Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Met up with a friend on a rainy afternoon here. We dropped in shortly before Noon and it was maybe 1/3rd busy. Shortly after, the place was packed -- all tables and bar seating pretty much occupied. As there were vegan options, I went vegan to try it out. DISCLAIMER: I am NOT vegan. Vegans, vegetarians, and other limited-diet people sort of have a beggars-can't-be-choosers position so they may rate the vegan fare here higher. I'm omnivorous so I'm probably more critical here. My friend's spicy meatball ramen had a much tastier (and spicier) broth, so overall you will probably have a tastier time here than if you go vegetarian. After all, flavourful broth is one of the main things about ramen. TIP: Be careful ordering drinks and extras as there's a lot of soup here. The bowl is sharply tapered so there *may* be a bit less soup than other ramen places, but probably not by much. Price seems pretty steep but is only a couple dollars more than say, Fat Mao Noo...

Casual get-together with a friend at The Festal Cafe today, during a weird limbo dead time between lunch and dinner so there were just a couple of patrons in the otherwise spacious diner of communal benches. The food was actually surprisingly good, and not much to complain about for the price, especially considering it's downtown location. Spicy Chicken & Waffles ($14.55) local free-range chicken breast, wild boar bacon, real maple syrup, no grain waffle bread, coleslaw, side of cassava chips I would really have liked to know it was going to be a cold sandwich. Not skimpy with the slab of chicken, and for all white meat chicken breast, it was actually fairly moist and tender. Overall I thought this was really not that great in composition. If you deconstruct it you do find a nice slab of chicken sitting in coleslaw. Those cassava chips are winners. Really good crunch to them without any oil. Butternut Lasagna ($14.95) local grass-fed beef, butternut squash, spin...

A lot of pictures on this blog will soon disappear. I was using Flickr but in 2018 they changed management and shortly after they announced that non-Pro accounts would be limited to 1000 pictures. I really didn't want to restart elsewhere so I'm going to just let them wipe it. You can still access a lot of my pictures on Yelp or Zomato however, where I also uploaded most of them.

I wish I didn't have to go back to The Old Spaghetti Factory , but it wasn't my choice of venue. In any case, after a couple of duds previously I definitely wanted to order something different and went with the first recommendation I got. The "It's All Included" feature of The Old Spaghetti Factory means you get among other things choice of soup. I went with their standard Minestrone Soup which is actually decent -- except this time it came lukewarm, which totally killed it. FAIL. Red Thai Curry Linguine with Prawns or Chicken ($16.50) light red curry and coconut milk mixed with sautéed peppers and choice of prawns or chicken an topped with fresh cilantro There was negligible curry flavour. If not for the name I couldn't tell this was a curry sauce at all. FAIL. There's coconut flavour and thankfully a not-too-skimpy amount of meat here. Sauce is also generous without your pasta swimming in it. Sweet pepper bits were quite a jarring contrast...

Back to The Tipper. After my mediocre experience last time , I normally wouldn't go again, but I was there to meet someone and it was their choice, so I had to make the best of it. I was careful not to order the same thing at least. Linguine Tip ($15.50) sautéed sweet peppers, mushrooms, avocado, feta in a Cajun cream sauce. Pasta sauces are made to order served with grilled garlic bread. This was actually pretty decent. Price feels a bit steep (after tax and tip you're close to $20 for this one plate) but they aren't skimpy on the mushrooms and feta and giving you a half avocado. Sauce was alright and with spicy-heat bite so be careful if you can't handle the heat. Not super tasty but nothing bad per se, certainly not a thin sauce. Noodles well coated instead of pasta drowned in an excess of sauce for you to sort out yourself. "Garlic bread" seemed more like toast with garlic-less butter. But it's more or less what you get if you buy one of thos...

My mom had a sudden craving for BBQ chicken and fairly dashed out to Walmart for their 2-for-$15 800g chicken promotion, only to find out that the Metrotown Walmart didn't carry them at all! So she went to Superstore for their 1 kg chickens and bought just one. It turns out the chicken is actually really rather decent. The main things I checked were the breast meat and whether the chicken was cooked through. They probably brined the chicken because the breast meat was really quite moist and tender. Often poultry that hasn't been brined before being roasted ends up with breast meat so dry you need a soft drink or gravy to help you choke it down. Whenever you buy one of these chickens from anywhere, I recommend you don't count on eating the whole thing at a picnic or other no-access-to-cooking space just in case some parts of the chicken turn out not-so-cooked. With this particular chicken however, only the deepest part of the thigh showed any sign of being very, very...

Thanksgiving Weekend, and I dragged my out-of-town friend to Seasons in the Park for dinner with a view. So many things wrong with that. First, the view. Yes it's there, but once it's dark out, the reflections on the window glass can obscure some of it. If you're not taking pictures, that's not a problem and there are the city lights and skyline to make for quite a nice view. Still, I'd recommend not going before sundown if a view is what you are after. Second, Thanksgiving dinner. You're not locked into the set menu with Thanksgiving turkey, but there's only so much they can do to the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner that what will end up being special is likely to be the appetizer and dessert. In short, before you go to any restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner, make sure it's not going to be about the food. About the view, the ambiance, the service -- sure. For turkey dinner, do your research first. Seasons served up a very traditional ...

