Three Lions Cafe

*Restaurant is now closed*

Do you know how hard it is to find a place to eat after hockey that is not Chinese? Well, honestly, it's not really that difficult; but when the venue is dependent on location, then it gets dicey. This is especially true when Gadget Girl vetoes every idea that is outside of Vancouver proper. What's with people being afraid of the burbs anyways? Hence we ended up looking at somewhere central in Vancouver. We settled on Three Lions Cafe, which is somewhat hidden on Broadway in between the endless supply of late night Asian joints. Since our game ended at a reasonable hour, the Canucks game was still in progress. Hence, that meant the Three Lions, much like an other pub, was packed. While driving there, I was listening to the game hoping it would end before we arrived. It did and people starting leaving as a result. Perfect! After a short wait, we were seated at a table without enough chairs for everyone. Milhouse and Lionel Hutz had to resort to bar stools until other chairs were vacated. Not a big deal really; however, the lack of food options was. You see, it was just after St. Patty's day and all their curry dishes, fish 'n chips, pie and Caesar salad were all sold out. This didn't sit well with some of our group; but we decided to stay anyways.

When we did finally get down to ordering, I went for some pretty basic items starting with the Curry Wings (at least one curry item was still available). These were fried too long in my opinion. The meat was dry and stringy. I did like the curry flavouring though. It was very pungent, littering the whole table with aroma. For me, it wasn't too spicy and provided enough curry kick. For my next item, I got the Egg and Chips. As the name suggests, there was a pile of fresh cut fries topped with a fried egg. It included a sausage and a side of baked beans. Although the fries were starchy and only slightly crisp, I still liked them for some reason. Maybe because I was just hungry? The fried egg was a fried egg and the beans were your typical sweet molasses baked beans. The sausage was not bad, quite meaty and not too fatty. Sweet Tooth, as her nickname suggests loves desserts; but they only had a bread pudding available, so she ended up passing on that and settled on a Beet Salad. Now for $13.00 (!), she was expecting a decently-sized dish. How wrong she was. Consisting of orange scented beets with grilled asparagus and crumbled goats cheese, the salad was plated nicely. Too bad it looked more like a work of art than actual food. She gobbled this up in 3 bites. Despite being quite nice in texture and flavour, the meager amount left a bad taste in her mouth.

The small portions didn't end there. Boss Woman decided to try their Daily Pizza which was spinach and goat cheese. Unfortunately, it looked more like a flatbread appetizer. To be fair, it was not that expensive, compared to the beet salad. She thought the crust was not bad being crisp and thin. However the pizza itself was bland, needing something else to bring the mild ingredients to life. Gordo decided on the most expensive item on the menu hoping for something more substantial - the Organic Hanger Steak and Chips. As stated on the menu, it is marinated in herbed extra virgin olive oil, grilled to medium rare (clearly it wasn't) and served with house made chips. Again, it was smallish in size and the steak was not of a pleasing colour. It really need more charring. Despite the great sounding marinade, the steak was not all that flavourful, from the herbs or meat taste. Since there was a lack of choices, Emilicious, Gadget Girl and Lionel Hutz all had the Three Lions Burger. Yikes, three of the same thing! The horror! The consensus from everyone was that the burger patty ended up to be a little dry despite being quite thick. The dry, crumbly bun didn't help things either. With that being said, the meat was not oily (hence the dryness), and did have good flavour.

Finally, the very last dish happened to appear to be the best value of the bunch. Milhouse, having visited Three Lions before, ordered his favourite - Bangers and Mash. Consisting of Cumberland sausage served with buttermilk mash, onion gravy and Yorkshire pudding, this was a sight to behold. With Yorkshire pudding that looked more like a parachute, it was the only dish that wasn't completely finished by the end of the meal. The sausages were very meaty and went well with the rich flavourful gravy. That was probably the best dish of the meal because everything else was just "alright". Of course we didn't get to try some of their other items since they were out. However, we all generally felt that the portion size (bangers & mash withstanding) was too small for the price. I've heard great things about their brunch and maybe I have to do a revisit to get a more complete picture of the place.

The Good:
- Interesting items on the menu (too bad most were sold out)
- Lively atmosphere at night

The Bad:
- Portion-to-price ratio was not particularly good
- Very tight arrangements inside