Restaurants

If you are looking for a centrally located restaurant for Chinese congee, noodles or Chinese food, then please check out our review of Kwong Chow Congee and Noodle House.

The mystery behind the cafe that serves excellent quesadillas has been resolved.

The name of the cafe is The Mouse & The Bean Cafe. It's located at 319 West Hastings between Cambie and Homer on the "sunny side of the street".

Not only do they serve quesadillas, they serve authentic mexican breakfasts, molletes, tacos dorados, sopes, tostadas, pastries, 100% organic fair traded coffee and more. Checkit!

We enjoyed another superb meal at Lumiere on Saturday with some friends from Ontario.

Prices have gone up slightly; the vegetarian menu which I had for the first time is now $80 and the seafood and chef's tasting menus are now $90.

But the food remains constant! Flavourful, inventive and sophisticated.

The highlights of my vegetarian menu were the pea soup and the risotto.

For those of us who are searching for an affordable lunch downtown I am on the case!

Today, I went to a place recommended by our friend, Jessica.

This restaurant is literally a "hole-in-the-wall" and I don't even remember the name. There are no tables, just a small place to stand and eat next to a window into their small space where they prepare the food.

The Boss bakery and restaurant in Chinatown (which was recently refurbished) serves a genre of food that originated in Hong Kong: Western food (like pork chops and spaghetti) served Hong Style as well as normal Hong Kong Chinese food and baked goods. All at an inexpensive price!

Today, for instance, we had two portions of their all-day breakfasts (breakfast "A", I believe) which included a fried pork chop with two eggs, bread or a sweet bun and a Hong Kong style (i.e. with evaporated milk) coffee or tea all for under four bucks per portion.

Ever since I heard Judy Witts glowing praise of the French Laundry and Chef Thomas Keller's philosophy of cooking during our honeymoon in Florence, I have been longing to go to The French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley.

The mouthwatering images of the omakase dishes ("chef make me what's good") tonight on Tojo's website makes us want to eat there!

We'll probably go there and eat omakase at the bar for my birthday in July!

Today we had brunch with our friends, Susan and Lisa, at Picasso Cafe where one of our fellow Lindy Hoppers, Aaron, works as a mentor to at-risk youth and as a waiter.

The brunch was excellent and inexpensive. I had the hearty classic breakfast with two mini-buttermilk pancakes (I love butter milk pancakes and these were great!) , two eggs, bacon and toast for $6.95 and Barb had Eggs Benedict for $7.50.

I erred yesterday. The delicious chick pea dish that I enjoyed Saturday at Granville Island was not channa masala.

It was a chick pea dish with spinach and tomato. As far as I know, channa masala does not contain spinach!

Until recently, you really could not satisfy your Indian food cravings at Granville Island.

Luckily, Rubina Grill, an offshoot of the excellent Rubina Tandoori (who did a fabulous job catering Toni and Kerrie's wedding), opened a few weeks ago. This makes Granville Island a great setting for a gentle non-threatening introduction to Indian cuisine.Today Barb, myself and our friend Anna tried it out.