Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

A new Tim Hortons  is opening today at 490 Hornby Street (at Pender) . If you can find one of these flyers you can score yourself a free donut with coffee purchase. Otherwise, just drop by today (Thursday, February 26th, 2015) to check out the "great prizes and giveaways all afternoon". If you're keen on working for 'em, they are hiring, apparently.

It's always tricky to review Chinese restaurants because in North America we expect western restaurant standards -- to be fawned over like honored guests. And some few Chinese restaurants do that -- like The Change . But in most Chinese restaurants, you are treated more like rude children -- mostly ignored then herded out. The Tian Shi Fu customer service experience is quite typical, or maybe a notch down. You can expect to wait at the hostess's table forever. Server will walk by and even if they make eye contact with you, do nothing. Even if they come to the reservations book, you may be completely ignored while they address someone else who came after you. You have to basically flag someone down. They have fat menus with pictures of everything . Yes, everything. This is good. They don't have enough menus to really go around -- maybe two per table. This is bad. Unless you don't mind just one or two persons ordering for everyone, or for ordering to take forever.

Anatolia Express is a small establishment easily overlooked from being overshadowed by the big restaurants around Canada Place. Squashy seating but big tables. On the Saturday afternoon I was there, it looked like it was a mom-and-son operation. Price is quite good -- you can get a decent and interesting lunch for under $10, which is great for a prime downtown touristy location like Canada Place. The website menu is outdated. Most of the offerings are sort of boring (fish and chips?) so I recommend going for just the Turkish fare. If you are looking for a wider selection of Turkish food, Anatolia's Gate is a better bet with comparable prices. Kumru ($9.99) Basically a hollow pita with sausage and cheese. Supposedly has four types of Turkish salami. Good amount of meat from the sausage, but that also makes this item on the salty side. Slight heat from the bit of hot peppers. At $9.99 this is a reasonable alternative to a hamburger if you want "meat-and-bread"

Saigon Fare Cafe is a surprisingly big diner. It is essentially clean and spacious, but some elements are dilapidated, like a cracked tabletop held together by tape. It looks like a cheap hole-in-the-wall and it basically is. Staff are friendly and the short lady who runs the place and does the cooking feels like your aunt (the nice one). Spicy Pork Bánh Mì ($3.95) Approximately 9" long. This was the special-of-the-day and not on the regular menu. By "spicy" it means pork marinated in spice, in this case, soy and anise braised pork . She did offer to put some chili peppers in it if I wanted it hot-spicy, but I declined. The sandwich was by no means overflowing with filling, but it still works out to about 2½ cheap hamburgers. Slices of meat were quite thick, at maybe 4 millimeters or close to a quarter-inch. This felt like a really cheap eat and just one sandwich was good enough to be a filling lunch meal. Spring Rolls ($2.50 for one, $7.25 for three) Un

Interesting change to the Bel Café that the counter is for takeout only, or maybe at least during the busy lunch hour. I suppose it's only fair since the server does go around cleaning up after and offering you water -- and therefore is sort of owed a tip. Went by a late-ish Friday (1.30pm) for their hot chocolate festival offering. If you didn't know, the annual Hot Chocolate Festival for 2015 ran approximately mid-Janaury till Valentine's Day, so it's over, sadly. But like previous years, I found a lot of the offerings to be hit and miss, though they were certainly creative. Even at 1.30pm they were packed till closer to past-2pm. Lunch crowd plus waitlist, I suppose. And maybe that's another reason for the counter being takeout only since you might order something "for here" only to discover you haven't anywhere to sit. The sensible thing then is to get seated first, then order. Prices here are inclusive of tax, which is really handy. Hot C

Found this in my e-mail today from Starbucks: February 13th, from 2 PM till close, "at participating stores", is the World's Largest #StarbucksDate  -- obviously timed to be just ahead of Valentine's Day, when everyone will be too busy buying last-minute flowers or going to overpriced restaurant meals to drop by Starbucks for a coffee. Once again, no special promotions for Singles Awareness Day. (>_<)

President's Choice Sushi Bites  come in 416 gram boxes of 12. Each box has two separate plastic bags of six pieces of sushi, each about the size of a ping pong ball; and a pouch of "wasabi" dipping sauce. There is a "panko-style" breading around the sushi, meaning it will have a crunchy exterior -- probably to deflect attention from the fact that once it comes out of the oven, you will be having hot sushi. The product is basically as picture-perfect as on the packaging (!). That means there really is a chunk of shrimp or scallop in the middle. However, strangely enough, despite the fact that I could isolate a chunk of filling (about 1/3rd of a shrimp in volume), even when I dug it out and ate that filling on its own, I didn't get any clear shrimp or scallop flavour. The perils of freezing shellfish, I guess. Also, no seaweed flavour. The "wasabi" sauce does have a light wasabi flavour -- nothing that will clear your sinus painfully, like a chun

