Category: mmm… food

It’s hip, it’s modern, it has kick-ass coffee, and it has a view of the mountains. Well, it has a view of the mountains when it’s not raining. I’m talking about Vancouver’s Eight East Coffee House on Broadway.

This place will BLOW YOUR MIND. The music, the decor, the dancers, the juggling troupe, and — not least by far — an olympic-size ice rink. Come for the coffee, but you can also watch the out-of-work NHL players vie for coffee and biscotti in a series of no-holds-barred blood matches. Sundays and holidays are family days, when they replace the players with clowns. Instead of sticks, they go at each other with balloon animals. Yesterday a clown had to be rushed to the hospital after being garotted with a giraffe.

Well, to be honest the ice rink isn’t yet past the planning stages, and may have been just my own caffeine-induced hallucination. And the dancers, clowns, and juggling troupe never really existed. If you’re lucky, though, you can catch sight of a cyclist or two from the bike shop next door.

In the meantime, Dan, Pam, and their staff have themselves a nice little coffee house. I think I’ll definitely come back, even if it’s a while until I see the rink.

The other night, a friend and I had a… debate… over the pronunciation of “Glenmorangie”. Is it like “glen MORE an gee” or “glen MORE an jee”? Or maybe even “glen MERANGUE gee”, like the pie? We didn’t fall to fisticuffs over it — there was a lady present, and we didn’t want to offend her sensibilities and make idiots of ourselves doing it. Actually she changed the subject quickly to something more sensible, like beer.

This debate has raged among family and friends for years, turning the “gee” faction against the “jee” faction. After calling it “glen MORE an jee” for years, I heard more than one person who should have been in-the-know call it “glen MORE an gee”, so I converted from the “jee” camp to the “gee” camp.

Today I went to the all-knowing prophet, Google, to settle the debate. At www.Glenmorangie.com, I discovered the truth. The one, true pronunciation, right from the source, is this: “It rhymes with ‘orangie’.”

Next, have I been mispronouncing “Glendronach“?

Link: Glenmorangie.com: “Your Questions Answered”

Sadly, I have to admit that today I lunched at the Scottish restaurant. I had avoided it for months, but while passing McDonald’s I succumbed to a combination of hunger pangs and delicious posters of hamburgers. (No, that wasn’t a misplaced modifier — the posters are far more delicious than the hamburgers.)

I’m pleased to report that the menu is exactly as I remember it — a lineup of vaguely beef-related sandwiches accompanied by tallow-soaked potato product. After consuming the “McDeal” of the day, I dumped the remains of the day into the nearest garbage receptacle, and was startled when it spoke to me.

“Thank you,” it said. Its voice was deep and gentle, and imbued with paternal kindness, as if someone’s dad had accidentally fallen into the garbage can and decided to make the best of it by thanking passers-by for cleaning up after themselves. It turned out not to be my dad or anyone else’s, thankfully. It’s actually an electronic recording that’s triggered each time someone throws something away — an innovative way to imbue a feeling of warmth and personal attention that doesn’t actually exist at McDonald’s.

I can’t wait to see what else speaks to me next time I need to satisfy my hamburger addiction. Maybe my chair will thank me for sitting down, and my table will thank me for placing objects on it. And toilets too! “Thank you.”

Craving a dollop of pesto sauce for my pasta, I threw on my least-smelly t-shirt, hopped into my car, and made for the nearest Safeway. No, the big-chain super market doesn’t carry the really good pesto, but for my pesto fix, I wasn’t being picky. The jarred variety was fine by me.

The parkade under the Safeway was full, but I scooted past a vacant spot to try for one next to the door — I needed my pesto fix in short order. Naturally, I was immediately blocked by a line of immobile SUVs waiting for a Hummer to back into a spot marked “SMALL CAR” several times over. So much for saving time.

Fifteen minutes later, I found my jar of pesto, and hunted for the shortest line at the checkouts. Fortune smiled upon me, as a checkout girl removed the “NEXT CASHIER PLEASE” sign just as I approached. Maybe it was my friendly smile. Or maybe my Drakkar Noir. That stuff is amazing with the chicks, and it’s good as lighter fluid in a pinch.

I leapt at the checkout counter, shoving aside other customers to triumphantly place my jar of pesto in the spot of victory! Then fickle fate turned up her nose. The receipt printer jammed!

I tapped my foot for another ten minutes as a small crowd of white-and-red-uniformed employees fought with the printer. Other customers queued at other checkouts and slipped through effortlessly, while I was left frozen at this defective, receiptless counter. I shook my fist to the heavens that my struggle to hasten my shopping experience had been thwarted by a mere machine.

Eventually, they moved me to another till, checked me through, and I found myself, at last, heading home with my jar of pesto. If there’s one thing I can learn from this experience, it’s that I should avoid pesto at all cost.

There’s something very wrong with the world when you can buy sushi at the gas station convenience store.