Shabusen Yakiniku House is an all you can eat buffet that offers Korean barbecue and Japanese dish. The restaurant is located on the busy Vancouver downtown Burrard Street and it is on the second floor. So it may be a bit difficult to spot but it does have a advertisement board on the first floor along the street.
Since we went for a tough hike early in the morning that day, we were so hungry when we got back to the city at 1PM. Thus we looked for an all you can eat buffet to fill our stomach. We found Shabusen as we walked down the street and decided to give it a try.
As we walked up the stairs we could smell the Korean barbecue. It smelled so good. It was very busy in the restaurant and we had to wait for 10 minutes before getting a table. As we sat down, we were given an order sheet to place our order. The number that we put on the order sheet is for per piece, even for sushi rolls. What this mean is the dish will come with just 1 piece of sushi roll. We find this to be very efficient since we could try a piece of every single roll.
So we ordered few places of beef and pork for barbecue, about 10 pieces of salmon Sashimi, 2 salmon Nigiris, tempura, tofu, and other stuff.
The food came very quickly and started grilling it. The salmon Sashimi was very fresh and each piece was very thick. We were surprised with how thick each Sashimi was. We really loved it. The salmon Nigiris was not bad either, but it did not feel as fresh as the Sashimi. The beef and pork barbecue meat was already marinated and had a lot of flavor. We really liked the way how we grilled it.
As we finish up the first round and wanted to order the second round, we were told it was the last call. We were surprised because it was not even 2PM and the restaurant closes at 2:30PM. We ordered more salmon Sashimi to enjoy the feast and few more plates of pork and beef for barbecue.
Overall, Shabusen Yakiniku House was quite good and offered a variety of food selection. One thing that they do note is that they make sure you do not waste food and order too much. We overheard a table wanted to order more and the owner asked if they could finish. The price is $21 per person, which we think is reasonable.
Japadog is a popular hot dog joint located in Vancouver Canada. It started with just a hot dog stand back in 2005 and has since expanded with multiple hot dog stands and even sit in restaurants. Japadog is unique compared to regular hot dog. It offers a variety of unique flavors that originate from Japan. Then it has also expanded into selling other type of fast food such as fries and Takoyaki. Nevertheless, Japadog is a place that people will definitely try when visiting Vancouver.
During the beautiful Memorial Day long weekend, we decided to visit Vancouver. We got to Vancouver and checked in to the hotel at around 3:30PM. We were hungry and found a Japadog sit in restaurant near by. The restaurant was only 10 minutes walk from the hotel and the cloud was clearing up, so we started walking over.
The Japadog restaurant was not big. There was probably around 20 stools with few tiny tables. Before we sat down, we placed our orders first. We ordered a classic Okonomi Japadog with mayonnaise and bonito flake, a Kobe beef Japadog that was made from the famous Kobe beef, and lastly a serving of poutine.
We waited for about 5 minutes to get our Japadog, which was quite fast. The Okonomi Japadog had a lot of flavors, especially with the bonito flakes. However, it still tasted very similar to regular hotdog, so it did not feel that special for some reason.
The Kobe beef Japadog was very aromatic. It smelled so good with Kobe beef smell and the seaweed on top of the hot dog was really amazing. We loved the combination of seaweed and hotdog. It was just awesome.
The reason we got the poutine was because we were in Canada and must order a poutine. However, as we expected, the poutine was not good here. We were told that the tossed fries at Japadog is very good, but we did not order it.
As we were about to finish, a horde of tourist just came in an pretty much occupied the entire restaurant. We were glad that we came 10 minutes early.
Overall, Japadog was an exciting place to try and the hot dog was quite good. We probably will not try again though, but if you have not tried it before, we recommend people to try it. In terms of price, Japadog was at least $7 or more, compared to $5 regular hot dog.
McCall Point trail is located within Tom McCall Reserve. It is about 1.5 hour East of Portland. McCall Point trail is a 2 miles long trail and very well known for its wildflowers during the sprint time and many Oregonians love to come here for a hike in Spring. On this very beautiful sunny Saturday, we drove out on I84 and headed to Tom McCall Reserve.
The drive to Tom McCall Reserve was very smooth. One we get to Mosier, we got off I84 and drove on historic highway 30. Highway 30 was very narrow with bridge that only allowed one car to go through. After driving about 4 miles on Highway 30, we got to Rowena Viewpoint, which is where the trail head is at.
We got to the trail head around 9:30AM and the parking lot is about half full. From the parking lot, which is at Rowena Viewpoint, we could see the windy highway 30 going down the mountain. It was quite interesting. Some people hopped over the wall and walked on the cliff side to get better selfie photos, but it was very dangerous.
