western Archives - Page 6 of 11

Catch 122 Cafe Bistro

June 18, 2015

Hi everybody!

Back in March, some of my coworkers and I had lunch at Catch 122, as per my suggestion. I’ve heard so many great things about this place and decided that it was finally time that I check it out!
I made reservations for the five of us, and am I glad I did – the restaurant was full when we arrived, with a short line forming. I wouldn’t mind waiting, but didn’t want to waste our lunch break waiting in line and having to rush the eating part.
After much indecisiveness, I decided to get the croque madame. It came with a poached egg, house smoked ham, Yukon nugget potatoes, and salad. The poached egg and ham came on top of a piece of toast and fresh veggies. I really liked the savoury potatoes, as well as the ham due to its smoky flavour.
Coworker’s braised short rib benedict – I didn’t try it, but he said the short rib was really, really, really good.

Coworker’s truffle-scented mushroom omelette

Coworker’s catch 122! This looked really good, it came with house smoked and cured wild salmon, poached eggs, arugula, and the same side of potatoes as well.

We also split a pulled pork poutine as well. The fries were pretty standard, but the pulled pork was delicious. It was tender and was full of flavour, there was also a generous amount of pork and cheese too. We were pretty stuffed by the time we ended our meal.

I’m glad that I finally got a change to try Catch 122! Service was very slow though, not sure if they were extra busy that day or if it is always like that? I would have liked this place a lot more if service was more friendly. I’m not dying to come back, but it’s a good brunch option if you’re ever in the neighbourhood.

Do you like Catch 122?

Thanks for reading!
-Carmen

Peqish – Healthy fast food sandwiches

June 10, 2015

Hi everyone!

I first noticed Peqish in January after our office had moved closer to this area. My coworkers came here one morning, and arrived back at the office with piping hot, melt in your mouth, freshly made chocolate cookies. We decided to try this place out for lunch a few months ago in February.
As you can see, Peqish is pretty small. The concept behind Peqish was to provide people with healthy fast food on the go. Each of their items are made fresh daily. With emphasis on the express, the place has a mere 5 bar seats which is pretty narrow. You also order your coffee/drinks on the computer and pay there, similar to restaurants that I’ve seen in Tokyo with the same system.
The shelves are filled with healthy sandwiches, wraps, mini salads, and smoothies. This is a picture of their hot food section, while 3/4 of the other items are stored in a fridge. There were so many to pick from and took us all awhile to decide on what to order. So many decisions.
I settled on the “bohemian wrapsody” – shwarma beef, hummus, tahini sauce, peppers, and carrots enveloped in a Middle Eastern style flatbread. I also got one of their “protein booster” chicken snacks and the green smoothie made with kale, coconut, and pineapple. This was a lunch combo for $10.

I found both the meat in the wrap and protein snack to be extremely dry. It took me awhile to finish because it was so dry, which was disappointing. Aside from that, the vegetables were fresh and sauces were flavourful. There is a lot of potential in the wrap, but sadly the meat was just too dry to be edible.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed the smoothie and think I’ll be back in the future to get this. The coconut and pineapple were really strong, and it tasted refreshing! Much healthier and cheaper than going to Starbucks, haha.

My coworker ordered the 5 spice pulled pork wrap from the hot shelf (mine was from the fridge shelf). Like my meat, the pulled pork was extremely dry.

For her side, she chose the orzo pasta salad cup which was really good. It had a good amount of herbs and the vegetables tasted fresh.

She ordered the berry smoothie, but said it was disappointing because all she could taste was the banana. It tasted exactly like a pure banana smoothie but berry coloured… but bananas are easily over powering in smoothies so it’s important to get the ratio right!

This is a close up of my coworker’s pulled pork wrap, since the previous picture is just covered in condensation.

Overall, we were disappointed with the wraps since the meat was so dry and inedible, but I liked the green smoothie and she enjoyed her pasta salad cup. I’m not sure if we will be back for the sandwiches, but I did enjoy the smoothie and wouldn’t mind having another one!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Steel Toad Brewpub & Dining Hall – Two Visits

March 24, 2015

My coworker had been talking about a new pub that opened recently at Olympic Village.. I didn’t believe him because I pass by or go to that neighbourhood relatively often and I haven’t seen it before! So, after a disappointing and expensive dinner at The Flying Pig, we decided to walk around. Sure enough, there was Steel Toad! How did I miss seeing this place?!
I told Macaroni about this place and she wanted to check it out as well, so we decided to have a double date dinner here a couple of weeks after. Steel Toad underwent massive construction for five years, this place used to be a warehouse of some sort.

