Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

I was at Coquitlam Centre shortly after dining with a friend at Cora nearby. Happened to use the washroom and got to try out the Dyson Airblade Hand Dryer -- It's fast! Way faster and more reliable than the vent-style air blowers that have been around for a long time. Overall -- awesome! "The Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer works in just 12 seconds – scraping water from hands like a windshield wiper. It’s the fastest hand dryer – and it’s hygienic, purifying the air before blowing it onto hands. And because it uses up to 80% less energy than warm air hand dryers, it costs less to run." Can't stick your head it to dry your hair, though. That's one thing the old dryers can do -- You can stuck your head under it, or (with some models) turn the nozzle about to blow at the angle you want.

I finally managed to get together with an old friend, and she suggested we try Cora in Coquitlam at Sunwood Square (sort-of near Coquitlam Centre ). Cora is a Montreal franchise that started as a humble breakfast place in 1987 and has quickly grown to over 100 locations -- mostly far east but a few in Alberta and now two in BC. The overall ambiance is very bright, helped by bright lights and sunny yellow decor, enough to dispel any rainy day outside. The cartoony artwork gives it an almost children's playroom feel, helped by friendly staff and an overall family atmosphere. The Coquitlam location was abuzz before and throughout the time we were there (I got there shortly after 11.30 am, we had lunch between Noon and 1pm) and there was invariably someone waiting to be seated at the front desk. The menu is small and varied, and what hits the table looks like the pictures on the website and on the full-colour illustrated menu. Breakfast is served even at lunch, which is ha...

I can't remember the last time I was at the Hart House Restaurant in Burnaby but it must have been at least ten years. So when my dear dining buddy invited me there to use her Groupon, it was like going to a restaurant I'd never been. The front door has stained glass with a lot of white, so from a distance it actually looked like the place was closed, and plastered over with white paper to stop people from peeking in. We were there for the first seating (5.30pm) and naturally it was all quiet, to the point of looking deserted. The lobby of the venerable mansion is claustrophobic by today's standards, though the tight quarters would have made the most of any gratifying heat from the fireplace during the winter. Washrooms are in the corridor to the left, and feature remarkably modern-looking doors. Inside, a couple of (large) mosquitoes that found their way in from the marshy lake not far from the restaurant were an interesting reminder of the location. We opted for...

It was Car-Free Day on Sunday June 19th, with Veg Fest nestled in the middle of the Main Street location , around Main and East 19th. My dining buddy and I went to check it out around mid-way at close to 4pm, and scored just one decent freebie from COBS Bread ( Bakers Delight in Australia) -- a bun which they smeared with chocolate sauce and, if you liked, coated that chocolate with sprinkles. There were also smaller bites of chewy bread from Quejos , which are interesting for being wheat-free, gluten-free, yeast-free, and non-dairy. Afterwards, we idled about looking for something closer to dinner, and shared one chocolate-covered waffle and a small order of tayoyaki before getting serious about what to eat. My dining buddy was off gluten and off potatoes, so while I was curious to finally try Re-Up , the bun would have been a regular one and in deference to her present dietary restrictions we opted for something else. That something being the Wallflower Modern Diner . ...

Somehow I ended up back at Bombay Beat last Friday for another curry dinner. This time, on a first-time date (is that a good idea? -- taking a date to a curry dinner?). It was my very first non- scammer Craigslist date , and during our correspondence over e-mail, she had mentioned two restaurants that she liked: Curry King Café and X-Site Grill and Bistro . I initially suggested we try Curry King, but she rescheduled and we ended up at Bombay Beat, possibly because I had mentioned I found the food good and it had curious cold Indian appetizers. I think my date was interested in the cold appetizers too, but was turned off by them when she found out the underlying crunchy pooris used were deep fried. So, on to the mains! My date ordered a Lamb Sabaz Curry, primarily because it was the only item on the menu that included "fresh vegetables". No fresh vegetables were in sight when her order came, although the broccoli was still crunchy inside the curry, suggesting tha...

The Vancouver Meatless Meetup organized yet another vegan dinner , this time at Vegan Pizza House . It's a tiny place, as most pizza take-out places tend to be. The big draw here, of course, is that it's vegan. The menu doesn't read that way, however, as it talks about things like ham, chicken, crab, and tuna. But that's all the funny fake-meat stuff, which has come a long way and does look, feel, and taste quite like the real thing. We had five types of pizza, one slice each, three of which were off the regular menu. There's nothing overly creative here -- pizza combos you can expect to get at any pizza place. As pizzas go, it's hard to say exactly what the reason was, but the pizzas seemed sloppily put together. It may have been that the generous and wet toppings weighed down the basically thin-crust style, so it was a bit tricky to actually pick up a slice without using both hands. Not quite as soggy and slippery as Marcello's , but nowhere near ...

If you've been reading this blog, you will recall that I've been taking a hard look at my mutual fund portfolio and ultimately decided to change companies and financial advisors . I'd been thinking over how things unfolded since I sat down with my advisor to ask about where the money was after about 10 years with them. Even in that first meeting, I came away feeling very disturbed by the answers I got. The metrics that were presented to me, and that I was dissuaded from looking at, just didn't make sense. Now that I have decided to switch advisors, there came the inevitable customer retention call. It focussed on the penalty of switching advisors -- a type of penalty I was encouraged to take when I first moved my portfolio over. She didn't really have to liquidate to change them all to their company funds, but she advised me to cut losses and get into a better portfolio. Now that I'm cutting losses to switch to a better portfolio (again), she's pulled ...

