Rating / 2 out of 5 stars

Beautiful Island is a Taiwanese restaurant located on Imperial Street in Burnaby that appears to have been recently renovated.

The dining room at Beautiful Island is quite spacious and smells like new paint. The wood flooring and dark tables add a modern touch. A bubble tea bar is located right up front near the entrance. Portraits of photographed tapas are displayed on the walls. The place is sparse, and feels more like someone’s office space furnished by Ikea.

(Top to bottom: 1. Taiwanese Meatball 2. Bubble Tea.)

Although they have a regular menu, we ordered some small dishes to share: Oyster omelette, Taiwanese meatball, Taiwanese sausage, Chicken braised in wine, a couple bowls of rice and a hot milk green tea.

Our milk green tea arrived first and it was awful. The tea was lukewarm and the milk concoction tasted a bit off. We sent the tea back to be reheated in hopes it would taste better when properly heated. It did not.

The oyster omelette looked like slop, but luckily tasted better than it looked: bits of scrambled eggs, oysters mixed with rice cake and topped with red sauce (which tasted like ketchup mixed with Sriracha hot sauce). The steamed wine braised chicken was moist and tender, but a bit salty to my liking. The Taiwanese meatball had barely any minced meat and bamboo shoots and was mostly sticky rice cake. The red sauce over top did not have any of the chili or garlicky goodness we were used to. Finally, the Taiwanese sausage was decent and paired well with the slivers of raw garlic served on the side.

(Top to bottom: 1. Oyster Omelette 2. Taiwanese sausage with slivers of raw garlic.)

Our bill including taxes and tips came to just under $25. The prices are decent at Beautiful Island and they have a large menu. The food, though, is mediocre (perhaps working through some kinks in the kitchen?) But the hot milk green tea — I feel nauseous just thinking about it.

Perfect for: Last ditch effort for late night snacks in Burnaby. Avoid the bubble tea.

The Details

#1 — 4648 Imperial Street
604.468.0258

Rating / 4 out of 5 stars

Alvin Garden is what used to be Xiang Cuisine – now re-branded with an updated decor. The food remains more or less the same: well executed dishes from the Hunan region of China with intense heat that will likely satisfy anyone who has love for some spicy goodness.

(Top to bottom: 1. Julienned seaweed marinated with garlic and peppers. 2. Stir fried green beans with generous amounts of chili peppers.)

We ordered the spicy pan fried green beans with minced pork, a familiar dish that’s been heaped with chili and seasoned with salty, preserved vegetables. Next, fish (Ling Cod) head with tofu, a spicy stew served in a mini wok over a portable flame. Followed by some appetizer sized dishes: dried bean curd with celery marinated in vinegar, and seaweed with ginger and garlic.

Finally we had chicken in spicy sauce: diced chicken (bones and all) swimming in a spicy broth, and a pot of rice to balance out the heat and saltiness. We initially asked for all of our dishes to be very spicy, but the waitress suggested a medium heat instead. We normally ignore that advice, but this time felt the server knew best.

(Top to bottom: 1. Chicken in spicy sauce. 2. Dried bean curd with celery.)

Luckily, we listened to our server and had our dishes served in medium heat, as they were extremely spicy, but fantastic. Overall, we enjoyed all the dishes at Alvin Garden except the spicy dried bean curd with celery. This dish had a strangely familiar sour flavour (similar to balsamic vinegar). The combination of balsamic vinegar and Chinese spices was too odd for us. You also have to watch out for all the meat and fish dishes that are served diced with the bones still in it. Those not used to it, will be fishing bones out with each bite.

Our bill including taxes and tips came to just under $55. Alvin Garden isn’t the cheapest Chinese restaurant around, but it’s well worth it. Make a pit stop to the ATM, though, they’re cash only for bills under $50.

Perfect for: Fiery, home cooked Hunan style dishes to keep your belly warm.

The Details

4850 Imperial Street, Burnaby
604.437.0828

Rating / 2 out of 5 stars

Kiku Sushi sits in a tiny strip mall complex next to Burnaby’s Metrotown that houses a couple banks, an insurance provider and London Drugs. Joining the ranks of modern sushi restaurants in Vancouver, Kiku has their own special lineup of contemporary interpretations on traditional sushi.

(Top to bottom: 1. Winter California Roll 2. Tobiko and Tamago Nigiri Sushi.)

Case and I sat down in the spacious booths, serenaded by the gentle pop tunes of Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach on 103.5 QMFM. The menu looked impressive. The chef has created special house rolls that veer off slightly from the traditional recipe. We ordered some Nigiri: Tamago, Toro, salmon, Saba and Tobiko. In addition, we ordered a spicy tuna roll and Kiku’s own Winter California roll.

The sushi was average at best. The rice wasn’t properly packed and disintegrated upon contact with chopsticks while old standbys like Tuna belly, which is normally a no-brainer, was surprisingly mushy and sinewy. The saba was extraordinarily dry, while the Tamago lacked any discernable flavour. The spicy tuna rolls were pretty decent, but perhaps it was mercifully masked by the spices in the hot sauce. The Winter California roll — well, that was just something that should probably be left off any menu: a california roll drowned in a creamy, motoyaki-like sauce, then torched. It was like dunking sushi in microwaved chip dip. Hideous.

(Top to bottom: 1. Tuna and Salmon Nigiri Sushi 2. Spicy Tuna Roll.)

The service was quite decent, albeit slow for an empty restaurant. The staff including chefs and servers were quite amiable and seemed eager to please, and the presentation of the food was deceptively pretty. Our meal including taxes and tip was $22. But Kiku Sushi was trying to run before they could walk, attempting to match contemporary sushi creations popularized by places like The Eatery, Zipang and even Sushiyama. They should really stick to getting down the fundamentals first.

