Sandra "middle child" G.'s Profile

After a few hours of zip trekking, my boyfriend and I were munching for a burger and fries. We were told Spitz was the place to go, but didn't want to venture that far from where our car was.

La Bocca was extremely busy on the long weekend and the patio looked full on the sunny day. But we got a table pretty easily and I was able to order yam fries along with my Buddha Burger (veggie burger with brown rice, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickle & caramelized onions for $14). The caramelized onions were different; it was one of the better veggie burgers I've had, and the fries with chipotle sauce definitely hit the spot.

Our server was fast and the food came out in less than 10 so we were surprised at how good the service was on a busy day. My boyfriend said the walls inside looked like some kind of elementary school collage, but to me, as long as food and service is good, decor doesn't mean much. I usually wouldn't pay that much for a burger, but when you're hungry, you'll pay for anything!

Nothing outstanding about this place, but no complaints from this Vancouver couple!

My boyfriend and I had our first ziptrekking experience above Robson Square during the Olympics, and received a 10% off coupon that we were going to try to use before summer was over.

We started our Labour Day long weekend by driving up to Whistler and doing the Bear tour, which is the 'original' ecotour that is recommended for beginners and families. We had two guides, who first had us do a test run on a short 100m. zipline beside the Whistler-Blackcomb gondola. Then after a 10-minute drive, we were in the middle of the rainforest (I didn't know Whistler was considered rainforest territory) and ready for our first real zip across to Whistler mountain, over Fitzsimmons Creek.

What I didn't realize about the tour was that you really learn a lot about the ecology of the forest, including the wildlife in the area. Our guide said there are about 80 black bears (the mild kind), 2,500 cougars, and then a number of grizzly bears (the aggressive kind) that you don't want to mess with. Ziptrek also adheres to the 5 'Natural Steps' about how people can be sustainable, which are explained at different stops of the tour.  

It's a good thing I didn't make a habit of looking down at how high we were. Otherwise it would have been much harder to leave the platform like it was up top of Robson Street. We were 120 m. above creek level, I believe. Our 3rd zipline was longer - about 1,000 m. where we got to pose for the camera. I went hands free then. The 4th line was the longest and I took some crazy video footage of the height. I was slow to reach the end so I had to get towed in by Carrie. whew.

This tour has some amazing photo opps of the view and of nature. We didn't spot any bears but it was a sunny, cloud-free day so I can't complain.

Our 5th and last zipline was the 'freestyle' line where they taught us how to go upside down. I channeled my inner acrobatic child and crossed my ankles over the harness while dropping my hands down for "the full 10 points."

It was the most thrilling 2 hours of my life, and totally worth it for the $100 we paid each. Ziptrekking is great thing to do on a sunny weekend to get away from the city and explore the nature of Whistler. We still have one discount coupon left, so we can use it for the more challenging Eagle tour, maybe in Winter before or after a day of snowboarding. We were told that people actually do that. And we thought we were the thrill-seekers!

The only thing I would have liked was to avoid the wedgies you get every time you leave and arrive on the platform between zipping. But you can't really fight gravity, can you.

Bravo to Ziptrek Ecotours for giving us an exciting and educational experience!

It was probably fate that I met the owner of Bombay Brow Bar, Ravy Mehroke, at an event a few weeks ago. I knew of BBB as the new place to go to in Yaletown to get your brows did, but when she invited me to come in to review the place, I realized she had probably spotted my unruly brows from a mile away!

Bombay Brow Bar is - and looks like - a gem. Adorned with purple/gold walls and chairs and a big screen showing the best of Bollywood, you get one whiff of their Chai tea and immediately you're imported to India. Reena (who is coincidentally Ravy's sister-in-law) gave me some bottled water as I waited for my signature service, "bombay brows" ($23 value). When it was my turn, I was seated and given a brow consultation from Navi.

I knew I had a lot of hair, but I never knew that brow arching was such a science! Navi told me that my right arch was in the wrong place and that some of the hair on the end should have grown longer (instead of plucked away during my teen years!) When she determined the shape, she went threading away (tweezing and waxing are also available) and both eyebrows took no longer than 5 minutes. Oh, by the way, this was my first threading experience ever.

I thought to myself why am I slaving away plucking my hairs out one by one?! Threading is awesome! Painful, but FAST. After that, I got treated to a calming forehead massage with some cool rosewater gel, and then a bit of fill in - not with an eyebrow pencil, which I despise - but with an ashy shadow. Really natural looking.

