There is nothing I like more than a line-up of unique food trucks! If you foodies of Vancouver don't know by now, Lonsdale Quay holds a weekly night market on Fridays from 5PM-10PM, which hosts a number of amazing food trucks. Not only that, but they also have many little shops that sell jewelry, clothes, and other handmade products.

As part of this celebration, my girlfriend and I have decided to attempt on trying different food trucks every Friday! Hooray exploration!

For our first taste, we went straight to dessert at Funnel Cakes. Not necessarily a food truck, but a food stand, Funnel Cakes specialize on... you guessed it... FUNNEL CAKES!

If you didn't know, a funnel cake is basically deep fried dough. It had sort of a donut-y taste. It was really good. I ordered the Traditional Funnel Cake, which was drizzled with icing sugar and cinnamon. It was sooo good. It was a little bit soft an chewy much like a donut and sometimes crunchy like some kind of sweet chips.

Traditional Funnel Cake - $5

After walking around trying to decide which actual food truck I should try first, we finally decided to try Ze Bite, which specialize in French food.

It's supposedly "A taste of France in one bite!"

We ordered the Ze Français. It was surprisingly REALLY good. It had a simple recipe of lettuce, ham, dijon mustard, and goat cheese, but it was actually kinda unique. It was the actual bread itself that was a game changer. It was soft and delicate. I'm not really sure what it was, but it looked like an overcooked crepe.

Ze Français - $8.50

Finally, we went to Taser Grilled Cheese. This wasn't really a food truck, but it was a food stand. They specialized in (obviously) grilled cheese!

Unfortunately, they didn't have that large of a menu, but each dish looked very interesting.

We ordered the So Gouda. It was made with smoked bacon and caramelized apples surrounded by gooey melted gouda cheese. This was very delicious too. This was my first time ever trying apples in a savory dish. Its sweetness surprisingly complimented the grilled cheese and it made me want more!

So Gouda - $7

Overall, for our first time visiting the Lonsdale Quay Night Market, we were pretty impressed. There was a number of food trucks to choose from and each were very unique. I am excited to visit this place again to try a different dish!

"Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive"

-George Bernard Shaw

Happy Belated Father's Day!

For Father's Day brunch, we went to Pier 7, a restaurant and bar on Lonsdale Quay's Shipyard and Pier area.

The outside was modern looking and slick. Its location is really nice. It is right in front of the water, so the view was amazing. 

As nice as its location was, the menu was disappointingly small. It was somewhat pricey as well.

I got a Classic Caesar. It tasted pretty good. A great way to start the morning!

Classis Caesar - $8

For a starter, we ordered a Crispy Calamari. One word: terrible. Thee first thing my whole family agreed on was that it was way too salty. It was as if they had old calamari in the kitchen, re-seasoned it, re-fried it, and served it to us.

Really, it was THAT bad. At least that's what we thought.

Crispy Calamari - $12

I ordered the Ahi Tuna Club. It's seared rare ahi tuna, bacon, ranch, and fries. It wasn't too bad, but it was in the bland side. Drenching it with ketchup really boosted the taste though. I wasn't very impressed.

The fries weren't too bad. They were actually pretty good. Some were soggy (the good kind of soggy) and some were quite crispy. No complaints there! Maybe just a tad bit more salt.

Ahi Tuna Club - $16

My mom, my sister, and my uncle ordered the Pier7 Burger. It had aged cheddar, crispy bacon, garlic aioli with fries. I didn't really try it, but it didn't seem to impress my family's taste buds. It was quite basic and having it as the restaurant's "signature dish" was disappointing.

Pier7 Burger - $16

 Giving this restaurant another chance, we tried their Pan Fried Dungeness Crab Cake. Served with garlic aioli, this dish was actually pretty good. The crisp edges of the cake complimented the creamy sauce it was served with.

Pan Fried Dungeness Crab Cake - $15

Overall, I wasn't to impressed. In fact, I was extremely disappointed with everything about this restaurant. With its location, I had high hopes and expectations about the place. The food wasn't great, the service was slow (extremely slow), and we even found hair in my step dad's food that we had to turn it away. If it wasn't so expensive, I would've been a bit more lenient, but the fact that this could be classified as somewhat a formal restaurant, it was a huge disappointment. 

