Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

After dinner at Deer Garden Signatures, we wandered over to Breka Bakery  for dessert. Cakes are generally $4.25 for a piece about 3"x3"x2", although you may find some things less than that, such as a Rum Ball for $2.75. Tastiness is generally good to very good. Savory sandwiches are rubbishly priced at $7.50 or so for sad looking sandwiches that doubtless look better after the toasty panini treatment on site. But "grilled cheese" -- which looked no more than slices of cheddar between white bread -- was $6.50. Really? At the same time, whole 6" tortes were only $8.50 and a massive poppyseed roll that's probably the size of your forearm was only $9.50. Prices at Breka defy understanding and may be related to how long they've sat in the displays. Rum Ball ($2.75) About tennis ball sized. Super-firm, almost like fudge. Where's my rum?

We had wanted to try Non Stop Pizza again but it turned out they were not just closed, but closed down on their Fraser Street location. The whole block (?) was scheduled for demolition and, probably, gentrification. So my second choice was Deer Garden Signatures , which I'd been curious about but wasn't about to run out to Richmond for. There was a line-up in the tight waiting area, but for our party of five, the wait time was estimated at 10 minutes, even with two parties ahead of us. And it was no lie! In about ten minutes we ended in a spacious booth near the back of the restaurant. Client demographic looked predominantly under-30's Chinese, but the fairly young wait-staff could speak English well and were more polite and patient than at most Chinese restaurants I've been to. Points here! Our orders didn't all come at the same time, BUT they all came very hot -- apparently it's served as it's made, no waiting around to serve an entire table at ...

If you haven't had "Indian Style" pizza, definitely give it a go. And Non-Stop Pizza is a pretty decent place to try it. It's interesting not just because it uses Indian menu ingredients like chicken tikka or tandoori chicken and the like, but also because it doesn't have melty cheese blanketing everything--which means re-heating it isn't going to be quite so bad. The Fraser Street location of Non-Stop Pizza  is a dive that thankfully you won't have to eat in -- because there's no seating! It's just a take-out counter, really. I tried it on Thursday, and there was the one extremely bored (?) person bordering on possibly being surly. He blandly and negatively answered my questions. Egg Pizza? Nope. We have no eggs. (WTH?) Tandoori Fish Pizza? Nope. Butter Chicken Pizza? Nope. That is the same as Chicken Tikka Pizza. (Really? Then why is Chicken Tikka Pizza a separate menu item?) Anyway, we got a single large, half-and-half pizza (half one ...

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...