East and West Fusion Cuisines by Cattle Cafe

Curry Beef and Rice

We went to Cattle Cafe in Edmonds for dinner last night. It is their latest establishment which opened about three weeks ago across from the Edmonds Community School on Edmonds Street in Burnaby. We have previous been to Cattle Cafe and know that their patrons are mostly younger people like youths and teenagers. They serve a variety of Chinese and Western fusion cuisines. Other than being new, the establishment is also much spaciest that their other outlets.

Keow Teow Soup Noodle

Even their menu seems to be new. So, new menu means new prices. The menu prices have increase between ten and fifteen percent. They are now on the higher priced menu outlet. With the same price I paid for five I could have dined in HONS Wuntun House or New Lakeview Chinese Restaurant which are about one kilometer away, and still might get some change back. And the cuisines served here are not exceptionally great either.

Beef in Fish Noodle Soup

Any one of the two Cantonese restaurant can serve up some real authentic Cantonese cuisines in comparison to Cattle's east west fusion cuisines. I don't think we will be coming back to this joint anytime in the near future. I think like most diners, I prefer authenticity and taste over creativity when price becomes the deciding factor. Even the diner was not really as packed as it used to be when they were at the other end of the road.

Pork Chop in Cream Sauce with Rice

I ordered the curry fish and were served with curry beef instead. I did not complain but eat whatever that was served to me. The rest were pork chop in cream sauce with rice, fried chicken breast with teriyaki sauce with rice, keow teow noodle soup, and beef in fish noodle. Again, none of the cuisines we had eaten were authentic in anyway. They were like packaged instant noodles and instant rice cuisines. And service were slow. In fact, we had to wait about twenty five minutes for all our orders to be served.

Spaghetti Meatballs

Spaghetti Meatballs

Last night was my turn to cook dinner and I made it simple with spaghetti meatballs. I had bought some Italian meatballs from the local supermarket earlier in the morning before I went to work. So, when I cam home in the evening, I boiled a pot of water for the spaghetti and heated the wok for the meatballs. Once everything was cooked, I simply put everything together. First, I separated the spaghetti into separate plates.

Italian Spaghetti Meatballs

Then, I placed three meatballs in each plate and poured the spaghetti sauce onto the spaghetti and meatballs after that. Both the spaghetti sauce and the meatballs were purchased from Costco Wholesale, I did not prepare anything from scratch. That was the easy part. Basically, I only have to warm everything up and serve. My kids actually like spaghetti meatballs, but I am not a real fan of this Italian specialty cuisine.

Lucky Joy Chinese Seafood Restaurant

Ginger Onion Lobster Cuisine

It was about three months ago during a snowy night that my family and I last dined in Luck Joy Chinese Seafood Restaurant in Richmond. We usually dine here once in a month and would come with friends to enjoy their seafood cuisines, especially the lobster. They serve the lobster in three different type of recipe. We like the ginger onion lobster the most. Last night we dine there with some friends and surprisingly it was not busy at all in the diner.

Fish Fillet in Black Bean Sauce

We ordered the six dishes set meal which included a complementary soup, crab (exchange for a lobster with additional ten dollars), a bowl of dessert for each patron at the end of the meal, and a choice of six cuisines selected from their menu. We are actually very familiar with their cuisines and know what to select even before reading the menu. Time and again we order about the same familiar cuisines because they are the most suitable to our taste and flavours.

Clay Pot Onions and Jumbo Shrimps

Each time we dine here, the lobster cuisine is our most unique cuisine. The other cuisines are just common seafood cuisines. And among the other cuisines, we normally would order the clay pot Halibut and Tofu, Honey Garlic Pork Ribs, and clay pot onion with jumbo shrimps. Yesterday, we actually ventured out of our normal cuisines a little and ordered two cuisines that we had never ordered before and they were the beef brisket, clay pot tofu with eggplant and fish fillet in black bean sauce.

Uncle Fatih's Pizza

Uncle Fatih's Pzza

Once in a while we will do take outs for dinner and last night I decided to take home Uncle Fatih's pizza. I bought two large pizzas and mixed two slices of each toppings to make up eighteen slices. My kids actually love pizzas like most Canadians. Uncle Fatih's Pizza is uniquely different from most pizza parlour. I have previously eaten in one of their pizza place but that was a long time ago. I know that my eldest kid have eaten Uncle Fatih's pizza and said it was good.

Mixed Toppings

There were like at least ten different toppings in the two boxes. And the kids really enjoyed the pizza dinner. We had pepperoni, vegetarian, chicken, ground meat, sausage, all cheese, potato, mushrooms, and broccoli toppings. Uncle Fatih's pizzas is one of the best we have ever eaten. On the price point, Costco Wholesale still has the most affordable price but on taste and flavour, I would say Uncle Fatih. And definitely better than Domino's pizza.

