WordPress made it fairly simple to transfer over all my Blogger posts and comments, but did not import other items; such as the list of blogs I follow, otherwise known as a blogroll. I could simply recreate the list in a 15 minute typing session; however, I decided a better idea might be to rebuild the list by sharing with everyone just what attracts me to return to each blog, adding each to my WordPress blogroll as I go.
I’ll start with the family blogs.
Karin’s Blog
My wife writes a blog called Self-Medicated 
(apparently, she does not like it when I medicate her). Like this blog, she began on Blogger and then moved at the same time as me to a WordPress blog hosted on a subdomain of our new site, PlayaParadise.com. She blogs about family, interesting life events, things she finds on the web, and all the other elements that are generally part of the class known as the Personal Blog. I follow her blog for obvious reasons, such as not wanting to ingest poisons inserted into my food by a vengeful, angry spouse; but also, as I’m the sweet loving person that I am, I do want to know what is happening in my honey’s life while I’m away at work and to know what is on her mind. Her posts as of late are updates on her progress towards creating a private section of our site for the family, which requires her to first learn to use Joomla, a content management software package. I just don’t have the time right now to help her much, but she’s doing great with it.
Matthew’s Blog
My stepson Matthew has his own blog with the exciting name of Matthew’s Blog . He is not a frequent poster, but generally you know that he is either extremely happy or very frustrated if he has posted, so it’s a good way for me to keep tabs on whether it’s safe to venture to his area of the condo. Lately, they seem to be happier posts, so that is good. Interestingly, his World of Warcraft character Rasgar blogs more often than he does. However, since Rasgar is not family, he’s has yet to earn a spot on my blogroll. Maybe if Rasgar showed me a little link love….
Cynthia’s Blog
Karin’s niece Cynthia started her blog before any of us, and encouraged the other members of the family to start their own. I had been thinking of starting one, but I have to give her credit for getting off her butt and doing it first. She has self-titled her blog Will-I-Ams (a play on her last name) and also writes a personal blog. Come to think of it, all the family blogs are personal blogs, so I guess I can quit categorizing each one separately.
Cynthia is a young mother who has a good portion of her day dominated by chasing after rug-rats; and as such her perspective is quite different from most of the rest of the family blogs. Reading her blog, I’m constantly amazed at all the events, functions, get-aways and activities she manages to attend while taking care of her two children. She has a lovely writing style, and I quite enjoy reading her adventures even when I don’t know the people involved.
Waltrude’s Blog
Waltrude is Cynthia’s mother and Karin’s sister. She and her husband find themselves bouncing between older parents that are beginning to rely on their children for care, and her own children dropping the grandchildren off to visit Oma and Opa. She therefore calls her blog The Sandwich Generation . Waltrude is deeply involved in her church, but also likes to sneak away for vacations with her husband. We might even have them convinced to come to Mexico with us this fall. She has not had much time to blog because of her commitments as of late, but now that the major ones are over we hope to see more from her soon.
As the oldest sibling in Karin’s family, she remembers much of the family back in Brazil and also is able to communicate with those who’s primary language is Portuguese. This is likely why she has taken on the role of informing everyone of happenings in the extended family, at first through email and now through her blog. Fear not, there are interesting items for those who are not family, an example being her recent trip report of a cruise she and her husband took from Los Angles to Vancouver.
Lucy’s Blog
Lucy is married to Karin’s brother Berto. At any family event, she’ll pull out her digital camera and be sure to document everyone that was there. If the event is at her house, she’ll have a blog post complete with pictures before you can get home. Even though my main hobby is photography, I don’t pull my camera out much at these events as I know Lucy will have grabbed group shots. She’ll need to watch out, though; I’ll likely be at it again after I get a digital SLR in a few months.
As so much of her blog is about family events, she has appropriately named it Our Family and Friends . Her latest post shows our Father’s Day get-together, in her pictures I’m the only one who didn’t feel the need to put on a coat and am therefore fairly obvious in my bright orange shirt.
Now that I’ve covered the family, expect to see reviews of my favorite blogs as I add each to my new blogroll, starting with local blogs.
