Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

I was recommended KIMU Japanese Cuisine by friends showing me interesting pictures of sushi. Naturally when I went I didn't get any "rolls" but whatever sounded way more interesting. It's too bad the menu doesn't have pictures but you can check out pics online at Zomato and Yelp to see just how pretty and interesting their creations are and at decent portions for very reasonable prices! TIP: Get a spoon. Unlike "normal" sushi restaurant offerings, the variant construction can mean some pieces falling off the arrangement, so chopsticks will be sort of lousy here. Ask for a spoon right away if you're getting their special stuff, such as what we ordered. Volcano Eggplant Seafood Yaki ($8.95) deep fried eggplant, pan fried seafood with onion, melted mozzarella, cheddar cheese, with special spicy mix sauce and bonito on top We ate this with chopsticks. Don't eat this with just chopsticks. Slabs of eggplant were rather big. No way you'

Been years since I ate at Bao Bei. Last time we were a large group at a family table in the back. This time there were just two of us doing a Monday evening walk-in right when they opened. And that's probably the best way if you can manage it because the lineup started around 5:15 pm and they were basically full shortly after the restaurant opened for the evening at 5:30 pm ( accepts no reservations except for their family table ). Having grown up on Chinese food at home myself, my take on Bao Bei is that it serves the familiar foods you had at home, but magically made more interesting and tasty. It makes other Chinese restaurants look like lazy home-style. It's like everything had a something-extra something-special treatment. Portions are small for price, so if you want any chance of actually walking out of there full at $25+ per person (that's not including drinks), get the fried rice. bean curd skin ($5.50) king oyster mushroom, chili ginger vinaigrette Look

For $2.25 you can get a straight stick of churro , and for a buck more you can get a scoop of ice cream to go with it. Sounds expensive, and when the portion comes it looks expensive too, but people will pay $5 for a single scoop of ice cream, so it's hard to discuss price when the dessert market is spendy. I got the "plain" churro, which is coated in sugar and somewhere in there is cinnamon. It tastes okay and as churros go, it's completely fine just like this. And seriously, what do you want? It's a dough of flour, water, and salt deep fried till crispy. You're paying for the novelty, plus a premium for being in a neighbourhood where it's hard to find and maybe a bit of a walk to the nearest churro competitor.

Where once there was a 7-11 on Robson is now The Holy Crab , a seafood boil sort of place. The basics is this: You order seafood. They boil it. You extract the meat (and there's a TV televising the various way to efficiently get meat out of crustaceans), dip it in sauce, and eat it. If you're not sure what sauce to get, they can bring out a flight of samplers. Get this! To me, crab is crab. So I looked at the menu and ordered other stuff instead. Yeah, I even got the chicken. Really. Seafood Chowder ($4.50) Miscellaneous bits of stuff in it. Still came across as slightly on the watery side of a chowder, and definitely not chunky with stuff. A bit bland. If you have the flight of sauce samplers, you can try putting a bit of your favourite sauce into it and stirring it up. Seafood Bisque ($6.50) There's actually stuff in this! Looks like similar stuff as the chowder. Tastes ok. Fried Bread ($2) Two small buns. Price is atrocious unless you are

Wednesday May-10 was the second annual  Tonight for Tomorrow , the one-day proceeds-to-charity supporting Mealshare -- the charity that works without costing you anything . Our eating team of three dudes went to JamJar at their new location at Granville and 11th (where Vij's used to be, right next door to Rangoli). Their prices have gone up a bit since I was last at Jamjar's Commercial Drive location  but the sharing platters for two persons are still a great deal. How great? We were three persons and we were pretty full from the sharing platter for two persons. Part of the reason is the basically unlimited pita you get with your meal. They serve it sparingly each time (probably to guard against wasted pita) but you can ask for more, and you will definitely need more even tackling the first plate of dips. We went with the "Meat and Fish Tasting Plate for 2" ($65). No fish here but there were prawns. Some notes... Dips were tasty! Remember to swirl in t