Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

A dear friend of mine was having a lavish staycation in downtown Vancouver, and invited me to join her for a posh breakfast at Hawksworth , in the Rosewood Hotel Georgia. I normally don't go for breakfasts and brunches because more often than not, restaurants pump out the same boring fare -- pancakes, eggs benny, blah blah blah. But this was Hawksworth. Surely they could jazz things up a bit, right? One hopes so for a place that charges you $3 for toast (your choice of three types of bread, though). Coffee ($5) A carafe of coffee, which works out to maybe 10 cups. Brown sugar at the table. Your choice of cream or milk. If you aim to quaff the full carafe (probably between two persons), you'll probably need extra sugar and cream/milk. For $5, this is probably the cheapest coffee you can get in a posh restaurant anywhere. (At the Fairmont Pacific Rim Lobby Lounge, coffee weighs in at $6.50 for a single mug, though it comes with a funny stirring spoon crusted with a fat crys...

I went back to La Taqueria last week to meet a friend for lunch. Instead of tacos, I gave their quesadillas a shot. I haven't seen or heard of anyone else ordering them, so hey, why not?! The basic quesadilla has cheese inside. A LOT of grilled cheese. It's pretty thick with it, and on it's own, the $6 quesadilla is actually quite filling and good bang for your buck as cheap eats go. If you are thinking of thin, grilled-to-crunchy quesadillas you might get at a pub, this is far from it. At the fold, it is maybe just over a centimeter thick from the sheer amount of cheese inside. If you peel it open, you can see that they have seared the cheese to a flavourful brown. For +$2.50 or +$3.50 you can add a vegetarian or meat (respectively) filling, selected from the full list of taco toppings. This brings the total to around $9 -- the same as four meat tacos, and it's approximately the same amount of food. If you're thinking of heading to La Taqueria, remember to...

Recently I purchased a Big Boss Oil-less Fryer  and I've been fooling around with it. I thought that the sprayer provided was the main problem because it spat out a jet of oil instead of a wider-area mist. To coat food with oil therefore results in too many pumps of the spray, and too much olive oil sitting on the food. After some looking around, I found a misting oil sprayer at the  Gourmet Warehouse  near The Waldorf Hotel . The reason why the MISTO Gourmet Olive Oil Sprayer works well to produce a mist-like spray, the sort you get from aerosol cans, is the pump action that pressurizes the air inside the container. Despite the product name, the manual indicates that it "can be used with any oil, vinegar, lemon juice or lime juice". I tested it today on the Big Boss Oil-less Fryer, using some McCain Super Spirals and a piece of chicken thigh. The curly fries came out over-cooked and cracker-like, so I'll have to watch more carefully next time for a visual ...

For Christmas this year, I got our family a Big Boss Oil-less Fryer (model 8605), which was recently on sale at London Drugs. I hadn't read too closely about the product except that it was about frying with less or no oil. That was good enough for me to want to try it. After some initial experiments, it appears that the product is essentially a convection oven. A light generates heat and a fan blows it around. There are even baking recipes in the recipe book -- essentially, you are buying an oven. Food gets cooked eventually, but you won't necessarily get the same "deep fried" effect. "Frying" is accomplished by spraying food with oil, and according to the recipes, generally olive oil is recommended. By coating the food with even a light mist of oil, the heat can then fry the affected surface. When you normally deep fry food, it gets surrounded in enough hot oil to cook. Here, you don't need that much oil because what oil is on the food is heated...

I had previously tried Yves Veggie Cuisine Original Veggie Ground Round and hadn't been particularly impressed by it. A friend of mine read my review and suggested I try the pre-flavoured ground rounds, so I picked up a couple from Whole Foods . For the Italian Veggie Ground Round, I threw it in my super non-stick titanium frying pan  with some chopped up garlic and diced tomato, then made some wraps with it. It was on the dry side, so I added a bit of water. Unlike the Original Veggie Ground Round, the Italian Veggie Ground Round did not suddenly massively inflate in volume. Overall it tasted almost the same, except for whatever spices were added to make an "Italian" flavour. The flavouring was quite weak, especially in comparison with the Mexican Veggie Ground Round , but overall the soy after-taste and slimy after-effect that characterized my experience with the Original Ground Round was very much reduced. I feel this was a disappointing product as I had expe...

