Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

I've been one step behind my afternoon-tea loving friend Emily this summer-that-sometimes-feels-like-fall, and basing my dine-outs on where she'd been. She had steered me right with Pâtisserie Für Elise , so when she was pleased with her experience at Meloty, I decided to give it a go; I'd also had positive feed back from another member of the Food Bloggers Meetup. Maybe the food changed since they last went, but, our Saturday outing was... lacklustre to put it kindly. But every place has some good and bad to it. First, here's how the AYCE at Meloty works: Two-hour seating, plus $2 penalty for each item left uneaten. You are presented with two menu booklets. In one, you can choose a beverage to accompany your AYCE afternoon tea. The other menu has items you can order and pay for separately. It doesn't have to be pots of tea -- you can get iced drinks as well. Unlimited refills except for beer (maximum 3 glasses). They bring you your beverage. They bri...

Why is it that restaurants with a lot of buzz, like Black + Blue and Hawksworth (67% of 335 votes "like" Hawksworth on Urbanspoon, as of 2012-Sept-18) score so poorly on Urbanspoon? Is it the distinct absence of hottie female servers? (Black + Blue at least has mini-skirted hotties flitting about the lounge area, but the only ladies at Hawksworth were at the front desk and possibly in the kitchen). Our party this past Sunday was 12 in total, but split into two tables of 6. If your party is over 8 persons, Hawksworth enforces a set menu policy where you choose from Dine Out Vancouver style prix fixe choose-from-three-items menus. At the time of my inquiry, two menus were available, at around $70 and $80 each (before wine pairing). They are actually trying to help you because it takes a while for the food to be prepped. Our table of six waited what seemed like a long time (helped by our table being a lively and chatty group who didn't really notice the time flying by) ...

For an unspecified limited time, the very recently opened Vancouver FanClub is offering a 2-for-1 deal on its menu -- anything except drinks. And it's apparently grouped by category, so if your party orders 2 burgers and one pecan pie dessert, you pay for the pricier burger, get the other burger free, and pay for the comparatively cheap dessert -- instead of getting the cheap dessert free and paying for the two burgers. After our meal, the manager explained that the 2-for-1 promotion, which is valid every day from Noon till 6pm, is a " loss leader " strategy aimed at selling their bourbons and other liquor. The idea is to draw people in with cheap (good) pub food, and hope they buy alcohol too. At this point I got the distinct impression that he'd been disappointed by our showing because we hadn't ordered any drinks. My friend was going back to work in less than an hour, and I'm a non-drinker. Which also bring up the issue of a weekday 12-6 time slot for ...

Just got this bar of Venezuelan dark chocolate today as a gift. If you put the last line of ingredients into Google Translate, "mani" won't translate in spanish. But if you let Google auto-detect "mani" on its own, it coughs up "hands" from Italian. Look more closely and it's not "mani" but "maní" with the accent, which Google still won't auto-detect. Choose Spanish as the source language and it translates just fine into English as "peanut". Whew! -- No bits of hand in my chocolate!

Globe @ YVR is a pricey place just to get to if you're driving. You're either paying parking at airport prices, or you're parking elsewhere (say, the casino at Bridgeport) to Skytrain in -- only to pay the $5 surcharge when you Skytrain back out (unless you have a pass or Faresaver). Nevertheless it typically has a sell-out 2pm Afternoon Tea seating so popular that sometimes diners will book a late afternoon lunch to sneak in early when it's sold out. Price-wise, it's a pricey place for what you get. But quality can be good. It was strangely difficult to lure the Food Bloggers and Fine Dining Meetup out to Richmond for lunch, so there were just three of us and we ordered our own meals (except my dessert, which I shared with my dining companions). I was tempted to try the raw food menu from their "Lifestyle Cuisine" menu, but went with the Signature Burger instead for my first time at Globe @ YVR. A generous basket of three types of bread came to th...

Don't you just hate it when they don't put down the date? I saw this promising-looking flyer for the recently opened Vancouver Fanclub -- Limited Time Offer: 2 for 1 plates daily 12-6pm! Call first to find out if it's still BOGO until 6pm, or just drop by to check out the intriguing-sounding decor: Vancouver FanClub blends New Orleans French Quarter and contemporary West Coast design. This 6,500 square foot two-level establishment features reclaimed French colonial doors and antique chandeliers imported from Louisiana, a wrought iron balcony facade, outdoor patio, three service bars, four VIP booths, one performance stage, a DJ booth, satellite dance locations, and a Bourbon Lounge tasting room. From blues, funk, soul, rock, jazz, indie, world music, country to electronic music with a live component, Vancouver FanClub personifies the best of Vancouver’s eclectic performing arts community.  

The same friend who dragged me to Save-On-Meats  after seeing it on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives wanted to try The Red Wagon  after seeing it that show too. I was leery initially as Save-On-Meats was a total dud for me, but how can you go wrong with a good pulled pork? In maple syrup no less? We opted for a later lunch as The Red Wagon was said to be a busy place. My friend had tried a weekend brunch with her family, but with a lineup that went around the building, they had nixed the idea. Tuesday afternoon at 1pm turned out to be better. The place was buzzing and almost full, but the turnaround seemed quite quick and as we were just two, we were squeezed in right away. There are a lot of two-seater tables but also a larger round table that sat maybe six. I haven't watched TV in over 15 years (give or take -- I lost count) so I had to be filled in -- the two items made famous by being on TV were the Pulled Pork Pancakes and the Crisp Pork Belly Sandwich. We ordered them ...

Of the afternoon tea places I've been to, Pâtisserie Für Elise easily tops the list as having the most beautiful and interesting room. It's a colourful "Queen Anne style" Victorian heritage building, one of an out-of-place seeming clump near the Vancouver Public Library downtown. If you think it needs a sign outside (and they have had one prepared for quite a while now) or could stand a colour-makeover so it doesn't look so Disney-ish, then you'll likely go crazy with the restrictions placed on Heritage buildings in Vancouver. They aren't even allowed to wash the exterior of the building without a permit, and it can't be power-washed because the water jets might damage the exterior. To have been allowed to make over the interior to support the everything-made-in-house bakery standard was probably nothing short of miraculous in the first place. The dress in the window always made me think this place was a sort of old-fashioned tailor, but it turns...

One pound of wings here is $8.18 (slightly less if you order more) and works out to be about 11 wings, or about 74 cents per wing. If this is too painful for you old timers who remember 25-cent wing nights in the '90s, you can try their Sunday night 47 cent wings. This said, I don't want to make it sound like Wings is a pricey place for wings. It's just a sigh over inflation. Wings has several locations, and the Burnaby one near Highgate is a sports bar style pub with patio and easy parking. I went on a late-ish Friday night and it was pretty busy. There's generous booth seating as well as round tables that can be booked for larger groups. If you're not into sports, you can go for one of the bigger against-the-wall cushioned booths that has two rows of seating between you and the TVs mounted above the bar. There are many flavours of wings here, and with varying degrees of spiciness. Flavours like Greek, Chicago, Tokyo, Thai and others means you can assemb...