Bon's Off Broadway

When dining at the Golden Phoenix last week, I was eying Bon's Off Broadway. I haven't been to Bon's in quite awhile and I was wanting to have their $2.95 all-day breakfast. Yes, that's right, for the price of a used Milli Vanilli cassette, you can dine on 2 eggs, 2 slices of toast, hash browns and your choice of bacon, sausage or ham. Of course, for that price, it comes with some compromises. Bon's is a dive. Yes, even Guy Fieri would be proud of this place with it's 1970's decor, mismatched chairs and random pop culture posters.

After a fun gymnastics session at preschool, my son and I made our way to Bon's. It's almost ironic since my dad took me to Bon's when I was in preschool (we only lived a couple of blocks away then). Despite arriving well after lunch, the place was bustling with activity. We seated ourselves and waited for service. We waited and waited some more. Yes, for these prices, you have to make exceptions. However, when we did get service, it was friendly and very efficient. Naturally, I got the $2.95 breakfast and also added the soup of the day, which was Beef Noodle. My son got 2 pancakes, which incidentally cost as much as my breakfast. Let's just say that if you want pancakes, go to IHOP or something like that. The pancakes here did their best impression of a rubber mat. Luckily for me, I just doused it with an obscene amount of syrup and my son was more than content. He was also content on dipping the sausages I gave him into the syrup as well. I think he'd make Will Ferrell proud, just like in the movie Elf - syrup on everything.

As for my breakfast, for $2.95, it was fabulous. Everything looked and tasted like it should be. Moreover, I actually like the hash browns at Bon's. They are simply sliced boiled potatoes that have been pan fried. If you look at the picture, I got 3 split sausages. That is pretty impressive for a $2.95 breakfast. As for my soup of the day, it was nothing special, just leftover beef that was made into soup. But for $1.95, it was a good deal. In fact, most of the food at Bon's is well priced. For what you pay, you will get standard diner-type food. As for the breakfast, I doubt you'd find a better deal than Bon's.

The Good:
- Inexpensive, all you need is some loose change
- It's got that "good" dive quality to it
- Good portions

The Bad:
- Although the service is friendly, it's very sparse
- Some of the food is really quite average

The Soup Meister

*Restaurant is now operated by his nephew*

It was another gorgeous day in the GVRD, much like the last 2 weeks. I had just finished up an early morning game of ice hockey at Brit and was a bit hungry since I didn't have a chance to grab a bite. I originally was planning to pay a visit to Pizza Garden which is nearby on The Drive; but they had closed the street and it was full of people. It was another car-free day celebration; but as you know, I'm not fond of lines and crowds, so I drove on by and headed home. We really needed to pick up some groceries for the week; thus we headed out to Costco for some Sunday brunch (if you don't know what this means, it's all the samples they dole out). After that, we had to head over to Michael's again, since Viv wanted to get some stuff and she could not use all the coupons at once yesterday. Being on the North Shore, we decided to head over to Lonsdale Quay for some more food. On a beautiful sunny day, we opted for soup. Yes, that's right, hot soup on a warm day. It's just like that time I had hot chocolate from Mink's on a warm day. In fact, I played ice hockey too; I must have my seasons all messed up.

Right at the entrance to Lonsdale Quay is The Soup Meister. We've been here several times and their soups are pretty good. They do not use any of that artificial or preservative stuff in their soups, just natural ingredients. The selection today was Boston Clam Chowder, Chicken Noodle Soup and Tomato Basil. It was easy for me to decide since I love creamy clam chowders. Viv had the same and we got a small chicken noodle soup for our daughter. All the soups come with a bun. I'm not really sure what the difference in size is between the large and the small because they looked very similar to me, despite the large costing $6.00 vs. $4.50 for a small.

I was really satisfied with my bowl of clam chowder as sweat was beading down my face. It was extremely creamy and buttery chock full of clams, potatoes and celery. The chicken noodle tasted very much like home cooking. The vegetables were fresh and there were big chunks of chicken throughout the soup. The broth was very light flavoured with the natural sweetness of chicken and vegetables. The soups at The Soup Meister are really good and are so full of ingredients, it is a meal in itself. Combine that with a lovely setting such as Lonsdale Quay, you can just relax and enjoy a bowl of soup soaking in the surroundings. Just don't do it on a warm day because it's quite warm in the Quay.