To me, Bambudda is like Bao Bei in concept: Chinese food re-marketed for a non-Asian market. It's a sort of a niche asian food restaurant. You have "Chinese restaurants" filled with servers who can barely speak English serving people who can't speak Chinese to save their lives. You have bubble tea places serving Taiwanese street food to asian teeny boppers; with servers who may or may not be helpful to English speakers. Then you have places like Bao Bei and Bambudda with English menus and fluent-in-English servers. It's just so much more accessible and convenient for English-speaking North America. Plus the plating is comfortingly upscale, so you are unlikely to think "cheap crap" or "MSG". Which is not to say it's cheap. Looking at the price versus the portion you get, it's definitely not on the cheap side despite being closer to the sleazy part of Gastown. What you do get is Chinese food that is "more expertly prepared"...

Continuing our happy hour tour, myself and and few friends went Glowbal Group's Fish Shack on Thursday. Since the happy hour half-price offer is limited to the Appetizer menu, it is actually quite limited and we ended up ordering many non-fish items -- not even their fish and chips ( which I'd tried over a year ago ). Popcorn Shrimp ($10.50) cocktail sauce Nothing too special here. Use a fork to put the cocktail sauce on as dipping the shrimp in the sauce seemed to just push the sauce around everywhere but onto the popcorn shrimp. Fish Bites ($8.50) chipotle tartar sauce This time around the fish bites weren't as likely to flake as the last time, but they were also firmer and drier. Nothing spicy-hot from the chipotle from the tartar sauce. Fried Oysters ($9.50) chipotle tartar sauce Fried oysters is fried oysters. Nothing too special here. However, if you are unlucky, the odd oyster here might still have some of its algae feed (no, it's not "oyster ...

I had previously tried Yves Veggie Cuisine Original Veggie Ground Round  and hadn't been particularly impressed by it. A friend of mine read my review and suggested I try the pre-flavoured ground rounds, so I picked up a couple from Whole Foods . For the Mexican Veggie Ground Round, I decided to go with the picture and make tacos. I fried up some onion and green pepper and threw in half the pack of ground round. Unlike the Original Veggie Ground Round, the Mexican Veggie Ground Round did not suddenly massively inflate in volume. Taste and texture were just as good and nothing about the product made me stop to realize that this wasn't meat. There was no overt soy flavour and no slimy feeling in the mouth. These features make this actually the best fake meat I've had so far. What was disappointing, however, was the flavouring. Their version of "Mexican" cam across more like a curry in flavour and aroma, and on the bitter side. To combat this, you could try ...

When my pescetarianism friend wanted to try dim sum, going to a regular dim sum place didn't seem like such a good idea since so many items have some sort of meat. I had never heard of  3G Vegetarian Restaurant  before, but the awards and reviews had me convinced that this would be a really decent place to try dim sum. 3G uses simulated meats. Even phoney prawns. For omnivores like myself, this makes 3G a tricky place to evaluate. You can either talk about the fake meats, or (harder) try to turn that part of your brain off and concentrate on whether the dish tasted good or not. The latter is much easier to do if you simply don't look at the meat too closely. Before I get too far ahead, I should probably say that all the simulated meats I've tried have generally not been very good fakes. Some, like Yves Original Ground Round , do a really decent job in many ways, but overall there is still something "off" about it when compared to the real thing, especially in...

