Lunch at Topanga Cafe

Finally, Canada has its own version of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives! It's called You Gotta Eat Here, and I am officially a fan. Last week, the Topanga Cafe on West Fourth in Kitsilano was featured and immediately it went to the top of my list of Vancouver eateries I had to try out. And on Monday, after a relaxing time with my friend at the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens, we were peckish. My friend asked me if there was anywhere I really wanted to go or that I had seen recently featured on TV that looked good. Well, immediately, Topanga Cafe came to mind. It's been around for a few years, and my friend had heard of it because she lived in the neighbourhood years ago and she'd even eaten there and had good experiences. So off we went!

We had missed the lunch rush and were there at about 2:45pm, and we were the only people in the dining room. The menus were at the table and there was a lot of variety to choose from. I remember the Carne Nortegna being featured on the show, and I was tempted because it looked so good, but it was a bit out of my price range. I knew the entrees came with beans and rice, kind of like Rancho Chico in Colville, and I was starving. In the end, both my friend and I ordered the same thing: the chicken burrito. Our server brought us chips and salsa; the salsa was very fresh, obviously homemade, and full of garlic and cilantro - yum!

Our meals came quite quickly and as expected, they were completely filled. Our sever warned us that they were hot because, as I knew from the show, a lot of cheese gets melted atop a lot of the entrees. Here is my burrito:


The burrito is topped with a whack of avocado sauce, which was excellent; I could taste the lime in it and it had a bit of a kick, but was rich and a perfect accompaniment. I knew it would be; I'd noted the avocado sauce on the show and it had looked amazing. And it was. They even garnished the dish exactly as they had on the show, with a little dollop of sour cream and an olive to top everything off like a cherry on a sundae.


The burrito was very very good, chock full of tender white chicken meat and a nice tomato mixture with a bit of spice in it, but not too much, which was perfect since I'm not into spicy. The rice was good and the beans were, too. A very good, very filling meal!

Yep, this is definitely a restaurant to check out in Vancouver. My friend and I had a great experience there and I'd certainly return for another.

Lunch at Jackson's Hole

Yet another shopping trip to Nelson last week meant yet another lunch out with Dad. This time, Dad wanted to go somewhere completely off my radar, though he had eaten there before...Years ago. He had had a great experience at Jackson's Hole with a friend way back in the mists of time (a few years ago, but other than that he couldn't specify how long it had been) and wanted to try it out again. Well, who am I to argue? Though I hadn't heard anything about it myself, I did silently acknowledge that things do change in the restaurant business from time to time, so hopefully the place was still good.

It was crap! Crap, I tell you!

The bar & grill type restaurant, located at 524 Vernon St., is located in a funky old building constructed in 1899 or thereabouts, and the interior is very cool indeed. The menu was decent, consisting of the usual lunch suspects you tend to find in a bar/grill. I had a hard time choosing, actually, but went with the BBQ Club House sandwich with fries, and my dad went with the Cajun Chicken Fajitas.

My sandwich was great - very tasty, nice bread, tangy BBQ sauce, but there was something wrong with the fries. They had a...flavour...It took me a few bites to recognize what I was tasting, only to realize it was staleness with a hint of freezer. I couldn't believe this. This place had to have a high turnover so there shouldn't be any stale fries on hand, but that was definitely what this odd flavour was. Ugh!
My dad's fajitas had several problems from my perspective, though he said the flavour was fine. For one thing, they arrived terribly presented in three different parts: the filling, a small ramekin with uninteresting and punily portioned toppings & little containers of salsa & sour cream, and then a third thingy containing the tortillas. It took up a lot of space and I have seen much more well-organized presentations of fajitas at other places. The ramekin with the toppings, as I mentioned was small and there were two problems with it. For one thing, it contained a whole bunch of olives. Now, this wouldn't ordinarily be a problem for me, but my dad detests olives, so he was trying to pawn them off on me. But when I dug in, the olives were obviously canned AND they were dried out and wrinkly - as if they'd been sitting out uncovered for a long time. They were disgusting. The second issue with the toppings was that there was no lettuce, but rather a spring mix situated underneath all the other toppings. Not practical at all. As for the filling, Dad said it tasted "all right" but it looked not very fresh and very unappealing.

So, if you're ever in Nelson, BC, give this place a miss. We won't be going back. Luckily, this is the first really bad meal Dad and I have had on our trips to Nelson, so we're doing pretty well, I think!

Lunch at Rancho Chico

Well, another cross-border shopping expedition resulted in my finding unsalted butter for $1.50/lb (I bought 4), eggs for $1.56/dozen, and 1lb Tillamook medium cheddar cheese for $4.86! Isn't that ridiculous? I feel so ripped off when I shop at home. Another trip to the States is planned for the first week of December, when we'll go overnight to Spokane, WA, and do some serious shopping with a grocery run in Colville on the way back.

