Squamish & Food Trucks @ Wood Fired Pizza

Wow, Live at Squamish was just over a month ago! (Shows you how backed up I've been!) It seems like ages ago! How I miss the summer! Just for funsies, here's a quick post on a food cart experience there! (It's a quick post because they don't actually have a permanent stand in Vancouver).

Hey it's one of the Davids from Hey Ocean! (for realz.)

 I actually wanted another Taser Grilled Cheese sandwich, but seeing Kem getting a pizza from Wood Fired Pizza, I got one too.  The stand prides itself with two cute ovens covered with ceramic tiles.  It's really cute.

The pizzas are made fresh to order, so it does actually take quite a while's wait.  Their organization was quite bad, and I think they missed my order.  There are probably countless ways you could abuse their little ordering system.... just sayin'.

Eight dollars got me this little personal sized pizza in meat lovers.  The crust was kind of hard, and it wasn't that hot.  It really wasn't all that special and if you didn't tell me, I wouldn't have known it was "wood fired".  The flavours overall were very weak.  It kind of reminds me of grade two where we made our own pizzas, but I liked my grade two one more because we actually made dough with yeast.

After the first bite, I regretted not getting a grilled cheese sandwich, which was even cheaper.  There's always next year!

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Ramen & MSG @ Yuu Japanese Tapas

Since it was a Friday, we decided to head out of the office and into a more central part of Richmond for lunch.  One of our coworkers had Yuu Japanese Tapas in mind, since G-men had closed.  This was my first trip to Yuu and honestly, I never wanted to try it before and probably wouldn't have tried it if my coworker hadn't insisted.  There was never anything that really attracted me, and the exterior never really attracted me, especially when Gyo-o is in the same mall.  Gyo-o has a much more Japanese feel to it, and is Japanese-run, whereas this is Chinese-run.  I'm really shallow like that sometimes.

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Chicken & Buns @ Bun Me Baguette

Originally I had planned to try La Brasserie after reading the special feature on 24, but I ended up going to Bun Me Baguette because I got hungry and a bit too lazy to walk back the other way.  More on the 24 special: every Friday, they feature one or two food carts in a weekly article, and I believe they're going to run at least six more weeks on this.  Sadly, I just found out about this! Anyways, I've heard of Bun Me Baguette for a while and wanted to try it at Vancouver 125 Live, but I already had my Hubbub Sandwich.  I have a knack for (semi-)cheesy names, if you didn't figure out.

Bun Me Baguette is permanently located outside Peak Performance and Bang On, which are between HMV and the Vancouver Art Gallery on Robson.  If you don't see them, that means they either ran out or they're doing a special event somewhere.

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Grilled Cheese & Bacon @ Taser Grilled Cheese

At the Live at Squamish music festival, I was absolutely ecstatic when I found the Taser Grilled Cheese cart.  Not only have I been meaning to try it, but their sandwiches were one of the least expensive things there -- with most of the food items ranging from $8 to $10.  Their cart is usually at Main and Terminal, Tuesdays to Sundays.

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Good Music & Long Waits @ Twisted Fork

After a successful brunch at Café Medina, we decided to do brunch again, this time at Twisted Fork Bistro. It's only open for brunch on weekends and holidays, and they don't take reservations. We came on BC Day, and it was still a pretty long wait, especially for a table of three. They have many small tables to seat two people, so a few pairs that came later than us got their tables much quicker. After a thirty minute wait and we got in, we noticed that some larger tables were occupied by tables of two. Kind of frustrating, when you see those pairs just taking all the time in the world, when there are very limited larger tables.

The restaurant itself was very cosy and cute, and they played good music (like Modest Mouse)!

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Sharp Fin Soup & Crab Claws @ Summer Night Market

Originally I had a few other posts lined up, but I'll have to do this one quickly before the end of the week! That's because this post is on the ever-so-popular Richmond Summer Night Market! This weekend will be the last week before it closes.  I love the night market although I hardly ever buy anything because the stuff there is frankly quite impractical and overpriced.  I still like wandering about and just observing though, and it does bring back some memories of my childhood and my high school era.  After wanting to go for practically the entire summer (I only went once in May), I finally convinced the others to go.  We didn't get too much food though since we were quite full from dinner.

Kem's must have item was curry fish balls, which she bought from Gourmand League.  Usually I see people get the super spicy curry fish balls from Top Wok.  I've tried them before and they are pretty spicy, but I don't like how they're really dry.  This was the only stand that we could find with the "normal" spiciness.  The fishballs here had a very strong sweet flavour to it, kind of like kamaboko but stronger.  Even the curry sauce could not cover the sweetness.  I didn't like it at all.

