Bronx Pizza

After our first failed attempt at getting some take out from El Zarape, we took the short jaunt over to Bronx Pizza for some slices. Normally, my son loves pizza, so it is usually a safe backup plan. For some odd reason, he wanted a taco instead. A taco? Little did he know, the taco in question was not the type you'd find in a box of Old El Paso. That is probably why after one look at the one we got from El Zarape and he went straight for the pizza. Thank goodness we actually drove over to Bronx Pizza. Situated in a pretty plain looking building, Bronx Pizza (as the name implies) serves up New York-style thin crust pizza. Since we only had the 4 of us and 2 were kids, I only settled on pizza slices rather than a whole pizza. So keep in mind that these were premade pizzas which were reheated in the oven.

From the display, I selected 4 slices of pizza, 2 of which were Cheese. When I was presented with my order, the nice guy at the counter actually threw in a 5th slice of Pepperoni for free. By appearances alone, the pizza was definitely thin; yet not that thin. Therefore, it wasn't necessary to do the "fold" in order to eat it. Would this upset some purist? Possibly. This could've been due to the reheating which crisped up the crust more than it was already. In terms of texture, the crust was crispy from the visit to the oven while still exhibiting that classic chewiness. There was a modest amount of tomato sauce and the right amount of cheese so it didn't overwhelm the thin crust. All-in-all, a good slice of pizza.

I also got a slice of Sausage and Artichoke & Sundried Tomato each and I much preferred the meat pizza over the vegetarian. Personal preference really. Well, also the fact that any pizza with veggies on it normally becomes more soft and this was no exception. I found the sausage to be quite meaty with some peppery notes. I liked that there was lots of it too. In terms of being a NY-style pizza, Bronx comes close. The crust is probably a tad thicker. Yet, it does the job considering it is located in San Diego.

The Good:
- Reasonably-priced
- Crust is pretty good, considering it's San Diego
- Cool dudes work there

The Bad:
- Although good, the crust could be thinner

El Zarape

Finding good Mexican food in Vancouver is akin to finding a car parked properly at Crystal Mall. But, in San Diego, it is another story. With its close proximity to Mexico, it is only natural to find many great Mexican restaurants. However, not all are created equal. Much like you cannot assume a Chinese restaurant is good in Vancouver, you have to pick your spots in San Diego as well. In consultation with some locals, we headed out to El Zarape for some authentic Mexican eats. However, the parking in the area was inhospitable (how ironic). Furthermore, a lineup out the door didn't bode well for us. So, we headed over to Bronx Pizza for some slices. My son was quite dismayed at this development since he was looking forward to some tacos. We tried convincing him that the pizzas would be good and I'd put on extra Parmesan. No dice. He was whiny as a 6-year old. Wait, he is a 6-year old. Fine, we drove all-the-way-back to El Zarape and this time around, there was no lineup. Still no parking though! I finally decided to ditch the car at a closed auto shop nearby and ran in quickly to get some take out.

From the outside and inside, the place is very humble. No glitz. No gimmicks. You see, we were just coming back from Old Town, where there were "Mexican" restaurants abound. We were tempted to eat at one; but there was "tourist trap" written all over them. At El Zarape, you order at the counter from the large menus on the wall and head on over to the condiment station where you can help yourself to sauces, limes and spicy carrots. I was so excited to see the reasonable prices, I went a bit overboard with my selections not realizing the portion size. For a measly 99 cents each, the Fish Tacos were quite good. The fried fish was of a decent size and I got a piece in every bite of the taco. It was crisp which kept the taco from getting wet. It was topped with fresh salsa, cabbage and sour cream. They were good on their own; yet even better with the addition of one of their hot sauces. I went for the spicy. Really flavourful. We also got the Beef Tacos because my son wanted them. That is why there was nothing on it except for beef. As expected, he didn't eat them and opted for the pizza instead. How could I not see this coming??? Anyways, the hand shredded beef was fantastic. Flavourful with lots of depth from the braising while being very moist and tender, this was delicious. The sheer volume of meat also made this a hearty taco. Another dousing of hot sauce and we were happy campers (except for my son). While at the counter, I asked for something else that I should order and the guy suggested the Cactus Taco. Sure, that sounded good; however, when not prepared properly, cactus can be extremely slimy. Not here though. It was tender with a slight snap and not slimy at all.

