"Iraashaiiiiiiiiiiii" Jinya Ramen Metrotown Review

Table upon being seated

The moment you walk into Jinya, the first thing you will notice is the decor. Out of all ramen places that I've been to, this place is a bit on the fancier end for decor. You can tell that they have taken some time into designing their shop. They take more of a contemporary style of design compared to other ramen places I've been to.

Vegetable ramen

     This place is very busy by the looks of it. What is cool is that you can leave your phone with them and they can text you when there are seats for you. Alternatively, you can wait there (there is not much of a waiting area though...). The waiting area in front of the host feels more like a crowded elevator as there really isn't much space for anyone to wait. In the summer time, I can see that people can wait outside or on the patio. However, during the winter time, that would be unpractical. If you want to avoid long waits, I suggest coming here before lunch hour or after lunch and before dinner or after dinner times.The seating itself is usually shared (so you are either on the big table with many other people or at the bar). If you are looking for a place to bring your whole family, just be aware you maybe placed with other people due to the nature of the store. 

Wide Angle of the restaurant 

I was here with my mom for lunch, and I decided to order the Chicken Ramen with the kaedama (which was the noodle refill for $1.50) while she ordered the Vegetable Ramen. There were other things on the menu besides ramen such as sides (tempura) and drinks. They also had a very interesting looking kids meal ($12 and it includes tempura and other things in a small boat together with a small bowl of ramen. The pricing of all bowls of ramen were around $12 - $15 - which is slightly higher than average but it was good.  

The Menu

    After we ordered, It didn't take too long for the ramen to come, and the portions were pretty fair. The vegetable ramen looked very interesting... Besides having a vegetable soup base and the ramen noodles, they seem to dump a salad ontop of the ramen. So when the bowl of vegetable ramen came, it looked more like a salad than ramen. The chicken ramen was pretty interesting too. When I got my ramen, I asked for the kaedama to come at the same time. Then I put the kaedama into the bowl and then added three spoons of spicy sauce. The noodles sucked up all of the broth, so I had a bowl of semi- spaghetti like noodles. When I started eating, the three spoons of spicy sauce was wayyy too much. By the time I finished, I was already sweating all over with a runny nose... That aside, it was pretty good. The thing I like about their ramen is the broth isn't too greasy and the noodles (whole grain) and the broth feels real (there are some places that just use powder and you can really taste that.  

The funniest part about this restaurant is that everyone shouts to the top of their lungs Japanese phrases (like they do in Japan). Things like "Irasharimase" which means welcome, and things like how many customers there are coming in and etc... It does feel nice to have such a warm welcoming. However, not being too judgmental or anything (I learned Japanese for a few years while my mom did her bachelor's degree in Japan), the pronunciation of the phrases the waiters and waitresses were shouting were pretty off. I'll give them credit for trying, but I can see someone who speaks fluent Japanese would find the dining experience pretty funny. Overall, I like this place and would definitely come back again. 

SEARS Closing - reflections and how it shaped Metrotown today

Sun Setting on Sears

As I was walking out of the mall and on my way home, the rainy skies cleared up and glowed with a hint of purple as the sun began to set. Looking up, I saw a huge "STORE CLOSING" sign hanging beside the infamous SEARS logo and the symbolism of the sun setting on SEARS. Although it may not seem significant to the average person, to me, the closing of SEARS (or the sun setting on SEARS) have some deep meanings.

2nd last day of Sears.

   For starters, my blog is all about food, travelling and experiences (hence Vantraveller). However, in many places I travel to, retail and local stores are often associated with the local culture. This SEARS in particular is significant because it was here even before Metrotown was built.  SEARS helped shape what is now Metrotown. SEARS has been around even before I was even born. Metrotown used to be an area that people would travel through if they were commuting from Downtown to New Westminster or the surburbs. This was initially what drove the market here so SEARS and other places like Kelly-Douglas were built. This was in the 50's and at the time, this area known as Metrotown today was only populated by no more than a few thousand people. This was also the golden era of department stores and SEARS was one of the first to be in this area. It wasn't until the 80's that the current shopping mall of Metrotown was built and the actual department store got incorporated into the mall. However, it can be argued that SEARS was what helped shape modern day Metrotown only to be driven out by both a failing business and a demand for real estate. The irony being that this SEARS was one of the places that drove the demand here to begin with. More information can be found here: history of Metrotown.