Perfect for: bypassing your time while you’re waiting for your mortgage to be approved next door.

The Details

4986 Kingsway, Burnaby
604.434.6020

Rating / 2 out of 5 stars

Everyone I know appears to have some sort of childhood memory of Uncle Willy’s — that quintessentially mid-80′s dining phenomenon known as the all-you-can-eat buffet. Quite frankly, it surprises me to no end that this artifact of the past is still around. On a mutual dare, a group of us decided to head out to Uncle Willy’s to revisit this culinary curiosity and to reminisce about days gone by. Fried chicken and ice cream, here we come.

(Clockwise: 1. The Roast Beef is actually not bad. 2. Lime Jello, a classic buffet condiment. 3. Uncle Willy’s has a time limit policy — you know, so you don’t stick around overnight for breakfast the next morning.)

Not much has appeared to have changed at Uncle Willy’s, although to be quite honest any memories I have about the restaurant is just a haze of foggy recollections of extended family gatherings. The parental generation has always regarded Uncle Willy’s as good value — whatever twisted notion of value that cramming as much food into your face as your stomach could handle actually offered.

We arrived on an early weekday evening and the restaurant was unsurprisingly empty. The vast restaurant felt like a cafeteria in a retirement home. One corner of the restaurant was cordoned off with tape. We paid for our meal and received a green slip with the rules of dining printed on them. Our friend Steve, who had arrived earlier and was already seated at a booth, had already been admonished for not displaying his green ticket on the table. Rules are important here.

(Clockwise: 1. A plate of food, including the infamous fried chicken. 2. The roast chicken is roasted on-site and is perfectly edible. 3. The feed line.)

When we’ve all settled, staking our claim on a table in the middle of the restaurant, we headed towards the beginning of the buffet line. The familiar row of heat lamps hovering over trays of steaming food was highlighted by neon signs proclaiming a particular section as a certain course in the meal. There were the old standbys: green salad with your choice of familiar dressing: italian, thousand island, ranch; corn niblets; peas and carrots; some kind of pasta; french fries; roast potatoes and mashed potatoes with gravy. There were also some new dishes I didn’t recall having seen before: sweet and sour pork; curry chick peas and chow mein. Dishes like the pasta were predictably terrible: haphazardly seasoned and the consistency of baby food. Others like the corn niblets and peas and carrots were sufficiently adequate, as these canned and frozen types of products are ideal for withstanding abuse.

What most of us were actually looking forward to was the infamous carvery and the fried chicken. There, at the end of the line — the holy grail of the buffet. Meat. Today (as it was decades ago), they had roast ham and roast beef. The server at the end dutifully slices off two thin layers of meat and gingerly places it on our plate. The ham was a bit dry, but otherwise the flavour was decent. The roast beef was not bad: adequately seasoned and tender and moist (depending on what end you get sliced off).

The famed fried chicken didn’t disappoint. I mean, it wasn’t outstanding by any stretch, but the batter was nice and crunchy and the majority of the pieces were quite juicy.

(Clockwise. The four desserts of the apocalypse. 1. Cream Puff. 2. Rice Pudding. 3. Apple Crumble. 4. Chocolate Brownie.)

The dessert bar was basically a stainless steel and glass cabinet, much like that of your typical high school cafeteria. Lonely, carefully portioned cups of dessert sat waiting in the chiller awaiting someone to select them. Together, with our friends Steve, Mike and Virg, Case and I altogether tried out the soft serve, cream puff, rice pudding, chocolate brownie, apple crumble and lime jello. The cream puff, we were told, was decent. We found, however, the rice pudding and apple crumble to be hideously unappetizing. The chocolate brownie was so-so, but suffered from being dried out while the lime jello had a similar texture to a rubber tire.

Overall, for just under $30 for two people — we found it to be a terrible value. Consuming large quantities of subpar food is not a good deal, no matter how you slice it. It wasn’t all bad, though. For 3 hours, we enjoyed  reminiscing and carousing, well past the 1.5 hour limit. To be fair, we really only ate for 1 hour, the rest was just friendly chatter — proving that even the most terrible meals could be enjoyed in the company of good friends.

If the stars are properly aligned one day, then we may do what our friend Steve suggested — come back in 15 years and try it all again.

Perfect for: reliving the past or preparing yourself for winter hibernation.

The Details

6411 Nelson Avenue, Burnaby
604.431.0399

Rating / 4 out of 5 stars

Bubble Tea houses have become about as ubiquitous as Sushi restaurants and Starbucks (okay, it hasn’t quite reached that epidemic level, but its getting there). As the cultural landscape of Vancouver shifts, so too does its culinary tastes. So in addition to the old standbys: 7-11 Slurpees, DQ Blizzards, or plain old Ice Cream Cones — we now have many tasty alternatives to cooling down: Halo Halo, Ice Plates, Asian fruit slushes and of course Bubble Tea. When the temperature starts heading north of 28 degrees, Case and I make our pilgrammage to Little Tea House, one of the original Bubble Tea Houses to open up in Vancouver.

The original Richmond location has long since closed — but we’ve discovered the Metrotown franchise (near the Superstore) to be the most consistent in quality. Our beverage of choice — isn’t really a beverage at all. The Hong Kong Style Red Bean slush is basically sweetened red bean topped with milk blended with ice and tapioca pearls added for good measure (if that’s your thing).

The creamy, icy slush is then stirred to create a magically refreshing escape from the summer heat. Many Bubble Tea shops offer their version of the HK Style Red Bean — Case and I believe the Little Tea House in Metrotown are the only ones that get it right.

Perfect for:

Relief form the summer heat — in a plastic cup to go.

The Details

Metropolis at Metrotown
4700 Kingsway, Burnaby
604.438.4787