Cake Ya - worth the drive?

Restaurant: Cake-Ya

Cuisine: Japanese Dessert

Area: Port Moody, BC

Address: 2415 Clarke Street

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

Food: 4.5

Service: 4

Price: Fair-Expensive

One thing that I (Grace) hate about not being able to drive myself yet is that I can’t go to all the restaurants and bakeries that we want to go!! Cake-Ya had been one of the places that we really have wanted to go since like forever!! We been nagging and nagging my dad to take us there but he always responds like “it’s too far!” Finally today my dad said “let’s go to that cake place in Port Moody” We can finally go to the place that we could only dream of!!!!

Cake-Ya is a small Japanese bakery in Port Moody that specialized in Japanese homemade desserts. It is small bakery, well I couldn’t really call it a bakery it’s more like a kitchen with a glass case to display the desserts, which is run by 2 people. There is no seating area so you either had to eat outside, the car or the park. They are famous for their Japanese pudding so of course that’s what we got!

We got to Cake-Ya just when they opened so there wasn’t a lot out especially the pudding, we really wanted to try the matcha flavored pudding but they didn’t make them yet :( The service was really good, they were kind and answered all our questions and let us take pictures of the shop! They also let us sample some cheesecake, original and chocolate cake, they were really good!

On the table:   

Red Bean Daifuku ($1.00 each) we got this right when they made this because we came around 11:20 but we had to wait for 10 minutes but it was totally worth it for us! But our grandpa and grandma was saying how they can make it themselves and that it was expensive, than make it for us!! Instead of saying it!! >:( Anyways the daifuku was big and was filled with lots red bean! The mochi was chewy and soft. The red beans soft and a little chunky and it wasn’t too sweet like we find sometime in some mochi. They also gave us little bags to put our daifuku in.
 

Matcha Roll Cake ($6.00) the matcha roll cake was the favorite of the day! The roll was a matcha sponge cake with cream and red beans in the middle. The sponge cake had a strong matcha flavor that we really liked and it was airy, soft and moist! The cream was a little dense and clumpy, we wished it was a little fluffier also it wasn’t too sweet like some other places. There was a lot of red bean and it was really smooth and soft. We think the cake would have been better if there was more sponge cake and less cream.

 

For the pudding we bought 3 kinds. Original, Coffee, and Black Sesame.

Original Cream Caramel ($2.25 for one, $12.00 for 6). The cream caramel they make isn’t baked but steamed and it comes in a plastic cup. The original was creamy, silky smooth, and not too sweet and it also had an eggy flavor. We found it a little heavy and could have been lighter. I think we found it like that because we went too early and it might have been from yesterday or something like that. The caramel was at the bottom and it was a brown sugar caramel, it was more liquid like but was good.

Coffee Cream Caramel ($2.50 for one, $13.50 for 6). We couldn’t really comment about this since we don’t like coffee but our dad said it was good and had a lot of coffee flavor.

Sesame Cream Caramel ($2.50 for 1, $13.50 for 6) this cream caramel we got right out of the steamer! It was creamy and had a lot of sesame flavor. We can’t say too much about since we only got a bite out of it before it got gobbled up by someone.

Okinawa Shortbread – Black Sesame ($1.75 for a pack of 4 cookies). The cookies were really fine and tender and it was really soft and crumbly. It practically just melts in your mouth. It had a strong sesame flavor but not too strong to the point of overpowering. It was sweet and a dry just like shortbread cookies are. It was really good, the best sesame cookies we ever had.

Overall we really liked the place but we didn't think it was worth the drive. The food was delicious but you can get delicious food in Vancouver and Richmond too!  The service was really good and they answered all our questions and we got to sample some of the cheesecake and chocolate cheesecake which was delicious! Next time we would totally come to get some! We would definitely come back for the roll cake and the other pudding flavors but only if we’re in the area. 

Scoops – Frozen Yogurt Place

Restaurant: Scoops!

Cuisine: Dessert

Area: Vancouver

Address: 2050 W 4th Ave, Vancouver

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

Food: 4

Service: 4

Price: Fair

Outside of SCOOPS!

Inside of SCOOPS!

This Thursdays was Volunteer Day at our school for our grade so we basically had the whole day off to volunteer somewhere.  Our friends and we decided to volunteer at Craftworks but we didn’t have to be there till 3pm since we were in the area around 11pm we decided to go to Scoops! Scoops is a frozen yogurt shop located in Kitsilano.