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters."

-George Herbert

ADVENTURE!

Today was awesome! I climbed the Chief in Squamish with my two friend's, Ryan and Jeremy. We literally hiked for 3.5 hours just to climb up 700+ miles of mountain. 

Throughout the entire hike, the trail would change from being a nice, flat trail to open areas and rocky climbs.

There were even epic points of the trail where holding on to a chain was necessary to aid you up the side of huge rock faces.

After an hour and a half of climbing, we finally made it to the top of the Second Peak, which was 655m tall! It's amazing to think that it only took 1.5hrs to climb the mountain from the very bottom to the top!

Due to Ryan's kindness and generosity, I was able to enjoy this amazing Vietnamese Sub. It was a little cold, but after a hike like that, ANYTHING would've tasted amazing. Not to say that the sandwich on it's own would be an delicious dish. It was enough to hit the spot for us to move on to the next peak.

On the way to the Third Peak, we saw a group of people, I'm not to sure what the actual name of the activity is, but swinging. Think of it like bungee jumping but in a swimming motion. It was really intense.

This was the view from the Third Peak. It was not as great as the Second Peak, but it was still breath taking.

and... here my friend Ryan being artsy.

Overall, that was an awesome hike and a delicious sandwich. Hopefully this will be a weekly or every 2 weeks kind of event.

"Stop and look"

-Anonymous

THIS WEEK HAS BEEN SUNNY AND BEAUTIFUL!

This sandwich wasn't anything special. Just a plain old sandwich with whole wheat toast, chicken mixed some mayonnaise and onions, and lettuce. It was quick and easy to make. Nothing too fancy!

But the best part about eating this sandwich was being able to enjoy it outside in the calm and sunny weather. The weather in Vancouver has been amazing recently: hot and sunny in the day and warm and breezy in the night. Just awesome!

Just to add for an update to my life:

1) My buddy Juan and I are organizing a cabaret for charity around August 9! It should be hilarious and entertaining.

2) I now work for American Eagle Outfitters in Park Royal. Hooray job!

That's basically the main things going on in my life. Until next time foodies!

"Sandwiches are wonderful. You don't need a spoon or a plate!"

-Paul Lynde

Continuing the bar hopping from the other day with my friend Ryan, I had forgotten that I wasn't in New York anymore and was reminded of how early restaurant close in Vancouver.

We walked for about 45 minutes around downtown Vancouver to look ANY open restaurant. We were desperate! It was a miracle when we found Guu's Kobachi.

735 Denman Street, Vancouver

When I saw the menu, it reminded me of Guu's menu and unique Japanese-styled food. It came as a surprise that with further research that this place was actually a branch of Guu! Everything they had on their menu was so unique and looked delicious.

But before we ordered food, we started with Sake. We spent so much at Raglan's Bistro that we felt kinda cheap so we bought the cheapest sake.

We had Gekkeikan sake served hot. Usually for sake, its served either cold or hot. It wasn't bad, it went down actually pretty well.

Gekkeikan - $5

For tapas, we decided on Black Calamari. It's basically calamari marinated with squid ink. It was pleasantly tasty! The dip it had was also an ink based sauce. It was sweet with a little hint of tomato. Yum!

This item was actually on their Friday special menu. So make sure you're there on a Friday to try this awesome dish!

Black Calamari - $8.20

 The final thing we ordered was the Beef Curry Poutine. It was slow stewed beef tendon curry with french fries and cheese melt. Since we were in a rush, we had to inhale these bad boys. It was served in one of those sizzling bowls. The great part about this was the curry seasoning. Apparently poutine was the theme of the night.

Beef Curry Poutine - $7.80

Overall, I had a great experience in Kobachi! The food was delicious and cheap (only spent about $21), the employees were very welcoming, and the atmosphere was fun. I would definitely come back here, next time with my family! A place like this is definitely a place my family would enjoy.

"It is the man who drinks the first bottle of saké; then the second bottle drinks the first, and finally it is the saké that drinks the man."

-Japanese Proverb