The Good:
- Fresh, non-salty soups
- Packed with stuff
- Great venue

The Bad:
- It's warm in the eating area, not a great place to have hot soup (take it to go and eat outside)

Wally's Burgers

Alright, we were in North Van today shopping at Michael's. Let me rephrase that, Viv was shopping at Michael's and the family accompanied her there. As much as I don't mind scrap booking and arts & crafts, I'm not all that excited about going to Michael's. Being the typical male, I'd much rather be at Futureshop or The Hockey Shop. I think the kids were having a good time, playing with the craft supplies as if they were toys. We took advantage of being in North Van to visit Wally's Burgers in Cates Park (Whey-Ah-Wichen). Kevin (604Foodtography) and Kim (I'm Only Here for the Food!) have already visited the newly revived burger joint and feeling left out, I finally made it out there.

The drive out to Cates Park from the Second Narrows Bridge is roughly 10 minutes if you are following a slow car (#$(&#$()#*$)# which we were). Or 7 minutes if you had no one in front of you (on our way back). Arriving at Cates park, there is a noticeable sign stating that Wally's Burgers is in the park. Located right next to the waterfront, Wally's is really non-descript. It is basically the old concession stand, now with a large Wally's menu in the front. It was nostalgic to see the ol' items from the old Wally's on Kingsway near Earles. However, the prices are definitely not the same as before. I decided to go full on and order the Deluxe Chuckwagon with cheese. Viv got the Combo Burger with cheese and mushrooms. For our sides, we got the Onion Rings and Yam Fries. Both came with a roasted pepper dip. With 2 bottles of water, our bill was in excess of $26.00. Cheap eats this is not.

After a short wait, we anxiously opened up the wrapper to get at our burgers; well, after I took pictures that is. Note to self, do not take pictures with sunglasses on, everything looks too dark! I opened up my Chuckwagon to find the requisite 2 patties, lettuce, tomato and enough sauce to make White Spot jealous. Viv's Combo had the one patty, a large split hot dog wiener, mushrooms, cheese and a little less sauce than my burger. I have to say I agree with Kevin and Kim, the burgers are... nothing special. They weren't bad; in fact, they are better than most concession stand fare. However, either there is something different about these Wally's burgers or maybe they aren't that unique anymore. It doesn't help that the burgers patties are frozen too. My hypothesis (oooo... big word!) is that I've tried many really good burgers lately and it's possible that Wally's just isn't as good. I much prefer going to Burger Burger for their $5 special which includes fries and drink.

On the other hand, we thought the sides were very good. The yam fries were crispy and sweet, while the onion rings were crispy and not oily. The roasted pepper dip was a bit bland, it was more sweet and mayonaissy (is that a word?), rather than spicy. After finishing up our meal, we took the kids to the playground and it was a great, albeit brief family outing. I had to leave because I had a hockey game (yes, I played hockey with a Chuckwagon digesting in my stomach). Funny thing was, we could see where we lived across the water in North Burnaby. Too bad we had to drive all the way back to the bridge and back again. As much as I prefer other burgers in the GVRD, I think at the very least, Wally's at Cates Park is in a unique location. If you were there anyways enjoying the scenery or hanging out, grabbing a Wally's burger just adds to the experience.

The Good:
- Beautiful, if not stunning setting
- Nostalgic
- Everything is made to order

The Bad:
- Meat was a bit dry
- Not cheap

Sammy J Peppers

*Restaurant is closed*

I sound like a broken record sometimes, at least that's what Viv tells me. But, there are not many more places that I can visit along the Scott Road corridor. It seems like I'm merely pecking away at the places I do not want to go. Today, my colleagues suggested we go to Sammy J Peppers and being the good person (hah!) that I am, I followed along. I haven't been back to Sammy J's for quite awhile. I'm not all that fond of their food, despite the nice "scenery". I really have no problem with chain restaurants in general. They serve a purpose and some are actually quite good. But when a chain restaurant serves up
mediocre food at fairly high prices, I believe that there are better places to eat at.