As usual, we went to Rancho Chico for lunch! I was surprised it was open on a Sunday.

As usual, I had the Chicken Chimi. It's just so good!

My SIL had the Seafood Chimi, which is packed with scallops, shrimp, and REAL crab meat. I've had this several times and it's excellent!

My brother had the Macho Rancho Chilli Burrito. He said it was awesome!

Yum!

Chicken Fajita Salad

This salad helped me with a recent fajita craving. Avocados were on sale at Save-on Foods, four for $2.99 - an excellent price! Use whatever veggies you like.

Chicken Fajita Salad

1 boneless skinless chicken breast, cubed
2 tsp fajita seasoning
3 tbsp water

salad greens
sliced avocado
sliced red onion
chopped peppers
kalamata olives
shredded cheddar cheese

for the dressing: 2 tbsp salsa, 2 tbsp light sour cream, a couple squeezes of lime juice

Fry chicken until cooked, add seasoning & water & simmer a couple of minutes until thickened.

Place chicken on top of salad greens & other veggies. Top with dressing, cheese, and olives.

Excellent!

Restaurant Review: Funky Mexican Monkey

Last week, Dad and I took another trip to Nelson, and after deciding on one place to go for lunch, we ended up going somewhere completely different on a whim. This new eatery in Nelson, Funky Mexican Monkey, was on our walk to the other place we were going to, but it looked cool from the outside and we decided to give it a try.This location used to house a very excellent restaurant called Kas, but alas, Kas has closed shop and instead we have here a small burger joint that also sells Mexican food. Some of the links on the site aren't working, but if you go here and scroll down, you'll be able to find the entire menu.

The inside is small, a tad cramped, but on the cozy side, complete with a huge collage of monkey photos and even a tree covered with stuffed monkeys. The menu looked good and it was hard to decide on what to get, but I was in a burger mood. The menu states that all burgers are served with "a heaping amount of hand-cut fries" so I was pretty stoked about that. I chose the Funky Monkey Burger, which was essentially a cheese burger that had the addition of a homemade pineapple relish. My dad started out with the Azteca soup, which is a spicy, brothy soup topped with tortilla chips, guacamole, lettuce, cheese, and sour cream - touted by the sign out front to be the local critics' choice for "best soup in Nelson." Dad thought it was really good. He followed up the Portobello Burger, which came topped with Swiss Cheese, roasted red pepper, sauteed red o onions, sliced avocado, and spring mix. He loved it.
The fries were totally excellent and probably the best fries I've had in a long time!

This lunch for two came to about $30. Totally a recommended eatery if you're ever in the Nelson area. Next time, I intend to try out the Mexican food!

Cross Border Shopping & Lunch at Rancho Chico

Last week my dad and I went cross-border shopping to Colville, Washington, where there is a huge Wally World. Is Wally World the root of all evil? YES! Do I shop there anyway? YES - because I live on a very small budget, and the dollar was at almost 92 cents that day, so basically even with 10% added to the prices of the things I bought, I was getting a good deal. Here are some examples:

• 1 gallon milk (3.81L, so slightly smaller than the 4L jugs I buy at home): $2.34, which is about $2.60-ish CAD. The cheapest I can get milk for around here is $4.51/4L at Safeway, but usually I get it at the local overpriced grocery store (LOGS) for $4.99.
• eggs, 1 dozen: $1.32. For God's sake, the cheapest around here is $2.71/doz. at Safeway, but, again I usually wind up getting them at LOGS for $3.29.
• boneless, skinless chicken breasts: 5lbs for $15. There were 10 breasts in a package, so this works out to not only $3/lb but also $1.50 per breast. This is ridiculously cheap. I'm lucky if these go on sale around here for $4.99 - 6.99/lb, and even then, I don't usually buy them.
• whole roasting chicken: $0.98/lb. This is un-effing-believably cheap! Here, a good sale price on a piddly little fryer is $2.29/lb!
• ricotta cheese, 2lbs: $3.69. I pay maybe $4.99 minimum for half that amount here.

Not everything is cheaper, and you really have to know your prices in order to make this work out for you. Also, you do have to be aware of how much the limits are at the border. It's $20 for chicken, and about that for dairy products. And we've been dinged before, let me tell you. Apart from the limits, there is no duty on grocery items. If you go over your limit, at least on dairy, the duty is 300%. I stayed within my limits and I was fine.

Now, on to lunch. We always go to Rancho Chico because the food is great, the portions are huge, and the service is fast!

My dad had Arroz con Pollo - it was excellent. I've had it before and really enjoyed it.

I had the Chicken Chimichanga - which is what I usually get, because it's so good.

And for a sweet "dessert" they bring around these deep-fried tortilla thingies that have a simple syrup on them, as well as whipped cream and strawberry sauce - yum!