If you've been reading this blog, you will recall that I've been taking a hard look at my mutual fund portfolio -- wrangling with hard questions and looking at sobering results . To cover their ass, financial advisors are always quick to say of mutual funds that "past performance does not guarantee future performance". And indeed, with mutual funds, you can see a good track record in some years, only to dip later on (or vice versa). There can be various reasons for this, such as changing management styles or a change in the fund manager. Good ones are sometimes headhunted, leaving the fund in the care of someone else who may be less skilled. But "past performance does not guarantee future performance" also applies to a lot of other things. Self-help guru Tony Robbins encourages us to remember that the past does not equal the future. Whether you've failed the last time or for the last ten years -- it doesn't have to continue. And it doesn't...

Luckily Canada won gold in the 2010 Olympics Men's Hockey. Otherwise there wouldn't have been anything left of Vancouver.

You may remember that I recently saw my financial adviser about my mutual fund portfolio and came out feeling very disturbed by the answers , or rather, the non-answers, I got. Over the short-term, it's better not to panic over sudden dips and sell -- such as the 2008 NINJA loans crisis and subsequent market meltdown. If your adviser knows what they're doing, and the underlying funds they've put you in are good ones, a crash like that is actually a great time to buy low and really get extraordinary gains when the market recovers. My own portfolio weathered this -- -41% in 2008, +56% in 2009, +12% in 2010. The money came back, obviously... but it wasn't good enough. And using a mix of market indexes to mirror my portfolio market exposure and thereby determine a benchmark , 12% in 2010 was only average. As mentioned in the previous post, I struggled to articulate why I felt my overall portfolio over the last 10 years had done very poorly. After a lot of reflection ...

Just got this from NU and the Kambolis Group in my e-mail inbox today... The Greek Easter feast at my mother Georgia's house has been a yearly tradition for my family. With Nu’s rebranding as a Greek restaurant , we decided to open things up a bit. This year, the event has been pushed to late June, to coincide with Vancouver’s 21st Greek Day on Broadway, and everyone’s invited. From 4pm onwards on Saturday, June 25th, Nu will serve lamb roasted on a spit and a generous buffet of Greek dishes: spanakopitas, charred octopus, dolmades, keftedes, kota, baked pastitso, and calamari. The afternoon and evening of feasting is only $25.00. For the first time, we’ve partnered with the Hellenic Canadian Congress of B.C. We’re pleased to host a party that promotes the sights, sounds and tastes of Greece in the lead-up to their big day on Broadway. There’s a lot of simpatico this year (At the family-oriented street festival on Sunday, June 26th, my mom and I will be doing cooking demo...

While treating my friend at Maurya Indian Cuisine , she mentioned being very impressed with Bombay Bhel in Burnaby, and that's where we went the week after. On the way in, I noticed a notice that Bombay Bhel gift certificates were no longer being honoured. Which I thought odd, until I saw that we had walked into Bombay Beat (4266 East Hastings Street) . Apparently the restaurant had changed management about three months ago. Everything looked the same, ran the same, and it had the same menu -- just a name change. At around 5.30pm Saturday, it was surprisingly dead quiet that day. In fact, the entire neighbourhood was, except for a couple of pubs. It was hockey night and the hometown Canucks were on game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals, playing the Boston Bruins. We ordered a cold appetizer platter to start, and I had the Goan curry with basa fillets. The cold appetizer platter was very large, and a meal unto itself if you had it alone. There were basically two parts to it:...

Still having a run of bad luck with restaurants and big parties... This time it's at Doña Cata Mexican Foods , where Earthsave / The Vancouver Meatless Meetup had arranged a vegan "authentic Mexican dinner" . The restaurant normally closes at 5pm on Sundays, so they were open especially for us after hours at 7pm. Our group of 30 would have taken over the whole place anyway as the left side of the restaurant is mostly the counter and some cooking space, and the right side is the seating. The $20.50 fixed menu ($2 going to Earthsave) was: guacamole platter with tortilla chips cactus taco (medium size taco with with beans, cactus, cilantro and onion), refried beans, mexican style rice half of huitlacoche (corn smut) quesadilla half of zucchini squash flower quesadilla The guacamole was very bland for my tastes, quite a few people promptly went for the assorted condiments at the counter which were mostly an assortment of salsas. Next came a plate with rice, refr...

I think it's fairly safe to say that at some point or other, everyone has been approached by a person in need on the street. Common cons include needing money to pay the parking lot attendant and thereby get their car out. Or emergency money for gas because they've been robbed or are stuck out of town. Or they've been locked out of their office and need to rush to the hospital by cab to see their wife in labour. The list goes on. I think I'm hit by these more often because I have some sort of "look" which says I'm a sucker for a sad story. It never fails -- the (supposedly) needy person will pass by several people but for whatever reason single me out. Anyway, it happened again last night, on my way to the skytrain at Metrotown. This sort-of-elderly woman comes up and explains that she's been mugged today and lost all her money and cards. She even pulled out her purse to show me how empty it was. Tonight, she needed to go to the 24-hour Shoppers ...