We headed to the trail head and there was a lot of wildflower on the field, even at the start of trail head. We saw many girls wearing their beautiful dress to come out here for a photo shoot.
As we hiked towards the top, there were even more wildflower to be seen on the side of the trail. We just love it. As the trial gained elevation, we could also see Mount Adams on the North side and Mount Hood on the East. The scene was just amazing.
We also saw a Labrador Retriever, 2 Golden Retrievers, and a St Bernard on the hiking trail although the sign specifically said no pets allowed. The dogs were very well behaved however. There were also many people brought their new borns to this beautiful place.
The trail itself has about 1000ft in elevation gain over about 2 miles, so it is a relatively easy hiking trail. It took us about an hour to reach the top, but it was mainly due to spending so much time on taking pictures.
At the top of the trail, there was not really any seating areas. So most people just sat on the ground to enjoy the flower and the breeze of wind. There were also bees flying around.
When we got back down to the parking lot, the parking lot was entirely full of cars and so many people were there. There is another trail(Rowena Plateau Trail) on the East side of the parking lot, which is very easy with essentially no elevation gains and very suitable for young children and seniors. However, it did not have as much wildflower.
Overall, McCall Point trail is our favorite trail this year so far. There are many other trails around this area and we definitely want to explore this region to check out more wildflower.
Looking For Chai is a restaurant that offers Taiwanese cuisine. The restaurant is located at Bellevue, Washington, just off Highway 405. It is at Northup plaza and the plaza does offer enough parking space for all the customers. The name of the restaurant simply means "find tea", it is quite interesting.
The restaurant opens at 11AM in the morning and we got there around 12:30PM. When we got there, there were already people lining up at the door. There were 4 groups of people before us. Luckily, a table of 2 became available and we were the only party with 2 people and thus got our table right away.
As we sat down, we were given the menu and it does have a wide variety of Taiwanese dishes. The dishes in the menu varies from street food, to steaks, to hotpot. We were quite hungry, but could not try everything that we want. So we ordered a bowl of beef noodle, Taiwanese rib rice, side dish with egg, sea weed, and tofu curd, and popcorn chicken.
The food was delivered to us rather quickly. The beef noodle came with a large bowl, but we were hoping that it had more soup in it. Along with the beef noodle, it also came with pickled cabbage, which is the best thing to have along with the soup.
Then the side dish came. The dish had less food than what we expected. There were only around 6 pieces of sea weed, 4 pieces of egg cut from 1 single egg, and the tofu curd was quite thick. It could have been sliced thinner. There were not enough sauce on the dish either.
The Taiwanese rib rice was decent and just what we expected. The rib was juice and flavorful. So nothing wrong or special here.
The popcorn chicken came with basil on top. The popcorn chicken was decent. It was fried correctly with not much grease. It also came with quite a large portion.
Before we left the restaurant, we also ordered a braised pork rice as to go. A single serve of the braised pork rice was quite large with a lot of rice. However, there was not much sauce on the rice and it was a bit tasteless and not much flavor.
Overall, we think that Looking For Chai is not the best choice for Taiwanese cuisine. Facing East would be a better choice.
Roozengaarde is a well known and popular tulip far located in Washington state. It is about an hour North of Seattle in the Skagit Valley. Every year, tens of thousands of tourists visit the tulip festival at Skagit valley to enjoy the beautiful scene of tulip flowers. There is also another tulip farm called Tulip Town, but we chose to visit Roozengaarde this time since it is a tiny bit closer.
We got to Roozengaarde around 9:30AM in the morning on the Eastern weekend and there were already so very crowded. Unlike Woodburn Tulip Farm in Oregon, Roozengaarde did not collect the fee when we parked the car. Instead, the fee was collected at the entrance after the car was parked. The entrance fee per person was $10 during the weekend. The fee was $7 during the weekday and cheaper.
Roozengaarde had a rather decent size garden with various types and colors of tulip. The display of the tulips were amazing. We were overwhelmed by the color within the garden. Other than the tulip, there were also other types of flowers to provide even more contrast in color.
Just like Woodburn Tulip Farm, Roozengaarde also had a windmill located near the entrance and most people take photo there. The windmill was actually not as interesting as the garden however.
After taking several photos at the garden, we headed to the farm area. The tulip farm area was quite small compared to Woodburn Tulip Farm. We walked over the farm within like 5 minutes and the color of the tulips at the farm was not as amazing as the ones at the garden.
By comparing the tulip farm at Woodburn and Roozengaarde, the big difference is that Roozengaarde offers experience with both garden styled tulip and a tulip farm. Woodburn Tulip Farm is literally a tulip farm, but it is still a joyful walk around the large colorful tulip farm. In addition, Woodburn Tulip Farm has a lot of other activities such as carnival games, but Roozengaarde does not have. Furthermore, Woodburn Tulip Farm allows pets so there are many furry friends there.
