4.--Greco's: Granville Island Market Feel Without the Prices

You wouldn't think you could find Granville Island Market in the middle of a non-descript strip mall in Surrey, but you can.  Specializing in Mediterranean, Middle East and European food items, this little gem of a store sucks you in the moment you walk through the door and won't let you go until you taste and/or buy something.

It's packed to the rafters with goodies. All kinds of spices, oils, olives, cheeses and cured meats. Unique ceramic dishware for the entertaining table. Vinegars, pastas, sauces and chocolate. You can even find Guy Fieri's New York Buffalo Wing Sauce (a very yummy but not spectacular sauce, by the way; handy to have in the cupboard when you want to whip up some buffalo wings without working at it.) Chris Duxbury, the owner, is a welcoming face behind the counter, urging you to try certain cheeses or olives, happy you dropped by and non-intrusive if you just want to browse.

The really nice thing about this place is that you don't get the Granville Island Market prices along with the selection. Things are priced more reasonably to reflect the average joe's salary and yet the quality of the food is just as high as what you might find at the Granville Market. It didn't stop me from dropping about fifty dollars there for non-essentials. I expect to be less wanton in the future; it's just that the foodie in me kept screaming for more and I got caught by surprise.

Chris would like to expand some time in the future to include wines for wine and cheese pairings, though it's more of a wish right now rather than a concrete plan.

I hope he doesn't. I'll be tenting outside Greco's door.

3.--PNE Food

The best lemonade is in Marketplace.

For most of my life the PNE has been an integral part of family tradition. Every year, rain or shine, we went. Last year we decided not to go because the Pacific National Exhibition is just getting too expensive. If you decide to park in the lot nearby it costs you nearly thirty bucks. And, lets face it, we as a family are changing too. We're getting older, and hours and hours of walking has a tendency to tire us out and make us cranky.

But this year we have decided to attend. Part of the reason is that my youngest brother broke a "miracle product" that I bought at the PNE some years before (a rubberized broom that has a million uses), and I want to go and see if by some extraordinairy good timing they have decided to sell them once again. I also need to get some incredible miracle glue that bonds everything. I bought it a couple of years ago then lent it to someone and never got it back.

The deal-maker, however, is the food. I started this blog a couple of weeks ago and although I have a million ideas for posts it occurred to me that PNE food would make a great entry, and for those of you who have discovered this blog it only seemed fair (heh-heh; PNE, fair; get it--oh, never mind, if I have to explain it, it isn't funny) to go on opening day so you might have time to go and try the food itself. I am typing this in the morning before we leave; I want to try the two new food booths they have--Yumza, a gourmet pizza place that makes in-house pizza, and I also want to try Colossal Cones, a tortilla cone with coleslaw, your choice of chicken, shrimp or falafel and then "topped with a zesty sauce", as the PNE advertising booklet says. My brother just has to try the Double Dog Dare Ya, a two-foot-long hotdog from Crazy Dogs, and my brother-in-law really wants to check out the BBQ ribs competition.

OK--the real capper is the Star Trek exhibition. That was what did it for me and made me want to go this year.

But the food blog benefits! More this evening, when I return.

Yumza

The Aussie

Last night I was too exhausted to finish this particular entry, so it is now Sunday morning.  Moving on.  The first place we checked out was Yumza, located down the main thoroughfare just past the livestock barns if you are travelling toward Playland. We were disappointed to discover that it only has four kinds of pizza--pepperoni, vegetarian, three-cheese and "Aussie"--but the last one caught my attention because of its name. What toppings could "Aussie" possibly have? Kangaroo meat? Some kind of weird koala sauce? Turns out I was in for another disappointment--it consists of mozzarella, bacon bits and a very generic bbq sauce. If they had made their own sauce, or even taken a generic one and added some ingredients that made it their own, They would have elevated it to something special and I would have readily paid the thirty-three bucks for a whole pizza. At six bucks a slice I expected better. On the up side, the pizza dough was lovely--nice and bready without being too thick or undercooked, and a very appealing crispness to the bottom of the dough. Plus, the bacon bits on mine were done to perfection--crispy without being hard. They're pretty small bits so that is quite an accomplishment. My nephew had the pepperoni and pronounced it really good--"as good as Chucky Cheese". (He's ten and a picky eater, so that's high praise.)



The Pepperogi

The next place we checked out was Crazy Dogs, in pretty much the same area as Yumza. There is another Crazy Dogs stand up near Marketplace near the Beer Garden, but it doesn't have a couple of the hotdogs you can get at the one down by Yumza, most notably the Pepperogi, which is a grilled pretzel bun, all-beef weiner, 6 perogies, topped with grilled onions, a drizzle of sour cream, 8-10 slices of pepperoni and a sprinkle of green onions. At eleven bucks it's pleasantly filling. My sister, who ordered it, said when you bite into the bun along with a perogi it tastes kind of bland because it's a starch within a starch, but otherwise, she said, it tastes really good. My brother, who wanted to try the Double Dare Ya (a two-foot long monstrosity topped with chili, grilled onions and peppers, cheese sauce and bacon bits for twenty-five dollars at Crazy Dogs), opted instead for The Titanic from The Shrimp Boat, located just back of the Westjet Concert Stage (see picture below).  At a horrifying thirty-three dollars, the food, while good, is not worth the money you pay, made to look large as it does by a huge pile of potato chips beneath the real food that must have cost the owner a dollar to prepare, and filled out on either side by over-dressed coleslaw which must have run them another fifty cents to a dollar of overhead cost.


