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!
Corso 32
10345 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, AB
In a way, food bloggers are seldom restricted by boundaries. For those of us who are lucky enough to travel, chances are we will contact local ones for suggestions and what not. For example, last year, Phyllis of me Hungry! visited us in Vancouver and we were happy to be her host for some local eats (despite she is originally from Vancouver). And while none of us where local, something similar happened when Sherman, Mijune and I visited San Francisco for FoodBuzz Food Blogger’s festival (here and here), where we ended up meeting with Naomi who writes The Gastrognome at Incanto. And, of course, Chris in Edmonton who writes Eating is the Hard Part, whom, along with Sarah, I met personally when I visited Edmonton last year (restaurant visit here). Since I was back in town, I though I should check with him again for dinner! Of course, me being the one visiting, I thought I should let the locals decide. And Chris’ suggestion? Corso 32 in Downtown Edmonton.
Delux Burger Bar
9682 142 Street NW
West Edmonton Mall (Location visited)
Edmonton, AB
I have an issue with restaurants which takes something “simple” and, for the heck of it, they complicate it by changing its name. Such is the case of gastropub. What is wrong with pub fare? OK, if you want a fancier environment, fine, just call it a “restaurant” instead of a pub. Of course, that’s my line of thought and it hasn’t stopped anybody from opening fancier versions of regular fare. In this case a “burger bar”. So, while in Alberta, which produces tons of beef, well, why not give this a try? And that’s how I ended up going to Delux Burger Bar.
Tau Bay Restaurant
10660 98 Street NW
Edmonton, AB
To most of us, pho appears to be that quintessential Vietnamese dish, along with banh mi. It is can appeal to almost everybody and can easily be adjusted to even neophytes to this cuisine. After all, if we break it down to basics, it is noodles, broth and some meat. Toppings in the form of bean sprouts, Thai basil, ngo gai (sawleaf herb), jalapeño, et al, plus some lime are on the side for the dinner to adjust to suit his/her taste. However, because a lot of people haven’t been to Viet Nam, myself included, I have no yardstick; instead, I can only make assessments base on what I like. However, there are also times where you have fanatics, people who deem that a restaurant has a certain je ne sais quoi… That is the case of Tau Bay Restaurant. How popular is this place? How about it not being open year round and, as a result, people have even created a site just to confirm it is open/closed… At that point, well, you simply can’t help to find out why people has reached that point. I guess the only way for me to find out is to visit it.
Din Tai Fung
700 Bellevue Way NE
Bellevue, WA
First of all, Happy New Year everybody!
During this last holidays, I decided to do something “unusual”: Rather than staying in town, I decided to go down to the US. Why??? Why not! Considering that a lot of places were closed or people flooding to the malls, I just wanted out. So, for that purpose, I checked with my friend “Stimulant Junkie”. OK, OK. Normally, I would go down to the US by myself; however, in this case, I had an agenda of my own and Stimulant Junkie was more than a “willing” volunteer. And what was that agenda? Visit Din Tain Fung, a well know restaurant from Taiwan which specializes in xiao long bao, aka, XLB. Given all the hype that restaurant have had, there were several questions in my head, and the only way to answer them would have been to visit it!
Dahlia Bakery
2001 4th Ave
Seattle, WA
As I have mentioned in the past, Vancouver, being so closed to the US, at times, it can be trivial for us to go there – border crossing aside, that is. So, with that in mind, I recently did a day trip just to get out of the holidays madness in town. Nothing wrong with it; except that, well, I felt I needed to be out of here. (Or, go from one madness to other madness!).
Originally, I was considering on taking a detour to Din Tan Fung for some XLB; however, when I was told there would be hour long wait, I reconsidered: Do I want to drive to another country just to line up? I would have done it had there been other people with me; no, if I was by myself. Anyway, back to Seattle, I decided to go to that one major point of interest: Pike’s Place Market. But, given I was parked a couple of blocks away and was hungry, rather than walk to the Market and search for (possible) good eats, instead, I went to a backup option which I had a small previous encounter with: Dahlia Bakery. Nope, I haven’t been there previously; rather, I was earlier this year in Lola, another restaurant under the umbrella of Tom Douglas, which Bahlia Bakery belongs to.
Boccalone
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA
A couple of weeks before I went to San Francisco, I received an email from a very dear friend telling me “[this picture] is for you! All things PORK! 
”. That “thing” my friend was making reference to was a sandwich board saying “Tasty Salted Pork Parts”. I guess some people really do know me, hehehehe. So, when I was in San Francisco, I made sure I visit Boccalone, this place with this sandwich board!
