Kevin Wu

Max’s Burgers officially opened on January 23rd, 2012, but held a private Friends & Family (by RSVP) soft opening on January 14th and also a media event on the 17th.  I jumped on the chance to get a sneak tasting ahead of the general public and brought along Janice and Amy. It was a very informal affair, we were allowed to order any burger with 3 toppings and a drink. I should mention that this was all on the house for everyone.

Chinny ordered the The Big Max ($9), substituting the 5oz beef patty for a chicken thigh (no charge) and also opted for a broccoli salad instead of the fries (no charge).

For the sake of blogging and to avoid repetition, Janice ordered the Gargomel’s Stuffed Toadstools ($11), the vegetarian option of portobello mushrooms. Careful with this, it’s a slippery bugger..the wet mushrooms can cause some wardrobe malfunction and squirt out across the room. (...)
Click to read the rest of Max’s Burgers – “The Behemoth” 25oz Burger! (704 words)

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2012. | Permalink | 1 comment |

A post from Eva reminded me that this little hot pot restaurant out in Burnaby was still alive and kicking.

I can say with great confidence that I know this place is more than 10 years old, since I used to have piano lessons in the area when I was still in elementary school. Time flies, memories remain.

This isn’t the typical hot pot that everyone thinks of, but instead individual hot pots, aka shabu shabu. It’s the Japanese take on traditional Chinese hot pot, but it’s basically the same IMO, just that they gave it a fun name. Swish swish, swish swish goes the meat in the pot. On this visit, I brought along Daniel Stef Caitlin and Jeff along after VDL Playoffs.  (...)
Click to read the rest of Pearl Hot Pot 珍珠小火鍋 – Shabu Shabu in Burnaby! (335 words)

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments |

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure and honour to be invited to preview yet another Swallow Tail event, the Secret Supper Soiree Speakeasy tour. This event is put on in part with Dine Out Vancouver, and features 2 secret locations, 5 courses, and 4 optional wine pairings.

We met at Grand Central Station and awaited the double decker bus to take us to our first secret location. For me, it wasn’t a secret, but definitely somewhere I’ve been meaning to visit, and I’m willing to bet most Vancouverites aren’t even aware of its existence.

I really enjoyed my experience Down the Rabbit Hole as it was very creative, unique and interactive. The food was good to boot! I definitely was looking forward to the same level of creativity on this tour.(...)
Click to read the rest of Secret Supper Soiree Speakeasy by Swallow Tail! (659 words)

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments |

I am currently in Hong Kong! Since I’ll be here for the next 5 months Kevin has asked me to write reviews of restaurants in Hong Kong. Although I don’t think this relates to any 604 posts (Hong Kong’s area code 852) most of the Travel Series will be snippets and will lead back to my travel blog. Hope these posts will help you when you head to Hong Kong. Enjoy!

This restaurant was recommended to us by one of our dorm mates, she said they served decent food and it was Cha Chang Tang style.

The place wasn’t too hard to find as they had GIANT NEON SIGNS gleaming everywhere.

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I had the opportunity to preview 4 different restaurants from the Glowbal Group in advance of the upcoming 2012 Dine Out Vancouver food festival this past Wednesday. 

Starting off at Black+Blue, we had cocktails and  nibbled on “Bacon ‘n’ Eggs” - thick cut double smoked bacon, fried duck egg, spicy maple syrup, wild arugula. Fat juicy bacon with some soft creamy scrambled eggs and a sliver of toast. It was breakfast on a micro scale, with a bit of a kick from the spicy maple syrup.

The actual portion that will be served during Dine Out was brought out and Chef de Cuisine Chef Jason Labahn talked briefly about it.

After this, we took a short taxi ride over to Society. They offer a $18 menu, and I think it’s very good value and portion for that price, as you’ll see from the items later.

Here at Society, Executive Chef Alfred Contiga came out to talk about the menu. We sampled the Sweet Potato and Pulled Pork Croquette. Paired with some tarragon aioli & granny smith apple and green onion slaw, these little fried balls contained a good portion of savoury pulled pork.

To be honest, don’t bother ordering the salad unless you are seriously hell bent on vegetables because it’s quite bland and simple compared to the croquette.

For the mains, we had the Veal Piccata with thyme roasted polenta, roasted cherry tomatoes and a garlic white wine reduction. Polenta is a food that I personally struggle with. Do I like it, do I hate it? Where’s the taste, the texture? The blocks of roasted polenta here maintained some sense of texture and works well as a companion with the veal.

The other main available is a Prawn Linguini with lobster bisque sauce and garlic butter toast. Handmade prawn balls with linguini and two giant prawns.

So if you went to Society for Dine Out, this is what your table could possibly look like (not including desserts of course), along with suggested wine pairings.

The 3rd stop of the night was a quick walk over to Glowbal Grill, and we were about to get into the meat of things with some Prawn Cocktail’s and Grilled Beef Tataki.

Probably the most satisfying and filling part of my night was here, with some good classic Beef Tenderloin and Seared Alaskan Black Cod.

After all this food, we were about ready to hit the bed. Luckily, Sanafir has some beds upstairs. I’ve never been to Sanafir but always wondered what it looked inside as it is a restaurant so centrally located on the Granville clubbing strip. Well…I was pretty impressed. Long and high ceilinged, this can really set the mood.