After that I was all ready to go for my event that night. Navi and Reena both said to come back 3-4 weeks to let the hair grow out, which (like waxing) is even less frequent than I do plucking, so how can you resist?

The staff was really nice to let me take photos for my review. BBB also sells their Chai tea and sparkly bangles at the front desk so you can be bombay-chic 24/7.

Not many reviews get 5 stars from me, but BBB's great location (about a block away from the Canada Line Skytrain Station), kickass service, and uber clean space makes it well deserved!

Back in June, my sister and I got treated to free manis by Luxe Beauty Lounge, which wasn't even open yet at the time.

Luxe, the new beauty lounge nestled in the Yaletown Shops on Homer & Davie, already built some buzz on Sweetspot and at other events even before its doors were officially open. Now that's a way to build your clientele!

I normally get massages at spas, but since I got a $10 off card (with $50 or more purchase) from B&TB, I opted for the Citrus Body Glow for $65, which I figured would be like a full-body massage but with even more goodness for my skin.

I was 15 minutes late for my appointment (bad!) but Catherine, one of the partners who treated me, said it worked out since the client before me had run late too. I stripped down in the treatment room a few minutes later and then the scrubbing began!

First off, the scrub smelled really good, and was made of moor mud, citrus essential oils and some other good stuff. All natural -- a definite bonus in my book. It felt grainy, but that's what good exfoliation does.

After about 25 minutes of scrubbing, Catherine went to work wiping off the residue, but she didn't use a wet towel, because otherwise, the good ingredients of the scrub wouldn't have been absorbed by my skin. You'd think that would feel weird, being "dried" off like that, but actually it felt REALLY moisturized. After that, I got all lotioned up with some Papaya body lotion and then smelled extra good and had my skin feeling extra soft! On the website it says the treatment is 45 minutes, but it really seemed more like an hour.

For an extra $60, you can upgrade to include a Chocolate Wrapture, which is already a $100 value itself. Luxe has some great deals like this, especially if you are a VIP.

Luxe is a super cute lounge and they have a ton of other services, from massages to waxing, facials, mani/pedis, lashes, brows, makeup, hair, and even spray tans. It's quite impressive given how small the space is, but that also means you get great one-on-one service.

**Bonus for the busy women: they are MOBILE! With so few mobile spas left in the city this is such a good service - and the mobile services are the same or just a bit more than what they cost in the lounge. Great deal for the women on the go. Mobile Spa Hours are daily 9am-10pm. So flexible!

Come and check this place out for yourself and get the LUXE-ury treatment all women need and deserve!

I ate dinner at this place for a friend's birthday and wasn't going to review it until her husband pressured me to. He swore by their sushi rolls and said that all the food was organic and healthy. "Fresh Food Fast" is their motto.

Honestly, when I first walked into this place on Hornby & Nelson I thought to myself, great - another one of these small, cramped Japanese take out joints. And the tables were all spread out so we couldn't really talk to everyone.  But the staff closed down the place just for our party. And boy, did this place kick Vegas sushi's ass!

My friend ordered a bunch of their signature rolls for all of us to try so we could taste how good they were - the Dragon Magic Roll is huge and takes up the entire plate. I am kicking myself for not getting a picture, because it's not on their take-out menu. I think this is the one with cream cheese. Anything with cream cheese tastes awesome!  The Sakura Blossom Roll ($12.95) looks as good as it tastes and has crab, tuna, cucumber, avocado, brown rice, and salmon. After two bites of these rolls I said to myself, THIS is what sushi is supposed to taste like. And it's significantly cheaper than the sushi I had in Vegas.  

The Natural Bomber Roll ($11.95 10 pieces) is also huge: prawn tempura, crab, cucumber, spring mix, brown rice, avocado and sweet sauce. As if all those rolls weren't enough, I ordered the Tofu Steak combo because I had to get a taste of the vegetarian food - most of their food is veggie and approved by Ocean Wise, by the way.

I got a small garden salad to start, and the Tofu steaks were pretty big and filling with 2 servings (man-size) of brown rice and a side of gomaee (sesame spinach). All that was only $7.45. Then I gave into temptation and got the Green Tea Creme Brulee for dessert for $3.95. Yes, it is as good as it sounds.

Our server was awesome - she knew what we all ordered without looking at her notepad. And all the food came out pretty fast. Yes, this place IS small but if you don't manage to get a seat, you can take out and eat on the steps of the art gallery or law courts downtown. Want good sushi in a rush, go to Shizen Ya. Trust me, you won't regret it!

If you stay at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, it's hard not to see all the ads for Tao. My boyfriend and I failed to get into the nightclub the night we arrived, but he wanted to give their "Spiritual Dining" a chance, so we ate dinner here the night before we left.

