This quote is probably the reason why you should, again, probably not spend longer than 50 seconds on the same street corner debating where to go next with your friend at East Hastings, if it is your first time in Vancouver and you are unsure of your bearings.

[Edited note: I’d like to make it clear that this post in no way reflects my views towards the homeless. In fact, I feel quite strongly about domestic poverty and have volunteered with innercity underprivileged youth before. My only intention was to describe my first impressions during my first trip to the downtown core. Continuing on…]

How did we get to E.Hastings?

Well, my friend and I decided to be adventurous and take our first trip downtown a few days ago. After spending some time on the Translink website (Oh, Translink trip planner, how my heart beats for you) we figured out a route to get to Chinatown.

So, we’re in Chinatown, passing all these typical asian markets, some small restaurants, lots of red signs. Of course it smells like roast duck, which I hope isn’t too gross since it seems everybody out here on the West Coast is uber health and/or environmentally-friendly conscious and eating roast duck contributes to my eco-foot print. Dammit. Okay, I try to help out in other ways… I’ll get back to that later.

Anyways, we decided to wander a little bit more and find ourselves on the aforementioned street. As my friend stops to take a picture of… a picture on the ground. This man begins to talk to us. That will definitely stay on my list of priceless Vancouver moments. But this post isn’t just about this infamous rue (I know you love my random french words that just slip in. For those of you that don’t “rue” = “street”.) This post is about Vancouver! Or as my french prof likes to say “Van-coo-vere”. Vancity. Whatever you like to call it.

Like I mentioned though, that incident was a few days ago. I’ve been downtown now three times and funny enough, each of these times I’ve mainly been eating.

What have I been eating, you may ask? Welll…

Anyone heard of Japadog!

Japadog [jap–uh-dawg]: A glorified hot dog stand located at the corner of Smithe and Burrad St. in Vancouver that sells “Japanese” hot dogs, which consists of your basic hot dog with Japanese flavouring, spices and/or sauces. Wasabi!

P.S. I’m totally adding this definition to urbandictionary.com because Japadog is apparently NOT defined there. I was kind of surprised and yes I looked it up then made my own definition.

My friend told me to get the #6 which includes onions, mayo and dried seaweed. It was good. But I was really hungry at the time, so I was totally bias. Definitely one of those things you have to try. Even though it was a little pricey for the poor-broke-student budget. I mean $7.65 for a hot dog? C’mon here. But I tried it. Would probably eat again. But why is this place so famous? I’m not too sure. I’m guessing it’s a real one of the kind but a whole load of sort of famous celebrities have been there. The only one coming to mind right now is Chris Columbus, the director of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. So yeah. Try it if you’re brave enough. That’s to all you folk who think seaweed is spicy. (Seriously? I don’t understand you people. Doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Just don’t understand you.)

The Old Spaghetti Factory! Brother-sister floor dinner in Gastown. Wooot. We’re so cool we play broken telephone and bond. I think the best part was when our table started pulling the books off the wall. Yeah that’s right. The OSF has really nice vintage decor with all these old books and stuff, like you’re in a library. And well being the curious bunch we are, we wanted to see if there was actually real books. Now that sounds kind of stupid, but these books could totally sell on EBay! At least they looked old enough (hence why they’re in an old spaghetti factory) to have some kind of monetary value. Back to the food, the spaghetti with clam sauce was what I ordered and I quite enjoyed it. I’m not really a food critic, I just love to eat good food. Honestly, like which culture doesn’t? But the OSF is a chain that I’ve been to before so although it was nice. Nothing real one of a kind. However, going to Gastown at night was really pretty because it’s the touristy section and they have all these lights in the trees.

Tomato! Brunch place at Broadway & Bayswater with The blogsquad met up and it was deeee-lish. It was nice having something other than Vector and a banana for breakfast (which has become my typical morning meal these days). The hot chocolate was really nice since it was such a miserable raining day too. Belgian waffles were quite tasty and most things (if not everything) is local, homemade and fresh! Definitely recommend this place for a nice brunch if you’re feeling to go out for a semi-special occassion in the morning.

So those have been my food adventures so far. If you find any good eats, be sure to let me know! Next time downtown, I’m definitely hitting the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Mmmmm candy apples here I come!