Caption Reviews (Little Ongpin, Bonqula, Chilli Padi)

These are mini-reviews, based on one visit to a restaurant. We don't have a whole lot to say about each, so we've dubbed these "caption reviews" -- reviews that seem like mere captions to photographs. These reviews are not meant to be comprehensive.

Little Ongpin
Bonqula
Chilli Padi


Little Ongpin
4093 No. 5 RoadRichmond, BC V6X 2T9
(604) 278-4667‎
(dined June 24, 2008)

[js]
Further out than our usual haunt Rekados. We decided to drop into Little Ongpin for lunch as we were in the area.

Sotanghon soup was good, but I was expecting an soup coloured by achuete. The taste is lighter than "regular" sotanghon soups, so I would say this is not the traditional recipe but rather their own.


left: sotanghon soup; right: chicken inasal

Unfortunately, I did not like the chicken inasal. The chicken itself was tasteless, and the sauce was too sweetly one-dimensional. It seems to me that the sauce was just slathered on at the end, almost like an afterthought.


I did not like the squid either and I wanted to like it. I have a similar complaint to the chicken inasal: it seems lke the squid itself had no flavour, the sauce was too sweet.

Maybe we just ordered the wrong items from the menu. They kept bringing out orders of sisig and that smelled heavenly.



Bonqula
http://s1.shard.jp/bonqula/
#165-8460 Alexandra Road, Richmond, BC
604-214-0027
(dined May 23, 2008)

[js]
We tried this restaurant based on reviews from dinehere.ca. We usually take the reviews there with many, many grains of salt, and with a dash of pepper too, and a whole array of other seasonings besides. Some reviews on the site are obviously bogus and quite a number of reviewers do not even try to be objective and comment intelligently on the food but rather uses the forum to make it known they are important.

In any case, from the reviews, it sounded like Bonqula was an enigma -- and indeed it was, because we have never been so confused in any restaurant -- even those in foreign countries -- as we were here. We were not familiar with the genre of food that Bonqula serves, except to know that it was Japanese. Looking at the menu, there were no descriptions of the items at all, so we were at a loss.

We did the best we could ordering dishes from the very foreign menu. We questioned our server on some of the dishes, but there was also a language barrier there so we did not get as much information as we would like.

[ts]
We ordered a salmon appetizer; I believe it was written up as a "salmon carpaccio" on the menu. It was pretty nice and tasty. We also received a salmon amuse bouche.


left: salmon "carpaccio"; right: salmon amuse bouche

[js]
I did pretty okay, I think. I ordered some sort of omelette with rice on a Japanese-style curry sauce. The sauce was a tad too sweet for me, as Japanese curries tend to be for my taste. Overall, I liked the dish, although I don't think I would order it again given another opportunity.


omelette with curry sauce

[ts]
I ordered tempura that came with tea-rice. The tempura was nicely executed. We also received dessert with the meal.



We found someone's review about the place with a lot more photos. Unfortunately, we don't really read Chinese.

But, do check it out: http://blog.yam.com/stee/article/1524157.


Chilli Padi
http://www.chillipadi.ca/

(dined June 5, 2008)

[ts]
I ate there a while back and I really don't have much to say at all! =) The food was pretty good. The dishes below are beef rendang, sambal bunchies (green beans) and sambal prawns.