Restaurant #78 - Chan's House - March 1st 2013

We went to eat at Chan's House. It's a Chinese buffet in Dieppe. The one thing that I found cool about this place is that you can do take-out with the buffet. They give you one of those styrofoam boxes and you fill it up, they weigh it, and you get your Chinese take out. The disadvantage of this is than when you're trying to navigate the buffet, you have all these extra people that are trying to fill up their trays. The other negative was that the floor was wet/slippy and I almost fell a few times, and almost ended up doing the splits once.

On to the food. To me, the food was just ok. I didn't enjoy it that much, I found that a lot of the vegetable dishes were just mushy, greasy vegetables, so I didn't enjoy those. The egg rolls were good (I think that everyone agreed on that, but they aren't the best. If memory serves, Stephan gave them a solid 7.5 on 10). For the chicken balls, it started off well, Darren had good balls with lots of meat. Which led us to come up with the Novinscak Index for chicken balls. It's calculated as the ratio of chicken/chicken+batter, so the higher the number is the better. We were willing to give it a quite high ratio, but as we all had more chicken balls, the ratio went down drastically. (I took a picture of a bad ball, there's a molecule of chicken in the center of all that batter).

Now, on to the good stuff, Stephan's favorite item on the menu was the Mushrooms and Beef (however, he did mention that there was little beef in the mix, but it didn't stop him from enjoying them). Darren also like the chow mein (I think it was this one) and it actually was pretty good. I liked the pork balls, the Novinscak Index was quite high, but mostly because there was no batter on the balls. I'm not sure what Stephane's favorite was, but I do remember him getting a plate of mussels, and I think he even went back for more, so they must have been good.

As for desserts, they were ok. What I didn't like was that I didn't see the names of the items, so I wasn't too sure what I was getting. I did get a piece of chocolate pie, a ginger molasses cookie and some ice cream. The ice cream was good because it wasn't hard as a rock, but it was in getting the ice cream that I slipped an almost did the splits. Stephane got an interesting ice cream that we couldn't tell the flavor in the beginning, but Darren ended up identifying it as Butter Rum.

All in all, in my opinion, this place was ok, not my favorite buffet, but not the worst either, so it should get something like 5 thumbs up.

 

 

The offending "chicken ball" 

Restaurant #77 - Thanh's Palace - February 22nd 2013

Thanh's place is in Dieppe. It's a bit away from the central part (on Champlain Street, almost near the airport). Most of us had been there once or twice before, but for Stephane and Pierre, it was a first time. We ended up sitting at a round table, which was a bit weird for me, because that way I felt like I had to have a conversation with everyone, but I'm only used to having to talk to two or three people max, so it was a bit unnerving, but I got over it.

On to the food. Based on what we remembered from our last experience, no one had real high expectations. It ended up that the food was a lot better than what we were expecting (maybe due to our low expectations), and everyone seemed to enjoy their meal and I think that we would consider going to eat here again. Stephan had lemongrass chicken, and he said that it was good, but not his favorite, but didn't have a real reason to explain why it wasn't as good, except that it wasn't the one that he was used to, so there was no real negative to his meal. Besides that, the imperial rolls were good, I liked my Ginger chicken, but I would have wished for a stronger ginger taste, but I added some rooster sauce, and it spiced it up and tasted quite good.

Overall, a good eat, except that it's a bit out of town and can be annoying to get there with all the people trying to get into Dieppe after work.

 

 

 

Restaurant #76 - House of Lam February 15th 2013

We went to House of Lam on Mountain Road. This was the first time that I have been there, Stephan, Stephane and Darren had already been there before. I wasn't quite sure what to expect of the place, as with buffets, the dishes with vegetables always taste mushy and when we went to Sun Sun's, it wasn't exceptional food either, but I ended up getting the Lemon Chicken (it was between that and the General Tao's chicken) and I was pleasantly surprised. I got it spicy, it was nice and spicy and flavorful and not mushy or anything. If my memory is correct, Stephan got the Jumbo Shrimp Shanghai Style, and he had enjoyed his food also. Darren and Stephane liked theirs too.

If I was in the mood for Chinese, I would definitely consider this place. Nine thumbs up.

 

 

 

Restaurant #75 - An's Café and Restaurant - February 8th 2013

If you have ever had the problem of going out with friends and one wants Italian, one French and the other Korean food, well, this is the place for you! Definitely a weird mix of food styles on the menu, especially since the place is set up as a café. They do have a bunch of cookies and cakes/pastries when you walk it, so it is a nice little display in front of you.

When it came to the food, the soup of the day was mushroom soup, which was good, and for our main meal, we each ended up picking a different nationality. Darren was French, Stephane Italian and I was Korean. Darren ended up getting the most expensive meal of the menu, it looked quite good, but it wasn't really worth the price. Stephane got pasta (the one with sour cream and cream in the sauce...) and he said it was just ok, he's had better before. As for me, I got Bibimbap, and it was ok, but I've also had better before too.

For dessert, Darren and I had a piece of a raspberry mousse cake and Stephane got a cookie. I really enjoyed the raspberry cake, it was nice and light and went down very easy. Overall, I think that this place is ok, but that it should settle down to one type of food and do that type well (I feel like Gordon Ramsey on Kitchen Nightmares right now :))

I'd suggest this place more as a spot to get a soup or have a coffee and a piece of dessert. It gets 6 thumbs up.

 

 

 

Restaurant #74 - T-Bones - February 1st 2013

Darren, Stephane, Stephan and I went to T-Bone's for supper. T-Bone's is the restaurant in the Crown Plaza  hotel downtown. I liked the decor, but the lights were some kind of dim or a different shade of off-white which I found cast a weird glow (but definitely not as bad as it was at Fisherman's Paradise).

The menu looked good, Stephan started with a mushroom tart and the rest of us got a potato bacon (and some other ingredients) soup. Darren and I really enjoyed the soup, Stephane still couldn't give it a hand-holding rating (I think Darren did though). Stephan's tart looked really interesting and he said that it tasted good also, so all was good so far.

When it came to the main courses, Darren got chicken with roasted red peppers (I might be wrong on the red peppers, might have been tomatoes), Stephan got steak and Stephane and I got ribs. Out of the four, Darren's meal looked best and he said it tasted good also. Stephan said his steak was also good, but Stephane and I didn't really like our ribs. It just tasted like a big pile of meat. There was a little bit of sauce (the sauce was good), I guess I found that there wasn't enough or that it wasn't properly distributed over the ribs, leaving large pieces just tasting like boiled meat. Overall, I think it got our lowest score yet, 7 thumbs up.

 

 

Restaurant #73 - Bistro 33 - January 25th 2013

Tonight, we're going to Bistro 33. I like this restaurant and have been a handful of times, my biggest complaint though is that all their pasta dishes are cream based and I would like it more if there was at least one that was tomato based.

Since the last time I've been to the restaurant, they painted (looks really nice), made some furniture updates, added tablecloths and generally just updated the place to make it look more upscale. I find that it looks very nice and the changes are all for the best. When it comes to the food, the sandwiches/burgers are now only available at lunch (it probably has been this way for a while, but I liked it when they were available for supper also), and they still only have cream based sauces for the pasta. Everyone enjoyed their food, Erick and Stephan both got mussels as starters and said they were both delicious (they had different flavors, Erick's was the special, Stephan's the regular on-menu kind). Stephane and I had the soup as starter and we both enjoyed it, but it wasn't "hand-holding" good for Stephane. Darren had chicken rouladen and they looked good, and he approved them too.

For our mains, I had the pasta with chicken and Erick and Stephane also had the pasta. After talking it over with Erick, I came to agree with him that we both found that the cream sauce overpowers all other flavors in the dish and it almost feels like you're eating cream and noodles. Stephane didn't seem to mind his pasta, so I guess it depends on your taste buds. Pierre had gotten a steak and said it was good also. I don't remember Darren or Stephan's mains, but I do remember that Darren said that the vegetables were cooked to perfection because they still had a bit of crisp to them and weren't mushy. I'll add what they ate when I put up the pictures.

 

 

 

 

Restaurant #72 - Igloo - January 18th 2013

We went to Igloo. Typical, middle-of-the-pack pub food. It was quick to sit down, and the food was brought out very quickly. We were sitting in the upper section, and every time someone would leave by that little door, it was absolutely freezing!