We’ve all seen the amazing electric guitar arrangement of Pachelbel Canon in D on YouTube all those years ago but it seems someone has taken it to the next level.

…and by next level, I mean someone has learned to do it on a metal ruler. No, you read that right, a metal ruler. Someone has actually done everything there is to do in the entire world and decided that all that’s left is to learn a classical song…on a ruler.

We all laughed as John said this was his first Dot Com Pho since he left for the States…but that was just last week and he missed nothing. This week, we meet our newest, youngest and tiniest member, Alexis Fung, who spent the entirety of the day crying and probably pooping. Then we talked about the archaic practice of sending mail or even writing things by hand as well as some “magic tricks”.

Some new Portal 2 footage was released last week and…well, I don’t think I can get any more excited about this. I thought it was rather unfortunate that the awesome English voice given to Wheatley was only a placeholder but it seems it’s been replaced by an even more awesome English voice: Stephen Merchant! As a huge fan of The Ricky Gervais Show podcast as well as the original UK version of The Office and Extras, well, this is great news. Looks like the game is coming along nicely and there’s some graphical upgrades but everything looks like what fans of the first game expect.

It’s been almost four years since we started holding Dot Com Pho regularly and filming it as a weekly video. Even before that, myself, John and friends would meet up to eat and chat whether that was over some Vietnamese noodles, burgers, barbecue or terrible Chinese food in the middle of the night.

But this week, John leaves us as he heads to Seattle and then possibly sunnier weather in California. What does this mean for the future of Dot Com Pho? Well, we’ve discussed plenty of possibilities. Personally, I’d like the rest of us to keep meeting up for food, conversation and laughter. I’ll also head down to Seattle and crash at John’s place once in awhile. Heck, when we all get iPhone 4’s, John can join us literally via satellite…or FaceTime. I think the biggest difficulty is gathering guys like iPhone Gary, Greg and Stephen now that we all live so far apart so some definite changes coming but I’m sure the bloggers of Vancouver will continue to be a strong community.

Of course, we could always go with my idea…where John, myself and probably Stephen and Michael do a weekly podcast together. We wouldn’t need to be in the same physical space to do it and, well, things would basically be exactly the same…a bunch of idiots talking about random stuff.

Now that it seems to have stopped eating itself and bugging out, I think this is a good time to tell all of you about my new food blog, EdEats.com! Some of you may have already noticed there’s a new link up top in the nav bar or all the updates I’ve posted on Twitter. Yes, I’ve posted a lot of food stuff here in the past but I think it’s time to split it up and have a separate blog dedicated to food. I mean, I might still post stuff from events I go to here and Dot Com Pho but most restaurant reviews and travel food pictures will be posted at EdEats. I’ve already moved about 30 of my Vancouver restaurant reviews.

So check it out. All future conversations about eating penguins and such will be over there!

Growing up, I watched my share of ridiculous action movies featuring the heavyweights of the time: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Bruce Willis just to name a few. Of course, right in there was Sylvester Stallone, who I was a big fan of just from watching the Rocky movies on TV. I admit, my favorite is Rocky IV, where Sly and another ’80s, Dolph Lundgren, pummel each other to a bloody pulp.

Arnie, JCVD and others were cool and/or funny (“IT’S NOT A TUMOR!) but I think Stallone was my favorite action hero of that era and mostly because of the Rocky saga. While everyone else was some sort of superhuman killing machine, Rocky was just an extraordinary man, the epitome of heroism and strength of will. I mean, you couldn’t keep that dude down.

I imagine that when I was 12, I wanted the same sort of movie that any other 12-year old boy wanted to see: a movie starring ALL these action heroes where things exploded and bad guys were shot, punched or thrown out of airplanes. Unfortunately. the closest thing we probably ever got to that was Demolition Man which had both Sly and Wesley Snipes.

Those days, however, are now over as we now have a movie starring a collection of old school action stars like Stallone and Lundgren (Schwarzenegger and Willis make cameos) as well as a bunch of more recent stars like Jason Statham, Jet Li and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. The Expendables is the movie everyone roughly my age wanted to see when they were 12 and after seeing it, I feel like it was custom-made for 12-year old me while 27-year old me can only really like it with the aid of a time machine.

