Chinatown Meat Store Hosts Barbecue

Chinese ham being air dried in the store

Dollar Meat Store has been in Chinatown for 54 years and today it hosted an interesting event -- at the back of the store they set up some barbecue grills and had a chef from Michelin-starred Kissa Tanto grill some A5 wagyu beef steaks, a meat spice brand to make some Maui ribs, and showcase its own brand of Chinese sausages, and a local chilli sauce brand, Holy Duck Chili Oil.

Local brand Holy Duck Chili Oil

For free.

We just filled out an online survey, followed Dollar Meat Store on Instagram and then we were in!

The meat was donated by Dollar Meat Store and was delicious, including prawns and scallops each wrapped in bacon, and there was coleslaw too. Drinks were provided by Maxim's Bakery, Hong Kong style milk tea, cold brew coffee, and iced lemon tea.

We tried the Hong Kong style milk tea with half the sugar added which was actually just right.

As we arrived soon after the event started at 11am there weren't too many people, so we were able to chat with people and comfortably move around in the back of the lot. 

Afterwards my relative who is visiting Vancouver not only bought a pack of Chinese sausages but also two jars of chilli sauce! Win win!

It is very generous of Dollar Meat Store to invite people to come eat for free -- they could have charged admission and people would have come anyway. Nevertheless it's a great way to bring people down to Chinatown, check out the neighbourhood and support local businesses.

Bottles of Hong Kong-style milk tea

 

Palm Springs: Supersize Me

Super thick corned beef sandwiches at Sherman's

We're in Palm Springs and we still can't get over how huge the portions are at restaurants.

This evening we went to Sherman's Deli & Bakery and it's quite shocking how much food they serve people. Salads are a large platter plate with a giant heap of greens enough for four people to share.

Part of the meatloaf dinner meal at Sherman's

A dinner portion of meatloaf includes a large plate of salad and two thick slices of meatloaf, gravy, cooked vegetables, and a baked potato. It was enough for two hungry people to share.

I had a hot corned beef sandwich and there was so much meat layered in between two slices of rye bread that it was impossible to fully bite into it. Needless to say I only had half of it and took the rest home.

Even though she saw us unable to finish our food, the waitress asked if we wanted to order dessert!

The same goes for Billy Reed's, a large restaurant that feels like being in a family home, with old wooden furniture, painted plates on the walls, and large tables.

A dinner entree includes a soup or salad, a choice of mini loaf of corn bread, date nut, banana nut, or garlic toast, and choose between French fries, mashed potatoes, sweet potato, baked potato or rice pilaf.

And did you want dessert with that? 

Roast turkey with sweet potato at Billy Reed's

Is it any wonder why so many Americans are overweight and obese?

We wondered why the restaurants didn't make their portions smaller so there would be less food wastage? But it seemed like most customers did take home leftovers.

Perhaps the restaurants want to give the impression they are giving people value for money? Or they think shrinkflation would be bad for business so they need to keep serving the same amount of food?

Meanwhile a well known restaurant that we have visited called Babe's Bar-B-Que & Brewery, which was known for its barbecue ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork and corn bread, closed in August because of rising costs.

Even though the restaurant has been around for 22 years, it could not keep the 12,000 sq ft space packed with diners all the time, and the increased costs for ingredients and labour made it challenging to keep going. 

Dessert anyone? Strawberry pie at Billy Reed's

It plans to open in a new location in January, about one-quarter the size to keep costs down.

"When Babe's opened 20 years ago, everything was so much cheaper: utilities were cheaper, payroll was cheaper. Everything was just you know,... it was able to work," said Lucky Callender, the owner of Babe's was quoted as saying in August.

"Our revenues were strong at The River, you know, we did good business. It's just -- if you do high revenues, you should see the profit. And the problem was, we weren't seeing enough profit to make sense. And, how can we retain that profit? Obviously it's going to a smaller space."

Meanwhile we noticed at least two multiplex theatres have shut down in Palm Springs, one inside a shopping mall. It's a sad sign of the times here, that the economy is struggling, which is perhaps why people feel good having big portions?

Palm Springs: Massive Portions and Good Value Dining Out

The memorably large signature chicken pot pie at Lulu's

During our trip to Palm Springs I was overwhelmed by the American portions -- the giant plates of food were really scary and to know that the people sitting at the next table were able to polish them off while we shared and still struggled to finish. Needless to say we took a lot of takeaway boxes of leftover food home.

