Valentines Day is one of those commericalized holiday that just make people spend money on lavish gift and expensive dinner. Been there, done that, so this year we decided to do it a little differently.

We prepared High Tea for 2. So what is high tea?.

High tea is an early evening meal, typically eaten between 5pm and 6pm in the evening. It would be eaten as a substitute for both afternoon tea and the evening meal. (Wikipedia)

First, we went shopping for all the necessary ingredients, as well as the gourmet stuff that we usually wouldn't buy, such as caviar. I guess I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Here are all the foods we have prepared. Well the desserts were bought at the local Thrifty. I must say, they do make excellent desserts. My favorite 2 are the mini creme brulee and the normal size Princess cheesecake (Chocolate Ganache + Strawberry Cheesecake). The desserts probably cost under $10. We also prepared a cheese plate consist of Brie, Swiss, Cranberry cheese, and Havarti, along with some crackers and dried berries/nuts. The bottom plate is the melon wrapped prosciutto. We just bought a fruit cup with some fresh sliced prosciutto (@3.99/lb).

My favorite plate would be the sandwich + Hors D'Oeuvres.

The 3 sandwiches consist of:

1. Swiss cheese with Gala Apple Slice and Turkey (Forgot to add cranberries)

2. Chive egg salad (home made) with smoke salmon

3. Can Crab meat mixed with chopped red pepper, fresh dill and mayo with slice of tomato.

The Hors D'Oeuvres are

1. Lobster Pate (Can) with chopped onion

2. Smoke salmon with green onion leaf

3. Chopped egg and Caviar

4. Crab meat mix with Salsa

5 Cream cheese with sun dried tomato.

6. Prosciutto with chive and a little bit of melon

In the middle, we filled a little cup with Spinach dip (Sun dried tomato as garnish)

Here is a closer look at some of the Hors D'Oeuvres. My favorite being the smoke salmon.

Of course, let's not forget the tea. We didn't go British for the tea, no milk or sugar. This is just a really pretty flower tea with a light taste (taste like jasmine tea) We bought the tea at local tea shop, it's call love blossom, how appropriate for V-day :).

Here is a photo to sum it up. Oh, I did forgot to mention, we also had bacon wrapped scallop, it was very delicious (bought that at Thrifty as well). Over all, we made a little too much for 2, but we felt very happy, satisfied and full.

Personally, I thought the process of creating the food was very enjoyable and meaningful. Of course, the final result was also very satisfying to say the least. However, this does not come cheap, all the food we bought to prepare this meal was approx. $100, but of course with lots of left over to make more.

Making this high tea was definitely fun and the end result is delicious, so I would suggest all to try this.

Urban Thai Bistro

1119 Hamilton Street, Yaletown

Food: 4

Service: 3

Price: Fair

I have been to this place more than once, with that being said, both time I am happy with the food. I would say they have pretty authentic Thai food.

As the title said, they have the best Pad Thai, at least I think so. It's very moist and has just the right amount of spice. It was simply one of the best Pad Thai I had in Vancouver. I would definitely recommend this dish. This one cost $11.95 or was it $10.95, I can't remember.

The 2nd dish we ordered was the red curry chicken in young coconut shell. To be honest, we thought the size was really small consider it was $14.95. But I guess it depends on the size of the coconut. Despite the size, it was very tasty, they scraped off the fresh coconut meat and cooked it with the chicken. However this dish was seriously lacking in the veggie department. There was nothing else other than chicken and coconut meat with curry sauce. Although this was delicious, I probably won't order again.

We also wanted a rice to go with the curry sauce, but since the curry sauce is loaded with coconut milk, we decide to order a different kind of rice. This is the organic spinach rice. It was very good, and unique. I haven't seen this at any other Thai place, as I think it's not really Thai food. But, we loved it, it went perfectly with the red curry sauce. This rice was about $2.

The service here could use some improvement. Our server brought the wrong drink, and then brought the wrong dish, and at last she even brought the wrong rice (she forgot we ordered the organic spinach rice). I just assumed she must be new. But other than that, the service was still average, not too many smiling faces or professional manners.

Over all, I would recommend this restaurant, purely because of the food. I will definitely be back when I am in yaletown area.

Pearl Castle

Lougheed Hwy & Shaugnessy St (also a Richmond location)

Food: 4.5

Service: 3.

Price: Fair

I must say I love simple and delicious bubble tea type food, aka Taiwanese cuisine, so it's no surprise that I visit Pearl Castle all the time. Especially now that it's in Coquitlam.