Yes, despite the potential awesomeness that all these guys on screen could offer, I didn’t really want to see this movie. However, I almost felt obligated to since it’s the movie I wanted to see as a kid. It’s not that The Expendables isn’t an enjoyable film but set your expectations to low. At least Sly still looks like an action star. He in rather good shape for a guy that’s pushing 65. Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, has really let himself go but I guess that’s what happens when you’re the Governator.

Talking about the plot is completely useless. It’s the same generic plot we’ve seen over and over where a group of mercenaries are sent to some remote island to overthrow a genocidal regime led by some crazy dictator. It’s like they used a cookie-cutter when they wrote this script or they spent all their time coming up with ridiculously stupid names for the movie’s characters like Yin Yang and Lee Christmas that they didn’t have any left over to write an actual plot. In fact, the one moment that seemed half-way genuine and human where Mickey Rourke talks about how he wants his life to mean something was just downright out of place amongst all the one-liners and explosions.

It’s not necessary to mention any of the action in the movie either as if it’s good, then it isn’t noticeable and if it’s bad, then it totally fits with the overall tone of the movie. It’s unfortunate that Jet Li is reduced to mostly comic relief and you don’t get to see him really go to town with the martial arts, though. He spends most of the movie being the subject of height jokes. The guy that I expected to totally be comic relief, Terry Crews, is rather underused in the movie and spends most of his screen time using some absurdly overpowered weapon to blow everything up. Personally, I think Terry Crews is sort of underrated as a funnyman and I usually enjoy everything he’s in.

The action in The Expendables is a bit of a throwback where guns do most of the talking and enemy soldiers have as much of a chance against our heroes as red shirts did in Star Trek. In an age where action is almost synonymous with complicated choreography resulting in almost ballet-like fight sequences, it’s almost nice to see the action of my childhood where guys simply introduced some bullets to a bad guy’s face. I will, however, say that they may have been a bit excessive with it. There’s one scene where Jason Statham stabs a guy in the neck and then proceeds to empty his pistol’s entire magazine into his chest. Either one would’ve probably been sufficient. It’s not really a big deal but our heroes complain about running out of ammunition near the end of the movie…which just leaves you speechless.

If you’re too young to see The Expendables, then you’ll probably love it. Seriously, everyone under the age of 18 should absolutely love this movie. If you’re around my age, then you’ll enjoy it simply for the nostalgia…not because it’s a particularly good movie. If it didn’t starred anyone but this cast, then it would be mediocre at best.

If you check your brain at the door and not think about it too much, The Expendables isn’t bad. If you don’t expect too much, you won’t be disappointed.

Verdict: 6.5 out of 10

The Dot Com Pho table has always been filled with many individuals with different opinions. For example, there are those who believe in the current trend of green cars while some of us such as myself think they’re stupid. I mean, I’m not just being a petrolhead on this one. Hybrids are genuinely not as green as people think they are.

I wrote a paper on this back in university, showing research that finds that producing the nickel in a hybrid car’s battery is more damaging to the environment than driving a combustion engine for around 150,000 miles. That’s right, you don’t get any of the green benefits of a hybrid until you’ve driven around in it for that long and well, after 6 years on the road, my Mazda 3 is hovering around the 40,000 mark in mileage.

In addition, it’s not about what you’re driving…it’s how you drive it. If you speed a lot, a Prius is no more economical than a regular car. You have to drive abominably slow for it to only use the electric engine. Plus, most hybrids aren’t even the most fuel efficient cars on the road. In other parts of the world that aren’t North America, there are diesel engine cars sold that nearly double the MPGs of a Prius.

