Sherman's Food Adventures: Original Joe's (Broadway)

Original Joe's (Broadway)

Once again our late night Friday after hockey eats hinged on Gadget Girl. You see, she doesn't particularly like traveling to unfamiliar places in the dark. That sounds fair enough. However, that does make our eating destinations shrink to a few options. Particularly if we eliminate Asian food. Yes, she prefers non-Asian late night eats that are centrally located and are not in Downtown. Oh, and the music can't be too loud either. And probably the Earth, Moon and Sun have to be in alignment as well... If that is giving you a headache, imagine trying to figure a suitable option! Finally, I suggested Original Joe's (yes, cringe if you like) as a place we could go. In fact, Milhouse did cringe and was very apprehensive about going. His last experience there was not a very good one. He even went as far as to state that Original Joe's is one of worst chain restaurants out there. Wow. Milhouse is usually not that picky. Were we in for a disaster???

Well, turns out the music was pretty loud, but I liked it, so no big deal... at least for me! LOL... Milhouse ended up with the Cajun Chicken Cheddar Burger served on brioche. He thought the butterflied chicken breast was relatively moist in some places with a good char. The "some places" is relevant because it was thin in some and thick in others. That meant the meat would have different amounts of doneness. He thought the burger had good flavour and the fries were fantastic (crispy fresh cut). I decided to share 2 items with Gordo starting with the Five Cheese Tortellini. The menu stated it was whole wheat pasta, yet it was pretty soft and we didn't even notice it. In fact, the pasta was overcooked. Despite that, the sauce wasn't bad. It was a creamy tomato which didn't lack flavour as it was creamy and peppery. It did lack a tomato zestiness due to the cream.

For our second item, we had the Rustica Pizza consisting of Italian sausage, four cheeses, banana peppers, roasted red pepper and cracked pepper. For what it was, the pizza was decent. The crust was thin and crunchy with plenty of toppings. It was certainly cheesy with a good amount of spice from the peppers and the sausage (which was meaty and not too fatty). The sauce itself was zesty too which made the whole pizza quite impactful. No, it wasn't as good as some of the Neapolitan pizzas I've had lately, but that would be an unfair comparison. Gadget Girl went for the Spinach Salad. Yes, a salad. Hey, she wants to maintain her girlish figure. Who could blame her? In addition to baby spinach, there was red onions, mandarin orange slices, candied almonds, feta and dried cranberries with a balsamic berry vinaigrette. Nothing much to complain about here. Stuff was fresh and the flavours/textures worked. However, we were a bit perplexed by the wedge of banana bread. There was nothing wrong with it (in fact, it was moist), yet it didn't seem to go.


Off to the sweeter things, Apu had the Original Dirt Pie where the cookie dust acted at the dirt. Now if you're wondering why there are TWO slices of ice cream pie, this was not a double order. In fact, this was ONE order! Uh... Good value yes, good for you, no. I helped myself to some because I figured Apu had more than enough. It was pretty much an ice cream cake (much like the ones found at Dairy Queen). It was decent if not too large. Sweet Tooth was a bit under the weather and the only thing that could make her feel better was some Chocolate Therapy Cake. It was essentially a moist lava cake surrounded by far too much whipped cream and drizzle. The cake itself was good though. And really, we were okay with the stuff we had at Original Joe's. No, it wasn't mind-blowing, but it wasn't as bad as other people have made it out to be. It's a chain restaurant that serves standard stuff, which is fine for late-night eats.

The Good:
- Party atmosphere (if you like that)
- Diverse menu
- Okay for late night eats

The Bad:
- A bit loud for some
- Okay food, just okay...

Original Joe's (Vancouver) on Urbanspoon

3 comments:

KimHo said...

The one thing that has me perplexed in this post is... If it was late night, how come the first picture (restaurant exterior) seemed to be from mid afternoon? :)

I don't necessarily "cringe" at Original Joe's (I don't mind it, "it is what it is"). Granted it is not fancy and it is not on the same scale as Cactus and similar type of restaurants. However, $$$ ain't in the same range either. So, if expectations are scaled accordingly... Or, if you put it from a perspective, if you and the gang had to choose between Yummy Tea House and Original Joe's, which one will "win"? :)

LotusRapper said...

..... Or On Lok ;-)

Sherman Chan said...

@KimHo The things I do for this blog... Like retake the picture of the front during daytime hours on a different day...

@LR On Lok is not as good as it used to be. I'd much rather do Kwong Chow, CNG or CNK.

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