Mello for the donuts. Propoganfa coffee for a latte.

That’s pretty much perfect.

Great espresso, perfect foam and not too sweet

A really nice balance.

10/10

This is suck a good donut.

It has a Mascarpone cheese cream filling and fresh strawberries.

Absolutely brilliant.

10/10

If it was up to me we’d be across the street at Piva.

But it isn’t always up to me.

So we are at the Old Spaghetti Factory for what is my first time in probably 20 years.

I was a little surprised how busy it was in here tonight.

Has the food here improved maybe?

Nope.

The salad?

It was green. My Italian dressing was slightly off balance to the acidic side.

The ravioli?

Chicken and mushrooms in a cream sauce.

I think they are trying to hard to “gourmet” this dish up.

Whatever flavour that was there was very mild. It was the richness that hit me. One bite was enough to feel it in my stomach. How does anyone eat that much of this?

My combo plate? (Meat sauce on half, browned butter with Mizithra cheese on the other)

The meat sauce was good. But I could do that at home in 15 minutes better.

The butter sauce?

Dry.

The Mizithra cheese tastes great, nice and salty. tHowever it makes the pasta a bit like eating sawdust. This pasta is screaming for more browned butter.

Lots more.

So I mixed the two and it became something I could almost enjoy eating.

Not a great effort to ight, but honestly I wasn’t expecting a lot. And it didn’t even live up to that.

The likelihood of me coming back again in the next twenty years?

Very, very, unlikely.

3/10

Live music, lots of people and great smells waft from within.

And it’s close to our hotel. I swear we can smell the place from our room every night, as well as hear the live music.

We really didn’t feel like venturing far tonight so the location was ideal. A short walk down the hill is perfect.

From the moment we walked in the ambiance was fantastic.

The waiters were dancing.

The musicians were rocking it.

The whole place was alive.

There’s a waiter dancing with a bonfire in his hands. Turns out this is how they serve the fajitas.

This is how they serve the guacamole.

I’m not much of a guacamole fan. I’ve never enjoyed the stuff that comes out of a jar from the supermarket.

But this was fantastic. Likely the best I’ve ever had.

I love how much lime he put in. And fresh Mexican avocados are the best in the world.

Along with the guacamole we got fresh made salsa.

It tasted very fresh. I usually prefer Pico de Gallo this was so tasty. And no vampires here. Lots of garlic!

And of course fresh made tortilla chips, a must in any Mexican restaurant. If they don’t serve you fresh made tortilla chips just head right on out the door.

As usual I ordered way too much food for us. I just love to try things.

Here we have Cilantro fried cheese.

If you’ve had Saganaki at a Greek restaurant you’ll be cool with this. Gooey, salty, melted cheese in a tomato/cilantro sauce. Though it could have used more cilantro. I tasted no soap.!

And my first ceviche this week. Why did I wait this long?

I’ll skip the octopus ceviche and stick with the fish.

It was very good. I do prefer a ceviche  that’s a little more citrusy, but no complaints. Still very tasty. A very good balance of tomato, fish, onion and avocado.

Drinks were a margarita,

And a Mojito,

I guess the show they do here sometimes of pouring your tequila into the drink at your table is supposed to impress you by how much they appear to be adding.

I find this makes a very unbalanced drink though. The tequila floats on the top of the drink, so unless you mix it in really well yourself you end with with iced lime juice to start and then watered down tequila to finish.

Best to mix the drink properly to start with.

The mojito was very good. It’s essential to get a nice balance of mint and sweetness to balance the rum, often not achieved. This one was perfect.

And tonight’s bill came to 1200 pesos. That’s $84 CAD.

For the amount, and quality of food and drink we got tonight I think that’s pretty reasonable.

We have eaten cheaper this week for sure. but it wasn’t quite this good.

8/10

Are you just walking into a tourist trap with crummy food and expensive prices?

We already had a less than great experience at the Blue Shrimp our first night here. After a long day of travel we were thirsty and hungry and wanted to enjoy our first Mexican sunset. Regardless of quality or cost.

Maybe you can actually get a decent food experience at an establishment not geared toward the locals?

Joe Jack’s does get a 4.6 out of 5 on Google, with over 2600 reviews. To me that is pretty positive.

However The Blue Shrimp also gets a 4.3, with roughly the same amount of reviews.

So it is with some trepidation we decide we will give Joe Jack’s a try.

You will find Joe Jack’s right in the heart of the Zona Romantica.

Right next to Pancho’s if you want something more authentic.

And right across the street from the Margarita Grill if you just need a really big drink. I suspect you will find us there later.

Speaking of a drink, it seems the cerveza scene is improving here in Mexico. Thankfully.

I mean Corona and Pacifico are fine enough, but I would enjoy a good micro brew over a plain Mexican beer any day.

The Latina Agave ale is a great choice, especially if you’re avoiding gluten.

It’s a full bodied amber ale with a slight sweetness and subtle fruit flavours. Very refreshing.

Unfortunately their version of a mojito isn’t very good.

For me, a good mojito has to find that perfect balance of mint and sweet. Not the easiest thing to do.

To achieve that I always infuse my simple syrup with mint, eliminating the guess work when mixing the cocktail.

The bartender tonight did not achieve that balance, not being sweet enough.

Merilynn decided on the beet salad for food, a meal she seems to gravitate to.

The flavours were quite good. We love goat cheese which adds a nice creaminess,and the toasted pecans gave it a good textural component.

