Category Archives: Reviews

Home Show, Nanaimo

For the third time since we moved here, we attended the Home Show.It doesn’t cost anything and, I believe this year, that was a good thing.

With the hype now about heat pumps there was, I think, 5 different companies represented, then we had two companies who wash the outside of your homes,etc. , 3 companies who will give you a great funeral, 1 that offered cruises, 1 selling sheets, 1 offering financial assistance, a couple of jewellery counters, 1 rock station, two companies who offered out face creams etc, and an odd assortment of what-ever.

What was really bad this year was the aggressive, almost insulting, way the venders attacked anyone within 20 feet of their station. The worst was the young men handing out the face cream samples. They were relentless.

The worst was no vender selling coffee, or pop, or anything that would help you want to stay. He was here the preevious two years and was missed. There is no real offering for what matters to the homeowner. Not all of us need or are even interested in what you offered this year. There was a group of other people who was just ahead of us going in and were ahead of us leaving and they were muttering the same thing.

When leaving I mentioned the lack of coffee to a lady at the Information Desk and she scoffed at me, and then I asked her to mention to those in charge about the aggressiveness of the venders. She said ‘call the manager” and turned away.

Yup! Sure want you to come back again.

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Filed under Other Services, Reviews

Modern Cafe, Nanaimo

I understand this is one of the oldest restaurants in Nanaimo, but their sister restaurant ‘2 Chefs’ was the superior restaurant, both for food and servers who actually cared. Alas, they are no longer. Sundays, you couldn’t get in it was always so busy.

Let me tell you what transpired yesterday. We took our two dear friends to breakfast. The restaurant was their choice. We arrived ahead of them and got a table at the rear of the restaurant, by the kitchen. Our friend uses a walker and we needed more space.

Two servers, standing at the counter by the entrance door, kept talking to themselves and ignored those who entered. I finally asked them if we seated ourselves or have to wait to be seated. The one girl turned her head and said, just a minute. The other, just ran off to the kitchen.

Finally seated we ordered our coffee and waited for our friends to arrive. The new thing here is live music and they were good. BUT the area is too small for the musicians to make any kind of mark. It just echoes and is quite loud. We could not understand one word being spoken at our table.

After a few moments when our friends arrived, we ordered our breakfast. Judy and my Don ordered the eggs benny and our other Don ordered, what he called his monthly bacon and eggs. I ordered the waffle.

This is the actual conversation after breakfast. For the eggs benny the ham was so tough, it was difficult to cut. The eggs were not poached free form, which is the correct way but set in a form and placed in a water bath. They were just steamed not poached. The potatoes were a mix of yams and white potatoes but were cold to the touch and soggy, not crisp.

The waffle was really different from 2 Chefs. It had 3 slices of waffle, some tiny pieces of fruit set on the side and a small dollop of whipped cream on top. No butter and not enough syrup to make the waffle tasty. Besides the syrup was ice cold. The waffle (one of them) was crispy on the edge with sugar, so appeared gritty.

The servers on the other hand, thump around the restaurant like they are pounding a drum with their feet. One of them never just walked but thumped. We watched two servers stand in the middle of the aisle chatting and giggling while a patron stood behind them, waiting to pass through. Yup! The customers really matter.

It was nice to see our dear friends again, but we will look a little further.Sorry guys, my husband and I were last in your restaurant 3 years ago. The pasta we had (on street tables) was like glue so we said that was our last time. W tried it again, but for us, it was a disappointment.

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Filed under Restaurant blog