Location

Daily Delicious, Sea Salt Bread and Salted Egg Yolk Croissant

Daily Delicious’ sea salt bread is very buttery. The bread is sturdy to the bite. The exterior of the bread takes a bit of effort to break off. This bread is nothing like those unnatural puffy baked goods you buy from most Cantonese bakery. Internal air pockets indicates the bread is baked with added grease (probably butter) before mixing, then butter is rolled into the bread before baking. There is sea salt to give slight bursts of flavor when you find one. The bottom of the sea salt bread is brown and crisp from butter. These are the highlights of this bread.

Li’s China Grill, BBQ Skewers

Li’s China Grill is not as good as before. The decrease in food quality is very apparent. The price is still pretty high though. Our bill comes to $30 per person and we did not order a lot of food. Taste-wise, this is still an okay BBQ skewer place. Having Happy Tree House BBQ and Kuan Zhai Road Restaurant in close proximity, Li’s China Grill has an uphill battle ahead of them. Not recommended, there must be better BBQ skewers place somewhere else.

Ba Le Deli and Bakery, Bahn Mi

Ba Le’s #5 special sandwich is my favorite sandwich. I guess the memory goes back to the first time I’ve had it. When it took me by surprise of what a sandwich can be. I’ll tell you, “Subway” is nothing compared to this. #5 Special Sandwich is pretty much the same as the #3 Cold Cut Sandwich. Except #5 Special have a lot more meat. You can find Vietnamese sausage, Ham, Pate, Home made mayonnaise, Pickled daikon radish and carrots, Cilantro and Cucumber. The sandwich is cut in the middle for easier consumption. It is not completely cut. Which gave me a satisfying feeling when taking them apart. The exterior of the bread is hard, feels solid. I could hear the bread crumble when pulling on them.

ColorSeeSee Shanghainese Cuisine, Authentic Xiao Long Bao

How do we know these Xiao Long Bao are authentic. Here are some key points:
Xiao Long Bao was brought to you with a lid, to reduce heat loss.
Lid was removed and Xiao Long Bao was presented to Patrons. We see Xiao Long Bao in the foggy steam and go “There’s my food”.
Then you see the Xiao Long Bao stood up strong and tall. Pleasant to look at, with out being floppy at the bottom.
The location and spacing of Xiao Long Bao is also important. They should be uniformly scattered, not touching each other or the steamer.
An authentic Xiao Long Bao should have exactly 18 folds at its crown.

Passion8 Dessert Cafe, Cute Bingsoo

Passion8 Dessert Cafe makes really well presented bingsoo. This is Mr. Choco Brown, basically chocolate bingsoo. There is a scoop of chocolate ice cream with a small piece of pastry as its hat. Also, there’s two small oreo cookie act as the ears, and a small M&M as the nose. The bingsoo is served in tin can, which is an interesting choice. Unfortunately the outside the bowl is covered with chocolate syrup. It’s not very pleasant to touch. Their most famous dish is their Real Tiramisu bingsoo.

Icy Bar, Razor Sharp Icy

There is a type of Cantonese restaurants where they serve all kinds of cuisine. First, you see congee, noodle, and BBQ duck meal, the typical Cantonese food, nothing out of the ordinary. Then you start to see the New Zealand rack of lamb and New York sirloin steak with lobster tail. Next page you see Japanese sushi, ramen and curry rice. If you got curious and ordered the sushi, you’ll find out what Chinese infused sushi taste like. Or a bowl of Chiense noodle soup with miso added that is being called “ramen”. Icy Bar dessert shop is like that kind of patchwork restaurants in the dessert world

Sip Bowl La Mian, Chinese Ramen

Sip Bowl Signature Beef Noodle bowl looks quite flat, almost unappetizing. It has lots of noodles, a large amount of green onion and chives, a few pieces of thinly sliced daikon, and 4 pieces of thinly sliced beef. However, when I started eating it, the triangular shaped noodle was very well done. It’s a little softer than I’d liked, but superb compared to the majority of noodle places in town. I can feel the bounciness on my teeth when I bite into them. The soup was delectable with a slight taste of savory, not very complex though. The beef was a bit too salty but goes well with the rest of the bowl.

The First Dessert, New Authentic Cantonese Dessert

When we ordered the cold “Green Bean Paste”, the staff revealed to us they are unable to serve cold version. To give patrons the freshest dessert, they started cooking at 3pm. The simmering takes 2 hours to get it ready for 5pm opening. When we arrived, the cooking was just finished not long ago. The dessert hasn’t been put into the fridge long enough to cool yet. The First Dessert also didn’t want to put ice in there to dilute the taste or reduce the portion served.

Big Tree Food Palace Chinese Skewers

Big Tree Food Palace is not a very good restaurant. Our bill comes to $130 for 4 people with 15% tips. A bill of $150 for 4 equals to $37 per person. I don’t care if their rent is high. Their food quality is not worth $37 per head. The ingredients are sub-par. The majority of the food is slightly overcooked. I’m not sure if it’s bad to a point of “must-try”, but I think customers know when they eat something over-priced. The bad food quality of this restaurant would be acceptable if it’s $18 per person. Not recommended.

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