Everything for 90% off

   Because of how long SEARS have been here, it has also helped shape this community. Personally, It was a place that my family visited to buy our couch (that we still use today) 17 years ago. It was a place that I would go and check out on boxing day or when they had clearances because sometimes the deals here were actually good. There used to be a diner in this location (now the Concord Pacific Show room). There also used to be a barber, optometrist and tailor here. Over the years, all of these businesses closed and moved as the core department store business stayed.
   After reflecting, I decided to enter SEARS for one last peek before they closed for good. Upon walking in, everything was already taken apart. It seemed like everything that was not attached to the building was for sale. From fixtures to office equipment (like binders, really old office supplies and more) to mannequins and more were all on sale. There were people everywhere trying to salvage what they can for a cheap bargain (it sort of reminds me of how Ray salvaged parts on Jakku... except the SEARS edition).  Personally, I would not buy any of the things because most of it is not useful to me.  However, walking around the place, you can last ditch efforts made by SEARS to restart sales. 

Sears branded pens

  This is the interesting part. SEARS, before going out of business seemed to have tried to go the Winner's direction. You can see from some of the products being liquidated that they were all SEARS banded things. From Kenmore vacuum cleaners (they store branded it "SEARS" ) to stationary (also store branded "SEARS") to face masks (YES... face masks that was SEARS branded), you can tell that they were trying to reduce the costs by using their own brands and selling lower end products in attempt to bring customers back to the store. Personally, I thought this would have been a good move if they did this much earlier on in the game when people like Amazon were just started. Doing it so late in the game (it's practically a rebranding) seemed to be unwise as something such as re-branding usually take a while for the consumers to click in and finally buy it.

Mannequins anyone?

    Further more, there are other elements at play such as poor management (they switched 7 CEO's in a short time period before they closed down), rise of competition such as Amazon (or e-commerce in general- they had an online store too, but I don't think marketing was executed on it too well) and a dwindling base of loyal shoppers (I find the SEARS customer base tend to be older in demographic) and also the high cost of having brick and mortar stores. There are probably more problems but overall, you can say that it was a multi-faced problem that caused the overall store to close down. That said, during its golden days, SEARS pioneered many things such as the print catalog (this did wonders and may companies such as IKEA still uses this and does it well).
So what now? Since the SEARS lot is not actually part of Metrotown, there are talks about building more condos here and changing Metrotown into a Yaletown style location (More info here). However the biggest take-away from it all (or take-aways) is witnessing the change of the skyline of a city; where this SEARS location helped shape the local community to be booted out by it. Furthermore, it is also the witnessing of how the retail climate is changing and how difficult it is to run a brick and mortar store and perhaps the need to change with time or get booted out. What do you think? Is change good? 

A mechanic shop converted cafe - Cafe La foret

Super spacious interior

I grew up around this area and way back in the day, this used to be a car mechanic shop. It has recently been converted to a coffee shop/ cafe and HOLY SMOKES did it breathe a new life into this place. This has got to be one of the most spacious coffee shops I've ever been to. From the outside, you can't really tell that this is a cafe with the exception of the logo that says "La Foret" which according to my French friends mean "the Forest".
   Walking inside, you will see how spacious this place really is, there are tons of seats and a really high ceiling (maybe this is why they call it "the Forest"... hinting that you need to be as tall as a tree to hit the ceiling...). The decor such the Chewbaca and Han Solo paintings on the side really itches the nerd inside of me. There is ample natural lighting such as ceiling high windows, and roof top windows which I really liked. I also like the plants they have in the island at the middle, and how tidy it is.
   Food wise, this place have an Asian twist on the food. They serve things like squid ink bread, coffee buns and other types of Asian style bread. I did notice the price here for food is a bit on the higher end (for comparison, a piece of croissant is $2.50 but the portion is small and you can get a similar one for slightly cheaper else where). I do have to admit, their baked goods are presented really well and it makes you want to buy it based on how well they present it.

