My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
On Day two, we based our itinerary on recommendations from a travel podcast I listen to, called Extra Pack of Peanuts. Travis and Heather had spent about a month in Vancouver. While they were there, they stayed in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, so that’s were most of their recommendations centered. We slept as late as we wanted to (Emily did, I woke up at 5am) and took a cab to Mount Pleasant.
Travis and Heather said that Fable was the best brunch. Okay. They said there was always a wait, but we could put our names in and then go down the street for donuts while we waited. We were mount pleasantly surprised that there was no wait! Because it was a Thursday! Which was great because we were hungry. Everything on the menu looked good. I wanted to order about 10 different things but settled on the Avocado Benedict which was on special. Emily had a hard time deciding between the Avocado toast and the French Toast. She went with the French toast. While we waited for our food, we realized that mimosas were an option. We asked the waitress about the special. I don’t know what she said, but it involved strawberries. We ordered two. This was starting to be a theme. Canadians were saying words we didn’t understand, so we just said yes. So far, it was working out beautifully.
The mystery mimosas came and they were incredible. Really fresh and fruity. We wondered where the name Fable came from, so we looked it up on the provided wifi. Fable was just short for Farm to Table! How cool! Now we knew this was going to be good.
Finally the food came and it far surpassed our raised expectations. The bites of Benedict melted in my mouth. The eggs were perfectly poached and the yolks were more colorful than I’d ever seen yolks to be. Emily said her French toast was the best she’d ever had in her life. I took a bite, and had to compare it to the French Toast I’d just had with my family at the Tower Cafe. That French Toast was in a league of its own. This French Toast could compete. It had more sweet stuff than the Tower French Toast with cinnamon butter, bananas, candied walnuts and caramel. Emily said they must have cooked the toast in the caramel because the bottom was crunchy and the top of the toast was creamy. But who needs to compete? There are no losers. This food was beyond amazing. A+. Travis and Heather, we approve.
As we paid the bill, the waitress asked us about our plans in the neighborhood. Did you plan on Thrifting? No! But now we were! She recommended going to 33 Acres, a brewery that was also Travis’ favorite. When we left, it was 11am on the dot, so we walked around to give the Thrift Stores and the Breweries a chance to open.
With the lifestyle I have (needing to fit everything into the suitcase weight limits by the airlines) I do have to say that I feel very accomplished going into a shop, looking around and finding nothing I want or need. We breezed through the thrift stores looking for a formal dress that would be more flattering than the ones I own. I didn’t find any. It was very satisfying.
We found our way to the 33 Acres Brewery, and found it to be nothing special. We have no idea why this brewery gets the hype it does. The beer was fine, but not amazing. The atmosphere was nothing special: white walls, some plants, a community table. They had sparkling water for free available on tap. I liked that. I gave this brewery a C. It was average. Not bad, but not anything unique. Sorry, Travis, I don’t get it.
We weren’t hungry AT ALL, but decided to stop at Cartems donuts, which Travis and Heather had gone on and on about. Heather’s favorite is the Earl Grey. Now this was beautiful. We ordered half a dozen donuts to go.
They gave us a box the shape of an extra extra long shoe box. Or a box for long stemmed roses. It was awkward and funny. We ended up carrying that box around for the next 10 hours.
Next we stopped at the Craft Beer Market. Here we go! Hundreds of beers on tap. Surely there would be something we liked! We decided to share a flight of the local beers. We read the descriptions, tasted them and then shared our ranking. Emily and I make good beer tasting buddies– she likes hoppier beer, while I like mine more fruity.
Through the window of the brewery I saw some giant birds. We had to go check those out.
We found ourselves on the path where we had ridden our bikes yesterday! Yesterday it was sunny and warm, today it was sprinkling. Both days were perfect. We enjoyed the half hour walk to Granville Island, hoping to take advantage of the places that looked interesting now that we didn’t have bikes with us.
We waded into the Granville Island Market. It was super crowded. With the giant box of donuts, it was too cumbersome to spend too much time here looking at things we didn’t need. But I did find these cool grapes!
We would have explored more if it hadn’t been so crowded.
Instead, Emily needed more oysters so we went to Tony’s Fish and Oyster Cafe.
Across the street from Tony’s was the Granville Island Brewery. There was a long line to get in that was forming outside in the rain, so we went around the corner to check out the distillery first. Liberty Distillery had a few different kinds of whiskey and they were delicious.
We sat outside and watched a blacksmith pose for pictures with some really interesting sculptures. Then we went outside, finally ready for some more sugar and tasted the donuts. They were great. Another point for Travis and Heather. My favorite was the Earl Grey because it was so different. Emily liked the Apple Fritter.
We wobbled over to the Granville Island Brewery determined to check as many boxes off of our Vancouver wish list as we could.
There was poutine on the menu. I mean, you can’t go to Canada without having poutine! And I’d never had it before! We took some deep breaths and stuffed it in.
It was cheesy and salty and savory. It was so good we wished we had more room in our bellies.
Just a few blocks out of our way home was Rain or Shine Ice Cream. Travis had named this ice cream shop as the best ice cream IN THE WORLD. We were so full, but couldn’t pass this up. We walked inside and I could immediately tell why this place stood out.
So many unconventional flavors!
I immediately felt sorry for the people who worked there. How did they deal with the people who wanted to try all the flavors before committing? I wanted to try all the flavors! I ruled out the traditional flavors. That left 12 I wanted to try. Oh boy. How to choose?! I let the guy in front of us go ahead. He wanted Peanut Butter– he said it was the best. I had just taken that off my short list! I asked for a taste of the peanut butter, the honey lavender and the olive oil and pumpkin seed brittle. The peanut butter was delicious and flavorful, but didn’t quite blow my mind, the lavender ice cream reminded me of a creamier version of lavender ice cream I have in lavenderville, where my mom lives (that’s not what it’s called, but she’s surrounded by lavender farms. And they have ice cream), and the olive oil and pumpkin seed brittle was just as weird as I thought it would be. A bite was enough. So I ordered a single with two flavors: the Goat cheese and blackberry jam and the blueberry balsamic. They were everything I wanted them to be and more– special, interesting. My tastebuds had to reconcile with my brain that I was eating ice cream with unexpected flavors. A+. Definitely a can’t miss spot and I’m glad we squeezed it in. Now I’m curious to see if I’ll be able to squeeze into my uniform.
We walked back over the bridge toward our hotel at night. I love being out at night (as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t get to spend as much time on dry land at night as I used to). Everything was all lit up with their twinkly lights.
The boats were pretty and the market was so clear. Once again, the pictures I saw on my phone just couldn’t do justice to capture what I saw in real life. It was beautiful.
We stopped back at the hotel to see if we could regroup enough to get back up and walk around Gas Town. Gas Town was the old town where Vancouver originally started. It has cobblestone streets and several of my sources said it was cool. We couldn’t consume anything else, but we thought maybe we’d just walk around? We couldn’t. Once we landed at the hotel room, the pants came off and the jammies came on and there was no getting out of bed. We’d only walked 7 miles. Emily would be leaving early the next morning, so I would have to check out Gas Town on my own and send her pictures.