I almost forgot to post this one. John Chow is running a contest on his blog, giving away a Nintendo Wii, and all you have to do to enter is write a blog post. The contest closes today, so hopefully you read this before midnight so that you can get a change to enter yourself.

John lives in Vancouver, and runs a very successful tech website. He has a blog about making money online, and thus wishes to get as many links to it as he can using the key phrase make money online. His rules are thus simple, first you must make a link to www.johnchow.com using those three words, just as I did in the last sentence; secondly you must make a link to the post about the contest, which I did in the first sentence; and lastly you must make a link to the contest sponsors, www.1234Pens.com, using the words promotional pens, which I just accomplished in this sentence. Do all three in a blog post of your own, and then email a link to the post to wii@1234pens.com.

Good luck!

I am trying to keep with my commitment to write a bit of a review for each place we go out to eat, and will therefore be writing two different posts regarding our experiences on Tuesday as we stopped for food twice. I’m sure it must not seem like we are not on the budget we claim to be, but Karin and I do avoid going out to eat as much as possible in order to keep the unnecessary expenses low. That is why the attentive reader will have noticed that most of our dining out is in Vancouver despite the fact that we live in Abbotsford; we normally eat out only due to circumstances, such as being in Vancouver for appointments. The other main reason we will eat out is if Karin’s son Colby is visiting from Kamloops, but in either case expect our reviews to be of reasonably priced establishments. Fancy dinners out would require quite the special occasion.

Yesterday we were in Vancouver as Karin had an appointment for an MRI of her jaw. I too was supposed to have an appointment at the dental lab, which we had planned for the same day to help the budget, but the lab needs more time and that is rescheduled for Monday. We kept our original plans to depart Abbotsford in the early afternoon, and therefore had several hours in Vancouver before we had to be at the hospital at 6:30.

We had been wanting to try out SIP Resto Lounge downtown Vancouver on Granville Street, but had driven right past it last time. Checking the map ahead of time this trip, we knew that it was directly across the street from the Chateau Granville. It is lucky that we had checked, as it was hard to spot the restaurant without knowing exactly where to look. This area of Granville is one of the few remaining areas downtown that has not seen major renovations, but as the renovations are ongoing a block away and there is now 20 storey condo buildings one street over, SIP was wise to move into this location now. They are still hard to spot between the seedier businesses, but we found it this time and parked nearby.

After picking up some guitar strings for Matthew at Tom Lee Music up the street, we returned and found that SIP was just opening. It is situated in one of the old, narrow buildings in the area; and the necessity of a fire exit at the back leaves no room for a separate kitchen. Instead, the bar that stretches along one wall is half liquor bar and half open kitchen, with bar stools along the entire length. Most of the seating is small, high bar tables with stools around them, save for the tables along the opposite wall that have benches against the wall and bar stools on the opposite side. We asked to be seated in one of those seats so we could both sit on the wall side and check out the rest of the establishment. We were the only customers other than a couple of people sitting at the food bar who may have been regulars or may have been staff yet to come on duty. The bartender was bringing in and sorting the week’s liquor order through the back door.

One of SIP’s main attractions is that everything on the menu is cooked with liquor. The Casa salad’s dressing is made with Finlandia Lime Vodka, the filet mignon is marinated in Jack Daniel’s, and you can finish with a Mocha Bailey’s Crème Brulle. We checked out the menu, and decided to start with two Grilled Satays and the “World’s Best Crab Cakes”. The satays are each a single skewer, and so they only cost between $2.25 and $3.50 each. We tried a chicken tender seasoned with garlic, chardonnay and jalapeno peanut dip and a beef tenderloin flavoured with jack daniels and tarragon garlic aioli. Both tasted good, though I think they would have been even better with a beer, but due to the time and our plans we both were drinking Diet Pepsi. I did notice that in an empty restaurant, people do notice more when you take pictures of your food.

The crab cakes were much better than anything I’ve managed to make at home. They were small, but still held their shape when bit in half. The tops and bottoms had been perfectly grilled, offering a crispy exterior while the interior was a tasty blend of crab, shrimp, garlic and Grey Goose L’Orange sauce. I could have eaten this entire appetizer myself.

As we were the only patrons save the people at the bar that clearly knew the staff, we could not judge the atmosphere very well. It also did not help that this lounge themed restaurant had bright sunshine shining in the front windows; it did not fit with the decor. Opening time was not the best time for a first visit to a new restaurant, but we did experience enough to tell that there is great potential for SIP to be an enjoyable place to eat, drink and observe. We therefore decided to not have our main meal here, instead we will come back when we are downtown for an evening and enjoy a full meal while people watching.

Overall, I give SIP Resto Lounge a 7 out of 10, but will revise that after a visit for a full meal.

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The Bugatti Veyron is a street car that has a claimed top speed of 253mph, but who would ever be able to test that claim? Acclaimed British car show Top Gear obtained access to Volkswagen’s test track to do so, and you can watch the results below. I saw this on John Chow’s site, whom I will call the root of all evil simply because he really appreciates people linking to him that way; and I had to post it here for all the car nuts in my family.

Yeah, I called you nuts, you know who are! But what ya gonna do about it? Get upset, and I might not post more of these.

For St. Patrick’s Day, my father went to his local Eagle Aeire for a Irish stew dinner. Apparently it was nothing special, but it only cost $8 and it included the chance to win two Canucks tickets. I think most of the other Eagles were upset when my dad won, as their plan should they have won was to sell the tickets. I therefore think random chance did choose the right person to win, as he knew the proper thing to do with the tickets, which was to take me to the game!

The first period continued at the same pace, with the Canucks easily dominating the team with the best record in the league. The Predators took several penalties, and the Canucks continued to take shot after shot on the net. At the end of the period the Canucks lead 2 to 0, with Tommi Santala scoring the second goal.

The Predators must have been yelled at between periods, because they did skate harder in the second period and out shot the Canucks, but they were still slightly outplayed and the score held. In the third period the Canucks once again dominated the period as they had the first, though the shots were more even this time as they protected their lead and Luongo’s shutout.

The first period score of 2-0 held to the end of the game, but it did not lack excitement throughout. Vokoun did play a good game, but simply could not withstand the barrage of shots that the Canucks were able to direct at him. Vancouver’s mediocre power play was evident, but so was their stellar penalty kill. The first star of the game was given to Luongo, I believe both due to the shutout and because he is the fan favorite; but in reality, while he did play well, a lot of the credit belongs to the rest of the team as they kept him from having to face very many shots at all.

Overall, this counts as the best game I have attended with or without my father as we got to see a Canucks team on top of their game dominate against a top team. I’ve always been proud to be a Canucks fan, as I support them through the highs and lows, and thus perhaps feel a bit more justified to call them “my” team when they are doing well as opposed to the bandwagon jumpers. However, there are obviously becoming a lot more like me, as they announced that this was the 184th consecutive sellout. We all got what we came for Wednesday night.

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