Just a reminder to all the family, and anyone else that might have my on their blogroll; please update the link to point to this new blog!
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After appetizers downtown at the SIP a few weeks ago, Karin and I headed towards Vancouver General Hospital to find a full meal before her 6:30 appointment for an MRI. We wanted to park nearby and walk if possible to the hospital, and so I pulled into the parking lot of the former Chevy’s restaurant on Broadway at Oak. Chevy’s used to be one of my favorite spots in Vancouver, but when I had attempted to take Karin there previously we had found it had closed. A new establishment has opened in it’s place and we decided to try them.
Upon entering the Rugby Beach Club Grille, I was greeted with a familiar room. The restaurant has been renovated to give it an oceanside feel, but the layout has not been changed, largely I believe because it has always been comfortable and works well. Formerly TVs hung from the ceiling throughout the room so that every table would have a view of the sporting event; these have been removed and the ceiling is now covered with large large bamboo stalks. The large TV covering one wall of the lounge remains, and many people were sitting in the bar area awaiting the Canucks game. The built in tables remained as before, as well as the bar and open kitchen kitchen; with everything having been refinished.
The decor did have me worried a bit, as there was a nautical theme and we are not big fish fans; but we did not have to worry as the menu was extensive. In addition to numerous salads, the appetizer menu had nine seafood items, but then had eight non-seafood items. We started with an appetizer of Ribs, Ribs, Ribs. As the name and picture implies, there is three flavours of ribs in this starter; Mesquite Rye BBQ, Caramelized oy and demerarra sugar, and Cajun dry rub. I think we might have been cheating a bit on Karin’s diet, as vinegar is something she must avoid right now; but a little shouldn’t hurt too much. Each of the ribs was meaty and flavourful, and we gladly licked our fingers afterward. I would definitely try this again, which could be a problem as there were many other tasty items from which to choose.
Looking at the main menu, it seemed that everything was extremely reasonably priced, even priced too low to believe. It took a little to realize the reason; all items on the menu come unaccompanied. If you order a steak, that is all you get on your plate. Vegetables and carbs are ordered separately, and the portions for these sides are enough for two people. As Karin and I are both watching the number of calories we stuff down our gullet, eating out has been a nemesis as almost any plate is almost half carbohydrates. Too top it off, we have had even more trouble eating out as of late due to Karin’s need to avoid the foods to which she is allergic. We had stumbled upon the perfect restaurant for us completely by luck!
Just like the appetizer menu, there were numerous choices when we choose our main course. In addition to the seafood section of the menu, there was a separate sections for shell (shellfish are fine by us, and I think I’ll try the prawns next time), chicken, vegetarian, turf (lamb), steak, ribs and surf & turf. Within each section there is numerous choices. I suspect that the separation of the sides from has allowed a much more extensive range of choices, as the chef did not then feel the need to have a unique starch and vegetable combination with each choice. With such a wide range of choices, you would think we would have had different things, but we were both attracted to the filet mignon, though I had mine with blue cheese topper. Without the sides, each filet cost $11.95! When was the last time you had filet mignon for that price?
Skipping the carbs, we had roasted asparagus with balsamic drizzle. Again, this was a bit of a cheat for Karin due to the vinegar. We had not been steered wrong, there was definitely enough vegetable for the both of us. The portions were just right, but had we not stopped at SIP earlier in the afternoon for an appetizer, we might have had two vegetables dishes, thereby having a filling meal without the starches and still at a very reasonable price.
While the ability to make your own main and side dish choices did fit our dietary needs perfectly, I also liked the idea purely from the point of view of being able to pick what you enjoy eating. Many a time I have been out and have seen something that seemed quite tasty, only to realize that the accompaniments were not something that I would enjoy at all. The Rugby Beach Club would also be the perfect place to go when some have a limited diet and others do not.
As we left, the crowd watching the Canucks game was just beginning to get into the game, and it was only Karin’s appointment that kept me from proposing we stay a while. This will definitely be a stop again in the near future. Overall, I’ll give the Rugby Beach Club Grille a 7.5 out of 10.
