Review: BCD Tofu @ Lynnwood, WA

Store: BCD Tofu House
Location: 3301 184th St SW, St 210, Lynnwood WA

Months ago, we drove by H Mart Lynnwood, but we didn't have time to check it out and I begged Daniel to go there last weekend.  I will write a grocery review for that later.  In the meantime, I want to share with you my experience with BCD Tofu House, which is outside of H Mart.

BCD Tofu House is a food court vendor but their service is on par with a restaurant.  After you order, they will give you a tag and they will locate you once the food is ready.  In my past experience, food court Korean food will not give you side dishes but BCD did!  That was surprising and plus, they have this fish (in full) for side dish.  I am very picky on seafood and the fish has too much bone, not my cup of tea, but still, Daniel was happy with his fish and finished it all.

Their menu is a bit confusing, I am not sure what BCD combination menu really is.  But after we ordered, I think combination menu means you get 2 main dishes.  We had:

1. Beef Bulgogi Premium Tofu Combination ($14.99)
They served us one big plate of beef bulgogi, a small tofu soup and purple rice.  Inside the tofu soup, there's beef and seafood (one shrimp and one clam) Their portions were huge.  The beef was a huge portion and marinated well.  However, I wish it's a bit more moist.  Their rice was also cooked within the stone bowl, nice!

Beef Bulgogi

2. Dumpling Premium Tofu ($9.95)
The tofu is very similar to the small tofu soup served with the beef bulgogi but bigger portion.  Of course, this dish had dumplings, 4 of them in total.  I loved the shape of the dumplings, pretty cute.

Dumpling Premium Tofu

Bonus, they served complimentary barley tea, if anyone likes them :)

Food: 4.5/5 (consider this is food court quality, this is pretty good)
Price: $$ (consider this is food court quality, this is pretty expensive, same price as sit down restaurant)
Service: 5/5
Recommend to friends? Yes

Review: Spicy Talk Bistro @ Redmond, WA

Store: Spicy Talk Bistro 麻辣誘惑
Location: 16650 Redmond Way, Redmond WA

As recommended by some of our friends, Spicy Talk Bistro is an authentic Chinese restaurant.  We decided to give it a try.

Here are the dishes we tried:

1. Szechuan Crispy Tofu ($10.95)
The tofu was very crispy with a hint of spiciness.  This is my favorite out of the other dishes.  They also serve some green beans in the dish.  I want to say this is a healthy dish as there's tofu, but it's fried, so not sure if I can say that anymore :)

Szechuan Crispy Tofu

2. Sizzling Beef ($12.95)
We loved this dish, and it's best to eat it when they first serve it!!! i.e. sizzling!!!  This dish smells so good!  Guess it's because of all the onions on the dish... I was wondering how can I make those mushrooms... and what mushroom is it.  I bought different types of mushroom from 99 Ranch this weekend and will do some experiments.

Sizzling Beef

3. Special Chow Mein ($9.25)
Special chow mien means there's shrimps, chicken and beef.  I just added the sizzling beef on my noodles so I get more beef!  This dish is spicy but not as spicy as the tofu.  I don't really prefer thick noodles, but that's a personal preference.  Otherwise, I believe Daniel really enjoy this dish.

Special Chow Mein

In general, the portions served by Spicy Talk were big, so even the price maybe higher than some other Chinese restaurants, their quantity was generous.  The inside of the bistro was a very typical Chinese restaurant look, they also had lots of lanterns hanging, guess those were from Chinese New Year?  The parking outside the bistro maybe hectic though, we were lucky to find the last available parking slot in the plaza on Friday night.  A worthy mention is the exact Chinese translation for the restaurant name is "spicy temptation".  I just find the word temptation interesting, and because of this fact, it made me wanting to try this place when I drove by previously.

Food: 4.5/5
Price: $$
Environment: 4/5
Recommend to friends? Yes

Review: Stone Korean Restaurant @ Redmond, WA

Store: Stone Korean Restaurant
Address: 16857 Redmond Way, Redmond, WA

If you don't already notice, Daniel and I normally crave for Asian food because we miss the selections we get in Toronto!!!

We had some decent Korean food at Stone Korean Restaurant.  Notice, this isn't Stone House, which is a restaurant that's rated pretty high in Yelp.  We may want to try that one day too.  Stone Korean Restaurant was ran by Korean, the food is authentic.  According to Yelp, their price is on the pricer side.  I really can't comment as this is our second time dining at a Korean restaurant in Redmond and their price wasn't online so I took a picture of each page of the menu and will compare later.

