Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

This is the third in a three-part blog post about Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie and my experience of their tasting menu. In the first part , we talked about the restaurant in general. In the second part , I talked about some of the smaller plates that were part of our tasting menu experience. In this last part I'll go through the larger plates and remaining dishes. The prices indicated are based on the May 2012. We had a set $30 + tax + tip tasting menu price. The menu clearly evolves over time, so what you had months ago may very well be an unrecognizable variant now. Petis Plats Chinois Beef Tartare ( picture ) - $14 - Pemberton beef tenderloin, preserved mustard root, crispy shallot, ginger root, quail egg, watercress, burnt scallion oil and taro chips This came early (right after the appetizers, I think) and wow was it tasty! Great choice to pair it with the crunchy taro chips for an overall lighter meal. It's a bit pricey and it's raw, but trust me, you want thi...

This is the second in a three-part blog post about Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie and my experience of their tasting menu. In the first part , we talked about the restaurant in general. Here I'll go through the appys, desserts, and a few plates. In the last part I'll go through the rest of what we had. Yes, there really were that many items as part of our tasting menu that I'm separating it into two long posts. I'm even sure I'll end up forgetting one or two things. The prices are based on the May 2012. We had a set $30 + tax + tip tasting menu price. The family table used for the tasting menu has two key items in the middle. One is what looks like a large, stainless steel desktop pencil holder, but its compartments are divided into chopsticks and Chinese style ceramic soup spoons. When a plate of stuff comes to the table, whoever gets it first should either grab a pair of chopsticks or a soup spoon to use as the serving ware for that plate as people can get uptigh...

Meet The Neighbours - Tannis Ling, Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie from This Space on Vimeo . This is the first in a three-part blog post about Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie and my experience of their tasting menu. In this first part, I'll talk about the restaurant in general. In  the second part , I'll go through some of the smaller plates that were part of our tasting menu experience. In the last part I'll go through the larger plates and remaining dishes. Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie can be a confusing place if you go in with preconceptions and expectations. A brasserie is "a type of French restaurant with a relaxed, upscale setting, which serves single dishes and other meals". Bao Bei is NOT a "Chinese restaurant". Of course it depends on what you think a "Chinese restaurant" to be. Chinese (and North Indian) restaurants have very strong stereotypes going for them that can be hard to shake. In a "typical" Chinese restaurant, you...

Posh Pudding was back from vacation and all settled in, so it was time to go through the travel pics. She suggested a little coffee shop called Revolver  (named either for the  legendary Beatles album  or because their coffee selection revolves over time). Revolver is deep in grungy Gastown. It's a smallish yet airy space with a very interesting neighbour in the basement-- Why Knot's Curiousities --that has, among other things, a fun unicorn costume in the window (from Josie Stevens by J. Valentine)  reminiscent of Earth, Wind, and Fire for some reason. Since Posh Pudding offered to treat, I splurged and also got a cookie to share. There were three types. One chocolate, one "power bar" ingredients type cookie, and a simple cookie with a bit of red jam in the middle. $1.75. No thanks to Starbucks, a single cookie in a coffee shop costs the same as a dozen cookies in a supermarket. They might even have been supermarket cookies for all I know. Revolver is a coffee...

EDIT: August 21 - The restaurant name recently changed from Tasty Palace to Sai Tanvi South Indian Cuisine. At the time I wrote this, UrbanSpoon lists Tasty Palace Indian Cuisine as "closed". It may possibly have closed but just this past Thursday evening when I ate there with a dining group, the owner said the "grand opening" was officially on Friday, July 27th. In any case, it's awfully easy to miss this place and walk by it even if you are looking for it. At the Old Orchard shopping mall, look for the liquor store in the corner. Tasty Palace is just next to it on the left. Unless you go for "fusion" Indian, Indian food can often blend into a sort of same-ness, especially if you simply do buffets. I'm no Indian food connoisseur, so this post won't be about comparing Tasty Palace Indian Cuisine with other Indian restaurants.  Many Indian restaurants are "North Indian" and there is no shortage of staple curries at Tasty Palace....

To be seated at Save-On-Meats during their rush hours, the procedure is to put your name on the easily-missed whiteboard on your left, just after the non-functional vending machine and before the bar seating. No one tells you this, sadly, so you could be waiting a long time only to find out much later and be denied service. My friend and I were in shortly after 1pm, which proved to be the tail end of the lunch rush on Tuesday. From there, the dining room quickly died down to about 25% capacity and sign-ups weren't necessary. It's a long, narrow space but still quite spacious and feels even bigger because of the very high ceiling. It's bright and clean, a refreshing change from the dilapidated neighbourhood and dirty sidewalk just outside. Service was strangely slow. Once we were seated, water came quite promptly, but it took several minutes before my friend's beer ( Blue Buck ) arrived. It was beer in a bottle--How long could that possibly take? We were both quite...

Last time I was at Black + Blue , I was intrigued by the desserts -- 20-layer Chocolate Cake and tableside service for Crêpe Suzette and Bananas Foster . My friend Jenny 's birthday was coming up soon, and in any case she was curious about the restaurant. My last visit was on a Saturday, and it was packed. This time I went on a Sunday night, and things were winding down around 8pm. By 10.30pm when we were done, there were only a few guests here and there in the 320-seat restaurant (another 200 to open soon on a rooftop patio). For drinks I tried getting a non-alcoholic ginger beer again. Instead of something put together by the bartender, I instead got Fentiman's Ginger Beer  (which, strangely, showed up on the bill as "Red Bull" for $5). The taste isn't as sharp as the house-brewed ginger beer at Nuba at The Waldorf , and has a sweetness that competes (too) strongly with the ginger and makes it taste more like a soft drink. Stuffed Mushrooms - $15 - por...

