The Good and the Bad of Being Evicted

Being out of the house for a few days has it's advantages and disadvantages.

The disadvantages:
• I have to commute by C-Train, and that sucks. From the punkers threatening to beat people up, to the drunkards begging for money, to the standing room only in the morning, to the fact that the train you want leaves the station just as you arrive, I see why people hate it. That, and I miss walking to work.
• I have a suitcase of stuff for the office, and another of stuff to go to Toronto this weekend. And I forgot one pair of socks, so who knows what I will look like on the plane tomorrow. I don't like living out of a suitcase that much.
• Hotels suck. This one smells like a hairdressers that just did a perm. The parking lot has spaces the size of postage stamps that it's tough to even get a Mini in.

The advantages:
• Eating out. You get to try new places.
Last night we went to Big T's BBQ on Crowchild across from McMahon Stadium. It's a southern BBQ place, with slow smoked ribs and pork and stuff. The pulled pork was amazing. The ribs were very good, but get the baby backs, not the St. Louis. The brisket was tasty, but dry; it needed to be served like I used to get it in Texas, with about 50% brisket and 50% BBQ sauce (and fortunatly, they put bottles of homemade sauce on the table so you can do just that). The chicken breast was tasty but just too dry. The dirty rice was as good as anything I had in Texas. And the Wild Turkey Pecan Pie? Wow. But the funniest part was that we ordered Bombay Sapphire martinis, and even though we could see the gin, vermouth, shaker and glasses at the extensive bar, the staff didn't know how to make them so wouldn't give them to us. Weird. On Monday, only 4 tables were busy, and they all seemed to be Motel Village folks. Try this place; recommended as 3.5 stars out of 5.

Tonight we went over to Monty's Crab Shack in the Quality Inn at McKnight and Edmonton Trail. The place is very nice and elegant, not at all "shack" like. The crab & lobster stuffed mushroom caps were amazing, and the calamari salad was to die for (though a little less dressing would have been nice). I had "Cakes and Claws", featuring 4 crab claws, a HUGE crab cake, and a big fat delicious chorizo sausage. It was good but very filling, and the crab claws needed melted butter to dip in. KC had 1 lb. of North Sea crabs legs. Well, this was a meal and a half. It was 3 bunches of legs; basically one and a half crab. Some were recently molted (all meat, stuck to the shell), and some were old (all shell, no meat). I don't know why they're using North Sea crabs when I can get Dungeness from Superstore for $11/lb all year round. The crab legs were good, but needed dipping butter or seafood sauce. They gave us warm melted butter at the start, but it was cold within minutes. We asked, and they said they haven't figured out a safe way to serve it so that it stays hot yet. In the end, we were so stuffed we couldn't do dessert. We really enjoyed it, and recommend it with 3 stars out of 5 (going to 4 out of 5 if they give me melted butter or cockktail sauce for dipping). The place was empty on a Tuesday night; us, another table, and a private room of 20 were the only ones there.