were pretty standard, but good.

It was an average meal, though the atmosphere is friendly and fun. Plus, the conversations you overhear are pretty fascinating--about people on the road, their plans for the day, and where they're from. Interesting.

New Spring Szechuan Restaurant

A while ago, we were in the Burquitlam area and decided to try a nearby Chinese restaurant that was recommended by our friends Ana and Kay. The restaurant is located on Cottonwood avenue, across the street from the Burquitlam Plaza complex.

We arrived for an early dinner, and when we entered, there was no one to greet us. We just stood there for a few minutes, wondering if we should leave or not, but a few moments later, a friendly woman ran into the restaurant, saying she had just popped out at the nearby convenience store to get lottery tickets.

We were the only people in the restaurant, so had our pick of seats. The interior was plain but clean.

To start, we shared a fried roll ($2.50), which arrived golden brown on the outside and soft and slightly sweet on the inside. As was custom, this was served with a small dish of condensed milk to dip the bread in. This was tasty, and not too oily.

We also shared a small bowl of dumplings in spicy and garlic sauce ($5.95). The pork dumplings (wonton style) were pretty good, though not spectacular. However, what made the dish was the spicy, garlicky, and slightly vinegary sauce that topped the dumplings. This was tangy, pungent, and mouth-wateringly delicious.

We also tried their Hot and Sour Soup ($6.50). For a small size, this was quite substantial. The soup was tasty--with a great level of sour and heat. It's not the best hot and sour soup I've had, but it's quite decent.

We also tried the dry version of their Tam Tam (or Dan Dan) noodles ($5.50). Though the noodles weren't handmade, they were nicely cooked, with a slight chewiness remaining. The sauce was delicious--not too much like peanut butter, which is why sometimes I really don't like this kind of noodle, but this one was great. There was a nice amount of saltiness, and the sauce was lipsmackingly good. I really loved this dish, but Shane was disappointed in the noodles, having had a lot of handmade noodles in the past.

We were really happy with this dining experience. New Spring is a great little neighborhood restaurant: the service is friendly, the prices are very affordable, and the food is tasty.

Midam Rice Cake House

After our meal at Bool Chul Pan, Ana and Kay wanted to take us to a Korean dessert place that they had recently discovered. It's located in the same plaza on North Road, but on the lower level, tucked in an obscure corner. To be honest, we wouldn't really know that this place was there if we weren't led to it. Incidentally, you can find some reviews from other bloggers here and here.

As we entered the restaurant, I was surprised at how spacious and large the restaurant was; the place was bright with florescent light and had high ceilings and a number of dark wooden tables and chairs. Off to the side, there is a glass enclosed display of miniatures and various rice cakes that people could order before hand for a special occasion.

As we sat, we were given an extensive dessert menu. Even though we just had a large meal, we still decided on a dessert each. They all ranged from $6-9 dollars, and are HUGE.

Kay got a persimmon slush, and this tasted exactly like the fruit. It was light and refreshing.

I had the green tea ice cream and rice cake. This came with a side of sweet beans and a drizzling of strawberry sauce. I enjoyed this--the ice cream went well with the rice cake. However, I would say that because the rice cake was this huge slab at the bottom, the dessert was a little heavy and hard to get into.

Shane ordered the coffee and red bean slush. This arrived in a huge pile in a really big bowl. Quite impressive. First there is the huge pile of shaved ice and coffee, then the sweet red bean, then the ice cream. Around this mountain were small pieces of plain rice cake. I'd never seen anything like it. Taste-wise, this was interesting. The rice cake pieces were soft and chewy, the coffee-soaked ice crunchy, bitter and cold, the red bean sweet and yielding, and the ice cream cold, sweet and creamy. It was an unusual and exciting experience.

Ana had a similar dessert, the red bean slush. It was pretty similar to the one above, except that her rice cakes were coated with a peanut powder, which gave the rice cake a subtly sweet, nutty flavour. Of all the desserts, I liked this one the best.

We were also given complementary little rice cakes with a sweet filling. We all thought that was a nice touch.

I can honestly say that this was one of the most unusual desserts I've ever tried. It was fun and really eye-opening. We would definitely come back for more of the chewy, tender, rice cakes!

Bool Chul Pan Korean Hot Grill

On our morning walks, we often pass by the complex on North Road, which houses a big Korean supermarket and a generous handful of Korean restaurants. The supermarket has always been our destination for seasoned nori, delicious kimbap, and Korean/Japanese goods. A few months ago, we noticed this new Korean restaurant with a large yellow sign, but we always passed it by (out of respect for the dear departed Thai Son location, maybe).

A couple of months ago, I ran across this first review from Chow Times and another rave review from 604 Foodtography, and I have been curious ever since.

Two weeks ago we went with a couple of friends, Ana and Kay. It's always a little daunting to go to a new place, but thankfully, our friends are Korean and knew what they were doing, so we left everything up to them.

We arrived at around 6pm on a weekday, so there weren’t too many customers yet. The restaurant itself is large and dimly lit, simply decorated, and filled with solid wooden tables and chairs.

Incidentally, our friends had been to the restaurant before and weren't impressed. One of the reasons was the really poor banchan. There was the usual stewed potato, blanched and seasoned sprouts, kimchi, pickled turnips and pickled veggies. The dishes were not too tasty, I'll admit.