Here are the dishes we ordered:

1. Beef Tofu Soup ($10)

As usual, we ordered spicy... ok.. maybe not next time.. as Daniel couldn't handle the spiciness of this dish... this was probably the max. he can handle.. oops... I have to say their soup was pretty good though, it's spicy and thick.  It's not watery as some of the other Korean restaurant served.   There weren't a lot of beef but I think that's pretty normal for this dish.  One worthy mention is the rice!!! I believe they cooked the rice in that stone bowl they served.  There weren't a lot of rice, and when it's done, you saw the dried rice at the bottom and it's hard to take out.  I can't wait to try their bibimbob, I think that will be good as the rice on the side will be crispy... I remember I had a similar experience in Japan and couldn't find it anywhere else, maybe I can find that in Redmond?

Beef tofu soup

2. 1/2 Fried and 1/2 Marinated Chicken (12 pieces) ($22)

We really want to try fried chicken because people in New York City were craving for these. At the time, Daniel and I were tourist in New York's Korean town and someone came to us and asked where's the best Korean fried chicken.  We were liked... what's Korean fried chicken.  Since then, we were curious about Korean fried chicken.  When we saw fried chicken on the Stone Korean Restaurant menu, we didn't hesitate to order.  They have 2 options a) wings b) whole chicken.  They don't offer marinated wings, so we decided to go with half half on the whole chicken.  The fried chicken were similar to KFC, maybe less greasy and definitely crispy, similar to Popeyes. The marinated chicken was sweet, like honey with green onion.  We liked the dishes but that's a lot of chicken for both of us.  It's better if we were having this with a group!

Korean fried & marinated chicken

Price: $$
Food: 4.5/5
Environment: 4/5
Recommend to friends: Yes

Tips: 
The restaurant was clean; however, the floor was slippery.  I was wearing hunter boots and still, I slipped.  I believe I wasn't the only one, while we were eating, we saw at least one more person who slipped.  So be careful when you walk into the restaurant!!!

Review: Canyon's Restaurant @ Redmond, WA

Store: Canyon's Restaurant
Location: 15740 Redmond Way, Redmond, WA

Over the weekend, we were doing grocery shopping in the Canyon's Restaurant's plaza, and decided to have dinner at Canyon's.  We discovered Ben Franklin Crafts and Frames in the plaza, it's a heaven there, they look more organized than Michael's and have a stamping booth where you buy your own paper and you can use their stamp to shape your paper, i.e. flags, shopping bags, etc... pretty cool.  Will definitely come back if we want to decorate our home later.

Back to Canyon's, it's an American restaurant, i.e. where you get burgers and fries.  Also, they have a good selections of Mexican food.  The restaurant is roomy and has lots of tv, not sure if it's because we were sitting near the bar area.  Their service on the other hand will be where the marks got deducted:
a) The menu they provided me had a few drops of water on it. :S
b) Their fries were unlimited but my glass of water was empty for awhile and they didn't notice.
c) When ordering chicken enchiladas, the waitress asked us whether we want guacamole, we said yes but we didn't know they were going to charge $0.99!!  And later we found out that the dish already has avocado; if we knew this, we probably won't bother with the guacamole.

Their food is decent though, here are the dishes we tried:
1. Chicken Enchiladas ($14 + $0.99 for guacamole)
Nice presentation, decent amount of meat. Good food.

2. Crispy Fish Burger ($10)
Normally, I wouldn't order burger but I was craving for a St. Lawrence Market fish sandwich and so decided to go with this.  The fish was crispy and we loved their fries because of its spiciness.  We also ordered an extra plate of fries as it's bottomless! However, the sandwich here is not as good as the ones in St. Lawrence market, guess I had high expectations when ordering, if not, I should have gave this a higher score.

Price: $$
Taste: 3.5/5
Environment: 3/5
Recommend for friends: Maybe?  If you are a sports person and there's a game playing that day.  Or if you have discounts, this restaurant will be a good deal.

Tips:

1. One big reason we will go back is Daniel gets discount when dining here, buy one entree get one free!!  How can we go wrong with that?!?! We paid $20 for these two entrees including tax and tips!  

2. When they offer you add-ons, check if there's extra charge.

Tips: Coupons Online

Guess how much I spend on the below?

Here's the breakdown:
1. South Beach Meal bar x 2 (FREE)
2. Premier bar x 2 (FREE)
3. Progressive Soup x 2 ($2.00)
4. Quaker Rice Crackers ($1.00)
5. Green pepper ($0.58)
6. Campbell Soup ($2.54)
7. Lysol Cleaner ($1.69)
8. Bartilla pasta ($1.29)

Total: $9.26

Tips: How did I manage to get a few items for free?

