Loving Hut Express

Sorry took a looong break. I have been busy and okay... maybe a little bit lazy too, but I'm back! Happy New Year! And Happy Chinese New Year too!

With the increasing popularity and the numbers of food carts in Vancouver, I'm so very happy to see one that is Vegan :) I have wanted to try Loving Hut for the longest time, I didn't get to go when it was still a storefront on Broadway, and I didn't get to go when I was in Taiwan, not in Japan(I hope to get the travel posts up soon), not in NYC either... So yeah, it's pretty cool to finally try it out.

Loving Hut Express Food Cart in Yaletown by Roundhouse Community Centre.

Faubourg

I have been to Faubourg a couple of times now. First time was a meet up with my girl friends. Some of us had high tea, some just had brunch. The second time I got to try my own set of afternoon tea :) Faubourg is located in Kerrisdale where in the same area there's at least other two high tea places close by.

Bombay Beat

Bombay Beat is another restaurant that I have wanted to try for a while but because of it's location I didn't go sooner. My Indo-Canadian coworkers have told me to give it a try saying it's one of the more authentic Indian restaurants here. When I finally decided to go and looked it up online, it seemed like it has recently changed ownership and the name of the restaurant has changed from Bombay Bhel to Bombay Beat. The reviews seem to be still good aside from some negative ones about its new service, but regardless, I thought I should still try it out.

I forgot to take a pic from outside again...

Inside

De Dutch

I have always wanted to try at De Dutch Pancake House. It's a breakfast and brunch chain restaurant in Dutch style. I have heard from friends about how they like it a lot but I just didn't have a chance to go for the longest time. Finally I got to visit one of its locations in North Van to meet up with a friend for brunch.

Outside - parking lot

Gorilla Food

Gorilla food is an organic, vegan, raw food place. I came here a long while ago when I was looking for veggie restaurants in downtown and trying them out.

Gorilla Food


Entrance

Rasoee

Gorgeous sunny Sunday afternoon out with my girl friend carpet shopping at Winners. It was an early afternoon, not exactly meal time but neither of us had food yet so we thought we should find a place to eat around 8th Ave and Cambie area. We didn't walk too far to stop in front of Rasoee to look at their big menu outside, we actually didn't know that it was an Indian restaurant at first.

Smart Mouth Cafe

Smart mouth is another one of the sandwich places we go a lot for lunch. It's a cute little place in Gastown. Quite a few seats inside but pretty busy usually. However you should be able find a seat if you go a little late after the regular lunch hour.

Inside

Cafe Medina

A few days before my last day at work, someone that really cares about me at work said I could be treated to Cafe Medina for lunch! Yay for me! :P I actually really wanted to try out their famous home made Belgian waffle but since Medina is right beside my work, I always feel like I could just do it next time and then it never happened. We actualy go for coffee here all the time. But since I don't drink coffee, I would always get their matcha latte. It has a strong matcha flavour but it's not sweet like other places which I like a lot.

Outside of Cafe Medina

NYC 2011 - Day 6

Our sixth and last day in NYC. The flight was at 10:30pm that night but we had to check out by 11:00am in the morning, so after checking out we left our luggage with the hotel for 2 dollars a piece. Breakfast was quite easy this time, my friends had requested to have another value meal at Bistro Marketplace. I didn't take any pictures this time.

It was a pretty relaxing day. There was really only one place to visit on today's schedule - American Museum of Natural History. It's funny even though that was the case, we still ended up not having as much time as we would like to see the museum.

Inside AMNH

NYC 2011 - Day 5

Day 5 was pretty cultured day.

Breakfast started out at Cipriani, right across from Grand Central. I used to pass by it too, but never tried it. I was quite excited to have a chance this time.

Cipriani Le Specialità

NYC 2011 - Day 4

We have walked by this place one of the days before, my friends said they would like to eat it for breakfast since it's so close by.

Bistro Marketplace - 125 Park Ave (between 41st St & 42nd St)

IK2GO

A very short post in between my trip posts. I have a lot food pictures from before that I should probably get to before they get way too old...

One of my lunch lunch adventures from a while back, Italian Kitchen 2GO, it's right next to the main restaurant, Italian Kitchen.

NYC 2011 - Day 3

This morning began with some yummy rice balls at Oms/b. It was one of my favourite grab and go places when I lived here. Very close to Grand Central, less than ten minutes walk.

Oms/b

NYC 2011 - Day 2

Our 2nd day in NYC started with riding the subway down to Flatiron building.

Flatiron Building

NYC 2011 - Day 1

Six days, six of us, a fun trip to the big apple in mid August. Although I didn't really have time to do my own stuff, it was great to just be back there again, see my new york friends, and also share some of my favourite spots with my Vancouver friends :)

I have planned the schedule out for all six days way in advance(I'm kinda crazy like that). Except switching 2 days around and cutting a few places off the schedule because we ran out of time, everything went pretty smoothly according to plan.

I never actually finished writing my other trip posts... so I will try to finish this one first and get back to the old ones later :P

We took a red eye out of Vancouver to New York. The plane delayed a little bit, but flew fast for only a little over four hours, so we arrived in JFK around 7:30am. Between the options of booking Super Shuttle or taking yellow cabs into Manhattan, the numbers came out about the same, so we took two cabs to Grand Central, 3 people each car, turned out to be $45 flat rate + 5 something dollars toll fee + tip, per car.

The reason I picked Grand Hyatt was of course of its location. I used to walk by it everyday, so it is nice to actually live in it this time. It's still under renovation though, I think it will be done very soon in the next few months.

Lobby looked very temporary for the moment.


The usual check in time is 4pm but we arrived around 9am in the morning. I did call in advance asking if we could check in early so we could have somewhere to put our luggage and fresh up before we head out for the day. The front desk was very nice but they told me the best they could do was to put in a request for me since the hotel was fully booked that day. We were lucky enough to get a room first and other two on the same floor but not until later that day. By the way, the hotel does offer luggage holding service. I'm not positive but I think it might be free if u're checking in, and if you have checked out already, they will hold your stuff for 2 dollars a piece.

So after a quick fresh up at my friend's room, we began our day. Since we're right next too Grand Central Terminal, we started our tour there.

I'm stealing a pic of grand central from my friend's photos. (thank you~)

Charm Modern Thai

This is a very delayed post on Charm Modern Thai :P I have been here numerous times, it is one of our regular lunch spots. Somehow I thought I have written about it already but it turned out I haven't yet. Charm Modern Thai offers a lot of vegetarian choices :)

Inside

Giovane Cafe

This is again from a while back. That morning I saw a friend's Facebook post with a picture of a couple nyc taxis parked on the streets of downtown Vancouver, it looked pretty interesting, so at lunch I wanted to go check it out and see what was going on. I thought maybe they might have been filming Fringe.

Very cool to see a nyc subway entrance in Vancouver :)


We asked a nice girl staff and she told us it wasn't a movie or anything special, just something for Nickelodeon.

Since there was nothing else to see, we kept on walking towards the water and see what was good to eat around the area. Then we walked passed by Giovane Cafe.

Estea Beverage Club

This is from a few weeks back when one of our badminton sessions went a little longer than usual and we had to find a place to eat that opens late somewhere in Burnaby. My friend picked Estea.