My complaint here would be the arugula. Or more specifically the dressing. The arugula was drowning in it. The dressing itself had nice flavour, it just needs way less of it.

I decided to splurge and got the whole grilled red snapper.

Deboned tableside by our server, expertly I might add, this was one of the best entrees I’ve eaten in a while.

It was well cooked, and the garlic, chili lime butter added a nice bite to the fish.

The rice and beans were good, though I would have preferred refried.

Make no mistake about it, Joe Jack’s Fish Shack is not a local eatery. It is meant for tourists and it has tourist prices.

If you are looking for something truly authentic you should keep looking.

7/10

Normally I avoid restaurants like this like the plague.

Always overpriced and often not very good.

But it’s our first night.

After crap weather in Vancouver for the last three months.

We want to sit on the beach, have a drink, and enjoy the sunset.

So we did. Reputation of tourist traps like this be damned.

And it lived up to expectations!

Ok yes the magarita was pretty good.

They do make a show of pouring the tequila into the drink table-side. From a Patron bottle no less.

I highly doubt it was Patron.

At any rate the drink was fine.

We just had an appetizer, the crab tacos.

They completely met my expectations for a beachfront restaurant. The flavour was ok, real crab I’m pretty sure. But very greasy, and I could feel it in my gut almost immediately.

And $60 US. For two drinks and an appetizer.

If it wasn’t for the view…

Tomorrow we will be looking for some street tacos.

6/10

Another lovely, not sunny day in Vancouver.

So while I’m getting Toro and a real Crab California Roll

Merilynn got the Nabeyaki Udon.

Its a ramen soup base with Udon noodles, prawn tempura, vegetables, (not sure which ones) seafood, (not sure what kinds) chicken and egg.

Pretty good, but pretty filling.

You need to those prawn tempura really quickly though as it just gets soggy. And they aren’t wonderful soggy. It would make more sense to me to serve them on the side.

My real crab California roll was very good. None of that artificial, fishy tasting fake crab in this roll.

Toro is my favorite sashimi. It has a much softer texture than regular tuna.

So a pretty good snack. The fish was fresh. The soup was a really big portion and very tasty.

7/10

We have been here once before and thought it was pretty good.

Dinner tonight includes 2 and a half courses for $70 each. On the menu are three appetizers, three mains and one dessert.

Only one dessert? Seems a bit lazy to me. At least it’s something I like.

To get it started tonight Merilynn had a gin based cocktail. Frankly I don’t recall the name and it wasn’t really anything worth remembering. It was fine though.

I kicked things off with a personalized wine flight.

The Phantom Creek Cabernet Franc from BC was very good. I’ve had this wine a couple times and it’s excellent. Vanilla and cherry on the palate.

I also had a Penley Estates Cabernet Sauvignon. Australia does those big Reds really well. Dark berries and subtle flavours of herbs.

The most interesting of the three though was the Marachel Foch from Quails Gate. BC as well.

This is an old vines grape from BC that predates the great pull out of 1988 when the BC wine industry tried to turn their reputation around, successfully I might add.

If you’ve ever had a crummy to mediocre red wine from BC way back in the day this’ll bring back memories.

Interesting to try, but it doesn’t live up to modern day grape varietals.

We chose the garlic shrimp and beef tartare for our appetizers.

These were great, well seasoned and garlicky. But the 80s called and wants it’s garnish back. Ease off on the parsley guys.

The beef tartare was very tasty, though a bigger portion than you need I feel.

The mustard and Parmesan complemented the beef very well.

That’s the second plate I’ve had Focaccia on by the way.

As far as Focaccia bread goes this was all right. Personally I prefer a higher hydration version of this Italian staple. But in a restaurant I get it. This takes a lot less time.

With the beef tartar it came toasted, costini like, which you could use to eat the tartare with. Honestly though I didn’t really need a second helping of it.

For my main I had the Hake.

This was the winner tonight.

If you aren’t familiar with this fish it’s in the same family as cod and haddock. I prefer haddock over cod as it’s less fishy but this was a nice compromise in between the two. Flakier and not quite as fishy tasting. The white wine reduction was beautiful. And the vegetables, zucchini, beans and peppers made a well-rounded complete dish.

Marilyn went with the rack of lamb.

While it looks good it did not live up to the appearance.

While it was cooked very well it was very chewy. Which of course just takes away from the enjoyment of what should be a very good dish. It was lacking in flavour as well.

The mashed potatoes were nice though. Not Joel Robuchon nice, but still very good.

Three bites and we sent it back

Now on to the finale, the chocolate cake.

It was moist and delicious. I should have asked if it was made in house though. I’d be surprised if it was.

Whoever did make it did a very good job in my professional opinion.

As we wrap up the meal tonight we cannot be but disappointed. While the appetizers and the Hake were very good, the lamb was such a let down it spoiled what otherwise would have been a very nice meal.

But though we will look at the positives I’m not sure we will be visiting again any time soon.

6/10

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

It’s another chain popping up. We had it once by the slice in Langley. Vague memories of it not being very good.

Decided to grab a quick bite after work today.

Kind of looks vaguely Neapolitan.

Decent undercarriage but it did have a bit of a flop.

There appears to be a decent amount of ham on there. It’s very deceiving though as it is sliced paper thin.

Good amount of pineapple, yes I love pineapple on my pizza, I don’t care what you say. We added capicola for a little kick

Overall? Not bad, not great.

One bite Pizza review score

7.1

From both of us

Glad I tried it. Still prefer L’onore