And we’re not even talking supercars. In my opinion, supercars should just not be touched with this ridiculous technology like Porsche’s new 918. It’s possibly the best looking Porsche I’ve seen in a long time (911s and Boxsters are rather ugly) but it’s utterly ruined by the fact that it’s a hybrid. $600,000 should buy you a car that sounds like the Hulk is brushing his teeth with rusty chainsaws. That and supercars are, by nature, greener than any hybrid…because usually they sit in garages and not being driven on the road.

I don’t know…maybe when someone figures out a viable solution for hydrogen-powered cars, I’ll be convinced but for now, give me fuel burners any day.

I’m sure if you’re about my age, you will remember playing those old school light gun games at the arcade like House of the Dead, Silent Scope or Lethal Enforcers. Of course, all you kids out there are probably wondering what on earth these games are…or what a light gun is…or what the hell is an arcade!?

Time Crisis was one such game but probably the first one to employ a cover mechanic so you could plan your shots rather than just react as quickly as you possibly can to bad guys streaming out of nowhere to shoot you or eat your brains or whatever. Of course, tried and true light gun techniques like pulling the trigger as fast as you can by using your other hand or paying TWO QUARTER to use both guns for twice the firepower still held true.

This tribute to Time Crisis is made by the same guy responsible for this awesome stop-motion, light-painting video called Light Warfare but this time, he’s also brought along Andy Whitfield, who you might recognize as Spartacus from…well, Spartacus, which is starts shooting for the second season soon. I have to say that while I thought the first few episodes were absolutely terrible, the show got better and better further into the season and the finale was rather awesome. Heck, it’s already been renewed for another two seasons.

There’s been a delay in filming due to Whitfield being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphnoma but he’s completed his treatment and from the video, it looks like he’s doing well.

If you check out the creator’s channel, there’s all sorts of hilarious and actually rather well made video game parodies.

Despite being in limbo for the longest time and I think the whole thing was called off for some time, it appears as though the American version of Top Gear is actually coming to fruition.

Now it isn’t like Top Gear doesn’t have competition. Fifth Gear is also produced in the UK and is hosted by some of the people responsible for the original Top Gear series but to be honest, they’re rather boring. I mean, their most recent season premier featured one of the most gorgeous cars of all time, the Ferrari 458 Italia, and I could barely make it through the episode without snoring. Of course, there are the Australian and, yes, the…ahem…Russian versions of Top Gear as well but they also fail to capture the magic of our favorite pokey motoring show on BBC2.

I mostly credit the team of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May for the show’s success. They’re funny and interesting in a weird way. I mean, if you think about it, Top Gear is mostly those three sort of older dudes talking nonsense most of the time and botching everything they do. If that isn’t a recipe for success, I don’t know what is.

I guess it’s too early to tell but from the first trailer, Top Gear US looks like it’s the result of what would happen, say, I were to put together an episode of Top Gear…except I wouldn’t give a damn about NASCAR. It lacks the flair and production quality of the British version. You’d think it would be easy to bring over the fancy pants camera techniques employed in the original over here.

What I fear might happen to the Americanized version of Top Gear is that they’re going to stick to American cars and let’s face it, all the most interesting cars in the world don’t come from this side of the Atlantic…or the Pacific. In terms of supercars, everything that’s awesome comes from Italy or Germany or the UK. Zonda, Ascari and Koenigseggegiahegaegggg aren’t from the States. Heck, even affordable cars are more interesting with all the Renaults, Citroens and Fiats available in Europe. Do you really need to watch a review of a Ford Taurus? Or worse…trucks.

So here’s to hoping Top Gear US isn’t bloody awful as I would love something to watch when the real Top Gear goes on break.

As I sometimes do, I asked Twitter last week to recommend a place for me to head for lunch. I mean, I’m relatively adventurous when it comes to food and I’ll try just about anything at least once or else asking the internet to for advice might not seem like such a wise decision. @nicolb quickly recommended somewhere called Finch’s, seconded even quicker by @colene. I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about so I did a quick search on Google on my iPhone…which I totally didn’t do while driving…because I didn’t ask on Twitter while driving either.

Sandwiches? Alright…I was hoping for something a bit more substantial but sure, a baguette sounds pretty good. Downtown!? Dammit, I didn’t want to drive down there but it would be a good reason to head down for some shopping and then head to that deli I like on Commercial for some groceries.