All in all, a great day out!

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #17: Mexican Chicken Soup

OK, so it's been hot out and I haven't been cooking or baking much. So, what do I do? I make soup.

Yeah!

Well, actually, I have about 80 billion yellow beans growing in my garden and I wasn't sure what to do with them all, so it made sense to start making stuff to put them in, since steaming them and having them as a side dish is going to get boring really soon.

Throughout this series, I've made all kinds of soups: Thai, Indian, Italian...Mexican is just another ethnic cuisine that lends itself well to using up chicken carcasses (I just found another carcass in my freezer tonight, actually...What's next?) To be honest, I'm getting a bit souped-out, so I needed to be particularly creative this time.

And so the Mexican Chicken Soup was born last night just in time for dinner (for which I had no appetite when it came to eating it...damned these pills I take!).

This soup is so healthy it will make you sick!

Mexican Chicken Soup

4 - 6 cups chicken stock (I made homemade, of course, using this method)
1L home-canned tomatoes
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, chopped
1 onion, diced
1 carrot chopped
a whole bunch of yellow beans, chopped
1 can black beans, rinsed & drained
1/2 cup barley
1 bunch cilantro chopped
a few squeezes of lime juice

Bring stock, tomatoes, spices, onion, chipotle & carrots to boil. Add barley & simmer until nearly done. Add yellow beans. Add black beans. Season to your taste - you might like way more heat than I do. When veggies are tender and the barley is done, add cilantro & lime. Serve.

This was really good, but like I said, I had no appetite once I sat down to eat. It's weird how that works for me. But, I have lots of leftovers, and I portioned most of them out in individual servings to freeze so I can enjoy this later on.

Saturday Laugh #5 and Lunch at Rancho Chico

On Thursday, I indulged in a brief cross-border shopping excursion. I scored in the clothing department with a $3 pair of denim capris, and I got over 3lbs of boneless skinless chicken breast for $9! $9! Again, the price of chicken in the States compared to what we pay up here in just insane. Anyway, as usual, we went to the Mexican restaurant Rancho Chico for lunch.

These are the Rancho Chico nachos from their dinner menu. Lots of cheese, as you can see.

I had the chicken chimichanga for lunch - excellent as usual.

Dessert - deep fried tortillas with sweet cinnamony syrup, whipped cream, and coulis - yum!

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #14: Mexican Chicken & Potato Salad

I roasted a chicken over the weekend - a chicken I got cross-border shopping the week before that cost me 88 cents/lb. The whole chicken cost about $3.50. This is ridiculous: I get all happy & decadent-feeling when whole chickens go on sale for $1.99/lb at my local overpriced grocery store, but this doesn't happen as often as it used to. In fact, when I see them on sale now, they're more like $2.29/lb. This chicken also tasted better than it's Canadian counterpart, was bigger overall, and roasted to a lovely golden colour.

Can you blame me for going to the States? Really? Can you?

Anyway, this week you're getting two whole 101 Uses for a Roast Chicken posts because I made two things with this chicken. This potato salad is one of them.

I know it's not exactly the season for potato salad, but, honestly, is it ever not the season for potato salad? I say no!

Mexican Chicken & Potato Salad

1 lb nugget potatoes, cut into uniform size for even cooking
2 cups chicken taken from a roast chicken
3 green onions, sliced
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
1/3 cup low-fat mayo
1/3 cup low fat sour cream
1 tbsp (or to taste) taco or fajita seasoning mix

1. Boil the potatoes in some salted water until they are fork-tender. Drain and soak in cold water until cold.

2. Meanwhile, dice up the chicken and put in a large bowl. Add the onions and cilantro. Combine the mayo, sour cream, and seasoning mix in a small bowl.

3. When the potatoes are cold, dice them up into bite-sized cubes. Add to the chicken. Add the dressing and combine all ingredients.

Enjoy!

Lunch at Rancho Chico

Another week, another cross-border shopping spree! More cheap butter and dozens of choices of ice cream flavours! And course, what cross-border shopping spree to Colville, Washington, would be complete without a lunch at Rancho Chico? Well, it just doesn't happen, I can tell you that much.

After receiving our tortilla chips, pico de gallo sauce, and cabbage salsa, I had a tough decision ahead of me. I'd been regularly ordering the seafood chimichanga, but needed a change, so this time I ordered the chicken chimichanga instead, and man was it good. Served with sour cream and guacamole - it hit the spot.

My SIL went for the seafood chimi and was not disappointed. This comes with a cheese sauce as opposed to the sour cream and guacamole, and it has real crab meat in it! You don't find that everywhere these days.

For dessert, there is no dessert menu, but everyone is served a deep-fried tortilla triangle smothered in some kind of syrup, sprinkled with cinnamon, and topped with whipped cream and fruit coulis. It's just the sweet little bite you need after a really filling meal.

