Vancouver - Day 7: Din Tai Fung, Granville, Stanley & Miku

Today is our last full day in Vancouver and due to some of the rain delay scheduling changes, it was a PACKED schedule. It also happens to be Baba's birthday! At his request, the day would start with Starbucks (free birthday drink!) and soup dumplings. 

To illustrate the impact of a chai latte, consider exhibit A: Baba before Starbucks. 

And...15 min later, exhibit B: Baba after Starbucks.

As for his second request, soup dumplings, we headed for what many consider the king of XLB: DTF. Well, short stop outside because they don't allow outside beverages. Quick chug of the pink drinks!

We proceeded to order all of our favorites. First up: the sesame noodles. Presentation amazing and flavor not bad either...but I think we've gotten used to the Dough Zone flavors more. 3.25 stars. 

Next up, pork wontons in red oil sauce - this is my personal favorite in the soup dumpling repertoire - DTF's version had the most pronounced shrimp presence I would say, but the sauce isn't as strong as DZ. Consensus: 4 stars for the wontons.

Next up, main event: pork XLB. They were more intricate perhaps...but the flavor was similar to Dinesty for us. R still prefers DZ. We decided to give these 4.25 stars. 

Last of the standards, cucumber salad -- 3 stars for the DTF version. Again, not enough flavor. DZ the clear winner for this dish for our family. 

But the surprise star were the chocolate XLB! DZ definitely needs to pick up this item.

I wasn't expecting to like it that much but it's reminded me of a nutella crepe. Very nice as a meal closer! 4 stars. 

After eating, we caught a Lyft over to Granville Island because we had tickets today for a performance of The Play that Goes Wrong at the theatre on Granville. Everyone recommended Granville Island so we came early to check out what all the fuss is about. Such a beautiful day. Vancouver was trying to make up for the rainy gray days!

First stop, Kids Market. L is a bit too tall for the kids entrance now!

They thought it would be too childish...until they find all the Miffy, Jellycat stuffies, and Calico Critters. Each generation has their own Cabbage Patch Kids and beanie babies! 

We considered heading here for Boba and Tofu souvenirs...but figured the organic treats might spoil faster.

Over to the Public Market! We got a bunch of random local nut, cookie, cake samples. Also very nice fruit. I can see why locals would come here for weekly fruit stock up. 

The entire harbor area was very bustling with lots of tourists sitting, watching the boats and ferries come and go, and eating their snacks from the market. 

Soon it was time to get to the theatre for the show! The twins were much more excited about this one compared to Antigone. Apparently this play has made the influencer rounds more than Sophocles. 

 

I am not a huge fan of slapstick and physical comedy (people running into walls, being punched in the face, etc - was particularly NOT into the subplot involving the only two female characters beating each other up to fight for a role in the play) but there were some verbal and plotline jokes which still got me laughing. Watching the set fall apart was also entertaining. Compare this closing set to the previous preshow shot!

We also headed over to Net Loft where R picked up a few small items from Paper Ya. It was cute - I would have bought some of the books but they were SO expensive! I need to build some shopping days into our Japan trip next spring! This was a cool sculpture, IMO, wooden carved captain posing with a real ship metal propeller.  

There were SO many boats. I have no idea how they all make a livelihood if they are all commercial getups so I have to assume many are weekender personal leisure boats.

 

We never actually made it to the famous Lee's Donuts (no one was feeling fried pastries after all the XLB), so snapped this photo of the line from the taxi as were driving away. 

Today was not a big walking day - instead we were going to travel by cycling. We picked up some rental bikes from Spokes at Canada Place and headed out for a spin on the Stanley Seawall bike paths. The total ride should be less than one hour but we had lots of sightseeing stops planned. First stop: the totem poles. 

I thought it was cool that they invited artists to recreate historical poles from 8 different First Nations families/lineages: Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl), Haida, Nisga'a, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Stó:lo. My favorite was the Nisga'a Beaver Crest pole with all the animal carvings all around. 

Shot of the Vancouver skyline a little past Hallelujah Point. 

Next up: Brockton Point Lighthouse, marking the most eastern point of Stanley. The lighthouse keeper was the one historically responsible for shooting the 9 o clock gun (which still goes off every night with a blank load) to help mariners calibrate their time (though now it's just ceremonial since everyone navigates digitally). 

L posing by the girl in the wet suit sculpture (who apparently often gets mistaken for a Vancouver version of the Copenhagen Little Mermaid). 

It was a pretty crowded bike path even on a random Wednesday and we had to get off at some of the most popular stops to walk out bikes. Here's my full sun cover get up. 😆 

The weather wasn't too warm and the sea breeze was refreshing -- plus the views were unbearable, so I didn't get too much complaining. 