Finch’s, like a few of the other places in the Gastown area, seems like it’s from a different era…like someone put me in a DeLorean and sent me back to Victorian times where the furniture is creaky wood and things are still written…in chalk…on actual chalkboards. Seriously, the entire menu is on old school chalkboards in antique looking frames. The place is small, quirky and charming. Think of what the tea party in Alice in Wonderland may have been if they cram it into a store…or maybe I’m just thinking that because one of the waitresses on her lunch break was sitting beside me wearing what I can only describe as a sort of Alice in Wonderland equivalent of a nurse or police officer outfit girls wear for Halloween. Anyways…

The menu consists of breakfast, salads, soup and sandwiches. I was slightly put off by all the vegetarian dishes, about to curse out Twitter for sending me somewhere that wouldn’t serve me delicious, delicious animal parts but then I saw the word “prosciutto” and I was sold. In the event that you don’t know, prosciutto is a dry-cured, uncooked (usually) Italian ham that is pretty much the greatest thing in the world. Served with bread or cheese or wine or fruit or freakin’ by itself, it is delicious.

Having eaten what has to be hundreds of baguettes with prosciutto and various ingredients during my time in Europe, I’ve come to the understanding that the fewer ingredients, the better so I picked the prosciutto with Edam, tomato, lettuce, oil and vinegar baguette. I would’ve ordered one with the pears since prosciutto and fruit go well together but pears give me a slight allergic reaction. Maybe some avocado and walnuts next time.

A note about Finch’s: they’re not what you call quick. In fact, there’s a sign there that tells you that they take their time to get it right and make sure that the food not only tastes good but looks good as well. Don’t expect your order to come quickly…so either wait or call ahead of time. I like that sort of thinking…and I wasn’t in a rush.

My baguette looked…well, look at it. It’s pretty, ain’t it? Everything looks sliced and cut to order rather that being pre-made. I almost felt bad when I tried to take a bite and figured that stuffing everything a bit further into the baguette would be a better way to do things. Each bite explodes with flavors that play well with each other. The salty prosciutto, the strong Edam cheese with the tang of the vinegar and the fresh veggies. It’s a fantastic sandwich and at only $7.95, a much better value than the conveyor belt crap you’d get from Subway or something at the same price. I couldn’t get enough of it…I actually wanted to order a second one to take with me but didn’t want to wait or I’d have to fight rush hour to get home.

Apart from the amazing sandwiches, Finch’s offers something that the Downtown core has very little of…a place to simply sit and relax. The slow sandwich making along with the environment makes for a calming experience. I don’t know if they have Wi-Fi or not but as I chowed down on my delicious baguette, I really didn’t care which says something for someone who can’t stand to be disconnected for more than a few seconds.

I was very happy with the baguette and I hear the soups are very good as well so I’d recommend you try Finch’s if you’re in the mood for a gourmet sandwich and some atmosphere.

When I first saw a trailer for Inception, I wasn’t all that excited about it. This might have something to do with being rather underwhelmed by Shutter Island or that this teaser made damn near no sense and told us very little about the movie apart from the gravity tricks and that it was the creation of Christopher Nolan who directed the excellent Batman reboot movies. I just couldn’t really be bothered.

However, as the trailers got, well, better and the buzz got louder, I came around to the idea and…am I glad I did. There’s no other way to say this: Inception is one of the most visceral, intense, challenging, stunning and most incredible movies to come out in a long time. There have been fewer movies in history that have left me this breathless (no, really…I actually forgot to breathe at one point…and was wondering why I was feeling all light-headed…) and on the edge of my seat. There are probably those out there criticize the film for making little sense and having no sense of logic to it but for a movie about dreams, it is actually not difficult to follow. If you go see it, don’t try to make sense of it. Just get sucked into the world of Inception…surrender to the ideas behind the film and let it take over.

