B’s Diner
10015 82 Ave
Edmonton, AB

“You have to go to B’s Diner!”

Those were the words from Elaine and Chris of Parker Pages when I asked for restaurants suggestions in Edmonton. Of course, she knowing I have no issues going to dives, B’s Diner seemed to be “suitable” for me. But, I also found about something else about it…

One thing you will find out is that it is possible for you to be rubbing elbows with the less fortunate. And, in a way, that is part of the background story behind B’s Diner. But, for me (a non-local) to say it does not really convey the real meaning. So, instead, I will refer to this article in the Edmonton Journal. But, back to my visit…

When I walked in, there was Bob (owner of B’s Diner) greeting me and gave me the option to sit anywhere. Having said that, there is a communal like table in the middle and some booths on the sides. I choose to sit in the communal table. After given the menu and perusing through it, I couldn’t help look at the other customers. While in the article makes mention of the less fortunate, some of the other customers would be the same customers you would see in other regular establishments. Basically, from almost all ways of life. But, back to the menu. It was mostly composed of regular diner in the form of the burgers, breakfast dishes, sandwiches, but there were also interesting ones like liver and plus some Asian vegetarian dishes (probably due to Brenda’s Chinese heritage). However, while all those options would have been “good”, I decided to go for some more unique (if it can called that way), in the form of an Eastern European based special…

I ordered Beef Stroganoff with Polish potato dumplings and sauerkraut. One thing I will have to mention, it took forever for the food to come out. In fact, it easily took ~20 minutes! However, as they say, good food takes time and, in this case, I won’t complain as it give me a bit more time to look around and read photocopies of articles telling B’s Diner side story.

As for the food itself, when the plate arrived, I couldn’t believe the amount served. If it wasn’t because I was *really* hungry after that wait, I wouldn’t have been able to finish it. In fact, I was trying *NOT* to finish it but couldn’t help myself doing exactly that. In a way, everything had a rustic, home-y feeling to it. The beef was, for the most part, ground meat with a creamy mushroom sauce. Granted, purist of this dish would cry foul for the mushroom, but you know what? In this case, I didn’t care for that small detail as it was mostly a detail of the name, not the fact the food tasted good. As for the potato dumpling, I wish it was a bit warmer; otherwise, it was nice pieces of potato + flour. Actually, if it was shaped differently and had some ridges, you could have called them gnocchi and it won’t be that far from the truth. The sauerkraut… Well, it was sauerkraut. Should I say more?

The total bill was ~$12; however, I had no issues leaving behind a $5 tip (I needed change to take transit back. Sorry!). Was it as dive-y as I thought it was initially? Aside from the fact you could easily overlook it, not really. Granted, it might be other stigmas behind it and its back story; but that is about it. However, given the name of this blog, the only thing I can say is that the special was good and it is a place I don’t mind coming back.

Stepping Stone Cafe
2390 NW Quimby Street
Portland, OR

Hello from Portland!

Yes, finally, after been grounded at work for several months, I am finally travelling again. OK, OK, I was in both Tacoma and Tukwila but, you know what, that does not really count as it can be done as a day trip. However, Portland, while is driving distance as well, is slightly different. By the time you get here, chances are you might want to stay at least a couple of nights.

So, unlike certain other border crossings, this time it went relatively smooth and managed to drive from Downtown Vancouver to my hotel (in Uptown Portland) in about 8 or so hours (with a couple of stops in between – without the stops, it would have been ~6.5 hours), which meant I arrived early enough… To go to an open restaurant!!! Which then again begs the usual question… Which one?

I ended up going to Stepping Stone Cafe for one reason: it is a diner. Granted, there are a lot other restaurants in the area (think a combination of Kits and Commercial Drive) but, at the same time, it has that odd forced “fakeness” to it. So, rather to go to some of the these more “posh” places, I chose to go to what might be the lowest common denominator – but, then again, my reputation for selecting this type of restaurants is quite well know…

Now, this diner also has an interesting reputation: it was featured in Man vs. Food (haven’t seen that episode so can’t comment about it). Whether it being feature is good or bad I can’t say: what matters here is that it has some reputation. In that episode’s case, the “food” was pancakes but, despite it might taste good at any time of the day, I want something more “diner”. And, somewhat similar to what happened in Acme Cafe, I chose to go with some diner type dishes. But, first…

A green salad. Nothing exceptional, nothing wrong either. For the most part, a textbook salad. I could be nitpicky if I wanted to (distribution of tomatoes, for example) but, you know what? Is a *** salad and chances are you will be tossing it yourself! So, not much to comment about…

Yup, I ordered *two* dishes! Meatloaf dinner and mac-n-cheese! See, here is the little dilemma I had: I wanted to try both but knew that, if I ordered both, I won’t have finished them. When I told that to the waiter, he suggested I ordered the kids size portion of the mac-n-cheese! Now THAT is a brilliant idea. I wonder if next time I visit a restaurant (by myself, I must add), I should order several child size portions!