I know that Sammy J's is known for it's spicier food, such as their skillets and meat items. But I really didn't want to order any of that for lunch. Besides, I've had them before and they are nothing special. Today, I decided on a large bowl of Seafood Chowder and a Beef Club sandwich. Things didn't start off well, the chowder was luke warm. If this soup was kept in a warmer, and this was the prevailing temperature, I'm not sure how Food Safe this is. Moreover, the soup was quite bland. I had to add quite a bit of hot sauce to give it some flavour. The one good thing was that it was packed with seafood. The sandwich itself was a disappointment and I didn't even bother taking a picture of it. Well, not really, I actually forgot. Can you believe it? I was so busy taking pictures of everyone else's' food, I didn't remember to take a picture of my own! I was expecting real roast beef; but what I got was cold cut roast beef. If a restaurant is going to serve this as "roast beef", then I could go to Arby's or go to Superstore and grab a Club Pack. Not only was it cold cut roast beef, there was very little of it. Only good thing about the sandwich was the spicy aioli. Suffice to say, the Beef Dip was no better. Imagine dipping salty cold cut roast beef into salty powdered dip. Not good. The beef dip at one20 and E's Up were way better and cheaper too.

One dish that was pretty decent was the Monster Burger. It was pretty big and full of nicely sauteed mushrooms. The accompanying fries were very crispy, if you like the starch-covered type that is. The spinach salad was alright too, it was pretty fresh and full of toppings. The dressing was flavourful and had some zing. Despite these last 2 dishes being good; overall, I didn't like my meal and past visits to Sammy J's. It's not that the food is horrible; but it's just not great all around. In this competitive market of chain restaurants, the food has to be pretty decent on average. The food at Sammy J's is not as good as Milestone's, Earl's, Cactus Club or Joey's. If you look at the prices of some of their more expensive items such as their steaks, you really can eat anywhere for those prices. I'm in the school of thought that if you want a steak, go to a place that specializes in steak such as The Keg. I know there are better places to get a steak than The Keg, but I'm trying to compare within the same price range. With that being said, the restaurant itself is quite trendy and it's quite possible the food could be an afterthought. It's still a great place to meet up with friends, have a drink and shoot the breeze.

The Good:
- Comfortable, trendy dining space
- Service was quite good
- Large selection of food items

The Bad:
- Food is not only generic, it's not really all that good
- Pricey for what you get

Grub

*Restaurant is now closed*

We were playing at Lord Byng again for our Monday softball game and despite having rights to the field, there was a little league team practicing on the facing field. Since we had some real heavy hitters on both teams, it was a certainty the kids were in harm's way. So we politely asked the coach to remove the kids off the field for their safety. However, they didn't budge. Is it just me or some people are so stubborn that they do not see that their actions may lead to injuries? Anyways, we finally hit a ball smack dab into the middle of the kids and one the opposing outfielders had to bail to avoid the kids. Finally, we decided to TELL the coach to get off because the last thing we wanted were some severely injured little leaguers. Talking about injuries, I decided to run home on a very shallow sack fly by Miss Y. I ran full tilt and didn't slow down as I reached home plate, consequently smacking my face into the metal fencing. Yes, it left a mark...

Oh well, it didn't bother me because we get to eat as a team afterwords. I was remarking to Boss Woman, who runs the team, she had me at "eating after each game" when asking me to join the team. Today I got my wish and the whole team headed to try Grub on Main Street. Grub is a very small restaurant that serves up gourmet eats at reasonable prices. I actually called ahead to see if they could accommodate all 9 of us and they actually held a table for us. The menu at Grub is really quite simple. There are some antipastos, pizzas and salads. Their entrees are featured on the wall. The ambiance at Grub can be described as classy casual. The service was quite unpretentious, friendly and very attentive. For the 2nd time in 3 days, I ordered a Hoegaarden beer. I really find the name amusing, despite the fact it's not pronounced the way it looks.

