Giraffe Restaurant

Restaurant: Giraffe Restaurant

Cuisine: West Coast/American/Fusion
Last visited: January 7, 2010
Area: White Rock, BC
15053 Marine Dr
Price Range: $30-50

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: n/a
Service: n/a

Ambiance: n/a

Overall: n/a

Additional comments:

• Executive chef David Chow (Dubrulle Culinary Institute)
• Fine dining
• Focus on West Coast/seafood
• Familiar to locals and tourists
• Globally inspired menu
• Creative/Fresh/gourmet homemade
• Really delicately executed, attention to detail
• Great view of waterfront
• Small/intimate dining area
• Beautiful intimate patio
• Weekly specials
• Lunch Thurs.-Sat. 11:30am
• Dinner M-Sun. 5:30pm
• Sunday brunch 11am

**Recommendation: Giraffes’ Eggs Benedict, Bacon wrapped Filet with Egg (I didn’t get to try their Belgian Waffles, but I really want to)

The reason why I had to rate everything as “n/a” is because the chef is my best friend’s brother. Therefore, under the circumstances I can’t rate this restaurant with a neutral perspective.

I’ve dined at Giraffe Restaurant for dinner more than a handful of times, but this was my first time for brunch. This brunch was also complimentary, but I would have no problems paying full price for it. It was definitely worth it. The brunch prices are actually really affordable, especially for fine dining...heck it's a bargain! I would be spending the same if I was having brunch at White Spot for half the quality and half the atmosphere (and I really like brunch at White Spot!)

As good as the Giraffe brunch is, I am definitely going to do a dinner review one day. I am lucky enough to have tried almost everything on the menu as well as some custom made appetizers. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everything, although I do have my favourites. The menu is more fusion and contemporary, but the atmosphere is more traditional and formal and suitable for couples or small intimate groups.

On the table:

Complimentary Scones

• These are complimentary for everyone during brunch. I could have eaten 3 of them. They’re made in house and they’re so good!
• These aren't the traditional fluffy scones like the ones at Applewood Bakery, but these ones were more like cookies. They were crispy soft and chewy and reminded me of freshly baked oatmeal cookies. I loved them, it was a great way to start brunch! I feel like there was some rhubarb or apple, oatmeal and definitely some cinnamon in them. They were perfectly baked and so delicate. It also came with a really fresh raspberry jam. I do miss that devonshire cream, but these scones are complimentary so I think I'm pushing it. I would pay extra for it though.

**Giraffes’ Egg’s Benedict

• Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, red onion, spinach and a dill hollandaise served with fried nugget potatoes $12
• I was deciding between the Giraffes’ egg’s benedict and the frittata. I went with the benedict because my friend told me that her brother, also the chef, would more likely make the frittata at home than he would the benny. (The hollandaise sauce is very time consuming).
• I was very much into my benny. The ratio of ingredients was perfect and everything was cooked perfectly. Nothing was overpowering and the flavours were all there.
• The red onions were soft, but not to the point of caramelized. It still had a crunch, but wasn't spicy anymore, it added a shallot like flavour that was very delicate.
• My egg was beautifully poached with a very soft middle. It mixed into my hollandaise and was absolutely divine.
• The hollandaise sauce wasn’t really a tangy hollandaise as it was more buttery in flavour. Made with clarified butter it’s very rich and creamy here. The dill was apparent, but very mild and I liked it with the salmon. There was the perfect amount of hollandaise to finish my benny with some on every bite.
• I really liked the crispiness of my English muffin. It sounds like a small thing, but it was enough for me to notice because more often than not restaurants don't toast it enough or it gets too soggy.
• The fried nugget potatoes were great. It was cut nice and thin so they were very crispy. This is what I meant by "attention to detail, everything here is cut to the same size and there's consistency. Therefore the cooking time is perfect for everything. A sign of true professionalism.
  
• I think it was a simple seasoning of course salt and black pepper. (Maybe one additional dried herb, but I couldn't taste it)

**Bacon wrapped Filet with Egg

• Grilled bacon wrapped filet served with a poached egg, tomato, béarnaise and roasted potatoes $16
• Okay, I don’t know what happened, but this was the first time I didn’t try something on someone else’s plate. I think I was way too into my own egg’s benedict did I totally forget to try this dish.
• However, another reason is probably because I have tried a version of this already. See My Holiday Dinners and Feasts - Chef David Chow made something similar to this on Christmas morning. I was lucky to be invited! Yes, we had beef tenderloin for breakfast! The one on Christmas had pyster mushrooms 3 kinds of potatoes for the hash, and the eggs were scrambled.
  
