Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

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...