The last few times I ate at Vivacity Restaurant was for dim sum in the morning but last Sunday we came for dinner. The three of us sat at a table for six because there were many open tables at the restaurant.

We ordered the peking duck. Our server brought the whole roasted duck out and proceeded to skinning the crispy skin off.

Peking Duck Crispy Skin

Flour wrap

Green onion, peking duck skin, topped with hoisin sauce (seafood sauce) all concealed in a steamed flour wrap makes for a crunchy bite. I love eating peking duck this way but you have to make your wraps fast because once the flour wraps are exposed to the cold air, the edges harden quickly. These wraps were pretty good at Vivacity but I've had much crispier and better cut peking duck at other restaurants.

After the duck is skinned, it goes back to the kitchen where the meat is de-boned and made into a stir fry for lettuce wraps. The cool lettuce leaves and warm, flavourful centre filled with stir fry duck meat is something I would want to eat any summer night.

Lettuce duck wraps

Alongside enjoying an entire duck, we had fried oysters. The oysters were fried then cooked in a garlic mixture sauce making it not very fresh-breathe friendly. They were pretty good and I appreciated that there were some vegetables on the side.

Fried oysters in sauce

Most Chinese restaurants offer complimentary dessert at the end of a meal. The one at Vivacity that night was red and green bean sweet soup with clear tapioca pearls.

Red and green bean sweet soup

Eating at Lin Chinese Cuisine and Tea House was an interesting experience because for the first time in my dine out experiences in Vancouver, we were the minority in a Chinese restaurant! As in, we were the only one of two tables of Asians at the restaurant that evening.

With that said, the food was all right and the menu items were more catered toward non-Asian diner's taste.

Xiao Long Bao: pork and soup inside of these steamed dumplings

Xiao Long Bao

Beef and green onion

 Rice cakes to me are like Chinese pasta. Each piece is so chewy and soaks up the flavour of the sauce. So of course the sauce makes a big difference on rice cake dishes, this sauce was probably a mixture of soy sauce, oyster sauce, and corn starch.

Shanghai rice cakes

The Beef Sesame Rolls rolls look like Subway sandwiches in the photo but they're definitely not. The "bun" part is actually a flaky pastry and the inside are cold cut slices of marinated beef and some green onion. I prefer beef rolls with warmed beef inside but this one was still pretty good.

Beef Sesame Roll

 The House Special Fried Rice was a bit on the oily side (for me) but there were actually more ingredients in it than I expected: mixed vegetables, shrimp, chicken.

House Special Fried Rice

After dinner, we headed to UBC's Chan Centre for Arts Last Lecture 2013 featuring Michaelle Jean. I was surprised by the number of people who didn't know who she is when I told them I was going to hear her speak. She was Canada's former Governor General and shared her life story from a child in Haiti to moving to Canada and building her career. As a Quebecois, she spoke French at the very beginning and throughout the speech, too even though all the French speakers in the room could also understand English perfectly fine. Well, that's Canadian politics for you.

Michaelle Jean

We came across Kisamos Greek Taverna after discovering that Hog Shack was closed that day. As a party of twelve, we were quickly seated and brought menus and water in a prompt manner. 

AIESECers from UBC, Calgary, and Ryerson

Like many Greek restaurants, the portion size was large so three girls (including myself) shared a seafood platter for two.

The seafood platter included Greek salad (not pictured), rice & baked potatoes, and assorted seafood. I thoroughly enjoyed all the food and it tasted right unlike the last Greek food experience I had where everything was too salty! I liked the shrimp the best because they were large and juicy.

Rice and baked potatoes

Seafood platter: shrimp, salmon, cod, kalamari, tzatzki and humus

There were many other options at the restaurant including steak, lamb, chicken, and pasta to name a few.

Steak meal

Other than celebrating post Coastal Conference 2013, we came out to eat to celebrate Amanda's birthday! Happy 21st birthday Amanda!

Cake from La Patisserie

Woo Ying Vegetarian in the Pacific Plaza food court should be more well known as a vegetarian option in Richmond! We learned of this place through a friend and have been back a few times already.