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Roast Beef & Mashed Potatoes @ Eagles Buffet

Before our trip to the states, I had asked Buddha Girl whether the Eagles Buffet at the Tulalip Casino was okay, and she said that the food wasn't really to their tastes -- but it was still worth a try.  With that in mind, we still went there since we never actually had the buffet there before.

There was a short line for the buffet, and we ended up waiting around 25 minutes or so.  The picture above was taken a whiles after, but we joined the end of the line near the person with the burgundy sweater. Dinner on all days except Tuesdays, are $18.95, with a discount for those 50 and above.  Tuesdays are seafood night at $24.95.  How come I read some other bloggers' posts and they say its $10.99? Was that for lunch or dinner? Did they increase the price that much? 

The Eagles Buffet is not very separate from the casino itself, unlike Salt and Pepper Cafe at Starlight Casino.  This means you can practically see the slot machines over the short divider and you will smell smoke.  Not that appetizing, but it was bearable.

Salad bar

I didn't try any fancy stuff at the salad bar -- just some basic veggies in a miserable attempt to balance out my diet a bit.

Chinese food, including sweet and sour pork, fried rice, and noodles

I didn't even bother with the Chinese food area.

Seafood selection was not that great

The seafood selection was not that great -- it was pretty much limited to crab legs and very small shrimp.  I think there was probably something on those pieces of lettuce there in the middle, but they ran out.  The crab legs were very skinny and didn't have much meat.  The shrimp were also very small and not very fresh either.

This was probably what really sold it to me (not the ham up front, but the roast beef on the back).  It was pretty tender and juice and there was enough fat to it.  I actually didn't try the ham because I'm not a fan -- ham is too salty.  The salmon which was also in the carving section was also pretty good, but it was really the roast beef really was my favourite.  There was also pot roast (above, with the carrot slices), but that was a bit tougher and definitely not as tender.  I also got the mashed potatoes because they're one of my favourite foods in the world.  I swear buffets make them super tasty so you'll get more and be more full.

I didn't bother with the pizzas either.

They also have a Mongolian grill, where you can pick your vegetables, meat, and noodles to be stir-fried right in front of you.  I didn't order it, but this was my papa's.  Although it smelled really good, I had a taste and it was rather bland.

And the best part -- desserts! I have to admit I didn't try a lot because I was really full by the time I went for it.  I did try the cheesecake though and it wasn't as hard as I had expected (more cheese!) I didn't try anything else, sadly.  They also have an ice cream bar. Included in the $18.95 are drinks, where you can choose from coffee, tea, or pop.

Although the food isn't the best in the world, I'd be happier eating this than AYCE sushi probably.  $18.95 is pretty much the standard price of AYCE in Richmond and Vancouver as well, though if it really was $10.99 before, I'm surprised that so many people still come because there were actually a lot of locals.  Sometimes when I'm craving mashed potatoes, I can't really think of any other place that serves better mashed potatoes than at buffets.  However, I have to note that after the meal, I was feeling kind of depressed that I ate so much food.  To prove that I'm not crazy: my friend went to this buffet recently and she had the same feeling too.  (Unless we're both crazy.)

Eagles Buffet
10200 Quil Ceda Blvd
Tulalip, WA
(360) 651-1111

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Cream Caramel & Matcha @ Chicco Coffee and Dessert Bar

I had wanted to go to Chicco Coffee and Dessert Bar for a long time, ever since my less than satisfactory experience at Aoyama's. It's a bit out of way for me, and I always find myself too full to eat dessert whenever I'm in that area. Plus, it's pretty expensive. Fortunately for me, I found their ad in Klip magazine, the free coupon magazine from Daiso. Their parfaits were 50% off on August 13th and 20th! (I tweeted about this, so don't say I didn't tell you all!)

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Clouds of Happiness & Wontons @ Shanghai River 滬江海派料理

Shanghai River is probably the most popular Shanghainese restaurant in Richmond, ever since it first opened many years ago.  A lot of the Shanghainese restaurants you see today are actually owned and operated by former employees of Shanghai River, but it still remains to be the most popular one.  This is one restaurant that you have to make a reservation for regardless of time of day and day of week.  We made a reservation earlier that Saturday morning for dim sum, which was already too late.  We ended up waiting for thirty minutes or so.

We ended up sitting in the small room, which consistently reminded me of China.  There's something about those cold hard stone walls that screams China.  All the servers were quite busy and it was a bit hard to get their attention, especially sitting in such a closed space.

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