West End : Tiny Bites

On the 7th day of Christmas, I’m craving meatatarian sandwiches

4 Comments Karen HamiltonDecember 16, 2011

On the seventh day of Christmas, Foodsters drove to me
Seven meat-filled ‘wiches
Six buns a-steaming
Five Memphis Feasts!
Four poutines
Three Peking Ducks
Two Japadogs
And a steaming bowl of chicken congee.

There are rare occasions where the convenience of meat and bread in hand trumps my Asian leanings toward noodles and rice. When this happens, these are the places I turn to.

La Brasserie: Brass chicken sandwich

by are you gonna eat that

Rotisserie chicken, brined in beer. Gravy. Buttermilk biscuit. A mountain of slivered, crispy onion. $7. Yes, please.

Find this mouth-watering creation in 3 locations: the La Brasserie restaurant on Davie & Thurlow, their original street cart on Georgia & Granville, and their second street spot on Georgia & Burrard.

Meat & Bread: porchetta and meatball addictions

If you ask me out to lunch on any given day, don’t be surprised when I suggest meeting at Meat & Bread. Despite my frequent patronage, it’s still a gut-wrenching experience at the counter each time I decide between the porchetta and the meatball. I typically wind up choosing the porchetta–no self-respecting Filipino would deny themselves any variant of lechon–and persuading my lunch mates to get the meatball or the daily special. Then I steal nibbles from their sandwiches. Dilemma solved.

Bada Bing: a Philly cheese steak that won’t weigh you down

It may well be that everyone’s talking about Anthony Sedlak’s newest venture (I for one had a good first visit), but the cheese steak that continues to steal my heart is the foot-long from Bada Bing.

by foodtruckapp

Made with halal beef that’s been sliced razor thin, topped with melted Monterey and stuffed inside a soft Italian loaf, you’d think that eating a foot of it would be a challenge to your digestive system. Instead, you’ll find that Bada Bing’s combination tastes elegant and subtle, which makes it easy for even a lightweight eater like myself to polish off the entire thing.

Unfortunately, the lack of a consistent web or social presence makes Bada Bing’s food truck difficult to spot. Make sure to track their lunchtime and evening whereabouts using the Street Food App on your smartphone before calling a delivery service like Foodsters to wrangle a ‘wich for you. The Street Food App also has food cart landing pages on their regular website for those that are not smartphone-enabled.

What sandwiches are you addicted to? Inquiring minds want to know.

From December 10-22nd, I’m a media sponsor for Foodsters’ 12 Days of Christmas Food Drive. Follow along as I share what my top 12 food and restaurant cravings are this season (with some poetic license to boot).

Categories: Blogging for Social Change, Downtown, Food, Food Purveyors, Gastown, Restaurants, West End

First impressions of Ramen Santouka

2 Comments Karen HamiltonMarch 7, 2010

Whenever I want to go adventuring in the land of Japanese cuisine, I ask my brother. His inner circle is populated with so many Japanese students and ex-pats that he’s practically foresworn our Filipino culture for theirs. When it comes to the food, he’s one of the biggest snobs and best scouts that I know, having introduced our family to Kingyo, Alpha, Kaide, and Motomachi long before ramen and izakaya entered Vancouver’s mainstream vernacular. It should therefore come as no surprise that it was he who made me curious about Ramen Santouka.

My brother haunts the non-touristy end of Robson Street for its array of Japanese and Korean dining options. A week and a half ago, he happened across the soft open of Ramen Santouka, the newest of the chain of ramen shops originally based out of Hokkaido and starting to make its conquest of North America.

The restaurant decor is peppered with bears – the symbol of Hokkaido, according to my brother

Soft open / grand opening signage and tasty, tasty visual menu

Even if he hadn’t already eaten at Ramen Santouka during his last trip to Hokkaido, the place still would have captured his attention. The storefront, while modest in signage and obscured by a bus stop, has an arresting display in the front window of what one could eat inside its doors. It would have been enough for this curious diner to try it without further recommendation; I imagine the descriptions and visuals would interest a ramen neophyte as well.