Going for something different, I got a Lobster Burrito as well. I wasn't expecting much out of this one since it was reasonably-priced and well, it ain't a seafood joint. To my surprise, the burrito was filled with large pieces of lobster. Moreover, it was cooked perfectly with that fresh snap and natural sweetness from the flesh. I am still thinking about it and by the end of the trip, hope to get another. Lastly, I got a Chicken Chimichanga. This behemoth was filled to the max with shredded chicken breast meat. Although not exactly super moist, the meat was not dry either. There was plenty of flavour on its own and was further helped along by the 3 sauces on top. Lastly, I got some Nachos and well, they were forgettable. The cheese sauce reminded me of 7-11. Besides that, the food was pretty good and cheap!

The Good:
- Large portions
- Cheap
- Some items are really good (fish tacos, lobster burrito)

The Bad:
- What's with the nachos?
- If you want ambiance, go to Old Town...

Urban Solace

The great thing about taking an evening flight is that you can take your sweet time all day to pack and get to the airport. This was especially true since we were flying out of SeaTac. Woke up late, did some last minute packing, had lunch and did the leisurely drive down I-5. We even had time to head to Target for some shopping and dinner at Miyabi. Sounds all good right? Except when you have kids. Near the end of the flight, they were getting whiny and exhausted. By the time we landed, it was already past 11:30pm. Another problem was that my rental car reservation was for 11:30pm and the rental place closes at midnight. Once out the plane, I let Viv handle the kids and baggage claim while I hightailed it out to find the shuttle. As I exited the airport, I spotted the rental car shuttle across the street; but behind a steel fence. Taking a quick scan of the situation, it looked like the only way across was to get up to the 2nd floor skywalk and back down to the street. As I was running across the skywalk, I noticed the driver of the shuttle checking for last minute customers and was about to leave! I put on my afterburners with 3 bags in hand and made it as he was closing the door. Talk about cutting it close! This was the last shuttle of the day for that rental car company!

So our late night got even later with a visit to In-N-Out and we didn't get into bed until past 2:00am. Hence our next day got started real late. Our first meal of the day wasn't until 12:30pm at a place which came highly recommended - Urban Solace. Serving up contemporary American fare, this quaint place has a nice outdoor seating area which we took full advantage of (light for pictures!). For me, there were a couple of things that caught my attention, starting with their Warm Cheddar & Chive Biscuits. These freshly baked treats were really good. Beneath the slightly sugary crisp exterior was soft, warm, buttery and cheesy goodness. There was this sweet & savory thing going on that was further accentuated by the orange-honey butter. With 5 of these to share amongst us, there was little room for me to have a full order of anything, so I got the side portion of the Duckaroni. Consisting of duck confit, blue cheese, arugula, scallions and roasted garlic, this was a super rich mac 'n cheese. After the initial crunchy top and moist duck confit, this was a little hard to finish. Hey, not that it wasn't good. Actually, I really liked it. C'mon, duck confit and blue cheese, I love them both. With the addition of arugula which added some brightness to an otherwise rich concoction, it was somewhat bearable. However, in the end, I was very glad to have not ordered the full version. My heart and stomach probably couldn't take much more despite its tastiness.

We also shared an appie to start in the Fried Green Tomatoes. These were pretty darn good with a classic cornmeal coating fried to perfection. The tomatoes were still structurally sound (hence the use of green tomatoes) and were nicely topped by a blend of goat cheese and crème fraiche. The only thing that we would've liked was more of it. There were only 2 slices and that was hardly enough for the price. For her main, Viv had the soup and sandwich combo consisting of the Roasted Chicken Salad tossed with grapes and pecans on grilled egg bread and a cup of Potato and Leek Soup. The sandwich was a nice take on a standard chicken salad with the addition of sweet grapes that popped in our mouths. The pecans added another layer of texture while the egg bread was soft and made it easy to eat the sandwich. We really loved the soup, it was full of flavour with light richness. It felt like it was salty; but it really wasn't (best way we could describe it).