This is Siwash Rock. I love how the single tree up there is perched like a cocktail umbrella garnish. 

There are 3 beaches along the way too, we stopped at this one, Third Beach, so we could say the twins visited a beach in Vancouver. 

They were more into the Second Beach playground. 

Our last stop was at the Lost Lagoon...but they were more into the ducks than the lagoon. 

Another use of Add Me for a final family shot!

The entire bike ride was a little under 2 hours and very conveniently left us just a couple minutes away from our dinner reservation at Miku for Baba's birthday. The following food photos are coming in reverse order because that's how they loaded in and I'm too lazy to go back and reverse them. 😆 Happy birthday Baba! It was a very fancy restaurant so he was a little embarrassed that we still sang for him. But what's a birthday with a candle and song!

The sushi platter. So good. Everything was really good. Baba and I got the kaiseki menu so we won't be able to tell you what all of this is, but their flame seared Aburi sushi was delicious in maki roll and pressed oshi forms. The otoro in the middle was SO buttery. 4.5 stars for the sushi.

Mains included a miso sablefish. Good flavors but wouldn't repeat if a la carte. 3.5 stars. 

And a wagyu steak. I didn't care for this much. I might even dip down to 2.75 stars. 

The twins got California and Unagi-avocado-cucumber rolls. The twins aren't connoisseurs of sushi quite yet so they actually preferred the cheap low-brow sushi in Richmond to these more fancy ones. Only 3 stars from them. 

 

Here's our wagyu carpaccio. Beautiful presentation. I would say 3.25 stars. Flavors were fine but didn't amaze me. Extra bump up in stars for presentation. 

The sashimi was very good. All of them were good but again the fatty tuna was the star. So melt in your mouth. Like eating foie gras. 4.25 stars. 

Lobster gazpacho starter. I enjoyed the combination of the yuzu gelee with the lobster and the tomato gazpacho. Very complex and well matched flavors. I'd give it 3.5 stars. 

Ah this might have been my favorite item of the evening alongside the sushi - soft shell crab appetizer. So yummy. Rich, but still not heavy, mayo sauce was great pairing. 4.25 stars. L even tried some and liked it enough she got seconds. 

The big winner of the meal was the view though. They gave us a window seat with a lovely view of the water and Canada Place. Baba said it was his favorite meal of the trip! (That or the Peking Duck. Twins are a little sick of how much I am still talking about the duck but it was so good). 

We walked back to the hotel after dinner, capping off a helluva last day in Vancouver. Tomorrow, we depart for home. 😭 But it's a 7pm flight so we have time for some more eating. 😆 

Vancouver - Day 6: Chinatown/Gastown, Dynasty Crab & Sunset Beach

We woke to a lot of rain again, but the forecast claimed it would be gone by 1pm or so, so we gamely set out for Gastown/Chinatown on our Gemini-designed walking tour. 

First stop: brunch at Mead & Bread, a well known Vancouver sandwich eatery.  

We got there around noon and there weren't many people around so they had our order ready very quickly. It was kind of interesting watching them make the sandwiches right in front of you. 

One porchetta and one meatball. Side of mustard for both. Verdict? Very very good. The porchetta averages a 3.75 and the meatball averaged a 4.0, but to establish how well regarded these were, neither sandwich got a score lower than 3.5 from any of the judges. 

Very conveniently, a purebread branch was just next door so we were able to sample a few more bars. Here's the cookies & cream bread: just 3 stars. This might be my least favorite of all the Purebread offerings between today and yesterday. Takeaway: get brownies/bars, not sweet cakes/breads. 

R revisited the banana chocolate brownie.  Just as solid today as yesterday. 4.25. 

I went out of my standards and got the caramel chocolate bar on the advice of the worker. 3.75 stars. 

Baba went for the sour cherry cheesecake bar. 3.75 stars. 

After this we headed towards the heart of Chinatown. Here's the Millennium Gate (seems like a must have in every Chinatown, no?) erected in 2002 in celebration of the new millennium. 

The main tourist site here was the historic Jack Chow Insurance Building (now turned into a kitschy animatronic Giant Panda tourist attraction), which has the honor of being the skinniest building in the world (what you see below is it's entire width, a little under 5 feet). 

The original building was 30 feet wide, but the government exercised its taking powers to expropriate 24 of the 30 feet, leaving him with only 6 to use. Chang Tow (land owner) refused to just abandon the last 6 feet and instead built a full commercial building, including a larger basement that went out into the street more (notice the "windows" in the street in front of the store to let in natural light for the basement). 