Walking in, the place was really big and spacious! Compared to Craft next door, it is a lot bigger and that’s saying something since Craft is already a large restaurant as well. There was a bouncer and hostess that greeted us at the door. Since we had made reservations for the busy weekend night, we were seated on the second floor alcove which gave us a nice view of the restaurant.

The atmosphere there was fantastic – live, buzzing with energy coupled with a nice smooth melody of a live band that was playing that night. If anything, I would recommend going just for the energy because as you’ll find out, the food was just meh to us.
I was pleasantly surprised that the beer here was pretty cheap for a fancy gastropub! Maybe because they brew everything in house? Definitely the lowest prices I’ve seen compared to Craft, Tap & Barrel, St. Augs, Biercraft, etc etc. I forgot what I ordered, but our server recommended this to us.
Macaroni ordered the margherita pizza. This was probably the best tasting dish we had that night. The dough was nice and chewy, although some parts were super burnt and charred black. It came with a generous amount of melted cheese and the tomato sauce had a nice herb-like flavour to it.
The second dish that arrived was the roast beef sandwich, which came with a side of fries. The roast beef sandwich was pretty disappointing, it came on a single slice of plain toast that you can buy at any grocery store. For the roast beef itself, it was pretty bland. We expected more from this dish than a single slice of toast topped with flavourless roast beef and sauce.

I’m glad we ordered the pretzel, or else we would have gone hungry! The pretzel was warm, fresh, and chewy. It was lightly sprinkled with salt and the dijon mustard complemented the flavours. I really enjoyed the pretzel and would probably order it again if we came back.
The most disappointing dish of all – the shepard’s pie. I’ve never had a bad shephard’s pie until that night. To start, the server over-exaggerated at how big the portion would be, she told us it was really big and that it was super delicious. When it arrived, we all stared at the size of it and were thinking “….this is it?” The boyfriend and I shared this, and I was glad I wasn’t that hungry or else it wouldn’t have filled us up at all.

It was severely bland and lacking any type of flavour. We had to sprinkle a lot of salt on top to make this mediocre. We weren’t sure why the server had recommended this dish to us, and how it passed for “super delicious” because it was quite the exact opposite.
The service? What service? Not so great. Although our server was friendly, she was really slow and we saw her socializing with other servers instead. We tried to ask her for salt and pepper since out shephard’s pie was so bland, but she never acknowledged or checked up on us. We ended up walking to the bar and asking the bartender if we could use it. We also asked the bartender if we could get our water refilled.

On a separate visit, the boyfriend and I came back for a beer, but with caution since our first visit wasn’t spectacular. Since we only wanted to grab a couple drinks, we decided to come back as I liked the drink prices and how you can get a smaller size (250ml). We came on a late afternoon just in time for happy hour!

We weren’t planning on eating, but the happy hour deal was so great that we couldn’t pass it up. A pint of house beer and choice of pizza for $11, which is about 50% off depending on which pizza you order. We ordered the Hawaiian pizza, which came with your standard ham, pineapples and also capicola. Just like our first visit, we enjoyed the pizza and it had a generous amount of capicola!
Since the happy hour came with a pint, the boyfriend ordered one of the house beers, the saison sauvignon. It was slightly salty and a tad hoppy, it reminded me of the more popular seedspitter watermelon wit from Parallel 49.

I really wanted the beer I had last time (which was the purpose of our visit), but unfortunately they were sold out =( I settled on the Lonetree cider instead. It tasted like your typical cider, but I would have liked it more cold since I found it to be only a tiny bit above room temperature.

The service this time was phenomenal! We had a different server, who was super nice and friendly, and gave us many drink recommendations. He checked up on us many times and made our visit a delight. It’s amazing how much the service can change your perception of a place! I’m glad we gave this place a second try.

Steel Toad is still less than a year old, with room for improvement. Some of their dishes are executed nicely, while others could use work. The service is inconsistent as well, but I’m glad our second time was a lot better!

Read my reviews on Tap and Barrel and CRAFT as well, all three of which are located within blocks of each other!

Thanks for reading!
-Carmen

The Flying Pig (Olympic Village)

March 9, 2015

Happy to announce that this will be a guest post by le boyfriend. We tried The Flying Pig for the first time but we left disappointed, read on to find out why. Thanks for reading! – Carmen

————

Hi everybody! Welcome to another guest post. Carmen really wanted another post from me, but I was hesitant at first. I originally intended to write my post on Fable Kitchen as part of the Dine at Fable event, but that went nowhere as evidence by the lack of a post. So here is a review for The Flying Pig, at their newest location in Olympic Village. Carmen had really wanted to try The Flying Pig for a long time, and one night we decided to visit the aforementioned location.
This location does not have big signs or bright lights on the outside of the building, and it was quite difficult to locate in the dark. Once inside, we were greeted and seated promptly. The restaurant was about 75% full when we arrived, but I found that the table we were seated at was pretty cramped. Our server was very friendly, and rang off the specials of the day for us.
For an appetizer, we ordered the Bone Marrow Cheezy Bread. Carmen heard from a friend that the bread was a “must try” item, and it did not disappoint. It was warm, fluffy, and loaded with cheese.
For her entrée, Carmen ordered the Veal Piccata. It consisted of a parmesan risotto in a lemon caper butter sauce, served with veal slices. The risotto was creamy and cooked perfectly, but that’s about as good as it gets.

The veal, while tender, was underwhelming and bland. The lemon capers gave it an overly lemony taste, which required a lot of salt and pepper to mask. It also had a slimy texture that was very off-putting.

Overall, Carmen did not enjoy it very much, and I switched dishes with her only because I could tolerate it a bit more. We both agreed, it’s not worth recommending.
Next up is the entrée I selected: The Flying Pig Signature Pork Rack. It really sounded good on paper but was sadly another uninspiring dish. The pork rack consisted of one piece of pork chop attached to the bone, served with a side of pulled pork poutine, with an apple cider reduction sauce and seasonal vegetables.

The pork was cooked very well, being very tender and juicy, but just like the veal, it was bland and poorly seasoned. Carmen tried a piece and was not impressed either. Sadly for this dish, the best part was the side of pulled pork poutine, which you can add as a side to other dishes as well. There was a generous amount of pulled pork layered on top, and the pulled pork was absolutely delicious.

Considering how poorly seasoned the rest of the meats we had that night were, this was an absolute delight. There is also a generous topping of cheese curds and gravy.

Our first experience at The Flying Pig was, overall, not a very positive one. Most of our food ended up being very disappointing, and for what we paid, we felt like it was definitely not worth the price. We also agreed that it would be worth revisiting another time.

Carmen did in fact go back to The Flying Pig (albeit their Gastown location) and had a much better experience during their happy hour. You can expect that review to be up pretty soon after this one. Until next time, thanks for reading!

Rocket Sandwich Shop

February 25, 2015

Hello all!

I was walking around on my lunch break one day, and noticed a clean, pristine and modern looking sandwich shop that I’ve never heard of before. I then decided to search them up and found out that it was a healthy, alternative gourmet sandwich shop catered for those on the go. I think it’s also relatively new because their website still says “now open!”. A few weeks later, my coworkers and I went to try this place for lunch and here’s how that went!
I really liked the modern, clean, and simplistic design to Rocket- that’s what made me notice this place originally! As you can see, they have a white tile wall with a big rocket ship stamped on it, their company logo. They keep the colours simple and fresh, with a splash of colour- à la baby blue espresso machine. A small selection of pastries are offered behind a clean, streak/thumbprint free glass.

On the other side of the clean wooden counter was the fridge, where their sandwiches are stored. We went around 12:30 on a weekday, and the fridge was looking a bit scarce already. However, the worker told us that they were able to freshly make a sandwich that we wanted if we did not see it there!

The price of one sandwich was $8.50, and I didn’t feel like paying that much for a sandwich although they looked delicious. I opted for the hot egg breakfast sandwich instead, with your choice of one out of four options and was $4. I decided on the prosciutto and cheddar topping.

I fell in love with this at first bite. I loved how savoury, warm, and fresh everything tasted. The cheddar cheese was slightly melted on the prosciutto, while the English muffin was soft and lightly toasted. My favourite part was the EGG though, I’m still thinking about how delicious that egg was. For $4, this is a much better tasting breakfast sandwich with fresh, quality ingredients than getting a breakfast sandwich at a fast food joint for around the same price.

My coworker ordered the spicy shrimp sandwich. She enjoyed her sandwich as well, even though it was a bit on the pricey side for a single sandwich ($8.50 without tax and tip). Well to justify the amount spent on her sandwich, she said it’s not likely that she will craft up a sandwich with this much effort in it on a daily basis – preparing, seasoning, and cooking the shrimp and making the specialty sandwich sauce.

True that, if you were to make that at home it would probably take a long time. Usually, people prepare sandwiches because they’re quick and easy so I guess that the spicy shrimp sandwich at Rocket is worth the splurge.

-Carmen

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