For the kiddies, we got them the Mac 'n Cheese and for a kid's meal, it was huge. Much like my Duckaroni, the pasta was perfect and the sauce was rich and creamy. It was mild and not salty. Overall, we were quite pleased with our meal here. We also loved the outdoor dining space as well as the attentive service. I wouldn't say we were necessarily blown away, it was a solid meal nonetheless.

The Good:
- Lovely outdoor dining area
- Food made with care
- Friendly staff

The Bad:
- Although food was good, it won't blow-you-away (probably a victim of too many glowing reviews)
- Not expensive, but not cheap either

Miyabi

While planning our trip to San Diego, I decided to try 2 scenarios: how much would it cost if we left from YVR compared to SEA? Well, it was no comparison. Our airfare would've been doubled if we chose Vancouver International. I eventually got airfare for 4 and 8 nights at the Marriott Courtyard for $1600.00 inclusive of taxes and fees. That seemed like a really good deal. Hence by virtue of leaving via SEA, we had to drive down to Seattle and ditch the car at Park 'n Fly. With $800.00 worth of savings on airfare alone, the gas and parking fee was well worth it. Of course we needed to eat before our flight which got me briefly thinking of Downtown. However, with the variables of traffic, we settled on somewhere close by at Southcenter. Seemingly out of nowhere was this strip mall with 3 Asian restaurants: one Thai, one Vietnamese and lastly Japanese, which was Miyabi. Seeing how Vietnamese would be too fast of a meal and that my kids wouldn't necessarily eat Thai, we went to Miyabi. Now don't let the location fool you. This is a legit Japanese restaurant from the owner down to the chef. In fact, the current owner is Masao Kida who played briefly for the Seattle Mariners. The chef is Masa San who has worked in Tokyo.

In that case, I guess we shouldn't have been surprised at the prices, which were on the higher side. To change it up a bit, rather than starting with sashimi, we had the Seafood Sunomono instead. It consisted of 2 pieces each of tako, salmon, scallop and one ebi & hokkigai with wakame and pickled cucumbers. The seafood was certainly fresh and we enjoyed the wakame and cucumbers. There was lots of acidity in the ponzu dressing; yet maybe a little salty. We got 2 maki rolls starting with the Seafood Jumbo consisting of tuna, albacore, salmon, yellowtail, tobiko, imitation crab, scallop, shiso and avocado. At $12.00, it was a bit steep for roll sushi; however, there was a lot of fresh ingredients and very little rice. The rice wasn't too bad, maybe slightly gummy. We also got an Unagi Roll which was simply unagi and avocado drizzled with unagi sauce. This particular roll was more rice heavy and with a modest amount of filling. Nothing particularly amiss with the roll; it was just very typical and served to help fill us up.

At first, when we were looking over the menu, it was a bit difficult to find the items we wanted to order. You see, if you check out the PDF menu online, it almost appears that a 2-year old pieced it together. Very colourful; but with chunks of items here and there and not really making sense where they are located. Okay, enough of that. One item I did find was the Assorted Kushikatsu. As the name implies, this was several different types of kushi (ebi, eggplant, ton and zucchini) deep fried in panko. This was very good where the batter was crispy while the proteins and veggies were moist and juicy. Now where the kushikatsu was fantastic, the Tempura was not. It was quite obvious from its appearance that there was far too much tempura batter. Therefore, the batter immediately below the exterior was slightly undercooked and mushy. This was not very pleasant and spoiled the excellent ingredients underneath (especially the ebi).

Seeing how the kiddies are on this Yakiudon kick, we decided to find it in the menu. Despite not being on the menu, they made it for us anyways and it turn out to be pretty good. This was no plain yakiudon. It had lots of tender chicken, carrots, mushrooms and cabbage while topped with bonito flakes, nori and beni shoga. The result was a good mix of flavours, albeit still being mild. The udon was a little soft, possibly due to the amount of ingredients; yet it wasn't terribly so. Overall, our visit to Miyabi was pleasant. I thought the service was excellent being attentive and courteous. The food was a little on the pricier side; but the quality was quite good. Pretty respectable for Seattle and actually pretty good for anywhere really.