Sweet and Sour Pork

Sweet and Sour Pork

Back to our normal or usual dinner preparation routine yesterday. Three dishes  with one main course and steam rice. Our first cuisine was the sweet and sour pork which the wife cooked from fresh. I had cut the pork meat into small bite sizes and she coated the pork meat with corn starch. Fried them in cooking oil so that the bite size meat turn into crunchy little bites. Set the meat a side and continue with preparing the sauce for the cuisine in the same wok.

Steam Tofus

The sweet and sour sauce is a combination of tomato ketchup, sugar, salt, vinegar, cut tomatoes, cut onions, and bell peppers. Blend everything together in the wok and once it is boiled, add the meat nuggets back into the wok. Serve in a plate when still hot. The next cuisine is the steam tofu which was sliced in a half inch thickness and place in a steamer to steam for about twenty minutes. Once it is done, garnish with oyster flavoured sauce, a few drops of the sesame seed oil, fried garlic bits, and spring onions.

Lotus Root Soup

Lastly, we had the lotus root soup again. In fact is our favorite soup other than the ginseng soup. The lotus root soup is easy to prepare. All the is needed is fresh lotus root (cut into thing pieces), half a cup of ground nuts, a few dried squids, and a pot of water. Boil for about three hours on slow heat and remember to add salt when tasting at the end of the three hour. You may have to add water every so often to prevent the water from drying up in the pot.

Stir Fried Shrimps with Salted Eggs

Stir Fried Shrimps with Salted Egg Yolk

We often heard of this flavourful cuisine and is a must order menu item when we dine in a Chinese restaurant in Malaysia. But in Vancouver it is rather difficult to even find this item listed on any Chinese restaurants' menu let alone enjoy it. So, we refer to the internet for recipes and cooking videos to learn the preparation methods to cuisines that we do not normally get in Chinese restaurants here. Cooking Stir Fried Shrimps with Salted Eggs is one of them.

Flavourful and Tasty Shrimps

We did not learn this recipe from Malaysia but here through youtube cooking videos. My wife had gained cooking experience through these videos and continue to search for the easier and practical methods that produces authentic Malaysian cuisines. Often than none, the learning may take a couple of tries. And we become her taste testers until we find a truly authentic Malaysian taste and flavour. Any how, she has a lot more cooking experience due to testing on us.

Tasty Fried Shrimps

The Stir Fried Shrimps with Salted Eggs is not a difficult recipe to learn. With two pounds of fresh peeled shrimps, we would probably need about three salted eggs. We only want to use the egg yolk of the salted eggs. Crush the egg yolk and mix the egg yolk with the shrimps and curry leaves in a large mixing bowl. Prepare the wok with about two spoons of cooking oil and start to fry the shrimps, a few at a time until the whole wok is full of them. The shrimps is left in the wok to cook for about five minutes.

Fried Ginger Golden Pomfret

Fried Pomfret

Fish is one of our favorite food at home. We consume all types of fish but the among the favorites are golden pomfret, black pomfret, sea bass, sea perch or sometimes called barramundi, grouper, tuna, sting raw, salmon, mackerel, tropical scad, and basa. Depending on the recipe, we cook differently with different variety of fish. For example when we steam fish, only a few of the fish are ideal for steaming. When we fry, there are the other types of fish which we choose from and cooking curry is also similar.

Ginger and Fried Pomfret

I like to use golden pomfret, sting raw, grouper or even tilapia for steaming. As we consume lesser of fresh water fish, so tilapia was always the less preferred choice. Steaming with the golden pomfret would require the same ingredients as with the other fish. Frying is obviously simpler than steaming as we only have to fry the fish with cooking oil and when done, garnish with fried ginger and a few drops of light soy sauce.

Egg Tomato Omelette

After frying the fish, use the cooking oil that is left in the wok to fry other cuisines. The oil has retained the fish aroma that will make the next cuisine really flavourful. Egg omelette is one cuisine that will be great to fry with the used cooking oil. When we steam the fish, there are a few extra steps but simple enough to follow. Clean and put the fish in a deep ceramic plate, garnish with chopped or grated ginger, then drop about two spoonful of oyster flavoured sauce, and three spoons of sesame seed oil on the fish. Put the plate in a steamer for twenty minutes. Serve when the cuisine is still hot.