My brother stepped inside for his first Vancouver taste of Santouka’s shio ramen. One slurp was enough to sell him on a second visit in the same week – another positive experience which led him to suggest Santouka for lunch the next time he and I hung out. He tried the shoyu ramen and the cha-su don while I wasted no time in ordering the most unusual items on the menu: the kara miso ramen and ikura don. Our picks were conveniently available as ramen/don combos for $11 and $13. Gotta love a place that makes sampling this easy.

Kara miso ramen: spicy tonkotsu broth flavoured with chili oil and miso

Ikura don: rice bowl topped with salmon roe and thin shreds of scrambled egg

Shoyu ramen: tonkotsu base flavoured with soy

Cha-shu don: rice bowl topped with slowly simmered pork

Yum, yum, yum! Easily the best tonkotsu I’ve had in Vancouver. The regular pork in our ramen was already so superb in tenderness, marble, and rich flavour that it’s gotten me drooling in anticipation for the premium pork jowl of the toroniku ramen that I will no doubt order upon my return.

A few observations: 1 slice of pork in my bowl and the default portion size were not enough to appease my normally peckish appetite, and certain items on the menu were not yet available for order. I recommend immediately upgrading your bowl to the large portion and requesting extra pork when you visit. Don’t let the limitations in the current menu stop you from coming down to eat there, as food lovers in the know and Santouka fans happy to see its presence in Vancouver are already causing a formidable line-up during service peak times. Oh, and don’t forget your cash – no debit or credit cards accepted yet.

This is a promising ramen find for me. As for my brother – who isn’t wild about Kintaro and who prefers the likes of Motomachi – he has found a new favourite in Santouka. He’s even posted photos and rave one-line reviews of his Santouka meals on his Facebook profile without telling his friends where to find the place. Tease.

Chow Times and La Petite Vancouver can give you more detailed accounts of this newcomer to Vancouver’s ramen scene, so read about their dining experiences if you aren’t already en route to Ramen Santouka.

Categories: Downtown, Food, Restaurants, West End

A preview of Mis Trucos

1 Comment Karen HamiltonJuly 25, 2009

Thursday evening saw myself, Tipsy Bites contributor Degan (representing her blog, Ethnic Eats), and some of the gang from Foodists at a preview tasting of a newcomer to the Davie Village scene, Mis Trucos.

We were asked to give feedback on the dishes they presented to us that night, which also happened to be the first time the kitchen was fired up. Below are brief notes on what we were served.

The plates

Mixed olives, sheeps milk feta, orange and mint – $7

Fried petrale sole with tartare sauce – $8

Warm salad of Serrano ham, manchego, asparagus, and slow-cooked egg atop a bed of arugula – $9

Trio of wild fish crudo: ling cod with apple and celery mince; spring salmon with grapefruit; scallop with radish, sunflower cream, and parsley salt. $13

Pan seared spring salmon, artichokes barigoule, spring garlic cream – $15

Roasted leg of lamb, chick peas, chorizo, feta cheese, salsa verde – $16

White truffle + nova scotia lobster risotto, crème fraiche – $19

The drinks

Everyone at our table thought that the drinks that were being pushed out that night were outstanding. Even I, who had to settle for whatever non-alcoholic concoctions that bartender Jonathan would send my way. I would venture to say that the imbibables outshone the food. I mean, people were getting unintentionally sloshed just because some of the drinks, like the Gin-Gin Mule and The Snapper, were just so damn tasty.

First impressions

Having had this taste of the Mis Trucos bar and kitchen, I am truly eager for this addition to the stagnant Davie Village eating landscape. The food was commendable and the drinks certainly worth the trip, but I’d like to see whether the full portions are indeed worthy of the fairly steep price tag (our tasting plates seemed much too small for the values we were seeing on the online menu).

If you’d like to check out Mis Trucos, follow them on Twitter to discover the dates of their soft open. They are crossing their fingers for next week.

They certainly plan on being open for their first charitable event: a fundraiser for A Loving Spoonful on August 6, 2009.