The Good:
- Quality ingredients
- Generally well-executed
- Courteous service

The Bad:
- On the pricier side
- Modest portion sizes

BBQ Competition @ PNE 2011

Okay, I know this is a little late and in fact, incomplete (read here for the other 2 BBQ stalls). Hey, there is only that much BBQ one can eat in one day! But better late than never right? I knew the one thing I had to hit up at the PNE this year was the BBQ Competition that pitted (nice pun eh?) 5 BBQ joints against each other. With practically the same menu and pricing, it seemed to be a fair fight. Now, the main reason it took me almost to the end of The Fair to do the porkfest was that the concert for the night would be Hall & Oates. Apparently, everyone else thought it would be a great idea as well. Boy was it ever packed! Good show though, really good times. Some of the young ones there seemed a bit confused as to who exactly was Hall & Oates. If you don't know, then either Youtube it or just move on...

Viv and I had entered The Fair earlier in the day and hit up all the usual things like the prize home, Whales Tails, Foot Long Hot Dogs and lost a bunch of money trying to win little useless stuffed animals. For lunch, we gave Gator BBQ a shot first. In order to do a proper assessment, we got the Vegetarian's Nightmare platter consisting of Pork Side Ribs, Pulled Pork and Beef Brisket. Hailing from Florida, their booth was full of accolades and awards. I found their ribs to be dry and chewy in some spots due to the use of side ribs. Unfortunately, we got the wrong end of the rack where there was little bone and lots of cartilage. The pulled pork was super moist and not stringy. Now as for the beef brisket, it was dried out and rubbery. The BBQ sauce had a nice consistency and was quite sweet.

Later on in the day, Rich Guy joined us for the Hall & Oates concert and helped try 2 more of the competitors. We decided to hit up the 2 with the longest lineups. Hence we ended up missing out on Crazy Canuck Smokers and QN4U BBQ House. The longest line belonged to Smoke & Bones and it took me 30 mins to get my food. I got their Seymour Platter consisting once again of Beef Brisket, Pulled Pork and Pork Side Ribs. Inexplicably, they used a smaller styrofoam box which barely fit all of the meat. Anyways, the beef brisket was actually hand-pulled rather than sliced. Consequently, it was slightly stringy. It still was moist though. The pulled pork was good, equally as good as Gator in my opinion. It was very moist, in large strands and the accompanying BBQ sauce had more smokiness and zing than Gator. Once again, we got the wrong end of the side ribs and the meat was slightly chewy, but more moist and tender than Gator. Being a bit redundant, Viv got the Pulled Pork Sandwich. As you can see, it was a large amount of the same tender pork with crisp coleslaw and tangy sauce. She thought it was good and a great value at $7.00 (it's that much outside the PNE!).

The next longest lineup belonged to Prairie BBQ which we were fortunate enough to snag the last few ribs since they were still smoking the next batch. Not sure if they were trying to rush the Ribs or not, but they were chewy and appeared to lack cooking time. At the very least, we got the right side of the rack this time with the whole bone, rather than cartilage and fat. Despite its dry appearance, the Pulled Pork was moist and flavourful. We would've preferred it be in bigger strands though. The best part of this platter was the Beef Brisket. It had a nice bark which was smoky. The meat itself was melt-in-our-mouths tender. We liked this brisket more than Gator and Smoke & Bones. As for the limited amount of BBQ sauce (Rich Guy didn't notice any squeeze bottles around from Prairie), it was a bit hard to taste it. From what we could gather, it was smoky and not as sweet as the other 2. So there you have it. We tried 3 of the competitors and concluded that brisket = Prairie, ribs = Smoke & Bones and pulled pork = Gator or S&B. Overall, a great value since all of the pulled pork sandwiches are $7.00 and the meat platters are $22.00. At the end we didn't care since the Hall & Oates concert was awesome. We turned from ribeater to maneater (the song! for those pervs...).

