Thursday, September 23, 2010

One of the best dishes in Vancouver for less than $10

Last night, Holly and I ate dinner at a little Japanese restaurant in town called Aki. This is a place that serves wonderful food, but whenever we go, unless we have been going often, I usually get my favorite dish. It's what I would consider one of the top dishes to eat in Vancouver for less than $10. That's a pretty tall order in my opinion, but the beef curry at Aki lives up to it, in my mind.

It's a little strange ordering beef in gravy on rice at a place known for good sushi. It also takes a while for them to prepare, but it is oh so worth the wait. Meanwhile, Holly ordered a rice bowl that was covered in various sushi that she seemed to also enjoy, although since it was assorted sushi, there were one or two pieces that she offered to me instead. While she is not a fan of octopus, I can attest that it too was delicious, assuming you like that sort of thing.

While I really like the beef curry, I also know it's not the kind of dish my dad would ever try. It has the word 'curry' in it, and that puts him off, even though it's nothing at all like Indian curry, which is what he is thinking of. Having said that, it does have a bit of spice to it, but not in a burning hot kind of way - more like 'a lot of different and subtle flavours exploding in my mouth with each bite' kind of way. Oh well, his loss, my gain. Even though I'm not hungry right now, I'm salivating just at the thought of this delicious dish.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

A nice Wedding and some Cross Border Shopping

So Chris and Amy got married. We were in attendance and had a great time. Amy's dress was beautiful (as was she) Chris and the boys were looking sharp and everything fell into place for a great time. It was a long day but there is no way we would have missed it.

Anyhow, congratulations you two, and thanks again for including us.

Both Holly and I had to behave ourselves at the reception because we had rented a car for the weekend and planned to use it for some cross border shopping the next day. On our way into Washington we noted that even the Nexus lane was pretty busy and that they did something unusual this time: they allowed TWO lanes for the Nexus cars and shunted all the other regular traffic through ONE lane, where they queued up cars to have the dog run by and sniff. It made for a long wait to get into the US on this rainy Sunday afternoon.

We made it through though, and managed to get our snacks at Taco Bell, among other places. There were some deals to take advantage of but really this was a small trip with very little coming back. But it was a nice drive in the rain.