604: Eggspectation (Richmond)

I vaguely remember that the restaurant name, Eggspectation, was catchy enough to steal a millisecond of my attention while I was scrambling around LA looking for my Uber ride. Apparently that location is now permanently closed, but Richmond has a store! I'm 100% positive that this restaurant has no affiliation with the chains in the states, but I'm always looking for a good brunch in Vancouver, and we are so blessed to have so many different options to choose from in this city!

The restaurant is situated at the old IHOP location in East Richmond, and there's ample parking space with no line ups. With this hidden area in Richmond and with COVID, I thought it was reasonable and so I didn't put too much thought into this.

I don't really want to discuss in depth about their food, but the food is pretty much like IHOP grade but with less grease. Their fluffy buttermilk pancakes were cakey, which isn't bad per se, but also not the greatest. It's just the eggspectation you have from the advertised "fluffy" pancakes just seems so conflicting...

The great thing about this place is their customer service and the spaciousness in the restaurant. You feel extremely distant from all the other customers and so you feel extra safe during this covid season. They seem to make healthier brunches since everything lacks a bit of oil (which includes the potato wedges, eggs, ham and pancakes - so I meant EVERY bloody thing on the plate). Not a bad thing for those who are more health conscious, but I'm on my cheat day today so I want something more convicting.

I didn't have much "eggspectation" to begin with, but when you have a catchy name like that, I guess the customers subconsciously builds some sort of expectation? I wouldn't want to come back unless I want to grab lunch with my friends and just chat away, which wouldn't be a bad choice on the weekend if you want to avoid the line ups and crowds. Honestly, at $16.95 I might as well be spending this money at OEB or Jam cafe.

Price: $2x pp

Taste: 2.7 / 5

atmosphere: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

seating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Price Performance ratio: 2.5 / 5

Location: Richmond

Menu (swipe right for next page):

604: Sal Y Limon (Surrey)

I gotta admit that I started my day being a little grouchy from rushing into a prolonged meeting this morning, and I didn't get to eat till 1:00 in the afternoon. The hangriness was offset quickly by the $30 coupon offered by Uber Eats (Thank you!). So I ordered my first ever food delivery in my life. Honestly, I didn't expect much since it's a food delivery... but this was ridiculous. I felt like I ate a coleslaw wrap with cold rice that's seasoned with some shredded meat... I paid $2.25 for the guacamole add on and found no guacamole, BUT got half of an avocado pit instead. The kid's lamb quesadilla was $4.95, though it's a little small for the price, at least there was no BS and tasted good. The ratio's reasonable and I'd be happy to pay for it again - I'd be happy to pay for things if it tastes good. I appreciate how simple it was - just a quesadilla sandwiched with well seasoned shredded lamb (which was slightly gamey but I don't mind that at all) and with some cheese. Though I only paid $10 with the coupon for everything, the fact that I dropped my meal and went upstairs to write about this shows how quickly this meal reignited the spark that was nearly put off by the coupon.

🎫💦🔥 + 🌯⛽✨ = ⚡️🔥🔥

Price: $14 per burrito / $4.95 per quesadilla

Taste: 2.8 / 5

atmosphere: 🔥🔥🔥

seating: NA (take out)

Price Performance ratio: 2 / 5

Location: Surrey / Vancouver

604: Forêt Noire Pâtisserie

I always forget how blessed I am to live in a multicultural city like Vancouver. You want French pastry? No worries. Vancity got you covered!

Here at Forêt Noire Pâtisserie, we picked out three pieces of cakes:

The Mille Feuille:

It's funny how when I visit Hong Kong, I'll always research on the best Mille Feuilles there. Today, I had my first ever Mille Feuille from Vancouver and it already surpassed some of the top notched pastry stores I had in Hong Kong. I mean with our historical influence from the French, how hard would it be for us to get authentic French pastry or cuisine right? Wasn't that my number one reason why I wanted to travel to Montreal for a proper French dine out (or as per my Montreal friend, "It's Québecois dining." Whatever.)? So what was I thinking when I was doing a Mille-Feuille-Hunt restricted only to HK?

Although I have never visited France to know what an authentic French pastry should taste like, I can tell by the vanilla cream that it's nothing like the ordinary. The majority of the filling I've had in a Mille Feuille in the past is usually sandwiched with a type of fruit (usually raspberry, strawberry or mango) with custard filling that's made out of egg yolks, milk or cream, and vanilla flavouring. From a Hong Kong style Napoleon cake, it's also common to layer the puff pastry with buttercream and nuts. The filling in this one was just vanilla cream. From the first bite, I could already tell that they've used real vanilla bean and that already justified the cost ($9 which is priced above normal pricing for a piece of cake in Vancouver). Vanilla bean is rather expensive.

If you are from Hong Kong, some of you may think that they are cheaping out on the ingredients from omitting the nuts or fruits. But I think the Patissier is so smart to do that because the fruits or nuts would have overpowered the vanilla flavour and would have totally stollen the whole show. The custard is creamy but not too filling; the rich vanilla flavour is brought out perfectly with the right amount of sweetness.

The layers of the puff pastry are tightly compressed rather than puffed up (the dough was possibly compressed with a heavy item during the baking process), and so the layers are extra crunchy. Unlike other Mille-Feuille, the puffy ones are more airy and light, but generally are less crispy. Frankly, I think I prefer this type of puff pastry.

A plain yet delicate vanilla filling nestled in between layers of buttery and crispy puff pastry. One bite but two savoured flavour - butter and vanilla. This piece of French pastry may appear to be a simple piece of cake to most of you, but if you are a baker, you would understand that the baking and composition of this are nothing but complicated.

The Broadway:

Although I have heavily emphasized my remarkable experience with the Mille Feuille, my favourite cake was in fact the Broadway - the chocolate cake (sorry, I like to process the flavours and consider the possible techniques when it comes to baking). The whole thing reminds me of a creamy truffle that quickly transforms into a silky chocolate mousse, and then it melts in your mouth. Apparently there's this vanilla Creme brûlée in it as well, but I could hardly tell that it was snuck in there with the richness of the dark chocolate (hmm, my favourite!). This chocolate decadence is perfect for any chocolate lover like me. Now I'm not going to dwell on the baking process on the Broadway since I'm pretty good at making chocolate cakes. I can easily replicate this so I'm just going to move on to the next piece.

The Exotic Flower:

The last piece that we tried was the exotic flower. We picked this one thinking that you can never go wrong with any passion fruit flavour desserts; and with mango and coconut, it sounded like it would have been the perfect combination. Besides, citric flavour cakes are usually less sweet, but we were so wrong. We didn't like this piece as much since it was too sweet to our liking. We would prefer it to be more tangy.

Conclusion:

Forêt Noire Pâtisserie (once again I don't know how to pronounce the name of this store; but that's how you know it's a French bakery), I have just bookmarked you as one of my favourites on google map :)

I'd also like to try out their salty caramel chocolate tart and white chocolate pistachio mousse next time.

So I have decided that I am going to go on a Mille Feuille hunt in Vancouver. I am going to go look up all those French Patisserie that I can't pronounce their store names and try it out. If it starts with Le or La in Canada, it's probably an actual French bakery.

Price: $8.99 per piece

Taste:

Mille Feuille: 4.7 / 5

The Broadway: 4.8 / 5

Exotic Flower: 3.9 / 5

Overall: 4.7/5

Atmosphere: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Seating: ⭐️⭐️

Price Performance ratio:

Overall: 4.4 / 5

Location: Here

Website: Here