Inception is set in a reality where people can share dreams with each other. While technology for doing so doesn’t exist in our world, it looks like it does in this one despite being set in a similar time period or even slightly in the past as some of the character’s clothing and style may suggest. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy in particular look like they might be a little anachronistic. The overall tone and look of the Inception world is overwhelmingly Nolan-esque and exudes the style of Nolan’s previous movies. Unlike his previous movies, Inception is an original story created solely by Nolan. His first script was written over ten years ago after another one of his movies that blows minds everywhere, Memento.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) domain is the mind, where he is the best…er, mind…thief…in the idea stealing business. The concept is that when you bring a person into a dream, their mind populates it and their ideas are somewhere in that dream, ripe for the taking depending on who you’re stealing from. Unknowing targets will just have their stuff in a safe or under a table or something but people that are trained to counter people like Cobb have their ideas defended by gun-totting goons. However, the job here isn’t taking someone’s idea. Saito (Ken Watanabe) is looking for someone that can do what people think is impossible…planting an idea into someone’s mind.

Cobb is determined he can do it and puts together a team consisting of his associate Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the dream architect Ariadne (Ellen Page), the chemist Yusef (Dileep Rao), and a chameleon Earnes (Tom Hardy). Along with their employer, Saito (Ken Watanabe), they attempt to implant an idea into Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the heir of a large international business empire, setting up one of the most complex and interesting heists in movie history. I call it a heist movie as there are elements people will recognize from heist films like Ocean’s Eleven and The Italian Job even though they’re not stealing something, they’re planting something. We get the set-up, the planning, the training and the heist itself. You might also get some of Kubrick’s 2001 in there or Blade Runner but don’t get it confused with any of those films…Inception isn’t something we’ve seen before. That really says something about Christopher Nolan…that you can compare Inception to so many movies and still find that it is quintessentially a Christopher Nolan movie.

The look of the movie is astounding from the special effects to the wardrobe (everyone appears so…crisply dressed) to the cinematography. Putting in impossible objects such as Penrose stairs was especially baffling. Some may think that the special effects were perhaps slightly muted in comparison to a movie like The Matrix…and they would be right. While The Matrix blew our minds with CGI that we’ve never seen before, there aren’t any visual elements in Inception that I would really consider new. However, as a whole, incorporating the ideas and paired with the music, the visuals are stunning in a way that sort of confuses you like the first time you see an Escher drawing. Besides, in order to successfully mimic reality for the heist, the dream world had to look like and abide by as many real world rules as possible. I mean, in dreams, we don’t really realize when things are just a little bit off until we’ve woken up.

Although there are some clearly fantastical elements in this film, there are some that I find to be rooted in reality. For example, it’s true that we never really remember how you get into a dream or the beginning of one. You always seem to arrive somewhere in the middle. Plus, time in a dream doesn’t mirror time in the real world. I’m entirely sure I’ve experienced dreams that must’ve taken place over a week or two in the dream world but only a few hours in the real one. The more you wrap your mind around the concepts in Inception, the better the movie gets.

The acting here is top quality although DiCaprio and perhaps Ellen Page are the only ones that get seriously significant screen time. DiCaprio plays Cobb perfectly as a man tortured by the past. We learn that he’s suffered through tragedy with his wife, that he’s on the run from the US and that this job could be his ticket home to see his children. He’s the emotional center of Inception and DiCaprio does an amazing job displaying his burden to the audience. You could see and feel the bond between Cobb and his wife (Marion Cotillard). The relationship feels organic and human even if she somewhat isn’t. The rest of the cast mostly shares the remainder of screen time and everyone is great across the board. Everyone fits in with the tone and feel of the movie, blending in well so you don’t think of them as their real world counterparts. There’s even a small part for Michael Caine…and you wish he was more involved.

Something really needs to be said about the Hans Zimmer score, which is almost a character in itself. Those staccato strings, thumping percussion and especially those overwhelming horns are devastatingly gorgeous. There’s so much drama and emotion in the music of Inception. There’s also so much music in Inception throughout every scene. I can scarcely remember a single moment where the score isn’t present but it is especially present right before something big happens…as if it’s telling you when the best moments of the film are and that there are a lot of them. The suspense it builds is near unparalleled.

