Eating my way through Vancouver

So, I was gone for 5 days, which would explain my absence on here! I went to a franchise show in Vancouver last weekend and had a wonderful time.  The show? Was just so so.  But the time with my cousin and his wife enjoying the city? Worth it! I made it my vow to do the whole tourist experience and to eat only local and odd things.  Not my norm.  It was so fun! And my scale is reminding me of that.  Not that I even care though.  It was so worth it.  I even managed to eat at 2 different "Diners Drive-ins and Dives" locations :) Kinda on the bucket list to do that, so I did good!

So here is the photo proof of my weekend.

Thursday:

After I was picked up at the airport, we went for coffee and macaroons in a fancy neighbourhood.  For the life of me I cannot remember which one :) Then we went downtown, picked up Dr. Murray ( he is actually just done law school but I don't love most lawyers so I call him doctor).  We drove around and checked out a few cool neighbourhoods and then went for Mexican.  I did not take one single photo! I think I was tired that night.

Friday:

I had big plans for a day to myself, but at 8 am got a call from a friend to come to Richmond and meet him for coffee.  I am a go with the flow kind of gal so I went! The hedge far away in this picture is the front yard of the house my cousin lives in so I walked to this lovely bus station and proceeded to figure out transit.

I rode the bus and the the Skytrain to get to Richmond.  While there, had an amazing coffee date with a long time friend from childhood.  While there, plans changed again as a friend from Burnaby called and wanted to meet at the crazy mall there.  Metrotown is I think what it is called.  So I took the sky train, a bus, a different sky train and another bus to get there! I was feeling adventurous at this point.  Can I just comment on how green and beautiful it is there this time of year???

After all my adventures, my cousin (see below) picked me up and we headed out for some sightseeing. Poor guy.  Had no idea that I can't sit still.  I think I wore him out! We headed downtown to wander and see.  And oh did we see!

The Olympic torch thing

Stanley Park in the distance

I convinced him to ride the sea bus with me so that I could see this view of the city! It was an amazing sunny weekend.  And if you know Vancouver? That doesn't happen very often!

We then drove around Stanley Park and checked out the views from there.  It is truly a beautiful city when it is sunny.

This is their driveway! It is literally a whole in the hedge that you cannot see until you are right in front of it.  Too funny!

At this point, the Dr. was getting a little tired of me I think.  So I convinced him (the non lover of Asian food or anything too different) to head out to Richmonds night market with me for dinner! They have this crazy night market every weekend during the summer.  I read reviews that it feels like you are in Asia somewhere.  There are vendors set up selling everything you can imagine from clothes to coloured contacts to cheap electronics to random crap! In the middle of this are a whole pile of food vendors so we ventured in to find some dinner.  I said I would pay as he was not sold on the idea of all the oddness.  I made him eat some fairly random things but in the end? He said he actually had fun!

Crunchy Dog.  It is a hot dog, battered and covered in chunks of french fries.  Then seasoned.

Odd.  That is all I can say.  Super salty but kinda fun!

This was mine.  Covered in sweet potato fries and ranch seasoning.  I ate maybe 1/4 of it? It was insanely huge.

Hurricane potatoes

These were more normal and quite tasty

Dim Sum and noodles.  I loved it! Dr? Not so much.  Actually claimed to hate it.  I smiled and then made him eat something else!

Pork bun.  The inside tasted like wieners and beans but the bun in steamed so it had an odd uncooked texture to it.  Good flavour just odd texture.  Keep in mind that combined? We maybe ate half of each of these items.  I know.  Wasteful.  But we wanted to try lots of things!

Egg Puffs.  Can I just say that I can't wait to buy a machine to make these? They were so good! We shared two different ones and I could have eaten more.  They are like a backwards waffle! They are hollow little bits of goodness.  Yummmmmmy!

Fresh squeezed lemonade.  The sign said sugar free! And yet they squeezed sugar concentrate into them for flavour.  Too funny!

They were frying squid everywhere! It was so gross to look at.  We did not try this.  That was pushing my boundaries a little far.

Saturday & Sunday:

We walked and walked and transitted (not a word I know) and walked some more! We saw where Dr. worked, beaches galore, the UBC campus and a whole lot more! And ate some amazing food.

An old Ferrari we saw

Where the Dr. works.  He took me to the 19th floor so I could check out the view.

Diners Drive ins and Dives

Take 1.

Oh.  My.  Word.

Best sandwich ever.  Could not have imagined anything better.  My new favorite place if I go there again! And look at the line up!

Making my porchetta sandwich

We shared the porchetta (left) and a miso duck/spinach/pickled zucchini/aoli.  They were both so good! I was scared of the second one but could not stop eating it.  We also had an amazing spicy potato salad.

We later stopped at a place with 80 flavours of gelato.

In my ode to odd, I had coconut chocolate, pear and cheese (the odd one) and pistachio.  LOVED  the pear one.  Was my favourite!

5 km bike ride/walk behind their house along a working river.  Was neat to watch the tugboats and see the barges.

I was so hot! And my ass was so sore from the bike at this point!!!

The trail

Someones guest house we saw! Can you imagine???  I want it for my house!!!!

Flowering trees and bushes everywhere

An amazing yard and house we went past

Another random place we ate at.  The whole menu was based on different countries and states so you could see where things originated from.  The food was incredible!

Dr. and his lovely wife

Granville Island.  Told you I saw the whole city!

Diners Drive ins and Dives

Take 2

Ummmm......Crap! These were super yummy! But can you see how big they are? These were the short stack.  The small ones.  Their regular pancakes are even bigger!

This was called "South of Denver Omelet"

This was my trip! I didn't photograph a lot of things we did and places we saw, but it was amazing.  I wish Husband had been there.  He would have loved it! Maybe in the future one day we will drive down there together and see what we can do! I am thinking fall? I haven't told him this yet though.  Might need to break the news to him soon!