• You don't have to worry about overcooked steaks here, hot you order it is how it arrives. Everything is made in small batches rather than in volume.
  
• The presentation on this is beautiful, and it’s only a 4 ounce steak so it’s not as heavy for brunch as you would think.

Stuffed French Toast

• Mango-apricot Cream Cheese and Strawberry stuffed French toast served with bacon, and warm maple syrup $10.50
• This was the “dessert” for brunch. Since we had it in the end, we passed on the bacon. I am very curious and interested to try it with the bacon though...even though I'm not a fan of bacon...I know, so taboo right?
• The bread is from a bakery up the street. I wasn’t a fan of the crust, beuase it was a bit dry, but I was a fan of how it was used.
• I loved the combination of ingredients, the savoury creamy cheese, the sweet mango-apricot, and the tart strawberries, but I just wish there was a bit more of it. (I’m treading on dangerous grounds here…so I’m a bit scared).
• I would have liked more mango apricot because I couldn’t really taste it. It would be nice to have a little more stuffing to match the thickness of the bread too. I know it looks balanced in the picture, but because the bread was a bit dry it felt like it need more stuffing. Or maybe if the bread was a little more soaked in egg batter that would work. I wouldn't have minded if the egg batter had a touch more vanilla and cinnamon too... =|
• I did love how the cream cheese was warm and melted. It made for a really decadent French toast and the strawberries released their natural sugars under the heat. I really don’t think there were any additional sugars because overall it wasn’t really sweet unless you used the warm maple syrup. Which I did…and it was great!
• This French toast was really good, but just minor things and it would have been over the top. Ohhh maybe even some toasted pecans to give it a crunch? Or even some basil leaves or some finely chopped mint in the middle? Yum!
• We all loved the side of fruit! It was beautifully presented, clean and fresh. Pears, apples, mango, strawberries, grapefruits and oranges. I loved the variety and you get what you’re paying for as you can tell there are no grapes, honey dew, or cantaloupe.

Special Appetizer

• This is not on the menu, but was made especially for us…I know…I’m lucky right?!
• It was a 7 vegetable chili served on roasted potatoes and topped with sour cream.
• I’m not going to comment on this because it was special made, complimentary, and not available on the menu anyways.

Yoko Sushi

Restaurant: Yoko Sushi

Cuisine: Japanese/Sushi

Last visited: October 22, 09
Area: Coquitlam, BC

1001 Austin ave

Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 3.5

Service: 4

Ambiance: 3

Overall: 3.5

Additional comments:

• Owned and operated by Koreans
• Not really authentic - "Westerner's sushi"
• Clean, friendly, trendy for area
• Sashimi/Sushi/Donburi/Noodles/Meals
• Set meals/Bento boxes/Sushi platters
  
• Some specialty rolls
• Lunch specials 11am-4pm
• Can customize your own roll upon request
• Attracts locals within the area
• Dine in/Take-out
• Open everyday 11am-12am

**Recommendation: House Green Salad, Gomae, House roll, Yoko roll

Curious to try: Korean Chirashi "Donburi": sashimi, vegetables and rice mixed with spicy sauce $10.95

I've come here on several occasions and it's not really because the food is exceptional, but it's clean, comfortable, somewhat trendy, reasonably priced, and the food is good and well-prepared even though it's not "authentically" Japanese. The food tastes pretty good, but it's almost too perfect - kind of like ordering a Kung Pao Chicken bowl at an American chain restaurant - it's usually pretty good, but just not authentic.

It's only been around for about a year and it's owned and operated by a young group of Koreans. It attracts Westerners and Koreans around the area. The presentation is nice and the food is fresh so it's a good choice if you're around and craving sushi. It's decently busy during dinner, but you'll never be waiting in a line.

On the table:

• **House Green Salad 4/6
• Our signature house dressing $3.50

• Surprised? So was I! I never order house green salads at any restaurant. I've tried the Japanese green salad, but have never liked it until I tried this one.
• It's served with their signature house dressing, so it's homemade and really good.
• The dressing is made with a combination of apples and onions and it's nice and thick. It has the texture of pureed apples but and the flavour is sweet yet tangy at the same time. You also get that bite of finely grated onion. I would have liked more dressing though because there was a lot of salad.
• The green salad they use is really fresh and not that chopped ice berg lettuce most Japanese restaurants will serve. They used shredded romaine with some carrots and purple cabbage for colour - there wasn't one brown or wilted leaf.
• **Gomae 5/6
  
• Spinach with sesame dressing $3.95

• They make Gomae really good here. The sauce is homemade again and it's a mix of ground sesame and peanuts. Some places will only use sesame sauce, but I like it with peanuts because it's richer and gives it a deeper flavour.
• The picture looks like a lot of sauce, but it's actually the perfect amount and I love the sauce! More the merrier. It's just enough to perfectly coat each leaf after you mix it altogether.
• **House Roll 5/6
• Salmon, tuna, ebi, avocado, tamago & crab $6.95
• I really like the house roll here. They give you ebi (shrimp) and it's really rare to have this ingredient in it. Most people will use a cheaper ingredient even if they just wanted to make it bigger.
• At Yoko's they use really little rice in their house roll and give you tons of filling, which is great. However the rice is a little too wet and there' s not much flavour to it.
• Another thing they do differently is they wrap it in a soybean wrap (the yellow layer wrapped around it). The soybean wrap doesn't have much flavour, but it makes for nice presentation. It's almost like the texture of the seaweed wrapped on the inside. It kind of helps keep everything together and I really liked it.
• They drizzle it with this homemade mango sauce which was unexpected and creative. The mango was made with a mango syrup, almost like a coulis. It's sweet, but not overpowering because they didn't soak the roll with it. It wasn't really creamy and it wasn't made with mayo, but maybe evaporated milk or corn syrup, something of that sort. It was still nice and light and went well with the roll.
• It is a larger roll, as most house rolls are, but you get fresh ingredients and a lot of it. The portion of each ingredient was well balanced.
• 
• Kamikaze Roll 2/6
  
• Prawn tempura and crab with spicy tuna on top $8.95

• This was really whatever to me. The plating was nice, but that's about it. I actually expected more...especially at $8.95.
• The rice wasn't flavourful enough and the tuna wasn't spicy enough so it was kind of bland. The prawn tempura is pre-fried and they make batches at a time for the sushi chefs so we had one that had been sitting out for a bit. So it wasn't crispy and the batter was a bit soggy and not as fresh.
• The spicy tuna was pounded and got too mushy and they didn't give you enough for this roll. It was a bit inconsistent with each piece. The spicy marinade kind of tasted like Tabasco sauce and had that one dimensional flavour. This roll needed something crunchy - either green onions or cucumbers to give it that extra something. I wouldn't order it again.

• **Yoko Roll 4/6
  
• Salmon, avocado, and cream cheese then deep-fried $6.95

• I didn't order it on this occasion, but I've ordered it before and still think about it.
  
• Its a deep fried roll, and they do a good job with it. They do a great job with the deep frying and the whole thing is lightly battered and crispy when complete.
• The cream cheese gets all soft and warm and the roll literally melts in your mouth. The salmon doesn't cook so don't worry about it getting dry. The roll is creamy, rich and well-executed. A real treat, but you might want to share it because you may get sick of it if you just order that alone.
  
• 
• Vegetable Teriyaki Don 3/6
• Stir-fried mixed vegetables served over rice. Served with miso soup. $9.95

• They give you a decent amount of fresh veggies and it's a pretty big bowl.
• There's carrots, broccoli, bean sprouts, cabbage and zucchini, but it was missing mushrooms and onions - there were maybe some onions, but not enough.
  
• The sauce is a standard Teriyaki sauce, so nothing exceptional there, but still good.
  

