Vietnamese Lunch

As I said in Sunday's post, I no longer have to rely on LOGS and there is a great variety of places to grocery shop down here. One of my favourite places to go is T&T Supermarket, a large Chinese chain. And I have one within walking distance! Needless to say, I go there often. They have good prices and because it's a large chain, the variety is stunning. The exotic ingredients are both puzzing (pigs uteri) and exciting (fresh keffir lime leaves). The store closest to me has a food court, too, and it has several different cultures represented there. There is Korean food, Thai food, Japanese food, of course Chinese food, and one place I've been to a couple of times, Vietnamese food.

I have always enjoyed Vietnamese food, and one of my favourites is salad rolls with shrimp. I've ordered these a couple of times, for the not-so-bad price of $4.75. They are made fresh (unlike Save-on Foods' ones, which are terrible) and come with a tangy sauce.


But look at what else is in theses salad rolls. On the bottom, there are a couple of slices of that pale sausage similar to the one I encountered in my pho experience last year. I was a little surprised when I first saw this, but once I tried it, I really liked it. The sausage is very mild in flavour and is a touch - just a touch - salty. It's really good!

I also tried something new at my last trip there, Vietnamese carioca. They were described as deep fried rice balls, and I could see that they were coated in coarse sugar and drizzled with caramel. But when I bit into one, it was like biting into soft, mushy marshmallow. They were not balls of whole grain rice. I think this is more of a rice flour dumpling, deep fried. And they were really good! The texture of the balls was quite decadent and they used real caramel for the drizzle, not a caramel sauce. That really impressed me.


Lunch that day was yummy, and it only cost $6!

Bye Bye LOGS!*

*Y'all remember LOGS, right? The local overpriced grocery store I had to rely on back home in Rossland?

I've been volunteering at a refugee resource centre in the neighbourhood of Hastings Sunrise for a few months now, and I'm really enjoying it there. There's a community kitchen and once a week I make lunch for the staff and clients and do some baking, too. The clients love it; many of them live in poverty. Since this is a non-profit organization that has a small operating budget, I have to keep my meals cheap without sacrificing healthiness, and to facilitate this I've learned where to shop for the best deal in the neighbourhood. And there is a lot of choice when it comes to small, independently-owned markets.

The one we utilize the most is John's Farm Market at 2438 East Hastings. Their produce is hands down the least expensive of all the stores in the three block radius I try to keep myself to when I go out to do the grocery shopping for my meal.

John's is a very cultural experience for me. Right out front, facing the street, is a roaster/display thingy that usually has in it a selection of whole roasted birds and parts of roasted pig. It's touted as "Chinese BBQ" and man, does it ever smell good! Here is a closer look:


Cool, eh?

In addition to produce, John's does a bustling hot Chinese food take-out business that also smells amazing.

Price-wise, they cannot be beaten. I made a big pot of veggie soup for $6. Onions were 99¢ for 3lbs, cabbage was 49¢/lb...And I decided to do some personal shopping there after I was done volunteering, and I got bananas for 59¢/lb, mushrooms for 99¢/lb, pineapples were two for $5, green peppers were cheap...And the place is always busy! Even their canned stuff was cheaper than other places, and I wound up getting all my spaghetti sauce ingredients there for under $5.

I love this place! And I love the fact that it's a small independent business and I don't have to have that whole big name grocery store experience when I go there. I'm so glad I don't have to rely on LOGS anymore for my groceries! The staff are attentive and friendly, and the place has a nice feel to it. I'll be making it a regular stop on my way home from volunteering each week! And I'll have to try the take-out sometime, too!

Some Vancouver Sushi

During my trip to the coast in March, which was 5 days long, I didn't get any sushi. None. It was very disappointing indeed. During this most recent trip last week, I made sure I got some sushi in. Sushi is ridiculously cheap and easy to come by at the coast. It's everywhere and it's good and it's very economical. Here in this one horse town, I can get a sushi roll at LOGS for about $7 - $8. At the specialty grocery stores at the coast, like T&T Supermarket, which is Chinese, H Mart, which is Korean, and Fujiya, which is Japanese, there is excellent supermarket sushi (and bento boxes and other roll-ish foods) in copious amounts and for super cheap prices. It's like heaven. Seriously.

The first sushi I had was at a place in Gastown called Momo Sushi. I had just had a busy afternoon of shopping and visiting with blog pal Scout of Harper Valley, and after we parted I had some time to kill before my ride went to take me back to Shihtzustaff's place, where I was staying. So, I saw this Momo place along Water Street and looked at their menu. To my shock, I could get a duo of sushi rolls - Dynamite and California - for $7.25! I was in! I got a seat, ordered, and was soon in sushi bliss.

It was absolutely wonderful sushi, and beautifully presented. I couldn't believe how much sushi I got for $7.25! I was blown away when the waitress brought me my board full of sushi.

I highly recommend this place if you're in the Gastown area and in need of a sushi fix!

I used to shop at T&T Supermarket when I lived in Coquitlam when I was in culinary school and it was always such a cool experience. It's like no other grocery store I've been in. There are so many live fish available for purchase that you practically feel like you're at the Vancouver aquarium (no, you don't eat the fish at the Vancouver Aquarium, but you get what I'm saying). T&T has pretty good grocery store sushi, so I got myself a spicy shrimp roll as I was in the store looking for some cooking ingredients I can't find here. This was just OK; not terribly fresh, but tasty enough and it was good enough considering it cost like $4.


Fujiya is where I hit the jackpot with awesome grocery store sushi. In fact, I also got a bento box for good measure. This is a spider roll, made with deep fried soft shell crab. With an exotic ingredient like that, I was super stoked about the pricetag:


$4.95! That is unheard of in these parts! And it was really tasty and fresh, and the crab had a bit of a kick to it in the batter. Awesome!

I also got a bento box for frakking $5!


This was a bit odd, I have to say. The shrimp were great, the rice was great, the green sesame salady thing (top left) was great, but the potato salad (bottom right) was brutal and contained frozen peas & carrots (ew!) and the other seafood items were weird. They included two fake scallops. I have never heard of a fake scallop, but it was much like fake crab meat only scallop-shaped and not pink. There was one deep fried shrimp, which was fine, and then there was a small piece of other fish I couldn't identify. This was accompanied by tartar sauce. Next time, I'd go for something else because this was nothing to write home about and the combinations were really strange.

Believe it or not, that was all the sushi I had. I could have had more, but there are so many foodie options down there it's just too much!