Sorry for the lack of updates! Been busy lately and I really wanted to make sure I had free time for this post since I had a ton of fun exploring Granville Island. I'm a sucker for these sort of public market or farmer's market. Usually you can find a lot of interesting and unique things that you can't find anywhere else, so I always try to make an effort to visit a local farmer's market if I can when visiting a new place, even if it is one as touristy as the Granville Island Public Market.
Granville Island Public Market
1661 Duranleau St
Granville Island/False Creek
Vancouver, BC V6H 3S3
Since the market opens fairly early and we were short on time, we woke up around 8am, checked out, took the cab to Granville Island, and started to explore the place. It wasn't packed but plenty of people already. Of course another gloomy morning.
It reminds me of a smaller Pike Place Market in Seattle. Lots of local and organic fresh produce. Not cheap at all O_o.
Seafood. Again, not cheap, but the quality of the fish here does look amazing!
This particular vendor had lots fishes that Asians love haha.
Starting to get crowded around 9am. Lots of tourists, but plenty of locals as well shopping for the holidays.
One of the butcher shops. There carry different wild games you don't really see in the States. I remember seeing a pound of rib eye steak for over $20CAD! By this point, I have decided that you must be fairly well-off to be buying your grocery here..
Stuart's, one of the first place we stopped by, cause we could actually afford it :P
Variety of pastries and cookies!
Since the three of us didn't have breakfast yet, we decided to each get something.
I went with my usual Chocolate Croissant. Chocolate-y, but not as flaky as I'd thought.
Alice's fruit pastry. I actually like this better than the chocolate croissant.
Strawberries on the other end!
Calvin's cinnamon roll. Big! Probably amazing if it was fresh out of the oven.
The chocolate croissant wasn't enough and as soon as I saw a donut shop, I had to get something. Gotta eat donuts in every city!
Asian owned! They had all these Asian flavored donuts. Very interesting.
Breakfast round two.
I decided to go with the mango filled and the melon cake! Wasn't a fan of the melon cake donut since the melon flavor was really light.
Mango-filled donut was awesome though! Just like your normal jelly donut, except this has a mango custard/cream! Tastes just like your Asian mango candy haha.
Variety of fresh raviolis! If we stayed longer and the hotel had a kitchen, definitely all over this.
Crazy packed vendor selling charcuterie.
They have all these crazy house-smoked items! Wanted to buy a few slices just to try but the line was ridiculous. I guess many were buying it as gifts to families and for Christmas dinners.
Cheese vendor.
Cheeses. Some imported, some local.
Of course, gotta have a florist at a market.
After devouring the two donuts, I needed a drink. Decided to get something from Petit Ami.
Fair trade, organic, estate grown coffee! Went for the latte.
Latte. Nothing too fancy.
The whole time we were in Canada, we were searching for maple flavored gummy bears. Didn't really know if it existed but we figured there was a very good chance that they do sell it somewhere. Finally found it at the market!
Calvin super happy with his maple-flavored gummies! Tasted odd though :P
Fresh wasabi! $22/100g meant that is is roughly $110/lb of the spicy stuff o_O
Shot of the back of the market.
Want to buy stock to bring home so you can lie to your family and friends about how you spent hours making the soup? Stock Market is your best friend then!
Before we left, I stopped by Granville Island Tea Company to buy some loose-leaf tea as gifts. Learned a bit about all the different type of teas.
Decided on the organic Assam and the Formosa Oolong as gifts. Granville Island Tea Company also sell chai tea, in addition to the loose leaf and the guy helping me out said that the organic Assam was the type of tea they use as base! As for the oolong tea, Formosa oolong tea is quite common, and my family gets a lot from Taiwan, but I gotta say, the quality from Granville Island Tea Company's pretty good! Even my mom was impressed.
In the back of the market, in addition to more food vendors, there were a lot of vendors selling paintings, crafts, soap, jewelry, and anything that people hand make. You can also get a great view of Vancouver so we spent a bit of time outdoors taking pictures. Since we were short on time and wanted to grab ramen in Vancouver, we did a quick walk and window-shopped through the rest of Granville, then took a cab back to downtown area for lunch.
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