Author Archives: Ed Sum

01.27.16
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Meat and Bread’s Simplicity Spreads!

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Meat and Bread
721 Yates St.
Victoria, BC

This small franchise operation has one great thing going for it. They source their ingredients locally. Whether the operation is running in Seattle, Vancouver or Victoria, just who they look to begins with finding that right bread to put their roasted meats into. The Victoria-based operation gets theirs from Crust Bakery on Fort which is a few blocks away. I should’ve checked what kind of bread that was because I’m craving more of this to toast up at home!

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01.21.16
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LANtasy Wants the Fun in Fandom to Return in Victoria, BC!

Lantasy_Logo_white_h100pxMarch 12-13, 2016
Pearkes Arena, Victoria BC

Tickets: $30 weekend pass
or $15 per day.

LANtasy‘s motto is “Play Games, Have Fun” at their upcoming event taking place March 12th and 13th. For the fandom living in Victoria, BC, hopefully everyone can put the incidents of 2015 behind them. The final quarter of that year was less than positive: GottaCon (GC) announced they were closing their doors and Island Fantasy Convention did not happen. The reaction by the community was not kind with how the latter event was handled. However, with a new year Tsukino-Con remains strong and the technical crew behind GC decided to continue the legacy the broad-spectrum gaming event represented.

Jeff Pedlow is one of the department heads. He says this show will exist to bring people together and his group really loves the gaming community that exists here. Despite the name, they are not playing favourites over what kind of activities are being offered at this show. Yes, there will be a heavy Local Area Network (LAN) gaming presence, but there is more to the show than just that — board gaming, miniature gaming and RPGs are offered. People will be encouraged to come in costume (cosplay). Essentially, this event will be just like GottaCon in their early days. In what’s for certain, Pedlow says that his group does not take any money from the event and their goal is to throw community-centric gaming events for everyone living on the island. As their Facebook page shows, there are qualifying events taking place in and out of the Capitol Region that will lead up to the finals at LANtasy.

“If we grow in size, that’s always great, but our primary concern is throwing fun events for the community to come out and enjoy,” said Pedlow.

Even though this event is two months away, perhaps fandom should start planning. In addition to their FAQ about this event, Otakunoculture talked to Jeff about other lingering queries:

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01.20.16
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Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre needs Outdoor vendors!

The choices of decent food that one can buy at stadium events are often inferior to that of what some nearby diners can offer. Not many arenas have a large dedicated space for a proper kitchen, much less a proper area for cooking gourmet foods for more than one operation. Rogers Arena and BC Place Stadium in Vancouver offers great variety while Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria has the Lion’s Den Restaurant upstairs, Ali-Baba Pizza and basic concession downstairs. After attending a few events at this venue over the past few years, I feel disappointed. Is there other snacking options that a picky eater can find? No.

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12.28.15
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J J Morgan Restaurant Serves No Rum

IMG_20150129_131636632J J Morgan Family Restaurant
1520 McKenzie Ave
Saanich, BC
(250) 721-2188

This corner restaurant by McKenzie and Cedar Hill was once a favourite of mine during my youth. Back then, it was known as Pizza Patio and yes, while I’m dating myself, the memories are oh so pleasant. When birthdays were held here, kids were allowed to head back to the kitchen and make a pizza just the way they wanted it. They could pile the ingredients on high, slather tons of cheese or spread tons of sauce on it and make the product look like a sloppy joe.

Since then, it has become one or two other restaurants before settling as J J Morgan, a traditional restaurant with western flavours than anything else. They have a reasonable Sunday buffet and I went there with buddies a long time ago to chime in about how they fared back then. What they offered did not convince me to return. Fast forward to now, well, it seems the tastes have not changed by much. At least the service is always friendly.

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11.24.15
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One Man Star Wars Does The Dark Knight Parody!

Dark-Knight-web-imageNov 27 & 28, 2015
Intrepid Theatre
1609 Blanshard St #2
Victoria, BC, Canada

Feb 18 -21, 2016
Waterfront Theatre
1412 Cartwright St.
Vancouver BC, Canada

Charles Ross, the One Man Virtuoso of the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (LotR) stage has a new act! In One Man Dark Knight: A Batman Parody, he will be presenting his take of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy into a reduced format that will play out for an hour. Trying to figure out what trilogy to tackle next was difficult for this performer.

“It took a lot of time to figure out what I wanted to do as my next show. I wanted to find another Star Wars / Lord of the Rings type of film to adapt, and Nolan’s take on Batman was the only one that for me — pound for pound — I was really happy with,” said Ross.

In a prior interview with me for Absolute Underground (revised and reprinted here), he revealed what the story comes down to is about a disenfranchised person who’s least able to affect much change in his station in life. Like Frodo, a guy that lives in the Shire, or Luke Skywalker, a kid from a farm on the planet Tatooine, adventure comes to their front door. It whisks them away.

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11.05.15
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Can Victoria’s Foo(d) Compare to Vancouver’s Ramen Scene?

FooRamen1Foo Ramen Bar
762 Broughton St.
Victoria, BC
(778) 432-4366

J: When it comes to ramen I’m obsessed. I can eat ramen anytime of the day. When Foo decided to open up a ramen shop, I was excited. It is the next step in their evolution and I wanted to be a part of it. Yet it took me over a year to finally bring myself to their door. There are very few places that serve ramen in the greater Victoria area, Zin Sushi and Noodle, Sushi Plus and Kuma Noodle off the top of my head. And of those only Kuma is the place I return to over and over again. For this review Ed and I were in need for a quick refueling before we were to see comedy legend Billy Connolly grace the stage for what may be the final time.

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