New West Winter Farmers Market (Holy Trinity Cathedral, New Westminster, BC)

Did a workout this morning, then went out to the final Royal City Winter Farmers Market held at the Holy Trinity Cathedral Hall in New Westminster. At only fifteen minutes after opening the vendors (one which had barely set up!) were already busy helping customers, answering questions, and selling their goods.

Here's what I picked up:


I always circle the farmers market once, just to get a scope of what everyone is offering, then I make a second round to purchase things. Since I had gone for a workout in the morning, I hadn't had breakfast, so when Maluma Bison offered me a sampling of their bison salami and their bison bbq sausage, I made note to remember to buy a pair of sausage. He also offered a cranberry sausage and what appeared to be a pepperoni. What is special about his product? He uses a seed meal (sunflower, pumpkin seed) as well as a blend of essential oils instead of animal fat in his recipe. This results in a product that is lower in saturated fat, cholesterol, and free of fillers.

Since spring is here, I also picked up some asparagus for a pizza that I hope to post about later today. :) The vendor (can't remember which farm!) also offered kambucha and spaghetti squashes, a variety of garlic, nettle greens, and a spring mix.

What started the "shopping spree" was actually the offering of a sharp aged cheddar from one of the vendors. To say it was "good" would be an understatement. But you have to understand that in my self-imposed (on again, off again) meat ban, the one thing that I really missed was cheese. Top that off with no breakfast this morning, and I caved. The cheese is mine! :)

I also bought some peppers from the "pepper barn" / "pepper boys" outside. I've bought from them before - you grab a bag, fill it up, and enjoy snacking on baby bell peppers for the entire week. I <3 bell peppers, so I stocked up. Plus, some will go on the pizza today...

What really brought me to the Royal City Winter Farmers Market? The promise of gardening goods. I procrastinated (what else is new) on the gardening this year and didn't start anything from seed. Although the chives, lemon balm, and (surprise!) broccoli came back this year, the oregano, parsley, and thyme died off. So I purchased two small containers of mizuna, and one of cilantro. We use cilantro a lot. But even though we do, it never lasts for us - we'll buy a bunch and get about 75% of the way through it before we have to toss it. Hopefully the cilantro stays healthy so we can enjoy it in everything!

Have a great weekend folks! It is rainy, cold and wet out there but the weekend holds much promise! :)

Food Bloggers Lunch: Royal City Thai (New Westminster, BC)

There's a growing email list amongst Vancouver food bloggers, and it is well used. One such use was when Karl of The Friday Lunch suggested a "new" restaurant in New Westminster, Royal City Thai. Kim, Sherman, and myself were glad to accept. Reasons? Royal City Thai, formerly Royal City Cafe, was serving All You Can Eat Thai food on the weekends! Curious bloggers we are, we showed up not knowing what to expect.

My apologies to Kim, Sherman and Karl as we underestimated the amount of time to get from our place to Royal City Thai that afternoon and arrived a little late!


A glance at their AYCE menu is promising. A variety of dishes that we'd order ourselves, all for the price of $12.95!

When the waitress came to take our order, we simply said, "everything". And so it began - we were brought individual portions of hot and sour chicken soup. The coconut broth was flavourful, but the chicken meat was not plentiful. It was a nice opener to the meal. The vegetable salad also arrived shortly, and while being colourful, it was dressed lightly.

A variety of fried appetizers were also brought to the table. The calamari rings were fried crispy yet not overdone, but lacked flavour aside from the sweet and sour dipping sauce.

The same went for the veggie spring rolls. Crispy, but it would have been nice to have more flavour or interesting filling. The chicken wings would be my pick out of the appetizers to order again. It came with a slightly watery sweet chili sauce and were slightly seasoned. That being said, I also thought it would have been nice had these been stuffed with a mixture of prawn and vermicelli (of course on an AYCE menu the boys told me to dream on. Yes I know... ;p).





It became sort of a blur after that. Green curry, red curry, yellow curry - noodles, rice, spicy, not spicy...





Above is the yellow curry pork, beef stirfry, and the veggie fried rice. The pork curry, in my opinion (along with a subsequent chicken curry) was the most flavourful dishes on the menu. While we had ordered a medium spicy, we found all the dishes to be lacking any real heat.