We decided to share the combination dinner ($39.99) which came with tofu soup, seafood pancake, and a panfried item. There was a choice of which kind of item we wanted, and we decided on the squid and pork belly.

First arrived the tofu soup. It was pretty good--the broth had a nice spicy saltiness and the tofu was soft and delicate. We all liked this, except for Kay who detected that the tofu might have been slightly off. The rest of us were oblivious to this, however.

The seafood pancake, though quite large, was a big disappointment. The pancake was flat, soggy, and barely cooked in the middle. The taste was very bland, and wasn't even helped by the accompanying sauce.

Next came the main item, which arrived on a burner in a huge rectangular metal pan, which was loaded with cabbage, onion, squid, pork, and spicy chili sauce. The server started frying up the food in front of us, which was really interesting. However, after about a minute of this, she left us to our own devices. We asked our friends about this type of restaurant and they said it was pretty common in Korea, except that it's more of a dish that you have when you're out drinking.

This was good, though none of us loved it. Basically, it's not really a dish that you can screw up. The pork didn't have much taste, and the cabbage included the core. Hmmm. The great thing was there was a lot of food. It really boggles the eye to see this huge amount of food at your table, you know?

We knew there was supposed to be fried rice after we ate most of the stuff, but we had to wait a real long time. This was weird because we were about the only people eating at the restaurant at the time. Anyway, we called them, and the rice was fried in the same metal pan, and it soaked up most of the left over sauce. The rice just tasted okay.

We had another long wait for our bill. At the end of the meal, we all were very full, but none of us had that happy feeling that accompanies a really good meal. But at least the company was good!

Sushi California

Sushi California is one of our neighborhood joints, a place to go when you're hungry and looking for generous portions at a decent price. It sits in the same complex as Lu Lu Cafe, on the corner of North Road and Lougheed. As usual, the restaurant was very busy, but our service was efficient and brisk.

We ordered a few items, hot and cold. The first was the tako yaki ($3.75), which are five grilled balls of dough with octopus pieces in it. The dish arrived topped with fluttering flakes of bonito and drizzles of japanese mayo and katsu sauce. This was delicious; the tako yaki were soft and had a near custardy feel, and the octopus was pleasantly chewy and gave a nice, contrasting texture. We enjoyed this a lot.

Next was the assorted tempura ($7.95). The pieces were crunchy and piping hot, but it was pretty standard, like anything you would get at any Japanese restaurant.

We also had few pieces of salmon, unagi, and tako nigiri sushi. The salmon pieces were fresh, and so large that it overlapped over the rice; this was tender and pretty good. The unagi also were tasty, though not as melt in your mouth as those from Fuji Sushi's. The tako was tender enough, but lacked that sweet from-the-sea flavour that you would ideally get.

The last thing we shared was the spicy combo ($7.95), which came with spicy tuna maki, kappa maki, and marinated pieces of tuna and cucumber in a sweet chili sauce. The spicy tuna was great, with large tuna pieces and a generous addition of hot sauce. The marinated tuna was quite spicy, but was a little to sweet for my liking. Nevertheless, it went well with the cucumber maki, which cleansed and cooled the taste buds.

Sushi California is really about the portions and the generous slices of fish. The quality isn't the best, and the food is not made with tremendous care, but the restaurant is affordable and always popular with the locals.

Lu Lu Cafe

If you live in the Lower Mainland, you’ll have noticed that November was a particularly wet month...as in days and days of darkness and rain. So far December has been grand—cold days with a brightness people haven’t experienced in weeks. Saturday was beautiful and sunny. We started off with some yoga at home, and went for a walk along the river, where we glimpsed a blue heron hunching on a branch above the water.

For lunch we opted for one of those places we’ve walked past but never visited, Lu Lu Cafe. It’s on the corner of Lougheed and North road, at a little mini complex that also houses one of our regular eats, Sushi California. I suppose the reason we’d never been to Lu Lu is that everytime we’d walk past there, then walked past Sushi California, we’d always see so many more people at the Japanese place than at Lu Lu’s, and that would tip our feet in the direction of the Sushi place.

We decided to go there that Saturday afternoon, around 4pm. Being quite a weird eating time, the restaurant was entirely empty and we ended up being the only customers at the restaurant. The interior is comfortably basic, with warm pumpkin coloured walls and orange light fixtures. Needless to say, we were served right away.

We weren't particularly hungry, so we opted for a couple of lighter dishes. One was the spicy green bean (around 8 bucks); we'd actually ordered the kind with pork, but the vegetarian one was served to us instead. Despite the wrong order, the beans were tasty, with tiny pieces of garlic coating the bean, which were cooked but still crunchy. It wasn't at all spicy, however.

We also shared the fried rice with diced chicken and salted fish (around 8 bucks), a choice which was inspired by a blog I read, Chowtimes (regular readers of this blog will know what I'm talking about). Shane isn't a big fan of salted fish, but he still found the fried rice to be pretty good. The rice wasn't too greasy, and every grain of rice was nice and distict. There were big pieces of chicken, and tiny bits of salted fish, which I particularly enjoyed. The salted fish reminded me so much of my childhood, because every once in a while my dad would bake one of those things and stink up the whole house! Something that salty is so good with rice.

So that's it, a little nibble of the menu. This was our first time at Lu Lu, but we will surely return. The food is decent, portions generous, and the prices are really good.