A Great Bowl of Noodles

This has got to be the best bowl of noodles I've had in a long time. We were in Hong Kong in July 2010. Due to jet lag, we were hungry at 10am. We were looking for Maks Noodle House on Wellington Road.


Found it, but it wasn't open yet, so we went across the street to Tsim Tsai Kee. Both these noodle houses have locations in Richmond.









The owners paid a lot of attention to us after we told them we frequent the Richmond location (owned by her brother). We weren't the only overseas customers in the joint. A couple from San Francisco always makes this place their last stop before they hop on the plane to go home. Don't blame them...it was really that good :-)

This Little Piggy Went to Market

Love Markets. Farmers Markets. Street Markets. Craft Markets. This will be an ongoing blog of markets that we find along the way.

Old Country Market, Duncan, B.C.
We travelled to Duncan to visit Mark's first cousin who lives in a 100-year-old home in the countryside. Beautiful place. We always pass by the Old Country Market in the outskirt of Duncan. It's owned by the family of one of Mark's former colleagues from Deloitte & Touche. It's such a quaint place, very worthy of a stop when passing through. It has produce, dairy and cheese, deli, and other grocery items. Most produce and dairy are local. Here are some pics for sharing:

Shanghai Fabric Market
July 2010. This is one of the most colorful, fascinating places to go to. You can find tourists looking to recreate any designer outfit found in a magazine for cheap. You can find buyers from all over the world picking up fabrics for clothing manufacturing. Or you can buy something ready made.

Not knowing Mandarin and wanting to buy some fabric, I got to know a woman from NYC who was fluent in English/Mandarin. She was buying massive amounts of fabric for a famous designer (no, she didn't reveal who it was) and allowed me to piggy back onto her special discount since she was a regular customer.



Santa Monica Farmers Market
Here's one that we went to in Santa Monica in August 2010. It was a Farmers Market that was full of amazing tomatoes and other fresh produce grown in sunny California. Lots of tomato taste-testing along the way. The best tomatoes I've ever had. Unfortunately, limited pics for this one, we'll take better, more detailed pics at the next market.



Stay tuned. Paris Markets coming in August...

Father's Day Dinner at Bamboo Grove

This is a late post from last Sunday's Father's Day dinner with my Dad. He loves Chinese food and had been bugging me to try Bamboo Grove. He's been many times with his friends but has been trying to convince me to try this little gem hidden on No. 3 Road, across from Richmond City Hall. As usual, he was right. It was great. The only not-so-great thing about this place is parking. Small parking lot at the back of the restaurant, so most likely pay street parking.


Started with crab with ginger and green onion. So good and worth the effort cracking the shell.


Stir fry gai lan


Yummy shrimp


Fish in a sweet and sour sauce


Sweet and sour pork


Ginger and green onion beef hot pot


Vegetable and vermicelli hot pot


Braised tofu and vegetable hot pot

Dinner at Provence Marinaside

We were dropping off Marissa at her friend's house near Jericho Beach on Friday night. Planned on having dinner at the Sandbar on Granville Island...but Mark made a wrong turn, and we found ourselves on the Burrard St. bridge heading downtown. Oh well, great excuse to make a visit to Provence at Marinaside in Yaletown.

Back in April, we all came here for brunch after the SunRun. My friend, Tomomi, hooked us onto this French restaurant. She said this place is well known for its brunch and for its eggs benedict. Hungry after the 10K run, we were sold. Here's what we had for brunch on that day, all washed down with an amazing Pastis wine, wisely selected by the Frenchman in our group:

Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict. It comes with 2, but Mark and I split the plate (to be calorie wise, haha). Their Eggs Benedict is excellent. Three other friends had the same thing.

This is the Warm Goat Cheese Salad that someone else had.

The Ham and Cheese Omelette that another person at our table had.

Back to Friday night...we decided to try out dinner at the Provence Marinaside, since the brunch in April was so nice. Dinner didn't disappoint. Here's what we had:

Started with bread (French and Focaccio)

The Fish Soup, that came with Gruyere cheese, crostini, and an aioli to swirl into the soup.

Kiki had the Grilled Salmon with Veggies (from the kids menu).

Mark had the Sablefish, which was done perfectly.

I had the Scallops & Spaghettini. The scallops were grilled perfectly too.

Kiki had the Sorbet Trio for dessert. The sorbet flavors are pink grapefruit, apple, and blackberry.

My dessert was the Lemon Tart. Yum.

Mark had the dessert du jour - an apple cake with vanilla bean ice cream.

Trader Joe's - These Are a Few of Our Favourite Things

We're diehard TJ fans. Ever since our friends in Carlsbad, California, introduced this place to us about 7 or 8 years ago, we've been hooked. There are so many organic grocery stores in California, but this one stands out. We love Whole Foods too, but TJ's is just plain cosy.

This particular post will be an ongoing list of our favourite TJ items. Keep coming back to this post, as it will be updated often to add new faves or new TJ products that have gone over well with family and friends.