Lunching with BFF at Town Hall

A few weeks ago, my BFF and I headed to Town Hall on Alberni for a quick lunch. Not feeling like anything too heavy, we decided to order a few appetizers to share. 

We got some Blackened Snapper Fish Tacos...Instead of corn or flour tacos, they use wonton-like skins. There is a bit of greens along with the fish, and then tossed with peach salsa & lime dressing. And all for $11.50. 

Wanting to feel a little healthy, we also got the Chopped Chicken Salad for $15.50. It's loaded with romaine hearts, chopped celery and other micro greens. There are also apple chunks and grapes, topped with a smattering of croutons and bacon. The dressing is made with blue cheese, but not overly pungent. You get a lot of chicken with the salad... 

You should also try their "new school" chicken wings. For $12, you get six whole chicken wings...drums, wingettes and tips! Really good and light, since it's not breaded. The sweet chile & garlic dipping sauce is almost unnecessary...a little too cloyingly sweet. 

See how pretty this is...perfect grill marks!

And how cute is this fingerbowl...rosemary and lemon wedge, too precious!

100 Days - Round 6

What to do for Thanksgiving? A friend living in Yaletown was bored since her boyfriend left her in Vancouver while he went home to Ottawa for the holidays. In an attempt to cheer her up, I headed downtown to drag her out of the condo, and out for lunch!

The meal started off with a shot of caesar...love the attention to detail...they rimmed the glass!

I also got an Americano, just in case the caesar didn't wake me up.

Now, even having been here five previous times, I have yet to try their burger. In a decidedly bold move, I decided to get their Kick-Ass Burger served with a bit of salad on the side, and a tiny takeout box of fries. It's been hyped by various tweeters and bloggers, so my expectations were tempered. It's like Inception...it was supposed to be SO good, but can it be that good?

I ordered my burger the way I order all burgers...no butter, no mayo, but mayo on the side. Oh, and a toasted bun...double toasted if I'm in an especially daring mood. The wetter the burger is, the drier and "toastier" the bun needs to be, so as not to soak up all the sauces and get overly soggy.

Topped with a gherkin and half a cherry tomato, the burger patty is made of chopped sirloin and topped with caramelized onions, and apple wood smoked cheddar. Love how the cheese drips over the bacon and the patty. And I do like the burn marks all around the bun.

As the waitress told me, the burger was done medium rare...super jucy. I don't know if I should have put the lettuce into the burger, but if I did, there was no way I was going to be able to actually eat that thing without a knife and fork. For some reason, today was a "hands-on" sort of day.

In honour of Thanksgiving, she decided to get their turkey hash...their special this weekend. She's just like me...sauce on the side. Good girl!

Now the money shot...the eggs were a little more cooked that I'd like, but she love it. Turkey is not one of my favourite foods, but in honour of tradition...I tried a little bit. Glad I did, because there was no turkey dinner in sight for me this weekend!

Lunch at Italian Kitchen with the family...

A few months ago, when my sister was still in town, my mom made an almost unheard of trip downtown to have lunch with me while I was at work. Given she only travels by Skytrain (to downtown), we decided somewhere near my work would be perfect, and my niece and nephew love pasta, so we settled on Italian Kitchen, a short walking distance from Burrard Station.

Since we already knew we were going to have pasta, and there were five of us, three adults and two kiddies, we ordered their Pasta Platter...for 2 people, $16/person, minimum of 2 orders. On the platter, from left to right, are: braised veal cannelloni with wild mushroom cream, pappardelle with lamb sausage, cabbage and potatoes, spaghetti and spicy kobe meatballs with truffle cream, and the rigatoni pomodoro. My absolute favourite was the pappardelle because the lamb sausage was so good. My niece liked the rigatoni, gigantic macaroni, as she referred to them. My nephew liked the spaghetti because of the meatballs, and my mom loved the cannelloni. My sister liked everything, but she was waiting for her other order...   

The Tartufo Funghi...$17, their most expensive pie, but well worth it for the portobello mushroom and truffle cheese. Everyone liked the thin crust, and the aroma of truffles was unmistakeable. Even the kids loved this one!

Our next dish was ordered by my mom, who loves her ahi tuna. This Seared Ahi Tuna for $16 was the perfect dish for her. It's light, with a bunch of greens and baby tomatoes, all paired with oranges, artichokes, fennel, in a cerignola olive vinaigrette. The thick slices of tuna was perfectly well done.
Alas, there was too much food for the five of us...we ended up packing a slice of the pie as well as some of the tuna. Guess what my stepdad had for dinner that night?

Last meal in TO at George

After a disastrous dinner, we decided to end my trip on another "G" named restaurant. We found ourselves at George on Queen. It would be my last meal in TO for a while...let's make it a good one.

Ok...so I remembered to take a picture of the bread basket! Woo hoo, and it was as good one.

I had one martini here...and it kicked my ass!

The amuse bouche...god, I wish I could remember what this was!

My appetizer...BC salmon ($19) with fiddleheads, my first time ever! There are some two other additions here that I have never eaten in a western restaurant before...

A poached quail egg...and a raw clam...yes, a raw clam...weird, but good! It was rounded out with Pistachio Farro and a mild apricot Aji Vinaigrette

We also tried the yellow fin tuna($19) with three different salads...sorry folks, lost my notes!

My main course was the Rack of Lamb ($25)...served with fresh peas and a potato torte...pretty good.

