Pondok: a Little Bit of Indonesia on the Drive

My friend Ben has been raving about lunch at Pondok Indonesia for months now, so when I inadvertently found myself on the Drive at noon, I didn’t waste a lot of time heading over there. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to ask him what the best possible dish on the menu is, so I had to fend for myself. After some deliberation, decided on Rendang Sapi, Orak Arik , which is a spicy beef dish served with stir-fried cabbage and rice, and an order of Indonesian Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce. Accompanied with a cup of coffee.

The beef rendang was near perfect. Stewed in coconut milk and spices until it’s incredibly tender, the beef also has a complex, exotic flavour. Once the tower of rice is smushed down into the sauce and eaten with a bite of beef and a bit of the stir-fried cabbage, the dish loses all of it’s complexity and instead tastes like the kind of home-cooked meal you would be treated to, sitting down with friends in Indonesia.

I love peanut sauce, so it seemed like the spring rolls would be an instant love, but in fact, they were quite bland and oily aside from the peanut sauce. I had to keep dunking and slathering for them to be appetizing.

All in all, the food was pretty decent, served up with a hint of a smile and service that could have been better considering the scant amount of tables, in a simple and unassuming room. Nothing was bad, but it wasn’t particularly amazing either, and if I ever have a hankering for Indonesian fare when I’m home on the Drive at lunch I will definitely stop in, but I’d also like to check out the Spice Islands for comparison.

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Pondok Indonesia

2781 Commercial Drive

Mon - Fri 11 AM - 3 PM, Sat - Sun 5 PM - 10 PM

H-Mart Asian Food Court

You know when you’re grocery shopping and you start getting super hungry? You wish there was a way you could sit down in the deli section and have a snack. Most grocery stores do offer that service, actually, along with the bland, over-buttered and soggy pre-made sandwiches that will alleviate hunger but not satiate. Not so at the Hmart chain of Asian supermarkets. Spread throughout North America, this Korean grocery store also has a built in food court, which, at the Robson Street location, comprises a Korean/Chinese noodle bar, Wang Ga Ma, as well as the Matoi Sushi stand.

At Wang Ga Ma I had the Spicy Beef soup (although I was very intrigued by what the Rice with Fish Raws would be). It was deliciously flavourful, with an intense, fiery broth, accompanied by a side of fiery kimchi. Even being spicier than expected and somewhat messy, it hit the spot and at $7.50 is a lot better than soggy sandwiches for lunch.

After placing your order, you hand out and wait for your number to come up on the flashing LCD screen. Then you pick up your food (which comes on plastic trays but in real stainless steel or ceramic bowls) and take it back to the main eating area, a bright, light-filled section of the store looking down on Robson Street from the second floor.

Returning to try out Matoi, I chose a spider roll, a chopped scallop cone and 2 pieces of Hamachi from Japan, all of which were excellent and tasty, but checking out the blogosphere, it seems I’m going to have to go back and check out some other dishes as well.

Service was sadly not awesome at Matoi and it was not do to a noon rush. At 2:30 in the afternoon, I watched patiently, then started drooling on the Plexiglas divider as the sushi chef prepared piece after piece and gave them to other people. To be fair, it seemed as though they had got a couple of big orders and he was going as fast as he could, but I was also starving. Next time I’ll try checking it out a bit before lunch and maybe pick up some Korean snacks from the market beforehand…just in case.

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Hmart

550 Robson Street, 2nd floor

Fabulous Fassil

Ethiopian food is one of the funnest cuisines to eat with a friend, so it makes me exceedingly happy that there are so many excellent Ethiopian restaurants close to my house. And when Travis suggested I try Fassil Ethiopian Restaurant (one I hadn’t even heard of), I knew we would be dining there soon.

At the suggestion of the chef/proprietor we had the mixed veggie combo and the #14 lamb stew, medium spicy. As with all Ethiopian cuisine, it comes on a large piece of injera bread, with the stews or wats placed on top. In the top photo you can see the various vegetarian dishes; spinach boiled with spices, marinated vegetables in spices, fresh salad. red lentil stew, and corn. The lamb was brought out in a separate bowl, to be spooned out into the centre and more injera accompanied the dish on the side, to be used in scooping up the stews.

