Roast beef baguette from Italian Food Importers.
Two of us tried to do a restaurant crawl yesterday, but came to a belly-filled halt after two stops, three if you count the ice cream back at home.
We'll have to adjust our tactics to make it into a real crawl with, say, a half-dozen places in a three- to six-hour span.
First stop was the Nando's spicy chicken place at the corner of Government and Pandora. It was 1-ish and it wasn't that busy. Without the pressure of a long lineup, we hemmed and hawed over the choices and eventually settled on the Peri Plate, which is meant for one person, a hungry person. You get a quarter chicken, chicken breast kebab and four wings, plus two sides — we picked yam fries and a Caesar salad. The bill was a touch over $17 including tax (I forgot to grab the receipt). We chose the cheap diner's favoured beverage — tap water, which is thoughtfully provided in large sturdy glasses with ice.
My eating colleague gave the salad high marks. Crisp lettuce, tasty dressing, and croutons that didn't call attention to themselves (like they do when they are hard and stale).
The yam fries were also good, though some were a touch overdone.
High marks also for the chicken. Nando's might be the best place in town for chain-restaurant chicken. We ordered medium hot, and decided that we could probably tolerate hot, but maybe not extra hot. The chicken was moist and flavourful, and did not suffer from one of the biggest problems with restaurant or grocery store chicken — being too salty.
A quick word on the procedure at Nando's. I noticed that several customers were confused about what to do when they came in. Nando's wants you to order at their counter, pay, and then take a chicken-shaped number to your table. A server brings the food.
After a brief stroll, our next stop was Italian Food Importers on Blanshard, near View.
We lined up at the counter and ordered the 12-inch roast beef baguette, with tomato slices, shredded lettuce, cheese, mayo and spicy mustard. We skipped the peppers and eggplant, which cost extra. The price was just under $9, including tax.
It was made with real, pinkish roast beef — not that odd, rubbery, overly-salty stuff that some grocery delis sell.
The result was terrific, but required some effort to eat. You have to open your mouth a fair bit to get a bite. The baguette is crusty, so you have to give it a good chomp.
We ate at a table outside, under an awning. During lulls in conversation, we watched people trying to figure out one of the new parking machines, the kind where you have to know the number of your parking spot. Almost everyone came up to the machine, then strolled back to their car to get the stall number.
After that bit of eating and entertainment, we considered our next stop, and decided it probably wasn't a good idea to have yet another meal quite yet.
