Philadelphia: Federal Donuts & By George! for Cheesesteaks

I asked a bunch of people what is a must in Philly and they all told me that I must visit Federal Donuts, which is this gourmet/hipster donut shop that sells donuts and fried chicken!  It was bit far from from the convention center, but I was determined to try it, so I made the 20 minute trek to Federal Donuts' location in Center City during lunch.

Just realized that I visit a donut shop in every city I've been to and it's always some cool, new, hip thang.  Where's LA's hipster donut shop??

Federal Donuts

1632 Sansom St 

Philadelphia, PA 19103

Rittenhouse Square, Penn Center 

federaldonuts.com

Federal Donuts!  Went with my coworker again.  He always said that if he follows me around, he'll be sure to try something good haha.

Coffee, donuts, and chicken.  Genius.

Inside.  Very simple but pretty cool decor.

So for the donuts, they have two categories: fancy and hot fresh.  Fancy donuts cost a bit more and exactly like the name implies, fancier than your average donuts.  They only had two different ones left.  Got the Blueberry Muffin, and it is a donut covered with blueberry glaze, then sprinkled with blueberry muffin crumbs!

Strawberry Lemonade!  Lemonade glaze with strawberry icing.  When I took that first bite, my brain was so confused because it really did taste like a strawberry lemonade, but I was eating a donut.  I got the last one too!

Besides donuts, also got a 1/2 order of the fried chicken.  I'm actually not too sure which seasoning I got... since I ordered the Shabazzi but may have gotten the honey ginger.  In any case, ridiculously good fried chicken.  It's done like the Korean-style fried chicken, so a nice crunch outside and moist inside. They also give you a small side of Japanese cucumber pickles.

With every order of the fried chicken, you get a honey donut!  It's part of the hot fresh, so they fry it on the spot.  Nothing better than fresh donuts

Some fried chicken and three donuts later, I went back a really happy dude.  Good thing I had that short work too just to work some of it off.  Dammit.  LA needs a place that sells donuts and fried chicken!

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For my last day in Philly, I figured I should at least eat cheesesteak once.  It's just I've had a few cheesesteaks, and they have never lived up to the hype.  Yelped a bit, and found this vendor, By Geroge!, inside the Reading Terminal Market that sells Italian food and cheesesteaks.  A little skeptical, but all the other cheesesteak spots had crazy long lines, so I went for it.

By George! Pizza, Pasta & Cheesesteaks

Reading Terminal Market 

51 N 12th St 

Market East

Philadelphia, PA 19107

readingterminalmarket.org

Still a line, but definitely not as long.  There's one vendor that had to use a security guard to direct the line.  That place wasn't even that good.

After about 20 minutes, my cheesesteak with whiz, onions, and bacon was finally ready!  It is a biiiig sandwich.  When I was walking back, I held it in the palm, in a horizontal position so the juices wouldn't all drip to one spot, and man my arm actually got tired.

Damn that's a lot of steak!

Bacon!  Someone told me that I had to get it this way.  Good thing I took his suggestion haha.

There is a layer of cheese whiz on the bottom so when you take your bite, after you go through the bread, your tongue hits the cheese!

Not gonna lie, it is probably the best cheesesteak I've had anywhere.  Tons of steak, tasty cheese whiz, and sturdy bread that held up to everything.  I'm sure the bacon helped too.  It was the last thing I ate in Philly and I'm glad it was that huge sandwich.

Vancouver: Granville Island Public Market

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

granvilleisland.com/public-market

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.

Whistler: Zog's, El Furniture Warehouse & Elements Tapas Bar

I've never been boarding out of California, only to Mammoth, Tahoe (Nevada side doesn't count), and crappy spots in SoCal, so my excitement level once we got to Whistler was at the highest!  It seriously was a winter wonderland there!  It snowed a lot so that meant plenty of fresh powder and even got to board down the Blackcomb Glacier!  That was pretty damn cool.

Whistler is more like a small village, with the village serving as the base for all the hotels, restaurants, and shops.  Of course, such a popular vacationing spot would have several good eats, and let's just say all the places we tried in Whistler, they all beat Big Bear's bread bowl soup :P

First day of boarding!  Constant snowfall!  We took the super early bus to Whistler so after we checked in, we got ready and went out for a day of boarding.  Ending up only doing two runs because the place is just huge!  And of course, after a day of boarding, we had to stop by one of the most popular spot, Zog's, for some poutine!

Zog's Dogs

4340 Sundial Cres RR 4 

Whistler, BC V0N 1B4

Canada

Zog's.  Pretty much just a fast food stand serving popular Canadian snacks and hot dogs.  Most people come here for poutine after a day of riding since it is literally the first thing you see walking back towards the village.  People eating outside when it is still snowing.