The DAC

Chicken and Tuna Pasta

I was involved in a workshop at work that included a lunch with my coworkers. The workshop was held up at the SFU's Burnaby campus. I was really surprised how good some of the cuisines were. I have had the chance of dining at the SFU's Diamond Alumni Centre a couple of times before and the cuisines were usually normal to me. But during the lunch break at the workshop, the chicken tuna pasta cuisine were exceptionally flavourful and tasty.

Chicken Pasta

And I was not the only person that noticed that. Some of my coworkers were also surprised by the tastier and more flavourful pasta. Normally, lunch would only be lunch and we would move on to our conversations but there were a lot more talk about the food this time. And to confirm that the pasta was really good, I also noticed that the other main cuisine, the spaghetti, in the buffet line that was nearly tray full when everyone was done eating lunch. I even went back for a seconds on the pasta.

Costco's Fried Chicken Wings for Dinner

Costco Fried Chicken Wings

We went to Costco Wholesale, bought a bucket of the delicious fried chicken wings for dinner last night. We did not only have the chicken wings for dinner but cooked two other cuisines for dinner as well. Although, we have had just the bucket of fried chicken wings for a meal before, but we were not going to do that this time. We wanted to have a proper dinner meal, the fried chicken wings was just another dish for dinner.

Fried Soft Tofus

The fired chicken wings were really good and have enjoyed it many times before. This was the first time we brought it home for dinner. The other cuisines that we cooked for dinner last night were the fried soft tofu garnished with spring onions and light soy sauce, and the pork ribs lotus root soup that we had cooking all day long. Again some of the most nutritious cuisines in Chinese cooking are the soups. And they are seldom mentioned in recipe books or in print.

Pork Ribs Lotus Root Soup

So, the soup was a balance between all the fried stuff we cook and consume at home. Other than consuming the liquid from the soup, the stuff that we put in the soup are mostly consumed, from the meats to the roots. Even the herbs, nuts, beans, and spices put into the soup are consumed. Steaming is another cooking process that produces healthier cuisines and in Chinese cooking there are many recipes that require cooking with this method.

Malaysian Curry Noodle

Malaysian Curry Noodle

We had curry noodle for dinner last night and one bowl was not enough. My wife only prepared enough ingredients and components of the curry noodle to be precisely enough for one bowl each. We have to learn to control ourselves form over indulging in all these good food to maintain a healthy diet. In fact, curry noodle especially Malaysian style curry noodle can be really unhealthy to consume (if too much) because of the amount of coconut milk and carbohydrate that is in the cuisine.

Curry Noodle

People like me likes curry because of the unique flavours that the spices produce. A variety of spices is put into making of the curry cuisine but to make the cuisine taste perfect and authentic, a lot of the not so healthy to consume (if much) stuff are also added. So, we have curry once in a while and not as often as we like. The healthier curry to cook is the one that uses tamarind juice instead of coconut milk. These type of curry is usually sourish in flavour.

New Lakeview Chinese Seafood Restaurant

Lakeview's Crab Special

Over the weekend, we went out to dine with some friends in one of the Chinese restaurant in Burnaby since we were all living in the same city. We picked the New Lakeview Chinese Seafood Restaurant because it was the most convinient for all of us to meet. And it has a lot of parking space right in front of the restaurant. So, we pick convinient and comfort over authenticity and delicious cuisines. But, importantly we were all satisfied with the meal.

Fried Milk Fish Fillet

We decided that ordering from the recommended set menu was the best option for us and the advantage of that was the free crab cuisine that came with the set meal. Obviously our group was the largest group of patrons the restaurant had at that time and to get things moving quickly we just selected the items from the recommended list of cuisines, also with some recommendations from the the restaurant proprietor herself.

Shrimps with Black Pepper Sauce

She help us select most of the cuisines that we would not have ordered if we had done it ourselves. So, most of the cuisines were new to all of us. And they turned out to be pretty good choices. There were a variety of flavours and taste that we would not have normally enjoy in a single meal. Everyone of us would have our own preference when we make our choices but leaving to the restaurant owner was simply a good way to explore new cuisines.

Roast Chicken

If I recalled from memories, that was the second time that I had ever eaten a crab cuisine in New Lakeview Restaurant. Although, I still prefer Lucky Joy in Richmond, the seafood cuisines served at New Lakeview Restaurant was nearly as good. The other cuisines include, Fried Milk Fish Fillet, Shrimps with Black Pepper Sauce, Roast Chicken, Chicken (Peking Duck Style) Cabbage Wrap, Stir fried French Beans, a large pot of complimentary soup for all and fruits as dessert at the end.