For more pictures, click on any of the above and explore the others on our Flickr site.
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Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite]]>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.
]]>Last week Karin and I were in town for my dental implants color matching and we had noticed when driving by that the restaurant on the ground floor level of the tower beside the library seemed to have been replaced with a pub. So Wednesday night, when my dad and I had parked under the new pub on our way to the Canucks vs Predators game, it did not take too much arm twisting to convince my dad to try it.
The Library Square Public House is in the ground floor of the small tower in the northeast corner of the block, directly across the street from the main post office. It is a large bar that is simply decorated but comfortable. It was quite packed, both with people on their way to the game, those planning to watch it at the bar, and “suits” having an after work drink before heading home. Because of the crowd, we could not get a seat, but rather ended up standing at the DJ’s area between the bar and kitchen. Despite the crowd, the beer was nice and cold and a waitress was attentive of us throughout our stay. This was pleasant, as I am used to establishments with half the crowd not being able to keep the beer cold due to the pace they are pouring it and not being able to get timely service.
Due to traffic on the way to the game, we did not have the time to find a meal elsewhere as we had originally planned, and so we took up the waitresses offer of menus. We did not have anywhere to place proper meals, so we ordered a plate of chicken wings (it was Wings Wednesday, and a plate of about 20 or more was $5.00) and a order of popcorn shrimp. From our vantage point we could see that the kitchen was very busy, but our food arrived quickly. They set our food out right on top of the plywood cover over the DJ’s sound board, and we ate our fill. The food was quite good, and I will definitely return for a proper meal.
After the Canuck’s win, we stopped again for one beer on our way back to the car. The bar was now less crowded and the DJ was playing tunes. We were able to appreciate the good sound system that pumped out the music, but still allowed you to talk to the person beside you.
I was quite impressed with the Library Square Pub, and now have a new favorite place for the area. An excellent route to a game or concert if one had time would be a stop at both the Kingston Taphouse and Library Square.
]]>While in Vancouver yesterday, we stopped for lunch at the English Bay location of the Boathouse restaurant. The are currently having their Lobsterfest, which we had noticed on their website a few weeks back; but the menu we were presented seemed to be an abbreviated lunch menu. We were sitting on the main floor, which has the atmosphere and decor of a pub; but this was the only option as the upstairs dining room was not open and so the main floor was where all lunch patrons were sitting; and, looks aside, it is technically a restaurant and so I do not expect a pub sized menu.
I should point out that neither Karin or I are big fish fans, but we both do love shellfish. Karin is on a restricted diet right now due to allergies, and so we were trying to find a place where she would be able to eat. The shortened menu was just too restrictive, however, as not even the salads seemed appetizing. We had chosen the Boathouse as we really enjoy their Fire Cracker Shrimp appetizer, but it was not being offered during Lobsterfest. In fact, a review now of their regular lunch menu on their website with what we were presented with shows that this was definitely an abbreviated version. I had decided that I would try the coconut shrimp, but Karin did find any meal that she wanted. I did not really blame here as my choice was the only one I had found… I had no back-up plan.
We therefore decided we would each just have a drink and split an appetizer. We choose their Lobster Cakes appetizer, one of the limited time items. It consisted of three cakes, very similar to crab cakes, and three sauces. What was unexpected is that each cake came already sitting in a sauce; which negated choosing to dip more of the cake in your favorite of the sauces. We started cutting each cake in half before I remembered to snap a picture.
The sauces from left to right were Grand Marnier, ginger and tartar. Not knowing what it was when I tried it, the Grand Marnier tasted like a habanero pepper jelly sauce, and was much too sweet. Dipping my fork into the sauce alone, it was a good sauce, but it overpowered the lobster cake. The ginger sauce had the chewy consistency of ginger root, but not really much of a ginger taste. The tartar sauce was a standard tartar sauce.
Overall, the sauces were all too overbearing. Lobster is a light tasting meat, which is why it is most commonly served with just butter; and these sauces masked the lobster flavour. Breading and frying the cakes was probably reaching the limits of the flavour, and if anything I would have liked to add very little sauce, but we were given no choice when the cakes came pre-dunked. Add on top that two of the three sauces were nothing special, and this is an appetizer that I had to try, but can now move on to other things.
