Irish Heather

Woohoo!!! Mr. ESL is getting married!!! To commemorate his last days as a bachelor Ms. Awkward Diner organized a fantastical and super fun stag for him. It all started with dinner at The Irish Heather. Or was it the Salty Tongue??  I say this because although we had reservations at The Irish Heather, we were seated in a communal table at the latter, and the restaurants were side-by-side.

Both restaurants are really just one long corridor each, but I guess that’s true with most Gastown establishments.

On to the food!

I had the Steak & Ale Pot Pie ($16.75) which came with choice of fries, masoed (mashed?) potato or Kale Caesar salad.  I picked the kale caesar as it sounded interesting.

Their pot pies came in a vegan version also and they differentiate them with either a doggy or an acorn!!!  Aren’t they darling???

Both pot pies were huge.  The meat version came with au jus and there was a lot of filling.  Upon cutting into it gravy came pouring out to mix with the jus so it basically was one big delicious mess.  The steak pieces were tender enough and were mixed in with chunks of celery and carrots.  My only gripe was that the crust wasn’t cooked through: the top was cooked while the inner layer was pretty gummy and doughy.

The Kale Caesar ($8 for a small) was absolutely delicious.  I always thought that kale would be too tough to eat raw in a salad, so I’ve always just made kale chips.  But the kale here was cut into a chiffonade so it was tender and easy to chew.  There was just enough dressing to cover everything without being overly rich and satiating.  I finished this over the pie.

After having this I was even inspired to make my own kale salad at home!

Fanny Bay Inn

Over the May long weekend Hitman and I went to the island for a mini vacation.  He’s lived his childhood here so he was a great tour guide, showing me his childhood hangouts and whatnot, and telling me all about the shenanigans he’s caused with his friends back then ;P

Along the way to his parent’s place, we pass by the city of Fanny Bay.  Well then, this is as fresh as we can get for Fanny Bay oysters right??  So we stopped over for a snack.

We stopped at Fanny Bay Inn which isn’t really an inn at all.  It’s actually a pub restaurant or as Hitman puts it…a biker bar.  This day there was just one biker present. It’s a small, quaint place.

Let me explain the picture above.  When I walked by the front I could smell the lovely fragrance of the Wisteria flowers, so I made Hitman smell them too.  He joked that the biker guys inside might not appreciate this guy, in a bright pink t-shirt, stopping to smell the flowers…so I made him lift his leg.  However…it took me a few tries to get the picture so he ended up straining some ab muscle doing this pose and he was in pain for a while afterwards lol.  Sorry baby!

We weren’t particularly hungry (well I wasn’t anyways) plus we had dinner waiting for us, so we decided to just order a dozen oysters to share.

Wings Pub & Grill on Kingsway

L and I felt like wings and beer after a swim.  Actually, we went swimming just so we can have wings and beer afterwards.  She lives really close to Wings, and her place has a pool, 1+1=2!

We didn’t realize it was the first night of the restart of UFC though, so basically when we went in, we didn’t have much choice for seating.  We ended up sitting out in the patio even though it was raining since we were both in skirts and didn’t feel like sitting on a bar stool.

For anyone that this matters to, the Kingsway location actually allows smoking in their patio seating.  Good thing we went early so we weren’t bombarded too much.

They have pretty reasonable beer prices.  A glass of domestic was only $3.90.

Their Yam Fries ($6.95) were really really good.  Fat, long pieces, crispy, and there were lots.  A lot of other places serve short, stubby, broken off pieces, so this was a really really nice change.  They were served with a red pepper aioli.

Bucket for the main event~

The King’s Head Pub

The King’s Head Pub really isn’t a place I would’ve chosen to go to, based on how it looks.  It looks really dingy and dark and dirty.  However the reviews mostly seem to be good, citing good food, good drinks, good atmosphere.  Plus, the new friend that I made  suggested we go there as it’s one of his favorite haunts, so there I was as an adventure~

It’s your basic pub restaurant with the usual types of food- steak, burgers, fish & chips, pizza, beer, etc.

It was actually $6.99 pizza night, so we both ordered one.  My choice was the Steak & Mushroom.  It was decent.  It had a thin crust, but the middle part seemed to be soggy.  There was an abundance of topping though, with lots of mushrooms and steak pieces.  It was very tasty despite the soggy parts.

Bobby G’s Pub

Wendy and I finally ordered the Entertainment Book. We love to wait when the book drops down under $20 to pick it up. The book fully redeems itself in a meal or two. Tonight, we decided to go somewhere we haven’t been before. In search of this, we located Bobby G’s Pub – located inside the Best Western hotel in Richmond. To be honest, we were searching for Highlander Restaurant as the coupon would suggest. Bobby G’s and Highlander were actually connected to each other. Bobby G’s was the pub area and Highlander was the restaurant.

We arrived at about 8:30PM to find out that Highlander was close and we were moved promptly to Bobby G’s. Fortunately, the coupon can still be used! The place was bit dark for my liking, the seats were a bit too soft but they had a nice 46″ HDTV LCD on the wall playing an ACTUAL high-definition quality channel (TSNHD). Just for that, I will give them some kudos.

We ordered Dry Ribs as an appetizer:

No, we didn’t take pictures in the midst of eating the dry ribs.  They actually served a total of NINE pieces.  The cost of the dish was $8.95, so that comes to about a buck per piece.  I guess salt and pepper is really expensive these days.

Introducing the Pork Schnitzel.  It was the priciest item on the menu ($18.95).  It was served with lemon creme sauce and a dose of veggies on the side.  I found it to be just average as the batter wasn’t that great and both patties were HUGE – it makes me regret order the dry ribs even more at this point.  Wendy enjoyed it though.