Thursday morning my wife and I left for Vancouver about 8am. There was a decent amount of traffic at the border unfortunately, and we rolled into town around 1:30pm. We stayed at the Westin Grand on Robson. A great location, but a bit pricey with the extra taxes and parking fees. We walked up and down Robson Street the first day, looking in various stores, but we ended up not buying anything. We always try to find a xmas tree ornament from cities we visit, as well as a refrigerator magnet. We ended up finding both of them on Saturday. Anyways, tt started to rain, and it was humid, and ended up being the only day with poor weather.
I had made reservations for 7:15pm at
CinCin, an Italian restaurant on Robson that I had read good things about online. We split a tiny salad, and I had a wood fired salmon dish that was quite good, but my wife ordered some chicken, that I tasted and was definitely the better of the two. It looked/tasted as though it was pan seared or fried for a minute and then slow roasted. It was definitely delicious. We were a bit tired, so after dinner we walked around a little more and then went back to the hotel.
Friday was a gorgeous day, and we walked to a funky little breakfast joint called
The Elbow Room, where we had a huge breakfast, but it was amazing. I had some sort of shrimp, feta, bacon and other ingredients omelet. My wife had one called "The Hilary Swank", and I dont even recall what was in it, but it looked very good as well. I recommend that place. In fact..I think everywhere we ate, I'd go back to. So we walked down after breakfast to Yaletown a bit, but most of the stores were still closed, so we took a sea-taxi over to
Granville Island to walk around. We stopped into an amazing farmers market, and looked at a lot of shops outside as well. After a couple hours, we headed back to Yaletown and perused some shops briefly before changing at our hotel and taking the bus up to
Stanley Park. We rented some bikes and went around the park for a few hours. The park is incredible, and anyone who ever travels to Vancouver, should definitely rent bikes if the weather is permitting. There tons of trails through rainforests and giant trees, some beautiful stops to see amazing views of the city, a hidden aquarium, totem poles and more. It was perhaps, the best part of the trip. Certainly the most relaxing.
That night we went to a restaurant called Shabusen, on Burrard. It was teaming with people, and it was a shabu shabu type of environment. The food was pretty good..and we had an assortment of some sushi, bbq pork, chicken and beef, some tempura, and a few other goodies. I wouldnt say its a must-visit, and the service was mediocre, but a good place overall nonetheless. We were going to possibly catch a movie that night, but it didnt work out since we were tired and the timing was off. So we went into a bookstroe and some other shops and then went back to our hotel and went into the restaurant there for some coffee and dessert.
Saturday was again, a gorgeous day and we headed up fairly early to
Grouse Mountain, hoping to stop at a local breakfast cafe type of place on the way, but found none. So we had some coffee and a muffin at a Starbucks. We had planned on hiking up Grouse Mountain, but we werent adequatetly dressed..and it looke dlike more of a 2 hour hike, than the 30 min-1 hour stroll that we were told. So we took the tram up (which was pricey). However, not only did we have some great views of the entire Vancouver area, but they had released 2 grizzly bears into their protected habitat and we were able to get about 5-10 feet from them. We saw them wrestling and walking around, bathing and having fun. My wife was loving it. It was definitely something special to see. After eating lunch and then heading down, we went on over to the
Capilano Suspension Bridge. This looked exciting, but the bridge seemed pretty unstable and my wife was a bit scared, but we got across safely ;) We walked around the other bridges in the trees..it was quite cool. It seemed like the Ewok village. We went back to our hotel and then decided to go see a matinee of Mission Impossible 3. It was better than the last one, which I thought was horrible. There were some good moments and some bad ones, but it was cheesy light entertainment for a vacation. We got some shoes for my wife, cleaned up at the hotel, and then headed over to
Feenie's for dinner. Rob Feenie is apparently some chef who beat Mario Batali in an Iron Chef competition. We split a prosciutto and spinach salad, which was simple to make and quite delicious. My wife decided on some pork loin, which looked good. After debating over a sablefish dish, I actually ordered a hamburger, which was supposedly one of the chef's specialties. I'd have to say, it was a damn good burger. Father's Office burger in Santa Monica is still superior, but this burger had an excellent cut of meat, and tasted quite good. It came with several dipping sauces for the fries..and the spicy mayo and the dill sauce were my 2 faves. We had planned on going to a chocolate place for dessert (Death by Chocolate), but instead my wife ordered a lemon-honey creme brulee, and I had a trio of fresh ice creams: wildflower-honey, strawberry orange blossom, and caramel-fleur du sel..all were excellent...though I was stuffed and could not finish it. Again, another restaurant I would certainly recommend for the decor, and food. Our waiter was amazing, but the front desk reservation guy was fairly rude. Oh, and there was a trillion hot chicks either dining there, or working there.
Sunday, again a perfect day weather-wise, and we were going to go over to Gastown, but kept hearing how it sucked, and as we walked in that direction, it looked like nothing special. So we went back over to Yaletown and bought some fresh pineapple, a large muffin, and some OJ and split that while sitting on some steps by their harbor. Everyone had their dogs out for a walk. We called our moms to wish them well on Mother's Day and then took a walk around the seafront and then back through some Yaletown shops. I had seen a
restaurant on Rachel Ray's $40 a day, so we headed on over to the Sha-Lin noodle house on Broadway. She was on the money. We ordered some dragging noodles soup with chicken and veggies. The noodles were TERRIFIC. We also ordered some of their pan friend dumplings..which we saw several others eating. They were ENORMOUS. 12 were delivered. 4 were eaten. We took the other 8 back with us to Portland and I have 4 with me at work today. If we both end up with stomach aches..you will know why. Speaking of the drive back, we left about 2pm for Portland, and were stopped at 2:30pm at the border. We didnt proceed through until 3:25pm..it took that long. So plan ahead if you ever drive to/from Vancouver. Finally, we were on our way and made it all the way to Everett, WA before hitting traffic, but funny enough, there was hardly any traffic in Seattle. We made it home just before 8pm, did some unpacking and cleanup, and watched Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, while munching on some homemade quesadillas.
I am sure I have left out many funny or interesting details about the trip..and I dont have any photos to share yet, so I included a bunch of links. But we had a really good trip, and cant wait to go there for the Olympics in 2010!