Grocery store normally has an online site with manufacture coupon.  In my case, Kroger (Fred Meyer, QFC) is giving away free items on their website every Friday.  Therefore, every Friday, I login to their website, clip my free item in preparation of grocery shopping in the weekend.

I also learned some websites will compare prices for you (depending on where you live, just google your neighborhood name with the word 'coupon', then you maybe able to locate them).  These sites will let you know where to find the best deals.  Sometimes, they will let you know you can stack one of your coupons on a sale item, then you should be getting the best deal.  For example, the original price of a progressive soup can is $2.49 vs on sale $1.25 vs $1.00 on sale with coupon.  By using coupon on a sale item strategy, it helps me reducing my grocery bill by a little.  I am not trying to become an extreme couponing person to reduce all bills to $0 or close to $0, but saving a little bit helps!

Review: Mcdonald's

I know everyone has been to Mcdonald's.  However, I want to document this because I want to show you the dollar menu.  Dollar menu on Mcdonald's doesn't mean everything is a dollar.  My favorite will be 20 pieces Chicken McNuggets for $5!  Ok, for Americans, this may mean nothing to them.  But for someone who comes from Canada, this is a great deal as $5 should only get you 5 McNuggets in Canada.

Back to the menu, there are a few new items, including Bacon Cheddar McChicken which I wanted to try.  There's also 2 big mac for $5, which seems to be a good deal.

Here's what I had on Friday night with Daniel.  Daniel loves fries and we managed to get them for free from coupon.  Total $10 for this dinner!  By the way, I thought spicy buffalo sauce will be good with the Chicken McNuggets, but we ended up liking the sweet n sour more, guess that's our childhood favorite.

Review: Monga Cafe @ Bellevue, WA

Daniel and I were craving for Asian food as usual and so I decided to document our restaurant hunt. We passed by Monga Cafe when we shop at Asian Food Center and so we decided to go there for dinner last weekend.

Monga Cafe looks like a newly opened Taiwanese restaurant and has the new modern look that we liked for a dining place.  There are 2 new stores next to it, including Swish Swish (a hot pot place) and Smacha (a tea shop).  We see that there's room for one more store... Daniel is thinking the mattress store should just move somewhere else, such that we will have a whole strip of Asian stores.. wohoo!!!

Store:       Monga Cafe
Location: 14603 NE 20th St, Bellevue, WA

Price: $$
Taste: 5/5
Environment: 5/5
Recommend for Friends: Yes

Here are the dishes we tried:
1. Pork Burger ($3.49)
I always order popcorn chicken as appetizers and decided to give pork burger a try.  This is delicious with a lot of favors and definitely healthier than popcorn chicken!!!  There's pork belly, pickled vegetables, crushed peanut powder, and some sweet and spicy sauce.

2.  Beef Noodle Soup Combo ($11.99)
Beef Noodle Soup: Very tasty.  Satisfy my spicy crave as I ordered very spicy!!!  It's acceptable by Daniel too, haha... who told him to ask me to choose the spiciness, of course I will choose very spicy!!! One of the best beef noodle soup we tried in town, Daniel and I found this is better than Facing East and Din Tai Fung.  We ordered half shank and half tripe.  There were 2 pieces of shank and 4 pieces of tripe.  Daniel said this is comparable to the ones we tried in Taiwan.  I on the other hand loved this because this doesn't have the herbs that some restaurants serve, not sure what that is... but I loved this... beef was tender, with the right texture of the noodle.  (Sorry, will capture a better picture to show you what's in the noodle next time)
- Mini cucumber: This is your standard pickled dish, with a few slices of carrot.  
- Bean Curd: Again, this is a very standard dish, and I loved bean curd :)

3. Lu-Ron Fan (Braised Pork with rice)
I don't know any restaurant which mess up this dish, so of course, this tasted good.  If anything, I may want a little bit more sauce then this will be perfect.

4. Shaved Ice with 3 toppings (Flan, Red Bean, Tang Yuan) $5.99
They ran out of Green Bean and Big Red Bean as our choices but that's ok, as we likely won't order those anyways.  Daniel loves pudding and can have that 24/7.  However, the flan in this shaved ice may not be the best he had, he wished it's a bit softer... I loved the red bean with a bit of milk on top, the red bean is soft, yum yum.  Tang yuan is a different texture which makes the shaved ice special.  I loved shaved ice and wonder how can I make this at home.  Though this is too cold to have in winter..... Best to order this in the summer time.. lol.

Here's the pic from Monga Cafe.  I will definitely recommend...