Here is my favorite appetizer that I already blogged about, it's absolutely delicious. Soupy Dumplings. For approx. $6.95, you get 8. It's well worth the money.

Their chicken wing was okay, I mean it's good, but not spectacular, if you had to choose one appetizer, I would recommend the soupy dumpling. I believe this was around $5.

This would be one of my favorite dish. It's beef brisket and pork blood. I know some people can't get use to the idea of eating pork blood, but I find it delicious. In general they this hot pot is very flavorful and has a strong taste. It is also spicy. It goes perfectly with the rice. I also really like the side dishes at this place. It always changes. This one cost $8.95. Oh yeah, their meal always comes with some sort of jello dessert (Pudding, Coffee, Tea Flavored.. etc)

Another excellent dish. This would eb the Fish Fillet in hot sauce.This one is also $8.95

This particular picture is the coconut milk hot pot, but they have several (coconut, milk or soy milk). I personally really like the milk hotpot, as well as the soy. There are plenty of yummy ingredients in this hot pot. Their are thinly sliced pork, prawn, Japanese fish paste slice, fish balls, and veggie. It's very rich and the soup is extremely delicious. All their hotpots are $8.95. Oh, I have tried their milk seafood udon, it's pretty much the same thing with udon.

I must also recommend their fried rice. This is the spicy fried rice. Once again, nothing bad to say, it's delicious. This one is about $7.95. In this picture you can see the tea jello as the dessert, this one is my favorite, in terms of desserts. My favorite recommendation under the fried rice would be the Teriyaki Chicken fried rice. It sounds plain, but it is simply the best and one of my favorite dish. (sorry no picture though)

This is another favorite, it's the stew grounded pork. The sauce is excellent, rich and flavorful. It's absolutely delicious with the rice. I also must say the price does not match up with the food in a good way. Personally I find it really cheap, it's about $5, but u also get the side dish and dessert. In other similar type places, you only get the pork on rice.

This place also serve bubble tea as well. They have a very large menu for drinks, they typically range from $3.50-$6. Personally I find their drinks a bit on the expensive side, but flavor wise it's pretty good. Not too sweet, in fact the two in the picture are fresh fruit smoothies, which I think no extra sugar was added. The left is a strawberry with honeydew melon. I personally really like the right one, it's a combination of apple and banana. It has just the right amount of sweetness with a very refreshing fruity taste.

Service is friendly, and fast. Decor is very modern. People of all ages eat here, not just for young people. Prices has gone up once since they opened last year, but with this kind of quality, I really don't mind.

There are so many more dishes on the menu that ensures that I will be back. I haven't been disappointed once since first coming here. So I will definitely be back for more and I definitely recommend others to try it out.

PS: All the above picture is taken at the POCO location, I have been to the Richmond location once, so can't say much about that place.

Chutney Villa

147 E Broadway, Vancouver

Food: 2.5

Service: 3.5

Price: Fair (don't know about regular menu)

So after trying a couple of $38 menus, we decided to check out one $18 that had a good menu. So we started with all available appetizers to share.

The 1st dish is a fish app. It consisted of some dried flaky fish and I guess u are suppose to scoop it with the chip on the side. It wasn't all that impressive in taste or texture. The 2nd app. was a crepe with dip. The crepe was interesting, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, but the dip was disappointing. The yam fries were good in terms of taste, but it was too soggy (maybe it was suppose to be like that).

The also gave us four complimentary dips (from top to bottom): Cranberry, apple, onion and coconut. Personally I did not like the two fruit ones. The coconut was not bad, the onion was the best. I really liked this sauce. They told us to use these sauces however we like.

This would one the fish entree. I didn't have this, therefore can't comment too much. All I know that it tasted sour. Other than that the broth was okay. All the entree came with the same side dishes. It was mixed fried potato, a type of squash soup and yogurt with veggie. My personal favorite was the squash soup. It was flavorful and rich.

This would be the lamb entree. I didn't order this, but did end up eating it, as it was too spicy for my friend. It had a very strong flavor and was indeed spicy (but not overly spciy). I mixed in my yogurt with the lamb, which sort of made the whole dish less spicy and more flavorful.

The 3rd entree is the prawn one, which was my original order and my personal favorite. The prawns were cooked in a very rich coconut sauce with a hint of sweetness. The sauce also went perfectly with the rice.

Since we were sharing everything else, we decided to share the dessert as well.