We really quite enjoyed the garden at Roozengaarde as it provided a lot of opportunities for taking great photos. The tulip garden also does not require you to wear boots since it's mostly gravel walk path or on the grass. One thing to note is that you cannot walk within the rows of tulips at the farm, so make sure the rules are followed here.
Catherine Creek trail is located about 90 minutes East of Portland, on the North side of Columbia Gorge. It is just a bit further East than Dog Mountain. It is a relatively easy hike that offers 2 miles round trip trail. There isn't a parking lot at this place and the parking spaces are along the road. Thus it is recommended to come here early since the parking space runs out rather quickly. On this beautiful sunny day at the end of March, we decided to go for a hike at Catherine Creek and wanted to see if we are lucky enough to see wildflower blossom.
We left Portland around 8AM in the morning and got to Catherine Creek day use area just before 10AM. We took Highway 14 on the Washington side instead of taking I84 on the Oregon side because we did not want to pay for crossing the toll bridge. When we got there, there were only few parking spots left and we were lucky to grab one.
We started hiking at the trail head but 30 minutes later we realized that we were hiding towards West instead of going North. Then we checked the map and saw that we started on the wrong path right from the beginning. At the trail head, we should have took the path on right side towards East first. Then that trail would take us onto the right path. So we had to head back down to where we started, otherwise we would have ended up at Coyote Wall.
We got back on the right path and the hiking trail was quite easy. After about 15 minutes, we walked on a wooden plank to cross the creek. The water was running rather fast in the creek.
After 20 minutes, we got to the joint where the path diverges. The path on the right loops back down to trail head. The trail on the left takes us further up and do another 2 miles loop. We figured that 2 miles is nothing so we headed further up and it was totally worth it. There wasn't much tree up there and it was just a beautiful lush green of hills. We just loved it. We could also see various purple and yellow wildflowers on the grass field that have just started to blossom. The wildflowers will most likely in full blossom for the next 2 weeks or so.
As we loop back down the path actually took us onto the road instead of looping back to trail head. It was quite strange but we figured that we probably took the wrong turn. Some part of the trail was not very obvious but it was ok because we could see everything from the top. So we walked on the road for 1 minutes or 2 to head back to the trail head.
At the trail head, we just found out that there is a shoe brush to let people to clean their shoes before and after the hike. This is to prevent the seed of other weeds to get to this area.
Overall, we loved Catherine Creek on this beautiful sunny day. We could see Columbia Gorge from the top and we could imagine that the scene is even more beautiful when wildflowers are in full blossom.
Ruth's Chris Steak House is a nation wide chain restaurant that specializes in steak. It's signature steak dish is ribeye and its menu offers a wide variety of ribeye steak dishes, even with the bone in ribeye. Ruth's Chris Steak House price range is on the high end side and each step is not cheap. However, since we were given this special opportunity to have dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House, we decided to try it out.
We went to Ruth's Chris Steak House at Portland downtown. Its location is right beside Pioneer Square, and across from Banana Republic on Broadway Street. As we walk in, we were welcomed by the staff and it also offered valet parking. The entrance of the restaurant is quite grande and seemed like a event hall. We waited just for about a minutes to get taken to our table. All the dining tables were on the second floor. The first floor was for happy hour menus.
We got a 2 people table by the balcony with great view on the first floor. The waitress greeted us with the party's name and waited for both of us to sit down before handing us the menu. She also asked about whether there was any special occasion for the dinner, so we were guessing that the restaurant could arrange a free dessert or something.
The menu here was a bit different from other steak house. The steak entree really just comes with a steak on the plate. There was no side or anything else other than the steak. The sides needed to be ordered separately. We first ordered spicy shrimp as the appetizer, then ordered harvest salad and lobster bisque soup as started. Ruth's Chris offered soup of the day as well, which is vegetable soup with pasta. For entree, we ordered a New York strip steak and a ribeye steak. The restaurant could also divided the steak for 2 if we wanted to since each steak was quite large. As for side, we ordered shoe string fries and a coke.
The bread was delivered to us with cream butter. The cream butter was scooped like a vanilla ice cream and it was really good.
About 5 minutes later, the spicy shrimp was delivered to the table. It smelled amazing. There were about 8 pieces of shrimp on the plate, which was more than what we expected. In the middle, there was a lemon wrapped in a sack. That was quite interesting and it prevented lemon seeds from falling out. The shrimps had butterfly cut and was fried perfectly with crispy texture.
