Vancouver Weekend
This Thursday is Nicole and I's 9 year wedding anniversary. Since I'm going to be up visiting BioWare Monday to Wednesday and on Thursday the guys are arriving for the Green Ronin Summit, we decided we had best celebrate over the weekend. So Friday we drove up to Vancouver, dropped Kate off with her dad, and checked into the Hyatt downtown. Our plan was simple: spent time together alone. Our apologies to our Vancouver friends, but we just wanted to relax and be together. We did not bring computers and tried not to worry about work, money, or my impending move to Austin.
We're back now and I have to say mission accomplished. We decided we didn't want to run around a lot, so the basic plan was to eat well, see movies, and lounge around in between. We saw three movies: Machete, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The American. That's the order we saw them in and also how'd I'd rank them for enjoyment. Machete was a blast. It delivered exactly what was promised in that original trailer and then some. Over the top, funny, and politically appropriate for this year. The Girl Who Played With Fire was also good. Both of the leads do an excellent job and the story continues to be engaging. The American I was lukewarm on. It was slow paced, didn't have a lot of dialog, and didn't do much to make me give a shit about George Clooney's character. And the ending was pretty much exactly what you'd suspect.
For food we went to a mix of old favorites and new places. Friday night we just sort of stumbled on to a Greek place, Kalypso. While it was no Panos Kleftiko (our favorite Greek place in Seattle), it was decent and their calamari was excellent. Saturday we went to this placed called The Edge. We had picked it because its menu boasted things like poutine with ox tail gravy. On arrival we discovered that they were only serving food from their brunch menu, so no poutine. On the upside, the eggs benedict with sockeye salmon was delicious. Saturday night we went to Tojo's, a great Japanese restaurant we've been patronizing since the 90s. We were saddened to discovered one of favorite dishes (Tojo's baked oysters) was taken off the menu during the Olympics and has not been reinstated. We love that dish so much we had planned to order one for each of us and lick the shells clean. The food we did have was excellent apart from the snapper (which was a little tough and not nearly as buttery as the sablefish they typically serve). Sunday we went for dim sum at the restaurant formerly known as Bo Kong. It's called the Whole Vegetarian Restaurant now, but the menu is exactly the same and just as good. We got many old favorites like fried bean curds in black bean sauce and turnip cakes, but also tried some new stuff like vegetable cutlets with orange sauce. That latter tasted uncannily like fried chicken and we devoured it.
Saturday we also spent a couple of hours browsing at Chapters. I always like seeing what Canadian bookstores have that you wouldn't find down here. I ended up getting Juno: Canadians at D-Day, June 6, 1944 by Ted Barris. I noticed that there was a cookbook for Vij's, a terrific Indian restaurant in Vancouver that we did not get to on this trip, and that came home with Nicole. I'm looking forward to tasting some of those recipes.
I'm glad we had a chance to get away, even for a couple of days. Cheers to 9 great years with my awesome wife. I'm going to miss Nicole and Kate hard when I'm in Austin without them.
And now that I'm back from Canada...I'm leaving for Canada in the morning. This time to Edmonton for business. I have unpacked and repacked and I'm ready to go. Maybe I can get some poutine up there...
We're back now and I have to say mission accomplished. We decided we didn't want to run around a lot, so the basic plan was to eat well, see movies, and lounge around in between. We saw three movies: Machete, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The American. That's the order we saw them in and also how'd I'd rank them for enjoyment. Machete was a blast. It delivered exactly what was promised in that original trailer and then some. Over the top, funny, and politically appropriate for this year. The Girl Who Played With Fire was also good. Both of the leads do an excellent job and the story continues to be engaging. The American I was lukewarm on. It was slow paced, didn't have a lot of dialog, and didn't do much to make me give a shit about George Clooney's character. And the ending was pretty much exactly what you'd suspect.
For food we went to a mix of old favorites and new places. Friday night we just sort of stumbled on to a Greek place, Kalypso. While it was no Panos Kleftiko (our favorite Greek place in Seattle), it was decent and their calamari was excellent. Saturday we went to this placed called The Edge. We had picked it because its menu boasted things like poutine with ox tail gravy. On arrival we discovered that they were only serving food from their brunch menu, so no poutine. On the upside, the eggs benedict with sockeye salmon was delicious. Saturday night we went to Tojo's, a great Japanese restaurant we've been patronizing since the 90s. We were saddened to discovered one of favorite dishes (Tojo's baked oysters) was taken off the menu during the Olympics and has not been reinstated. We love that dish so much we had planned to order one for each of us and lick the shells clean. The food we did have was excellent apart from the snapper (which was a little tough and not nearly as buttery as the sablefish they typically serve). Sunday we went for dim sum at the restaurant formerly known as Bo Kong. It's called the Whole Vegetarian Restaurant now, but the menu is exactly the same and just as good. We got many old favorites like fried bean curds in black bean sauce and turnip cakes, but also tried some new stuff like vegetable cutlets with orange sauce. That latter tasted uncannily like fried chicken and we devoured it.
Saturday we also spent a couple of hours browsing at Chapters. I always like seeing what Canadian bookstores have that you wouldn't find down here. I ended up getting Juno: Canadians at D-Day, June 6, 1944 by Ted Barris. I noticed that there was a cookbook for Vij's, a terrific Indian restaurant in Vancouver that we did not get to on this trip, and that came home with Nicole. I'm looking forward to tasting some of those recipes.
I'm glad we had a chance to get away, even for a couple of days. Cheers to 9 great years with my awesome wife. I'm going to miss Nicole and Kate hard when I'm in Austin without them.
And now that I'm back from Canada...I'm leaving for Canada in the morning. This time to Edmonton for business. I have unpacked and repacked and I'm ready to go. Maybe I can get some poutine up there...