Neil "what does it take to get a drink in this place" K.'s Profile

Nothing too special, just your run of the mill Indian food. They are certainly aiming to be a neighborhood take out or delivery place, not a destination or secret local's hole in the wall joint. We did delivery (which was about 35  minutes on a Tuesday evening), the food arrived was very hot. Unfortunately, the food itself was more on the bland side (we had the chicken tikka masala and the channa massala, with some naan). I doubt I'll make the effort to try the buffet anytime soon.

The burgers here are great, the service not so much. Barneys is  a mini California chain with locations in the Bay area and LA areas. They feature organic products - including what their menu calls "free range niman ranch ground chuck". I had a burger with bacon and avacado, and a side of shoe string fries, which were excellent. However, their service was pretty spotty - not only was it difficult to get a waiter, they often forgot to bring out ordered items or the wrong items (in our case, they brought out curly fries instead of the shoe string fries we originally ordered.)

Atmosphere wise, the place was spacious and clean, and had a couple of outside patios.

Better tacos and burritos can be found a few blocks up the street at Nick's, but I do pop in here occasionally for the nacho plate - Pancho's Nachos (no meat, but it can be added). They make their own chips and tortillas and use grated cheese, which is nice. Their burritos taste a bit off to me so I avoid them.

Loving the longer hours. Still one of my favorite gringo burrito joints (get the stewed chicken with everything, but the taco's nicks way is great too).

If you like cocktails (especially those made with fresh ingredients), Cantina is probably not the place for you. But wait, Cantina does serve awesomely great fresh made cocktails - why would I not recommend Cantina to my readers (ha!)? Well, the problem is you'll probably end up standing around waiting so long for them.

So moral of the story? Cantina has great cocktails. Come here on a non busy evening, and you'll get to enjoy them. I recommend the margarita, caipirinhas and sangrias in pitchers...

After spending the day at UCLA for a work related recruiting trip, I was seriously looking for a cold treat to combat the scorching heat of Westwood in October. A quick scan on Yelp mobile brought up Diddy Riese cookies. I had some mint ice cream surrounded by some yummy chocolate chip cookies -- totally hit the spot. My only complaint is the ice cream is the crappy stuff you find at the supermarkets - Dreyer's. Worth the visit though, especially on a hot day.

Based on the glowing Yelp recommendations, I've been meaning to stop by and try out Freddie's for a long time. Finally, this morning I found myself in the neighborhood and it was almost lunch (err sandwich time). As you'd imagine, there was a long line around lunch time for this popular place. I had  a ham and salame sandwich on hard sourdough roll (gotta try the soft roll next time). The sandwich was expertly made -- its easily the best in this part of town (North Beach/Warf area).

Japa dog is the only japanese hot dog stand I've ever been to. In addition to serving your standard fare of hot dogs, they have some really unique Japanese influenced hot dogs. I had a Kurobuta dog (which they described as the wagyu of pork) with japanese toppings like miso, japanese mayo and diakon sprouts. It was AWESOME. Definitely worth a visit!

Pan Pacific Vancouver is exactly what you'd expect for a large multinational "luxury" hotel, and nothing more. Pan Pacific Vancouver is located in the heart of the town right on the waterfront. It serves as a boarding station for the numerous cruise ships that dock around it, as well as a convention and exhibition hall (although, a huge brand new one is being built next door). In addition, it houses an imax theater in its premises.

We had two rooms in this hotel - one on the city side and one on the harbor side. The rooms were decent sized and had all of the regular features you'd expect - including a mini bar, lcd tv's, internet connections (ethernet and wifi, $14.99 a day), cotton robes. The bathrooms were also stocked with high quality Aveda products. The fact that its owned and run by a faceless corporation is evident everywhere in the room - there are little signs on everything in the room telling you how much they will charge you if you take them out of the room.

The hotel has a nice heated swimming pool and hot tub that are opened until midnight (after 10 pm, its adults only!). If you get stuck here for a convention or something, its not so bad. But if you're visiting Vancouver for pleasure, you might want to seek a hotel thats more personal.

This is another Yelp Mobile find that paid off for me. The SO and I were heading up to the Santa Cruz Mountains for the weekend and wanted to squelch our sushi cravings before going rural. Yelp Mobile brought up Sushi E and the map showed it was right off the 85. So we took the detour and navigated the tough streets of Los Gatos to arrive at this small little sushi joint in a strip mall anchored by a Safeway. We were rewarded with very tasty and fresh hamachi belly nigiri, salmon nigiri and a crazy giant "Romance Roll". While the general atmosphere reflected the strip mall it is in, the sushi here is very fresh and creative. I'd certainly return here again.