Doesn't TaZte Like Chicken

Location: Thai Son Vietnamese   
2215-4653 Garden City Rd, Richmond
Tel: (604) 278-6436

Similar to Lao Shang Dong Homemade Noodle House, Thai Son restaurant is another eatery that is always packed with eaters. Following our habits, we dropped by the busy restaurant after we saw it being busy every time we passed by. As we were guided to our table, we noticed almost everyone was enjoying either a bowl of pho noodles or a rice dish. Again, experience tells us that the noodles and the rice are probably the specialties of the house and indeed, they are. There are many selections of pho noodles on the menu. Each selection has the same beef broth and noodles, but a different combination of beef items. There beef balls, cooked and uncooked beef slices, beef tendons, tripe and beef flank to choose from. My husband always choose the combination that has all beef items:

We always get one large bowl of noodles to share. My husband prefers eating the noodles mixed with a generous scope of chili, which is conveniently available in a container on every table. I prefer to drink the soup as is and taste every drop of pure goodness.

Being a lover of fried food, I always ordered the spring rolls:

Besides pho, the rice dishes at Tai Son are also very tasty. The rice dishes are served with two pieces of either grilled chicken or beef, which are deliciously flavoured with lemon grass. But to me, the most interesting item served in the rice dish is the small pile of shredded pork. This little pile of meat is packed with amazing flavour. Of course, a big scoop of msg probably helped creating all that wonderful flavour too. But hey, what’s the fun in life if you can’t be bad to yourself once in awhile?

On the last page of the menu there is a list of hot and cold drinks. Many drinks are made of fruit juices and sodas, but my only choice is the iced cold coffee served with a thick spoonful of sweet condense milk.

Having been to other Vietnamese restaurants in Asia, we know that there are Vietnamese restaurants out there which make a better bowl of pho than Thai Son. However, Thai Son remains one of our favourite Vietnamese restaurants. Perhaps it is the familiarity or the convenience of the location, but when we get off work late and are too hungry to cook dinner, we always find ourselves there slurping down a hot and tasty bowl of pho.

Location: My tiny kitchen

When I was naming our food blog, the first name that came to my mind was Doesn’t TaZte Like Chicken. I didn’t commit to this name right away though. I considered many other names, including a few that I forced out of my friends. Finally after a few days of intense consideration, I decided on choosing my first candidate.

I always want to share food and recipes that are a little different. These are food and recipes that I grew up with and might be familiar to some people. To most people however, these food are foreign and are usually not consumed by the mainstream. These food might not be available at all supermarkets and they usually have a distinctive or sometimes even repulsive smell and taste. When people eat these food for the first time, nobody will say, “Hey, it tastes like chicken!”.

Shrimp paste is a common ingredient used in Chinese and Southeast Asian cooking. It is made of fermented shrimps and a large amount of salt. It has a distinctive and pungent smell. Like blue cheese, shrimp paste is the kind of food that you either love it or can’t stand. If you love it, you will agree that it’s one of the best seasonings for meat.

Share on Facebook

This is the simplest shrimp paste recipe that I saw my parents make again and again. It’s also one of my favourite recipes because the pork becomes very tasty after it’s marinated in shrimp paste. I find this dish best served with rice.

Dice pork into cubes that are 1/2 inch in size. You can use tenderloin or any cut that you like. Prepare about 1 and 1/2 cup of pork.

Into the pork add:
- 1 tsp of red chili flakes
- 4 cloves of minced garlic (the more garlic, the merrier!)
- 2 tsp of shrimp paste. You can get this from Asian supermarkets. I find the brands made in Hong Kong are the best. I always use the brand shown in the picture above.
- Freshly ground black pepper

Marinate the pork for 12 hours.

The best part of this recipe is the cooking. I always feel that there is almost no cooking involved! “Eating uncooked pork? You’ll get sick!”, you might gasp. The pork is cooked in the rice cooker along with rice. Because the rice cooker gives off a continuous stream of medium heat, the pork would not be overcooked.

Put 1 and 1/2 cup of rice into the rice cooker. Add water according to the instruction listed for your rice cooker. Before the rice gets fully cooked (that is 30 minutes after the rice cooker started cooking for my rice cooker), place the pork on top of the rice. Make sure the pork is placed on the rice as one layer and no piece is stacked on top of another. After the rice is done, let them sit in the rice cooker to keep warm for 20 minutes.

The juice of the pork seeps into the rice as it gets cooked, which makes the rice very flavourful. The shrimp paste makes the pork tastes extra-savory, while the chili flakes gives the dish a nice kick.

Location: Blackberry Bistro Restaurant   
6011 Dyke Road
Richmond, BC
604-272-5755

http://blackberrybistro.soojerky.com/

If Ben didn’t mentioned in his food blog Chowtimes, I would have never found out about Blackberry Bistro.

We started with the Roti Canai, a type of flaky Malaysia flat bread that melts in the mouth. I always order roti when I see it on the menu; Blackberry Bistro has made the best roti that I have tried outside of Southeast Asia:

Share on Facebook

Along with the roti, we also tried the satay. Like the roti, the satay was a pleasant surprise. The menu has chicken, pork and beef satay but we ordered only chicken since that’s the meat that can’t be badly cooked. I found out later that the pork is the best choice.

The laksa was a disappointment. Laksa is rice noodles served in a coconut broth. This special noodle soup is originated from Malaysia and there are many ways to make it. My husband and I are used to the Singapore style, which is designated by a rich coconut flavour. We feel that the Blackberry version tastes somewhat bland:

We saw a lot of customers order Hainanese chicken rice, one of the most popular Singaporean dishes. The chicken is first boiled in a stock pot filled with water. After the chicken has been cooked, the water, which now has become a chicken broth, is used to cook the rice. I took a quick glance at the chicken rice sitting on the table next to ours and I saw a few pieces of chopped boneless white breasts with a large scoop of rice. Again, I’m probably too used to the Singaporean style, in which the chicken is bone in and usually there are pieces from the thighs and breasts. The chicken rice with only white meat just doesn’t appeal to me much.

The Southeast Asian dishes at Blackberry Bistro are not cooked exactly the way like those in Singapore, but I would definitely go back and order their roti and satay again.