The other main course was the Pacific Halibut ($23) with a brazil nut curry and a cauliflower salad.

I wish I have a better recollection of this meal, but without my notes, I can only say...best damn martini ever!

Dining at my Namesake - Grace

I've been wanting to try Grace in Toronto for a few years now, but after I moved back to Vancouver, it became less likely.

The first drink...heave...basically means "outrageous"...it's a concoction of tequila and chili peppers, with some guava nectar and ginger syrup. Definitely packs a punch!

The second drink...the Caesar Caesar, yes, so good they named it twice. It's your classic caesar, with some celery sticks as well as a fresh raw oyster with some horseradish. I suppose you could use that either to further spice up your drink or to spice up the oyster, with a bit of your drink. And that wedge of lemon, use it for everything!

Okay, so the appetizer...a dozen oysters from Cariboo Bay in Nova Scotia. The oysters themselves were nice and meaty, but not fishy. The downside...not a single oyster fork in sight! Fail.
While we were enjoying our drinks and oysters, we were also served some bread but I didn't get to take a picture of it. The really weird thing about this place...when they brought the appetizer, the oysters you see below, they took away our side plate, as well as our butter knife. What makes it really weird is that I was holding a piece of bread in my hand when they did that. I commented that I would need my butter knife, and his response was "we are told to clear everything from the appetizer course, and to bring new cutlery when we present the main course". While I admire their policy, taking away my side plate and butter knife "while I was using them" seemed a little ridiculous to me.

The course I ordered was their Beef Short Rib...the meat was falling off the bone, a big bone. Served with a few spears of asparagus and a side of potato salad. The salad was nothing special and the sauce for the rib tasted like it was bottled barbecue sauce...a true disappointment.

The other main course we tried was the Cripionette of Lamb. Now I don't speak French, but I certainly would expect the waiter to have explained that this was a sausage, good thing I asked! It came with a huge pile of fennel, and a weird mixture of beets with canned/jarred mandarin segments. Another disappointment.
It pains me to say this, but I don't like Grace...at all.

iPhone4 vs HTC Evo

Campagnolo, accidentally

So the inital thought was Phnom Penh but a wait for two people on a Sunday night was 40 minutes. No way could we wait that long without falling down in hunger. Through a rare but shockingly bright moment on my part, we rounded the corner and went to another favourite...Campagnolo!

Greeted warmly by the owner despite not having reservations, we were seated in the back and given yummy bread sticks to ward off our starvation.

I'm not the only one who likes to play with my food.

A nice comfort food on a cold and rainy night...BC mussel risotto ($15). Perfectly slow-cooked and loaded with mussels, the dish was rounded out with roasted peppers, saffron and fried capers...topped with deep fried parsley.

And I got my usual, Tagliatelle with Pork Ragu ($19). You can get the half portion for ($14). I always get the full portion, so I have some leftovers for lunch the next day. They switched from tagliarini to tagliatelle, but the pork ragu is as good as it always is.

The pecorino ramano cheese on top is a much better choice than the usual parmesan other restaurants pile on. This milder cheese doesn't overpower the ragu, and melts beautifully over the steamy pasta.

Because we didn't get any appies to start, we decided to get something to go along with our carbs. Both having a love for mushrooms, we ordered their mushroom contorni ($6). Slices of king oyster mushrooms, tossed with white beans and garlic and flavoured with oregano.

We also scored a free confection plate from them. From the left upper corner, we got a guava jelly, a florentine, chocolate and cocoa powdered covered hazelnuts, a caramel bite, nougatine and chocolate sablé.   
Did you know? Sablé is a classic French cookie originating in Normandy. French for "sand", which refers to the sandy texture of this delicate and crumbly shortbread-like cookie. A versatile dough that can be flavored with ground nuts or zests and although traditionally round with fluted edges, they can also be cut into other shapes and even sandwiched together with jam or preserves, chocolate or lemon curd.
It was a perfect ending to a delicious meal (and evening).

100 Days - Round 5

So, one early Saturday morning, I recruited my stepdad to help me move a cabinet. The cabinet is taller than me...there was no way I could do it myself. Since he agreed to help, I decided to treat him to brunch.

Love the headphones over the DJ booth. I think that's new...and you can see a bit of the bar to the left of it. And the door to that magical kitchen, which cooks up the best food I've had in a long time!

Okay, although I didn't actually lift a finger to help with the move, I was starving. I don't remember the last time I was up and out of the house by 10 on a Saturday morning! Well, I do, but it has been a while.

A 5oz striploin steak on a bed of potato hash, along with two eggs (sunny side up), and toast. $17 to stuff my face silly. Hmm...can wait to burst those yolks and soak them up with the toast. 

My very own personal sized peanut butter. Yeah, there is strawberry jam already, but I felt like a PBJ. What can I say? I'm a pig.  

My stepdad deserved the best...he chose the Lobster and Crab Eggs Benny, also $17. Love the flair of the swirl of hollandaise.

Okay, due to the earliness of the hour, I totally didn't realize that it was the Lobster and Crab CAKE Eggs Benny. Instead of using an English Muffin, and then topping it with lobster and crabmeat...the folks of 100 days do it a little differently...Scroll down to see the in-depth look.

Do you know how hard it is to stop someone from eating after they slice open a poached egg? Well, I do!

And I further added to the torture by making him slice open the lobster and dungeness crab cake...

and they are not skimpy with the lobster...whoa.

My stepdad says this looks like Cher..haha.