Classic Poutine, with fries, gravy, and cheese curd.  You get all this for around $7 CAD!  It's pretty funny though since they take the cheese curd out of a single-serving package, and I'm pretty sure the gravy is from a mix, but who cares!  Poutine is seriously so legit after a day of boarding.  It did get a little gross once the wind chill got to it and made it cold haha.

We also went with the Bolognese Poutine, which is fries topped with meat sauce and shredded mozzarella.  Luckily I know where to get something like this at home cause this was bomb too.

Calvin & Alice never tried a beavertail so we got one to share.  This is the cinnamon sugar one, that's perfect with a squeeze of lemon.  We got a chocolate hazelnut one too but forgot to take a pic of it.  Just the same as the regular beavertail except it is smeared with a Nutella-like spread instead of dusted with sugar.

In fact, we liked it so much, we went back to it on the second day!  Weather was much better haha.

The outdoor grilling station.  Lots of people getting poutine and hot dogs.

We got the classic poutine again, but this time we topped it with some caramelized onions! Zog's is exactly like those beach stands that sells food.  Easy to make items, but so damn tasty.

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That night, we decided to go somewhere a bit nice and found this tapas place called Elements Urban Tapas. Made a short trek there and found the place to be completely empty except for one other table.  We were a bit worried since it was a Friday night, but we were hungry!

Elements Urban Tapas

4359 Main St 

Whistler, BC V0N 1B2

Canada

wildwoodrestaurants.ca

A look inside the place, with the open kitchen.

Menu, mostly using fresh ingredients from BC.

Wine list had a few bottles that were quite reasonable so we went with the Burrowing Owl Pinot Gris, which is from this wine regrion, Okanagan Valley, Canada.  Never tried Canadian wine except for ice wine so this was a first!

Bison Petit Threeway.  This was probably what I looked forward to the most since it was bison served in three ways, jerked, as a tartar, and grilled.  In the front, is house-smoked bison jerky and right behind it is the tartar.  Bison is leaner than beef and you can definitely tell from the jerky.  As for the bison tartar, I'm a huge fan of beef tartar, and you can barely tell that it is bison. They probably did a good job seasoning it.

Grilled bison medallion with romesco sauce on the bottom.  Very tender and grilled to a nice medium rare.  The potato chips are actually dusted with almond salt!

Lemon & panko crusted wild BC salmon.  We actually didn't eat this dish since we didn't order it and they made the wrong thing.  I was hoping they would just leave it with us, but instead they took it back... should've taken a bite before we told them haha.

This was what we actually ordered: Wild BC salmon and ahi tuna tempura roll, with tobiko and sweet ginger soy.

Not bad for Asian fusion!  Not enough though.  Boo.

This was definitely my favorite tapas: Porcini gnocchi.  The dish is just earthy all around: gnocchi is flavorful from the porcini mixed it, tossed with some wild mushrooms and a truffle butter sauce!  There's also shaved white grace peasant cheese, which is pretty similar to a young parmigiano.  This was also probably the best cooked gnocchi I've had.  Perfect texture.

Calvin was super excited for this: slow cooked pork belly, soft poached egg, savory bread pudding, and maple glaze.  Pork belly?  Super soft & tender.  Poached egg?  Perfect runny yolk.  Savory bread pudding?  Somehow it works!  Maple glaze?  C'mon it's Canada!

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I did a bit of research before I came to Whistler and found that there was this gastropub that sells all their food items for $4.95 CAD!  That's an awesome price anywhere, let alone a place like Whistler, where it is mostly fancier restaurants, so after dinner at Element Urban Tapas, we decided to stop by for a few drinks and more food!

El Furniture Warehouse
4314 Main Street Suite 24
Whistler, BC V0N
Canada

Passed by the Olympic rings on the way there.

Snow and lights everywhere.  For once, it felt like Christmas around the holidays.  

Outside.  $4.95 for evey food item!

Logo.

Of course, with such an affordable menu, the crowd is much younger, and at night, that means alcohol's flowing!  We decided to get some drinks: some local beer with a shot of applejack.

Onion rings.  Nothing too crazy, but for around $5, that's a good amount.

We wanted some more poutine so we got their version, which comes with fries, gravy, cheese curd, and maple bacon!  Better than Zog's, so much cheaper, and there's bacon!  Maple bacon!  I thought about ordering another after we killed it. 

Mini donuts with spiced chocolate sauce.  Awesome mini cake donuts!  Every bar, pub, and gastropub should serve donuts.

We actually wanted to go back for lunch the next day but the place had a line out the door... I would've been down to wait just to eat more poutine and try out other items, but we were in a time crunch since we had to catch a bus ride back to Vancouver!

Whistler, I'll be back.