Pastrami sandwich with coleslaw at Manhattan

Most memorable was the chicken pot pie we had a Lulu's, a restaurant serving Californian cuisine. On the weekends Lulu's makes its signature chicken pot pie, so four of us thought we'd try one each. When they arrived, we didn't think the pastry covering the giant bowl would be as big as our faces!

The filling was actually quite good, not too salty, but we could not finish. We all ate half of what was served to us and took the rest home.

We also ate a lot deli food, as we frequented two places in particular, Sherman's and Manhattan in the Desert. Both have extensive menus with every combination you can think of in terms of smoked meat sandwiches
, chopped liver, latkes, sandwiches, hot sandwiches, soups, salads and yes even desserts. Sadly we were so full each time we could not even attempt to eat dessert without the fear of exploding.

Rack of ribs, sweet potato at Babe's

Although Sherman's is probably a few notches better than Manhattan in terms of quality, but we liked the convenience of the latter and ended up going there three times. The corned beef sandwich and pastrami sandwiches are great, love the coleslaw, and tried the chicken-in-a-pot -- a massive see-through pot and lid arrives at the table, choc full of noodles, half a chicken chopped into three pieces, carrots, a matzo ball and a kreplach, which is a dumpling filled with ground meat and potatoes. 

This menu item is big enough for three people to share, two of us struggled to finally finish it, though the chicken broth was fantastic, flavourful and not salty. The chicken meat on the bone was not overcooked, and was nice to chew on bones for once! The servers must have been surprised to see clean bones on the plate!

Sherman's has cabbage rolls that are better the next day, and giant plates of thinly sliced corned beef on top of a wedge of boiled cabbage, and baked potato. 

One place we had a sophisticated Italian dinner at Il Corso, next to the Rowan hotel. As soon as we stepped in we like the warm ambience, high ceilings, the waiters not too snobby. Two of us shared the special of Dover Sole that was filleted tableside, two slices each with some yellow zucchini. A bit boring of a presentation, but portion-wise it was just perfect after having just shared two salads with three people.

We made room for this wet tiramisu at Il Corso

The branzino with a tomato-based sauce and olives was a winner too; the cioppino looked good, but the lobster was not fresh. 

We also had enough room to try the tiramisu, again, good to share, though it was on the wet side and not creamy enough.

Babe's BBQ and Brewery is a favourite and it's not hard to see why, again with the massive portions. There are giant sculptures of bronze pigs out front. They look very cute -- just don't associate them with food!

Three of us tackled a full rack of ribs and almost managed to finish them with difficulty. The side of sweet potato was actually better than the ribs, probably boiled before it was baked as it was not dry at all. The corn bread was disappointing -- crumbly and dry. Everyone took home leftovers that night.

Pumpkin pie was the special dessert at Billy Reed

Another place which is an institution is Billy Reed's which opened in 1975. It's a massive restaurant and yet the Friday night we went it was packed full of locals. It has an old school look with antiques and bric brac displayed all around the place, but people come here for the food.

The prime rib (10oz Billy cut) included cooked vegetables, a salad, a baked potato and corn bread. It was pretty darn good, and same with the special of halibut fillet that was breaded and fried perfectly with sliced almonds on top. 

When we came in (6.30pm), we saw other people already eating dessert, and the lemon meringue pie was very tall, two-thirds of it was the whipped egg whites with sugar, the rest lemon curd. Two elderly women polished off hot fudge sundaes in another booth.

Four of us (I ate the most) managed to finish a slice of pumpkin pie, the special dessert that day. It was spiced with cinnamon and surprisingly not too sweet.

Noodles, kreplach, matzo ball, and chicken soup

Our one and only taste of Asian food was after our tram ride and we each had a bowl of beef pho. It hit the spot and was so nice to use chopsticks! Mine had lots of tendon in it, and it was delicious.

Just before we went to the airport this morning we had breakfast at IHop. We were surprised to wait a few minutes for a table on a 9am on Sunday, but we were soon seated. Four seniors ordered the 55+ breakfast which is two eggs, one bacon, one sausage and one small slice of ham with hash browns and a pancake.

I had the quick breakfast of two eggs over easy, hash browns, two pieces of bacon and wholewheat toast.

I tried the pancakes and they are so fluffy. The hash browns are great with runny egg yolk on them...

Thank goodness we were able to polish off our last meal there.

Quick breakfast at IHop with toast

After we checked in at the airport, WestJet revealed there would be an hour delay. Good thing we had a really big breakfast!