Then our starters go here. We asked the salad dressing to be placed on the side, but it was already mixed in the salad. We did not ask the waitress about it, but the waitress was quick to realize this issue and apologized to us. We didn't really mind it but was satisfied with the service. The salad came with pecan, fried onion, bacon, and cheese. We really like it and the fried onion was really good. The lobster bisque was a creamy orange soup with few small pieces of lobster. The soup really had fresh lobster taste, but it was just ok.
After 10 minutes, our big entree was finally here. The plates were sizzling hot and we were told that it was 500 degree Fahrenheit and we were advised not to touch it. The streak smelled so good. We ordered both of them to be medium. As we cut it open, we could see the beautiful pink in the middle, just the way we wanted. The New York strip streak had more firm texture and more chewy. The ribeye was much softer. We liked the ribeye a lot more. The shoe string fries was very good too. It was warm and fresh cut. The only problem was that the fries was so thin and became hard to pick it up as we dig into it.
Through out the entire dinner, the waitress was on top of filling our water and coke. We did not even have to ask for and we were very satisfied with the overall service.
It was a good dining experience but the food was expensive. The entree itself was already about $50. We do recommend this place for special occasions as it did provide amazing atmosphere suited for any occasions for celebrations.
Las Vegas is also known to be the city with the most casino in the world. It is known to have world's largest casinos along with high end fancy hotels. Most of the casinos are along the Las Vegas strip. Along the strip, every hotel has its own unique charm such as its architectural design, shows, night clubs, bars and restaurants. The night life at Las Vegas just never ends.
During the President's Day long weekend, we went to Las Vegas to have a fun weekend. We took the Alaska flight from Portland to Las Vegas on Friday night and we were amazed by the plane that was giving us the ride to Las Vegas. It was a brand new plane with large seat and large leg room. Each seat on the plane had its own universal remote for playing games. We could also send text through the screen in front of us to another person. We were very satisfied with the flight.
When we got to Las Vegas, the night was quite chill. We took the taxi ride to Bellagio and the ride costed us around $30 due to the traffic. When we went for hotel check in, there were so many people lined up for check in. It took about 30 minutes to get us checked in to the hotel room.
Since it was very late already, we walked around the casino and went to Noodles for a late dinner. It was a Chinese restaurant serving all kinds of Chinese food but it was extremely expensive.
The room that we stayed at has a view at the Bellagio fountain. The fountain starts every 30 minutes before 3PM and every 15 minutes after 3PM. The music and the fountain dance were different each time.
On the next day morning, the first thing we did was going to Planet Hollywood to try Gordon Ramsay Burgers. Since it was a restaurant owned by Hell's Kitchen chef Gordon Ramsay, this was a must try for us.
Afterwards, we walked towards South on the strip to check out other stores and hotels. The Coca Cola store was quite interesting. It had a large variety different Coca Cola bottles wrapped in different colors. There were also many other Coca Cola swags such as under wears, pajamas, and backpacks. We really liked the polar bear stuff animal and thus we bought one. Beside the Coca Cola store, there was the M&M World. There was also a variety of M&M flavors for people to pick and choose, and the cost was simply based on the weight.
We then walked to the next major intersection along MGM and looped around to Exlibur and New York New York on the other side. We did not go to Luxor and Mandalay Bay because it was further down. At New York New York, there was also the Hershey's store. The Hershey's store was not as interesting but it did have a Statue of Liberty that was made out of chocolate and Twizzlers.
We continued to walk back and checked out Aria and Cosmopolitan hotels along the way. At night, we were originally going to go clubbing at Banks at Bellagio, but decided to just stay at hotel room since we weren't feeling well.
On the second day, we went to Bellagio's buffet for brunch. The buffet was extremely expensive and almost $50 per person. It was totally not worth it since we could spend $50 on something that is much better. We were quite disappointed. We then went to Caeser Palace and this was one of the most fancy hotel we have been to so far. In front of the hotel, there was an imitation of Trevi Fountain of Italy. There were also many stone sculptures within the hotel. The shop at the Forum were also very fancy with stone sculptures every where.
We played some Blackjack games at Mirage because it only has minimum bet of $10. In addition, it was an automatic win if we get 21 pints on first 2 cards. We made small profit there but later lost all to slot machines.
We walked towards North and looped back to Encore and Venetian. Venetian hotel had similar style. has Caeser Palace, but not as fancy in our opinions. It had a indoor canal with boat that allow tourists to ride on, but it was kind of awkward when everyone was watching you. We also saw few wedding photos being taken there.
In the evening, we went to watch the "O" show by Cirque du Soleil and it was spectacular. We highly recommend watching this show while you are at Las Vegas.
Overall, Las Vegas was a very fun place to be to enjoy the long weekend and relieves all the stress. We think that the slot machines are essentially a rip off and we will avoid it next time. Since smoking is allowed at the casino, we don't recommend people to bring their kids to Las Vegas due to the amount of second hand smoke there.
