Monday, October 18, 2010

Three Lions Cafe

A tale of two brunches, part one- Saturday.

It was a beautiful Vancouver weekend for brunching. Luckily for me, I received two invitations for brunch on the weekend. Happily for me, they picked a different day and both invitations involved shopping! These are a few of my favorite things...

The Saturday brunch invitation was from Wendy. It was baby/daddy bonding day for Gabs and Rocket so Wendy and I left them sitting the couch watching football on the computer. Wendy wanted to do some shopping on Main Street and suggested the Locus for breakfast. I like the Locus' food enough, but Big M and I were there fairly recently. So we went to the Three Lions Cafe.

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A lovely English pub on Broadway that was playing the same football game on giant TVs that we left Gabs watching on his tiny computer screen. Isn't it ironic?

The Three Lions website calls themselves a gastropub with "good food that's also a good value" with an English Public House charm. I did find it charming. The decor was warm with a football theme. It was bright on the inside with windows all around the pub. They have a nice patio on the Ontario side that looks like it would be awesome in the summertime.

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The brunch menu was a nice selection of English pub fare. I was really tempted to go with the traditional English breakfast because it was exactly what I ate for breakfast when I was in England:

TRADITIONAL ENGLISH BREAKFAST 11.5 / ADD BLACK PUDDING 2
Lincolnshire sausage, Wiltshire bacon, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, two free run eggs, hash browns and toast

I know that I wouldn't be able to eat all of that breakfast so I went with a smaller option with an awesome name, the bacon butty.

BACON BUTTY 7.5
Wiltshire bacon, fried egg and tomato on a crusty roll served with hashbrowns

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Is "hashbrowns" funny English slang for french fries? Like jumper or knickers? Or maybe the English haven't gotten over their historical dislike of France and they refuse to use "french fries" because I am fairly certain those are french fries. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I do like a good morning french fry.

The sandwich was tasty! It is hard to go wrong with a breakfast sandwich. The bacon was perfectly cooked. The only complaint that I have would be the bun. The bun spilt at the top about a quarter of the way in so that left me trying to hold the top of the sandwich together. Messy.

What is not readily apparent is that this sandwich was a personal accomplishment. I hate egg yolks. I can't eat bennys because of the yolk spreading it's yellow, runny weirdness all over the rest of the food. I always order scrambled, well done eggs. I forgot to ask how the egg was cooked in this sandwich. My guess is that it was over hard as the yolk was there but it was not runny. So I ate it. Hooray for me! I could see it and I ate it anyway. Big step in my culinary world.

Wendy's breakfast was the clear winner of the morning. She ordered the stuffed french toast.

STUFFED FRENCH TOAST 12
Capacolli ham, fontina cheese, fig chutney and balsamic drizzle

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Wow, it was huge. Wendy graciously let me have a taste. The fontina and ham was an excellent mixture and I was surprised at how well the balsamic went with the sandwich. I would never have put balsamic on french toast but it really worked.

She impressively at the whole thing. Wendy said that breast feeding has done wonders for her metabolism. She suggested that if I ever want to give up the JC lifestyle I could get the same effect from breast feeding. Um, good to know but I will stay with the JC. Less side effects, like a baby.

Then we went to Front and did some shopping.  Great day.

If I lived in the Main street area, The Three Lions would totally be my local. Great vibe and excellent food. I want to come back in the summer and eat my awesome breakfast with a morning Caesar on the patio.

Three Lions Cafe on Urbanspoon

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