Walked in to Cardero's shortly before the start of their happy hour. Basically there for a snack and a break in between my friend's sightseeing. Given the hour being firmly between lunch and dinner I didn't really think anyone would necessarily expect us to be there for either lunch or dinner. Restaurant was pretty quiet as expected, with maybe three tables occupied in total. Nevertheless we got a pretty condescending server who seemed to look down on us not ordering drinks (neither of us were drinkers) and ordering only lightly (no I wasn't there for either lunch or dinner). God knows what sort of attitude we'd have gotten if we arrived later and asked for the Happy Hour menu. Obviously that's for cheap people, right? In any case, the more attitude I get the less I'm inclined to order. And speaking of the Happy Hour menu, I saw an avocado salad (?) on it that wasn't on the regular menu so I asked about it. And got a pointed reply that it was onl...

Back to The Old Spaghetti Factory . Not my choice of venue -- I was there for an event -- so that may bias me especially as I wasn't impressed at all last time. Keep this in mind! Minestrone Soup For the " It's All Included " soup, this time I went with the basic offering, and thankfully it was actually really decent. Spicy with slight peppery (?) heat. Good as an appetizer. Spinach Salad ($10.50, extra for optional chicken or prawns) Prepared with almonds, apples, and cranberries with our own Honey Dijon dressing and topped with creamy goat cheese Price is weak for portion considering it's mostly spinach (hey, it's a salad!). You'd probably do just as well if you got Honey Dijon dressing from a supermarket and make up a salad yourself. Which is not to say it tastes bad. It's just that it's mediocre. Where a restaurant can really show value is in the additional ingredients / garnishes that the average person might not be bothered ...

Treated my friend for her birthday and she had a craving for Thai from her tried-and-true near-her-neighbourhood Thai place, Green Basil . The free stuff that comes with your meal is really sad but don't worry, your actual order will actually be good! Service on the Sunday afternoon was prompt, attentive, and not pushy. Awesome! Spring Rolls Came with our order. Maybe because it was freshly fried and not allowed to sit around and get soft and soggy (and also drain of oil), this tasted kinda oily. Sauce was so thin as to barely taste like anything at all but I think it was supposed to be that sweet garlic-chili sauce. Maybe. Tom Yum Soup (?) Came with our order. Really kinda thin tasting. G17M. Tiger prawns with red curry paste & coconut rice, served in young coconut ($13.50 lunch special price) This was actually really tasty. And with a tightly packed bowl of rice, price for portion is really decent for a filling meal. "Tiger prawns" were j...

Dropped in here for a function that happened in the back room with a stage for performances! Veggie Burger ($13.50 + $0.50 for soup of the day) Grilled tempeh patty, feta cheese, toasted kaiser bun, crisp spring mix, lush tomato & sweet onion. Vegan patty is available on request Average sized burger with no fancy construction. Bun seemed a bit over toasted but that's probably personal preference. Patty was some dark mash with visible whole black (?) beans. Strangely amazingly bland, which was terribly disappointing. I had to use the shakers of pink salt on it. Pass on this and try something else. Soup of the day was potato broccoli and amazingly thick, which means it helps make this a filling meal. So thick you could scoop it up with the crackers provided. Waitstaff friendly, laid-back, and not pushy about ordering at all.

Was wandering around Chinatown with a friend. Totally impromptu drop-in. Tight busy place even past 7pm on a Friday, so like us you might be asked to share the seven-seat communal table with another small party. This is a NOODLE place. It's not a Chinese place. It's not a Singaporean place. It's not even a ramen place. You get noodles in tasty soup. Don't go here for ethnic or authentic or whatever. Go for noodles in tasty soup, and filling portions for a decent price. Roti ($5.99) Decent curry sauce but could really use some spiciness/heat to it. OK roti prata. $6 for this measly amount? Pass. Get your roti from Amay's House instead where you'll get a big piece about four times as much roti than what's on this plate. The curry there is also better -- tastier and richer. Koh Soi Chicken Curry Noodle ($14.99) braised chicken thigh, turmeric curry, served with wonton noodles and crispy noodles It says "curry" but there's nothing...

It's been a long time since I've been to The Old Spaghetti Factory -- long enough that I really didn't remember anything about that. Wouldn't have gone except there was a group meet there, so keep in mind this review is based on large-party auto-gratuity service. Their mains come "It's All Included", meaning theoretically you get: Italian Sourdough Bread with Whipped Garlic and Plain Butter. This is not garlic bread. This is bread you cut yourself, and soft butter supposedly with garlic mixed in. We were in a group so they brought a few plates of this and sprinkled it about the long table. I specifically asked for it later in the evening when the bread had run out and never saw it. Maybe it was brought to the table elsewhere but it's a long table and as I specifically asked for it, I really did expect that it would land closer to me if not brought right to me. Soup OR salad Small bowl of Minestrone Soup, or upgrade to Clam Chowder or Fren...

For being a part of the Red Robin Royalty program, every year Red Robin gives me a free birthday burger! I usually go with a friend who likes Red Robin burgers, and this year she ate my burger while I got a non-burger menu item from Red Robin. Last year my friend got a veggie fajita at the Red Robin downtown location and was quite pleased with it, so I gave it a go. Veggie Fajitas ($14.99) Seasoned vegetables, black beans, mushrooms, cabbage and carrots. Served with Cheddar, salsa, sour cream and warm flour tortillas. Tortilla filling come literally steaming hot to your table in a hot dish to help keep it hot. You assemble your own tortillas and when you run out you can ask for more. The kitchen does them in batches so you can't really ask for, say, exactly two more tortillas. Did they forget the seasoning? Tasted horrible and with a bitter aftertaste, probably from the bell peppers. Fortunately made palatable by the salsa, sour cream, cabbage, and cheddar cheese. Shr...