It's really strange that Black + Blue can bring out mediocre food -- the space/ambiance is really nice and it just feels so promising. Adding insult to injury is the high-end downtown eatery price, with appetizers approaching $20. But there is just something going on in there that is off because on the Thursday when my happy hour friend and I went for basically an early dinner, it was basically deserted -- whereas Italian Kitchen  (also a Glowbal Group restaurant) across the street had been going non-stop busy since Noon and was slowly picking up as we approached dinnertime. If you're curious about Black + Blue, something to take a bit of the sting out of your inevitably daunting bill is Glowbal's Monday gift card promotion -- Buy a $100 gift card and you will receive a time-limited $20 bonus good only for 90 days. Both go straight into your e-mail inbox right away. (And by the way, $100 gets swallowed up at Black + Blue really quickly...). Try to pair ...

The Lobby Lounge and Terrance at the Fairmont Pacific Rim  serves an interesting and very fresh-tasting afternoon tea involving nigiri sushi, sandwiches, pastries, and desserts. So far it is one of the best afternoon tea services I've had, considering both the quality of the items you get, and the coolly professional servers. Not being an afternoon tea destination on weekdays, your chances of walking in and asking for it are really rather good -- Reservations are "preferred but not required". Just this Monday at around 2 PM, we were just one of two couples who were there for afternoon tea. The few other patrons were there for drinks and sushi. You can sit anywhere in the lobby, including the extension separated by sliding doors. There are three types of seating: For dinner-table style sit-down seating, you'll probably have to go into the extension. Sometimes there are larger groups there, so ambient noise may be an issue. In the rest of the lounge, the most comm...

Back Forty Saloon is a dimly lit sports bar. The televisions are not as obtuse as at Jimmy's Taphouse , which makes it an inferior sports bar, but more balanced as a place to hang out with your friends if you are not into what sports are on TV. Bar-height tables against the walls were uncomfortably arranged, being pushed right against the seat. Getting in or out was horribly awkward, so if your party is assigned such a section try to sit on the outside on barstools. Better yet, try not to get stuck with them and get proper sit-down tables and chairs. Salads are pretty big here, so do ask your server about the portion size before committing to an order. When I was there last Friday I gave the vegan burger a try. Back Forty Vegan Burger ($12.40) Quinoa, cashews, oats, roasted garlic, B40 relish, avocado mousse, lettuce, beef steak tomato, toasted Kaiser. Comes with fries, salad, or slaw. The patty on this burger is actually quite good, with a bit of sweetness (that, or the ...

Back to Establishment ! It's probably the restaurant I've brought the most guests to and I've had yet to have a really bad experience there. Value for money is generally good (a bit steep on the tapas, though), and it's overall a really safe place to bring guests. The combination of good food and the restaurant not being too busy makes it very convenient for groups big or small. Plus Chef Bongo's Famous African Chicken Peanut Soup is still a winner. They are also still making it very convenient to share their large-portioned soups so you should not be shy about asking a single order to be split into two bowls. (I totally forgot to try the vegetarian version. Drat.) Chef Bongo's Chilled White Asparagus Soup ($11) creamy white asparagus with crab & avocado, drizzled with truffle oil I felt this was a little overdone with the truffle oil because it really covered up the other flavours. I guess if you like chilled soup that smells like truffle oil, that...

Neverland Tea Salon offers a gluten-free and dairy-free (but not vegan, since it still uses egg) option on its $30 "High Tea" menu. I'm not gluten-intolerant but I was curious about it, so when we went last Saturday, that's what I opted for. This option comes at no extra cost. The selection on the tea tower is slightly different, however. Neverland is a smallish place and can be quite busy. Our table was for 4:00 PM and there was a card marking this as the third booking of the day. 4:00 PM tea can feel quite late, especially in this fall/winter season when shortly after it will be dark. However, if you want an un-rushed time (especially if you have a party larger than four), it's probably the best reservation option. When I arrived, it was still buzzing with people, but there apparently weren't many 4:00 PM reservations because the place quieted down quite a bit; and we had a lovely conversation at our table until closer to 6:30 PM. The flowery decor and...

