I have been avoiding Cactus Club for a little while now. I think I overdid it

It’s a great vibe. But one can only eat the food at a particular establishment so much before your taste buds tire of it.

So while the boys are just drinking tonight, I’m sticking with Cranberry and Soda and eating instead. Food is always higher on my priority list than alcohol.

Thai Red Curry with Chicken.

Currently my favorite item on the menu, nicely grilled chicken in a red curry sauce with chili oil, veggies and Jasmine rice on the side.

The whole plate just works really well together. The red curry has a lovely South Asian flavor with a little kick from the peppers and enhanced with the fragrant Jasmine rice. Honestly this is a better red curry than a lot of the Thai restaurants I’ve been in.

London Fog Creme Brulee for dessert.

Flavoured Creme Brulees are not my first choice, most often due to the texture being off from a traditional custard. And it was in this case as well. Not as creamy as it should be.

They fired the top a little too long as well. The custard was too warm in spots underneath. It’s a tricky thing to get right though.

Nevertheless it was Creme Brulee, and it was still good.

One thing I can always count on at Cactus Club is good service. It’s Saturday night, it’s packed in here, and the food came quickly and my drink never sat empty for long.

Cactus Club isn’t the greatest restaurant around, but it’s always consistent.

8/10

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Ok so the goal tonight is to win enough at the casino to pay for our dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s burger restaurant in Coquitlam. As it’s a Ramsay restaurant we’re going to have to do pretty well at the casino, as it ain’t gonna be cheap.

What do you think the chances of that are? Rather than heading right to the restaurant we decided to try a slot machine before dinner. Just to suss things out.

Well lo and behold, Merilynn won $43. That’s a pretty good start. Now let’s get some food in us.

I have been here a couple times before and wasn’t a fan of the burgers. However the lobster roll was excellent so that’s what we going for again.

And again it was excellent. The brioche bun, baked and I assume made in house was very fresh.

It was lightly toasted and filled with plenty of lobster and prawn meat. A lemon aioli finished it off nicely

Excellent flavour and quality from one of the world’s top chefs.

I couldn’t resist a milkshake tonight. I’m trying the sticky toffee. In pudding form it’s one of Gordon’s signature dishes and it’s always excellent. Could the milkshake version be as good?

Turns out might actually be better.

I was expecting a very thick shake, especially with the diameter of the straw I was given. But it wasn’t at all. Very light, not overly sweet, with crunchy caramel pieces adding a nice texture.

It would be very easy to drink two of those.

Merilynn had a mock Mojito as she was driving tonight.

It was ok, but didn’t capture flavour of the real thing. You could really notice the absence of the rum.

So $75 when all was said and done. That’s not cheap for a sandwich and two drinks. We are up $43 right now, but we still have done work to do.

My turn to pick a machine, trying to get that $30 more. I promptly lost $30. Slot machines do not like me. I don’t often win much on them.

But somehow Merilynn ended up picking three more machines that hit bonuses, the last one being a $60 win.

After the dust settled we ended up winning even slightly more than our dinner cost us. So job done! Anytime you can walk out of the casino ahead of the house its a good night in my books.

9/10

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Today we are trying the Szechuan beans.

First bite? Excellent.

But as I ate more and more I enjoyed it less and less.

The flavour was very one note. And by the time I was halfway through my taste buds were bored.

Not the best new menu item this go around.

5/10

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If you haven’t been, I think it’s a neighbourhood version of the White Spot.

Like the White Spot, I usually stick with breakfast when I visit. Harder to screw up. Though not impossible.

And I will avoid the Eggs Benedict. Just out of curiosity we did ask about the hollandaise, and yes, it comes out of a packet.

Honestly I can’t understand why. It’s not a particularly difficult sauce to make and only has three ingredients. To me, this is a sign of a lazy chef.

So I will just have bacon and eggs, with a side of sausage.

Everything was good, with the exception of the sausage. They were a bit overdone and the casing was rather tough. The bacon was crispy and the eggs  were sunny-side up with runny yolks. The toast and hash browns were exactly what you’d expect.

Not too shabby for $18.

Personally I’d never come here for dinner. However those who do are usually pretty happy with it. I’ll stick with breakfast, at any time of day.

7/10

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Tuna Temaki tonight.

Very nice presentation.

But to me the taste doesn’t quite live up to the visuals.

Interestingly I’ve seen a couple reviews online raving about it.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not bad. It’s actually quite good. However the “wow” factor isn’t there.

For me, I’ll stick with their Prawn Crunch roll.

7/10

Read my review of the Thai Red Curry here

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So we made our way to Paris Baguette today with high hopes.

Heck my first visit our here

I’m not sure if this is a usual thing but we didn’t notice a lot of the same items on display. This leads me to believe they do rotate their offerings from day to day.

I’m skipping the baguettes and did get a fruit puff pastry again.

Happily it was as good as the first time I had one.

Also in the picture is a cream cheese danish, which was excellent. Nice layers with a delicious cream cheese filling topped with almonds. A modern, better version of a butterhorn.

As Merilynn gravitates to the savoury flavours she grabbed a Crab croquette.

As Dave Portnoy does with pizza, we only needed one bite of this to know neither of us cared for this.

And we both love crab.

It just didn’t sit well with us.

I’m going to assume (for economic reasons) it’s fake crab, which always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The batter of the croquette wasn’t enjoyable either, it was very bland.

We both had vanilla lattes and they were very good.

So other than the crab croquette, Paris Baguette lived up to our first impressions.

