Edible Canada

I have been wanting to check out Edible Canada since they opened and the opportunity presented itself when my mom was in town. We brought my nephew and grabbed a table on the patio. My mom ordered the grilled cheese sandwich with maple bacon, brie and apple. I ordered duck confit hash with wild mushrooms and poached eggs. We both had a cocktail with tea and Okanagan Spirits Eau de Vie.
While the food was tasty, the service detracted from our experience. It took a very long time to place our order, our server lost our order and had to return to our table ten minutes later to ask us what it was again. The bacon was missing from my mom's sandwich so she had to send it back. I don't know if it was an off day or just the way it is there...
On a side note, food nerd alert

That is my mom in the background, Duck Hash in the foreground.

Arbutus Coffee

When I cook for the retired priests at Pandosy Place I usually head over to Arbutus Coffee for lunch. They have great coffee, but the main draw for me is the quiche. Today's special was tomato and feta, but it has always been different each time I was there. I love that the crust appears to be homemade, that the quiche is soft and creamy and that it is seriously see dish. Nothing fancy, just a great Sunday lunch.

Pig Industry Dinner

Last night, I was very lucky to be in possesion of a ticket for a special dinner at Fuel. It was an industry (meaning food industry) event, so it started at 11pm. It was so worth the wait.

We started with predrinks at Maenam. The service was spotty at best. 20 minutes to get a drink from the bar?? The server kept blaming the bartender, but I think they shared the blame...

A glimpse of what was to come in the window.

The room was set up with 5 long tables and it was packed. Silver pitchers of cold beer from R&B Brewing sat on every table and the room was humming as people caught up with old friends and made new ones.
The dishes started to come out of the kitchen. First a bowl of roasted red and yellow beets with toasted almonds. Next, a mound of baked beans with pork meatballs and pork lardons. Cabbage, the best cabbage I have ever eaten, creamy, braised cabbage with (I think) bacon. A crisp salad of arugula, apple and Montreal smoked tongue. My plate was filling up rapidly and there was still more to come. Buttermilk fried onion rings and roasted potatoes and then, finally, the star of the evening, the roast suckling pig.

Yeah, I was that happy.
As we enjoyed the feast, servers came around with platters of the good bits... jowls, brains, trotters and ears. Having tried all those good bits before, I took a trotter and left the other bits for my table companions.
Just when we thought it was over, the plates were cleared and more came out ~ a selection of cheeses with honeycomb and crisp bread, bacon ice cream and something called pudding Chaumard (basically cake cooked in a maple syrup concoction).
We were begging for mercy by the end of it. I stumbled home full of beer and found, with a big smile on my face. It was 1:30 am when I got home.

Unfortunately, Fuel will be closing Nov 29th. Fortunately it will be reopening as refuel Dec 2nd. And Fuel is doing some Whole Hog Dinners Tonight (Nov26) and tomorrow night..<

Not food: art

Look at that, another 2 months with no blog post... I still cook, really I do! I just don't feel like writing about it all the time...

Today, I swung by the One of a Kind Show at the convention center. Its on till Sunday and full of, well, one of a kind things.
I stopped by the Hob Snobs booth and picked up 3 adorable cards by The Beautiful Project. I was also eyeing the laptop bags by Track and Field and was thrilled to hear that she makes netbook bags as well. I will be picking one of those up when I have a chance to make it to Cambie and 13th.



After that, I was drawn to the Luved Clothing booth, where I ended up purchasing the wrap hoodie (left) in a dark green. So warm cozy and comfortable. I decided after that I was cut off from purchasing, but that didn't stop me from ogling all the other wonderful objects/jewellery/art/fashion.
Check it out!

The sky

 

I took this photo a while back and promptly forgot about it ~ one of the drawbacks of having an 8GB memory card in your camera. I have not photoshopped this, the sky really did look like the picture. Taken on a sea wall walk.

For Mindy

Here, as requested, photos of a Westcoast fall. And Aggie, of course.

<

Gratitude

Sometimes, you just need a friend to listen to you, to distract you, to share their own stresses. I was very lucky on Saturday, as K and R took me off to the farmers market. I know, a farmer's market in March, crazy! It was a lot of fun, featuring a couple of interesting performers

 

The view from the farmers market was incredible as well and this photo does not do it justice.

 

After we shopped, R dropped K and I Cafe Barney on Granville and we had a good breakfast and a wonderfully therapeutic chat. (Thank you!!)

 

Anyway, two days later, Rob and I reaped the benefits of the market trip with Organic potatoes from Helmers, Mushrooms from somewhere else, greens from Langley growers and a nice free run chicken breast from Tenderland.

 

This is the mushroom saute action...

And the finished product:

Chinatown

Sunday, sunshine and congee lured me over to china town. After lunch at Hon's in Chinatown, I grabbed an egg tart from New Town Bakery and wandered over to Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden. The gardens are absolutely stunning, especially in the early spring sunshine....

more photos can be seen on my flickr page.

Dinner, pictured here, was stirfry made up of ingredients purchased from T & T.


IMG_9416
Originally uploaded by kayaksoup

New Town Bakery

We sat in the car eating the hot steamed pork buns, shrimp turnover and pork turnover. Outside, cold gray rain. Inside, delicious greasy food!

A day in the life.....

Springtime. Finally.

The sun comes out for 30 seconds and the locals go crazy. The seawall was packed this afternoon, people were playing beach volleyball, frisbees were being tossed etc. It was only 10 degress (50 for you south of the border folks). Unfortunately, the pictures mostly sucked due to playing with a crappy camera.