Eating Out in Edmonds

Asian food in Edmonds?

Personally, I don’t correlate the two together but the tie exists!

I was surprise to find these good eats, and they definitely got me as a customer!

First stop, Wonton Noodle House.

I was told that the chefs were trained in Hong Kong.

The place is reminiscent of Mike’s Noddle in International District with similar food offering.

The wontons and dumplings were awesome!

Thin skin, crunchy shrimp and meat, with extremely bouncy, thin, egg noodle that was free of alkaline flavor.

Congee was smooth, and the pork and thousand year old egg was flavorful.

I was thoroughly happy with the soy sauce fried rice crepe, the rice crepes were very fresh and soft, with a mild soy sauce flavor and crunchy bean sprouts plus sesame seeds.

Something very simple yet very delicious.

Next was dessert.

My friend told us about Black Ball.

Turns out Black Ball is a chain Chinese dessert stores originally from Taiwan.

Their famous dessert is the grass jelly – which I had to return to try.

I had the highly recommended matcha pudding and matcha shaved ice with red beans and rice balls.

We were there at a cold night, so hot dessert of red bean soup was also on my list with added yam and sweet potato balls to fight the chilliness in the air.

Red bean soup was very good – big red beans, soft, and not too sweet.

But I was disappointed with the yam and sweet potato balls.

They were soggy and mushy, nothing like the ones I had in Taiwan.

The matcha shaved ice and pudding was very good.

Perfect matcha flavor, perfect sweetness, with multi layer of texture – crunchy ice crystals from shaved ice, firm jelly texture from the pudding, thick red bean and chewy rice balls.

Aside from Chinese food, we also found an Indonesian grocery store that serves food, Waroeng Jajanan.

Grocery side had small offering of mostly instant noodles, spices and dry goods.

The food side had a small menu.

We had the fried chicken, noodle, coconut rice, yellow rice with beef, and satay.

My favorite was the coconut rice.

Fragrant with ginger, almost cardamom like flavors, moist and comforting.

The chicken was fried super well – the chicken skin literally melt in the mouth; but the meat itself was under marinated.

The satay was not as good as Malay Satay Hut’s, and still with good flavor; vermicelli noodle was soft with nice flavor, mixed with bean sprouts, and served with a side of boil egg and rice cake, and plenty of spicy peanut sauce.

Yellow rice was fantastically gingery and full of flavors.

However, the beef was very dry and tough even though it had very good curry like flavor.

Peanuts on the side was spot on, spicy and delicious, along with the perfectly fried shrimp chips.

Noodle was soft, simple and spicy.

With crunchy bean sprouts, hard boil egg and lots of peanut sauce.

These foods are going to get me up north more often!

Drinking Chocolate Versus

Part two of the chocolate hunting week is about drinking chocolate.

First of all, what is drinking chocolate?

Drinking chocolate, as popularised in Spain, called Chocolate Caliente, usually has molten chocolate and milk, mixed with starch, creating this really thick, silky chocolate concoction.

In general the ones in the States are made with molten chocolate and milk and or cream, without starch; unlike a hot chocolate that is usually thinner, with higher milk to chocolate ratio.

I love Fran’s drinking chocolate, which is available only in the flagship Georgetown store and at the University Village Mall.

It is very creamy, fairly dark with milk, a hint of the astringency and bitterness at the end; very velvety, and absolutely made me want to curl by the fire with it.

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Chocolate Hunting in Seattle

I often wonder, how did Valentine’s Day became synonymous to chocolate giving?

Valentine’s Day is named after Saint Valentine, whom apparently had no connection whatsoever with romance.

As history evolved, people started celebrating Valentine’s Day romantically dating back to the 1300s, gifting roses, songs. cards and gifts.

So happened, in 1800s, the Cadbury family (yes! that British chocolate company Cadbury) made eating chocolate available to the market in beautifully decorated boxes; notably in creating the infamous heart-shaped boxes.

From then on, chocolate and Valentine’s Day have been linked ever since.

Seattle is the coffee capital of the U.S., with our homegrown coffee giant Starbucks, to the many coffee houses in our neighborhoods, that title is well-earned.

We may not be known as the chocolate capital, but we do have some darn good chocolate places to offer.

On top of my list is Fran’s.

A traditional chocolatier who has been around for over 30 years in Seattle, Fran’s remains small with just about four stores in town, and with many of the local grocery retailers carrying their products.

It was said that when President Obama came to visit in Seattle, he had simply fell in love with Fran’s, and could not get enough of them.

My favorite chocolate in Fran’s is the truffle chocolate-filled figs.

One whole fig, with its inside hollowed, fruit mixed with chocolate truffle and stuffed back in the dried fig skin, sealed at the bottom with a light dip of chocolate.

It is one of the funniest chocolate eating experience; very dense, and it certainly requires multiple attempt to finish.

Soft to cut once the knife went through the chewier fig skin outer layer; when you bit into it, it had all these crunchy bits from the seeds, giving both texture and fruit sweetness, along with the smooth chocolate.

Of course, Fran’s truffles are all superb with a crunchy outer layer, and smooth and creamy centre; highest praise to their pure dark chocolate and earl grey truffle.

Their sea salt caramel is ultra delicious as well even though I am not normally a caramel fan.

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Vancouver dessert vs.

It is a known fact that Vancouver B.C. is a foodie’s paradise; from its amazing Asian food to fresh seafood, even desserts cannot be overlooked.

The top choices has to be Thomas Haas and Thierry.

Thomas Haas has two locations in Metropolitan Vancouver, one in Kitsilano, and one in North Vancouver.

Thierry, on the other hand, has one shop right in downtown.

Thierry’s dessert selection

Thierry store is fairly large, with limited indoor seating, but plenty outdoor seating; reminiscent of sidewalk cafes in Europe.

Thomas Haas’ Kitsilano store is beautiful and spacious, with indoor and outdoor seating; on the contrary, the North Vancouver store is tiny, very packed with few seats in and outside the store.