Got this in my inbox just the other day: Looks like the Shangri-La Hotel in downtown Vancouver has gone with an Arabian theme this holiday season. Click here for the full brochure , including Afternoon Tea service, spa treatments involving coffee and dates, Christmas and New Year dinners (though without mention of whether it, too, will be Arabian themed or turkey-traditional), and hotel packages. Hint for page 7, " mignardises ".

Unlike Joe Fortes, Coast does accept reservations for half-priced Happy Hour , and it can see large groups sit down for it. Instead of being shuffled off to the bar, you get tables and sit-down meal service. Nice! They also call to confirm TWO days before, which was a little disorienting for me and I ended up confusing the hostess by trying to confirm the reservation for "tomorrow". Happy Hour at Coast is everything on the left side of the menu, except Sides -- Soups, Salads, Hot, Steamers, Flatbreads. There was also something about taking off the lower-priced of two entrees, but you'd best ask about that more carefully to see which items qualify.   We sat down for Happy Hour at around 4.30pm and it wasn't terribly busy, but attendance was steady and slowly picked up. We were seated sort-of near the kitchen at the back, which had a more enclosed feel probably because of the lower ceiling. I would have thought it an advantage as being close to the kitchen shoul...

Before I got the $30 for $60 Groupon , I didn't know about Kibo Restaurant and Lounge 's half-priced happy hour. Definitely go for happy hour if you can fit it in during that time. Otherwise, the Groupon is a great deal, but it is only for tables of four or more. If your friends are flaky, you could be stuck. It's a huge restaurant! With a huge patio! Inside, it's dimly lit and has a cool lounge vibe. Definitely a nice "date night" sort of place. Sadly the dessert selection is lousy (deep fried banana and ice cream makes up their entire dessert selection), but for late-night you can still zip over to the Hamilton Street Grill for their should-be-famous gingerbread pudding (still a steal at $8) or  Bistro Sakana for their deeply chocolatey brownies. I should say that I still find savouring sushi challenging. For the most part, sushi is sushi unless they do something to really stand out, like the refreshing fruitiness of the rolls at Honjin Sushi . And I...

Could Jimmys Tap House please update their online menu? It's not totally different, but it's not the same either. Jimmys has a great location, large space, and well-positioned TVs so that pretty much wherever you sit, you can watch the sports. Which makes it lousy for date night or get-togethers with friends where you're supposed to be catching up with each other. They have happy hour every day of the week, which is pretty handy because weekday happy hours can be pretty tricky to get to. I was invited to a get-together with some friends on Saturday and we dropped in for happy hour. At some places (like Glowbal Grill ), it is not clear on the menu which items qualify for half-priced happy hour, and you have to ask your server. At Jimmys it says right on the menu. Chicken Wings ($10) Buttermilk fried chicken, sweet chili sauce I chose the intriguing-sounding "butter hot" sauce. It was neither buttery nor hot, sadly. No idea what happened there -- maybe kit...

Just back from Chicha . Our dining group was on the early seating (5pm) and with good reason the restaurant asked us to be done by 7pm as they were just about line-up-at-the-door busy. Tables tend to be for groups and the bar is for couples, or so the seating seemed to be assigned. It's a small, tight place. The main lane between the tables and the bar can get traffic jammed, and your waitress won't be able to get past the people loitering there. Happily they are no longer cash-only (but no AMEX, which is understandable as of the credit cards, that is the priciest option for businesses). Going undercover as a food blogger has drawbacks, including not trying to steal the menu or take notes when I'm there. So I'm gonna have to go from memory here... Chicha Morada ($3.50) The spice mix makes this taste like Christmas! The spices also settle to the bottom, so stir it between sips from the straw. Slightly on the too-sweet side, but you can wait for the ice to me...

