Maple Bacon Donuts @ Banquette Cafe & Wine Bar!

Hey Downtown Neighbors!



Coming back home from an afternoon out, this homemade sign caught my eye as I walked through the entry gate of San Fernando Bldg. What's this? Homemade Donuts!! So I popped into Banquette & took a closer look.. Asking one of the Baristas if these were those same delicious donuts created by Sharlena Fong at the Nickel, the reply was but of course!

Can I get a WHOO HOO!!!!

Paneless Repair.. Fixing a Window on Main St.

Settling in at the new place we had some minor repairs that needed to be made.. and they all happened yesterday!

First our fridge got looked at (SeanYoda had noticed the door was offset just a bit and was preventing the light from going out when you closed the door) as even when the door was shut you could see some of the inside of the fridge was open to the outside. A replacement washer & some adjustment was all it took. Yay!

I also noticed a crack in one of windows.. which I was concerned would get bigger if there was another big earthquake like we had last summer. When they came to see about it they found another, more deeper crack that penetrated to the wire meshing that lined the center of the window panes. Eventually they came and replaced the pane entirely!


they had already removed the damaged pane..


Paneless View (I snuck a shot while they were measuring the new pane)


measuring & cutting..

replacing the glass


all fixed!

They did a pretty good job! I just wish we could look out the window, but many of these have the double-sided reinforced glass (which is good I think) but keeps one from seeing much.

I'm just very glad it's all taken care of now & can keep working on settling in. Yay! Old Bank District!

The Must a great place for Art Walk Night

Tonight is Art Walk.. and while I probably won't go there myself (it's so crowded!) one of the really good, but not so recession friendly options around town in the evening is The Must!



The Must opened late last year as a wine and comfort food bar in the back of Weeneez at the corner of 5th & Spring. We ended up eating there several weeks back (Mar 10th) when we wanted to go for cheeseburgers at Weeneez and it was closed.. but the The Must was open. We were hungry so we attempted dinner here.



The total bill came to about $60 for 4 items, drinks and a dessert.. A lot more than we were planning to spend. The food was pretty good but in the end it's ideally a wine bar. A great place to come and have a drink and try one of the many small plates-- if you're meeting friends after work or you want to stop here during art walk or any number of events you'll be attending downtown.

Service the night we were there was spotty.. that night they could have used at least one extra server. We probably wouldn't have noticed so much if we were there to socialize rather than have a nice dinner. Dinner was indeed nice.. just not something I would do very often in this economy.. wine & snack? yes.

Rather than go into details here's some pix of the yummy dishes we tried:

sauteed wild mushrooms ($6) and my least favorite.. tasty but not too exciting.


Sweet Potato tots with Ranch Dressing ($6).. Very GOOD!! order 2 of these as you won't want to share.. seriously.


Mini Chicken Sliders: Crispy fried chicken breast, smoked mozzarella, ranch dressing, and pickles on mini biscuits. $4 each or 3 for $10. These were excellent!


Orange, Almond & Bacon Salad: Blood Oranges, smokehouse almonds, applewood bacon, butter lettuce & citrus honey vinaigrette. $7 Ehhhh.. was ok..

For dessert they had 3 options the bread pudding appealed to us but they were out. We ended up ordering the fluffernutter which I've never tried before ever..


The Fluffernutter.. with chocolate dipping sauce. High on the naughty treat level but not exactly what I was really wanting.. (when you got a craving for bread pudding fluffernutter isn't a good substitute).

All in all it wasn't a horrible meal, and I would definitely recommend the place to anyone wanting to get a glass of wine and bite to eat. If you want Tapas, go to Warung. If you want a yummy cheeseburger and Weeneez is closed, go the extra block to the Nickel. It'll cost you a LOT less than The Must.

If you want a great glass of wine with a tasty treat such as the sweet potato tots and the chicken sliders.. go for it! We'll be back one of these days to try the bread pudding but it'll be a while. Our wallet is still a bit bruised.