Day 2 in Vancouver started off with breakfast at a nearby cha chaan teng, called Happy Day Cafe. A cha chaan teng is like a Hong Kong-style cafe or diner, serving an eclectic menu of Chinese and Western comfort foods.
The restaurant is in the middle of Central at Garden City, an outdoor shopping centre with a ton of restaurants and miscellaneous stores. Walking in, it was more sleek than I was expecting. Clean and modern with the streets of Hong Kong painted on the walls. The restaurant was only about a quarter full when we arrived so we chose one of the booths at the back.
The breakfast menu is served everyday until 11:30am. A common feature of a cha chaan teng is the set menu. You can combine different a la carte items and almost all meals will come with a drink. The classics include coffee, milk tea, Ovaltine, or lemon tea.
Both my sister and mom went with the OG selection ($11.95), 2 eggs with your choice of ham, pork sausage, luncheon meat, or crispy bacon, and toast or hashbrowns. Both chose sunny side-up for their eggs along with pork sausage, which ate more like a hot dog. It's a simple breakfast, no frills.
I wanted to try one of their pineapple bun sandwiches, so I got the luncheon meat, egg, and fresh butter ($12.95). Pineapple buns have a crunchy, cookie-like top which resembles the skin of a pineapple. The bun was soft and crumbly, and held slices of spam and a fried egg inside. The slice of butter was so, so thick, but there's nothing better than biting into a warm bun and cold butter.
We stopped at a few stores along the way before reaching Crystal Mall in Burnaby. No matter how many times I visit, I always get confused in this mall. It's pretty much a giant circle, but I guess I'm directionally challenged. Anyway, our main purpose for the visit was to buy a boatload of Chinese medicinal herbs for family.
We also paid a visit to Shanghai Dimsum House. It's hard to miss, being bright yellow and located in the back corner of the food court. It's quite popular and busy, with everything being made and steamed fresh to order.
We ordered one basket of xiao long bao ($8.75). The five soup dumplings were generously portioned, with a thin wrapper and seasoned pork filling. There was plenty of soup inside that was rich and flavourful. A good snack.
As soon as you go down the escalators from the food court, you're greeted by the aroma of freshly made egg waffles from Cafe Eggstatic. I couldn't resist so we got the Portuguese waffle ($7.40). The Portuguese waffle had small bits of egg custard sprinkled into the batter. Although "not too sweet" is usually high praise coming from an Asian, I thought the waffle was pretty bland overall. It would've benefited from a bit more sugar in the batter.
Before we left Crystal Mall, we quickly walked across the street to CHICHA San Chen, an award-winning tea shop that originated in Taiwan. LT raved about this spot since her last visit to Vancouver so I knew I had to try it out. It's a small store without any seating, but it's bright and airy thanks to the natural light pouring through the floor to ceiling windows.
We got the Formosa fruit tea ($7.50) which combines their black tea with pineapple, passion fruit, apple and lemon. Their tea is brewed freshly with help from fancy espresso-like machines. With the addition of the sour, tangy fruit, it was hard to distinguish the actual tea flavour, so you might be better off ordering something more simple.
Next on our itinerary was a visit to Metropolis at Metrotown, which is pretty much next door to Crystal Mall. I loved their giant dragon display that they had showcased in the main atrium.
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After an hour or so at the mall, it was time to meet up with MH! We had some time to kill before dinner with her so she brought us to Queen Elizabeth Park. Despite the fact that it was technically winter, the park views were beautiful! I can't imagine what it would be like during the spring and summer.
For dinner, we decided to try Takara Sushi in Burnaby. It's a small restaurant so we made sure to visit right when they opened up for service.
The assorted tempura ($16.50) had 4 prawns and 3 vegetables, including yam, sweet potato, and zucchini. Despite its appearance, the batter was light, crispy, and not overly greasy.
The deluxe sashimi ($52.00) was a pretty work of art. It included salmon, albacore tuna, hamachi (yellowtail), madai (sea bream), hokkigai (surf clam), tako (octopus), ika (squid), and hotate (scallop). Slices were decently thick and all of the fish were fresh and sweet.
We also got 2 orders of oyster motoyaki ($14.00 for 2), which is baked oysters with spinach and mushroom. I was a bit surprised to see the oysters were chopped up into smaller pieces but it was still good. Creamy, briny, and just lightly salty.
For rolls, we tried the salmon oshi ($16.50), chop scallop roll ($7.00), banzai roll ($12.00), and the Atlantic roll ($18.00). My favourite out of the bunch was probably the Atlantic roll, which had tuna and cucumber, with aburi salmon and ikura on top. I'm a sucker for anything torched and the little pops of ikura were a great addition.
Always a great time catching up with MH, and made so much better doing it over good food.
- CT
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