Somewhere near the end of April (gee, it's already the end of May!), on April 26 to be specific, we went on a crafts shopping trip at Michaels. That place is a heaven for anything artsy! We (okay, I did) went a little crazy with four balls of yarn and three different-sized knitting needles! Yes, I'm teaching my man to knit (!).
After our shopping trip, I spotted iCafe and remembered vaguely dining there once before. It's ANOTHER Hong Kong restaurant (third one featured in this blog, perhaps the last, unless we venture into Richmond or something). It was on the second floor of a building at the corner of Heather and West Broadway.
A small, trendy little restaurant-cafe, iCafe serves traditional Hong Kong cafe dishes. They have full menus but we picked the "afternoon tea/late night" specials. They should be relatively smaller portions but we found the size satisfactory.
The menu for the specials. There are more on the other side but they are more snack-ish foods like sandwiches and finger foods. I picked the mini beef brisket in curry sauce on rice and JS picked sauteed beef with seasonal vegetables on rice. Each meal also comes with a hot drink.
The waiter was not very responsive and we had to wave our hands in the air for several minutes before he came to take our order. We were there before 5 p.m. for an early dinner and the place was nowhere near packed.
The drinks came first. JS got Ovaltine (on the left) and I got Horlicks (on the right). Way too diluted and tasteless -- you gotta add your own sugar. Both of them are powdered drinks sold in the supermarkets of Asia, so there really isn't much to say on them.
The food came pretty quick. This is JS's beef with Shanghai bok choy and rice. Nothing too exciting. It seemed like they put too much meat tenderizer until the meat taste was more or less gone -- it tasted kind of bland and plastic-like. The vegetables were quite fresh.
We have noticed a trend that every time I go to a Hong Kong restaurant, I order some kind of curry. Deep down inside, I am secretly addicted to curry, especially the non-spicy and creamy kind. This beef brisket fits the bill perfectly and it had a little kick to it. The rice came on a separate plate. The beef was tender and meaty, much better than JS's beef dish. There were also some chunks of amazing fried potatoes and translucent onions scattered in there.
There was so much food I had to pack up half of it to go -- hooray for lunch the next day! And believe it or not, each of our meals with the drink is only $6.95 plus tax! So the whole meal was pretty much less than $20 even with tips. We probably paid around $18 or something for both; I don't remember now.
This is a good place for tasty and inexpensive food, but the service was rather poor. Over all, great food but mediocre service -- almost the norm for Hong Kong restaurants. I don't think I'll be eating at another Hong Kong cafe any time soon! So much more cuisines out there to try!
iCafe is located at 2525 Heather Street, Vancouver, B.C.
♥ Nikki
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