Hastings-Sunrise – alpaca lunch

Baby-Paca has been suggesting that we go for Pho for the longest time, but I just have not been feeling Pho lately. On this day however, I woke up feeling slightly under the weather. Something warm, soupy and comforting sounded like a good idea. Pho 99 is usually our go-to Pho spot, but we decided to go to Thai Son this time since we wanted to grocery shop at T&T afterwards.

Spring roll ($5.75): the spring roll had ground pork and vegetables densely packed inside. While it was crispy and tasty with the fish sauce, It definitely tasted a lot more like a Chinese style spring roll than a Vietnamese style spring roll. Take away the sauce, and it would be something straight out of a dim sum restaurant. Definitely not what we were expecting at a Vietnamese place at all.

#10 Sliced rare beef, well done beef brisket and tripe with rice noodle and soup ($6.75): The noodles were good and the broth wasn’t too salty. The well done beef brisket was flavourful and tender, however, Baby-Paca thought that the sliced rare beef didn’t taste very fresh. And like most other Pho places, they aways only give little shreds of tripe, which was barely enough to split between the 2 of us. Other than the tripe, everything else was plentiful. The spring rolls and a small Pho to share was enough to fill us up.

Baby-Paca said that she still prefers Pho 99 over Thai Son as their Pho soup is more flavourful. Service was quick, and our food arrived literally like 5 minutes after we ordered. My only complaint is that some of their spoons and chopsticks were dirty and we had to sift through the stash on the table to find ones that looked relatively more clean.

THAI SON RESTAURANT

+1 604 255 6436

Hastings-Sunrise

230-2800 East 1st Avenue, Vancouver

Due to the convenience of location and my undying love for bubble tea, my family and I drop by the Little Bubble Tea House 8/10 times that we go grocery shopping at T&T Supermarket. The place doesn’t get very busy, but it has never been completely empty the times that we’ve visited, by virtue of the T&T crowd that pop by for a quick snack or drink. Baby-Paca and I always order the milk cap red tea and the butter biscuit toast. Little Bubble Tea House has been doing a promotion for their milk cap series for awhile now (Only 2.50! +50 cents for pearls).

Milk cap red tea (奶蓋紅茶) with pearls : Now I gotta mention that the quality of milk cap teas really fluctuate. Sometimes it’s not sweet enough, or sometimes it’s a little watered down (they add water if the the shaken tea doesn’t fill the cup). The worst we’ve had it was when the milk cap was lumpy. I don’t think anyone would appreciate globs of congealed powder in their drink, the texture is just super unappetizing. But when that happens, we simply mix the milk cap into our tea and have it as a regular milk tea, leaving the lumpy bits that won’t dissolve at the top. Most times the milk cap red tea is decent, the flavour of the tea is not too weak, the milk cap is creamy, thick, and frothy and the pearls are faintly sweet and have a bounce to them. However, they tend to give waaaaay to much pearls, I always need to remember to ask for less.

Butter biscuit toast (奶酥吐司): The slice of bread is lightly toasted, the crust provides a nice crunch. The soft bread absorbs all the buttery goodness from the butter biscuit spread without turning soggy. For those who don’t know what butter biscuit spread tastes like, just imagine a mixture of butter, milk powder and sugar that have combined to form a crumbly, decadent paste, much like the yellow topping and filling of cocktail bun (雞尾包), but without coconut shreds. For only $2.25, I recommend giving this a try. I think it’s pretty tasty.

Baby-Paca and I usually look forward to grocery shopping as it usually means that we get milk cap tea and butter biscuit toast (but also because we enjoy picking ingredients to cook dinner with too :))