Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Awesome burgers of Vancouver

Despite the fact that this city is full of health nuts it actually has a pretty serious number of burger joints. I’m not talking Mc Donalds burgers, but real, “dude making the home made patties in the back”, type burger places.

One of the first places I checked out on my search for awesome Van city burgers was the Tomahawk restaurant. The place is well known by most Vancouver natives. I checked out the menu online and realized pretty quick I had to try the Skookum Chief Burger.

The place itself is a bit of a blast from the past. It reminded me a lot of the Russell Williams diner in Aldershot but with a native American motif. I was filled with all sorts of native American stuff and even had a counter table – something I get really excited about for no reason in particular. Not to mention an awesome place mat, a fundamental piece of any diner experience.

The burger itself was a beast. Cheese, Yukon bacon (whatever that means), egg and even cut up wieners on top. It was awesome. The best I’ve ever had? Probably not, but for such a kitchy diner, the food followed a similar theme, really gimmicky and ultimately rewarding.

The quest for the best burger continues…..

Tomahawk diner facts:
- Brian Adams used to bus here.

- Narduar apparently had heart problems related to eating the skookum burger too frequently here. his picture is even up in the place, as well as a number of other 2nd rate celebrities.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Vegas, day 3

Day 3 started the same way as day 2: extremely hung over. However this day it didn’t seem to slow me down as much as the day before. Got up around noon-ish met up with the dudes in the lobby for a big day of shooting guns.

This was something I was really looking forward to. Not being a big gambler, I have to be a little more creative in the ways I try to sin. We took a car over to the gun store, one of Vegas more well known places to shoot a gun. Right away, the place is pretty hilarious. Surrounded by automatic weapons as well as some heavier artillery, it can be a little bit nerve racking, especially because you can hear people shooting automatic weapons in the range beside the store.

So you get in line, they ask you what you want to shoot – I chose an AK-47 – they give you the clip then you choose a target. Most of the targets are very anti-terrorist but there’s a few in their that are just wild cards, including one that looks like AC Slater about to punch you in the face.

Most of us chose an AK-47 but I know there was an M-16 thrown in there as well (which, for the record seemed to have a more impressive black then the AK, also, the AK did jam up a few times like it’s notorious for). Once we got in the range the butterflies started acting up a bit. Shooting a gun is fun because you know you shouldn’t be doing it. It’s like when you’re a kid and you get your hands on fire crackers. Because it’s a bit dangerous, it’s pretty exhilarating. The trigger is like a feather, you touch it down and 5 bullets fly out. The kick back is pretty serious too. So much so that Greg almost flew back when he first shot it. The safety guy had to hold him up. After you’re done shooting it though you’re amped. It’s a serious rush.

After shooting a gun we met up with the rest of the guys then headed down to the old strip. Not really much to say about this. The old strip is basically just a giant tourist trap, and at the end of it, you kind of end up in a crap part of Las Vegas. I had heard good things about it but it didn’t really do much to me.

Right around now is when my camera died, so despite going out one last night to a club where Paul Oakenfold was Djing, I don’t have any photos of it. I also didn’t sleep that night as we had to hop on a plane at 7 in the morning. Got back to Vancouver and crashed out the entire day. All in all an amazing trip, one of the best weekends I’ve had in a while. Thanks again to everyone who organized it.

Going to really try and make an effort now to start documenting things around Vancouver again. Winter is almost over here so I feel like my hibernation is due to end as well.

Canucks at the Leafs

Last night's game was poetry. Sundin wins it in the shootout. The standing Ovation to his memorial video. That amazing tip in goal by Burrows. The no stick break away.

Seriously, story book stuff.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Vegas part two

Woke up a total mess from the night before. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one. I dragged my horrible feeling body out of the bed and met up with the dudes in front of the hotel where we all took off to take a walk along the main strip. Because I had emptied out the contents of my stomach over the course of the night before, I ducked into a Denny’s with Scott and Kev and had the country fried steak. It was my first experience with Denny’s and it was very real. Too real. Look at the colour of all that food. It’s the official colour of failure.

After the meal we decided to pass on the strip and instead just crashed out for a bit. When I woke up from a sleep I was feeling like getting the boozitude going again but didn’t feel like buying from the casino bar, and considering I didn’t gamble I wasn’t going to get any freebies. This is when I discovered one of the most beautiful thing about Vegas. You can buy a 12 pack for 5 bucks and just walk around a casino with it under your arm. Maybe it’s the recession or something but no one said a word while I had a half open case of Busch and a can in my hand. I even put it down on the ground while I went to the bathroom and when I came back they were still there. God Bless America.

After a few beers I took a quick trip over to the mall at Caesars Palace. Apparently Gucci takes themselves pretty seriously.

Got back to the Palms and went with the dudes up to a club on the top level called moon. It was pretty bodacious but Adam and some of his buddies decided we should up the ante by going to a club called Tao at the Venetian. Once again, I’m not a club dude, but bottle service at a Vegas club is pretty radical. You go from being a dude who grew up in Hamilton to Lil’ Wayne when he’s on top of the limo playing a guitar solo. Boom, Just like that. The rest of the night went awesomely. Drank another buckets worth but this time my body was used to it so I partied all night till around 6 or so. Even got to see Adam and a bunch of other dudes lose some money at the tables.


Good times.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Vegas part one

We took off from Vancouver on Thursday evening. Since we flew into Seattle first we took one of those old fangled propeller planes. It was my first time taking one. One cool thing about them is you fly lower so you can see a lot more of the buildings and ocean and all that on your flight. One con is the plane shakes like a leaf and is loud as hell.

After a quick stop over in Seattle we made our way to Vegas. Once we landed we were all in way too much of a rush to get the party started. First thing we did was buy sodas from a vendor and fill them up with vodka from the duty free. We took a quick cab to the Palms, dropped off our stuff and met with the rest of the dudes from Ontario. It was great seeing them all, especially Adam considering it was his stag.

Mike Scime had done a sweet job of setting up a limo to pick us up as well as bottle service at the club once we got there. We went to a club called Tryst at the Wynn Casino. I wish I wasn’t so shallow and vain but I must admit I did get a kick out of skipping the line, walking right into the club and finding six bottles of vodka waiting for us.

I wish I had been able to enjoy the night a little more but between being over excited to see everyone and a quest to get as drunk as possible as quickly as possible to forget a rough week of work, I ended up drinking my way out of the night by 1. In fact I went back to my hotel and spent a good hour and a half vomiting. I’m pretty convinced I had border line alcohol poison. Welcome to Vegas, Simon’s stomach.

More to follow.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Squamish road trip

Me and Christy took a road trip to Squamish, these were some of the things we saw.

With it less than a year away from the olympics this strip of road is going to grow in importance. One nice thing about it is it only takes an hour and fifteen or so but it feels like you're really out there.

Posts about my trip to vegas coming soon. Sorry for the delay, life has been busy.