Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

My mom had her eye on this T&T product line for a while, but being the frugal person that she is, she waited until it was on sale at Superstore this week and chose the "Cooked Pork & Shrimp Dumplings" to sample. These are basically siu mai . As usual it looks great in ad copy, but how good is it? For a mere eight dumplings, it is quite over-packaged on the inside, with a plastic tray that looks like an ice cube tray for freezers. Each of the eight dumplings sits in its own cubicle, which separates them and prevents them from clumping if you choose to microwave them -- one of the recommended preparation methods. My mom went with steaming. They came out extremely firm, almost rubbery -- basically similar to very firm fish balls . If we had read the label more carefully, we might have expected this -- it's COOKED Pork. This also explains why the meat is clay-grey in colour. If you had ordered siu mai at dim sum, you could expect a much more tender product, a...

AYCE (All You Can Eat) is not available at every Pizza Hut, so you'll have to ask around. One location that has it is the 4775 East Hastings (at Gamma Avenue) Pizza Hut. This smallish place has booth seating and a small stand for their Monday to Friday 11.30 am to 1.30 pm lunch buffet. Not on holidays. And only $6.99! This kind of cheap is practically a public service! Not much service to be had here for an AYCE, but that's to be expected. You will probably have to ask for water, maybe a whole pitcher of it if you are a larger party. I think they forgot to turn the heat lamps on high because we got there shortly after Noon and any pizza not clearly fresh from the oven was basically lukewarm. You may also have to ask for less popular pizzas like Hawaiian and Vegetarian. Service isn't exactly ace as they are probably geared toward take-out and delivery, but it isn't surly either. It's probably just a combination of inexperienced and tired of giving smiling ser...

For years now, you can get very cheap full-sized frozen pizza for about $5 at Superstore. Smaller "gourmet" ones used to come in at around $8, but this week there are some for sale at around $3. I picked up a couple of Buitoni  at $3.32 each (limit 2) and one McCain Ultra Thin Crust Roasted Mushroom and Garlic  at $3. I'm feeling veggie conscious so I picked only vegetarian pizzas. The Buitoni Spinaci Fresca was the first ever Buitoni product I've tried and it was shocking. The Nutrition Facts (which I never read beforehand) confirmed it wasn't a factory fluke -- 500 mg Sodium per 90 gram (quarter pizza) serving. The McCain Ultra Thin Crust Roasted Mushroom and Garlic wasn't significantly better at 310 mg Sodium per 86 gram (quarter pizza) serving, but the taste was what made the Buitoni pizza so surprising: It was as if someone had sprinkled extra salt on a pizza. It wasn't an experience of savoury-salty ingredients or sauce, but more like a...

My relapsed-vegetarian friend who had already gone to all the veggie hotspots in town had her birthday recently, and all I could think of for a safe place to take her was Bishops. It has no vegetarian mains, but the kitchen had done very well previously with an impromptu vegetarian and vegan dinner . As it turned out, my friend was back to a sort-of-omnivorous diet which allowed fish and poultry, so we did fine with the regular menu. Plating is beautiful, and the food isn't anything really fancy. It's just very well done, with some surprisingly good: Virgin Cocktail ($5.50) Even if you are non-drinker, look through the drink menu for the virgin drinks tucked in there. I didn't even think to do so, and was fortunately introduced to it by our server when I asked for any unusual non-alcoholic beverages. The intriguing item recommended to me had some sort of Vietnamese vinegar in it. It looked like water with ice and one ground-up chili (red skin and seeds and all). It wa...

I really don't blame Doolin's for being more than just an Irish pub specializing in only Irish food as that probably isn't going to cut it in fussy Vancouver. For your classic pub stuff, there is a "Pub Favourites" section of the menu. The rest is... the rest. Call it what you want, but it's basically a mishmash of everything comfortably familiar and safe to order. Duck Bites ($8) Chipotle and ginger marinated duck bites topped with spicy pickled jalapenos, wrapped in bacon and topped with a sweet sesame soy glaze You get about six of these, which are really bite-sized. The rest of your plate is salad. There's spicy heat here, so if you're not used to spicy, watch out. Whatever taste the duck had was covered up by the stronger flavour of bacon. Short Rib Flatbread ($10) Red wine braised beef short rib with caramelized onions, dry roasted cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, and tomato sauce, topped with a house-made blue cheese aioli The rectangu...

Continuing my tour of MealShare restaurants, last Friday I went with a couple of diners to Anatoli Souvlaki in North Vancouver. It is basically across the street from the very well attended Twilight Market at the Shipyards , and perhaps for that reason it was busy till past 9 PM. Despite the width of the store front, it is a large and deep restaurant, so chances are even on a seemingly busy night, while you might not get a patio seat, you will probably still get a seat somewhere. Service is friendly and attentive: I was intercepted almost immediately by a server and led to a table for my reservation. Water is regularly topped up. It felt like there was a sincere desire for you to have a good experience, which helped to make up for some of the unfortunate shortfalls in the restaurant: For example, our two square tables were wobbly. The apparent fix were old-looking pieces of cardboard shoved under one of the legs. While a older wobbly table could be said to add to the old-fas...

The cost to enter the ring of over 20 food carts at the Vancouver food Cart Fest is $2 or a non-perishable donation, but free for Vancity or Car2Go Members. It is on every Sunday until the end of August. If you are cheap and don't want to pay $2 to browse 20+ food carts because you will likely only eat from one or two (unless you have a team of buy-and-share foodies), there is the free alternative on the North Shore every Friday: The Twilight Market. FRIDAY Nights 5-10pm at The SHIPYARDS in lower Lonsdale, North Vancouver Over 80 vendors, over 30 Food Trucks, Great music, Local Artisans, BEER GARDEN! Activities for all ages! Not only can you get in for free, but there are food and crafts vendors, beer, live music, and it runs till the end of September. And it's right at the waterfront district, so you don't even have to eat there necessarily, and instead choose from dozens of interesting eateries in a one block radius and beyond.

Superstore is having a sale on various chips, including the Double Dutch line of thick chips from Old Dutch Foods , at $2.47 per pack (235 grams), maximum 4 packs at sale price. The product line has four flavours at this time: Buffalo Wing and Blue Cheese, Burstin' Onion, Bacon and Cheeseburger Sliders, Calamari and Tzatziki. I chose the latter two as I felt they would be the most complex and interesting flavours. As chips go, if they had been marketed as tasty, savoury chips, I would probably not have been so disappointed. They have the basics of being savoury and slightly over-salty, which tends to inspire addictive overconsumption -- which is what bags of chips are meant to do. But these have very specific simulated flavours, and against that benchmark, they fail: The Bacon and Cheeseburger Slider flavour didn't taste of bacon or meaty burger or cheese. The Calamari and Tzatziki flavour had a tangy zing reminiscent of what you get with tzatziki sauce , but no fried cala...