We will be back.

7/10

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I like OEB at Brentwood but lineups at this time on a Saturday are probably 2 hours long,. Neither of us is willing to wait that long, even for a breakfast as good as OEB can dish up. After a quick Google search we decided on Eggbomb+ at the City at Lougheed.

Walking in I get a distinctly Asian vibe. It’s very modern inside with lots of bright lights and shiny white surfaces. But it was the Minion figure at the seating area that was a dead giveaway. And then we saw the robot delivering food. Next dead giveaway.

After waiting only 10 minutes to get a table we were presented with the small novel that is their menu.

Fortunately it’s half pictures though so decision making won’t be too bad.

I’m starting today with a Banana Latte.

That was surprisingly good. Too often banana flavoring can be very artificial but in a coffee it didn’t come across that way. And the caramelized banana garnish is a really nice touch.

For breakfast I had Eggs Benedict.

It is served, very untraditionally, on a piece of sourdough bread.

For most of my life I’ve always avoided ordering and eggs benedict if it wasn’t served on the traditional English muffin. I had too many bad experiences.

But recently as more and more non-traditional versions have been popping up I have ventured out and tried them. With varying degrees of success.

I had a surprisingly good Eggs Benedict on cornbread at El Santo.

I had an absolute terrible Eggs Benedict on focaccia bread at Piva.

Today’s version was quite good. Would I rather it be on an English muffin?

Yes.

But as an alternative this wasn’t all that bad.

The eggs were cooked very well, I always ask for a very soft poach now to avoid overcooked eggs.

The Hollandaise was good enough to be indistinguishable between freshly in-house made and a packet powder-based sauce.

The potatoes were crispy and very tasty. Personally I could do without the salad but it was okay.

Merilynn had a breakfast sandwich with prawns.

This missed the mark a bit.

The brioche was sliced way too thick. It would be difficult to try and pick this up and eat it.

What she disliked the most was the yogurt inside the sandwich. A plain Greek yogurt would probably have been quite good but they added a flavored yogurt and it ruined the overall flavour balance of the sandwich. But on a positive note the prawns were very well cooked.

So how does EggBomb+ rate in the breakfast world?

Overall pretty good I would say. 

The service was excellent. The food was good. It’s just not my favorite atmosphere.

7/10

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The dish completely missed the mark in both flavor and balance. The teriyaki sauce, which should have been the star, was overly sour and lacked the sweetness and depth that one expects from a well-made teriyaki. It overwhelmed the dish rather than enhancing it.

The bowl itself was poorly constructed. It contained an overwhelming amount of cabbage, making the dish feel cheap and unbalanced. While cabbage can be a great filler, the sheer volume made it seem like the focus was on cutting costs rather than providing a satisfying meal.

Worst of all, the chicken—the highlight of the dish—was practically nonexistent. There were just a few small, dry pieces scattered among the sea of cabbage, making it feel like the protein was an afterthought. A well-executed chicken teriyaki bowl should have tender, flavorful chicken as the centerpiece, but this dish failed to deliver on that promise.

I ended up picking out the meager bits of chicken, leaving behind the unappetizing pile of cabbage, and ultimately sent the dish back unfinished. It’s rare for me to be this disappointed by a meal, but this one left a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons.

This was a truly disappointing effort from Cactus Club Cafe, and I wouldn’t recommend this dish to anyone.

3/10

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Well, while it may be inspired by the French, it’s actually Korean. Merilynn has been to some of their locations in Korea.

I was surprised by how many people were here. Yes it was a Sunday but this is a brand new building with not easy access. But it was packed. Usually a good sign.

Cinnamon twist donut

This took me back 20 years to my early days as a baker. I don’t see this type of donut around much anymore and even less often a good one. Double thumbs up.

Fresh Fruit pastry

A nice flakey puff dough with custard and look at all that fruit. It was quite nice, though I think the custard isn’t made in house.

Ham and Cheese croissant

Beautiful big croissant that was very flakey with massive crumb. Very nice. We should have brought two.

Butter Pecan donut

Fresh yeast donut with lots of butter pecan filling. A little too much filling for me personally but I would guess most people wouldn’t complain about that.

The flavour combination worked well. The butter icing was really tasty.

And yes I did buy a baguette.

They only had about 5 for sale though. It’s more a pastry shop than a bagetteria.

This is my bruschetta on their baguette.

It was fine, but I do prefer a thicker baguette for Bruschetta. Better to hold the toppings.

We both had iced vanilla lattes. Which were good, but we had ordered hot ones. I guess they can’t get everything right.

Is Paris Baguette worth a visit?

Absolutely yes. For the pastries and the coffee.

I’ll go somewhere else for a baguette though.

8/10

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Tonight I am trying the Red Thai Curry.

Pretty dish.

And it’s very good.

It’s chicken (or tofu) in a fragrant Thai red curry with vegetables, jasmine rice, crispy rice, cilantro, Thai basil and chilis.

The best part about this dish to me is the crispy rice. Gives a wonderful texture.

The worst part about this dish is the chicken. Not the quality, but the amount. It’s grilled perfectly. There just isn’t enough of it. If they just added a little bit more this would be perfect.

As it is it’s still very good.

9/10

Update 01/22

Giving it another go to see if I like it as much as the first time.

And I do and I still have the same criticisms.

Please add more chicken.

9/10

Update: 04/03-25

Trying the Red Curry Bowl with extra chicken tonight.

This is the way to have it. Lots of protein!

I highly recommend getting the extra chicken.

10/10

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