The three of us took a quick overnight trip to Vancouver, B.C. to eat and club. I had never met the Maharaja before Saturday morning when we left on the trip, as he’s a friend of the Prince. The Maharaja is a stellar individual: vibrant, fun, witty, intelligent, and all around a good man to know. It’s wonderful when the friends of friends end up being just as great as the friends themselves.
The Prince & the Maharaja were the instigators and planners of this trip and I was largely along for the ride. The plan was simple: eat in Chinatown, swing through the Punjabi district, and then have dinner at Vij’s. The rest of the evening would be spent drinking & dancing at a random venue TBD.
While I enjoyed the two international districts we visited, the highlight of the trip for me was dinner at Vij’s. This place has a great setup: they don’t take reservations, so you have to plan on spending about 2 hours waiting. But they make the wait an experience totally worth the time by providing a great wine selection, a good space to people watch, and free-flowing hors d’oeuvres which kept you just satisfied enough not to notice the wait. We did some very snarky people-watching, which is entertainment in-and-of itself.
I know we had appetizers, and I know I had some great wines, but all I remember right now in specific is my dinner of "Wine marinated lamb popsicles in fenugreek cream curry on spinach potatoes". Words wouldn’t do justice to how happy this made my mouth.
After dinner and a brief side-track at the wrong bar (read: boring, overpriced), we found ourselves at the right club. "Right" in this case translates into "the hottest gay bar in Vancouver" to satisfy the whims of the Maharaja. As expected, the dancing was great, and the Prince and I (not all that surprisingly) had the chance to flirt/dance with some cute women. The Prince actually danced, which is an amazing occurrence considering that it is only second time in his life he has graced a dance-floor with his presence, and required a surprisingly small amount of alcohol to get him there.
The best part of the evening was that the Mahj had a great time, which was the entire point of the venue. So great a time, in fact, that it took him about half of breakfast to remember just exactly how great of time he had that night (and he still says he wasn’t drunk). The only down-side to the evening for me was fending off men (no, I’m not gay. yes, that means I’m straight. thank you, I’m glad your friend thinks I’m cute, but I’m not interested.) and averting my eyes from the pole-dancing stripper-men. But those are small taxes to pay for a great evening.
As for the city itself, I’m looking forward to going back and being a bit more of a tourist and "sight seeing" next time.
As per usual, pix are on picasa.