Thierry Patisserie

Vancouver can be such a fickle place sometimes. For such a major metropolis, there are surprisingly limited options for late night desserts. Do people not like sweets here? I'm pretty sure that is not the case. Of course there are many places in town that do have baked goods and desserts, but they are not open at night. That leaves us with such places as Sweet Revenge, True Confections, Death by Chocolate and an assortment of other places where we can satisfy our dessert cravings at night (other than actual restaurants). Without counting gelato or ice cream joints, we don't have a tonne of options. With the recent opening of Thierry Patisserie on Alberni, there is now a new option (until midnight!). Following a similar model as Thomas Haas, Thierry offers up baked goods, desserts, chocolates, sandwiches, macarons and beverages. As the namesake implies, Thierry is headed up by award-winning pastry chef Thierry Busset formerly of Cin Cin.

I must admit, the place itself is très chic and the macaron display makes one want to try them all (which I did by the way). Naturally, with a central Downtown location and the name, the prices are on the higher side. With that being said, it is less than one would pay at a fine dining establishment. In fact, the prices are not far off the aforementioned dessert places. Originally, I had my heart set on the Apple Tart, but they sold out. So I settled on the Raspberry Tart. This was a pretty good tart. The pastry was crispy, firm and had a buttery-nutty flavour. I really liked the tart shell. Hidden inside was a semi-sweet custard that had a perfectly silky consistency. The raspberries were fresh, sweet and tart. Mr. X had the Opera Cake which had "O-P-E-R-A" interestingly scribbled on top. The first thing I noticed was coffee syrup which gave a liquor-type flavour to the cake. The chocolate ganache as well as the buttercream was smooth and only slightly sweet. This was surprisingly light considering the components. Within the same week, I returned to Thierry with Viv, Costanza and Elaine. I finally got to sample the famous Apple Tart. Apparently, this is THE thing here. The first time I had it, I liked it. I've had it again and I'm not convinced with all the hype. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, yet I'm not sure if it is better than anything Thomas Haas produces.

Costanza wanted something chocolatey and went for the Chocolate Trio. Obviously, by its namesake, there are 3 different types of chocolate mousse layers in the cake. Sandwiched between layers of moist chocolate cake, there was dark chocolate mousse with another layer of milk chocolate mousse on top. Lastly, a white chocolate mousse was the icing on the cake so to speak. Despite the plethora of chocolate, this was not an overly sweet cake. In fact, it could be considered "light" if you can believe it. Really not hard to eat at all, it was that smooth and airy. Not sure if he was aiming to eat 2 desserts or not, but he also got the Pistachio Eclair. I thought he was sharing with Elaine, however, I swore she barely ate any. Hidden inside the perfectly executed choux pastry was actually the standard vanilla custard filling (which was beyond standard in quality). The pistachio part of the eclair sat on top of the chocolate as candied pistachios. That added a nutty crunch which was a nice textural contrast of sorts. This was good. For my son, he's not really into the dessert thing. So he opted for a plain ol' Croissant. Well, like everything we have tried here, it was solid. The crisp, aesthetically pleasing exterior yielded a butter inside. I wouldn't say it was overly buttery, it was just right. However, I like the one from Faubourg more.

As for the Macarons, I got a pack of 7. From left to right was coffee, passionfruit, raspberry, lime, lemon, blackberry and raspberry again. These were noticeably bigger than most macarons which made them a decent value for $1.75 each (or $11.95 for a box of 7). Now, for a disclaimer of sorts - my first ever experience with macarons was with Pierre Herme. That is akin to buying a Ferrari as your first car. With that being said, these macarons were not bad. However, I would go for Thomas Haas over these. The exterior was crisp and they were chewy throughout. I would've preferred less chewiness. The buttercream fillings in the all of them except for the passionfruit (which appeared to be a combination of chocolate ganache and passionfruit) were a tad weak. However, a nice little surprise lay within in the form of jam or piece of fruit. The one thing that had me thinking after the fact was the a particular aftertaste in a few of them. Was it the food coloring? I would like to believe it wasn't, but I swear it was. Maybe someone can enlighten me if I am wrong.

