Former guests of our Vancouver B&B will be familiar with the wide variety of menus we have created to treat our guests to wonderful, decadent breakfasts.  However, we occasionally get a guest that insists that all they want is simple bacon & eggs (yes, believe it or not, there truly are some folks out there who don’t eat Creme Brulee French Toast, Apple Pie Pancakes or Eggs Benny on Potato Latkes!).

Since we are blessed with a source for lovely, free range eggs from our Bowen Island egg producer, even simple eggs can be pretty special, especially when served with freshly baked home made scones, or the Cheese & Scallion Baking Powder Biscuits we prepared for our guests this morning.  However, when deciding what to serve 8 guests who may or may not show up on time, two of our main criteria for adding a food item to our menus is that it must be relatively easy to prepare in quantity and it must “hold” for at least a short time.  Many people may think that the easiest thing in the world to whip up for breakfast would be eggs – scrambled, fried, poached or boiled.  Toss a few potatoes in a pan, pop some toast in the toaster and, presto, breakfast!  However, as someone who has now been running a B&B in Vancouver for more than 2 years, let me tell you that eggs do not always cooperate!  Yet, to accommodate those special guests who do prefer a very traditional “Canadian” breakfast (which we do realize is pretty much the same as a typical American or British breakfast!), it was important to me to spend some time learning how to cook these delicate, tricky little bundles of deliciousness.  If you Google “perfect scrambled eggs”, you will see a lot of varying opinions about whether to add water, or cream, or sour cream;  low heat or medium heat, stir with a fork or fold gently with a spatula, etc.  After some experimenting, this is what I found works the best for me:

• Eggs: Crack 2 or 3 eggs per person in a bowl with lots of room for whisking.  Season them well with lots of salt & pepper, to taste.
• Liquid: I tried adding varying amounts of water, milk, cream and not adding anything. Both water and no water seemed about the same but I favor not adding any liquid for the fullest flavor.
• Whisking:  I usually whisk the eggs once when I crack them into the bowl, then heat my pan and whisk them again for quite a few seconds just prior to pouring them in the pan. The whisking apparently increases the volume of the curd and makes the eggs lighter and fluffier.
• Temperature: Place a non-stick pan on the stove over medium heat until it is medium hot – i.e. would not want to touch it, but not so hot that  it would brown the butter. (I used my new “green” non-stick ceramic pan.) Remove the pan briefly from the heat, put a chunk of butter in the pan (I used about 1 T for 2 people) and allow it to melt quickly & start to bubble prior to returning the pan to the heat.
• Whisk the eggs again, then pour into the pan. Immediately turn the temperature down to medium low.
• The key for me is LOW heat!
• No Stirring: Allow the eggs to start to set around the edges. Be patient, you want it to set into nice curds but not to brown. Then, using a heat proof spatula, begin gently pulling the cooked parts from the outside into the middle of the pan.  The uncooked egg will run to the outside.
• Know When to Stop Cooking:  Continue with this process until the eggs all over the pan are a mixture of cooked “curds” surrounded by some visibly wet, semi-cooked egg (perhaps 90% cooked/10% semi cooked).  At this stage, remove the pan from the burner.  The residual heat will continue to cook the eggs and they can very easily become over cooked.
• Serve: Plate the eggs with your favorite hash browns, bacon/sausage/ham, and warm, freshly baked baking powder biscuits dripping with melting butter & organic honey from your local farmers’ market.
• Delicious!  Now if I could just figure out how to do this for 8 people all at once!

This little restaurant located at 1134 Commercial  Drive, only a couple blocks from our Vancouver B&B,  has apparently been around since 1988 and is very proud of being voted  ”Best Mexican Restaurant 2001/2002/2004/2005″ (Vancouver Sun).  Our goal with these reviews is to give our guests an honest recommendation/opinion of the restaurants nearby, while being as kind as possible to to the businesses who are our neighbors.  But in the case of Tio Pepe’s, we would have to ask “what happened”?  Obviously they were serving great food at least until 2005, but we were sadly underwhelmed by our dining experience at this restaurant yesterday. Also, we were just sad!  Mexican is one of our favorite cuisines and when we moved to the Drive seven years ago we were very happy to have a cute little Mexican restaurant right around the corner.  The fact that there were only 2 other diners in Tio’s during the time we were there for dinner yesterday should have been our first clue that things were no longer going well. When we arrived, there was a server but she seemed to disappear after taking our order and thereafter a very sweet man who appeared to also be doing the cooking waited on us. However, with only four people in the restaurant, it wasn’t a problem for him to keep up!

There was a sign outside that advertised two burrito dinners for the price of one, which was $13.95, plus tax, so we went for the deal.  It was true that there were two burritos but the two burritos come served on one plate with a scoop each of rice, beans and salad, so really one meal with an extra burrito.  While we were waiting for the burritos, we munched on a complimentary basket of chips with salsa (not fresh cut) and checked out the decor.  Our first thought about the decor was “Where are those Restaurant Makeover people when you need them?”  Well, to be fair, it was really only the rows of plastic flags hanging from the ceiling that we found particularly unattractive – other than that, it looks like a basic little restaurant.)