vancouver, pt. 3

After our night of fresh, delectable Japanese tapas, we had the whole next day free for wandering Vancouver. First matter of the day: breakfast, of course! Carm wasn't able to join us because of work, but his roommate was able to take us to an infamous little place called The Elbow Room Cafe.

The Elbow Room, as we quickly found out, is owned and staffed by sassy gay men who dish out attitude and friendly insults along with the food. Appropriately, the restaurant's motto is "Food and service is our name. ABUSE is our game (so have some FUN!)"

When you enter, the restaurant's "philosophy" or "rules" are written out on a large chalkboard above the kitchen area. I didn't really get a good look at it before our waiter came to take our drink orders, because when I told him I'd just like some tap water, he said, "You haven't been here before. Did you see the board? Get off your ass and get it yourself!" He smiled and pointed towards a counter with coffeepots and pitchers of water. Ok! LOL. He also let Will know that he'd get him his first cup of coffee, but after that, Will was on his own :P

The food was good, reasonably priced, with generous portions. I ordered the "Brett Cullen (Yes, he's famous)" eggs benedict, and when it came, our server asked, "Are you gonna rub that hollandaise on your ass? Cuz that's right where it's going!" Ouch, I could not even react to this, LOL. It was good, but I ended up scraping the blue cheese off my second egg cuz it was a little too strong for me.

two poached eggs with sauteed spinach, bacon, avocado, hollondaise and blue cheese on a sourdough english muffin

At the end of the meal, our waiter took our plates away and said, "So you guys are donating cuz you didn't finish your food, right?" Another one of their "rules" is that if you don't clear your plate, you donate to Loving Spoonful. Totally fine by us! However, he also helpfully informed us how we could reduce our bill: "Leave this one behind *points at Will* with some kneepads in the back. I know he likes me, he turns red every time I come around!" Hahaha, a-MA-zing! All in all, fun little experience at The Elbow Room, but if you go, don't say I didn't warn you about the (good-natured) sass!

After breakfast, we parted ways with Carm's roommate and we ventured across the bridge to check out Granville Island. We signed up for the brewery tour at noon, but had to kill some time. So we wandered around all the uber-cool little shops, cafes, gallery spaces, Emily Carr University of Art & Design campus buildings, and eventually landed at the Granville Island Public Market.

OH. MAN. I was in foodie wonderland! Handmade pastas, chocolate covered gummy bears, beautiful fruit displays, jasmine- and lavender-infused chocolates, sinful pastries, fresh breads, everything, everything!!

Not to mention all the fresh seafood! There was a great variety of salmon snacks at the seafood vendors, but Carm told us we had to taste the "salmon candy" so I bought a little bit to try before our brewery tour. It was actually perfect because it was sweet and smokey and perfectly nibbly, and totally made me crave a beer. So good!

so. much. smoked goodness.

freshly smoked salmon in a maple glaze

So with some perfectly timed thirst, we headed to Granville Island Brewing Co. It ended up being just the 2 of us on the tour. The guy told us all sorts of stuff that we already knew, from the chemistry aspect of sugars plus yeast equals carbonation plus alcohol ("This looks like review for you, are you science majors at all?" bingo) but also from doing other brewery tours (we did Mill Street a couple years ago and I did Heineken in Amsterdam a few months before that). Will a.k.a. beer keener did have a few other questions regarding their hops process in comparison to Dogfish Head's 60, 90 and 120 Minute IPAs. At the end of our friendly and straightforward tour of their small-batch brewery (only some of their beers are still brewed there, as they were recently bought by Creemore, who were bought by Molson), it was time for tasting!

We sampled their original Island Lager, their seasonal Winter Ale (which I'd already tried at brunch a few days before), and their limited release Scottish Ale. All quite nice. I hope now that Creemore has purchased GIB we'll be seeing some of it at the LCBO.

Anyway, after the brewery, there was still more of Granville Island to explore, not to mention I wanted to go back to the market! Stay tuned for the fourth and final installment of my Vancouver eats :)