Our server was friendly, but not quite attentive enough. As an example, when I was presented the bill, I reviewed it for 10 seconds and then inserted my credit card. We then waited almost 10 minutes for her to pick this up, despite the empty drinks in front of us and the fact we had told her we were done and ready to go. I did not raise a fuss as we were not in a hurry, but if I was not impressed with the food, then the service should impress me with the prices I was paying.
As I said in the title, this is a mini-review as we never ate anything other than this one appetizer. I probably would not have bothered blogging about it at all, but I really was disappointed to be presented the menu we received. I am used to promotions being add on items to the regular menu, and have seen upwards to 15 items as on promotional inserts in menus. Rather than an insert, the Boathouse’s approach is to remove regular items from the menu to insert the promotional items, and overall it seemed they removed more items than they added. Add to this the average service and high prices, and I would have to give the Boathouse English Bay a 5 out of 10 for this outing.
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Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite]]>In my household, the internet has replaced so many reference materials. If I want the definition of malapropism, phone number of my dentist, weather forecast for Abbotsford, map and directions from Vancouver Airport to the Pan Pacific hotel, today’s Get Fuzzy comic strip, to convert 500 milliliters into cups, or the latest news; I can find it quicker on the internet than the old print and TV medias I used to use. As a media that is constantly being update, the internet also has less chance of having become outdated.
The one reference material that we have yet to find a great replacement for is our television listings. Our two non web based alternatives are printed TV listings and our cable company’s listings on channel 2. Since television shows don’t follow schedules as tightly as they used to, with constant preempting, moving to alternative dates and times, and other annoyances; the printed listings are often inaccurate. While the cable companies listings may update, the ads they show on this channel take up most of the screen and leave room for information on three channels at the bottom, resulting in long waits to read the entire listings. It also only tells you what is on now; it’s no good for looking up when The Amazing Race will be on tomorrow.
The online choices all seemed to suffer from speed issues, as for each it takes quite a while for a web page with your customized listings in the grids we are all familiar with to be composed, and after if you wanted to click down to see higher numbered channels or to the left to see what is on later, you then have to wait again as a new page is created. Basically, all the sites offering North American TV listings are not yet Web 2.0.
That is why I have to share the website I found yesterday. I had envisioned almost exactly this site myself a couple of years ago, but I had predicted that it would be Google that would come out with it. Instead, it has come to life as Couchville.com.
Couchville is a free TV listings site that using Ajax to present the listings. What is Ajax? Well even those that are not too tech savvy have probably heard of JavaScript, which is a programing language that works within your browser and makes it so you can experience “special effects”, such as embedded video players, games, menus that expand when your mouse touches them, etc. Ajax is an improvement that combines JavaScript and other geeky items to make web pages that quickly update only the necessary portions of the page, and is what many of the current sites are using to present complex, updating information in what appears to be a simple form. A good example of it in use would be Google Maps, where you zoom in and out or scroll sideways with little or no delay.
Like Google Maps, Couchville’s listings grid can be grabbed by left clicking on it and then pulled in whatever direction you wish to go, with new results appearing almost as fast as you move the grid. There is a red line that represents the current time, which slowly scrolls across the listings as time progresses. Below the grid are navigation aids for getting quickly to places; such as a Jump to Current Time link that brings you back to the scrolling red line, and a drop down list of channels you can jump to if you are currently viewing channels 2 through 15 and want to get to channel 127. In the top left corner of the grid is the date and a calendar button to change to another date.
Any show on the grid can be clicked on to bring up more information on the right side of the screen, such as episode information. This will also show other stations and times that the show will be broadcast, each of which can be clicked on to quickly update the grid to show that time period. There will also be an Add To Favorites button that can be used to mark favorite shows that will then appear on your Favorites page that can be accessed via a link above the grid. Favorites are also starred on the grid, so that you can see shows you don’t want to miss at a glance. Each show’s pages can also be found by using the search box above the grid, and once on a page you are given the upcoming show times. Couchville even encourages linking to the pages of your favorite shows in blogs, such as pointing to their Doctor Who page.
