My Dinner Table

Ribs at Baton Rouge

I'm on the road this weekend for work. Meetings in Toronto in the snow. And unlike Daphne's work trip last weekend that I tagged along at, this one she did not come with. So, feeling a little sorry for myself having spent the day in meeting rooms, I picked up ribs from Baton Rouge. One of my colleagues mentioned ribs earlier in the day and I kept thinking about them the rest of the day. So I decided to pick up a little takeaway for dinner. These were OK. Not great, not bad. OK. I think that's the best you can probably expect from a place like Baton Rouge. The restaurant was pretty full. I guess there's a market for safe food and that's exactly what this way. I can't say that I would recommend Baton Rouge, but I wouldn't recommend against it.

Great sandwich

I had a great sandwich today for lunch. I bought it at La Bottega, an Italian grocery and deli in the Byward Market. I've eaten lunch there many times, and with the exception that I believe they put too much dressing on their salads, have never had a bad meal there. Always simple, always fresh and always tasty. Today though I grabbed a sandwich from their deli counter. Italian ham on foccacia with provolone and all the fixings. Spicy eggplant, hot peppers, black olives, I mean all the fixings. Unwrapping the sandwich I was impressed with the generous serving of ham. Piled high, maybe a centimetre thick. Loved it.

Coco Noodle Express

I checked out a new place for lunch yesterday, Coco Noodle Express. I had the Singapore style noodles with chicken ($7). They describe them as thin ribbon noodles, wok fried with mild curry, garlic, green onion, mushrooms, shredded carrots, bean sprouts, scallion, Asian herbs and white peppers. Pretty typical. Nothing out of the ordinary, but decent. All cooked to order. Fresh. Not too greasy. At first I thought the portion was a little small for the price, but they packed that little Chinese takeout box pretty full, so it was OK. I still inhaled though as I was pretty hungry. Definitely worthwhile checking out the other dishes they have including Shanghai and Szechaun noodles that look pretty good. They also have some Thai, Malay and Singapore curries that I intend on trying over the next couple of weeks.
Coco Noodle Express. 382 Robson St. 604-609-2678.

The Shawarma Place

Dinner on Sunday night was a takeaway shawarma plate with the ever so original name of The Shawarma Place,  not to be confused with Shawarma Deluxe down the street and another place if I read the sign correctly as Lebanese Garlic Corner. I would have thought in a business in which the product you are selling is nearly a commodity, you would try to distinguish yourself with some sort of original name. The deciding factor on the location though was that Daphne had a coupon. Two for one. So we had enough dinner to stuff both of us for less than $10 which I must say was a great deal. The shawarma was good. Like I said it is almost a commodity in the Byward Market with as many shawarma places as Vancouver would have Starbucks. I like that the guy preparing the plates didn't smother the plates with the garlic sauce though. That was nice and something some of the other places sometimes do. But will I return? Probably not as walk to it from the apartment I passed no less than three other places that were just as good, yet closer. If it is the one closest to you though, you'll get a reliable meal.

Ottawa shawarma

Daphne and I had shawarma platters for dinner on Friday night. I love the shawarma in Ottawa. I often get shawarma platters from a place in Vancouver, but this was so much better. It came with a wonderful variety of sides. These purple pickled things, tabbouleh, hot peppers, roasted potatoes, humus, slices of tomato, onion. So much goodness. The best part though and the real difference between shawarma in Vancouver and Ottawa is this mixture of mayo and garlic you get in Ottawa. It is so good and so simple. I'm pretty sure it is just mayo and garlic, but it adds so much and I just haven't seen it in Vancouver. Maybe it is because they are more health conscious here.

Firewood Cafe and the Canada Line

I went and picked up pizza from the Firewood Cafe today. I love their pizza. Actually, what I really love is their cheese pizza. Brick cheese, parmesan cheese, asiago cheese, cheddar cheese and just enough chillies to add a tasty heat to the pizza. It may be the best cheese pizza I've had. But that's not why I went over to the Firewood Cafe to pick up a pizza. I'm worried that the Canada Line construction is going to put them out of business. Cambie St. is a mess and it is quite a chore to you want to go to the restaurant to pick it up and I'm worried that all this construction is going to put them out of business. So when I decided that I was going to have pizza tonight I thought I should go over and give them some of my business. I would encourage you to do the same. Not only is it some of the best thin crust pizza this city has to offer, but you'll be helping keep one of my favourite pizza places in business in what must be a difficult time for them. And really you don't have to brave the construction zoo. You can have it delivered.
Firewood Cafe. 3004 Cambie St. Vancouver. 604-873-0001.

Frenchies

I wouldn't trade any of the meals that I had in Montreal last month. They were all great. But I do have a regret. I didn't go have a good smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's. I don't know what meal I would have traded for a smoked meat, but I wish I had one. So when Les started talking about how Ben's was in danger of closing and then Stephanie came back to the office with a smoked meat sandwich, I thought I had to go get one. The nearest place to the office is a place called Frenchies so I wandered on over and picked up a six-ounce smoked meat and fries. I'm sorry to say it didn't fill my need. The fries were OK, but the smoked meat was seriously lacking. My major complaint was that it was cold to the touch in the middle. I saw the woman put it in a steamer it to rewarm it, but it just didn't do it. It was also a little on the lean side. It came with an OK pickle, but I'm still craving a good smoked meat. I've heard there are a couple of places in town that serve a proper smoked meat. I've heard Phat may be my best bet.

Frenchies Smoked Meat. 751 Helmcken St. Vancouver. 604-688-4584.

At least I got a sandwich

For nearly all of my working life at The Canadian Press I've largely avoided going to meetings. I'm not talking about the annual shareholder meetings I go to for stories or the many other meetings I attend for stories. I mean committee meetings about the internal workings of Canada's news co-operative. Well, that came to a screeching end on Monday as I attended my first pension trustee meeting. Yes, I am a member of a committee. I figured it was time I anted up and contributed my share and took a more active role. So I joined our pension committee after no small measure of looking around for somewhere I thought I could add value and not be bored to tears. Anyway, two hours into my meeting on Monday, the sandwiches arrived. When I worked in Toronto I would often eat the leftovers of the lunches delivered for the various meetings in the building that were brought down into the newsroom. But this time I got to have first crack at them. They were from Mercatto on Monday. This was great. I love the sandwiches from Mercatto and despite the cost had them often when I worked in Toronto. I had half a chicken and brie sandwich and half of their roast beef which had this great horseradish mayo and onion jam. Both great sandwiches. If your downtown and looking for a place to get a quick lunch I wholeheartedly suggest you try out Mercatto.

Mercatto. 15 Toronto St. Toronto. 416-366-4567.

Butter chicken

I had butter chicken today for lunch from a cool little food court downtown on Hornby Street. I'm sorry I don't have the address, but it is a block north of Dunsmuir. I'd been before, but hadn't been back for a couple of months because it is a bit of a walk from the office. But I was feeling the need to get up and away from my desk for a bit today, so I headed on over. It's very cool. No real chains. Just little Mom and Pop food stands. I've had better butter chicken, but it wasn't bad for a quick meal at lunch and a nice change from another sandwich or burger.

Beef curry

I bought takeaway curry from Rangoli for dinner. The raw sugar, garlic and garam masala beef curry. It was different from others I've had because in addition to a decent level of heat it was sweet. I nice sort of caramel sweet in addition to a not insignificant level of spice. I had it with naan that I baked in a really hot oven. It was very tasty. I've had several of the others including the Mother-in-law's Pork Curry and the Punjabi Lamb Curry, but this I think was my favourite so far.

Rangoli. 1488 West 11th Ave. Vancouver. 604-736-5711.