I had planned to stop at the Sun Yat Sen classical Chinese garden...but it was closed! 😭 There really wasn't much else we wanted to see in Chinatown so we quickly moved on over to Gastown. Chinatown...is not exactly the nicest part of Vancouver, in terms of homeless population, drug use, general grime...the twins were not eager to longer. 

Over in neighboring Gastown, we made our next culinary stop: Soft Peaks organic soft serve ice cream. 

We got classic chocolate and milk tea with pearls. The mix of all three together in one bite was the clear winner. I would give that 4 stars. 

The main attraction for Gastown was the steam clock, which was constructed in the 1970s seemingly as a tourist attraction. It was kind of interesting to watch the system of pulleys and weights that help it run. 

I kind of wanted to wait for the "show" at the top of the hour but I was overruled by the rest of the family who were eager to get back to the hotel pool. We did catch the quarter hour mini-show so got a sense of what it would be like. Interesting...but not mind blowing. 

The walk back took us next to Canada Place and the cruise port. It was a little sad seeing the Princess ship docker next to the water - wish we were about to board a cruise! The view from the pier was quite lovely too. 

Back on the city walk, we passed by this building with a public art display wrapped around its middle bearing the following message:  "lying on top of a building…the clouds looked no nearer than when i was lying on the street." I choose to interpret that as commentary about wealth and prestige...they don't really matter in the greater scheme of things. 

We also passed this beautiful floral display celebrating Pride. 

I forced everyone to take a slight detour over to the Pendulum Gallery in the HSBC building. Sadly the huge swinging pendulum was stationary today because they were installing some new exhibits...but you couldn't tell since it's a still photo anyhow. 😆 

I wasn't keen to go to the pool myself so I suggested we do one more detour over to the local supermarket to grab some Canadian gifts/snacks for friends. We ended up with quite the haul. I suspect some of these presents for "friends" will somehow end up being consumed by our own household...

And with a couple hours to spare before dinner, we headed down to check out the pool. Though the pool was indoors, it had this lovely little outdoor terrace area with loungers and trees. I really enjoyed just lying there for an hour or so while the others hit the hot tub. 

Tonight, we were meeting my friend S (and her 1 year old daughter) at Dynasty Seafood for a live Alaska king crab dinner. 

It was really alive and moving still. I noticed it had some black marks on the shell which would make it easy for us to confirm that it was in fact the same crab being served. 😆 

L was brave enough to actually hold the live crab! Check out that size! And this was a SMALL specimen at only 5.8 pounds. They easily get up to 12!

We got the crab three ways: first, steamed legs. Very tender, sweet, fresh -- 4 stars. Made me realize how salty the frozen ones become probably from being packed with salt for preservation!

The second course was battered and stir fried with ginger and scallion. There were 3 other recommended preparations that were allegedly more popular than this one (chili, too spicy for the kids, cilantro, R is anti-cilantro, and salty egg yolk, which S and I love but my family sadly does not). For being only fourth on the recommendation list, I still found this quite tasty! It was probably my favorite course - 4.5 stars. The big difference for me in terms of the crab meat compared to Dungeness is that it is sweeter and more tender, flaky almost, but not in the bad mushy, I keep repeating myself, but it was a fresher texture. 

And finally, the main course of crab fried rice. Kids said this was their favorite. I'll give it a 4.25 because I found it a smidge on the bland side (which I easily compensated for by adding some pea shoots and green onions from the other dishes). 

Dinner was definitely pricey but for me worth it from a "seeing what all the hoopla about live king crab is about" perspective. Would I do it again? Probably not. The difference in taste compared to a rock crab or Dungeness was real but not enough to make up for the price difference. Which makes me all the more grateful to S for being willing to drive the 50 minutes in rush hour to join us! And with a one year old too! 

When we got back to the hotel, it was only 7:30 -- too early to just turn in for the night, so Baba and I headed out in search of a sunset viewing point. We first tried Parker Rooftop...drinks were fine, but the view wasn't amazing (Gemini recommendation fail!).

We could see the sky starting to turn pretty so we slammed the drinks and did a speed walk down to Sunset Beach. Got there just in time as the show was getting good. They had these big logs perched on the beach that were perfect for sunset viewing. 

Lots of folks were out there creating their perfect Instagram shots. It was a more interesting scene than other sunsets because of the number of boats and paddleboarders and hydrofoilers. 

Had to throw in one photo utilizing my newfound vertical panorama skills. 

Eventually the colors started fading and the air started turning nippy so we turned around to walk back to the hotel. I was again grateful for how centrally located it was -- maybe not 5 min to much besides shopping but at a 20 min walking radius basically we could hit everything in downtown Vancouver. One last parking nighttime shot. This is the futuristic Butterfly Tower rising out of the historic First Baptist Church. 

And that's the end of today. Tomorrow is our last full day in Vancouver! 😭