In Scoops, you can scoop on the toppings you want from a buffet like table. You could put as many toppings as you like! They weigh your frozen yogurt before and after you put on the toppings to see how much you have to pay. They also have a sauce station with like 11 different sauces and a pot of fudge and 3 containers for different kinds of sprinkles. <!--[if !vml]--> 

The Food: 

We got the Small Original Frozen Yogurt ($3.29 + Toppings) and a Small Green Tea Frozen Yogurt (S3.49 + Toppings)  

I (Grace) got the Original Frozen Yogurt (Top). The Original frozen yogurt was sweet and tart and tasted a lot like my dad’s homemade yogurt! I really liked it! For the toppings I got mochi, mangoes, strawberries, graham crumbs, kiwis and lychee jelly. The mochi was my favorite topping it was soft and homemade! Since it wasn’t mango season, the mangoes were a little sour and the strawberries were average, not sweet nor sour. I like the graham crumbs and the kiwis weren’t sour. The lychee jelly was normal.

Faith got the Green Tea Frozen Yogurt (Bottom) though it wasn’t frozen yogurt when she got it; it was more like a frozen smoothie. There wasn't a really strong flavor of green tea, it just tasted like the original with a hint of green tea which was exactly what it was. The topping she got was mochi, strawberry wafers, a malt ball, lychee jelly, mangoes, gummy bears and white chocolate sauce. Everything was average and she really liked the mochi!

Our friends each got a Small Original Frozen Yogurt (Back Two).

One of our friends couldn’t wait for us to take a picture before she dug in (Back Right)! The topping she got was mochi, graham crumbs and cookie chucks (which were basically chunks ahoy).
She really liked the graham crumbs and mochi.

Our other friend (Back Left) got mochi, cookie chunks, mangoes, white chocolate chips, gummy bears, and lychee jelly. 

While we were eating we grabbed UNO from their stack to board games to entertain ourselves. Also there was a Foosball Table there but we didn’t have a chance to play it. We forgot to take a picture of the pile of board games but they have games like Guess Who? Battle Ship, Monopoly and more.

We finished our frozen yogurts by 12pm but we were still into our game of UNO and we also wanted more frozen yogurt!!

So the two of us shared a Large Original Frozen Yogurt ($4.49 + Toppings) (Front)and our friends shared one too. The topping we got were the mochi, lychee jelly, strawberry with condense milk on top, strawberry wafers, graham crumbs, white chocolate chips and some other things that I don’t remember >.< 

Our friends got the mochi, white chocolate chips, cookies and other things (Back).  For some reason they really liked the cookies.  But we all liked the mochi the best!! ❤

They also sell their homemade mochi in little containers for $1.50. Each season has different flavors so each flavor is limited! We didn’t get some this time but we would get some the next time we come!

Oh! they also have these cards, when you buy 10 of the frozen yogurts you can get one free!!

We would definitely come back to this place! We liked their frozen yogurt and the fact that you could choose and put your own toppings on. And their homemade mochi was really soft and squishy! Scoops is also a nice place to come with a whole group of friends because of the board games! Next time I would definitely try all their board games and the Foosball! :)

BBT Café – Average Food

Restaurant: BBT Café

Cuisine: Chinese

Area: Kerrisdale

Address: 5979 West Boulevard

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

Food: 3

Service: 2.5

Price: Fair

We never ate at BBT Café before but we had came here for bubble tea before. Their pudding for their bubble tea is so good! 

We came here around 3:30 pm so there weren’t a lot of people around.  We were seated really fast and the server brought us tea. The service was way better than last time; we had to wait 1 HOUR for our bubble tea last time! It was a horrible experience! People who ordered before us were getting their bubble teas while we were waiting for ours. We complained 3 times and every time they told us that “it was coming”. We left very pissed.

Anyways this time the service was better but we still had to wait until they noticed that we wanted to order.

The food:

Since we weren’t that hungry we ordered only one meal but since they had a $3.45 minimum order for each person, we had to order a bubble tea too. 

We ordered the Fish Soup Noodles ($8.50). This came out with a bowl of noodles and a plate of deep fried fish. The fish was served really hot and we got about 9 pieces of fish on our plate. It was crispy, nicely flavored and had simple seasoning. It was tender and was not over fried. It was delicious. 

Sorry for the bad quality pictures >.< we forgot our camera so we had to use our phones >.<

 

The noodles had cabbage, yellow noodles, mushroom and carrots. We felt the cabbage was not tender enough. The soup was thick and mildly flavored and also had the taste of the sour part of a sweet and sour soup. The noodles were not Al Dente and could have been cooked a little longer (it was kind-of hard). The noodles also had some parsley on it, Grace thought it was a nice touch but Faith hated it, mainly because she detests parsley.  In the end this was a average noodle soup. 