So the dessert consisted of mango icecream, some "donut" soaked in syrup type thing (way too sweet), and a sticky rice type thing (I seriously don't know how to describe this). I guess all you need to know is that the mango ice cream was the best, and I am not saying it was Excellent, I am just saying that compare to the rest, it stood out.

The place is small, the service was good. The women all wore traditional indian style clothing. The decor was simple with a dark tone to it, since the walls were painted in a dark color.

All in all, I was disappointed with the food. For $18 I would have much better food else where. Needless to say, I won't be back.

West Restaurant

2881 Granville Street, Vancouver

Food: 4.5

Service: 5

Price: Expensive (Relatively cheap for dine out $38)

This is not the first restaurant we went for DOV, but this is by far my favorite. It's located on the corner of 13th and Granville. The interior was smaller than I expected. However they had a open kitchen with glass, so you can see your food being cooked. The interior decorating was very modern and chic as well.

Since we were there earlier than our other party, therefore we opt to try some of their cocktails, since apparently they have the bartender of the year award.

So after pondering over the menu, I have chosen a cocktail called Leng-Loi (aka Pretty Girl in Cantonese). It consist of lychee liquor and jasmine green tea syrup + some other liquid that I can't remember. There were these cute little heart shaped apple bits floating on top. It was very pretty to look at. As for the taste, it was rather strong, but also sweet. In general, I really liked it. This one was $9.50.

The other one we tried was in the category of sparkling cocktails. I believe it's called the Mangosa. This one was really strong. I couldn't really taste any sweetness, and thus did not like. This one was expensive as well, it's $14 for this one glass of orange juice look alike.

So at this point, my camera decided to run out of battery, so below are pictures from my friend's camera.

First came the bread with a side of butter and extra virgin olive oil. The bread was soft and chewy, it was perfect with the olive oil. However I can't say the same for the butter, it was very hard. They should have either soften the butter or warm the bread. That's where I took off .5 from the rating for food. Although there were 3 appetizers on DOV menu to choose from, we ended up only sampling 2 of them. It was mostly due to recommendations online. Here is the first appetizer.

This would be the Veloute of Pumpkin With Cinnamon Marshmallows. As you can see this soup came in a huge plate, but at least it was deep enough in the middle to get a decent portion. It was absolutely delicious. I first thought with the Cinnamon marshmallows would be weird, but after it is thoroughly combined with the soup, it was heavenly.

Ravioli of Smoked Sablefish and Butter Potato, Leek Vinagrette and Milk Foam. The two ravioli was stuffed to the max with the fish stuffing. This once again was delicious. However I thought the milk form was a bit weird. I mean who knew foam could be eaten just like that.

So next is the entree. This would be the Pave of AAA Beef Braised in Red Wine and Mushroom, Pomme Puree. The beef was very tender and soft. You can definitely taste the red wine in this. The sauce was great with the creamy mash potato. Portion wise, this entry was pretty big and filling.

This would be the best entree of the night: Supreme of Keta Salmon, Sesame Scented Cabbage Jasmine Raisin Puree, Smoked Salmon Gnocchi. I always find cooked salmon really dry, thus I do not like ordering salmon, but this has changed my mind. This was very well done. The skin was crispy, but the fish was soft, tender and juicy. I never though cooked salmon could taste like this. The Gnocchi was excellent as well, but they did only give you around 5. It would have been nice, if there were more.

The first dessert: Lemon Meringue Tart with Vanilla Ice Cream and Poppyseed Tuile. It was good, I didn't really taste too much of it, since I didn't order it. However there were some inconsistency with the crust, as one of the dessert was very bitter, due to over burnt sugar.

Here is my dessert: Banana Cake With Maple Roasted Apple and Pineapple, Filo Cup with Coconut Ice Cream and Apple Custard Sauce. Personally, I thought this was very average (This also affected it's rating on the food part). The banana cake tasted like something I could make. The maple roasted fruit was good, except I don't like pineapple. The coconut ice cream was good.

The last dessert was a White and Dark Chocolate Tower with Peanut Toffee Popcorn Ice cream and Caramel Wafer. Sorry, didn't get a picture, but it looked really pretty, and I really like it, except for the peanut Toffee part (I don't like peanuts).

The service here is excellent as well. As they present us with each entree, they would recite its description to us as well. They were very attentive and checked on us often. They must have asked if we wanted more bread at least 3x. This place is expensive under normal circumstances, and I can see why. Their food is great, service is good, and very nice ambiance. So I guess it's worth the money, but it's so much more worthy during dine out.

Overall this place was great, it's the perfect place if you want to impress someone or dining with important people. I would certainly come back and recommend others to check it out.