Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

View Larger Map Moving Sale / Garage Sale 5796 Sussex Avenue Burnaby, BC V5H 3B6 Daily 10am to 2pm. Parking easily available very close by. Feel free to make an offer on any plants, furniture, furnishings, knick knacks, or anything else that catches your eye. All prices negotiable. Cash only. Owner is downsizing, so no returns please.

On and off I've written about cheap frozen pizza. Typically they hit a low price of about $5 for a typical large pizza. Well now there's frozen pizza that's even cheaper. This week at the IGA Marketplace near Metrotown , they are selling McCain's Traditional Crust frozen pizza at 4 for $10. That works out to $2.50 per pizza, AND you can save an extra $0.03 if you bring your own bag instead of taking one of their plastic bags. The crust is thin enough to approach being "thin crust", and doesn't expand significantly when you bake it. Since other thin crust pizzas weighing in between 450 and 500 grams can be $5, this is a fantastic deal that's on this week. So what's the catch? Well... It's slightly smaller than the other pizzas. It's hard to tell just by looking at the box, but the suspiciously lower weight should that away. The tomato sauce is drastically reduced. In fact, there are many locations on the "Deluxe" pizza ...

This year, Richmond features two night markets. The " Richmond Night Market " near Bridgeport Station and the casino, and the "Summer Night Market" near IKEA and Home Depot. I've heard the term "Richmond Night Market" for both, but if you are looking for the location near IKEA and sort-of near the Knight Street Bridge, where the Richmond Night Market used to be, then this year you're looking for the " Summer Night Market ". In general, the eats there are food-stall or food cart type prices--that is, individual portions slightly overpriced. Some items are grossly overpriced. Noodles and some "dim sum" style items like char siu pao  or siu mai  are so-so priced, especially if you get a combo plate with some noodles on it. For about $6, you might be hard-pressed to get the same price for Chinese restaurant take-out, but you'll get more food per buck. I saw the one stall selling very large char siu pao, but when I saw it ...

The chef looks a bit like a friendly pirate with his gold earrings and broad smile revealing a row of gold teeth. On the hot Saturday afternoon I was there with a couple of Food Bloggers , the place was completely dead except for the three of us, although a couple of people drifted in later. A second chef/helper came in much later, so they are probably busier in the evening. The menu on the Jamaican Pizza Jerk website  has an odd stutter and slow-load-time considering its simple layout. Also, don't trust the few pictures that are there. We didn't order any irie bowls this time around, but the picture of cowfoot definitely didn't match up with what I got. Cowfoot is only available on Saturday and at 1pm, it was "almost ready", so that's what I got, plus a slice of Rumba Cake to share. The other orders were Jerk Chicken and a Jamaican Patty (chicken). Water came with a small wedge of lemon, which is a courtesy you don't always see nowadays. Instead of br...

I recently wrote about the disappointingly wooden tasting PC Blue Menu Chicken Sliders . A very similar product in composition of the patty (but obviously with different seasonings) is the Western Family Turkey Cranberry Lean Sliders . Slight cranberry flavour, but similar not-very-meat-like patty that may very well contain a good amount of "soy protein product" meat extender. Curiously, I can't find it on the Western Family website anymore, so it may have been discontinued.

PC Blue Menu Chicken Sliders : Mini Lean Chicken Burgers: "mini burgers made with tender breast meat prepared with red bell pepper, sun-dried tomato and a hint of herbs and spices - the perfect appetizer for summertime entertaining". Ingredients:  Chicken, water, toasted wheat crumbs,  textured soy protein , dehydrated red bell peppers, salt, sugar, spices, sun-dried tomatoes (contain sulphites), spice extracts, flavour, garlic extract, onion extract. May contain egg. On the plus side, the sun-dried tomato and other seasonings do give these burgers a little pep. If not for the "meat", I think it would have made a decent burger. I say "meat", because I'm not sure just how much chicken is in each patty. While there is a bit of chicken taste (and chicken isn't exactly the most flavourful meat to begin with), the overall taste of each burger is so bland and wooden that the seasonings can't save it. And if you cut the burger open and have a cl...

On and off I write about really cheap frozen pizza . Last week's Mother's Day flyer from Superstore introduced me to really cheap perogies. I haven't tried the Superstore No Name brand yet (which are even cheaper), but Cheemo does make some really decent tasting perogies, and the small 907g boxes were selling for just $1.98 -- which you can compare with frozen pizza deals typically at $5 for around 800g (less if you go for thin crust). Obviously there's less interesting colour and ingredients if you go for perogies over pizza, but in return you are getting a comparatively great price, convenience, and time savings (they are pre-cooked, so they can be ready quite quickly). They are also easier to transport if you are prepping them for brown bagging your lunch. So far I've tried the Three Cheese and the Potato, Bacon, and Romano Cheese varieties. I prefer the latter as it has a pronounced bacon flavour to jazz it up a bit more. Overall, the perogies look qui...

