Going to so to many Olympic events leaves you with very little time for the other very important activities that are going on in the city of Vancouver such as sight-seeing, shopping, eating, and partying. Dina and I had very little time in between our events, in fact we were so busy we had to have our entire schedule displayed on a color coded spreadsheet so we would go to the right place at the right time. The efficiency of our time was actually very impressive in itself. There were a few night we got back from our event at like 10pm, went straight to dinner, then had to get home around midnight to sleep so we could greet the sun at 5am in order to get on the next bus. It was pretty hectic. Luckily, Dina and I were both of the philosophy that you can sleep when you are dead (or on the bus). Dina was used to walking everywhere since he recently had been hiking the Pacific Crest trail, I was fine as long as I had gotten enough food in me.
The city of Vancouver has amazing food. They have a huge asian population from an array of countries, so the variety of traditional and fusion foods is phenomenal. Some people have argued that its the best in the world (even better than their country of origin). Dina and I had some of the greatest Thai food I've ever eaten while on our trip. On our first day in the city we ate at Charm Modern Thai in Yaletown (the hip section of town where all the good bars and urban are), they had a great lunch plate that included crispy prawn wantons and Tom Yum Soup with your entree at a great price. Later in the week we ate at Thai House in North Vancouver which was ranked in the restaurant magazine at the condo as the top rated traditional Thai food in Vancouver. I was told by locals that the Indian food in the city was equally fantastic.
Dina and I also ate at one sort of fancy place in Yaletown for lunch that was recommended to us by our hosts Ken and Nancy, Capones Restaurant and Live Jazz Club. The food here was just as fun to eat as it was to look at. Dina is a Salmon fanatic and had to have that dish while I had the Pan Seared Halibut with haricots verts, enoki cream, fresh herb oil, butter poached potato, and almond brittle, it was really filling and the beans were cooked just perfect I love a good blanched green bean!)
Gastown is another fun section of town that we walked through and shopped on the way back to the condo after an event. The historic old gas light section of the city has the original romantic old buildings and cobblestone streets. The shops are filled with the works of local artists and the crowd here is definitely more laid back. Dina and I ate at Pourhouse, the 1920s styled classy bar and restaurant. I had a great espresso braised beef shortrib that was served with purred carrots and browned sweet potatoes (notice this is the second restaurant to call things that are fried as 'crispy' or 'browned', it must be the new trend to pretend things aren't fried). This section of town was also where we found a huge collection of Olympic pins and clothing that didn't require us to go to the insanely busy Olympics superstore located inside the downtown Hudson Bay department store. The Bay was originally only open till 10pm, then midnight, and by the end of the week they had given up and decided to stay open 24 hours a day since at night the line outside the door was over an hour long.
When Dina and I got out of an event pretty late in the evening, the place we went to was the Yaletown Brewery. They have a large bar section as well as a huge restaurant section that has a full late night kitchen open. I usually don't go to the same place twice, but the timing and needing 'real food' instead of the frozen pizza and assorted fruit and granola bars we had at the condo had us go out there. They have a great potatoe wedge appetizer that had sourcream, onion dip mixed with very large bacon chunks. Mmmmmm, bacon. Dina said the locally brewed beer was pretty good as well.
Several times on the way back to the condo we got to walk through the city's Chinatown. This area had a beautiful chinese gate at the beginning of the area and a few blocks up there were lively chinese restaurants and markets as well as the street had the dual english/chinese character names on the signs. We ate at a place recommended by Yelp called Goldenstone Bakery and Restaurant. They had this great BBQ pork sweet bun that I had as we waited for our meal to arrive before we had out quickly for another event. Dina's rice noodle with veggies, chicken, and pineapple hit the spot before we had to run.
All of the Ethnic Houses and Pavillions had great food. Some of the food was pretty typical/not very exciting, but very delicious after you have been walking around and waiting in line to get in. Dina enjoyed the the brats while I ate a very decent blueberry strudel at the German fan house.
The best pavilion food I felt was at the Swiss House.
Instead of the usual tent, the Swiss had rented an actual restaurant on Granville Island called 'Bridges', so they had a leg up. We had a giant pot of Kasefondu (swiss cheese fondue) and crusty bread that I devoured the night we partied out there. It was so good! The Swiss know something about cheese!
If you are a serious foodie, you should definitely think about heading out to Vancouver. Dina and I didn't even begin to eat since we ate so much of the time at the venues, but the food we did get to try was worth the wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment