This joint is the bee's knees. I average a meal a week here because it has everything I ask for in an eatery:
Delicious vegetarian food! Wow. You can keep it light with a satisfying tortilla soup or a variety of tasty salads (romaine, cilantro, lime juice dressing, avocado? Crisp, refreshing, and adequately portioned for a tall fellow like me) or if you've been cruising Commercial Drive running on empty for some time, get one of their baked burritos and you'll be waddling out o' there wearing a big smile (My fave is the "Wolf & Goat" with added goat cheese. Rice, beans, guac, purple cabbage, and other hearty additions to turn the heads of skeptic carnivores). Bandidas offers a variety of innovative flavours wrapped up in warm, house-made tortilla shells or served oven-baked & cheesy in single-serve casserole dishes. Vegan? No probs. They got options for you, too.
Amazing interior! I just want to hang out here all day. I can't, so I'm writing this review so I can live there in my mind just a while longer. Living, breathing plants EVERYWHERE. DIY, shabby-chic terrariums hanging from windows and resting on your table. Bamboo, grasses, tillandsia, just everything. Even in the soggy misery that is Vancouver winter, this place makes me feel like I am chillin' hard somewhere nearer the equator. Heck, you can even enjoy a variety of refreshing drinks, mixed for the exclusive purpose of making you forget about the downpour outside. Which leads me to my next point:
Diverse, novel, unpretentious, cheap bar! Beer? Totally, man. Draught beer supplied in part by Vancouver's own R&B brewing. I dig that. I also dig their bloody marys which are, hands-down, the best bloody marys I've had. Dios mio. I'm talking about a mason jar filled with booze and veg juice with pickled beans, carrots, a whole clove of garlic, and JICAMA (not even kidding, these people are hitting some new levels here) all up in your drink. It's like an appetizer, and they are featured on Sundays for something in the neighborhood of $5.50. Woah. Whiskey with spicy ginger beer, horchatas, margaritas, hibiscus... the list goes on, cycling through 7 days of featured drinks for the pocketbook-conscious and anyone weary of $10 pints. You won't encounter that kind of static here.
Finally the staff. They're great. Friendly, attentive, but never all up in your grill. You feel taken care of here. This one time I wanted coffee to go but, lacking in take-out cups at the time, my server hooked me up with a travel mug somebody had left a few days ago. She put it through the dishwasher, sanitized it, filled it with coffee, and sent me on my merry way. FIVE STARS! read more