But, to the food itself, starting with the mac-n-cheese. While there wasn’t anything crumbl-y on top, I didn’t really needed it or expecting it. It just happen that I prefer what people would call macaroni with cheese sauce: something simple, no fuzz. So, if there were nothing crispy on top, it won’t have matter to me. As for the mac-n-cheese itself, alas, I wished it had more cheese flavour (it was somewhat uni-dimensional), as the creaminess was there. Still, it was quite enjoyable to eat to the point I almost finished it!

Moving to the meatloaf, it was served with mashed potatoes and some steamed vegetables (which happened to be steamed spinach). To me, this mash was really short of being a fail: if we took the gravy out, it would be completely bland. Furthermore, it felt slightly dry. Come to think about it, it look so “white” and lacking some skin or some clumps that made me wonder if this was made from a package (nothing wrong with it). The reason behind my suspicion is that the gravy used was quite similar you could make out of packed ones! OK, I might be stretching it, the gravy was decent but couldn’t shake away that feeling…

As for the meatloaf itself, it was “sliced” a bit too thin to my liking. But, hey, this is nitpicking! Fortunately, it wasn’t down to a paste consistency and still had some “chunks”. Furthermore, it had some seasoning, including what could have been chili peppers (I started to sweat lightly). Of course, I could be mistaken here… But then there was the gravy again… Actually, it worked fine but I would have preferred it not be poured on top.

One thing that I noticed about their patron is that they seem to be feeling themselves at home, the waiter was joking with them and so did other customers. I think I was the oddball that night… The food wasn’t extraordinary by any means; however, given the type of food, should I have expected it to be? At least, their key dishes with some minor tweakings would be enjoyable. In the meantime, given its simplicity and its “it is what it is” type location, I think I would feel comfortable and come back.

Ruby Tuesday
250 Davidson Ave
Somerset, NJ

On my flights, I usually sleep. No, really! While sometimes there are good movies, under the influence of Gravol/Dramamine, forget about it. This time, even the fact the movies were food related did not help! Among the movies available were Julie & Julia, Babettes Gæstebud (aka, Babette’s Feast) and, if memory serves me right, Big Night. Heck, just for kicks, I grabbed my copy of the On-Board magazine as it feature some food related topics, like restaurants in Vancouver (a brief look at it focused mostly on fine dining. Sigh…). On an unrelated note, I was flying Air Canada and, despite all the crap said about it, for a North American airline, it isn’t that bad, specially considering the issues I had flying with US Airways, including me being in a watchlist…

But, back to the topic, after getting myself terribly lost near Newark, I eventually hit the highways and arrived to the hotel… At 9:00 p.m… Hungry at that point, as I just had breakfast and skipped all the in-flight snacks and meals (I was testing a theory, that if you arrive hungry and tired you might as well eat something and hit bed to more easily overcome jet lag, in this case, I will have to say it worked!), I went at the closest place available: Ruby Tuesday

Not sure what would be the best way to describe it. May be a typical casual dining restaurant (on the same veins as TGI Fridays, Applebee’s or Bennigan’s)? The ambiance was more on the lines of a TGI Friday’s catered towards an older customer base. Other than some staff, easily I was the only person in my age group! But, then again, it was a Sunday night, an hour before their 10:00 p.m. closing time.

While perusing through the menu, it looked it had some interesting options but I ran into something that bugged me slightly: what would be something safe to order at that time of the day when the kitchen is about to shut down? After some debate (which didn’t help because each minute spent on that meant “wasted” time they could use to prepare my order), I decided to start with…

Before anybody says this like a sloppy salad, well, that was because I assembled it myself. What happens is that, for a token (?) $3.00 added to your order, you can hit the salad bar. In my case, I badly needed some veggies (considering what I had for breakfast). In my plate, some marinated/dressed cucumber, mushroom, tomatoes and apple salad and, one item that a lot of people seem to dislike: beets. I won’t delve into that topic other than the salad bar was good enough to get started for…

What I consider to be one of the most innocuous items in the menu: chicken. Yup, on the plate, two (small) chicken breast smothered with some BBQ sauce. On the side, mashed potato and some more vegetables. I am not sure if Vancouver has gone ahead of others but the mashed potato was just average. I mean, it did not have some garlic-y addition to it, not even anything butter-y. I guess some people like their mashed potato “plain” and they would rather have it that way. As for the vegetables, not much to talk about. It was just OK. Finally, the chicken. When I mentioned innocuous, you can have an idea of what to expect. If it wasn’t because of that sauce, I would have to say it was tasteless. Not that adding the BBQ sauce made it much better, as it had some unnatural (as in strange) taste to it. If I had a good thing to say about the chicken would be to mention it wasn’t dry.

