Save On Meats Coffee Shop: Meals of Disproportion

My oldest memory of Save-On-Meats was winning a gift certificate in elementary school, but my parents decided not to go redeem the certificate since it was in such a sketchy area. Fast forward 15+ years later and that part of Hastings isn’t too bad with the new addition of SFU Woodwards and some other amazing establishments.

There has been a lot of buzz about Save-On-Meats since it reopened and I wanted to see for myself if it lived up to expectations. Never really thought I would ever be dining at a place called Save On Meats. They have a butcher shop and a restaurant, so you get a bit of everything.

They also have a window area outside for take out.

The interior is super retro!

I went here on two occasions to give you a bigger scope of what’s on their menu.

Mandu and I needed Coffee ($2) since we really we SUPER tired out of our minds. The coffee here is just the usual. Comes with cream and sugar to mix. Mandu is particularly picky about what she puts into her coffee, so she asked for milk and sugar substitute. They had those both, so she was quite happy.

It’s unlimited refills, so do have more than a cup if you feel like… Mandu and I had about 3 or 4 cups.

Mandu and I shared the Soup of the Day ($5), I think it was a corn and clam soup. It had a nice smooth texture with nice balance of flavour. It also comes with a homemade biscuit. The biscuits are really good!

I ordered the Open Face Roast Chicken Sandwich ($8). It comes with juicy roasted chicken smothered in Brown Gravy, served with mashed potatoes, fries or coleslaw.

When it arrived, I was a bit disappointed. It really didn’t seem very exciting at all. The bread was nicely toasted and the chicken and gravy is always great together. Coleslaw was just ok too.

Mandu got the Linguini Carbonara ($8). It has bacon, wine and cheese, which as all of Mandu’s favorite items! She was really disappointed when it arrived. She expected it to be at least 2 times larger.

Nonetheless, she still enjoyed the taste of the pasta. Very rich and creamy with great smoky bacon! If you are health conscious and want to be bad for just one day, eat this and don’t feel super guilty afterwards.

After the first time coming here, it wasn’t anything extraordinary at all. A few days later, I came with @wongers and @FloYVR to eat more!

Wongers was feeling like a beast, so she decided to eat 2 entrees.

She started with the ribs ($9) and had fries and warm biscuit for her sides. This rib was huge! An amazing price for just $9! The meat was very tender and the bones literally just fell off. The taste was not your usual BBQ sauce; we all agreed it kinda tasted “Asian”. The sauce had a large amount of tomato paste flavour with a little bit of spiciness. This reminded us of the baked pork cutlet from the HK style cafes.

The Savory Pie ($9) is their daily potpie served with mashed potatoes or green salad. She ordered it with mashed potatoes.

The pie was a bit on the small side compared to the ribs. Same price but there is a considerable portion difference. The chicken in the pie was dry and the only way to moisten it up was to pour the gravy all over it.

The mashed potatoes were really really good! Nice and fluffy! Great with the gravy too.

Flo ordered the famous Save On Meats Burger ($6). It comes on a toasted brioche bun, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, mayo and bacon. Also a side of fries too!

She loved it! The meat patty was very fresh and unlike anything else she had before.

I was having a very bloated day, so I just had the Chopped chicken Salad ($7). It has diced chicken, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, avocado, and celery.

This was a very simple salad and it seemed like something I could make at home. I also couldn’t taste the dressing as well. I thought the salad would be bigger as well since I looked at Wonger’s ribs and the proportions were very different.

I then ordered the Banana Triple Thick Milk Shake ($4). This was so good! I love bananas so that’s why. The whole time I was drinking it, Wongers just cringed in fear because she hates bananas. Since the shake came with an extra tin of left overs, I gave it to Flo since she wanted some too.

The best part of the milkshake is the lumpy bits of banana. By far the best banana milk shake I have ever had.

Since I took the last banana for the milkshake, they were unable to make a banana split. The server promised us a Special Dessert ($6), which would blow our minds.

We agreed and awaited the suspenseful dessert to arrive. It has 2 scoops of ice cream, lots of whipped cream + cherry, chocolate sauce, walnuts, marshmallows and their famous house made cookies.This is a large dessert! We were actually expecting something smaller. We all just shared it. This really brought out the kid in us! Their ice cream is made in-house as well as their baked goods! We were surprised, but it made us appreciate the food more.

Overall, we all agreed they had fun desserts and amazing milkshakes. One problem we had were the varying portion sizes and how hard it was to figure out if that dish would fill you up. A few items were a hit and miss, but you can’t go wrong with the Ribs or the Save on Meats Burger.

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