In today’s environment of what seems endless repeats, I like that Couchville has chosen to mark fresh episodes of shows in the grid with New, rather than the standard Repeat marking on other sources. This focuses my eyes to things I am more likely to want to know, rather than drawing the eyes to items I’m likely to want to ignore.
Couchville is brought to us by Snapstream, a company that has been selling their digital video recorder (DVR) software for a number of years. DVR software allows one to add a TV tuner card to a computer, run a cable or satellite connection into the computer, and then use the DVR software to record TV shows to the hard drive or DVDs; much like a Tivo but with more control. You could use it on your main computer, burn the results to a DVD, and then watch a show on your standalone DVD player connected to your TV; or you could have a computer at the TV that is a dedicated multimedia machine. While the latter is an eventual goal in our household, I have not researched it enough to say whether Snapstream is a good or bad solution. Snapstream does have links throughout Couchville, such as Record this program in Snapstream links when looking at a particular airings information, and these links take those of use that do not have their software to a sales page; but the links are unobtrusive and only a small portion of the content, and so they combined with the few Google ads present are acceptable in exchange for this free resource.
The only negative thing I have to say about Couchville is that I don’t like that your settings are only stored in a cookie. This means that your settings are only on one computer, and more specifically they are only in one browser on one computer. Clear your cookies in order to try and solve an unrelated problem, and your Couchville settings are gone. Normally use Firefox, but using IE or Opera for some reason; your settings will not be there. Have multiple computers at home, or want to plan your evening’s TV viewing during you lunch hour at work; same issue. Most Web 2.0 sites realize that computers are now very common, and many of us are going to be often accessing more than one per day; and they therefore usually offer to let you also create a login to store your settings. I can understand why Snapstream is not offering such an offering, though; as they are trying to sell not a web-based solution, but rather their application that will keep track of those shows you want to watch and record.
As I previously stated, I had already envisioned a site very similar to this, and I had imagined that we would see it from Google. Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, and I think a site similar to this one would allow them to fill in a major information gap that they have yet to address and yet is on everyone’s tongue each day, namely “What’s on TV?” As a Google product, I could expect my settings to be saved as long as I was signed into Google, and then I could have my favorite shows and others I marked as wanting to watch appear in my Google Calendar, have an RSS feed of today’s shows to view in my Google Reader, and choose to have a daily summary emailed to my Gmail each morning. There is a lot Google could do with such a product, and Snapstream would be wise to implement as many of these ideas as possible before Google creates a similar product. Alternatively, I could see this company, and thus Couchville, as the perfect acquisition for Google. Google, are you listening?
So Couchville will now join that list of sites that I visit daily. To sum up in a single word why they have become my online TV listings of choice when there are many alternatives… speed. An online tool in today’s world is not worth using if I feel like I’m still using a dial up modem. Couchville finally brings the speed I expect from all my other reference sites to TV listings.
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After Karin’s appointment yesterday, we ended up at Metrotown as there was no point in joining the rush hour crawl. We needed to eat, but didn’t want to spend too much, as we’ve had a number of these unavoidable dining out experiences as of late. As we’ve watching what we eat, we also didn’t want to eat in the food court. We therefore headed straight for a mall directory, but unfortunately Lush was located between the escalator we came up and the closest directory.
After a detour, we consulted the directory. Metropolis at Metrotown, which is what the name of the mall actually is, now has over 470 stores since the merger of the two malls into one, and so we expected that the list of restaurants to be impressive. In reality, there was not much interesting, and Karin suggested T.G.I. Friday’s. This left me in much the same dilemma as when we had gone to the Cactus Club Coquitlam, as my previous experiences with Friday’s have not been memorable.