Tao is huge. And I love their asian-themed decor. But it looks like it'd be impossible to get a seat without a reservation. They just get THAT much traffic, and we still had to wait about 10 minutes before getting our reserved table. Our server Darren was very nice and knowledgeable about the menu and specials. There were LOTS to mention. Just like Sushi Roku, we discovered that it's customary (at least in these fine dining places) to have two servers: one to take your order and check-in, and the other to bring you your food and drinks.

It took us forever to order, but because it took us 5 mins. to figure out we had to close our menu to order. Lesson learned! I started off my appetizers with an Orient Express cocktail ($13) with Kahlua and Vanilla Liqueur.  My bamboo steamed vegetable dumplings (which were green!) and crunchy cucumbers (Japanese style, bitter like ginger) for $10 satisfied my grumbling stomach quite well.

My main was Buddha's Harmonized Vegetable Feast for the Minor Gods, which was an entree-sized udon in sesame & black peppercorn sauce with red pepper, onions, bok choy, asparagus, and brussel sprouts to top it off ($17). A vegetarian feast indeed. The dish came in a bowl which made it less messy than it probably would have been had it come on a plate, but I wasn't expecting the amount of spice. Still, a great veggie entree (maybe the only veggie entree!).

Tip: The restrooms say "Yin" and "Yang." Yin is for the women and Yang is for the men.

Darren offered us a menu of "temptation" which was the right word for it. I could barely get any more food in my stomach so I wanted ice cream. And I got to choose 3 different scoops: White Chocolate & Yuzu, Cocunut, and Green Tea with almond cookies and even Pocky sticks ($8) - bonus. The thing is, I think the Yuzu (a Japanese fruit much like tangerine) was overpowering the white chocolate, or else they were two separate flavours and they brought me the wrong one. I couldn't finish the scoops anyway, because we also got two chocolate fortune cookies!

The Vegas magazines say this restaurant is only a $30 meal, but we spent about double that including drinks, appetizers and dessert.

Tao Restaurant is truly a religious dining experience as they say. You probably have to be the type to appreciate asian food, the 20-foot buddha fountain, and the ancient pipe display on the wall, but I'm glad I dined here on my trip - it's a restaurant like no other I've seen in any of my travels.

My boyfriend and I are from Vancouver and knew we would be eating a heap of fast food on our trip to Vegas, so scoped out the top Japanese restaurants in Vegas ahead of time. Sushi Roku was one of the top on the list, and as we passed by it during the day at Caesar's Palace, the decor looked lovely, as did the menu.

I was really impressed with the ambiance of the place - it looked like it could fit 150 people easily and the furniture and light fixtures were grandiose. It was quiet on a Monday night, but allowed us to take in the spectacular night view of the strip. We started off with some edamame, Ingen Itame (Sauteed Chinese green beans with garlic sauce, $8), and Miso Eggplant Dengaku ($10) which were already really good. The eggplant was sweet tasting and crispy on the outside (Leo pointed out that it's because they removed most of the skin) but soft on the inside. Leo also ordered some Kobe Gyoza ($12) on special, which he was barely able to touch because of the entrees we ordered.

Since this place is named for its sushi, I tried out the Eel Avocado roll ($9) and Garden vegetable roll ($12). The eel roll was pretty standard, nothing better than what I think I could get in Vancouver, but no complaints. The thing about the veggie roll was that it had a pretty strong japanese herb called Mizuna which is in between mint and cilantro. Not what my tastebuds normally like.

Leo's choices were the special Baked lobster roll with creamy miso ($21) and the special Spicy crunchy shrimp roll ($18) which had tempura batter-like crumbs sprinkled over it. That was my favourite roll and definitely something I hadn't ever tried before. Leo wasn't impressed by the lobster, I think just because it was the most expensive and didn't really live up to the gourmet taste he was expecting. Most dishes involving lobster in the USA are pretty costly.

In the end we had to take home most of the pieces and had no room for dessert. The service at Sushi Roku was excellent - we aren't used to having one staff take orders and check-in and another serving food and drinks, so that was a bonus for us. The server even folded Leo's napkin when he went out to the restroom.

The only thing that lacks the extra star for this review was the dark corner table we had that made it almost impossible to read the menu in candlelight, and the just-above average rolls that were priced more than we'd usually pay at a restaurant in Vancouver.

All in all, not a bad place to try if you're craving some sushi, have some money to spend, and want a romantic place to dine at with a great view of the strip.

