Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Where once there was a 7-11 on Robson is now The Holy Crab , a seafood boil sort of place. The basics is this: You order seafood. They boil it. You extract the meat (and there's a TV televising the various way to efficiently get meat out of crustaceans), dip it in sauce, and eat it. If you're not sure what sauce to get, they can bring out a flight of samplers. Get this! To me, crab is crab. So I looked at the menu and ordered other stuff instead. Yeah, I even got the chicken. Really. Seafood Chowder ($4.50) Miscellaneous bits of stuff in it. Still came across as slightly on the watery side of a chowder, and definitely not chunky with stuff. A bit bland. If you have the flight of sauce samplers, you can try putting a bit of your favourite sauce into it and stirring it up. Seafood Bisque ($6.50) There's actually stuff in this! Looks like similar stuff as the chowder. Tastes ok. Fried Bread ($2) Two small buns. Price is atrocious unless you are ...

Not really one for seafood but my friend picked Fanny Bay Oyster Bar for happy hour early dinner. Checking on Yelp, another friend gave it a good review, so I was game. Seating and table spacing felt kinda tight. Busy too for happy hour on a Saturday! Also, our server gave us a happy hour last-call warning, which was kinda nice. Pot of mint tea ($3) Looked innocent enough, and at $3 it's about on par with ordering hot tea at Starbucks. Hey look, it's Starbucks tea! Teapot of hot water had what appeared to be (and what I hoped was) leftover tea leaves. No way they didn't see that when they poured in the hot water. FAIL. Fried Oysters ($7.50 happy hour pricing) Deep fried Fanny Bay Oysters, house made tartar sauce, cabbage coleslaw Ordered this based on a friend's Yelp review, and price for value it's really decent! The sheer number of meaty oysters makes this more filling than a gourmet burger costing 50% more. Very crispy on the outside without...

Back to Joe Fortes for Happy Hour! Last time I was there specifically for their 4pm-6pm happy hour was way back in 2013  and the food is still just as good. Buck-a-shuck oysters are off the happy hour menu due to current oyster conditions, but its place they added Prawn Tacos, Three Cheese Bacon Mac & Cheese, West Coast Clam Chowder. There were some service hiccups this time, but based on their record with me and my parties so far, I'm going to assume it's a one-off. But here are some tips: TIP: When they ask you about water, "flat water" is probably bottled water and in any case costs $2 per person. TIP: If you go at happy hour and are seated at the bar, you *may* get the bar menu, which is incorrect and does not list the new happy hour menu items. Immediately ask for the Happy Hour Menu . No, it is not the same as the Bar Menu, even though they look the same. Even if you work off the wrong menu, you will still get happy hour prices, though. TIP: For ...

During my 2015-April trip to San Francisco , Scoma's had been recommended to me twice: Once by a lady who worked at Swiss Louis on Pier 39, and a second time by the guide from Dylan's Tours. Surely it had to be good. It even has it's own road in Fisherman's Wharf, for chrissakes ( Al Scoma Way ). Surely it's a San Francisco fixture, a piece of its history. All this puts Scoma's in that dangerous territory of setting high expectations all to easy to disappoint. I got there when their doors were open but before their official start of business. The maître d' was a younger fellow, friendly, personable and professional. He even remembered my name on my way out, and little details such as my leaving for the airport that same night. Sadly I ended up with a pushy waiter who seemed insistent on upselling me their Shellfish Sauté Sec  even though I told him I was just here for a light meal as I had elsewhere to eat on my very last day in San Francisco. I am...

Continuing our happy hour tour, myself and and few friends went Glowbal Group's Fish Shack on Thursday. Since the happy hour half-price offer is limited to the Appetizer menu, it is actually quite limited and we ended up ordering many non-fish items -- not even their fish and chips ( which I'd tried over a year ago ). Popcorn Shrimp ($10.50) cocktail sauce Nothing too special here. Use a fork to put the cocktail sauce on as dipping the shrimp in the sauce seemed to just push the sauce around everywhere but onto the popcorn shrimp. Fish Bites ($8.50) chipotle tartar sauce This time around the fish bites weren't as likely to flake as the last time, but they were also firmer and drier. Nothing spicy-hot from the chipotle from the tartar sauce. Fried Oysters ($9.50) chipotle tartar sauce Fried oysters is fried oysters. Nothing too special here. However, if you are unlucky, the odd oyster here might still have some of its algae feed (no, it's not "oyster ...

Unlike Joe Fortes, Coast does accept reservations for half-priced Happy Hour , and it can see large groups sit down for it. Instead of being shuffled off to the bar, you get tables and sit-down meal service. Nice! They also call to confirm TWO days before, which was a little disorienting for me and I ended up confusing the hostess by trying to confirm the reservation for "tomorrow". Happy Hour at Coast is everything on the left side of the menu, except Sides -- Soups, Salads, Hot, Steamers, Flatbreads. There was also something about taking off the lower-priced of two entrees, but you'd best ask about that more carefully to see which items qualify.   We sat down for Happy Hour at around 4.30pm and it wasn't terribly busy, but attendance was steady and slowly picked up. We were seated sort-of near the kitchen at the back, which had a more enclosed feel probably because of the lower ceiling. I would have thought it an advantage as being close to the kitchen shoul...

The Grand Villa Casino now has a $25.95 seafood buffet (HALF price if you used the 2-for-1 coupons that were recently mailed out). Even at that price, it's pretty decent value as they keep bringing out the crab legs and you can have as much as you like. Look around and you'll see that's what everyone "in-the-know" goes there for. That said, The Buffet does have other items, including (big) prawns, a beef carving station, and a good-enough selection of more mundane buffet items like salads, rice, and noodles. The food is so-so but at least looks freshly same-day prepared. Not gourmet eats, of course, but nothing that looks re-heated either. The mussels did turn out sort of dry, so try to get ones with more tasty sauce on them. The soup of the day (mushroom soup when I went) was very thick and creamy and with chunks of mushroom. Stir fried prawns were largish, not juvenile shrimps. Cocktail prawns were medium to big sized prawns. If you are in very early, slo...