Above is chicken vegetable dish (black bean I'm told), but there was a lack of flavour as well. In the middle is a Green Curry Beef, followed by the Pad See Iw. If you click on the pad see iw photo and take a look, you may be able to see that the flat rice noodles used in the dish are a touch undercooked raw. I'm talking crunchy raw - the noodles could have been soaked a bit longer, or could have been stored properly instead of being left to dry in between cooking steps.




After the initial order of "everything", we decided to order some repeats in the "spicy" option. These were more pleasing and interesting to the palate than the previously ordered dishes. As a bonus, the noodles were cooked though in the Pad See Iw this time! :)

There is something M and I refer to with Asian cooking, especially spicy Asian cuisine (Malay, Singaporean, Indonesian, Thai, Szechuan, etc) - it is that "addictive" factor. Meaning - if we order a number of dishes amongst the two of us, can we stop eating it before we eat what we meant to pack away for lunch the next day? Sadly, the food at Royal City Thai did not have that "addictive" factor. It was decent, but not quite what we would be looking for when a Thai food craving hits



In all, for $12.95, an AYCE Thai meal of this caliber is decent for New Westminster. It is not a "destination" eat, although if you were in the area and hankering for some Thai curry, I might suggest it. The plus was that although our meal was AYCE, each dish was still prepared fresh (we could hear them!). The seating was comfortable and spacious, and there were some beautiful carved panels and dividers throughout the restaurant. Parking is generally metered on Columbia as well as the surrounding side streets.

Thank you to Karl for organizing the lunch - we would not have known that Royal City Thai existed.

Click through to see what Karl, Sherman, and Kim had to say!

Royal City Thai
634 Columbia Street
New Westminster BC
P: 604-522-1289

Poutine @ Anny's Dairy Bar (New Westminster BC)

I've written about Anny's Dairy Bar before - M and I stopped by in the summer for burgers, frieds, and their creamy soft serve (with caramel ripple!).

Since I wrote that post though, there has been a number of posts about poutine - from Phyllis' poutine marathon (12 poutines in 12 days) to Mijunes posts (and vlog) on David Street. Since I had noticed that Anny's Dairy Bar served poutine (and also sold the cheese curds) in the Royal City, I'd mentioned it in a comment on Phyllis' entry.

I have a confession. I am a poutine newbie! Growing up, cheese simply disgusted me. I would watch a highschool friend of mine (all 90lbs of her) order a large poutine from NY fries and she'd down it all herself. She had just moved from Montreal and she said it reminded her of home. I'd pretty much gag a little as I watched her consumer her meal/snack.

Years later, it wasn't until M started forcing me to try cheese that I started to give in. Shortly thereafter, M realized that he'd created a monster - I was buying a new cheese every week, and while I was living in Victoria for a short time, me and one of my roomates would make cheese, fruit and crackers (and the occasional pate) our dinner. (I miss those days!) Surprisingly, I was probably the thinnest in my life during that period.

Fast forward to today. I love cheese, but have still not conquered poutine. I don't know - something about cheese curds and gravy. I'd much rather have the fries on their own, or topped with chili or accompanying stew.

So as I read more and more of Phyllis and Mijunes' posts on poutine, I figured I'd have to make a foray into the world of poutine. And so I did...keep in mind that every journey begins with a single step! :p

Last weekend, I found myself back at Anny's Dairy Bar, craving something warm, comforting, and filling. Poutine would do the trick!

There was a single attendant in the establishment but the steady patrons kept her busy while I was there. Some were finishing up their soft serve cones; others were picking at their burgers or poutines. How was it? Did it pop my poutine cherry? (Theoretically, it did, as I've never had a poutine to myself nor have I ever finished more than a couple bites.)

I'll just say that it was a comfortable foray into the poutine world. The fries were slightly crisp and seasoned well, however there was too much gravy in my portion and some fries actually got left behind of this. The curds were not "squeaky" like Phyllis has mentioned, and had been added cold onto the hot fries. Despite being some curds being lukewarm and no squeaky texture, the cures were yummy! Some curds melted; others remained intact. The gravy was not too salty (thank goodness) and had a nice texture.

The meal was what I wanted it to be; satisfying and comforting, however I'd like to try other poutines (like Brado Pizza's!) to see how they stack up.