I think what keeps us returning is the overall experience of this food court meal because all food is served on plates and not styrofoam like most other food court vendors. As well, many of the dishes are made fresh upon order so they are not simply scooped out of a heated pan.

Pan-fried vegetables wrapped in bean curd

Everyday there is a daily special meal, below is the one for the day we went which included soup, rice, and two side dishes. The rice is a mixture of white and red rice which made the texture more chewy.

After getting extremely rude service at the door from a Japanese (but Korean owned) restaurant in Steveston, we left and went to seek dinner at Ichiro. They told us that they were full for another 45 minutes so we ended up at Tokyo-Style Moncton Cafe.

This restaurant reminded me of a more Japanese version of Aoyama. I say this because Moncton Cafe unlike Aoyama is staffed by Japanese people.

Overall, everything tasted good in a simple way. I love Japanese rice, they're so fluffy compared to rice from other parts of Asia.

Mussels

Spring Rolls

Chicken Nanban

Chicken Katsu

Gratin

Seafood Curry Rice

Maria's Taverna was a fairly easy location to get to by transit. The small restaurant was still filled with diners for Dine Out Vancouver when we arrived at 8pm on a Thursday night.

We opted for the Dine Out menu as well. We ended up having to go up to the cash register area to request for a server to take our order. I guess they were too busy to notice.

Homous & Pita

For my appetizer, I chose the Avgolemono (chicken, egg and lemon soup). It was extremely salty and a little tangy from the lemon juice.

Avgolemono

Kleftiko: tender roasted lamb, served with rice, roasted potatoes, Greek salad

Like the soup, my main course was also extremely salty. The roasted potatoes were especially salty. I was impressed with the large portion size of the lamb which was very tender and good.

Kleftiko

Maria's  Special Ekmek: three layer traditional dessert with custard, nuts, cinnamon

In contrast with the salty dishes, this dessert was very sweet! The sponge cake bottom was absolutely drenched in sugary syrup. The custard was firm and jello-like.

Ekmek

Overall, Maria's Taverna is for those whose tastebuds can accept a large range from very salty to very sweet.

I am fortunate enough to have my birthday during the two weeks of Dine Out Vancouver, so every year I get to eat something delicious to celebrate!

This year my family and I ate at Harold's Bistro and Bar located in a Sheraton hotel. There was a hockey game on that night, otherwise it seems to be a quiet restaurant on other nights.

Appetizers

Lobster & Shrimp Rolls: Lobster, shrimp, taro root, carrot, shitake mushroom, mango relish, mango sauce

I did not expect spring rolls when we ordered this dish but that is exactly what they tasted like! They came pretty fresh out of the fryer so it was so nice, warm, and crunchy.

Lobster & Shrimp Rolls

 Caesar Salad: Crispy romaine, herbs croutons, parmesan cheese, garlic dressing

Caesar Salad

Shrimp Gyoza: Pan-fried dumpling with olive oil, sweet soy glaze, cilantro

These gyozas also came very hot which I appreciated. The shrimp was well blended with the filling so I could not really tell if it was there.

Shrimp Gyoza

Entrée

Grilled Halibut: Blackened halibut with succotash, cilantro butter, served with vegetables, red pepper sauce

Grilled Halibut

 Lamb Shank: Slow braised, red wine sauce, mashed potato, green beans

I thoroughly enjoyed my lamb which was very tender. The meat fell easily off the bone and was not try at all. The green beans could have been cooked a little longer.

Lamb Shank

 New York Steak: 8oz Angus beef, crispy onions, peppercorn jus, mashed potato

New York Steak

Dessert

Double Chocolate Cake: Dark chocolate cake with ganache icing

Both desserts we tried were not stellar. This chocolate cake was a bit stiff and tasted like ones I could find at any grocery store.

Bread Pudding: homemade caramel sauce

I was excited to try the bread pudding after I read Lindsay Anderson's raving review on it. I was quite disappointed because it was OVERLY sweet! I am a person who loves to eat dessert with a big sweet tooth but I could not take more than two bites of this dessert. The cake itself was extremely sweet and with the caramel sauce, the sugar factor just went overboard. I was also not particularly fond of the texture.

All in all, the appetizers and entrees were delicious but the last impression of the meal (aka dessert) was not as great.