Lunch for two came to $18.18. You just can't beat that, can you?

Magazine Monday #25: Mexican Chocolate Pudding

I always look forward to getting Gourmet in the mail each month. I have let go of Bon Appetit becuase I found I was not using the recipes to make a subscription worthwhile, but Gourmet keeps on delivering for me.

This week's Magazine Monday contribution comes from the latest issue of Gourmet, and it's simplicity caught my eye. The recipe for Mexican Chocolate Pudding can be found here.

I didn't have any almond milk on hand, so I substituted 1% spiked with a few drops of almond extract. This was a really easy recipe to put together and it tasted divine. The flavour combination of cinnamon, chocolate, almond, and vanilla was lusciously complex, and the pudding was silky on the tongue. Definitely a keeper!

Scrambled Egg Quesadilla

Why was I craving eggs the other day? Who knows. I actually wanted to make Huevos Rancheros but when I researched a few recipes, it seemed too complicated to do in a short period of time and I didn't want to have any more beans that what I'd been having recently. So, I decided to make a scrambled egg quesadilla using ingredients I had on hand. Here's what I did:

I fried up two slices of bacon and a bit of red onion. I scrambled two eggs and added a chopped sundried tomato to the egg mixture. I cooked the eggs as you would an omelette, but didn't flip it in half. I wanted the egg to come out the same size approximately as my tortillas. It was a tad tricky to flip, but worked out in the end. I slid the eggs onto one tortilla, then put the tortilla in the frying pan. I sprinkled on top of the eggs the bacon & onion mixture, which I totally forgot to add Mexican seasonings to! Ah well! I sprinkled grated cheddar on top of the whole thing and put on a second tortilla (whole wheat, no less!).

I fried the quesadilla on both sides until hot through and the cheese had melted, and I served it with salsa & sour cream.

It was pretty good, actually, and hit the spot with my egg craving! Next time I'll have to remember to add the seasonings, though I'm not complaining about this at all. This was kinda like an omelette between two tortillas instead.

Magazine Monday #23: Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta & Cabbage Slaw

One of my foodie New Year's resolutions was to eat more vegetarian fare, and the Feb. 2009 issue of Bon Appetit had this recipe for black bean tacos that caught my eye. I made them last night and they were pretty good! I didn't use corn tortillas, however, because I don't like them, but the wheat ones worked fine. I also don't like hot sauce, so I just used some of my regular salsa from this post. All in all, a good meal; the feta was an interesting addition and I really liked the fresh slaw on top of the taco. This was a cheap and easy meal to put together and I think I'll keep the recipe around for the future!

The recipe Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw can be found here.

Dining at Rancho Chico

Every so often, I indulge in a bit of cross-border shopping, which is how my SIL and I spent Tuesday. The local US shopping mecca is Wally World in Colville, Washington, and we always make sure we go for lunch at this Mexican place called Rancho Chico (151 N Main St, Colville, WA Tel: (509) 684-4819). A quick boo around the net indicates to me that this might be a chain, though they don't seem to have a central web site.

Anyways, this place took on legendary proportions with my SIL's family, so when I first ate there back at the end of June, I was totally stoked. My SIL highly recommended the burrito, which is what she always had. For starters, however, we were served nice warm tortilla chips with a little pot of salsa and another of a cabbage mixture. The salsa was fresh and had just enough kick, but it was the cabbage thingy that really caught my attention. I never asked them about it until today, when I was told it's a "cabbage salsa" AKA "chunky salsa." The ingredients are cabbage, tomato, cilantro, onion, a bit of jalapeno, salt & pepper. Very simple, but very, very good.

My first meal at Rancho Chico wasn't terribly memorable. The burrito was bland and I left disappointed. My second meal was a couple of months later, and I decided upon the Arroz con Pollo, and I am happy to report that it was excellent. I also had a great maragarita there that was potent and inexpensive (the best kind!). Today, I had the seafood chimichanga, and it was my favourite meal yet. Filled with baby shrimp, dungeoness crab meat, and scallops, it was served with rice and refried beans. I'm not a fan of refried beans at the best of times, so I won't comment too much on them now, but the chimi was excellent.

The lunch menu doesn't consist of any desserts, but at the end of your meal, you are served a deep friend tortilla wedge soaked in a sweet syrup and topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a squeeze of coulis. It's just the little bit of sweetness you need at the end of a big meal.

The food is served quickly and is always very hot - so hot that today I burned my finger when adjusting my plate at my seat! The service is friendly and efficient, and the prices are very reasonable given the serving sizes. Our chimis cost $8.95, the Arroz con Pollo is $7.95, and I think the burrito is also $7.95.

While the decor is bordering on tacky and the dining room very dark, the food is totally worth it.