   Besides baked goods, they also serve an assortment of soups, sandwiches and crepes. All of the prices are fair, but because of the portion size, I would say things are slighter on the higher end. That said, that markup probably comes in the form of a trade-off for a good venue. When I was here, all I had was a cup of coffee. It's around 2 dollars for a cup of coffee, which is average priced. However, the portion is smaller compared to other places that offer the coffee that's priced the same.
    Overall, this place is the best for the venue. It's spacious and great to meet with your friends. I have to note that it gets pretty busy here. There are signs on the wall that says they have a 2 hour time limit on the weekend (honestly, I don't know how they are going to enforce that). The decor is cool and I would definitely come back again.



 

"Exotic Foot Flush" (The Cactus Club Kingsway / Metrotown Review)

The Cactus Club is known to have good food, good service and good atmosphere but the pricing has also been known to be a bit on the higher end of things. That is also the main reason why I don't visit too often (I like to be frugal). However, today my friend treated me to lunch to celebrate graduation (thank you!! You know who you are ;)).
    The Kingsway location seems to be a bit on the smaller side versus many other Cactus Club locations in and around Vancouver. We arrived around 11AM when the restaurant was not too busy. The outside patio already had a few guests sitting around (I am not going to lie, the scenery of the outside patio is not necessarily the most flattering). Once we got into the entrance, the hostess quickly greeted us and sat us down.
    She began by offering us the specials and drinks menu (which is typical). It was funny how they assumed that people just assume that they have non-alcoholic beverages because on the drinks menu, it was all alcoholic. It wasn't until I asked our waitress later on that there were other things like iced tea and coffee. I decided to get iced tea... which was not typical of me to do but I decided to try something new and grab an iced tea.
    After, she came back with our drinks and asked us what appetizers we would like. They have a good selection of appetizers, and most of the prices were almost the same as an entree. I had my eye on the truffle fries (as a marathon runner.. I have a thing for carbs.. good or bad...). However, my friend told me that the truffle fries can also be obtained by ordering an entree and then doing the add on option for $2 more. So you can pretty much save money by ordering the up-sized fries on the side. After debating for a while, we decided to get the potato skins.
    The potato skins were very good, they weren't greasy, but they had just the right amount of sauces and toppings and the layer of bacon was just right. The sauce that it came with was also very good. I would highly recommend this dish if you are looking for an appetizer when you are here.
   I decided to order the Ocean Wise Tuna Sandwich while my fried ordered the chicken strips and fries. I also decided to upgrade my fries to truffle fries (go figure eh?). The Ocean Wise tuna sandwich was amazing. The tuna was pretty fresh (and to be honest, didn't really taste much like Tuna but rather it tastes more like chicken but with the lighter and fluffier side. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
    Overall, this Cactus Club is definitely a decent place to go for lunch. It is not too expensive yet it is not cheap feeling. One thing to add about this location that I find quite special was that the washroom tends to be a bit on the cramped side. I am 5'7 and it was a bit edgy trying to get in and out... however.. they have this really cool toilet flushing mechanism called the "Exotic Foot Flush". I am not sure why the call it exotic... it's really just a button on the floor that flushes the toilet... It's not like pineapples and bananas grow out of it once the "exotic" button is pushed...

Forget about bite sized for sushi, the sushi here are jumbo sized (Asakusa Sushi Kingsway/Metrotown)

I am so used to eating sushi that is (somewhat) bite-sized. I've only ever seen a handful of places that makes really big sushi and this place is one of them. The location is convenient as it is just literally across the street from Metrotown. It was dinner time and my friend and I just went swimming and he was driving back to the Metrotown area. I am not too sure if there were any parking, so we parked outside at the curb. It was about a dollar for an hour (Make sure you double check what the hours are when you put your coins in. The free-parking times are a bit strange). Public transit would probably be the most accessible.
   When we walked in, we were greeted by one of the waitresses who quickly seated us down. She brought us the menu and the dinner special. I must say their dinner special portions looked big and most were under $10. The one that caught my eye was the chicken teriyaki dinner. It has the chicken teriyaki on a skillet and some vegetables with some rice underneath. Also, it has a side dish of miso soup and 6 rolls of California rolls that come with it. All for $10! It is a pretty sweet deal, and the portions are big too,
   Because I had another portion of dinner waiting for me at home, I decided to only get two rolls of sushi. I got a chicken teriyaki roll and an Alaska roll. When the rolls came, I was surprised. They were about $3.70 each and the rolls were huge. They are at least twice the size of conventional sushis. The taste was mediocre as the filling of the sushi was just conventional things (like for the Chicken terikyaki roll, chicken and cucumber) and salmon sashimi and imitation crab meat for the California roll.
   I am not too sure if it was because I read an article on farmed salmon and the fact that it contains 5x the amount of PCB's or the sashimi was put in rice, the sashmi felt a bit on the not fresh tasting side. That said, there was not too much sashimi in the California roll as it was mostly full of the imitation crab.
   Overall, the service of this restaurant is pretty average, but the sushi rolls and their size relative to their price makes me want to come back again. 