For my entree, I got the featured beef dish which was a Korean Style Braised Beef. The organic beef was braised with shitake mushrooms and Napa cabbage. Resting on top in a radicchio bowl was a buckwheat soba noodle salad with a ginger soy vinaigrette. The dish itself was quite spicy. I guess it shouldn't have been surprising since it was "Korean-style". I thought the shiitake mushrooms added alot of earthiness and flavour to the dish. I really liked the soba noodle salad. Too bad there wasn't much of it, I could've eaten a whole plate of it. While I had the beef, Miss Y went for the vegan dish. It consisted of an acorn squash stuffed with "spiced millet pilaf", chive and chickpea dumplings and lemon herb parsnip & carrot confit. Personally, I didn't like this dish so much. It's probably because I like meat. However, with or without meat, I found the dumplings and the millet to be a bit dry. I'm not sure if that was the intention or not; but I was expecting it to be a bit more fluffy. Mind you, the flavours were pretty balanced and delicate.

Judes had the Sun-dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken. I actually liked this dish the best. The chicken was ever so tender and the sun-dried tomato stuffing was very flavourful without being overpowering (not too tangy, it was balanced with sweetness). It rested on a bed of mushroom risotto which was perfectly cooked (neither thick or runny). The risotto had an earthy taste thanks to the mushrooms. Bear had the Cashew Crusted Pork Chop with Yam & Potato Pave. This dish was definitely the most impressive looking. On top of a large yam & potato pave rested an equally large pork chop. The dish was finished off with sherry-poached figs and prune compote. I thought the pork chop was cooked perfectly. The meat was moist and tender. I didn't find the cashews all that crunchy; but they did add a fatty nut flavour (that didn't sound right...). The yam & potato were soft; yet not mushy.

4 people had various pizzas; but I'll comment on only 2 of them. Milhouse ordered the Salmon Gravlax and Goat's Cheese Pizza. He thought that the pizza was quite balanced since each component was discernible. He particularly liked that there were ample toppings as well. I didn't try this particular pizza; but I had a bite of Hot Chocolate's pizza which consisted of Sopressata, Artichoke Hearts, Black Olives and Red Onion. I really liked the the pizza since the crust was quite thin and the tomato sauce was light. However, since all the toppings were bold, the resulting flavour was saltiness. Mind you, this was probably the only real criticism of the food. Another minor problem was that the food took a long time. Since Grub is a small restaurant, they may not have been equipped to handle a large group of us all at once. However, the service was very good and the servers kept us happy while we waited. The combination of good food, decent portions and attentive service makes Grub a must try.

The Good:
- Food tastes good
- Decent portions
- Friendly and unpretentious service

The Bad:
- Restaurant is extremely small
- No A/C, it was a bit warm
- Food came out a bit slow

one20 Pub & Grill

You're probably wondering why I chose to eat at a pub for lunch. No, I'm not boozing it up during lunch hour! In fact, I had to resort to drinking ice tea, in a bar. Pretty sad sight, I know! The real reason for my visit to one20 was that I had received a gift certificate on Friday and I decided to use it. Actually, when I went to pay, it was apparently expired!??!!? Luckily the server was nice and still accepted it. I've been to one20 before and despite it being a bar, the food isn't all that bad. Of course it's the usual stuff: fried appetizers, burgers, sandwiches and some entrees. But if you look more closely, there are a few interesting items as well.

As I was sipping my iced tea, amongst people drinking beer, I decided to start with the Hot Wings. I know it's quite difficult to get really excited about a pound of hot wings; however, these were pretty good. They were decent in size and fried perfectly. The outside was crispy, while the inside was still quite juicy. In addition, the wings were coated with just enough hot sauce which covered the entire wing without drowning it. Thus, the wings remained crispy even though it was completely coated with sauce. Despite it being an all day special, blue cheese or ranch dressing was included. The "second course" as my server declared tongue-in-cheek was a Beef Dip with fries. I was pleased to discover that the beef was actual roast beef (not that Arby's ham-like roast beef). Moreover, there was plenty of roast beef stuffed in a crusty bun. Although the au jus was probably powdered mix, it was not overly salty. The fries that accompanied the beef dip were pretty pedestrian.

