Vancouver
Ok, so it's 2017 but I finally got our Vancouver re-cap from 2016 up (a little something called the holidays got in the way). Vancouver is an incredible city - good food, shopping, neighborhoods and people! Here are some of our favorite spots.
The Granville Island Public Market is filled with stalls upon stalls of food, homemade products and all sorts of goodness. While there, it was so hard to decide what we wanted to eat! There are also plenty of little shops featuring accessories, clothing, home decor and more!
There was one stall in particular Dan made sure to seek: The Oyama Sausage Company. This shop was featured on an episode of Andrew Zimmer's Bizarre Food.
After perusing the massive selection, we decided to pick a few different meats to try. We then picked up some cheese at another shop around the way and had a meat and cheese feast for lunch!
There were so many cute shops we popped into along the way. One being Old Faithful Shop in the Gastown neighborhood. Think of this as a general store, filled with beautifully curated wares and goods.
Although we already ate lunch and it wasn't quite dinner time, we still couldn't pass up a chance to check out Meat and Board (another Andrew Zimmer rec).
So as an afternoon snack, we split a porchetta sandwich. It was delish. I'm defn drooling as I'm looking at this picture.
And even after our mid-afternoon snack, I needed another mid-mid afternoon snack. I got a matcha and red bean soft serve twist with a drizzle of condensed milk from UYU.
A clothing store I enjoyed shopping at was Noul. It has plenty of on trend pieces at reasonable prices. I picked up a few accessories for my girlfriends and myself.
Here I am, dining at Long's Noodle House. It's a small, no-frills restaurant where it isn't uncommon for one to share a table with strangers. The more the merrier, right? We ordered the hot and sour soup with noodles (pictured here) and dumplings (of course). Overall, we give the meal 4 thumbs up.
On the only non-rainy day we had in Vancouver, we decided to rent bikes from Cycle City to ride around Stanley Park. We opted for the self-guided tour. Armed with a map, we cycled in and around Stanley Park. It was a great way to see the city.
It was a perfectly clear day for our outdoor adventures.
After our bike tour, we decided to go see the suspension bridge. It was pretty cool. But to be honest, the price of the tickets were pretty steep. Part of us wish we had gone over to Grouse Mountain instead. No biggie, though!
Macarons, of course! Lucky for me, Faubourg was just around the corner from our hotel.
We were told that Richmond is known for their asian food. One day for lunch, we hopped in our car and drove to Richmond for dim sum. We dined at Kirin and it was so good. Definitely one of the best and not so chaotic dim-sum places we've been to! Ressies are a must or you'll end up like us - waiting for a table...
On our last night, we went to Nuba, a lebanese restaurant. The lovely blogging duo of Footnotes & Finds gave us this recommendation.
We ordered Le Grand Feast so that we could try a little (or a lot) of everything!
A few other places that deserve to be mentioned (but not picture above): 1) Savio Volpe - We were craving Italian food and this hit the spot; 2) Paul's Omelettery - a great breakfast spot. This was our last stop prior to heading to the airort and yet another rec from Footnotes & Find; 3) Roots - a great shopping spot for comfy clothing. Thing sweat-everything. Dan made out like a bandit in this store; 4) Hudson's Bay - Canada's iconic department store. Lucky for us, there was a massive sale going on (not to mention the amazing conversion rate for the US dollar)!; and 5) Blue Ruby Jewellery - a great little jewelry shop that's scattered throughout Vancouver.
I hope you enjoyed this recap. And if you ever find yourself in Vancouver, do let me know if you visit any of these places :)