Evilyn "putting the edge back in vegetarian" T.'s Profile

A friend was having some birthday drinks here so she invited us all down to join her, I had checked out the menu prior to attending since I am a vegetarian and was happy to see they options for my people. In the end I just had a liquid dinner, which is what Friday nights should all be about anyways. This place does have a nice patio for people watching, and now that Gastown is changing into a nicer area and the hobos are all being pushed further east, its a bit better for people watching albeit less entertaining than hobo-watching.

I had the Judas Kiss cockatil which was served in a martini glass, and was super delish, although tasted like it had maybe an ounce of booze in it, for $9 I wanna smell like a distillery when I get a cocktail. I also had the Exile's Elixir, which was definitely more potent, but not the right amount of sweet vs. booze ration that I required. I thought with the mix of Earl Grey and lavender, it would be a bit softer, so I am kind of wondering if I even got the right drink? Whatever, I drank my drank. I was tempted to order the Dear God drink - only because "your soul" is listed as one of the ingrediants, and Lord knows I have been sucking souls away for half of my life already. I found it kind of cute that a lot of their cocktails had biblical references in their names.

Chill Winston was just that, pretty chill, I kind of wished I had at least tried something on the menu so I could decide whether or not I would want to return - food does seem to be the deal breaker or maker for me.

I don't really recall the last time I was at the Vogue, because I was insanely drunk while watching the Evil Dead musical a few Halloweens ago, so I decided it was time to go back and refresh my memory. The International Burlesque Fest was holding it's Friday night of naughty entertainment here, so I bought me some tickets online. This place is the perfect venue for this kind of show, classy, a little run down and filled with history.

What I like about the Vogue is that you can take your drinks to your seat, at many fancy sit-down theatres in Vancouver, this is not an option. So instead of chugging your wine during intermission, you can casually take swigs from it, and then get one more for when you have to go to your seat. Not only does this make the Vogue more money in bar sales, but it probably makes a lot of attendees very happy in that shiny glossy kind of way, which for a burlesque event helps keep the glitter and sequins stick to your skin = everyone wins.

What I don't like about the Vogue is that the shows end pretty early there, and then you are forced to leak out onto Granville Street on a Friday night where every hoser from Surrey has driven his lowrider into the city to show all us city folk how cool they are. One time I had some guy tell me I had "ugly eyebrows" because he thought that the cab I flagged should have been his. You know what buddy, if you are critiquing me on my eyebrows, the last thing you should be questioning is my stealing your cab home, maybe you should be questioning your sexuality instead. Just sayin.

I can't remember who recomended this place on Yelp, but I decided it was time to try something new and check it out, especially since Spring just didn't seem to be coming and the rain wouldn't let up.

The BF and I came here for a nice big bowl of veggie soup! He had the Pho Nam and I had the Curry Chay, and both were awesome. We also started with the crispy spring rolls, which were yummy as well. My curry was flavourful, but not too spicy, and filled with big chinks of brocky, cauly and other veggies. Had I not know about this place I probably would have just passed it by, cuz it doesn't look super exciting and anything called "express" kind of screams fast food filled with preservatives to me - which I try to stay away from.

I found the seating to be a bit weird, basically there is a long table in the middle that you sit at where you chau... er chow down on your soup. All of the conidments and cuttlery you need are just on the counter by the cashier where you order, so if you need anything its self serve - including water. Although this place is out of my area I would probably venture back to check out some of the other foody options, cuz everything did taste pretty durn fresh.

This place is what Saturdays should be all about, I love the Templeton, but I am not a morning person and hate waiting, and on the weekends you're going to be waiting a good thirty minutes for a table during peak times. Luckily for me, I was up and 'atter this Saturday so we beat the line and had a lovely breakfast here. I can't even remember the last time this was possible for me, so I was pretty happy.

At the Templeton you have a choice of regular bacon or veggie bacon, so any of the breakfast options can easily be made vegetarian (some even vegan with a tofu scramble). Howz that for keeping everyone satisfied? We even had our choice between Sriracha and Frank's, which is awesome cuz I am a Frank's girl, but I have friends who swear by the cock sauce, literally. *cough cough Alex.K*

I wanted to test out the personal juke boxes at the table, but I wasn't ready for that kind of early morning attention if the volume was loud. Nobody needs to see my luxury luggage that early in the AM - these bags are NOT Prada girlfriend! I noticed they also have a large projector screen behind the counter where the ladies make the milkshakes, why they aren't showing classic Saturday morning cartoons like they used to is beyond me - keep it real friends! I wanna see some Foghorn Leghorn up in that shit!

I say, I say the Templeton is one helluva good breakfast place, my selfish self just wishes it wasn't so popular with them young'ens these days. Okay, I'll shut up. I'm not one that has to keep talkin'. Some fellas just have to keep their mouths flappin', but not me! I was brought up right, my pa used to tell me "shut up" and I'd shut up! I wouldn't say nothin'! One time, darn-near starved to death -

It was almost sunny out on Sunday so me and a few friends decided to take our legs for a walk through Stanley Park. We walked all the way past the beaches and through the Lagoon to Coal harbour where we started to get thirsty. This place had a pretty big patio and some heat lamps for my permanently cold blooded body so we decided to check it out.

Now, keep in mind, Coal Harbour is where all the elite rich Vancouverites park their luxury boats when they aren't sailing the world, so we kind of expected this place to be a little bit pricey - and to be honest the prices were pretty fair considering. They had a list of 6 different cesars you could order, so that got me pretty excited. I decided to try the Julius Cesar which came with fresh basil and bocconcini. Unfortunately, the basil and bocconcini were the only good parts to the cesar. I found it to be watery and bland - which is the opposite of what a good cesar should be, and it tasted like they put a splash of beer in it (which I have heard some restaurants do, but for people who don't drink beer it's kind of a turn off). We also ordered the olive plate and some edamame, which was good, its pretty hard to screw up those things though....

When it was time to leave I went to use the bathroom and discovered that the public bathrooms next to the restaurant were for customers to use. Basically, they had no private bathrooms for customers ONLY inside the restaurant. Rad. Let's get one thing straight, if I am paying $10 for a 2oz. cesar that tastes like watery clamato juice, you better fucking have clean toilets for me to puke in. Not only was the bathroom totally filthy, there was a big unflushed log floating in the one stall that didn't have toilet paper all over the floor of it. If you are going to make your customers use the public bathroom you better keep that thing clean because you are now being judged on the cleanliness of it since you are affiliating yourself with it. And is this the bathroom that the staff have to use to? The cooks? What the hell?! Nasty! On a side-note - this restaurant also has a kid's water park in front of it, so I imagine when the weather actually does get nice and you want to sit by the water and enjoy the sunshine, what you will really be enjoying is the sound of small parasites screaming at the top of their lungs. There are only two things in life that should be shaken: martinis and babies. Too dark? Aaaah well.... let the hate flow through you. I probably won't be back.

Who knew drinking could be educational? Well folks, the trick here is to learn things BEFORE you blackout, this is what I have been doing wrong for years now. But last night it all made sense! We snuck down the bricked walls into the back room at the Clough Club - which I was really wondering how to pronounce, was it like cough with a silent GH or Clough like Clough Club Clan.....

Anyways, we met with Trevor who introduced us to the negroni, which isn't my favourite drink, however I must admit his negroni was the best one I haven't liked so far. He explained to us the history of the negroni, from its origin in Florence Italy by a well-known playboy, to its past as an Americano - see I did learn something!  We also got to indulge in some olives and bruschetta from a restaurant close by (this was obviously after I had a few negronis - cuz I can't remember the name of the restaurant) which were delicious! I loved stuffed olives, so this party gets a solid 5 stars just for making them available. Woohoo! Thanks Robin for putting me on the VIP list, and if there is ever a party featuring mojitos - let me know!

I remember when this place was called "the Sound" or something like that, and it was decorated with the most horrific/ugly fake plants, mannequins, and just crap everywhere. It was possibly the most heinous looking club I had ever been into and I was completely dumb-founded that college kids and whatnot would come in for cheap eats and drinks. Fast forward ten years or so.....

The place is still a dump., just with less shitty decorations. They put a small one foot tall stage at the back, so they can have local metal/punk rock bands play. This place is less poor students or hostel attendees (from the Cambie a door down) and more alternative, rock n roll, alcoholic hangout. There was a very odd mix of people in here when I was here last for a friend's birthday party. It was like a bunch of crazy rock n roll bitches (my posse) some alt/punks on the other side of the room, and then random dudes, who kept trying to make small talk with the ladies - who I sensed were a wee bit creeped out.

I don't mind the creeps, probably because I am one. Give me a few drinks and I'll stagger around mumbling to hot chicks too, it's kind of par for the course at dive bars. Unfortunately I had just gotten back from my week-long bender in L.A. so I was drinking gingerale - hard core I know. The server dude at the bar was super nice, and said I could have it on the house for being a designated driver... which I totally was...... *cough cough*
so I made sure to give him a decent tip as a thanks.

I think I would like to try this place again on a night when I AM drinking, as I think it could be one of those places that yo ucome home with stories about, and I don't mean black eyes and paddywagon stories.

One of our local friends recommended this place to us when we got into town. It was a Thursday night and this place was packed! Luckily our pal made rezzos for us, otherwise we probably would have had an hour wait or more. Gross!

They guided us over to a table for five and we squished in, and ordered a round of the famous flaming margaritas - which were delicious! As cool as it looks to have a flaming drink on your table, you better blow that shit out quick or lose all the alcohol in your margarita! The glasses were rimmed with a nice thick salt, which is how you can tell if your margarita is made right, it should have a sweet and saltyness, and this one sure did. I don't think I have ever had anything like this!

They brought us out two bowls of chips and salsa, to snack on while we waited for our food, the salsa had quite a kick to it, (for a white person) which was awesome. Although they didn't have a ton of veggie options on the menu, it seemed pretty clear that the staff were willing to work with you to make something to you liking. I had a veggie burrito of some sort which was yummy, and all I remember is slowly slipping into a food coma, and wishing I had left room for another margarita. In fact I am wishing that I could order a margarita RIGHT NOW! After enough margaritas you also get to do the Hollywood Walk of Shame, which is pretty much the route we took.

The restaurant was dimly lit, and pretty noisy and they had a Mexican band that would come out and play songs every 30 minutes or so, which was pretty cool. They had some fancy fakey plants decorating the booths, I remember feeling them cuz they looked so real. All in all, I can't think of one negative thing to say about this place, I would totally go back and feast here again if I was in the L.A. area.

We were shopping on Melrose Ave, when we started to get the hunger. I wasn't super hungry, but being on holidays, I sure was getting thirsty for some booze. We stopped in here since it was one of the few places we spotted that had a bit of a patio and we don't get nice weather like this in Vancouver, so we needed to soak up every last minute of it that we could.

We decided on sangria, since it's such a fun summer drink, and we were starting our summer early. Our waitress who was as quirky as she was attentive, suggested that she could make a couple pitchers of sangria for us to make it a bit cheaper. The BF and I also ordered a margherita pizza to share since we both weren't super hungry, unlike our friends who had just landed that day. (There were 7 of us that flew down for a wild weekend). I feasted on sangria, while the others just feasted.

I liked this little spot, we had lots of attentive service, our waitress was funny, we got to relax on a nice sunny patio, isn't that what vacations are all about?

A fancier version of your greasy spoon would be Mel's Drive In. This was the BF and my first stop for grub when we touched down in L.A. I watsed no time in ordering up the greasiest grub I could since calories don't count when you're on holiday. I had the deep fried zucchini sticks and a side of fries, of which I could finish neither.

The fries were average, and the zucchini sticks were awesome. I think the BF secretly wanted to eat here because he loves a good milkshake, and this place did deliver. He said they were comparable to Sophie's Cosmic Cafe shakes back home, and he sucked that shit up so fast I didn't even get a taste. It's important for the BF to get his shakes in the morning, it's pretty much the all-in-one-hangover-cure for him. It's coffee flavoured, cold, sweet and bitter, and sits in your stomach like a rock.

The decor here was super cute, some of the booths had little music jukeboxes in them - I don't know if they worked since we never sat at a table that had one. The servers were dressed in retro waitress outfits and had the paper hats on, and if yo ukept your receipt you could get a discount of $3 off at the Hollywood museum next door.