A massive spread of milk, dark, and white chocolate truffles, pistachio macarons, watermelon gelee, baklava and zabalias awaited us. Talk about spoiled.

After this, it was safe to say that Rick Chung, Grace Cheung, Mark Busse and plenty others along this little tour were all sufficiently dined and wined out.

All 7 Dine Out Vancouver Menus for the restaurants of the Glowbal Collection can be found right here in this PDF.

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |

Since I’m staying at home sick, I decided to do a bit of cleaning around the room and on the computer. I got distracted by pictures (like always) and then was reminded by Andy’s picture of brain about my brain soup. Yep, brain soup. Slurp that up.

There’s not a lot of information available online for Zhong Cheng Hao (at least in English, I can’t be arsed to bother searching this up in Chinese) but this small restaurant is tucked away on a side street off from the main street of the Shilin Night Market.

I don’t remember how we ended up back here, we were just walking around looking for some food after having arrived back in Taiwan from a 15 day multi city trip through Shanghai, Hong Kong, Boracay (and one night in Manila that started out sketchy but ended up being saved by Jame’s dad). A trip that I wish I had taken more care of with documenting and later cataloging the food we ate more carefully. Could have been the daily drinking that hindered me though. Hm…nah.

I do know that when I saw this bag of brains outside..I wanted to have some of it, no matter how it was prepared. Stir fry, boiled, steamed, soup, deep fried. Whatever. Let me eat it. (...)
Click to read the rest of Pig Brain Soup @ 士林夜市 (Shilin Night Market) – Death by Prions?! (229 words)

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments |

After a very sleepless sweaty night following our arrival in Taipei and exploring Shilin Night Market, my uncle came to pick us up at some ungodly hour in the morning. Actually it was probably only 930am, but when you’re jetlagged and still adjusting to the uncomfortable weather that is summer in Taiwan, it sure seems ungodly. So we got ready…slowly. First thing that he wanted to take us to see was.. surprise surprise, food. Instantly the first thing I had in mind was TAIWANESE BEEF NOODLE! Obviously the other 3 guys were big fans of this idea as well.

My uncle already had a place in mind, he said he’d take us to a street known for its restaurants and food. It’s not uncommon to find entire streets in Taiwan and Asia in general that are dedicated solely to food. With so many hungry mouths, food is important.  Yong Kang Street 永康街 is one of these streets.

Though not necessarily the oldest, this place has won awards.. and is busy. We arrived half an hour before opening, so we had plenty of time to sweat while waiting outside and check out the menu. Mini bamboo baskets were steaming away, while we waited.

Thank god for these menus. There’s no English on the regular menus as you’ll see below, and that causes problems sometimes as the extent of Chinese characters that I can read has diminished a lot.

Really though, I have no need for a menu sometimes. I know what I want, I can order it, and I can communicate that in Mandarin just fine. However our friend Victor? Not so much. (...)
Click to read the rest of Yong Kang Beef Noodles 永康牛肉麵, Taipei, Taiwan! (368 words)

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |

It was a cold October night when May, Dennis, Rick, Sandra and others decided we should hit up Kingyo Izakaya for their ridiculous deal for $5 pitchers. Unfortunately, they were stupidly busy as it seemed everyone had the same idea, so Dennis suggested we go to Guu Garden.

Excellent, my first Guu visit.. ever!! It may seem a bit ridiculous, I’m Asian, I live in Vancouver, I write a food blog, but I’ve never been to a single Guu. Ever.

Yes, there have been times I’ve tried to go to Guu Garlic and Guu Aberdeen, but both were thwarted by lineups and a desire for food now, not food later. No problem here, we were seated immediately and the first matter was acquiring some drinks.

I started off with a Russell Brewing Guuud! Ale [650ml 6.0% abv] ($8.5), and eventually moved onto a MEGA Sapporo ($9) to join the others. The Guuud! Ale was closer to an IPA than an Ale and wasn’t quite so “easy” to drink for some reason.

Jeff and Caitlin came along as well, and since I had come straight from work, I was antsy to eat some real food and have some post work beers. Jeff & Caitlin ordered these, and I don’t recall eating either of them..so let’s just look at the pictures. (...)
Click to read the rest of Guu Garden Izakaya – Don’t be a 下戸.! (402 words)

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |

Disclaimer: The restaurant asked me to come and try their food, so everything was complimentary, but I did tip. 

Palki Indian Restaurant’s manager asked me to come in to try out their food. Normally, I don’t get this kind of direct email from the restaurants, it’s usually through various PR companies representing them, but this one caught my attention more simply because of one reason.

It was Indian food.

When was the last time you’ve ever seen me post about Indian food? I think I only have one post, and it was about Vij’s. It’s not to say that I don’t like Indian food, I just don’t know much about it and therefore am not too comfortable with it. However, I took this opportunity to catch up with Kelsi and also have some (hopefully) good food!

Palki Indian Restaurant on Commercial Drive actually occupies what used to be Lime Japanese Restaurant. Darn, that was on my wishlist. The black brick exterior is pretty bland and isn’t very welcoming, but they have plans to do some renovations for this 2012 year. This is Palki’s 2nd location, the original location in North Vancouver was opened 12 years ago by Bhupinder Mroke.

Walking in, the interior is not what I was expecting at all. (...)
Click to read the rest of Palki Indian Restaurant (Commercial Drive, Vancouver)! (496 words)

© Kevin for 604 Foodtography, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments |