Okay, this is NOT a cheap eat, but it is sure delicious and I think a “must try”.  I know I go “ga ga” over food and I know that I seem to praise the flavours of a lot of different restaurants, but this restaurant really is absolutely delicious.

This restaurant specializes in West Coast cuisine (yummmm..I love West Coast food).

It’s called the Daily Kitchen.  I’ll explain the origins of the name later.

I think I had the mushroom garlic butter risotto the time I went and it was so delicious… it was so good that I think I was eyeing my friends’ plates to see if they were finishing theirs and if they didn’t seem like they were going to finish, I was sitting there, devising some way to ask them politely if I could eat off their plate.

That’s how good it was.

Though it can’t be replicated (unless I go there like every day and beg to have that dish again) because you know what??

The novel concept of this restaurant is that nothing is repeated and the menu is updated DAILY.  You can also follow the Chef on twitter @ChefFowke to find out the daily menu.

It’s a new menu every. single. day.  Something different every day, based on what is fresh, organic, and available in season.

How delicious is that?

I wish I was able to take a picture for you guys but I didn’t

Now I promise I don’t go to these places all the time.  If I did, I would probably be in serious debt.  I went for a friend’s party, it was great.  Great friends, FANTASTIC food, and good wine.  What more could a girl ask for?

Daily Kitchen is relatively new (I think they’ve been around for only a few years) and they are located in the heart of Kitsilano.  Which means that after dinner you can stroll along for a romantic evening at Kits Beach and look at the skyline of Vancouver at night.

They are open daily (har har) after 5pm.

They even have daily wines.

I think ordering everything separately is expensive there, so what we did was order a sampler menu.

I recall it being a 5-7 course sampler menu and it cost $45 or so.  Wine was extra, of course.

It was really good even though it was pricey for my usual cheap taste.  I sometimes still think about that dinner it was that good.  I hope I get to go sometime again, maybe when I’m no longer a starving student hah. 

Readers, do you have something like this in your city? (I would assume this is a city thing since it would probably be very ridiculously expensive and nonprofitable to operate something like this in a town).

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This edition of the cheap and good eats is brought to you by my recent trip to Victoria, British Columbia.  I hadn’t been to Victoria since I was young, and I just absolutely love it!  Everyone is so friendly, people actually say “thank you” to the bus driver as the get off the bus.  Here in Vancouver, if you do that, you get weird looks from everyone (FYI, when I take the bus here, I still say thank you and disregard the weird looks I get ).

I tweeted Steve from Grocery Alerts who I know lives in Victoria for some recommendations on good places to eat (don’t you just love twitter?).  He said that the Blue Fox on Fort Street is really good for breakfast.  I did some research and saw that there are line ups.  You guys know how I am with places that have line ups.  I’m all for them!

So I went with my friends to check out Blue Fox.  My first impression was- Wow, what a line up!  It was noon and there was still a line up.  We were waiting for about 45 minutes and I ended up having to put more money in my meter!

It’s a small place, very cozy, very unique, and the food was incredible.  It was probably one of the best breakfast places I have ever eaten at.  I have never been that full from breakfast. Ever.  I usually am able to finish my plate, but this time I wasn’t and it was pretty heart breaking.  I had to leave a piece of the bagel on the plate.  None of my friends were able to finish their breakfasts either and they were heartbroken.  Because it was just so tasty.

I had the eggs benedict.  The hollandaise sauce was super duper creamy and smooth.  The potatoes were delicious and perfectly done.  I liked the presentation as well- it made it look somewhat fancy.

I also tried the almond latte.  It was so beautiful I didn’t want to ruin it.  I enjoyed the whip cream and of course knocked the almonds into the drink by accident because I’m clumsy like that, but I found the almond milk itself a bit bland.  It would have been nice if it was creamier, but I suppose almond milk isn’t supposed to be super creamy.

One of my friends had the french toast, and it was delicious as well.  It had velvet sour cream (I believe that’s what it was called) on the triple sec infused pieces of french toast.  Divine, if you ask me! Note the pretty decorations on the plate (I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff).

It was a great experience, and worth the wait (though I don’t think I would wait like that regularly).  It was close to downtown but off the main downtown touristy area.  It wasn’t expensive either, for what you get.  The almond milk was under $4 and the breakfasts were under $12 I believe.  They DID have something like $8 coffee though!  I didn’t try it because I’m too cheap, but I wasn’t sure why it was so much more expensive than regular coffee.  Any Victoria readers know why?

All in all, it was fantastic.  Thanks for the recommendation, Steve!

Readers, are you a big fan of breakfast joints?  What do you usually order?

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To be honest with you, I think I’m running out of cheap and good eat places to share with you (I’m sure there are a plethora of cheap and good eat places in Vancouver, it’s just that I’m not that adventurous).  I hate the feeling of ordering something and regretting what I ordered, only to want some of what BF is having.

So instead of recommending a cheap and good eat place to eat in Vancouver, I thought I would share with you a recipe I tried for Vietnamese spring rolls.  I took a twitpic of it many months ago and someone asked me to share the recipe.  Because I’m a PF blogger with some sort of integrity and tried to stay true to her word, here is the recipe I used to make the Vietnamese spring roll.  After you make these spring rolls, please do not blame me if you develop high blood pressure or some other heart disease after ingesting so much sodium thanks to the fish sauce.  MMmmmmmm fish sauce.  My mouth is watering already!

Without further delay, here is the recipe:

It’s courtesy ofAllrecipes where I found the Vietnamese spring roll recipe.

Here are some tips- don’t make the mistakes I made!

• Make sure the roll is wrapped really tight before you dump it into the boiling oil
• Make sure the oil is really hot (or else it will take forever to become golden brown and the friggin thing will unravel by itself in an out of control manner and all the rice paper will start burning… not a pretty site)
• There is such thing as too much garlic in your fish sauce dip
• You can freeze the rolls for later cooking.  I think they unravel less often when you cook them, when the rice paper spring rolls are frozen anyways.
• It’s so yummy, tastes like the real thing in restaurants!
• It’s way cheaper making your own spring rolls at home than buying it in the store.  Though it’s quite labor intensive.

Good luck!

PS apologies for the somewhat phallic picture of my spring rolls.  Its hard to make them look otherwise

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Now, I must admit, I normally would not go to one of the poshest hotel-restaurants in Vancouver for weekend brunch, but it was for a friend’s birthday and we had a daily deal (which I bought ahead of the time and my friends paid me back for, thankfully). The deal was 2 for $30 through Travel Zoo daily deals (yes, everyone and their pet dog are taking advantage of creating daily deals from their original platforms, including the local radio station!) which made the three course brunch $15 a person at theFour Seasons’ Yew Restaurant and Bar. Highway robbery to the restaurant, if you ask me! On Sundays, they even have 50% off their bottles of wine (mind you, the mark up on the wine is a bit high, but it’s high at every restaurant, I’m sure).

It was absolutely delicious. I am still thinking of it right now and I ate there a month ago. In fact, it was so great that I would not hesitate to go there for the regular price of $27 for full service brunch.

I would highly recommend coming here if you are in downtown Vancouver. It would be a great start to a leisurely day in downtown Vancouver.  Heck, you could even check out the aftermath of the Vancouver riots too, haha.

Here’s what the menu looks like.

So for $15 + tip (on the original $27 of course) and tax, I had:

• A dozen fresh oysters (normally $12 if ordered a la carte)

• Tuna Nicoise:  Seared Ahi Tuna, Miso Dressing, Six Minute Egg, Green Beans, Black Olives & Dried Tomato ($19 if ordered separately)

• And dessert tapas (um…. the best idea EVER if you ask me! Three different miniature desserts on one plate? Hells yeah!) of creme brulee, caramelized chocolate truffle lollipop, and this delicious deep rich chocolate ganache cake. It would have been $9 if ordered separately

So for a $40 value, I paid $15.  I of course partook in the 50% off wine and my taste buds were absolutely deliriously happy by the end of the brunch.  Especially since I got to eat all that for $50 AND had oysters.  Mmmm… oysters.

I thought the service was phenomenal (well, I guess you can’t expect anything but the best at a 4-5 star hotel), the ambiance is great, and the food was to die for.  Everything was delicious.  It was a great memorable afternoon.  We got all dressed up for brunch at the Four Seasons and had a great afternoon.

Readers, have you ever gotten all dressed up for a fancy brunch at a fancy hotel?

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Let me first describe to you what a Banh Mi consists of.  A Banh Mi is a Vietnamese sub sandwich that is so delicious my mouth is literally watering as I describe it to you.  They are probably easy to make, but you need access to some fresh ingredients.  Some of these are fresh picked carrots and daikon, cilantro (mmmm), pate (if you’re not vegetarian, that is), Vietnamese salami (the tan coloured cylinder), finely chopped onions, mayonnaise, chili, black pepper, soy sauce, and of course my favourite- fish sauce.  Some of these ingredients may sound puzzling together, but seriously, when they are placed together on a freshly toasted french baguette, they create this delicious synergy of taste bud tantalization.  As Financial Uproar would put it, its like “sex in your mouth” when he describes theatre popcorn (though Banh Mi sandwiches beat theatre popcorn in my books any day).
Unfortunately, the prices for her Banh Mi sandwiches have gone up because of the higher overhead (I assume) of operating a full restaurant versus her sandwich stand.  They used to e $2.25 now they are $4 a sandwich.  However, despite the increased price, they are still good, and they are better (in my opinion) than the Banh Mi sandwiches I had in Vietnam.This is a DEFINITE must eat if you ever come to Vancouver.  I’m sure that you will visit Chinatown here and if you do, you have to stop by Golden Garden.  Kim is the owner of Golden Garden restaurant- she used to operate out of this little hole in the wall grocery shop named Asia Market and had a small Vietnamese sub kiosk in the back.  Her little kiosk business used to be called Kim Saigon Sandwiches.  She recently expanded (in the last few years) and opened up a very modern looking restaurant serving delicious Vietnamese food (and you know how big a fan I am of South East Asian food- including Pho, Pnomh Penh etc).  Despite having her brother and her staff around, she makes these sandwiches freshly in front of you herself.

Kim is so popular that she has been featured on Global TV, and in the local newspapers like the Vancouver Sun.  On long weekends, she gets HUGE orders from all over lower mainland for like 200 sandwiches at a time, and they are so popular that they often sell out in the early afternoon.  They sell out because the delicious baguette that the filling rests on is delivered fresh daily.  She is very friendly and always works so hard.  She once told me that she works 7 days a week for 12 hour days.  Her dedication to her work and her business is always an inspiration.

This is a picture of the Banh Mi sandwich in its entirety, before I devoured it.  Usually just one sandwich doesn’t get you completely full, so my boyfriend often orders two sandwiches.

Golden Garden is located beside tbe CIBC bank on the corner of Main and Pender street in the heart of Chinatown.  I would caution against walking one block north though, because then you’d be in the heart of the Downtown Eastside   Quick Tip: If you take the sandwiches out to go, it will be about $0.50 cheaper than eating the sandwiches in the restaurant.  They also have other delicious Vietnamese cuisine at the restaurant, though the sandwiches are undoubtedly the most popular.

Readers, have you ever tried a Banh Mi before?

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