Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Next time I go to a Japanese restaurant, I'll have to remember to ask the staff what the name means. "Basho" can apparently mean different things depending on the kanji . Although "location" is a good guess, it may refer to the haiku poet Matsuo Bashō . Anyway, I finally got down to Basho Cafe to have a peek. For a smallish place, it's really nice that they didn't try to cram the floor with as much seating as possible. Instead, there's a respectable amount of legroom and privacy between the tables (though for roominess in cafes, Lost + Found still can't be beat ). I ducked in late afternoon for a meeting, so I just got a peppermint tea and a mini-muffin. Kabocha Muffin ($1) I was sort of hoping that they'd mispelled kombucha , but no, it was kabocha --Japanese pumpkin. $1 for a ping-pong ball sized muffin that'd been sitting in the counter for god-knows-how-long since it was around 2.30 pm. Why did I buy it? No idea. Well whad...

Despite having been warned away by someone who had tried one of their Wednesday Suppers and rated it "nothing to write home about", I still gave Kessel & March a go, and with a gluten-intolerant friend no less. The location looks like a dilapidated industrial zone everything-closed-after-5pm neighborhood, but Kessel & March and other nearby eateries were doing surprisingly well, and were pretty packed after around 7.30pm last Friday when even the nearby coffee shop was closed. It's a small looking space, but two-tiered. It would be pretty cozy except for the traffic noise outside. Go a little later on a weekday and that should die down after 7.30pm or so. Some interesting products are also available in the mini-market, including perfect rice and drinking balsamic vinegar. As usual I asked hopefully for fresh-squeezed juice. No fruits ready to be juiced downstairs, but they do carry the locally produced  Cyoni bottled juice and the grapefruit juice wa...