When Friday’s first came to Robson Street, it was known as a very trendy restaurant and, like many, I looked forward to trying it. I remember my impression being that the menu was unexciting and the food was bland. It was year’s later before I tried it again, when Karin and I took her youngest son Colby to the Metrotown location during a day of shopping at Christmas 2003. Once again, I left with the same impression. However, as Cactus Club’s improvements had been a pleasant surprise on our last outing, I did agree to try Friday’s.
We were lead into the back of the restaurant, which is much larger than I thought. I was pleased to find that pints of Canadian were on sale, but upon consulting the drinks menu I realized that the sale price was barely below the regular price. I therefore ordered a pint of Kokanee, only to be told that they no longer carry it in favour of MGD, though in the next sentence the server called it MGD; so I was unsure if he was speaking of Labatt Genuine Draft or Miller Genuine Draft. Either way, it was not an impressive start to have out of date menus. Karin had some wine, and I went with a pint of Canadian.
The food menu, once again, did little to excite me. Similar to the Cactus Club, the list of appetizers contained nothing special; and so like before, we went with the spinach dip. This was partially because Karin had been on a two week diet of no starches, and wanted some now that her appointment had marked the end of diet. The choice of a main course took me longer than Karin, which is a rarity; largely because there was little on the menu that I could eat and feel I had stayed healthy. In the end, Karin ordered chicken strips and fries, and I ordered battered shrimp. Neither was a very healthy meal, but we were working with a menu that limited such choices.
The dip was accompanied with a large helping of fresh tortillas chips, but they were simply store bought chips. The dip itself was OK, but nothing special; not very impressive for what sounded like the best item on the appie menu.
Our meals arrived, and mine turned out to be butterfly shrimp battered in bread-crumbs; which did not really match the description from the menu of “lightly battered” shrimp. Again, they were OK, but nothing special. Karin’s chicken strips were battered much like beer battered fish, and she gave me the first one to try. It was average tasting, and so was her first one; but then the rest seemed too doughy to her. We ended up tearing the last two apart; attempting to find where the battered ended and the chicken began, but we were not able to identify such a point. Most of her meal had turned out to be chicken fritters rather than strips.
The final bill was a savings over what we would have paid at the Cactus Club or Sammy J. Peppers, both of which we could see across Kingsway from our table. However, even if you subtracted the drinks, it still was more than we would have paid at the food court, and yet it was not any healthier or tastier. The only plus over the food court was the availability of alcoholic drinks, and they had already disappointed me there with the inaccurate menu. Overall, I give T.G.I. Friday’s a 5 out of 10.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite]]>I had promised restaurant reviews when we go out, as it seems hard to find info on the net for such things. So far I’ve reviewed the Cactus Club Coquitlam and I am working on reviews of our two outings during Dine Out Vancouver. Karin and I will be going into New Westminster this afternoon for an appointment, and rush hour will trap us out there for the dinner hour, so I will post a review if we go somewhere worthwhile. Right now, however, we’re discussing the likelihood of the food fair at Metrotown.
In the meantime, during my surfing I have come across several reviews of note:
- C Restaurant by John Chow – Outside our budget, but maybe not your’s
- Stonegrill by Michael Kwan – we wanted to try this during Dine Out, but could not get reservations
- The Cannery by John Chow
- Hamilton Street Grill by Jeffery Simpson – this helped us make a dining decision
There was also an excellent review of Sip Resto-lounge, a place that we tried twice unsuccessfully to get reservations for during Dine Out Vancouver. The review I read reconfirmed that this is a place we need to try, but I’ll have to search some more for the link.
]]>Heading into New Westminster yesterday for a doctor’s appointment, we had not preselected a restaurant. We did know that we would likely be in Coquitlam afterward as we needed to get some stuff at IKEA, so we would likely end up eating in one of those two places. While at the doctor, Karin suddenly realized that she was extremely hungry. As it was rush hour when we got out of the doctor’s office, we briefly entertained eating in New West, but the choices there tend to be little mom and pop places that can often disappoint if you don’t have a local’s advice. By taking Columbia Street under the freeway, we were quickly into Coquitlam. As we had not tried it in a while, Karin suggested the Cactus Club.
