Random thoughts of restaurants and food in Vancouver, BC!
From the category archives:
For my most wordless post… 
As you have realized already, I was in Edmonton, Alberta, in part, to experience a *real* Canadian winter. Making good to their title of “The Festival City”, I went to one that happened during my visit: The Deep Freeze Festival – a Byzantine Winter Festival. Enjoy this photo essay!
While it is true that I take a lot pictures of food, probably way too many, once in a while, I would like to remind people I also take pictures of “other things”. So, for my trip to San Francisco, here are some “random” pictures I took. Enjoy this photo essay!
San Francisco Ferry Building
Welcome San Francisco!
Last weekend, I participated in a food bloggers festival organized by Foodbuzz. I can’t deny that I certainly enjoyed having them as sponsors and participating in this festival was interesting in its own ways. I wanted to attend last year’s festival; however, due to work scheduling conflict (which resulted me in going to New Jersey), I couldn’t attend. It certainly didn’t help when Sherman “bragged” about it. *Shakes fist!!!* So, for this year, as soon as I received the email confirming the days of the event, I booked those days off. I won’t be denied this time! There were a lot of events and I ended up attending a couple of them; however, the ones that probably might entice more to people are the Street Food event, the topic of today’s post, and the dinner gala, which will be the topic of next week Sunday! Of course, I was there for the weekend and I can guarantee your there will be other posts, hehehehe. So, without further ado…!
White Spot
Several locations in Canada
1616 West Georgia Street (Location visited)
Vancouver, BC
A quick reminder of my background: I wasn’t raised in Canada and, as a result, there are a lot of things “Canadian” I didn’t grow up with. One of those things was White Spot’s Pirate Pack (and come to think about it, I didn’t even grow up having Happy Meals). So, when White Spot sent an email (*) to some of us food bloggers about this event, I was enthusiastic. Hey, why not! (After all, it is for a good cause!). So, on that day, I decided to drop by to “experience” it.
(*) As a personal decision, I do not participate in such promotions or events. If I choose to go to a restaurant, it will be on my own.
Now, this post is a bit different compared to the other post – it is more of a photo essay. How come? Because, well, I have been to White Spot previously and, in this case, things weren’t that different. After all, it is a chain!
Yesterday, I wrote about my trip to Edmonton, Alberta for BC Day (here in BC) or Heritage Day (in Alberta) long weekend. For today’s post, one of the showcase events during that weekend: Heritage Festival. Don’t we have festivals here in Vancouver, like Caribbean Days, Greek Day or Summerfest, Powell Street Festival? Yup, we do. However, how about a festival that takes a full park and tents of over 60 countries participate? As I have been saying about Edmonton ever since I came back: Sure, Vancouver has a lot of great “features”; however, we take them for granted. On the other hand, Edmonton does not have similar features but they make the most out of what they have. So, for a long weekend in summer, that’s what they have been doing for the last 35 years… So, my visit to this event in Edmonton, Alberta… Enjoy this photo essay!
Yup, blue sky the whole time!
After we went back to the Legislature and then to West Edmonton Mall (no, it was only one visit to WEM, I am narrating things slightly out of sequence), some of Trinh’s friends were having dinner and they were very gracious to let me join them. The real kicker/interesting part? The person cooking (“L”) is a food blogger who drove from Calgary to cook the dinner! (No, he wasn’t there cooking for me but for their friends. I just happened to be there at the right time… Lucky? 
). Here are the dishes “L” cooked.
OK, actually, this is a drink prepared for me…
(Warning, this post is a photo-essay of sorts. It contains a lot of pictures and, as a result, I have broken it in part 1 and this part 2).
About a month ago, I wrote about an out of town guest whom I called TNG (and, from here on, after given authorization to use her real name, I will refer her as such: Trinh). Truth is Trinh is from Edmonton and has been in Vancouver a couple of times. As for myself, living in Vancouver for 8+ years, I have seldom been around town other than usual places. So, when my task was to showcase some “other locations”, well, I had to resort to the help of others. And I believe it actually worked, as Trinh seemed to enjoy the places we went, not to mention the dinner we had at City Temple of Shanghai in the end (not necessarily the food but, at least, the company). So, a couple of weeks prior to BC Day, somehow the idea pops out: Would I consider visit Edmonton, given I haven never been there? (Just in case, they celebrate Heritage Day on that same long weekend). At first, I was hesitant but, in the end, why not! So I checked with Trinh and that seemed to be a good idea. So, I booked myself a ticket to the place a lot of us diss (and sometimes even themselves) as “Deadmonton”.
(Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the airport or some major sign saying “Edmonton”. However, given the high price of gas in BC, I think this works quite well…)
(Warning, this post is a photo-essay of sorts. It contains a lot of pictures and, as a result, I have broken it in part 1 and part 2).