Even if you allow for kilted female servers in an Irish pub ( as not just the Scots have kilts, but so do the Irish ) there is something that strikes me as just plain odd about an Irish pub that prominently serves up Thai food--including a Thai Panang Chicken Curry that our server said had won their chef an award. Still, if the food is tasty, who cares, right? Well, let's see... Mahony & Sons is a large pub/restaurant/sports bar on the facing-the-water-and-mountains side of the new Vancouver Convention Centre (West) , a view shared by a closed-remarkably-early-on-weekends Club 16  that gobbles up a huge chunk of waterfront. Especially on sunny days, you can expect the place to be abuzz with drop-ins as well as larger parties, so don't expect to find a quiet nook where you can feasibly have a conversation with anyone who's not sitting adjacent to you. Around 9pm on Saturday, there was live music which was blasted through the speakers all over the place, and conversa...

What used to be The New Bohemian as recently as last year has changed management. They kept the name for a short while and tweaked the interior, but Establishment looks largely the same with its dimly-lit lounge vibe and the oriental feel to the furnishings. The recent (June 22nd, 2012) addition of Chef Victor Bongo from the Congo (no, they didn't make up the Congo part as a catchy rhyme) is also a definite plus. The chef's specialties on the menu feature delicious food and top marks for plating. Only two desserts at the moment but with a broader selection in the works. As I write this, I'm just back from a late-ish dinner. It was very quiet around 7pm, with just a couple of people at the bar for drinks, and a table of four enjoying a quiet dinner. The lone server reports that the place still has more of a late-night lounge niche and it is open late (as is the kitchen). The menu could use with some explanation: The red-boxed items are obviously the chef's special...

Hi Everyone! Just a reminder that today is 7-11 's birthday, and they are offering a FREE Slurpee at participating 7-11 stores between 11 AM and 7 PM. And with the sudden change to sunny weather, this freebie couldn't have come at a better time. Thank you, 7-11!

It's a tiny place that's been around for quite a while. Still almost perpetually busy, so they must be doing something right -- enough to price their plates at $18 and still have lineups. This past Saturday evening was very sunny and the restaurant was empty when the Vancouver Fine Dining Club assembled shortly after 5pm. Our waitress attributed the slow start due to the pleasant weather, which apparently inspires people to stay outside and enjoy it more. I was personally glad to get out of the heat myself. If, like our group, you came on a strangely slower night, you might find the server's defensiveness of their tables a bit off-putting. We were four at around 5pm, but expecting six in total, so we pulled over a table and a couple of chairs to ensure everyone could sit together. Although there was just a pair of diners who had taken the window seat, our waitress came over right away and re-confirmed our numbers, and also let us know that we'd have to give up the ...

Turkish House & Bistro is a colourful little space that's interesting to visit, and has that friendly mom-and-pop restaurant vibe where you just know you'll be well fed for your money. The decor looks chaotic, and if there's one thing that really hurts it, I'd have to say it's the mishmash of business cards under the glass on the tables. How archaic is that? And does it really help anybody? Other than that, there are Turkish evil-warding charms (look for the white eye on blue glass nazar boncuğu ) and rugs and artwork. There's also a big screen TV which is strangely not jarringly intrusive amongst everything else. The tables are somewhat low, and you sit on wooden chairs that look like stock left over from a kindergarten. That, or low metal benches with lots of pillows. These are more comfortable (especially if you're about 190 pounds like myself and some of those chairs wobble a bit under you) but tricky to get in and out of as you have to coordin...

There's a trick that property managers use when trying to find out if a potential tenant is a good one. Instead of asking the tenant's current landlord if they've been a good tenant, the property manager checks with the landlord previous to the current one. Why? Because that person no longer has any personal stake. Suppose the tenant was good. In the worst case, the landlord won't remember them. But if the tenant was bad, the landlord is no longer renting to them, and therefore doesn't need to see them gone. Think about it: If you were a landlord with a problem tenant, would you give them a good reference? If you do, they'll move out and you're free of them. If you don't they'll probably figure it out and their resentment will make them an even worse tenant. Employment Background Checks work in a similar way, except most people don't bother taking that extra step. They ask for references. References that are probably biased or have a stake ...

As of the time I am writing this blog post, Black + Blue 's popularity on Urbanspoon sits at a measly 41%. However, on the Saturday night I went for dinner and drinks at 7pm, the place was absolutely packed. OpenTable showed no reservations available between 5:15pm and 9:45pm, and around 7pm, the hostesses said they had 375 people booked for the night (in a 320 seat restaurant). The incredible busy-ness of this place suggests there's something good going on there, and despite the low rating, if you're thinking of it, I recommend you give it a go. BUT that recommendation also depends on what you're planning to do there and how you're going to go about it. First off, if you want a sit-down meal, make a reservation. Don't settle for the lounge because the small tables there are very low, around knee-height. Plus the lounge area is quite narrow, so things can get tricky in moving around and in trying to keep a route clear for the servers. It can really be a tig...