All-in-all, the desserts we tried were not bad. I liked the decor and vibe of the place. It definitely has style and an air of class (I guess that is what I can call it?). With that, there comes a cost and a high one at that. I did mention that Thierry is generally less expensive than fine dining restaurants. Yet, that doesn't mean it is cheap either. I guess it really depends on one's preference and their threshold as to how much they are willing to pay for premium desserts and chocolates.

The Good:
- Acceptable pastries
- Nice environment
- Cheery staff

The Bad:
- Pricey
- Macarons need some tweaking

Ikura

Whenever Marshmallow returns from Taiwan for the summer, it calls for a reunion of sorts. That means we gather with friends we haven't seen for awhile for food. Hey, that sounds really good to me. Who cares about the friends, let's bring on the food. Better yet, let's salivate over the variety of eats since it means a big group. We already did that on my revisit of Sun Sui Wah for Dim Sum; however, a few key people were not available. Oh, that's no problem... Let's just meet up again... for food! There was one hurdle this time around though. Due to scheduling and locational issues, we had to pick a Japanese restaurant near South Granville. At first, Applause came to mine; yet that would be impossible since it is super busy during lunch and it's not a very big restaurant. Finally, we settled on Ikura on Granville near 70th. I originally called the day before at 1:30pm to make a reservation for 12 people at 1:00pm. That was an exercise in frustration because the person on the phone didn't seem to understand me. Well, apparently she didn't because they thought the reservation was for the same day at 1:00pm. Uh... How can that be possible when I'm calling at 1:30pm??? Do we turn back time? Okay, where is the Hot Tub Time Machine when you need it. Okay, fine, they can't tell time, that's forgivable. After all, no harm no foul.

Finally settling in, we went about our ordering. Viv and I ended up not sharing any food because we weren't sitting with each other. I usually do not order a bento box when we have such a large group; but with sharing not really an option, I settled on Bento Box D. Postman also had the same box and we were both a little confused why our tempura was missing. The box was already filled up with food, so there was really no room for the tempura. I inquired about the missing tempura with our server and she looked rather confused too. We finally got our tempura as we were almost finishing up our box. We did have a large table, so it is understandable things could be missed. As for the items in the box, the sashimi was not bad. It was texturally and visually appealing. The same could be said about the nigiri where the fish-to-rice ratio was good. The rice itself was a tad dry; but decent. The aforementioned tempura was pretty good as well having a light batter which was crispy and not too greasy. Viv had the Bento Box A and it is worth mentioning that the Teriyaki Chicken was pretty dry and thin. She did like the fact the rice was chewy while there was not an obscene amount of sauce on the chicken.

For the kiddies, we got them an order of the Yakiudon. When it arrived, our server was once again confused. She declared it was a yakisoba and served it to ML500 who had ordered it. She looked at our server and stated it was not yakisoba. Viv and I chimed in by saying it was our yakiudon. Our server didn't seem to believe us and checked with the kitchen. After that fiasco, she finally gave us our yakiudon and the yakisoba to ML500. Well, the wait was not really worth it as the yakiudon was kind of wet and bland. The Yakisoba was marginally better with more colour and flavour. It probably helped that it was less wet too. Despite all of the other food we had at our table, it was impossible to try it all. So, the only maki roll that I sampled was my own being the spicy tuna roll. It was decent with above-average sushi rice and tuna which was relatively spicy. Postman ended up ordering the Pink Lady which definitely warranted the name. Consisting of cream cheese, avocado and salmon with tobiko and smoked salmon on the outside, it only elicited an "okay" out of Postman. I guess it was average? For me, I'm not a huge fan of cream cheese in sushi, so I would never personally order this. In general, the food didn't offend too much and in fact, on most levels, was decent for the price. As mentioned earlier, I'd hit up Applause instead; but Ikura can fit the bill too in this area. The one thing they might want to consider is to either hire more capable staff or at least train them better.

The Good:
- Reasonably-priced
- Acceptable eats

The Bad:
- Thoroughly confused staff
- Some of the cooked items are average