Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

I tried their "Roti Prata with Curry Chicken" special meal ($13.75). What they served was some kind of roti, but it certainly wasn't Malaysian style roti. In fact, the roti looked suspiciously like supposedly  Indian style roti you can get raw in the frozen food section of Superstore . You can sit pretty much anywhere in Crystal Mall while waiting for your order because they give you a beeper that sounds an alarm when your order is ready.

Caught up with a friend on Sunday and we snooped around the Crystal Mall food court for some cheap eats. Always in search of strange foods, I ended up trying "Chili Oil Rice Noodle" from Chef Rong Noodle House. And it's basically what's written -- rice noodles swimming in chili oil. It's rated three-chili spicy-hot on the menu board, but it really didn't have good heat or buzz. Also could really have used a spoon for the peanuts. Overall, it was somewhat boring but for just $6, you got a big, filling, bowl of soup and that's cheaper than a lot of other offerings at the food court. They also have those pancake burgers filled with crunch, similar to what you can get overpriced at Me Crepe but simpler. I didn't spot that on the menu but might try it next time just to compare.

So I've been telling my mom about Delicious BBQ in Crystal Mall, which she frequents. According to some of my friends, they have good BBQ, but I wanted her to check it out so that she could judge for herself. Today she surprised me by bringing home a $7.80 portion of BBQ pork. Taste was OK -- slightly sweet. But not quite enough charring for that grilled / BBQ flavour, so we put some on our tabletop electric grill. Mistake. Much of the sweetness was then replaced by a saltiness and the gamey pig flavour also started to come out. It was also drier.

Shaved ice is an awesome deal at this Crystal Mall food court stall! Paradise Juice and Burger offers you the choice of EIGHT (8) toppings on a rather large bowl of shaved ice. And the $4.50 "small" is actually a pretty big, heaping bowl. You may be worried that eating up all the fruit on top will leave you with just boring ice at the bottom, but (depending on the toppings you choose) all the juices make their way down, so happily you get sweetened ice left over. Plentiful seating because it's in a food court. No ambiance, but portion and fresh fruit can't be beat -- especially compared to shaved ice at almost twice the price for more ice and less fruit (as well as less fruit variety). TIP: CASH ONLY. Almost the entire Crystal Mall food court is that way.

My first experience of Xiao Long Bao in Canada. Right next door to Bubble Waffle Cafe in Crystal Mall (for which I had a SocialShopper coupon) and based on my dining buddy's recommendation we got XLB there as well. Eat it fast. Once it got colder, the skin at the bottom stuck to the paper and it tore when we lifted it off. The denser top where the dough pinches is where you lift it off with your chopsticks. It's freshly steamed so generally too hot to just pop the whole thing in your mouth but you can do that if you wait a couple of minutes -- but you're risking the rest of the XLB being cold. I recommend just diving into them right away. Bite a hole, suck out the juice, eat the rest or pour some of the provided vinegar into it. I have nothing to compare it to but they were pretty tasty -- both soup and the bao themselves. At $4.55 for 5, they are very cheap, compared to Bao Place for instance. Lineups are quite long. You get a number, and thankfully they also...