Katsu-Ya Sushi

Restaurant: Katsu-Ya Sushi
Cuisine: Japanese/Sushi

Last visited: August 29, 09

Area: Richmond, BC

#101 -7900 Westminster Highway

Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very Good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 1.5

Service: 2

Ambiance: 1

Overall: 1.5

Additional comments:

• Quick & cheap sushi
• All specialty rolls $4.25 - they all taste the same though, all just blahhh to not good
  
• They're "spicy sauce" that comes on all specialty rolls is sweet and sour sauce - not spicy at all
• Expensive for sashimi - $9.95 for 6 pieces of salmon
  
• Japanese owned and ran
• Made upon order, but ingredients are not fresh
• Frozen fish
• Chewy seaweed, and rice is bland and wet
  
• Poor quality explains cheap price
• Really weak and cheap wasabi
• Eat-in/Take-out
• Closed Sunday

**Recommendation: n/a

I went to this place purely out of convenience because I was craving sushi and really hungry and wanted to try a place I've never gone to - traffic was also bad and I didn't want to drive around. I was hoping it would be good, and when I discovered the place was ran by Japanese I got excited. I was SO disappointed.

Cheap rolls - yes. But that's all this place has to offer - is cheap rolls. A lot of their specialty rolls have no sashimi and that's why they're so cheap. The specialty rolls are almost all the same too - some type of tempura with avocado and masago with "spicy sauce" on top, which is sweet and sour sauce...? NOT spicy. It's a small place and an open kitchen so they don't have the facilities to make good sushi or carry fresh sashimi. They were using the microwave to defrost who knows what and I saw sashimi in the freezer - it was really awful. The rice was really poorly made sushi rice, not flavourful at all and wet, which made the seaweed a bit soggy and chewy. It attracts people working nearby that are looking for super cheap sushi within walkable distance for lunch. I guess you pay for what you get...and it's not much.

On the table:

• Gomaae 1/6
• It tastes better than it looks - it looks pretty bad, I know. I mean the presentation was really poor and you can tell they rushed it. They just clumped up spinach and poured a ready made sesame sauce on top. It's only $2.95 and I felt ripped off.
• Sunset Roll 2/6
  
• Deep fried prawn and yam, cream cheese, masago
  
• This is their most popular roll, but it's still not that good. I think it's only popular because the people that go are people that like cream cheese. I've had way better cream cheese rolls though. This is just the b est roll they serve - but not the best sushi roll by any means.
• it's the only roll that kind of tasted different fro m the other specialty rolls.
  

  

• Prawn Mango Roll 1.5/6
  
• Deep fried prawn and mango, masago, spicy sauce
• The mango isn't fresh or even canned! The mango is DRIED mango. I couldn't believe this - I saw them take it out of the Dole bag. Then they deep fry it so it gets a little "re-hydrated" - it doesn't even shine through in this prawn and MANGO roll.
• Y-Roll 1.5/6
• crab meat, salmon, avocado, masago and spicy sauce (sweet and sour sauce).
  
• *sigh* - tastes all the same. The masago isn't even good on these rolls - it's cause it's frozen and when they defrost it it just gets too wet, and it's hard to fix this. The owner is a nice Japanese lady and I feel bad for giving such a bad review, but I can't help it.
  

  

• Crazy Roll 1.5/6
• crabmeat, deep fried gourd aka squash, avocado, masago, hot and spicy sauce
• Tasted the same as everything else. Really...enough of the sweet and sour sauce - it isn't even good - it's just spring roll sweet and sour sauce - the kind you get at Save-On Foods not even the kind at T&T! Tastes and looks packaged.
• Spicy Tuna Roll 1/6
• Look at the picture. Have you ever seen it served this way? This is possible one of the worst spicy tuna rolls I've had. Worst spicy tuna sauce - it doesn't even look like a spicy tuna roll. The presentation was awful, putting spicy sauce on top of the roll? Major no no. This is such an old trick - it's to hide the tuna sashimi so they can use less...we barely had any.
  

Ina Garten's Famous Coconut Cupcakes

Item: Ina Garten's Famous Coconut Cupcakes - review

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Find recipe here: Ina Garten's Famous Coconut Cupcakes

• Coconut Cupcakes 5/6
  

• These cupcakes are pretty good. Fluffy, light, white, moist and a nice almond flavour. I would have appreciated an even stronger coconut flavour though. This recipe is worth a try and it's easy to follow. I baked them with my friend and we over baked ours a bit. Do not over bake them. If you over bake them it'll taste dry especially since there's dried coconut flakes in the batter...the texture will just be extra dry and you really want these to be fluffy. They will look really white and you might think they aren't baked all the way through yet...but if the tooth pick comes out clean take them out. They're done! Our second batch was much better!
• Cream cheese frosting - great match! Actually a great recipe to keep.