Waddled home stuffed from FirePots tonight. Soooo many mistakes on my part. FirePots is very conveniently near Brentwood Mall and the skytrain station. (Incidentally, it's neigbour is the intriguing and delicious-looking Edible Arrangements ). We were there for a 7:30pm dinner, and although there was no lineup at the door, the restaurant was busy till closer to 9pm when there were basically just bar patrons -- So for the neighbourhood, it handily doubles as a pub. Not much else in striking distance except Starbucks, and there's no alcohol at Starbucks. The hot floor staff at FirePots makes it a lousy place for a date with a guy with the roaming eye. Our server was the friendly, energetic Wendy, who was very helpful to a first-timer for "modern" hot pot like myself. My experience of hot pot was the charcoal-heated metal bowls with a chimney in the middle, and individual dipping sieves for food. This was long ago and far away when I was a kid, visiting my grand...

Thursday afternoon was my very first time to La Tacqueria  (Cambie location). 12 Tacos x 0-4 sauces x 0-2 condiments = 180 combination = big headache. I didn't really want to spend hours thinking about what amounts to essentially fast food, so I opted for "chef's choice" -- That is, I asked the person at the counter what were the four most interesting ones, and let him recommend condiments and how much to put on them. The fellow at the counter was really welcoming and friendly, and especially for a first-timer like me (he asked if I'd ever been there), it was comforting that he had zero hesitation and great confidence in what to recommend. Not afraid to zap on the optional sauces for me either, and not seemingly haphazardly -- for each type of taco, he recommended a particular sauce. For the condiments, it was up to me, and I opted to throw on some jalapeno (which turned out to be a big mistake). The tacos also came with a wedge of lime, which I used sparingl...

The last time I was at Joe Fortes was years ago, for a vegan prix fixe special dinner. ( No, I'm not kidding ). Food was good, service was great. Neither have changed. On Wednesday our dining group popped down for their 4-6pm Happy Hour. The Happy Hour menu at Joe Fortes shows a list with daunting painful-to-your-purse prices, but which was OK at 50% off Happy Hour prices. Some items actually become a steal. Expect to be reminded that ONLY the Happy Hour menu is half-off as they apparently get people who get the wrong idea. NOT drinks, obviously, where restaurants make their moolah. Have a few drinks at your table to help them out, eh? It all started with making a reservation on OpenTable. Apparently restaurants don't check the messages on these reservations till much later because a few hours prior to our Happy Hour reservation, I got a call from the restaurant saying Happy Hour was first-come-first-served at the BAR. Reservations for tables were for dinner only. They we...

After god knows how long, I dropped by Leonidas again last Friday to grab a hot beverage on a cold, rainy evening right before heading over to Peckinpah. Turns out they have small round cheesecakes now, that the owners pick up from The Confectional in Seattle. They were still serving their Hot Chocolate Festival offerings, though the menu has been trimmed down to about a half dozen of their most popular items. The lonely storekeep holding down the fort on that dark, dreary evening was a Belgian import, and ecstatic to be working for Leonidas, the chocolates she grew up with. She recommended the raspberry cheesecake flavoured hot chocolate, made with white chocolate. It was quite sweet, but not so sweet as to require a glass of water on the side or to give you a sugar burn at the back of the throat. I was warned that it would have some sourness, but this didn't show up for me. It did definitely taste like cheesecake, though without so much cheese flavour to make it more a ch...

OK, Britney Spears does NOT work at Scandilicious . But when we went on Saturday to the family-owned-and-operated Scandilicious, there was this friendly and helpful server behind the counter (Karlie?) who I swear was the spitting image of Britney Spears (well, more like Britney 10 years ago). Anyway... About the restaurant... It has a narrow store-front that might look more like just a take-out window. Inside, past the long walk past the service counter on one side and self-serve water / sugar / napkins on the other, are a measly 16 or so seats, including four barstools around two tall tables. Turnover for duos dropping in for a bite was quite quick, though. And despite the tight space, they didn't  try to maximize it with tight spacing, as some places are often tempted to do. It clean and bright and cheery inside. Scandilicious boasts the best waffles in Vancouver, and their freshness does definitely make them a contender. They also have gluten free waffles in vegan and non...