Category: mmm… food

Situated at the corner of Robson Street and Bidwell Avenue, this Scottish restaurant emphasizes fast service over all else. The interior was spartan, favouring plastic surfaces and easy-to-mop floors, which seemed to glow under the blue accent of the fluorescent lighting.

The menu’s theme is processed animal product, from which the chefs coax a stunning variety of main dishes. The combinations, though limited, will appeal to the most fastidious processed-animal-product connoisseur: many dishes feature a sandwich with fried (then microwaved) ground and a garnish of potato sticks, deep-fried in beef tallow.

Even vegetarians and the health-conscious can enjoy the Scottish fare, as the animal content of the meal can be reduced to almost nil by ordering the dry, soy-patty sandwich and by avoiding the deep-fried potato sticks. The soft drinks may also contain beef tallow in trace amounts, but the head chef, Ronald, was not available to confirm my opinion.

The Scottish theme is enhanced by the clever menu, which names the dishes in the Gaelic language. Exotic names, such as McChicken, McMuffin, and Big Mac, can stir the heart of any red-haired, yellow-jumpsuit-wearing Scot.

Next week, I’ll continue my reviews by sampling the personal favourite delicacies of the reigning monarch of the Land of Dairy, who apparently owns a great many restaurants.

In response to the good doctor’s attempt to embarrass me with old photos, here’s one of Dr Destructo, in which he’s performing a routine procedure on the leftover salmon.

Just look at the intense concentration etched on his features!

The morning commute was made especially enjoyable by a garbage truck that leaked evil-smelling fluids along several blocks of Robson Street. The morning air was rich with a smell that I can only describe as a combination of rotting goat cheese, dead skunks, and a hint of orange peel.

That’s a combination that only gets better on hot pavement.

Taken at Lighthouse Park, West Vancouver.

On a serious note, I’d like to take a moment to discuss a problem of mine. A friend pointed this out to me this morning, and I have to admit to myself that it is, in fact, true.

I have a problem with take-out bags.

Last night, I met up with Lara and Leanne for dinner at Raga — an excellent Indian restaurant on West Broadway that’s conveniently near Toys ‘R’ Us (you never know when you might need to buy an action figure to play with during your meal). I ordered a spicy shrimp vindaloo, Leanne ordered a spinach thing that had too many vowels in it, and Lara chose a sampler plate with tandoori chicken.

As an aside, Lara often claims that she hates chicken and never eats it. “I never eat of the dirty bird,” she says. Yet there she was with a plate full of the stuff. Ha!

Ha!, I say.

Anyway, by the end of the meal, it looked like there was more than we could finish, so we asked for the rest as take-out. And to cut a long, non-story short, we left it behind on the table.

According to Leanne that was the third time I’ve done it this year. What a waste. All that lovely vindalooey stuff. But perhaps I should take it in stride, for as Euripides once wrote: “Waste not fresh tears over old vindaloos.”

Or as Aesop wrote in The Lion and the Mouse: “No shrimp vindaloo, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”

And as a parting thought, I’d like to share these lines from Shakespeare’s sonnet 30:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my vindaloo’s waste