wonton mein saga: after-states late night

wonton mein saga is the place to go when you need a quick bite at night. with quick food and reasonable prices, its not a bad choice for chinese food. 

seeing as it was quite late at night, we wanted some real comfort type foods especially after the american meals in well...america. 

we went with a congee, wonton mein (have to get it at wonton mein SAGA) and sweet and sour pork (yes i am one of those americanized chinese food people)

 congee (~$5.00): i THINK this was sliced fish...but honestly i dont remember. the congee itself was a nice consistency, thick and creamy but also tasty. not overly salty and gingery (i hate ginger) but a good night time food to satisfy and warm the stomach.

3.75/5

traditional wonton soup (~$5.00) - again it was late at night so i dont remember EXACTLY what kind of wonton soup it was but it was fine. obviously not good enough to remember but i know the noodles weren't bad with the right texture. 

3.75/5

sweet and sour pork (~$6-7?) - [sorry my prices are so confused, it was late and i was tired so i hardly noticed] but onto the food, this dish was not very good. i would stick to the congee and wonton noodles here as the veggies were quite raw and the pork was covered in batter and pieces were essentially pieces of fat. there was hardly any meat to this dish and hardly brushed against satisfaction. 

1.5/5 

overall, not a horrible choice if you choose the things that they are known for. happy eating! 

aberdeen food court: asian food mecca

aberdeen, although this place does not provide a good shopping experience, it holds one of the best food courts in the lower mainland. they have a huge selection of asian foods from noodles, cha chan teng, malaysian, pho, and even crepes and cream puffs. this place is perfect for people who cannot decide what cuisine they want to sample because they can have a little bit of each.

this time, i went to estea for bubble tea, shanghai shanghai for pan fried pork buns and cafe d'lite for their famous hainanese chicken with oily rice. 

estea express: honey green milk tea half sweet with grass jelly(regular - $4.50): this was actually very delicious with the right amount of sweetness. i also discovered i LOVE grass jelly. its not as sweet as coconut jelly and its like eating jello through the straw! 

3.75/5

(i had ANOTHER big city perks deal where i could get 5 bubble teas for $13. this was such a great deal but AGAIN i didnt use it until the last 2 weeks before it expired forcing me and my mom to consume 5 bubble teas in 14 days. anyways, they had quite a few restrictions so i went very basic) 

cafe d'lite: hainanese chicken with rice ($7.75) - everybody talks about how good the chicken and rice are here including my mom so we decided to share a plate of it and it was very good! maybe not as amazing as some people say but the rice was fragrant without being too oily and i love when the chicken is covered with a soy sauce. pretty good portion for the price too. i would definitely come back to aberdeen just for this.

4/5

shanghai shanghai: pan fried pork buns ($4.95) -  very good and juicy. they were very fresh since i had to wait a good 15-20 minutes for them (so if you plan on getting anything from shanghai shanghai, go there FIRST) although the juice inside was a bit oily, it was steaming hot. the bun was delicious as well but again, quite oily but you cant really complain since most pan fried buns are like that.

3.85/5

all in all, a very delicious and diverse lunch at aberdeen that will satisfy more than one of your cravings. 

dinesty: disappointing food and service

i'm a pretty big believer in the ratings that are on urbanspoon and this prompted me to try dinesty. honestly, this is the restaurant that has disappointed me the most in terms of its like-ness on urbanspoon and i didnt even go in with very high expectations.

my mom and I visited for lunch and it was crazy busy. not only did we have to wait for a spot, but the when we were ready to order, the waitress was hardly paying attention to us. the restaurant is also quite cramped and all the tables small and are very close together. 

xiao long bao ($6.95): soup filled steamed pork buns - I LOVE XIAO LONG BAO. they are one of my favourite things in the entire world and at dinesty, they were not bad for the price! these were not as soupy as i prefer but the skin was nice and thin. 

4/5

marinated beef with soy sauce in pancake roll: ($5.95) - not only was this expensive and prepared sloppily, it was not good. the pancake was hard and greasy, and there was hardly any beef on the inside. flat, oily and unappealing.

2/5

wok fried spare ribs with salt and pepper ($11.95): these were the worst thing that made it to our table. when i bit into one of these, it was EXTREMELY HARD and tasted burnt. this did not seem normal to us so for the first time in my life, we asked to have the dish sent back. this only got worse when one of the waitresses came back and told us that this is how the dish is supposed to be and asked whether we wanted it or not. i had never had such  bad experience with customer service as her attitude made me feel like I didnt know what i was eating.

therefore, we cancelled the spareribs and ordered the cold wined chicken. 

0/5

cold wined chicken ($7.50) - this was to be our meat dish and was quite good. the chicken was moist and the flavour of wine was prominent. also not a bad portion for the price either.

4/5

unfortunately, although there was SOME good food from dinesty, the bad attitude of the servers and the mainly disappointing food made this a place we would not want to return to. 

cattle cafe: pick and choose your noodle

i absolutely LOVE noodles. from pho to udon to basically anything that isnt rice, i love and cattle cafe satisfies my craving perfectly. everybody probably knows already but they're popular for their noodle combo where you choose a soup base, a noodle, 2 toppings and add $2 for up to 2 side dishes. it also comes with a drink which you can upgrade to bubble tea! they also have amazing egg waffles and french toast that are worth trying!  my favourite location is the richmond one, just tastes better to me, but it's pretty consistent across the locations but here is my usual order minus the additional sides. 

mango slush with mango stars 

noodle combo ($8.50): tomato pumpkin fish soup (so good!) rice noodles with beef brisket and something fish for my mom (: it also comes with mushroom and napa cabbage which makes me very happy since i LOVE my veggies!