The Titanic--a lovely liner of a meal
 capsized and sunk by the
iceberg of outrageous price

Another disappointment (oh dear) was the Chinatown stand. My brother-in-law usually orders from this stand because he likes the food, but this time Combo A--his regular choice--was bland, and the chow mein dry as well. He did say the spareribs were good, but since we ordered about a half hour after the fair opened and there was no lineup, the whole thing should have been fresh and hot; it wasn't.

After a massive search for Colossal Cones we finally located it in Playland near the BreakDance ride. We opted not to buy one because quite frankly the cones, made from a tortilla, didn't look all that colossal and, jaded by the previous food experiences of the day, made us suspect that it was filled mostly with coleslaw and topped by not much chicken, shrimp or falafel, or zesty sauce. We could be wrong, though; and if we are we are apologize for our cynical outlook. For all we know it is a cone of tortilla deliciousness wrapped around a cornucopia of flavor. But we weren't willing to spend another seven dollars to find out. And the cone part did look small (to us) for the price--we watched them make one for another customer.

The ribs competition would have had us fork out a ton of money if we had wanted to try them all to vote between all the rib stands involved, though it does have the advantage of having all of them located together.

Having said all that, I must say we had a great time at the fair. The Star Trek exhibit is amazing for Trekkers (-ies) and the rest of the place is just plain fun. And I did find (and buy) the brooms and glue I wanted. So go to the PNE.

All you need is gouts of money.




2.--Texx Big Burger--A Really Good Burger

Tel. 604-588-0093

Mon.-Sat. 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.

Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.

14783-108 Avenue, Surrey B.C.


I like a good cheeseburger.  So when my sister told me about a new burger joint that opened up on 108th Avenue and 148th Street, I figured I'd go check the place out. I almost hesitated to go in when I saw where it was, but I decided not to let the non-descript strip-mall setting stop me.

I was glad I went in. The place itself is reminiscent of the old-fashioned diner; bright, almost cheery, and clean, painted a soft yellow with ceramic tile on the bottom half of the walls, and black tables and chairs that, while not much to look at, has the decided advantage of being clean and in good condition. No Mickey D vinyl or molded plastic anywhere. There is a flat-screen tv on the wall to watch while you wait for your burgers, and you do wait because nothing is pre-made, which is why everything is so tasty. The hamburger is fresh, the fries are in-house and made at the time you put in your food request.

You fill out your own order on a form and hand it in at the counter. If you order a drink from the pop machine refills are free (bonus!).

The burgers are generous and the containers of fries overflowing. The bun is fresh with black and white sesame seeds all over the top, the lettuce crisp and the food  hot. I would have taken a picture of my burger but I ate it. My brother-in-law ordered a bacon burger and he said the bacon was done just right. They also have a vegetarian burger, a chicken breast burger, a halibut burger, a junior burger for the kids, and a Nathan's hotdog with fries; a little something for nearly everyone.

A single burger and fries runs about ten dollars, money I would pay over two burgers and fries at any fast-food joint in Surrey. I'll get a picture of the burger next time I get one.

If I don't eat it before I get my camera out like what happened last time.

1.--What This Blog is About and a Yummy Treat Called Screamers

Let's face it; British Columbia is a fantasy-land of food opportunities. And I'm not just talking about fine dining. There is good food everywhere.  The crazy thing is, you have to look for it. We B.C.ers have a tendency to take a lot of this stuff for granted. It's just there, like trees and rain. But sometimes we stumble on something and we are amazed that no one else seems to know about it, at least in our circles. We talk about it for a little while, and then that too is just there.

But more people should know about those places and foodstuffs. I'll leave the grand restaurants in Vancouver to the other bloggers and magazine writers. This blog is just about food I've found, food I've tried, and where to get it, especially in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. I'll put a new post in once a week (hope springs eternal), and I hope some of you out there will try this stuff. Because it's great stuff, it really is.

Take, for instance, screamers.

That word means a lot of different things to different people, but here in a small corner of the lower mainland it refers to a summer treat you really shouldn't miss. You can only find screamers in a couple of places in the lower mainland, most notably in a convenience store at the corner of 88th Ave. and 128th St. in Surrey, and a convenience store at 116th St. and 96th Ave. in Delta. (There's also one at the Cloverdale Super Market, corner of 176th st. and 58th Ave., but the icecream machine was out of order when we went in and they only had three types of slushie) When you go into the store you go straight to the slushie machine as if you were going to make a slushie.  Pick the size container you want (small, medium, large & extra-large available) and select which slushie flavor you want to start with. Put a little in your slushie cup.

But wait! Right beside the slushie machine is a vanilla soft ice-cream machine. Yeeeeesssss. Put a little in your slushie cup. Then go back to the slushie machine and put more slushie in, maybe the same flavor, maybe another another one. Then go back to the ice-cream machine, and so on, until your plastic cup is full of artificial, calorie-laden, colorful goodness. A large one of these beauties is a little over three bucks. My sister and I tried a cherry Crush slushie screamer and my brother-in-law tried the rootbeer slushie screamer. He said his tasted just like a rootbeer float. They look like this:

--That's the cherry Crush screamer .

I'm telling you, it's a spoil-me-rotten moment. Best three-fifty you will ever spend, treat-wise, on an August day.