Homestyle Honey Garlic Pork

Lightly Coated Honey Garlic Pork

We cooked one of the most popular Chinese cuisine for dinner yesterday. Indeed, the Honey Garlic Pork which is featured in every Chinese Restaurants' menu is one of the most popular Chinese cuisine, stretching from mainland China to every other corner of the world. Even smaller establishments carry this easy to prepare and cook cuisine. Easy to prepare because the sauce that comes with the cuisine can be found in most asian grocery stores.

Honey Garlic Pork

But at home, we often make our own honey garlic sauce from garlic, ginger, honey, and corn starch. We start with the meat. Cut the meat to bite sizes than mix the meat with corn starch to create that crunchy bite. The corn starch coating meat is to be fried first with chopped garlic. The thickness of the corn starch coating depends on how you like your meat. We like ours lightly coated. Most Chinese restaurants would have the meat coated much thicker.

Garlic, Honey, and Pork

Once the bite size meat nuggets have been fried, put it aside and allow it to cool. Using a small bowl, mix honey (one spoon), a pinch of salt, a cup of water, and half spoon of corn starch. Stir the mixture until evenly blend. Then, in a hot wok or pot, drop two spoons of cooking oil, a spoonful of chopped garlic and ginger. Stir until the garlic turn brown then add the honey garlic mixture into the wok. Once the mixture boils, pour onto the bite size meat nuggets. Serve when it is still hot.

Teriyaki Bake Chicken and Chips

Teriyaki Bake Chicken

Good thing about being resourceful and creative is that we can enjoy variety of different cuisines but we got to equip ourself with ideas. Yesterday we decided to bake chicken that we had marinated with teriyaki sauce. In the morning before we left for work, we put four pieces of chicken quarters into the fridge after marinating with teriyaki sauce. When we got home, immediately we put the chicken quarters into the oven first. Then, only work on the other components of the dinner meal.

Western Style Bake Chicken

The other stuff that we had planned for dinner are lettuce as salad for the day and sweet potatoes for chips. The salad sauce used with the lettuce is lemon and fried garlic. Whereas for the sweet potato chips, we used the convection oven to bake the sweet potatoes. So, we actually took only about forty minutes to prepare dinner. Our dinner yesterday was a simple meal but we enjoyed it. And we took about twenty minutes to eat dinner.

Cheese Noodle with Shrimps

Cheese and Keow Teow Noodle

We tired something new yesterday. We experimented with cheese and keow teow noodle and it turned out to be pretty good. Nothing authentic but tasted great. We first blanched the keow teow noodle and separated them into five portions. Each in separate plates. Then, we prepared the shrimps by pan frying the shrimps and fresh shitake mushrooms with some pepper, salt and garnished with dehydrated parsley. We placed the pan fried shrimps on the keow teow noodle and then put a slice of cheese on it.

Keow Teow Cheese Cuisine

The ingredients that was placed in the plate was not hot enough to melt the cheese. So, I put one late at a time into the microwave oven for about one minute just to melt the cheese on the noodle. That actually did the trick of melting the cheese. Then, mix the cheese with the keow teow and the other ingredients. Tasted relly good. The cheese blended well with the shrimps, fresh shitake mushrooms and the keow teow.

Char Siew Yoke

Char Siew Yoke

My wife drop in at one of the meat shop in Crystal Mall's wet market to pick up some Char Siew Yoke on her way home from work. It was a convinient choice because she was late on her way home to prepare dinner and the kids have extracurricular activities. So, to be efficient with the time, she asked one of the kids to cook rice and when she got home they can eat rice with the char siew yoke. The kids actually like char siew yoke a lot and that one cuisine would be enough for them.

Siew Yoke

When I got home, the char siew yoke was only half left in the serving plate. I just ate rice with three slices of the pork meat and I was satisfied. Sometime dinner can be very simple and convinient at home. Depending on how much time we can spare for preparing and cooking, I actually prefer to cook at home but at times unexpected delays may change our plans. We always have alternatives when it comes to dinner just like the char siew yoke rice.

Yong Chow Fried Rice

Yong Chow Fried Rice

Other than my own recipe fried rice which my wife wants me to reduce from cooking, the yong chow fried rice is one of my many favorite cuisine. This fried rice cuisine uses many more ingredients than most other type of fried rice but yong chow fried rice taste very good. Even when I need to order a quick meal for the kids when they announce a school activity at the last minute and we have to order a pick up from the local Chinese restaurant, we usually order the yong chow fried rice.

Fried Rice

Last night, I decided to cook my own yong chow fried rice for dinner. So, I chop up some char siew yok. The meat has to be sliced to tiny bite sizes. Other ingredients would be a couple of eggs, mixed vegetables, shrimps and may be fish balls. Start with three spoons of cooking oil and followed with a spoon of chopped garlic. Then, drop into the wok the shrimps and when the shrimps are cooked, drop in the small bite size char siew yok.