I was previously at Anatolia's Gate over two years ago , and still remembered it had good eats for a good price. Dropped in with a friend last Friday and decided to try something different from the menu. She was in the mood for curry (in a Turkish place?) and I went for one of the wraps. Beef Curry ($12.95) About two cups's worth of curry, plus rice and token salad. This is a sort of drier bitter-spicy curry. If you're hoping for a South Asian curry, don't order this. I think this will end up being more of an acquired taste. Veggie Dürüm ($7.55) Roasted veggies Bell Pepper, Eggplant, Zucchini Mushroom wrapped in a freshly baked lavash bread with yogurt sauce Basically a donair or wrap using a thicker bread similar to naan. Price for portion is pretty good, considering you're getting about 2 burger's worth of filling. Roasted veggies were of course hot, but it was mixed with cool yogurt sauce and "salad" shredded veggies (mostly lettuce),

After our hot chocolate crawl on Saturday, I was hoping to do an early walk-in at Chicha , but it turned out that they were fully booked and were expecting to be swarmed by their Dine Out Vancouver reservations by around 5.30pm, so they couldn't squeeze us in. I honestly didn't expect that so after some flustered fumbling around we ended up at a non-DOV venue, Nirvana . We dined pretty early so it was empty inside except for a couple of small tables. Interesting decor, including a painting of Buddha sort of out-of-place with the other Indian artwork. Anyway, very Indian feeling. Menu had reasonable prices and it would turn out the portions were very good. Some prices are slightly higher than on the online menu. Papadum (free after you have place your order) Like papadum everywhere - salty, slightly bitter. Gluten Free Chilla ($2.95, a type of Indian pancake) Chilla uses chickpea flour, so it is gluten free. Topped with assorted veggies. I found this dense and d

On Saturday I did a  Hot Chocolate Crawl  for  Hot Chocolate Festival 2015  with a fellow Yelper and we hit three places. French Made Baking had the best hot chocolate of what I tried that day. It's a tiny place but they've sort of opened up the back to have seating parallel to the kitchen area. You have to walk through to get to the one washroom shared by patrons and staff anyway. HOT girls cooking away in the kitchen. Of course we're not talking hot-because-of-your-tight-black-Cactus-Club outfit type hot. More like sweet girl-next-door feminine hot. Not having hairnets help with that. Each day a different hot chocolate will be featured, however some flavours may be available every day. As well,  the popular "Lord of the Hot Chocolate" - a festival favourite of previous years - will be on the menu every day. All drinks are made with Valrhona chocolate . #25 - "ONLY THYME WILL TELL"  Orange and Thyme infused Dark Chocolate (72% single origin,

On Saturday I did a  Hot Chocolate Crawl  for  Hot Chocolate Festival 2015  with a fellow Yelper and we hit three places.  The Last Crumb Bakery  was the second stop. It's actually a remarkably large place that feels a bit like a high school cafeteria. Spacious seating. Just one washroom and you need to ask for the key. Can I take points off for that? (Please note that the bakery and cafe is closed on Mondays. See hours below.) At The Last Crumb Bakery and Cafe they make their hot chocolate sauce in house from a rich, high quality Dutch Cocoa. #39 - "TRIPLE GINGER SPICED HOT CHOCOLATE" Triple ginger hot chocolate. Served with handmade Ginger Apricot Sconscotti (biscotti made from our delicious, handmade buttery scones.) Available: January 17 - February 14 #40 - "CHOCOLATE CHERRY LUST" Sour cherry hot chocolate. Accompanied by a fluffy, handmade, vanilla speckled marshmallow.  Available: January 17 - February 14 Triple Ginger Spiced Hot Chocol

On Saturday I did a Hot Chocolate Crawl  for Hot Chocolate Festival 2015 with a fellow Yelper and we hit three places. Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France  was the first stop. We got in shortly after they opened as there was concern they might sell out, as they did last year. It's a tiny store that's basically slightly more than half kitchen and the rest is maybe a 20-seat area of mostly benches as well as some space outside. Has sort of a rustic feel and a decor that includes lots of chocolate molds. Strangely it felt quaint. All drinks are prepared with milk or almond milk. A selection of flavours is also offered in bags to prepare at home. No drink service on Feb 14th, to accommodate their Valentine's Day lineup. #17 - "Marocchino" Classic Italian drink: half drinking chocolate, half espresso. Served with a meringue of your choice. Our recommendation: cardamom, anise or vanilla. Available: every day of the festival that the shop is open. #18 - &quo