Egg tarts :D (Saint Gemain Bakery Metrotown)

Being one of the more "Boutique" type of bakery, Saint Germain's has a wide array of baked goods that seem to be a notch up from the supermarket breads. For starters, I've noticed most of their breads use reality high quality materials. They offer a more Asian style baking, which include options such as red bean bread, taro bread, tuna bread to name a few. They also have quite a few types of other desserts such as cakes (from Christmas Logs (during Christmas) to Tiramisu) and also some things such as Chicken pastries and egg tarts.
   What I usually get from here is the egg tart or the cheese sticks. Their cheese sticks and egg tarts are very good, however I do not recommend eating too often from here. Many of the breads and things that are made are using white flour and butter... which can be very fatty if you do not have the exercise level to match it.
  What I like about their egg tarts is that it tastes gourmet. The pie shells doesn't taste like the cheap flaky kinds.  But it has a special taste of pasty that is all crafted so that each and everyone has the same size. Besides being a bit on the greasy and fatty side, I would highly recommend the egg tarts. That said, at about $1 per egg tart, the price is also about right (but if you eat a lot of it, the total price and calories can rack up pretty quickly), so I would only recommend it on special occasions. 

A library of tea and warm fuzzy feelings (David's tea Metrotown Review)

There seems to be a relative new buzz in town and that's David's Tea. Every time I pass by here, it seem like lots of people are in there. This morning, I realized the place was empty so I decided to go in and check the place out.
  Walking in to the shop, you will immediately feel like the smell of tea is ambushing you. Mostly the smell of fruit teas. You will also notice the wall of teas. The sheer amount of teas make you feel like you are in an apothecary. There are teas that range from non-caffeinated fruit teas to teas with full blown caffeine.
   When I walked into the store, the barista (I think that's what they are called...) explained to me what type of teas they have and how it worked. So with the wall of tea, they can get whatever type you would like and let you have a smell. The tea can be sold by weight, which can be placed in cans or tea bags. You can also buy the tea prepared, which comes in either a hot tea, iced tea or latter form. The hot and iced tea is about $3.25 while the latte is about $1 more.
    The barista let me have a smell of many types of tea and I noticed some were organic. The sweeter teas are apparently better to be in an iced tea form (says one barista), but there was another who liked it warm. I decided to give the warm tea a try and I found a tea that caught my attention. The barista explained that the teas were sourced from all over the world and shipped from their warehouse in Boston. Apparently, the black teas are from Nepal and Kenya. After asking that, I chose my tea and that was the Blueberry Jam (Organic). Looking at the price for a cup of tea, my wallet felt a bit sore, but I never tried it before so I decided to give it a try.
   The tea itself was full of flavour, and definately a notch up from the regular tea you would get at the supermarket or the fast food outlet. I would recommend this place, however it is not cheap.

Constipation? Kale Ought to do it! (Jugo Juice Metrotown Review)

