Red Door Serves Up Some Crappy "Pan Asian" Food

The GF and I have favourite haunts for cheap good eats.

One type of restaurant that has not quite made it to Vancouver is the pan asian variety. Authentic asian fare, with great atmosphere and reasonable prices. Sure, we have Hawker's Delight, Monsoon, Typhoon and Banana Leaf. These are gems for Vancouver and we usually look for more of that variety. Some of the restaurant types we hope will make it to Vancouver include:

• Toronto's Spring Roll restaurants would handily kick butt in Vancouver. For that matter, so would Asian Legend.
  
• New York Union Square's Republic handily dispels any notion that a large American city must be expensive to eat in

Vancouver's latest offering comes from the Spectra Group. Check out the menu.

WARNING DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT go there. It sucks crap. I've never had such a vile reaction walking out of a restaurant. GF and I had super small portions of:

• Tom Kha Kai soup: tasted like Lipton's mix
• Fiery Eggplant: no taste
• Brown Rice: tasted like bone dry microwaved rice crispy cereal
• Malaysian Tiger Shrimp Curry: hard cauliflower mixed in with curry paste..MMmmMM
• Vietnamese Green Papaya Salad: teeny little salad for nine and a half bux!

What a RIP! Apparently, the Spectra group premakes all their food in a warehouse and ships it on down to Granville and a second outlet in Victoria.

I so miss the Bread Garden that used to be at that location!!!

Visit Pier 21

There is no place in Canada like Pier 21! Halifax's waterfront hosts Canada's only museum on Immigration. This might seem like a triviality at first, but given the magnitude of different waves of immigration over time, it is actually surprising that Canada has not celebrated the passage of people into our country.

I have had the good fortune of visiting Halifax at least once a year for the past couple of years. Will be looking forward to more Keith's, lobster and the friendliest folk on earth as I work on more east coast projects!