Last Friday I went back to Little Nest  to meet an old friend back in Vancouver after traipsing around the world doing underwater welding. We met up at around 12.30pm, but walked her dog first, so we didn't get to Little Nest till later. We'd thought the lunch rush would be over, and it sort of was, but the place was still quite lively. I offered to get her lunch, or at least a snack, but she insisted she'd had something to eat prior to coming out, so all she would agree to was a coffee. Which turned out trickier to order than I thought. "Just a coffee" is not explicitly listed on their menu board. They have Americano and Cappucino, if I remember correctly. I tried to explain my friend and I just wanted "a coffee" each, and the fellow at the till had to make the call. He wrote down "8N x 2", if I remember correctly. We both got a large cup of very strong coffee. I also picked up a slice of "flourless chocolate cake" for $4.50. Thi...

Here's a blog comment Blogger intercepted before it was auto-posted to last December's free cupcake giveaway from Marble Slab Creamery . They are an ice cream dessert company that, as far as I know, does not sell blocks of granite. Of course it's possible that a comment on that blog post might still actually nudge up a granite exporter's website page rank due to keyword relevance, but if I were the client, I'd ask for my money back, better links, or better staff handling my account.

My friend who lives near Commercial Drive raved about it. He said it was good food, big portions, and no HST! Something about the Portuguese Club of Vancouver (PCOV) being a private club meant it didn't have to charge HST. And it was true -- no HST. Sadly, this was probably one of the best parts of our meal there. On my friend's recommendation (I'll never believe him again!) I organized a little outing for the Culture Sponges , hoping to get some interesting Portuguese food that wasn't Nando's . When I got there shortly before 7pm on Saturday evening, half the restaurant was full with two long tables on the left side. It turned out there were two large parties that night, and organized into two long tables. The rest of  the club was empty except for a few idlers watching hockey on the big screen TV. It took maybe 10 minutes before anyone who looked like staff approached me. If I hadn't had a reservation and weren't waiting for friends to arrive, I wou...

I had a few free tickets for the EPIC Sustainable Living Expo in Vancouver (just this past weekend, May 11th-13th). I donated four to the Crisis Centre and saved two for myself and Posh Pudding to attend. Sunday, May 13th was, of course, Mother's Day, so I had my eye out for a little something for mum. Initially I was thinking of maybe a Swiffer Floor Sweeper since she didn't have anything quite like it and I didn't want her bending over all the time. But then I saw Plasmaic ! At EPIC, there was a booth where this guy had a bunch of pots and pans laid out, and one on a portable stove. He first demonstrated the non-stick no-oil-cooking of his titanium frying pan by making a quick less-than-2-minute 1-egg omelette. After pouring in the egg, he let it fry for a moment, then loosened it from the pan by merely shaking the pan. After the omelette, he burned some milk in the pan and casually wiped it off without there being any sticky mess left behind. The secret was the ti...

It was around 2pm on Saturday when Posh Pudding  and I were finally done with EPIC  and wandered into Gastown looking for proper food. We meandered here and there, and then remembering that  Meat & Bread (Gastown)  was somewhere thereabouts, went by to see if we could get in now that the lunch rush was over. Well, we were wrong. At 2pm it was still packed to the gills and with a small lineup even! Then I remembered The Greedy Pig . Once upon a time it was the new hip place to get sandwiches. With so many casual eats popping up in Gastown, being new and hip won't get you more than 15 minutes of fame nowadays. I was expecting to settle for a tame sandwich and my usual peppermint tea, but two things on the menu jumped out at me: Marrow & Toast, and Ginger Beer. Marrow & Toast - $15 -  roasted marrow bones, garlic confit, sea salt, truffle oil, arugula, bacon crisps, toasted sourdough I'd had (a bad experience with) bone marrow at Pour...

Deacon's Corner is in that Gastown-east sort-of-quiet neighbourhood where ten years ago you might have seen more disreputable types and heard stories about being mugged in broad daylight. In fact, one of my friends did get mugged. Nowadays, with some nicer establishments popping up in and around it (like the Alibi Room just across the street), you can probably feel safe enough walking to it for brunch. On the Saturday morning, two police cruisers were parked outside and there were three officers in it. And shortly after 10am, there was a lineup at the door, so you can at least feel the safety in numbers if the neighbourhood still has a bad rap with you. The restaurant is mostly a lunch/brunch place. According to our friendly server, on weekdays they mostly get the lunch crowd from the courthouse. On weekends, its busy for brunch. Presumably things quiet down a lot after that. I had my eye on the "Classic Southern Beer Meatloaf", but though it is still on the onli...