The Cheshire Cheese

Where: The Cheshire Cheese Inn. Located at 4585 Dunbar Street

When: 8PM Tuesday, Weekly

Web Presence:  None for the quiz itself.

Registration Fee: Nope

Team Info: No team size limit that I could see.But then again, I didn't see any 9 person megateams either, so maybe there is an enforced limit that everyone already knew about and therefore no one even bothered to say it, as it was a deeply ingrained cultural thing.

Prizes: Distributed "key" style, except that instead of keys, you get slices of cheese at the end of each round (3 to 1st for the round, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd). At the end, they draw the slice of cheese, and the winner gets a gift card, redeemable on some other night.

Format: 3 Rounds, 12 questions per round.There was one bonus "lightning round" where you could win extra "slices" of "cheese."

Food and Drink: Pub food, doing their best to keep the English tradition alive. I've never eaten here, so I can't comment beyond what it looked like.

This quiz is all the way out in the barren wastelands near Dunbar and 30th, which really isn't that hard to get to, but also isn't near much of note. You can also take this review with a grain of salt, because I've only been here once. The place is a nice community pub, and seemed to be full of regular patrons. The crowd was significantly older than you'd find at most of the other quiz nights, which suits the area it is located in just fine.

Each round is scored separately, and there is no announcement of which team won it all at the end, but the top scoring teams in each round are always called out. The questions? Well, to put it cordially, they seemed primed to keep everyone within a reasonable score tolerance of one another. There were a lot of incredibly easy non-questions (Detective with a pipe and deerstalker! Tallest mountain on Earth! Your name!), mixed in with multiple choice and true/false questions. There were a lot of questions that fell into the standard trivia categories, like definitions of funny sounding words, and word roots. The bonus round - Name the 7 Big 4 sports teams named after cats - was a lot of fun, though. The quiz finished promptly at around 10 PM.

Yet again, the quizmaster insists on marking all the quizzes himself. Ugh.

The Coles Notes? Fun enough, fairly quick, friendly atmosphere. But pretty easy. If you want a quiz where you are rewarded for knowing tough things as opposed to being punished for missing easy things, this may not be the quiz for you.

The Fray

Well, It looks like the Fray is closed now, so this trivia night probably doesn't exist anymore. If you've lost your weekly quiz, you have my condolences, and feel free to checkout Vancouver's other Wednesday options. Debbie, the quizmistress, has set up residence at the Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood Pub, down the street on Kingsway. That should hopefully fill that East Van Quiz-shaped hole in your Wednesday nights.

Where: The Fray. Located at 3980 Fraser St (at 24th)

When: 8:30PM Tuesday, Weekly. I'd show up before 7:40, but it doesn't truly fill up until game time

Web Presence: None for the quiz, alas

Registration Fee: Nope.

Team Info: No team size limit, so bring as many as you want

Prizes: Distributed as at the Cove: Win keys, hope the number on your key is drawn. Winner of the draw gets a $50 gift certificate. Most points gets to write a question for the next week's quiz, and a pitcher of beer.

Format: 3 Rounds, 15 questions per round. A music question after every round. The music question is worth a lot of points

Food and Drink: Pretty good, in the 12-20 dollar range for a dinner. Drink specials which are not all that cheap, but at least they are better than nothing. All the food is local, which is a nice touch.

This quiz is run by the lady who does the Cove, and as far as I know, it's the first quiz on Fraser, which is nice if you are in the area. Do you want the a quiz that is similar to the Cove quiz without having to go the fucking Kits? Well, now you can! The crowd has all the attendant benefits/drawbacks of being closer to main street and further away from UBC.

Every now and then there a contentious question pops up, and you just have to suck it up and admit that you're wrong, and the nice lady is right. After all, that is only good trivia manners. Conversely, why do some quizzes insist on having one person mark all the papers? I don't get it, it takes a long time to do, AND is less fun. Since you read out the answers anyways, so you may as well put the kids to work marking each others' papers. Also, the 3 'name that tune' questions are worth 6 points each, which is bordering on absurd. If you happen to know the name and artist of 3 songs, then congratulations! you just got the equivalent of a perfect round and then some on top of your score!

There is a full score rundown after each round, so you usually know exactly where you stand. There seem to be 2 or 3 regular teams who always show up and do quite well. The quiz takes about 2 hours and change, so expect all to be said and done at about 10:15, which is about the average for a quiz that starts at 8. There are minigames to win free pitchers, and usually drinks get handed out for general spirit. Don't be too boisterous, or you may end up being awarded shots, though.

Can you say it in less words? Sure! Head on down, it is pretty good, even with the undue weight on the music questions. Wednesday night is shaping up to have some good options for trivia nights.

Cascade Room Trivia On Hiatus

The summer downtime in quizzes is here, and with that, the Cascade Room will be taking more than a monthlong break, until mid-September. I can't give you the exact date that it will be back, but I'll try and let you know. Until then, go to the Cascade for some mixed drinks or frosty pints, but not for quiz.