Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

So I finally made it to Vij's. Long ago I had wanted to go when they were still at Granville, but because of an estimated 2-hour wait I ended up at next door Rangoli instead. Underwhelmed by Rangoli, Vij's fell off my radar for years until, recently, my friend started talking up the sablefish there. First, before you even go, know that Vij's is not an "authentic" Indian restaurant. If you go in with that in mind or if you're going to start comparing them, you will almost assuredly be disappointed. It has a lot of Indian restaurant similarities, though. A decent lineup will establish itself by 5pm on a Sunday (we went on a Sunday), but even so, everyone is likely to get a seat right when the restaurant opens. At around 7pm, there were even open tables, so walk-ins become easier after. Room decor is nice! Table spacing is also not super-tight. You are offered a cup of chai and the occasional bite of complimentary appetizer while waiting once you are ...

OK, not really faster than McDonalds, but fast. It's a tiny cafeteria with communal seats. The small kitchen back there is sardined with maybe over 10 people who are probably mostly grilling, because my burger came FAST. They were slammed, but fast service kept things moving with McDonalds-worthy speed. They only *sometimes* asked for a customer's name so some orders got kind of confused, but it's early days and they're working out the kinks. Impressively swift operation with thankfully adequate kitchen staffing to keep the burgers coming (and hence, keeping the customer queue moving). (Signature) Big Smoke Burger ($8.99?) horseradish mayo, caramelized onions, smoked cheddar, tomato, lettuce Really, really, decent grilled-to "medium" rarity burger. Moist enough. No pink, but you are warned that the patties may come out with some pink. Good regulation thickness at approximately 1 cm thick. Rest of the burger is a waste of time. Too boring: Not enough ...

Spacious restaurant, tons of beer, not too busy on a Sunday afternoon. I don't drink beer, so someone else can review that. The house-made patty was what caught my eye and being veggie-curious and starting to be meat-guilty, I gave it a go. Garden Burger ($13 +$1 mushrooms +$2 soup of the day) House-made nut & veggie patty, citrus aioli, onions, lettuce and tomato As burgers go, the height and size of this one is on the larger side. Tall enough that you will probably not be able to fit it in your mouth. Often veggie patties are fake-meat soy or some bean thing, so this one sounded promising with the use of nuts. A bit thin, but texture was good with the grilled crust. Sadly, the patty (and everything, including my mushroom add-on) was overpowered by the curry used. Which makes it more like a curry vegetarian burger. It's still a reasonably tasty burger overall, but don't count on nuts or veggies from your patty to make any contribution. Nicely grilled bun complete...

When my pescetarianism friend wanted to try dim sum, going to a regular dim sum place didn't seem like such a good idea since so many items have some sort of meat. I had never heard of  3G Vegetarian Restaurant  before, but the awards and reviews had me convinced that this would be a really decent place to try dim sum. 3G uses simulated meats. Even phoney prawns. For omnivores like myself, this makes 3G a tricky place to evaluate. You can either talk about the fake meats, or (harder) try to turn that part of your brain off and concentrate on whether the dish tasted good or not. The latter is much easier to do if you simply don't look at the meat too closely. Before I get too far ahead, I should probably say that all the simulated meats I've tried have generally not been very good fakes. Some, like Yves Original Ground Round , do a really decent job in many ways, but overall there is still something "off" about it when compared to the real thing, especially in...