Everything was supremely tasty. The lamb was tender and expertly spiced and the vegetable “dishes” complemented by either offsetting the heat of the meat with spices or with actual temperature (in the case of the cold, fresh salad). The bread used to wrap and eat the stews is the best part, though. Their injera is soft and fresh and handmade on the premises. This is a process, we learned, that is fairly simple, but takes 3 days for the dough to rise properly and a seemingly large amount of pans, since the injera has to be cooled separately from each other to keep from sticking. Like everything else these days, the chef told us there is apparently “instant injera” available, but at Fassil it’s homemade and it did taste heavenly. Perfectly spongy and slightly sour, it’s much more than a conduit for the wats.

“Fabulous” in the traditional sense, is probably not the best word to describe Fassil, a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant close to Fraser and Broadway. But if you mean (as I do) fabulous in the sense that you can walk in and feel right at home, where you are welcomed and appreciated and where everything is clean if not fancy, then it is the perfect adjective.

We were drinking beer with dinner but after making our food, the owner and his wife sat down with a friend and had traditional Ethiopian coffee. It was hard to ignore the elaborate pouring going on behind us, with ceremonial cups and incense and when I asked about it, we were immediately offered a cup with a smile. Little gestures like that are so meaningful in a dining out world filling up fast with insolent twenty-something hostesses that it made me want to hug them. Instead, I will simply make a point of returning. I still want to check out the Addis Cafe and the Red Sea Cafe for comparison, but it will be hard not to head immediately back to Fassil…like tonight.

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Fassil Ethiopian Restaurant

5-736 East Broadway

Happy Hour: Sanafir

Considering my love of things Middle Eastern, it’s a bit surprising that I haven’t been to Sanafir before now. It was also the last of the Glowbal Restaurant Group venues that I had to dine at, so I had a chance to check that off my list as well.

I think I swooned as soon as I walked in the door and saw the slate gray walls studded with flickering candles. Souk-like chandeliers and gauzy curtains hang from high ceilings and override any memory of Granville Street as soon as you’re in the door.

We sat at the bar while we were waiting and I had a  Red Sea Champagne cocktail (Absolut Mandarin, Alize Passion & Fresh Blood Orange Juice) to start. Light and fruity, it was the perfect aperitif to sit and savour the venue.

Tricia asked the mustachioed barkeep about the delicious concoction he had just made and upon finding out that it was a Shirley Temple, we decided we’d better check out the martini list instead.

I ordered the Pink Lotus (Vodka, Red Alize Passion, White Grape juice & Champagne), which turned out to be my favorite cocktail of the evening. Huge favorite. I thought it might be too sweet, but the white grape juice cuts in and keeps it mellow. I could have drank it all night and been supremely happy.

Except that I also wanted to try the Mumbai martini (Ginger of the Indies liqueur, Vodka, Muddled Fresh Lime & Curry Leaves). I was delish. Spicy. Exotic. Complex. Good. Possibly a little strong to drink all evening, but that would be my only complaint. Actually, no my second complaint (not about the Mubmai, however), is that the serving staff kept taking away our water glasses. Each time they passed by and saw an empty glass, they would pick it up and carry it off with them. So not only did they not refill it often (essential when you’re drinking some of these pure martinis!), but each time we asked for more, they had to bring us a new glass. Interesting. I’m not sure what’s going on there.

The lack of water didn’t keep me from trying my dinner date’s Marrakech Mint martini (Mint, apple puree, Sourz Apple liqueur and Cointreau), which I really liked. It looked like it should be more of a savory drink with the mint and what looked like celery salt but was actually some kind of appley sugar mix around the rim. Here it is with our appetizer of bread and hummous with roasted garlic and smoking rosemary stuck in it. So good!

Dinner was an excellent Chef’s Selections spread )a trio of dishes), for which I chose the Asian spiced salt and pepper squid, Oxtail cappelletti with white truffle cream and black truffle and the Crispy Pork Pakora. And for the first time in a long time, I also ordered dessert. Like dinner, you get a choice of 3 types and I picked the Black Pepper Pecorino cheese, Cardamom Baked Yogurt and Crispy Fruit Gyoza. I also ordered a Figari cocktail (Guava, Fig puree, Dark Rum & Sparkling Wine), which turned out to be a bit of a mistake, because not only were we entirely out of water at that point, but it was also a very - incredibly - strong drink. And surprisingly not that figgy. I think I would have done better to choose the Pears of Persia cocktail (Absolut Vanilla, Sake, pear puree & Fresh Citrus) or another Champagne cocktail instead. Oh well, next time.