Jugo Juice is located conveniently at the skytrain entrance at Metrotown on the second floor. Because of its convenient location, it is ideal for a grab and go kind of thing on your way back from work or school. I had a coupon for any smoothie and it was about to expire, so I decided to check them out today.
 Even though I pass by here alot, I never actually tried them out. Not only do they sell juice, but they also have some baked goods like paninis, wraps and snacks like yogurt in the freezer. That said, their main product is smoothies. What I found very special about Jugo juice was that they had vegetable juices (like Kale and Spinach), of which I haven't seen at other juice stores.
I decided to give their Kale juice a try because it was their new and featured flavour. After the cashier took my coupon, I waited at the other side for my juice to be ready. I saw that they mixed in apple and orange juice from a machine that says 100% juice. It made me wonder where this juice is from. The apple and orange juice doesn't really have a source. After, they added the juices, they added spinach. Then with a push of a button, the spinach and apple and orange juice mix became a mixture of green juices.
 When the juices were finished, I took a sip and the taste was rather interesting. The juice did not taste like spinach, nor did it taste like apple or orange. It was abit on the sweet end, but it wasn't too overly sweet. It gave me a brain freeze however. That said, it is so green and full of fiber if think if there was any problems related to constipation, I'd imagine it be gone with this.
Overall, I think the price of their juices ($6.45) is abit on the high end. If the apple and orange juice was fresh, then I would say the price is worth it's value. However with the sources of the juices unclear, the price is abit above how much I would pay.

Cupcakes from a store that looks like it crawled out of a Katy Perry Video (Cupcakes Metrotown Review)

Recently, there was a buzz on a Groupon for a dozen of mini-cupcakes from Cupcakes, and it was $7 for a dozen of mini pancakes. I've walked by Cupcakes at Metrotown and to be very honest, I am pretty intrigued. The colours have a really nice cotton candy feel to it, almost as if it was something that came from a Katy Perry video. The first time I went with my Groupon it was about 8 in the evening, by the time it was my turn at the till, I found out their mini-cupcakes were sold out.
  I decided to come back a week later and I got the last box of the mini cupcakes! It was only 5 in the afternoon too! As you can tell the place is very popular.
 After I took home my dozen of cupcakes, I had first dibs. Everyone at home wanted a piece too so we finished the entire package really fast.
  The cupcakes smelled really good and you can smell the aroma of the cupcake from outside the box. The first thing I noticed is how small the cupcakes are. They are pretty much bite sized, and he frosting is like 1/3 of the entire cupcake.
  The taste of the cupcakes were above average and it tasted gourmet. I am not sure how to describe it, but you know it doesn't have that artificial refrigerated taste that supermarket cupcakes had. That said, the price is also quadruple the price of supermarket cupcakes. But for the price of the Groupon, It was totally a good treat.
In general, the quality of the cupcakes are really good. I think when it comes to business too, this company has really put some thought into the business as it is very distinctive. The only downside that I find is the high price of their cupcakes, otherwise, one of the best cupcake places in town!

Quality of food is still Meh... (Kawawa Japanese Restuarant/ All you can eat dinner Revisit)

It's the eve of the Lunar New Year and my family wanted to go for all you can eat. My mom suggested Kawawa Japanese Restaurant at Metrotown. I've blogged about them before in the past (about two years ago, the blog post is here ) and I thought why not give them a try again to see if anything improved.
   One thing is for certain, the service has improved. When I arrived, the servers were much better than they were the last time we were here. This time, they actually were very cheerful, and came to ask us how everything was tasting during our meal (which they didn't do before). Also on our way out instead of adding a mandatory tip to the top of our bill they just gave us the bill and let us decide how much we wanted to tip. Of course one would feel more inclined to tip if the service was good and a mandatory tip was added. The service was good/satisfactory overall.
   That said, the food quality is pretty poor (though, there were one or two items that I liked). The menu is the same from lunch, however the price for dinner is much higher (at $21.95 per person!). You would expect that for $21.95 you would get food that is decent, but to my surprise the food was unpleasant. Where do I begin?
  Starting with the tempura...  The prawn tempura tasted as if it's been out on the counter for a very long time, the panko on the outside has dried up and when you taste it, the panko is actually pretty hard to chew (because it's cold and thick). In addition, the donburis that came from the All You Can Eat menu is halarious. For a unagi don, they gave us a bowl of rice with a bite sized piece of unagi on it. I understand the logic from the business point of view that the customer should be filled up as much as possible in order to maximize profit, but it seemed too obvious at this point.
   In addition, the chicken teriyaki was not fresh as well. The chicken literally has a layer on it that's hard and dried up. It seemed like the chicken has also been out on the counter for a long time and dried up, put into the fridge and reheated. You can taste it from the chicken as the flavour is gone, and you can see it from the appearance as well that the chicken wasn't freshly made.
   That said, there were some good parts about Kawawa that I did like. To be fair, I liked the house roll, unagi sushi. The unagi sushi was done pretty right in the sense that the portion of the unagi was big/ just rice compared to the rice below it. Also, the taste of the unagi didn't taste like the other stuff where it tasted like it has been previously frozen/ reheated. Also, the house roll was pretty special as it had a mixture of two different types of sashimi and some of the imitation crab.
  Overall, I probably might not come back here for a while because the amount that you have to pay to eat here compared to the value you get out of it seems to not be aligned. That said, there are some things that is definately worth a try like the house rolls and unagi sushi. 