I've passed by The Cascade Room quite a bit and have never been able to see inside because of the dimly lit interior. My friend celebrated her birthday there last night and I finally got a chance to check out the place for dinner.

The Cascade Room isn't very big but it has a great lounge-y atmosphere, a full bar, and some wicked interior decor. 1/2 of the menu is their beer and wine list, and my boyfriend got to sample quite a few of their IPAs. There were also 2 other birthdays going on that Saturday night, so apparently it's a favourite for Main Street hipsters.

They had a World Cup special going on with different cocktail shots each representing participating countries, that came with a factoid card, so that was a good addition to the birthday celebration. I  was debating between the Mushroom pizza ($14) and Vegetable Curry and went for the pizza upon my friend's recommendation. Didn't disappoint - the pesto and edam/goat's cheese combo was so good, and some spinach never hurts either.

My boyfriend enjoyed the Pemberton Meadows Natural Beef Burger ($14) patty but said it could use more sauce. The big hit was the polenta fries & curried mayo dip ($6) though, which are so thick and crispy yet mashed on the inside. We spent a few minutes discussing how they would be able to make that combo.

The waitress serving our table had an awesome memory and gave us some great drink recommendations, even though she accidentally added someone else's drinks to our tab.

Definitely worth a try for a great time with good food, drinks, and  friends.

I told my boyfriend I'd treat him for dinner and he loves Caribbean style food and neither of us had been to Havana so it was fate that we would go on a sunny Sunday. The popular patio had a waiting list, so we opted for a table inside.

The atmosphere of Havana is super casual. The bar and kitchen are visible, and the walls have cool carved-message decor. There weren't many vegetarian options (we wanted the two-serving yam fry poutine with vegetable mushroom gravy, but they cut it out of the menu) but my Drive Burger (veggie) and yam fries were some of the better veggie burgers I've had, and my boyfriend said the beer-batter fish 'n chips actually tasted like beer. The burger was packed with pea shoots (like sprouts, but not gross), avocado, and green chili mojo with red onions and tomatoes. Tummy like veggies.

We weren't really in the Cuban cocktail mood, but everyone else seemed to be, ordering the pitchers of sangria and Strawberry-Mojito for $25. Seems like a pretty good deal.

Although I couldn't see on the menu what the dessert choices were, the table sign said that they donate $1 to the Vancouver Fringe Festival for every dessert ordered until September, in support of organizations that have gotten arts funding cuts. Nice philanthropic touch.

Can't really comment on the authenticity of the food since we didn't order any traditional dishes, but for a sunny dinner on the Drive, Havana pretty much lived up to its reputation.

La Belle Patate offers three main categories of food: Traditional poutines, Specialty poutines, and Smokies. My boyfriend and I were both perusing the traditional selection, and he opted for a medium traditional (the typical cheese, gravy, and fries) while I dared to be different and got a small smoked meat poutine. Yes, I am a vegetarian, but I only eat meat on special occasions (it was our 3-year anniversary), and I really had to see if this smoked meat was really from Montreal.

A bit about the place. LBP has some big windows, which will be very nice in summer. I peeked in as we looked for parking, and it initially looked like a fast food joint. But inside, they have very nice tables and booths. The order counter is almost like a bar; they are licensed, which Leo always appreciates.  The owner is super friendly, and the service is quite fast. So, all in all, a nice family restaurant vibe with the service of a fast-food joint.

And now, for the food. The first thing I noticed was how big the cheese chunks are. In taste and size, I was reminded of my elementary cheese string days when sometimes I wasn't patient enough to pull a string from the cheese stick, just took a bite off the top, and chewed that baby.

Leo dug in right away as he always does, and being the lady I am, I tried the gravy-covered smoked meat chunks while waiting for the cheese to melt. Now, the smoked meat was also in chunks. Very different from the thinly sliced meat I am used to eating with sandwiches in Montreal diners. It wasn't bad, just a bit on the salty side, probably because of the gravy.

After a few bites of fries, I realized this cheese wasn't going to melt. Very unlike Fritz European Fry House's poutines. So I guess that's what makes it different from the usual poutines I am used to - you eat it all in chunks like a meal, not a snack.

My favourite part of the poutine was the gravy. Definitely better than Fritz's, but I wasn't wowed by the fries, cheese, or smoked meat. However, the specialty poutines may be worth a try in future -- they have some very interesting sounding combos with pepperoni-mushroom-bacon, or breakfast poutines with eggs-bacon-onions. A great place to go to for those weird poutine cravings... but not the late night post-clubbing ones. I'm quite sure they're only open during regular hours.