Yong Chow Rice

The rice goes in last. Before stirring, turning and mixing everything, shake some pepper and salt onto the rice first. Then, start mixing and turning the rice until everything is kind of blended in the same color. Make a round partition in the centre of the rice in the wok and pour in the eggs. Cover the liquid eggs with rice and continue to mix and turn until the eggs are evenly mixed with the rice. I don't add any sauce or enhancer to add flavour or taste. I like the fried rice as simple as possible.

Tom Yam Noodle Soup

Tom Yam Noodle Soup

This is a noodle cuisine that we have not cooked in a fairly long while. I thought may be we should have something spicy last night. So, I decided to cook the tom Yam Noodle Soup after looking into the fridge. Besides that, when I check the fridge, I had all the right ingredients to cook the tom yam noodle soup. Cooking tom yam noodle soup was as easy as throwing everything into a pot of water and add the tom yam paste. And it normally takes less than thirty minutes to prepare and cook.

Tom Yam Noodle

I started with a pot of water on a stove and bring it to boil. The first thing I did was to add the tom yam paste which can be in square cube form, powdered or paste. And I do not rely on a particular brand but usually use the heinze or ayam brand which are a little more handy. There come in a small box and the tom yam paste is in a square cube form. I just have to throw in a whole cube if serving four and for a thicker broth, just add more accordingly.

Spicy Tom Yam Noodle

And for the rest, just be creative. There is a choice for seafood, meat, vegetarian or mix when it come to ingredients. At home, we prefer mix. So, we throw in shrimps, squids, chicken meat, pork, fish ball, squid balls, tofus and tofu puffs. For the vegetable ingredients, we select from yu choy, cabbage, carrot, potatoes, tomatoes, egg plant, napa cabbage, hard boil eggs, fried shallots, fresh shitake mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms. The more ingredients that is mixed in the soup the thinker the soup needs to be.

My Favorite Cantonese Cuisines

Tofu Seafood in Clay Pot

We live in a place perfectly surrounded by great restaurants to dine. Big, small and diverse. Within the twenty kilometre radius from where we live, there are so many establishments with all kinds of fantastic offerings. And they range from five dollar deals to fine dinning, fast food chains to specialized authentic cuisines. In the process of dining in all of them, it will take us more than three years to dine in each of them if we visit one a day.

Honey Garlic Pork

Each time we visit a new eatery, we can't help it but to compare our favorite Cantonese restaurant to this new place we have just dined in. Hons Wuntun House in New Westminster is our benchmark. We dine there so often that we place our orders without having to read from their menu. We compare not only the authenticity, flavour and taste of the cuisines but also the price and experience of dinning. Hons in New Westminster is a friendly Chinese Restaurant with many loyal and returning customers.

Ginger Stir Fried Beef Strips

A matter of fact, the diner is always full. That speaks volume for this establishment. Their neighbours are usually the opposite. And their customers ranges from Asian ethnicity to East Europeans. There is a good mix in the restaurant. And our favorite cuisines there are the honey garlic pork, ginger stir fired beef strips and the tofu seafood in clay pot. We like this restaurant so much so that, we dine here at least once a month and at times even as frequent as five time in a month.

Birthday Noodle for Longivity

Penang Lam Mee

In Penang, the lam mee has a close significance to celebrating birthdays for parents and grandparents. The lam mee that is cooked for birthdays is the plain lam mee, not the ones with dark soy sauce and vinegar. I kind of missed this noodle cuisine because there are no friends old enough to be in that category yet. And not many people from Penang that knows about the significance of this noodle cuisine because it is a Baba Nyonya traditional noodle cuisine.

Nyonya Lam Mee

When my grandmother was still around, we used to cook this traditional noodle cuisine during her birthdays. After she passed away we hardly cook or order this noodle cuisine when we dine in restaurants. Yesterday night, I decided to cook this Baba Nyonya Lam Mee at home. My wife had prepared a pot of shrimp broth with pork ribs earlier in the afternoon. So, when I got home I used that shrimp broth to cook the Penang lam mee.

Simple Plain Noodle in Shrimp Broth

Other than preparing the shrimp and pork ribs soup, the other ingredients for the noodle cuisine were pretty simple. Main component of the noodle cuisine is the noodle itself. Followed with chives or spring onions, shrimps, pork ribs, hard boiled eggs, fried eggs and fried shallots. Most people like this noodle cuisine plain but I like it spicy. So, I put some samble belacan in the broth to spice up the soup a bit.