For the bubble tea, we ordered the Longan Milk Tea ($4.25). This took about 10 minutes to come, we almost forgot about it until it came. The bubble tea was very pleasant and had the taste (a good taste) to it, we think it was longan but I wasn’t too sure because we have longan for a long time! LOL

Anyways this was a good bubble tea as the beginning but as we were finishing it we got sick of the flavor, we don’t know why but we did. Also the drink had A LOT of ice in it; it took up 1/3 of the cup!

Overall I would come back but only for the bubble tea and maybe not the food especially when there are even better restaurants in Vancouver and Richmond.  Also their service is very inconsistent and we would never know if we would have to wait a long time for the food or not.

Harbour Spirit Restaurant – Overpriced For Average Food

Restaurant: Harbour Spirit Restaurant 王朝粵川海鮮酒樓

Cuisine: Cantonese

Area: Richmond

Address: 5580 No. 3 Road

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

Food: 2.5

Service: 2.5

Price: Expensive

For our International Foods class in school, our teacher gave us a Chinese Cuisine Assignment. The assignment was to go to a Chinese restaurant, sample some dishes and write a restaurant review of the place. We decided to go for dim sum. So where did we go for a dim sum restaurant? Of course we went to Richmond! Richmond is THE ULTIMATE place for Chinese restaurants hands down! We would go there every day if it wasn’t for the horrible drivers there…

We were going to go to HML Seafood Restaurant but as we were going there, Grandma spotted Harbor Spirit Restaurant and that they were having a sale for dim sum, 20% off dim sum and free tea! Also they were a new restaurant so my grandma wanted to try it out. The parking was horrible there as always and we thought I was going die when this car was speeding in the parking lot going like 50km/h.

  When we went inside at 12 pm it was packed with people! There were only 4 servers and we were standing at the door awkwardly before some noticed us which took them a few minutes. We were given a table at the back and asked what types of tea we wanted, there were only 3 choices. We choose Green tea.  The tea had absolutely no taste! But it was free so I can’t complain about it. We took a while

to order since Grace and my grandma was discussing about what to order, and Faith was like “I want siu mai, chicken feet and shrimp dumpling!!” But in the end she didn’t get the shrimp dumpling…… So we order at 12:30 (took so long to order!) and now about the food.

The food:

    

First up on the table was the Preserved Dried Meat on Chinese Donut Rice Roll with soy sauce, peanut sauce and sweet flour sauce ($5.28). When this came to our table it was kind of cold. This dish was inessentially just rice roll with Chinese donut and pork floss on top and gei-lan on the side.  The Chinese donut was nice, crunchy and crisp. The rice roll was thin and nice, it came with 3 different sauce instead of the just the usual two.

  

The House Special Seafood Fried Rice ($14.80) was nothing special about it; we felt it was a little overpriced. It was just regular seafood fried rice, we were a little disappointed but there was a good amount of shrimps, scallop and fish. It was a little small for the price and it didn’t fill us up.

   

The Seafood Fried Noodles ($12.80). We found was a little too salty. The noodles had a good amount of shrimp, fish, gei-lan, carrots and mushrooms in it. The shrimps were fresh and the fish was really soft to bite in.  The mushroom, for some reason, had this weird taste to it. Overall we thought this dish was not the worse we ever tasted but not the best either.

  

I (Grace) was quite disappointed with this dish. The Steamed Ribs ($4.68) is usually my favorite in a dim sum restaurant but here instead of sweet potatoes in the bottom there was pumpkin and only 2 small pieces too! The pumpkin and steamed ribs did not go well with each other. The meat was moist and had a lot of meat but it was bland, the pumpkin flavor clashed with the steam rib flavor.

We also had one of my (Faith’s) favorite dish Steamed Chicken Feet In House Sauce ($4.68). The leg had a lot of meat on it and was flavorful. It was soft and steam well. The skin was still intact, which means that it wasn’t over-cooked. In the end it was still a very average dish.

   

Lastly we had the Steamed Shao Mao Dumpling with Shrimp and Meat-Sui Mai ($5.00). It took a long time for this to come (technically at 12:55), this is usually the first thing to arrive. This was our favorite dish of the day; if it wasn’t for this dish I would have been disappointed for the whole day. The Shao Mao had beef, shrimp, mushroom and roe.  This was really expensive, it $1.25 for 1 piece but it was pretty big but one of them looked weird (the bottom left one). When we bite into it, a lot of juice came out! The skin was thin and it was steamed perfectly. There was a perfect balance between the meat and the shrimp.

The food here was too average and mediocre for the prices. Their XL size was just a regular sized dish; it was totally not worth it when you could buy the same dish for a lot cheaper.  Also the service was not that good either. In conclusion we would not come back when there are other good restaurants In Richmond.   And here's a picture of us in the restaurant <3 (for proof for our teacher)

Grace is on the left and Faith is on the right <3