My past experiences with the chain made me unsure of this choice. I believe I first noticed them on Robson Street, where I would often stop and look at the menu displayed outside for tourists. It always failed to impress me or my companions, as it was usually pretty basic fare and a bit higher priced; sort of a slightly upscale Hooter’s, and there there are many other restaurants within a block or two that had a much more desirable menu. For that reason I had never tried it, nor had I tried a couple of other locations elsewhere in the city for basically the same reason. When I worked in North Vancouver, two colleagues and I that worked Saturdays would go out for lunch, and Cactus Club was just down the road. The food was good, but again the menu selection was limited, and so we three ended up ordering the same food each weekend. Karin and I had been to the Coquitlam Cactus Club once before about a year or two ago, but I cannot remember anything about the food; which means I did not hate it, but it was also not worth remembering.
We drove into the parking lot and parked at what should be the front of the restaurant, but is in fact the back. We then walked along the large patio, which could have alternatively been set up as the front, but of course it is not. Halfway down the third side of the building, we finally reached the grand front entrance with giant statues flanking a staircase down to the street; a street that no one ever walks on. I remember we found this to be a poor set-up last time also, as if the architect never actually visited the site and got a feeling for the area.
The interior is nice, with leather booths and seats around dark wood tables, all surrounded by stone half walls. The ceilings are high, and yet they have avoided the cavernous, non-cozy feeling that I get in all the more recently built Earl’s with their high ceilings. Sorry, no pictures, we discovered after we were on the road that the lens had a fingerprint in the middle, and the cleaning supplies were at home.
The hostess sat us in a booth along the lounge wall, and our server was quickly at our table to take our drink orders. When my wife was unsure of a wine choice and I expressed that I was unsure of whether I would enjoy their Hefeweizen (I’m usually 50-50 on different versions); our waitress suggested samples to help our choices. I did find their Hefeweizen to be good and went with it, but Karin decided on a Bellini to start, as it was the drink special and the wines seemed high priced.
The menu was a pleasant surprise. It still was not as extensive as many, but had undergone a serious upgrading. The appetizers were the standard ones offered in local eateries, with the most attractive sounding being the crab dip. When it came, we were pleasantly surprised to find that rather than the usual sharp, cream cheese taste of most crab/artichoke heart/spinach dips; this dip had much more crab/pollock than normal and the addition of tomato sauce to the cream cheese base with fresh salsa sprinkled on top. The result was less sharp and more creamy, and it was a pleasant change to one of our favorite appies.
We both choose to have filets, as filet mignon was the featured special. Each of the steaks on their regular menu comes in 3 sizes plus a sirloin option. Prices vary depending on the toppings, such as charbroiled with Montreal steak spice, peppercorn sauce, blackened creole or the ultimate mushroom demiglace. Once we ordered the filet specials, our waitress did say that we could get it any way we wanted, and so we both took the most expensive option, the mushroom demiglace. It had been expressed as if it would be an acceptable substitution, but when the bill came we were paying regular prices.
We both enjoyed our meals. They were healthy portions, and I ended up eating half of Karin’s mushrooms. The steaks were tender and quite tasty, though I would not say they would rank among the top ones I have had. The garlic mashed potatoes were satisfying, and I was pleased that the veggie was one I enjoyed; asparagus.
As we were leaving, a large screen had been rolled down to accompany the three huge LCD TVs over the bar as the Canucks game was about to start. I suspect this would have been an enjoyable place to watch the game.
Overall, I’m impressed with the changes that have been made over the years, and will now have less of a reluctance when Catcus Club is proposed. The menu is still does not have as large a selection of choices as I would like to see, and many of the options did not excite us; but the improvements left me enough options and leave me hope that they will be even better in the years to come. The decor and ambiance were nice, and I would likely go often if it this was my neighbourhood. The prices did seem slightly high, but it was nice that samples were offered and the portions were large. However, they were actually too large for us, and so I don’t know how often I would pay the extra. This area is lacking in decent restaurants that we have been able to find, and so it is nice to know that there is an alternative to our other preferred choice in the area, Sammy J Peppers. Overall I will give the Cactus Club Coquitlam a 7 out of 10.
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