The Boss Restuarant (Metrotown) 大班餐廳餅店

My mom used to buy this kind of noodles that is cooked with chicken from this place. The chicken noodles, I recall was very good whenever she bought it so after coming home from a day's worth of staycationing (stay-vacation), we were too lazy to cook anything so we decided to dine-in on our way home.
 When we arrived, the place was so busy, there were people lined up outside as it was about 6:00PM at night. We had to wait for about 15 minutes before we got called in. Once we were inside, the place has sort of a diner feel to it. I've also noticed this restaurant takes cash only.
There were tables and huge panels of mirrors on the wall (I think they were there to create the impression that the place is big. When we were seated down, we knew what we would like to order already so we ordered. We ordered a Yang Jou Fried Rice, The Boss Noodles and then Chicken Fried Noodles.
   Something interesting I've noticed is that the cups that they used to serve the tea has really interesting and unique patterns. When I took a closer, I noticed that the cups were actually scratched from the numbers of times that it was used and washed. Very interesting to see either way.
 When the food came, we indulged in it right away. Before we ordered, we asked the waitress to include in our order to reduce the amount of salt and oil (it would be a good idea to ask them to do this). We started with the fried rice. The fried rice has the taste of the sausage that's in it to give it the full flavour that the fried rice. This dish is definitely a classic and I always get this whenever we order from this restaurant.
  The next dish that came was the "Boss Noodles". It came on a teriyaki hot plate. The top was cooked chicken with sauce and mixed vegetables while the bottom appears to be raw instant noodles. Before stirring, the instant noodles tasted kind of eggy. We had to take some of the topping and noodles off, or else it was too hard for us to stir the noodles. This tasted pretty good, and the portion was pretty big as well.
  The final dish that came was chicken noodles. I love the way they cooked these noodles. It's not too salty, yet the pieces of the chicken that they give you are usually pretty big. The sauce that they use to cook it with really goes well with the noodle.
  In summary, I think the food here is pretty decent. However, the service can be abit lacking. The servers are usually really too busy, so detail can be lacking. That said, the portions for the food are usually pretty generous and I would definitely come back here again but probably for takeout only.

Uncle Willy's (Metrotown)

   This buffet has been here for a really long time, you can tell by the gas light tubes inside the restaurant that the place is vintage. When you arrive at Uncle Willy's you'll notice that the doors have an open and closing direction. After you enter through the entrance, you will be at the cashier where you have to pay first. The price for a lunch is usually around $12 and dinner is around $15 for adults. The cashier was slightly on the impolite side, but the thing about All you can eat buffets is that I don't think there is a custom to tip.. (or is there?!), so I wouldn't blame them.
    After we paid for our meal, we found ourselves a big table that could fit all of us. The tables and the silverware look like it's been around for a few decades. The plastic looking plates and forks have dents in them and it seems like they've been used for decades.The trays also look vintage as well.
   With regards to food, there are quite abit of options. At the beginning of the buffet station, is a salad bar with a big container of salad and a few cold selections like macaroni and cheese salad and colesaw. After, there's the hot foods collection where there's a variety of vegetables and buns. When we were there, there was also spaghetti, steamed salmon and curry.  In addition to the main dishes, they also have ham and some Asian foods like chow mien. They also have a dessert section with cakes, pudding, soft drinks and all you can eat ice cream!
   Overall the quality of the food is fair, but some of the quality is lacking such as the consistency of the pudding... it tasted abit funny. Also, alot of the food seem to come from canned products, such as the corn and the salmon didn't really have much taste either. However, I must say, I really liked the mashed potatoes and gravy.
    I would say that the price is fair, and food is fair but it isn't exactly quality. However, seeing how it is one of the only western style all you can eat places around Metrotown, I would definitely come back again