The great bear pub

Ohh the Great Bear pub... full of memories :)

I still remember when I was (sort of) underage and Jordan and I often visited there for their 25cents wings on Wednesdays.  Back then the place served up your standard pub fair from $6.25 stuffed potato skins to $9.95 steak dinners - the portions were huge, not necessarily for those with a refined taste buds but did the job to fill you up and the food was piping hot.

They changed quite a bit after their renovation as the place looks a lot brighter and cleaner now - but due to the location and the ambiance of the pub, it seems almost awkward to see that this place is trying to market itself as a more sophisticated and higher priced lounge rather than a bar. Anyways... 

Their wings are now 39 cents each and only on Wednesdays.  You must order a drink with the daily special and soft drinks are only refillable up to 2 glasses.  Jordan and I haven't been back for a long time because we have been doing this group work out session on Wednesdays with his personal trainer friend.  This time we went because I picked up a groupon, $10 for $20.

We arrived around 5pm - their appie hours!  All appetizers are $6 during 4pm to 6pm everyday.  Unfortunately the groupon was not valid for that offer but we were thinking about ordering entrees anyways... 

so we started off with 2 appetizers  

Calamari - $6 (or $9.95 regular) - lightly battered & spiced then served with tzatziki sauce & toasted garlic pita, chilli spiced or regular - 3.5/5

I can only assume that the regular size is larger than the appie hour size because if I were to be charged ~$10 for this portion at a pub, I'd be pretty upset.  

That been said, the calamari was crispy and lightly battered.  It was hot and the squid was quite tender.  The pita bread was fluffy and crispy on the outside; all the good signs of the dish been freshly prepared instead of just been heated up.

The tzatziki sauce was really nice with a hint of garlic and tangy yogurt that cut through the oily fried calamari pretty well.  I not only enjoyed dipping the calamaris into the tzatziki sauce but also dipping the pita bread into it. Yumm!!

One negative aspect (other than portion size) was that it was dusted with too much salt.  It ended up being way too salty unless you scraped some salt off the batter.  FYI, the shallot, didn't do much because the tzatziki sauce was so strong.

BC fish tacos - $6 ($9.95 regular) - Fresh halibut & wild salmon in a lime-cilantro marinade pan seared with fresh tomato & red onion, topped with crisp lettuce & chipotle sour cream - 3/5

This was a nice dish too being piping hot (indicating that it was freshly prepared).

The halibut and salmon were quite bland, I have had better seasoned fish before (fish taco from chronical tacos and cactus club cafe)

I truly hope the sauce on the side was not the same as the tzatziki sauce from the calamari dish... they did taste pretty similar.... anyways, other than that, I enjoyed the dish quite a bit :)

What can I say, I am a sucker for hot food :$

smokey mountain buffalo burger - $12.50 - 6oz of Canadian ground buffalo, flame grilled with apple smoked bacon, sauteed mushrooms, caranelized onions, cheddar cheese & smoky BBQ sauce on a toasted brioche bun - N/A

 I didn't get to try this burger as my own entree was quite large.  According to Jordan, the patty was quite dry.  The sweet potato fries was quite nice with a crispy exterior and tender interior. 

 

Perogies & Ukrainian sausage - $11.50 - Potato & cheese stuffed perogies & authentic garlic sausage grilled to perfection, served with sour cream & a fresh garden salad with your choice of dressin (2/5)

My entree was very standard and I am confident to say that almost everything on my plate was frozen/store bought items rather than made to order.  The only positive thing I am willing to say is that the food  was hot!!  Perogies tasted worse than the Cheemo perogies from Kelloggs and the garlic sausage was really really salty. 

Over all, our experience at the Great Bear pub was alright.  There was no surprise as the food items were just simple pub fairs executed pub style.  However, the items were made to order and that certainly served as a positive point.  We might be back for chicken wings on Wednesday!

Food - 3/5

Service - 2.5/5 - almost non-existent; no server

ambiance - N/A - pub

Lunch buffet at Maurya (no pictures, sorry)

I was here several years ago for their regular dinner menu - it was not very memorable to me as Toronto had plethora of authentic Indian food and my taste buds were surely quite spoiled back then.

Now that I am back to Vancouver, finding good tasting Indian restaurant in the metro Vancouver area seems almost impossible. I haven't had courage to venture out into surrey but I am not sure if I will ever make it out there just for Indian food.... Okay.. Maybe if I become desperate enough or if little India on queen street (my fav indian restaurant in toronto) decides to open a location in surrey... Anyway.