Overall, it fulfilled the mission it was supposed to: provide me with something to eat in an unknown place on Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Not in a hurry in any way to come back but, still, I can see it has some qualities of its own (i.e., catered towards a specific population) and why people would like to come. For me, I will rather try something else…

Top’s Restaurant (24 hours)
2790 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC

After the late night meal referenced in yesterday’s post, I have been searching for decent places for such meals. One of the places near where I live is Top’s Restaurant.

OK, I went there for lunch rather than late night but, hey, I wanted to make sure it was a viable option before I actually needed to go there!

It was somewhat empty that day; however, that might be understandable, as I am sure people were still shopping for end of year holidays. I was quickly seated and given the menu.

Almost expected decoration?

The menu is what you would expect, that is, sandwiches, burgers, some breakfast items and some fried items. Also, in a large chalkboard, some of the specials. On the day I visited, they had spinach pie with rice and salad ($13), steak and lobster ($35!), et al. Not necessarily something I would order, specially for late night… Anyway, after ordering my drink, a glass of soda/pop,

Sorry, I was driving. No drinking and driving!

I checked the menu and… Well, I will have to admit it. I really messed up here. Call it memory lapse, brain fart, etc., instead of ordering something “interesting”, I ended up ordering seafood and shrimp club sandwich. If your expression is something on the lines of “WTF?!”, that was the same expression I made five seconds after the waitress (looking at her dress, I would say manager/owner) took my order. I mean, why would I order that? Why not order something they might be doing every day, something they are (possibly) good at, like burgers or a breakfast dish?! In fact, the table beside mine had a breakfast dish and looked really good… Anyway, the damage was done and had to live with it. And here it is:

Call me odd but I chose salad rather than fries or soup. The salad itself, well, it was just average, not much to say about. Now, the key element of my order, the sandwich. Did it have shrimp? Yup, it had some small shrimps. Did it have some other seafood? Well, it had a string looking component, which could be k/crab but, unfortunately, it had no distinct flavour.

Overall, I will admit I ordered the wrong dish but I am willing to give it another try. Most probably a breakfast item. Would I come back? I think I will. At least, the service was decent.

Tom & Jerry’s
2828 E Hastings St
Vancouver, BC V5K

Despite the odd name, this is still a restaurant post, OK? No, no kidding!

On statutory holidays, if you want to eat out, it might be a challenge. At lot of restaurants might or might not be open. On Remembrance Day, I chose to eat out and, out of the 3 places I had on a list, all of them were closed. Ouch. However, I remembered: one days like this, one type of restaurants is almost guaranteed to be open: diners. Don’t ask me how I reached this conclusion… Since I was driving in Hastings, I kept on driving and stopped at the first one I found: Tom -n- Jerry’s.

Quite an interesting decoration, if you ask me…

I arrived just before 1:00 p.m. It seems they were using only half the restaurant, as all the customers were seated on one side. From a logistics perspective, that makes sense as they might be running the place with a skeleton staff rather than the full staff. Anyway, it took a while for them to notice me but once they did, service was quite good.

Picture of back counter. Was tricky to take this picture as the waitresses were constantly running back and forth.

I asked for Diet Pepsi as drink and was given to me with the day’s newspaper! And no, not 24 Hours or Metro…

For food, I was not sure what I wanted for lunch. I was debating between a breakfast item (pancakes), omelette or burgers. On that note, they also have other sandwiches and an all-you-can-eat fish-and-chips. I settled for a double deluxe burger ($13) and had the choice of soup, salad or fries. In this case, I chose the soup of the day, a spicy lentil soup.

I am a sucker for lentils. Compared to beans, it is a lot easier to prepare (no need to pre-soak) and it is quite versatile. Just check some Indian sweets: some of them are prepared with lentils. And in this case, I am glad I ordered this. The soup was really, really good! Although not as spicy as originally advertised, it was quite thick and savoury. As for the main item, the burger…

I suspect these were from a major food supplier. However, if they were, I must admit they cooked it really well (no, not overdone but “skillfully”). Not medium rare but at least the juicies were dripping out while I was eating it. I was making such a mess when a waitress noticed that, she gave me a couple more napkins just in case!

Part of the mess made

Overall, it was a good lunch. Probably some of you might say “you could have gone to “. Sure, I could have but I have to admit the burger here was good enough without a lot of pretensions.