And here are my lovely dining companions, Tricia and Tammy:

Thanks girls!
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Sanafir

1026 Granville Street

La Casita Hosts a Quiet Fiesta

Approaching summer makes me think of tacos and salsa and, ok, margaritas, so on a sunny day last week when I met a friend for lunch, I found myself suggesting Mexican. Specifically, La Casita in Gastown.

A cute little hole in the wall with kitschy decor (check out the chairs-as-cacti, below), La Casita has been around for a while, but never seems to make it onto the radar of top Mexican restaurants in the city. And, while we had a tasty and festive lunch, I would say that there’s a good reason for that.

It was a little soon after my morning coffee for tequila, so I started with a Horchata, an iced rice drink infused with flavours of cinnamon and vanilla and we munched on the chips and salsa that arrived with it.

For lunch I chose something that the waitress said was a “popular combo” and that was probably not a great idea. Because first of all, popularity does not mean quality and secondly, because I don’t particularly like chimichanga’s. My fault entirely. Combo #5 comprised 1 beef chimichanga, 1 chorizo quesadilla, rice, beans and salad, for $14. There was nothing wrong with it, but the quesadilla was a little dry and then the other half of it was a chimichanga. The beans and rice and salad were excellent,  however, which leads me to believe that I would have been very happy with a veggie burrito. Ah well, next time.

The main advantage here is that with a huge space and an off-Water Street location, you can get decent food before a night out without waiting around for very long.  There’s no patio, but a summer lunch is also a nice option because it’s quiet and light and again, not that busy. Service is polite but not outstanding.

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La Casita

101 West Cordova

(Kind of) Dodgy Pho on Broadway

Everyone knows that the best pho is dodgy pho. And generally speaking, the dodgy pho is not found at main intersections. So I had my doubts about Kim Penh Xe Lua at Cambie and Broadway. Sure, the unpronounceable name might throw off some diners, but I suspected that I would not be getting a premium bowl of rare beef flank on vermicelli noodles here. And I was right.

First of all, the menu is divided into sections. “For beginners” naturally includes soups without the tendons, tripe and offensive bits (or without any meat at all, for that matter) and the “More adventurous” section includes the soups with various versions of the above.

The small bowl of beef flank and beef balls with noodles ($5.50 for a small bowl) filled the gap in my stomach without making me feel ill, but there’s nothing all that special about it. It’s ok. A bit skimpy on the beef and could have used some more flavour, but the condiments were fresh and I would go again if I was in the area and hungry, but I’m not sure I would make a special trip. It’s apparently open until the wee hours, so that may come in handy.

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Pho Kim Penh Xe Lua

500 W. Broadway

Happy Hour: Havana

The grey skies have me hankering for patio weather and reminded me that I haven’t posted a Happy Hour post yet. Which makes this the perfect opportunity to re-live some patio drinks at Havana a few weeks ago. Above is the Mango Margarita, which was popular at our table of girls, but which I found to be a little sweet. I do like a tropical fruity drink on a hot day, but mango has never been my favorite and its presence in place of a salty lime one was not overly appreciated.

So instead we reverted back to the tired and true Mojito, a drink that Havana does exceptionally well. A perfect amount of muddled mint, sugar, ice and of course rum and you really can’t go wrong. The mojito is one of my all time favorite drinks.

For a variation on a good thing, next we tried the Strawberry Ginger Mojito. I was a bit apprehensive after the mango madness, but the strawberry ginger mojitos proved to be only slightly sweeter and fruitier than the original version, with a bit of something extra to balance out the flavours. Definitely another fave, and there may have to be a re-match scheduled between these two.

They do also have excellent food at Havana’s, as evidenced by the Lobster ceviche appetizer below. However, if you’re going to drink three (plus) pitchers between three people, you may want to consider ordering a little more than that. Trust me.

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Havana

1212 Commercial Drive