In search of a good Indian food lunch buffet, Jordan and I have came across several disastrous ones. We have tried new India on w broadway (which was simply horrible), saffron on kingsway (bland, not memorable, low quality of ingredients), samosa garden on kingsway (food quality fluctuates too much, low quality ingredients) - despite good services at all restaurants, the quality and flavour just wasn't there. Just as we have given up on metro vancouver's Indian buffet lunch, one day, Jordan's brother in-law told us about maurya's lunch buffet. I have always known that Maurya is one of the highest rating Indian restaurant in Vancouver, but I didn't know that they served lunch buffet. So on a sunny afternoon, we went to try out their lunch buffet.

At $13.99 pp, it is priced a bit higher than most of the Indian lunch buffets (which usually range from 8.99 to 10.99). The buffet menu was rather small (just like the rest of the indian buffets) with some salads, curries, and 2 simple desserts.

I started my meal with their salads. Both Jordan and I enjoyed their caesar salad quite a bit as the dressing was really flavorful. I highly doubt they make them in house but I'd love to know where they buy their dressing from! But I just thought it was a bad idea incorporating crotons into the Caesar salad because the dressing and the moisture of the romain lettuce really made the crotons soggy. Maybe setting the crotons on the side next time?

Among all the main dishes (curries, meat dishes... Etc) my fav was definitely the tandoori chicken and lamb quorma. The tandoori chicken was flavorful and juicy (which isn't the case for most tandoori chickens) and I loved how the lamb chunks in lamb quorma was fork tender. Although I could care less for their butter chicken as the sauce was predominantly creamy with very little in terms of other flavours but the chicken chunks were incredibly juicy; I thought that was worth noting because the chicken tends to get dry. I suspect they cooked their chicken and sauce separately and tossed them together after.

Their naan bread had butter incorporated and I would have to admit that it was not authentic but, hey, those little things tasted do damn good!!! The creamy buttery Flavour of the naan bread was just amazing :)

For dessert, I really liked their mango mouse. Although it was nothing to write home about, it was still quite decent and I'd still go back to Maurya for the menu items mentioned above.

In conclusion, I'd be back for their lunch buffet for sure. The quality of the food was just exceptional and despite a "slow" lunch time traffic their food still tasted great.

31/Jan/2011

Okay... so I admit that the title should be 01/Feb/2011; and I should really just be honest and say that it is 1:40am.  But, well, it kind of makes me feel bad about procrastinating at this time and I guess I just didn't want to miss the last day of a month :)  So I am keeping this title and really, I am blogging about 31 of January anyway.

I really like the last day of a month, especially when the month ends with 31days.  It makes me feel like I have gotten most use out of that month.  That been said, I am not ready for a 32+days-month either.  Don't ask me why!  Weird, I know... :)  Anyways, which day of the month do you like?

It was so cold today!  So I decided to remove some stuff from my freezer onto our balcony.  It worked last last week when the temperature was around -20 outside; things stayed nice and frozen until the temperature quickly rose back up to somewhere between -6 to -1C.  Hmm... Yep.  My popsicles.didn't handle that news very well.  

They cried me a lot of rivers....

  FOOD!

Yes.  Finally. I know.  :)

Hero (Certified) Burgers.

I had them with sweet potato fries instead of their regular fries.  I liked their sweet potato fries a lot because the sweet potato was really sweet :) so the texture inside was a bit gooey-sticky while the outside was crispy.  Ones with caramelized exterior were especially good!

My 6oz Kona burger + sauteed button mushrooms (0.99extra) + tomato + onion (both free) - the burger itself comes with pickles, chedder cheese, peameal bacon, roasted pineapple; and a sweet chili sauce. 

Okay, maybe I've never had better.  But I absolutely loved the bun!  It was fluffy and chewy at the same time while providing just enough balance to the meaty, saucy center.  The patty was not bad, a little to the dry side but still had a very nice char-grilled flavour to it.  The dry-ness of the patty was masked well by the condiments (pickle, pineapple, tomatoes, onions and mushrooms) - so over all it didn't feel dry at all.

The only thing, was that they forgot to give me the chedder cheese that was supposed to come with my burger. :( I think with the cheese it will be even better because the cheese will add in another dimension of savoury and creamy taste to the burger.  Oh, and peameal bacon, was not exactly necessary as I couldn't taste much of it. :S  Probably due to the strong flavour of the sauce and the patty itself.  

Tina with her 4oz burger :)

Overall I really enjoyed my burger.  But I wish I could have ordered grilled pineapple as a topping so I could have just ordered a hero-burger with all the toppings I liked and NOT adding the peameal bacon :(

And I really liked the idea of their free toppings including tomatoes, onions and even mesclun green.

Food: 4/5

Service: N/A (but pretty good for a fast food chain)

ambiance: N/App

Hero Certified Burger (yonge and King location)