If you haven’t seen it, this is the first real MUST-SEE movie of 2010 and one of the best movies of the last five years…of the last ten years? Inception has profound commentary on life, love, family, guilt, and grief. It is a mind-blowing work of creativity and vision. I can’t say there was a single moment in the two and a half hours that I wasn’t enthralled by everything happening on the screen. It feels heavy, complex, and dense with depth in ways that few sci-fi movies have. I was so emotionally and intellectually affected by this movie at the end…you feel overwhelmed.

That being said, Inception is surprisingly accessible and fit the summer blockbuster hype. There is so much to love in this film and I can’t imagine a single person on the planet that would not have a good time experiencing it. In short, Inception is just astounding.

Verdict: 10 out of 10

I love stop-motion videos and, well, I guess I don’t really love Starcraft but I can sort of see what the Koreans are so enamored with all the time. I’ve already played my way through the incredibly short Terran campaign in Starcraft II and was left feeling a little disappointed. I’m not a big fan of RTS games…I get bored of them rather quickly but at least the original Starcraft told a cool space opera story while I was telling tiny little robots and things what to do. The second is missing some of that sense of great storytelling and while there is a twist or two, seriously the best parts of the script in Starcraft II are the seriously dramatic and powerful flashbacks to the plot of the first game.

Anyways, while the world goes nuts over this…and I’m sure battle.net is filling up as we speak…I thought this well made Lego animation of Starcraft II was pretty awesome. The siege tanks and SCVs look particularly accurate.

Now that I’ve watched the video, I realized that this is a very rare occasion where I attend Dot Com Pho but don’t actually appear anywhere on screen and you can only hear me on occasion. Obviously that makes this episode much less awesome than any of the previous ones but don’t worry, there’s still stuff going on.

This week, a man with no lenses in his over-sized glasses demonstrates a social media magazine iPad app, Michael eats something we hope is pork, we ponder why on earth Apple would put their logo on such a terrible case for the iPad and John learns to spell at a first grade level!

Although some were already marking the date off on their calendar, planning to take a day off work and line-up for it (I know several people who actually are…), I originally really couldn’t be bothered with Starcraft 2. Maybe it’s because I don’t really like RTS games as they require way too much planning and thought per second to be competitive and not being of Korean heritage, I never mastered the artform…and I hate not being good at things. I remember playing Starcraft ten years ago, finishing the single player and then hopping onto battle.net where I was promptly handed my ass on a platter.

It’s not the storyline, which is actually stellar and as good as that of the Warcraft universe but mostly my dislike for RTS games. However, as the day approached, I find myself actually wanting to play the game. Not to the point where I’ll line up for it at midnight…especially since I won’t line up for damn near anything but the trailers have made the game seem all the more epic. This might be another one of those games I don’t want to play but end up playing anyways because I want to see the story…much like all the Final Fantasy games. Hate playing them…would watch them if they were a movie.

Apart from ensuring that my blog streams there properly as well as ensuring that last night’s drunken debauchery doesn’t end up there, I spend very little time on Facebook. I mean, as the great Betty White recently said “In my day, looking at people’s vacation photos was a punishment.” so I have no idea how people can spend entire days on that site. People say that World of Warcraft is dangerous but hey, I’ve heard of people spending just as much time cyber-poking each other (…that didn’t sound right), visiting each other’s virtual farms and finding out what kind of sandwich they are. I don’t know about you but I’d rather kick some virtual dragon ass.

So you can probably understand when I was rather underwhelmed when I heard there would be a movie made about Facebook, despite the involvement of David Fincher (who directed such awesomeness as Seven and Fight Club), Aaron Sorkin (writer behind The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) and a score by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. I mean, how interesting could a story about the founding of Facebook be when Facebook itself isn’t very interesting in itself?

But my interest is growing as we get more and more information and with the recent release of statements made by Mark Zuckerberg (who will be played by Jesse Eisenberg who I only remember from the excellent Zombieland) that paint him as, well, sort of a dick.

