Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Siam Le Bien Thai Cuisine  has really decent food as well as several levels of "spicy" heat. If you like spicy food to actually be spicy, and find "hot" to mostly be feeble, then give their "Thai Hot" or even "Thai Super Hot" a try. Price is more or less on par with everyone else, and combined with either a bowl of rice or noodle, each plate works out to quite a filling meal. 35. Pad Ka Pao Moo Grob ($18.50) Stir-fried spicy crispy pork belly, bell peppers, green beans, fresh chili, garlic, Thai basil The pork belly looked like it should have good crunch but of course the crispiness of the skin won't last in the generous amount of sauce. I opted for "Thai Hot" and the dish on its own would have been really quite spicy, but this was dulled considerably when I started mixing in the noodle. So overall, it was just what I was looking for: Actually spicy hot but also not relentlessly spicy and I could just pick at the dish without the n...

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from Holy Duck Chili Oil except that some part of it should taste like duck. I was also curious about their no-duck vegan version, but that 266 ml of chili-and-duck oil was already $20 so I figured I'd just try their original recipe first. Just the oil was a highly flavourful concoction. The heat creeps up on you but doesn't get to a level where you're yelping for water to rescue your tongue. There's definitely duck flavour, similar to roasted duck, but also something that reminded me strongly of star anise. Depending on how much you like that latter flavour, you might find there's maybe too much of it -- I personally feel it competes too strongly with the duck oil flavour. For additional oomph you can stir up the concoction to get at the stuff typically sunk to the bottom. This adds a pleasant crunch, but also predominantly a strong bitterness that's possibly fried garlic, and that threatens to overwhelm your experien...

The only bottles of Bobbie's Boat Sauce at Lucifer's House of Heat were all well past their Best Before date. Which of course hints at their popularity, although their rather unfortunate appearance may have unfairly contributed to this. Nevertheless, despite being over one year past their Best Before date, the salesperson assured me it was safe to consume as it had no eggs and such which might be an issue. The bottle certainly looks like something you might discover on a boat, but it also looks like something someone illicitly mixed in their secret boat brewery and then pasted on an amateurish label they printed themselves. Nevertheless, the product is not bad. The "hot" version I would rate as mildly spicy. Notes of anchovy, ginger, and tumeric jumped out at me. Certainly not your typical hot sauce, but also not to be casually used as it brings it's own flavour. So maybe more useful for something that's on its own quite bland, like fish or chicken that has ...

T&T Supermarket does stock some oriental flavours of Lay's potato chips , but not Roasted Fish Flavor  (the localized label however reads "Lay's Crispy Baked Fish Flavoured Potato Chips"). At a mere 70 grams, this was priced at $5.99 at Dank Mart before tax. Although this price looks steep, some Chinese Lay's chips at T&T are also priced over $5 and you certainly want to compare prices with T&T in the case where T&T also stocks the same product. The initial taste impression was a sweetness and saltiness close to your typical "BBQ flavour" chips, but also a clear flavour very reminiscent of the crispy skin of a baked fish. Novelty? Yes. Winner? Not necessarily. I definitely think there's a strong possibility of this being an acquired taste. * This was one of my three Mother's Day buys: My mom likes chips and chili, so for Mother's Day I looked around for some hopefully products I was reasonably certain she wouldn't be able...