Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Christmas 20 1 1 : Vancouver Day 2

Happy Leap Day! I know March is right around the corner (as in mañana), and I'm still (slowly) recapping our Christmas 2011 vaca. Slow and steady wins the race right? Right!

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All the walking the previous night had our tummy's growling for food. As with tradition on this trip, we jumped on Yelp to guide to us a delicious breakfast joint. Lo and behold, the two most recommended places in North Vancouver were right under our noses. To the market down under our hotel we went!

First up, Sweet Carrie's Dessert Shop. Everybody was raving about their pavlova so we promptly put in our request for one. Since we were there so darn early, we had the opportunity to observe them make one for us.
This thing was amazing. So fresh and delicate. Too sugary for my kind of breakfast, but something I would totally order again.

We took the pavlova to the bay side to enjoy while overseeing the water.

While the pavlova was drool worthy, we were craving something more filling and comforting for breakfast. We walked back into Lonsdale Quay's Market and ordered one of the most delicious ham sandwiches from All Day Cafe.  Check out this buffet of fresh fruit at the market though! Drool!

A little more satisfied, we went back upstairs to our room to have a couple more oranges and plug in our coordinates for today's outing. First up, Stanley Park!

Stanley Park was absolutely gorgeous with numerous entrances and running/hiking trails. You could spend all day here and never walk the same trail (starting to think this is a re-occurring theme in our trip since Whistler was like this)!! The scenery was also breathtaking despite the winter chill!

After driving around for a good hour (every time you park somewhere, you have to pay!), we drove to Chinatown to have lunch at Phnom Penh. You know this is the place to check out if Anthony Bourdain made a personal visit. We got there right as they were opening up at 11:30am. Thank goodness we did because not even 10 minutes later, this quaint lil place was packed to the gills with people and a line out the door was forming!! We ordered the Phnom Penh noodle soup, a rice flour pancake with eggs and green onions, and a half order of their famous chicken wings. Y'all even a half order of chicken wings was a ridiculous amount! We don't even want to know what a full order might look like... And because we're ravenous people, I totally forgot to take pictures of our meal. So just use your imagination mkay? Cool!

As usual standard of vacation time, we ate way too much so it was time to burn off those calories by visiting Robson Street. Robson Street is famous for shopping and home of the JapaDog. While I'm not a huge fan of shopping, we decided to partake to add the adventure to our "been there, done that" bucket list. I picked up a shirt at FCUK and the hubby picked up a track jacket for cheap.

Once we reached the end of the mile of shopping, we hopped into JapaDog to try out the interesting hot dogs! The place was tiny and overflowing with people.
Sorry for the blurry iPhone pic 

I ordered the Terimayo (right) and the hubby ordered the meatlovers (left). He also ordered butter and shoyu shaked fries and boy were they buttery!! I wasn't a fan of them, but the hubby wolfed them down. I'm guessing that means he enjoyed them.

Right next to JapaDog was Beard Papa's!! Beard Papa's has THE best cream puffs ever. Their strawberry one is to die for. I'm salivating just thinking about it. Unfortunately, today's flavor at this location was Mango and the everyday flavor, Vanilla. Undecided, I ordered one of each to take back with us to consume at the hotel.

After pigging out and putting in quite a few miles on our shoes, a quick nap was needed. After a brief nap, we headed out to Van Dusen Botanical Garden. Most of the trees and flowers were dead, but we still had a great time walking around the park. We spent 2 hours at the park if that tells you anything. Plus, this garden was GINORMOUS! Paved pathways led to unpaved walkways which led to open fields and various slopes. We got "lost" so many times! It was kind of fun actually. Enter re-occurring theme of endless pathways yada yada yada.
 
It rained on and off during our visit, and I was being totally goofy here. Hubby's idea - promise!

 I REALLY wanted to do the maze, but it was closed. Sad face.

The hubby decided we would visit the water park to cheer me up. Well, the water park didn't have any water in it and three lonely rocks left little to the imagination. Sad face again. The park was still decked out in Christmas gear and we are total 2 year olds at heart so we concluded the gardens with a silly picture.

The garden was super informative with various explanation plaques and I can totally see this place being a great picnic location. Even in the middle of dreary winter, the garden boasted a romantic aura. I can only imagine what it looks and feels like when everything has blossomed in the Spring!!

While we spent two hours at the garden, it sure didn't feel like it. We could have easily spent more time there. It's definitely a place you get a membership at so you can fully basque in the beauty and fully enjoy what all it has to offer.

For dinner, we Yelped it up prior to leaving our hotel after our nap and found a sushi joint everyone was raving about - Sushi Town. The place is connected to McDonald's, which was interesting.

Sushi Town serves complimentary barley tea upon seating. Yum! We ordered a sashimi platter, ebi and tamago sushi, and 2 rolls (spider and shrimp tempura).
 
 

Something NONE of the Yelp reviewers mentioned was the size of the sushi and rolls. Y'all, they were the size of my palm. No exaggeration. Check out the Canadian coin in the above photo as a point of reference.  Still don't believe me? Here's additional evidence.
That my friend, is my hubby's hand. Next to the ebi sushi. The tamago was even larger than
the ebi!! And my hubby definitely has man hands so go check out your significant other's
 hand to get a personal evaluation of this sushi!

And here's proof that the rolls were the size of my palm. I told you I wasn't exaggerating!!
I TOLD YOU SO!

Unaware of the size of the rolls (the hubby and I estimated a 1/4 cup of rice per piece), we were struggling to finish our dinner. Once the challenge was completed, we paid the ridiculously cheap bill (sushi was $1/piece and the ginormous rolls were $5.95 each!) and attempted to walk it off. Beyond stuffed, we went back to the hotel to pack up and reminisce about today's adventures. We were also starting to drool about our Seattle adventure which promised the freshest and largest seafood of our lives!

2 comments:

  1. Wow that is huge sushi and at such great prices!! Wish we had that here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like such a fun trip and your food pictures are making me so hungry, those rolls are huge!

    ReplyDelete

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