Northwest Road Trip 2013 - Vancouver, BC, Canada, Day 6

A little bit less adventuring today yet still plenty to eat and drink!

We're facing a very busy street so due to an early wakeup, we ended up sleeping in a bit more. Which meant that we missed the brunch at Medina Cafe, which is the highest rated restaurant in Vancouver. There was a crowd waiting in front (of course), so we put in our name and jaunted around to Rogers Arena (home to the Vancouver Canuckleheads). Returning 20 minutes later, we waited an additional 25 minutes (total wait: 45 min) before being seated. We were thrilled to discover they were serving brunch all day! Also, we learned the couple next to us were also road tripping from San Jose! Small world.

This is a LAVENDER LATTE! Delicious.

Aside from their coffee, their other specialty are their waffles! Which you can order a topping with. So, naturally, we each went with one.

Waffles with Raspberry Caramel and White Pistachio Rosewater

 These waffles were AMAZING. I know, how can waffles be amazing? A waffle is a waffle, right? Wrong. Absolutely not true. These may have had crack in them. Or at least, some sugar.

Mains: Fricasse with short rib, sunny side up eggs, potato, caramelized onions, watercress cheddar and a side of grilled foccacia.
Les Boulettes, 2 poached eggs with spicy Moroccan lamb & beef meatballs, cilantro with hummus and grilled foccacia on the side.

The dishes were what I would call "saucy mush" since that's essentially what it was. That's more Greg's style than mine but I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy it. The waffles were just hard to compete with!

After "brunch," we walked around Gastown and "Chinatown." That's in quotes because it doesn't look like a Chinatown. There is nothing that evokes thoughts of Asia except that large Asian market on one of the corners. Perhaps we were in the wrong area (sounds like it's actually quite sketchy). Gastown, on the other hand, it's just so darn cute and hip. Eatings pigs is super hot right now and we saw 3 different restaurants with either word "pig" in it or had a pig in their logo.

Gastown is also home to this gas powered clock:

And lots of gifts shops with fine characters:

It was starting to get dark (we are quite far north) so, time for beer! We headed over to Parallel 49 brewery, with an hour to spare for their NYE hours. Get this: the beer samplers were only $1!!! The flight of 4 was only $3.50!

My favorite was the Nitro Milk Stout, which pretty much tasted like a Guinness. GZ's favorite was the Lord of the Hops. I don't usually like breweries that have cartoon-y labels but this was a good one.

As they called for last call, it was time to start thinking about dinner! Time for our other favorite cuisine: Shanghai Soup Dumplings! After much research, we headed over to Lin Chinese Cuisine and Teahouse. Terrible service but the most soup-y soup dumplings we've ever head. Check out that droop!

We also ordered the Schezuan Beef Noodle Soup, which had quite the kick!

Overall impression of Vancouver thus far: People are extremely polite and their streets are super clean. They love beer growlers and Asian food.

Looks like we will be sleeping through the New Year! Although, based on the noise being made by the party next door, that may not be true ("You kids better turn that noise down or I'm calling your mom!"). Off to Whistler tomorrow!

Northwest Roadtrip 2013 - Vancouver, BC, Canada, Day 5

The adventure continues!

Today, we began an absolutely dreary morning in Seattle, the first we've really had since arriving in the Pacific Northwest. However, that didn't stop us from venturing out into the cold for some lovely brunch before escaping into another country.

Our food spotlight was on Toulouse Petit, a Cajun/Creole restaurant in the Queen Anne district of Seattle, not too far from the Space Needle. Someone spent a bucket full of cash on this place as it was filled with glass, glass, and a little bit more glass. It also had one of the most impressive collections of booze I have ever seen in a bar.

Wait time: 10 minutes
Eats: Beignets, Pork cheek hash (SO GOOD), and Spicy Creole Shrimp & Grits, french press coffee

Today I realized that we take a lot of photos of food or drink. Sorry. #notsorry

The portions were actually reasonable (although the prices were not particularly so) which means we didn't feel like we were ready to birth a food baby right after.

On our drive up to the border, we had to decide if we were going to head up to Whistler for a day trip or not. Neither of us have ever been and we've heard only great things about it. Greg brought his snowboard "just in case." But we heard that you had to have snow tires for any trips going up to Whistler so we thought that was the end. Until.......  we found out they do bus shuttles up to Whistler. After finding a $35 round trip ticket on Groupon, the deal was sealed. Boom, Whistler, here we come.

Oh haaaay Canadian border

Rolling into Vancouver, we had to readjust to the metric system (let's have a real discussion why the US uses its own measurements) and practice saying, "Aboot" and "eh?"

Since are paying almost 10 nights worth of hotels, we decided to stay a bit out of city center this time round. As Greg put it, "If you're in the action, you can't SEE the action." OK, point taken. Still wish there was a jacuzzi tub in my room though.

That's really the view from our room, I didn't just google image this.

First things first, dinner time. We hopped on the Skytrain (subway) and were in downtown within 10 minutes. As we walked along the busy Robson Street downtown, we noticed how late all the restaurants stay open. It them dawned on me how much Vancouver loves food (especially Asian food). I told Gregory this is our soul mate city. Not like we'd ever move here (though I once seriously considered it), but that our hearts matched with it.

Who has a strong guess for our first meal??

Turns our our favorite ramen place (part of a global chain) has a location here in Vancouver, just opened in February. We headed over there but were quite discouraged to find a line that wasn't moving. We don't usually mind waiting but considering we have this chain at home (though had wanted to compare), we checked Yelp for other options (oh yes, we're also down to just my phone because we didn't want to pay roaming charges on both phones, just the flat global rate. Budget traveling, I tell ya). Turns out there were quite a few ramen joints all around the neighborhood.