The movie is looking better each time we learn something new about it. I mean, it looks like a better way to spend two hours than…well, actual Facebook.

Portal is pretty much my definition of the perfect game. Not only was it just a load of fun playing with possibly the best game mechanics ever put into a video game but it had so much personality which is weird since the world, apart from the character you play, is populated entirely by robots and such. Companion Cubes are lovingly emblazoned with hearts, the machine gun turrets would playfully say “I see you!” right before they riddle you with bullet holes and GLaDOS…well, that voice is as frightening as it is strangely sexy.

And Portal had cake!

Now we’re on the verge of getting the sequel and it looks like we’ll have a friend to guide us through the Portal 2 world. Unfortunately, I hear the awesome English voice is a placeholder until they get to work on that part of the game.

I don’t know about you but seeing our old friend reassembling herself after the epic battle just looks incredible. Plus, it looks like we’ll have a lot more toys to play with in the second installment. 2011 can’t get here soon enough.

My first visit to Prata Man was when I moved into my house probably over 15 years ago. Exhausted from moving all of our stuff, my family and I couldn’t be bothered to go very far to get food and we discovered Prata Man, a small Singaporean restaurant located just a few minutes of walking from our house.

Prata Man is the very definition of hole-in-the-wall dining. However, it’s not like the place is a secret. I’ve mentioned it to a number of people and the usual reply is that they already know where I’m talking about. The restaurants popularity is probably not a result of the decor or the service. The interior hasn’t changed a bit since I first visited over a decade ago, including the tables, chairs and probably the dishes. The staff are reasonably friendly but will usually talk amongst themselves or read the paper after they’ve brought you your food so getting their attention for anything might take some effort.

That’s probably why most people get take-out. Whenever I sit down to eat in, at least five or six people will show up to pick up their take-out orders.

So that’s exactly how long I’ve been eating the mee goreng at Prata Man so you could imagine my surprise when my mee goreng at Hawker’s Delight was nothing like what I’m used to.

I’m no authority on Singaporean cuisine nor am I from Singapore so I can’t say whether this is authentic or not (I’m guessing not…) but this is what I know to be mee goreng: a mostly dry, pan-fried noodle dish with cubes of pork and tofu in a savory, almost curry-like sauce. It is sometimes a hit-or-miss dish as it isn’t as good if the noodles are too wet but when it’s right, it’s so good. Everything is packed with flavor and spice and comes with a bit of picked daikon and carrot to cool off.

While the mee goreng here is one of my favorite dishes, there are a lot of things on the menu you should just stay away from. The roti prata, for example, is terrible. For the most part, stick with the mee goreng, nasi goreng (fried rice), the Hainanese chicken (which is also very, very good) and the satays, which are a very good value at only $1 each. Pretty much everything is good value at Prata Man. The mee goreng is under $5.

A word of warning, though. While it doesn’t seem like it when you’re eating it, everything is actually rather greasy and you might experience the food coma afterwards. A common joke amongst people that enjoy Prata Man’s food is that it tastes great when you’re eating it but you’ll feel like dying later so this is a sort of once-in-awhile restaurant…not a place you should be eating everyday.

Yes, it’s amazing that despite the hole-in-the-wall decor, questionable cleanliness and the imminent “itus” that will hit you afterwards, Prata Man has remained in business and is quite busy on a daily basis after so many years. That should be an indication of how good the good dishes are.

Ah, trade shows are so awesome. You get free stuff just for actually showing up, which Michael demonstrates with the free Xbox he got from E3. I’m not a fan of the new Xbox design…the older one actually looks more contemporary and sleek…but can’t argue with free.

Also this week, we give an iPad to someone we don’t know, we reduce the greatest works of English literature to a single sentence, and Stephen whips out a camera contraption that makes the tiny Micro Four-Thirds cameras into a gargantuan lump of technology.

I’m sure by now you’ve always seen the genius commercials from Old Spice featuring a man asking ladies to look at their man and then back at him. G4TV recently interview the man we all want to smell like, Isaiah Mustafa (who is on Twitter, BTW) and asks how these commercials of pure awesome are made. I’m not sure how much of what he says is true and how much of it is CG but I guess anything is possible when you smell like Old Spice and not a lady.

DO YOU LIKE THE SMELL OF ADVENTURE?

I can’t remember exactly who suggested I give Moderne Burger a try but I’ve been wanting to go for months. It’s just that I keep forgetting about it and the one time I did remember, I forgot to bring my camera so I thought I’d just go at a later date. There’s plenty of buzz about this place around Vancouver but it wasn’t really on my radar. I mean, I’ve eaten some pretty extravagant burgers (including the Feenie Burger, The DB Burger and the Fraiche burger…which Stephen especially enjoyed) around here so a burger has to be pretty damned special to blow me away.

Moderne Burger is located at 2507 West Broadway, on the same block as Lumiere and DB Bistro Moderne. Inside, it is full on 50’s diner style complete with a jukebox and seats that look like relics from that era. It’s an interesting environment to say the least…especially for someone who only knows 50’s style from old Archie comics, Back to the Future and other pop culture references.

I was seated in a booth by the front and noticed that they were quite small. Four adults would struggle to sit comfortably.

The menu has three things plus drinks: burgers, grilled cheese and BLTs. I ordered the burger platter (which is available as a Moderne steak burger, a turkey burger, a veggie burger or a wild salmon fillet) which comes with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, mayo and house sauce along with fries. There are a variety of things you can add to your burger including mushrooms, bacon and cheese. While I was tempted, I was told the patty was something special so I decided to go mostly plain so the meat would be the stand-out.

When my platter arrived, the first thing I thought was “Holy #*%&, that is a mountain of fries!”. Seriously, there must be at least three whole potatoes on my plate. If you head to Moderne Burger with a friend, don’t order more than one platter. The fries on a single platter are enough for two or maybe even three people.

The burger is a hand-made steak patty and from the flavor and texture, you can tell it isn’t your regular frozen ground beef. It’s well seasoned but mine seemed to be a tad overcooked and a bit dry. The veggies tasted fresh and I thought to myself that the fixin’s looked like they do in pictures rather than in real life. The house sauce gives the burger a little zip and I liked the fact the bun was lightly toasted but warmed all the way through.

It’s unfortunate that the burger was dry on the inside or I would’ve like this a lot more.

The fries are cut and fried fresh to order but I found them rather oily and I don’t think they were seasoned immediately coming out of the fryer. I ate maybe a third of them, the crispier ones I could find in the mountainous pile before I called it a day. It might be a matter of preference but I like thinner, crispier fries compared to these more home-style fries that are mostly soft. I really should’ve put something there for a size comparison since looking at this picture, it doesn’t seem to be as huge a serving as it looks when it’s in front of your face.

The staff is friendly and helpful, although it seemed like on that particular day, they were getting everything wrong. I overheard customers complaining about two entirely separate take-out orders that were messed up and a staff member apologizing over the phone for a third. It looked like they quickly corrected their mistakes, however, offering the customers their correct meal and free milkshakes. Something must’ve been going on that day as they messed my order up as well when my waitress returned to my table to inform me that they had no root beer…and couldn’t make the vanilla root beer that I ordered.

Overall, I found Moderne Burger to be rather average. I can’t say I was particularly unhappy with anything but I doubt I’d go back, especially since I thought the burger platter was actually a tad expensive at $10.75 for a plain burger. A comparable burger would be the one at Fraiche, which I thought was a considerably better burger (which also uses freshly made ingredients). Sure, Fraiche’s offering is $16 but also had cheese, mushrooms and bacon, which would’ve been an extra $4.50 at Moderne Burger anyways…and again, I did not like the fries so overall, I’m a bit disappointed.

If you happen to know of an amazing burger that I or the Dot Com Pho guys haven’t eaten yet, please let us know. We once blew $600 on burgers for lunch so ridiculous burgers are sort of our thing.