Anny's Dairy Bar
722 Sixth Street
New Westminster BC
P: 604-515-1410

Bella Cakes (Sapperton, New Westminster, BC)

Bella Cakes recently hit my radar as I was going to my little aunts (sai yee yee!) house for dinner and wanted to bring something. Dessert, maybe?

It ends up that there are two great bakeries in the Sapperton area of New Westminster, separated by just half a block or so. Since I was driving towards Coquitlam, I wound up picking up a cheesecake from Farm Cottage Bakery just up the street, which was great, albeit a little sweet (little yee yee asked me for the location and wanted to pick something up that weekend. :)

This time I got out of work a little early and took the long way home through New Westminster.

Surprisingly, it was actually faster than I thought! Next time there's an accident or traffic jam on the Knight Street, I'm cutting through New West and picking up some baked goods to console myself!

While I picked up a small box to sample Bella Cakes creations, I'm told that their real mastery lies in their specialty cakes. Browsing their website, it deems true. Unfortunately, it may be out of the way oftentimes, so I will have to see if I can work Bella Cakes into a special occasion or something. (Or I could be like my mother and buy birthday cakes [with bogus birthday names!] just because she wanted to have some cake! haha! Oh boy. Thunder gods are going to have my neck.)

Anyways, I ordered up a pistachio cream tart, a hazelnut cream tart, a peanut butter nanaimo bar, a pair of cookies, a cheesecake, as well as a nameless chocolate slab which I *really* wished I had taken note of.

Note well: I had high hopes for the pistachio and hazelnut cream tarts. But they were devoid of little (if any!) fragrant nut flavour. The pre-made tart shells were filled with a light buttercream, coated with a shell of chocolate, and sprinkled with some crushed respective nuts. They were, as far as I could tell, exactly the same except for the hazelnut or pistachio garnish. The cookies, while cheap, were quite average and forgettable.

On the other hand, the peanut butter nanaimo bar was delicious. Even M, who does not crave sweets, wished I had brought home another one! The peanut butter flavour was pronounced, and the smooth flavour was echoed in the texture of the PB layer. The "nanaimo" layer / crust of the bar was a nice complement, and was not too sweet - there was ample coconut and chocolate, but it did not overpower the peanut butter.




The "nameless" chocolate bar (all I can remember now is that was definitely *not* either of the brownies) pictured above was rich, decadant, and exactly what a chocolate treat should be. Should only be consumed with a tall glass of milk. :)

The cheesecake, although small in stature, was slightly denser that what I had experienced nearby at Farm Cottage Bakery. However, it was not overly sweet, so it was an appropriately portioned treat with some dark coffee.

Glad that I found the two "hidden gem" bakeries in Sapperton! I will be back for more sweet treats, and to discover more in the coming months.




Bella Cakes
459 East Columbia Street
New Westminster BC
P: 604-777-2524

Anny's Dairy Bar (New Westminster, BC) + a Total Tangent...

One sunny weekend brought me to New Westminster for some antiquing. We had decided beforehand that we were going to pay a visit to The Orange Room as well, but they closed early on Sundays and so we just meandered on.

I remembered Anny's Dairy Bar from when I did work in New West, and was also hankering for their deliciously rich Maple Twist cone. M was hungry, so we ordered a cheeseburger combo (substituted a milkshake for the drink), an extra burger, and a Maple Twist Cone.



The cashier was clever enough to suggest we order the cone "for later" to avoid melting while the burgers were prepared to order. There was a little bit of a wait as we encountered an annoying occurrence on this strip of Sixth Street: a lack of washrooms. No, I do not mean that the washrooms were busy, I mean literally, there were no customer washrooms in either Anny's Dairy Bar or in KFC next door. There wasn't even a hand sink for us to wash our hands!

Since we had finished looking at antiques nearby, we felt the need to wash (what we felt was) 50-year-old grime off our hands before eating food that needed to be handled. We wound up using the washroom across the street at Wendy's.

If I may digress, people often ask me why, after going through the training for Public Health Inspection, that I never followed through with it. Partly, it was laziness. Mostly, it was the work experience that allowed me to see what a fallacy it could all be. The Food Service Establishment Guidelines (which are not readily available to the public, might I add) states that there must be washrooms for customers if there are more than a certain number of customer seats available (ie mostly take out orders = less or no need for washrooms). This is, at most, a lenient guideline and this is evident in smaller, older establishments which seem to have been "grandfathered" for this clause.

What isn't taken into effect is that establishment operators change and/or the restaurant is changed and modified to accommodate more seats and yet, no adjustment is made in terms of the number or the availability of washrooms for customers to use.

The way I see it, establishments should be reviewed on an annual basis (currently they are, but they aren't) before their health license (and subsequently the business licence, even!) may be renewed. For major (and much-needed) changes like washrooms, a grace period could be given - I'd even say three to five years if it would help! But as far as I know, places remain "grandfathered", and as far as Anny's Dairy Bar / KFC on Sixth Street / Dairy Queen on Sixth Avenue go, they haven't had (what I feel is) a mandatory washroom / hand sink installed for customer use.

The problem is that, with so much variability and inspector discrepancy, combined with lenient guidelines and regulations, you could have something allowed in one jurisdiction and fervently frowned upon in another.

And that's just one of the issues. Let's not get started on the others.

Ahem. Let's get back to the food. I'd visited Anny's before - I remembered their creamy Island Farms soft serve, and that yummy ribbon of maple butter that swirled around with each twist of ice cream.

The burgers were not good, and not bad. The meat was fresh like they claimed, but a touch on the small side. If I can finish the burger, it's small! Look, the tomato is almost bigger than the burger!



It was a really simple burger with clean flavours. I would order it again, although for size it was a little pricey. The fries had only been fried once, so they were cooked through, but varied in texture. M liked them, while I had a mixed reaction. They were different, and slightly crispy in one bite, to slightly soggy the next.



The maple twist cone? Tasty and excellently rich as always. In fact, after the burger and some fries, it was almost *too* rich, if there is such a thing. Still, I enjoyed it - buttery texture and all. The twists of maple butter were a nice touch.

For a cheeseburger combo, extra burger, substituted milkshake and a maple twist cone (I think she gave us a large cone, but we only paid for a regular cone) we paid about $16. Not bad in the scheme of things, but I would have anticipated a larger burger.

There were a lot of poutine fries being made and consumed while we were at Anny's Dairy Bar - they also sold fresh cheese curds by the bag. I'll have to make another trip out there to try the poutine!

Anny's Dairy Bar

722 Sixth Street [map]

New Westminster BC

Phone: 604-515-1410

Review: La Boheme Creperie (Farmers Markets, GVRD, BC)

I haven't exactly felt like blogging as of late. I really need to get on an exercise program as all this food blogging has been taking its toll! :)

The New Westminster / Royal City Farmers Market kicked off on Thursday with local musicians, serenading the crowd, free carrot cake, and lots of local produce and products.

I wasn't exactly in a shopping mood - I just showed up to look around for inspiration and motivation to cook or eat. There was a stand selling bell peppers at a good price - $4 for as many you could fit in a bag, but I remembered that I still had peppers at home. There were garlic scapes in season, but I'd had a little trouble using up my last batch from the Main Street Farmers Market. There were the organic meats and locally caught fish, but I knew that I'd be out this weekend and wouldn't have a chance of finishing any.



I'd heard great things about La Boheme - the line up for them at the Trout Lake Farmers Market was huge, and the lineups at a Portobello West show at the Rocky Mountaineer station was equally long. So when I saw the meager three-person lineup at the Royal City Farmers Market, I knew it was the day to try a crepe.

La Boheme makes their crepes with a light batter made from organic buckwheat flour and a small amount of white flour. I thought that it would make for a heavy crepe, but it actually very light, nutty and added a crisp texture.



I ordered the Ali Baba - red pepper spread, baba ghanoush (seasoned eggplant spread), and feta cheese warmed on a toasty-crisp buckwheat crepe, and topped with lettuce before being wrapped and served. It was a vegetarian option and it was delicious!

Yes, that's right, not just "delicious", but delicious!

I should add, that this crepe made me happy that M wasn't having dinner at home that night. I was extra-garlicky all night and I believe that the people in my building should thank me for fending off any vampires for them that evening. :)

I'm looking forward to trying La Bohemes' other offerings.



La Boheme Creperie is at local farmers markets and other outdoor events throughout the summer. To find out when they are at your local farmers markets, sign up for a newsletter from My Market News. They'll send you newsletters each week for the markets of your choice.