Our first stop (yes, more on that later) was here at Hida Takayama (Wait time: 0 min) on the second floor of a very small shopping center. It was eerie climbing the steps upstairs as there were very few people in the entire place. Spooooky. Even the ramen joint looked empty until GZ noticed a younger guy surfing the net on his laptop, hidden in the corner. I felt bad, when we first came upstairs, the guy at the shop next door jumped up and said hello, probably hoping we were going to have him make us some delicious eats.

After a very brief discussion, we decided to share a meal here so we could hit try ANOTHER ramen shop afterward. HA! I know, we're so crazy! Roadtrip 2013!

Satisfying bowl, now to more noodles! The next one was just down the street, and it was called Motomachi Shokudo, a tiny place that only seats about 20 people (Wait time: 15 min) and had a short line out the front. Luckily, we seemed to have hit the line at the right lull because it was a pretty short wait.

We had planned on again sharing a meal so we could possibly go to a THIRD place, but it wasn't meant to be. Greg noticed they had a $9.55 per person limit (?) which meant we both had to order full bowls. They sat us at the bar, which was awesome because we could peer into the kitchen.

I'm a ramen creeper

The bowls were a little bit more pronounced at this place and I'm glad we went to both, for the variety. And both places were run by actual Japanese people!

Warm bellies once more, we headed back to the hotel to change shoes and get into the car for our next stop: brewery! Another city, another hip brewery.

A baby beer (6 oz) and it's brother (12 oz)

The whole place was done in wood and filled with hipsters. The people running the bar were dressed like hipsters but they were SO NICE. Like, unbelievably. The beers were quite excellent, so took some home with us, even if we won't be able to refill these guys.

Canadian sizes: 473 mL & 1 liter

Drink me, Alice

We are catching the 6:30AM shuttle tomorrow for Whistler so there may or not be an update tomorrow. Catch ya on the mountain!

Northwest Roadtrip 2013 - Seattle, Washington, Day 4

Hello again!

We are staying at an older hotel in downtown Seattle and they have these insane blackout curtains. So that helped us sleep in this morning!

Of course we did some research on the best brunch around Seattle and came up with "Local 360," which is kind of a hip-ish brunch place you would find in San Francisco. Except there was pretty much NO LINE! We had a reservation for 11:45 and because we arrived early, they had us sit at the bar to wait. The staff were extremely friendly but unfortunately, this breakfast really missed the mark. Some low lights include: a piece of chicken fried steak mixed in with chicken & waffles (and no apology, just an,"Oh, sorry about this! How funny!" no, not funny), a huge wait for our food, and overcooked pork belly. Real amateur hour. Don't worry, Yelp will hear about this!

 

I won't even bother with the food since it's not worth remembering (OH, burn!)

After that very unsatisfying experience, we headed out for a walk and a little bit of geocaching along the water.

We walked for awhile and as the cold was starting to get into our bones, we stumbled upon this little shop:

I know, aren't you so curious about the gems in this place?? I thought it was just going to be a tourist junk shop. Which it was, but it was also SO MUCH MORE!

This is just a few snapshots of the weird things in this crazy place. Shrunken heads, freak pigs (eight legs, three heads!), mummies, and other delightful curiosities. There were also old time machines (not to be confused with time traveling machines) like you would see in Musee Mecanique in San Francisco. What a strange place to stumble into! It was so weird, we had to love it. GZ found a sweatshirt he liked and after bundling up, it was back to the streets.

Continuing on our walk, we found ourselves in a number of different, cute Seattle neighborhoods. Eventually, we found our way to Pike Place Market, where we ate freshly fried miniature donuts, stopped by Pike Place Brewery for a sampling, walked amongst the seafood (too full to try any), saw some novelty shops, and of course, visited the very first Starbucks!

Look at all these crazy people (mostly Asian)

Even though the line was long, it was kinda fun ordering from the original Starbucks (well not REALLY the original since it burned down but this is considered the original). It has a pared down menu (handwritten) and the drinks take a bit longer because the espresso machines are still mechanically pressed, instead of automatic. You gotta respect that. The staff there were SO friendly, GZ is guessing the all stars get to work at this location because of the sheer amount of people visiting on a daily basis.

While I waited in line for coffee, Greg went and go us a Piroshky, which is basically a Russian Hot Pocket. We had the Beef & Onion, Potato & Potatoes, and the Apple Cinnamon, which was heavenly.

Made a couple stops at the shops on the way back to the hotel, including a stop at Anthropologie (I had to). The best thing about this location was the Cozy Shelter, which they let you go inside of.

Yours for only $14,000! It would be the coolest clubhouse ever. (The first photo is not mine, it's from the good old internet).

We were SO FULL from our all day munching but still wanted to watch the Sharks game. We yelped some sports bars that might be showing hockey. We were at the doorway of the first place, when something felt wrong, and we headed to the Canadian bar instead. As soon as we pulled up, we saw a giant Canadian flag and a giant NHL flag outside. And through the window, we saw hockey on TV!

On the right is a Poutine Flight which included 3 types of gravy. Um, wut? YES. We also ordered a side salad to make a dent into the grease balls our stomachs have become.

Not only did the Sharks win but Bracken Kearns scored his first NHL goal! Wait, who? Why is that exciting? Well, it was only exciting because his brother was sitting at the table next to us! Right after Bracken scored, his whole table started screaming and yelling and we could not figure out why. Finally, one of the girls looked over and said, "That's his brother!" WHAT! Awesome!

We stopped by the Space Needle on the way back to the hotel. We had just missed the last ticket by 20 minutes, oh no! Seems like it'd be way cooler at night than the day so we are still debating whether or not to go back tomorrow. Until tomorrow, we leave you with this: