Mi Mexico - Bellingham

Me and PIC went down to Bellingham to do some shopping, well I didn't intend on doing more than grocery shopping but as many of you know that changes quickly when you see the deals across the line. We were hungry as we left around 1pm and didn't have lunch yet and were trying to keep from eating at the mall again. So we looked up urbanspoon and settled on Mi Mexico. The restaurant is very colourful and the decor is quite festive. The menu for this place is HUGE! Lots of things we didn't quite know what they were since it's not your regular Tex-Mex options. We settled on a chicken Quesadilla and a dish called Pollo Con Crema but unfortunately we just missed the lunch specials by 30 minutes. Turns out they end at 3pm BOOOO!! Anywho, we figured what they hey lets just get the same in the regular portion. While the food was being prepared, they gave us warm tortilla chips and salsa. Sorry no picture of the salsa, but it was not too spicy, but it had some heat, especially if you got one of the seeds from a hot pepper on your chip. The food took a little longer than we thought and we sorta finished the chips before the main course came.

Onto the actual dishes, first off we have Pollo Con Crema ($13.99). This was a dish that consisted of Chicken, Mushrooms, Tomatoes, Avocado, Onions, Cheese, and Rice. Served with tortillas on the side.

Pollo Con Crema

As you can see in the picture that it was really, really creamy and it was a really big serving. How I ate it was I scooped the contents of the dish into the tortilla and ate it like a soft taco. It was really rich and add the avocado and it pushes you to another level of richness. It took me a bit to realize there was actually rice in the middle, but at that point I pretty much tapped out and put down my cutlery in defeat. It was really good but maybe the next time I have this, it will be the lunch size portion as it was way to big for one person, thank goodness for take home containers.

PIC wanted the Quesadilla ($8.49) with chicken as the filling. It was served with Guacamole, Sour Cream, and Onions. It also comes with tomatoes, but PIC doesn't like raw tomatoes so we omitted that from our order.

Quesadilla with Chicken

It had alot of cheese and a decent amount of chicken. The outer edge had a nice crispy texture to it and the guacamole and sour cream were good but nothing really special. I wish they had put them on the side instead of serving it on top of the dish. We couldn't finish this either so we took it home, the problem is with having the condiments on top of the dish, when we got home it kinda got hard and wasn't really easy to spread anymore.

Mi Mexico will be a be a restaurant that I will return to try other things, they have such a big menu that I will have to go back a few more times to decide on a staple dish, especially if I make it before the 3pm cutoff for their lunch specials.

Score: 8/10

Mi Mexico

Red Wagon Cafe

Well at my work, we like to eat. So we decided to hit up Red Wagon Cafe after work on a friday, the special of the day was the Buttermilk Chicken Sandwich. The word buttermilk in the name struck me as meaning DEEP FRIED!!! So obviously I ordered it. It didn't seem like it was a regular menu item so why not???

Buttermilk Chicken Sandwich

The sandwich had a thick slab of fried chicken with a buttermilk coating which was really crispy and not dry. They used gravy as a sauce which helped keep the sandwich from being dry and had a combination of coleslaw and crispy bacon as toppings. The bacon was thin and very crispy. It was really really GOOD. As you can see in the photo it came with a side of fries which were crispy as well. What you don't see is the side of Spicy Ketchup, I wasn't sure how spicy the ketchup was going to be and I'm not a fan of very saucy spicy things.

Red Wagon is very consistent on the quality of food they dish out and coming on a Friday afterwork meant no line up. If you try to get in on a weekend morning, GOOD LUCK! The place is quite small and you'll be waiting a bit for a table. For $13 it was quite filling and very yummy especially if you like deep fried items. The only things I could nitpick about is the sandwich was quite thick and hard to take a good bite out of and it was quite warm inside and the front door was already open.

Score: 8.5/10
Red Wagon

 

Faubourg Paris - Downtown Vancouver

Me and my PIC (Partner in Crime) were walking back to our car after visiting the mall and the new Victoria Secret store downtown. I must say the store is very grand and I can't believe that used to be the old Virgin/HMV store. Anyway, we walked by a bus shelter and it had a sign for this place that had french macaroons. The sign said across the art gallery so I assumed it was the place inside the Hotel Georgia. Then upon further reading the sign it said open August 2013 and it was on Hornby. We were already at Hornby and Robson and had not had any dessert so we decided to try this place. It was a bright cafe, with a patio, but since it was rainy we opted to sit inside. There was only one other group seated which we thought it was odd because everytime we go to Theirry's there's always a crowd. We browsed what was still available and the selection was not as a big as a place like Thierry's, but they looked really good. We were torn between a Mille Feuilles or a Lemon Tart.

Lemon Tart

As you can see, we settled on the Lemon Tart and we were very glad we did. I really found it refreshing and had a balance between sweet and sour. There was some rock sugar that went around the rim of the Lemon Curd top and underneath was a layer of what they call a Vanilla Milk Foam. The shell was quite buttery and yummy and broke apart when you used a fork. I've had tarts where I had to fight to get the fork through it just to get a bite.

The tart costs $5.60 with tax which may be a little steep for a pastry but we shared and it satisfied our dessert course for the evening. Faubourg also has an afternoon tea menu which doesn't seem too bad at $28.55/person. I think we have found our new dessert place! I just hope it doesn't get too crowded that we can't find a table.

Score: 9.5/10

Faubourg