For most travelers, Sandakan in Bornean Malaysia is just a stopping off point on the way to see orangutans and other types of wildlife in the jungle. But as for me, I would be spending a couple days in the city and wanted to make the best of it by trying out local foods and getting to know the area. But that would have to wait until after our first meal, at the English Tea House.

You see, as part of getting to know Sandakan, we had to take a tour for a day and the tour took us here. The grounds were beautiful and the views were pretty great as well, but the food left a little to be desired. First off, there were far too many utensils, but I suppose that is the British way. But secondly, I mean, the food was British. Those people aren’t known for good food unless it’s something that their immigrants brought as opposed to the other way around.

And yet despite the Britishness and the ridiculousness of serving soup on a crazy hot day, the soup was pretty good. And, it was pumpkin soup, which is generally something I wholeheartedly oppose. Perhaps it was the jetlag that made me like it. The main course of chicken, was an entirely different story. It was plain, the breast was tough and the garnishment of curled up carrots only made a poor attempt at distracting from the food.

The English Tea House seems to exist solely to serve tourists like us, and unfortunately where some similar places put on an unnecessary and unrealistic (yet often enjoyable) display of local culture, the British Tea House doesn’t even really seem very into that. Come for the view, and maybe literally a spot of tea and then head somewhere better in Sandakan.

Vail, Colorado may be a beautiful place, but it is certainly not a place to go if you’re on a budget. Lift tickets are crazy expensive and the food isn’t much cheaper. But there are a couple more reasonable places in town and The Red Lion is one of them. As you might expect, The Red Lion is a British Pub and has your classic pub fare. When it came to my meal, I only really had eyes for the burgers.

My burger of choice was the Bleu Sky Burger, presumably named for how blue the skies are when there isn’t a snowstorm blowing through Vail. This burger was topped with bleu cheese and bacon, plus some lettuce, tomato and onion that I was quick to order without. I ordered mine medium-rare and was very happy to find it prepared that way. Hey, you never know when you’re in a touristy spot.

In fact, beyond the color of the meat, I was impressed by the pile of bacon and bleu cheese on top of the burger. They made for a nice blend of smokey, salty and cheesy. The burger even had a nice sear that I could appreciate. There were some fries on the side that didn’t stick out as anything special, but were at least a good partner to the meat and cheese.

By the time I was nearly finished, the juiciness of the burger had rendered the bun into a gooey mess. If I had any complaint it would be that the bun simply couldn’t hold up. Nonetheless, this was a solid burger that fulfilled my burgerly desires.

While in Sac Town, it’s advisable to check out the State Capitol. It really is a beautiful building with a sprawling grounds showing off some of the best flora of California. And just up the street from there you can find what seemed the be the coolest place in town to grab brunch: Fox and Goose. With a dingy interior and pretty sweet patio, this British Pub drew me right in.

I got pretty excited about a burger of theirs, only to taste disappointment when I learned that they were only serving off of the breakfast menu on Sundays. Fortunately, they had a little something called Benedict Arnold on the menu, which is just a treasonous term for their Eggs Benedict. These had the option to swap out Canadian bacon and I chose regular bacon instead, plus they came with Welsh Rarebit cheese sauce and a choice of potatoes or fruit. I really truly love fruit and decided against the potatoes on this day.

The end result of the treacherous meal was nothing short of delicious. It seems so obvious in hindsight how much of a difference cheese sauce can make to eggs benedict, but it unquestionably did. The best part was that although the dish was essentially savory on savory on savory on savory, I was able to take a quick break each time I snagged a piece of fruit. As for the eggs, they were poached to perfect and the bacon was just the right amount of crisp.

So perhaps not having the lunch menu available was a good thing, because Benedict Arnold was great (which, I know, is a terrible thing to say). Or, maybe I missed out on something even better in the burger. The world will never know. But at the very least I know that stopping by Fox and Goose while checking out the Capitol is the right way to go.

Situated right across the walking street from Pizzeria Bianco in downtown Phoenix, one has to wonder how many patrons of The Rose and Crown are people who tired of waiting for Pizzeria Bianco and decided to eat at the next closest place. We ended up in a similar situation, in which a reservation miscommunication led to us without ample room at the pizzeria. So off we went to The Rose and Crown for some British Pub food. A quick look at the menu revealed that this was no ordinary British Pub and it actually had some unique-looking options.

One of these unique-looking options was Poutine. If you know my blog, then you know I have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with poutine. I’d blame this on my Canadian ancestry, but I find no need to make excuses for fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. The poutine at The Rose and Crown was a little different than your typical poutine, signifying some sort of fusion between British and Canadian food. For starters, although I had taken the term “chips” on the menu to be Britspeak for fries, when they arrived, they really were homemade potato chips. Also, instead of cheese curds, this poutine was topped with shredded cheddar. While I appreciated the attempt at innovating poutine, it fell a bit short in the flavor and texture land. Seriously, no curds?

I followed up this appetizer with, surprise, a burger. This thing went by the name of The Crown and was topped with cheddar, bacon and a fried egg. Similar to my obsession with poutine, I am also obsessed with fried egg as a burger topping and couldn’t wait to get this thing. But first I had to order. It came with lettuce, tomato, pickle and onion, which I rapidly dismissed as I also attempted to order my burger medium rare. Sadly, I was told the best they could do was medium. It also came with a side of fries or slaw and I most certainly went with fries.

The burger turned out to be quite a beauty, with a shiny bun and real fries to accompany it. As I ate the burger, I delighted in the perfect crispiness of the bacon and the flavor provided by the fried egg. The cheddar was as expected and although the bun had a hard time holding its own against the weight of so many toppings, it had the support of a toothpick and lasted throughout the noshing. Also, it was tasty. The meat itself, though, was a bit of a disappointment. I don’t know if it was the extra cooking or a bad choice of beef, but I found it to be a bit drier than I would have preferred and lacking in delicious flavor. It wasn’t bad, but just could have used a few tweaks. And to end on a high note, the fries were great and really should have been used in the poutine instead of those gravy-sucking chips.

In the end, The Rose and Crown delivered most of the goods. A few changes here and there would have me singing their praises and commanding all Phoenicians to skip the line at Pizzeria Bianco and head to The Rose and Crown instead, but without those changes The Rose and Crown is just an above average British Pub.

Although it seems like the last Dine LA Restaurant Week ended a couple months ago, it seems that it has returned, which means a lot of food and some difficult choices for the unvegan. These difficult choices usually stem from the fact that it is tough to find a veggie-free prix fixe menu. Fortunately, Culver City has a relatively new restaurant called Waterloo & City with an unvegan-friendly restaurant week menu.

Waterloo & City is named after a Tube line in London that consists of two stops – one called Waterloo and the other called…Village. Wait, no, it’s called City. As you may be able to guess by the name, the restaurant serves English food. That’s right, English food, also known as the worst international food ever. The kind of food where when people go to England, the favorite thing they ate was Indian. Well somehow the English food at Waterloo & City had garnered the place accolades for being one of the best new restaurants in LA, so despite the ancestry of their food, they had to be doing something right.

The appetizer that appealed to my unvegan sensibility the most was their Pan Fried Blood Cake, which came with fried organic egg and toasted pain poilane (which is just fancy-speak for toast). I wasn’t entirely sure what blood cake was, so before committing, I asked the waitress and she told me it was really like a cake made with pig blood and pig fat. I guess blood cake sounds a little better than fat cake, so that’s where the name blood cake came from. With a tinge of fear, I ordered it, still not quite knowing what to expect. When it did arrive, I was at first disappointed by the heirloom tomatoes upon my cake. I brushed these off and then took a look at the blood-splattered plate. Not exactly red velvet, the cake looked like Hannibal Lecter’s version of marble cake. Unlike your average cake, this was like a spread, which I wiped across a piece of toast. Then I took a bit of egg to put on top and bit in.

It’s kind of hard to explain the taste, which wasn’t bad at all, but also wasn’t especially good. It was kind of like a savory jam, where the bits of fat were like chunks of fruit and the rest of it tasted kind of like your own blood when you cut yourself. Do to my lack of experience with eating blood, I can’t really say if Waterloo & City did a very good job, but I can say I was glad I tried it and don’t really have any desire to try it again.

With the blood gone, I moved onto my main course, a Prime Beef and Bone Marrow Pie, with Potato Puree. Since this dish wasn’t on the normal menu, I kind of expected it to be some sort of mass-produced Shepherd’s Pie with marrow, but it turned out to be no such thing. Instead, it was a massive, yet individual pot-pie-looking dish that resided in a pan with a giant marrow bone sticking out of the middle. And the potato puree wasn’t even part of it and came on the side in its own bowl. Although the thing was taking forever to cool, I couldn’t wait and started digging in. Inside the delicious, crispy crust, I found some of the meatiest and tastiest pie-filling in the world. After some mild mouth and tongue burns, I found the beef inside this pie was perfectly tender, juicy and flavorful. Plus, every bite got a nice little spoonful of marrow, which add some nice gelatinous flavor to the already-perfect pie. The potato puree made an unnecessary, but delicious addition to the meal. Where the pie packed a powerful punch of flavor, the puree sort of balanced the mouth out with a much simpler flavor.

I also ate some of the House Merguez & and Slow Cooked Lamb Shoulder, which the girlfriend had ordered. Unbeknown to us, the Merguez was actually a sausage. I would think an English restaurant would have food items written in plain English, but this was not the case. Luckily the sausage was tasty, but it wasn’t as good as the slow-cooked lamb shoulder, which was so tender it almost melted like butter in your mouth. I think we both would have liked if the dish had a higher lamb shoulder to sausage ratio, but it was still a nice dish.

Finally, there were the desserts. Since there were only two choices, we each got one of them. The first was the Glazed Doughnuts with Jam and Custard. These looked more like doughnut holes, but also looked nothing short of delicious. Glistening in the dim light, I couldn’t wait to take a bite, and when I did I was not disappointed. Differing from normal doughnuts in the US, the English doughnut was less cakey and more bready. There was no lack of sweet, though, as the glaze was loaded with what I thought was caramelized sugar. The best part of the doughnuts actually happened to be the salt crystals that had been sporadically sprinkled upon them. This added a subtle, but much-needed balance to the doughnuts.

The second dessert was Sticky Toffee Pudding with Milk Ice Cream (didn’t realize there were other kinds of ice cream, other than vegan). By the time it arrived, the ice cream was mostly melted, so that was a bit disappointing. On the other hand, the toffee flavor was really good and almost made up for the ice cream. The doughnuts ended up being the better dessert, but had the ice cream been unmelted, the matchup would have fared better for the toffee pudding.

My Restaurant Week experience at Waterloo & City was a surprisingly delicious experience. The surprising part was because it was English, but the positive reviews I had heard turned out to be correct.

Walking into Brophy Bros. in Santa Barbara, based on the name, I expected some sort of frat house with waiters walking around with sweaters tied around their shoulders and referring to everyone as “Bro,” “Brah,” and “Brosef.” Instead, I found a seafood restaurant. Not sure which I would have preferred, as I seem to be finding myself at seafood places quite often lately, and I am not enjoying the pattern. Nonetheless, I rapidly found the most unhealthy dish on the menu, Fish ‘n’ Chips.

Despite the many terms we have changed from the original British, I find it very interesting that Fish ‘n’ Chips has withstood the test of time and more than 200 years of independence that other terms like “trousers” and “honour” couldn’t. I don’t mind though, since Fish ‘n’ Fries doesn’t have the same ring I can’t really imagine eating fish with potato chips.

My fried fish arrived soon enough and I began eating. They were a bit soggier than I would prefer and had that uncomfortable fishy smell to them. They were in dire need of the two sauces that were provided, and even those weren’t anything spectacular. In the end, I was full, but not really satisfied. The fish and chips had tasted just okay and left a lot to be desired.