Day 2

After the packed night we had before, coffee was in desperate need. Luckily we were just down the street from Revolver — an indie-type coffee shop with nice staff, tasty baked goods, and great coffee. They also play good music on vinyl records and we discovered a new band called Alt-J. The 1% cappuccino & raspberry thumbprint cookie definitely hit the spot. After coffee we headed to Yaletown and then Robson Street for some shopping and food. It’s tradition for me to always go to Beard Papa’s if there’s one in the city. We got the mango cream puff, which was messy and tasty as expected. Other locations I’ve been to have more variety, but they took US & CAD (bonus!). For lunch we chose Guu with Garlic. We wanted to go to one of the Guus, but there was just not enough dinners in the trip, so we went to the one that was open for lunch. This had the best reviews and lots of recommendations, but I was a bit disappointed. We were basically the only table in the restaurant for lunch (I think they just recently opened for lunch) and the food wasn’t anything revelation-worthy. I liked the ebi mayo better than the karaage; the karaage seemed to be a bit gristly or have some skin at odd places in the “nuggets”, though it made a nice snack later when we took a break from biking around Stanley Park for a mini-picnic on Third Beach. It was really fun biking around the outside of the park and stopping to rest and look at the totems and take a nap on the beach. Stanley Park is really easy to get to from the city, yet it’s so serene and quiet.

After we dropped off our rental bikes bake as Spokes, we headed to Hotel Georgia to visit Hawksworth for dinner. This was the best meal we had in Vancouver. The drinks were great and inventive (hotel georgia, yuzu/shiso mojito, corpse reviver #2, and beer they’d put in an ice bucket for you!) and the service was very friendly, though maybe a smidgen artificial at times. The food, unlike Guu, was revelation-worthy. We had the pan seared scallops ‘kfc’ (korean fried cauliflower), green apple, and sesame and though Dan hates cauliflower, he is now a convert. The crispy quebec quail glazed sweetbreads with romanesco, moroccan couscous, and preserved lemon were a bit tangy and salty, but still crispy and delicious. By far the best part was the pan roasted pacific sablefish lap cheong, pea tendrils, pickled shiitake, chinese sausage broth and crispy yam chips. It was a great blend of vegetables, protein, and broth. The fish was rich enough to stand up to the sausage but didn’t make the dish heavy. We got a chocolate pudding with dark chocolate coffee, rum, chocolate cake and a black sesame macaron with yuzu filling for dessert and both were gobbled up before some passionfruit marshmallows, cherry pate du fruit, and a house digestif of brandy, ramazzotti amaro, apricot, anisette, aromatic bitters, lemon oil.