Fat Boy Kitchen: Comfort Food

You know, with a name like Fat Boy Kitchen, it evokes a certain style of food… I mean, don’t expect anything too healthy here. Instead, they focus on hearty meals that fill your belly like noodle soups and rice combos that you’d find at most HK or Taiwanese cafes.

Advertisement

Yum Bunnys: Improvements Needed

There’s an increasingly busy commercial park along Marine Way in Burnaby. Over the past year or so, they’ve been opening up a lot of fast food places here (which suits us since it’s relatively close and there tends to be a lack of food outlets in the area). We noticed a sign for “Bunnys” a couple of months ago but we really weren’t sure what it was all about… Was it a pet shop that sold bunnies? Was it a daycare business? Well, we finally found out that it’s food outlet specializing in Taiwanese fried foods – they have like half a dozen different fried items which they serve on either steamed buns, rice, or noodles.

YiFang Taiwan Fruit Tea (Marine Gateway): Refreshing Fruit Teas

While coffee may reign supreme in some cities, bubble tea is really pushing the buttons of ardent Vancouverites these days. Recently, YiFang opened up another location of their popular Taiwainese fruit tea shops. This location is upstairs, near the Neptune Palace Seafood restaurant.

Xing Fu Tang (South Burnaby): Brown Sugar Pearl Milk

I know that bubble tea shops are quite popular in Vancouver these days but there’s 3 different boba places located at the corner of Gilley and Kingsway in Burnaby. The main reason I was here was because I saw the Xing Fu Tang that had recently opened up.

Old Street: Chinese Crepes and Beef Noodle Soup

Old Street is a relatively new Chinese eatery which opened up in the former Tokyo Tonkotsu Ramen location on Kingsway and specializes in street food items such as Chinese crepes and Taiwanese beef noodle soups. It looks like they haven’t done too much in terms of interior renovations other than to add the large mural on the wall which explains the type of food that they serve as well as the signage behind the counter.

YiFang Taiwan Fruit Tea (Robson): Refreshing Drinks

As their name would suggest, YiFang is a popular Taiwanese boba (bubble) tea shop which specializes in fruit teas. They’re also known for their black sugar pearls that are made in-house but those are only available at certain times during the day.

Sunshine Cafe (Crystal Mall): Japanese-Style Beef Curry

Most of the time, when I head out for lunch, I’ve got an inkling of an idea where I’ll wind up… but I tend to have horrendous luck when it comes to trying new (to me) places. Such was the case one day in late August… I had plans to try a different restaurant for lunch only to find out that they were closed for lunch service. So instead, I wound up driving aimlessly for a bit until I found myself in the Crystal Mall parking lot.

Bubble World (Metrotown): More Than Just Bubble Tea

When I think of Bubble World, the first thing that comes to mind is bubble tea. And if you go visit their Kingsway location in Vancouver, that’s pretty much all you can get. However, if you travel east down Kingsway for a bit, you’ll find their Metrotown location which also serves up classic Taiwanese fare.

Rong Rong Tea House: Home-Cooked Taiwanese Food

On one of my frequent jaunts down to New Westminster, I noticed a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant across from Douglas College called Rong Rong Tea House. Intrigued, I made a point to visit here on a future occasion.

Din Tai Fung (Ginza): Tokyo 2017

Din Tai Fung is a wildly popular Taiwanese restaurant chain known for their specialty dish… xiao long bao (soupy steamed dumplings). Now, don’t get me wrong… we were really enjoying all of the Japanese food that we were eating on our trip to Osaka and Tokyo. But, after a while, we started to crave Chinese food so we wound up going to the Din Tai Fung located on the 8th floor of the Kirarito shopping mall.

Deer Garden Signatures (Burnaby): Malay Laksa

Deer Garden Signatures is a popular Taiwanese-style noodle house chain that recently opened a location in Burnaby. I first visited this location in early June and have since had a couple of revisits.

Facing East Taiwanese Restaurant (Bellevue): Citrus Fruit Tea and Taiwanese Pork Burger

One of our last restaurants to try during our Seattle road trip was Facing East, which is a popular Taiwanese restaurant located in a small mini mall in Bellevue… and by “popular” I mean expect for a wait to get in here. We showed up around the dinner hour on a Saturday and waited about 45 minutes to get in.