On a return visit with Pomegranate, I finally got to try their Loaded Beef Burger. For all my previous visits, I've had anything but the burger. And we all know that a good pub needs a respectable burger! And yes, it was a respectable burger. The patty was not overly dry and not oily while the bacon was lean and crispy. The mushroom were sauteed nicely; but the onions are hardly caramelized. I decided to substitute yam fries and they were crispy. The chipotle mayo had a decent kick to it, which I enjoyed very much. Pomegranate had their Chicken Wrap and although the flavours were good with some spice and fresh veggies, the chicken was quite dry. It probably needed more sauce to make up for that.

I don't usually head to a bar to get lunch. Frankly, my image of a bar includes beer, beer and more beer. Food is almost an afterthought. However, the food at one20 is more than passable. It's not gourmet; but it really isn't expected to be. Moreover, the prices are very reasonable, nothing is really over $10.00. Mind you, my ice tea was $3.75. I could've had a beer for a little bit more. But I can't go back to work after guzzling beer! I will go back to the one20 for lunch again; but I'll just stick with water.

The Good:
- Food is pretty cheap
- Food ain't bad for a bar
- Service is pretty good

The Bad:
- Beer everywhere and I can't have any...

Ramies

Originally, we were planning to go out as a family for some schnitzel at Old Bavaria Haus tonight. However, the parents didn't feel like going out and the kiddies were a bit sick. Incidentally, Viv wasn't in the schnitzel mood either. What's wrong with everyone? Where's the love for some fried veal? Fine, so we had to pick another place to eat. You'd think this is an easy task don't you. Well, I really didn't want to do the Asian restaurant thing again and trust me, in the GVRD, it's hard to avoid Asian food (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Thai, Malay etc...). Okay, there is this one place that I used to frequent with my hockey team - Ramies. For those who are not familiar with Ramies, it's a small Greek restaurant on Kingsway across from Saffron and Curry King. One look at the place and you'd really wonder what was the big deal. It's not really all that noticeable, it's small, it's not really that cheap and the portions are not particularly large. Not a ringing endorsement eh?

The whole story is in the food, period. Whatever they lack in quantity or in price, the food makes up for it. If you want quantity on the cheap, then go to Stepho's. Tonight, HL joined us for dinner. And yes, we do refer to him as HL because his name is a bit difficult to pronounce (for some people). Believe it or not, he wanted to join us on a food adventure because he kept reading my updates on Facebook. We decided to split a Calamari to start. I thought the pieces of squid were the perfect size. When they are too small, the squid gets tough and hard. When they are too big, the squid doesn't become crispy enough. The batter was not over seasoned; yet there was a bit of a grease on the bottom of the plate. The tzatziki sauce was very good. It was full of garlic and lemon flavour while having the right consistency.

HL and I both had the roast lamb. I ended up taking a picture of my plate because it looked nicer. Although the piece of lamb was modest in size, the quality more than made up for it. It was tender throughout and perfectly seasoned (just the right amount of garlic and saltiness). The Greek salad was fresh, the lemon potato was soft in inside and nicely broiled on the outside and the rice was cooked perfectly. Only complaint were the veggies, some of the beans were a bit soft.

Viv had the Lemon Chicken. No, this is not some Greek version of the Chinese dish. Although it would certainly be a sight to behold a fusion Greek/Chinese Lemon Chicken! Rather, the chicken here is marinated in lemon and roasted. Viv really enjoyed this dish. The chicken was really tender and juicy despite it not looking as such. Curiously, the chicken did not have a strong lemon taste, almost barely detectable. Once again, we had a good dinner at Ramies. Food tasted great, textures were bang on and service was decent.

The Good:
- Food is made with care
- Food tastes as it should
- Textures are correct

The Bad:
- A tad pricey
- Not much in the way of ambiance

Business Hours:
11:00am - 10:00pm (Mon - Sat)
4:00pm - 10:00pm (Sun)