Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)
A blog with unpretentious reviews of restaurants and food; and occasionally about my life and experiences in the Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada. Read all about my mistakes so you can have a better experience! Restaurant reviews are done anonymously and undercover if I can help it.
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Black Diamond Cheddar Cheese Slices
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Budget Cheesy Rice TV Dinners
- Prepare rice.
- I use a parboiled rice that recommends 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice, but I found that you can get away with as little as 1 cup of water per cup of rice.
- You can throw virtually anything in here to flavour it a bit and make it more interesting, such as diced potatoes and carrots which will cook while the rice is cooking.
- In the worst case, if you are on a strict budget, just add some salt. 1 teaspoon of salt per 1 cup of raw rice is more than enough.
- A useful product is Knorr Chicken Broth Mix, which you can use to make broth / soup of course but you can also add about 1 tablespoon per cup of raw rice to make somewhat flavourful rice. Look around for the bulk-sized 1 kilogram container for more savings instead of buying smaller quantities.
- Get some bowls and cut some cheese.
- Start with a layer of rice on the bottom and add a layer of cheese (slide 1). You really don't need quite that much cheese, but if you want it super cheesy, go ahead and add more.
- Top with more rice.
- Top with something to go with the rice if you have it. In the slide above I added some frozen Great Value brand perogies from Walmart (slide 2); they'll be cooked when I steam the rice bowl later.
- Put these "TV dinner" portions in the fridge for use later.
- I set it to Steam with a 1 minute timer and without the Keep Warm setting.
- Then when the steam has cooled enough for the lid to be safely opened (the red float valve drops down), everything is heated through. Probably very hot, in fact.
- Or if I'm in the middle of something, I don't have to run over and turn it off because the residual hot air / steam inside the InstantPot will keep it hot for a good while until I'm ready to eat.
Saturday, May 7, 2022
All About Pho
My friend treated me to lunch and All About Pho was her choice. It was the first time for both of us, and for me it was also the first time basically since Covid was a big deal that I'd gone out for lunch.
I'm tempted to say the price for portion is terrible, but sadly this is what you can expect nowadays, so it is probably hovering around average. My order of regular sized Vegetarian Pho was definitely not a filling meal except that it had a lot of soup.
41. Grilled shrimp & grilled chicken on vermicelli / Bún tôm gà nướng ($15.50)
- Slides 1 & 2
- This was my friend's order and she was very happy with the chicken and the plate overall, enough to want to come back. I'm currently on a no-shellfish low-meat diet because of my gout, so I declined to give it a taste.
- Slides 3 & 4
- Where's my baby corn? Fail.
- Bean sprout, lemon (one wedge), pepper (actually slices of fresh green chili), and basil came on a separate plate for you to add
- Having had "non-vegetarian" pho, this felt bland and boring, and the soup wasn't especially flavourful either. I ended up added a couple of tablespoons worth of chili paste (available at each table) and some hoisin to try to make the soup more tasty.
- The vegetarian ham didn't taste like ham per se, closer to a bland luncheon meat. The texture and slight chewiness made it a rather good imitation of meat though.
- Overall, I can't recommend this bowl. There isn't anything "wrong" about it, but it's just boring and not worth your money. If you are vegetarian, just try something else.
Pretty busy place for a late Saturday afternoon (around 2.30pm) but no problem getting a table. Place seemed clean, staff very reserved and efficient but didn't check on our meal though.
I would give them an average but passing score except they indicated baby corn but I didn't find any in my bowl. That's a fail right away. If you run out of an ingredient, say so up front. If you actually forgot an ingredient, that's also a fail -- especially when you're just throwing ingredients in a bowl and pouring in soup.