Philadelphia: Tommy DiNic's & Cuba Libre

Recently got back from Philly and Boston, so will be updating with pics from the two trips!  And yes, I actually flew to Philly, then flew back to LA, and then the next day out to Boston.  Philly was for work and when I was planning the Boston trip, I found out that it just wasn't worth it to pay to change my flight and book a train ticket, as well as paying for an extra night for hotel out of the own pocket.  Two red eye flights in one week, definitely tough.

To be honest, Philly is not really my destination of choice for exhibiting for a tradeshow, especially the largest in our industry, but Philly does offer some delicious grub (and not cheesesteaks).  The best part about the Philadelphia Convention Center is that the Reading Terminal Market is right across the street and Chinatown is about 3 small blocks away so there's plenty of option for dining.

Tommy DiNic's

Reading Terminal Market 

136 Arch St 

Market East

Philadelphia, PA 19147

tommydinics.com

For lunch that first day, I knew what I wanted to eat so as soon lunch break arrived, I headed towards Reading Terminal Market for Tommy DiNic's!

Why... would you wait for this average cheesesteak when you can get a much better hoagie/sandwich??

Tommy DiNic's!  

The line.  It was still shorter than the line for some cheesesteak vendor.  I made it a priority to go there because I knew that once the show started, the line would be twice as long.

Hmmmm.... a little pile of delicious roasted pork sitting right there.

The Italian Style Pulled Pork with sharp Provolone and broccoli rabe!  I did a pretty horrible job ripping the sandwich apart :P

Look at how the bread just soak up all the juices!  They put the sharp Provolone on the bottom so after you chew through the bread, the cheese is the next thing you taste.  Love the mildy bitter flavor of the rabe.  Still one of my favorite sandwich anywhere.

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After doing manual labor in setting up the booth, we were rewarded with a dinner and bossman wanted to try something new, so on the way back to the hotel, we saw a Cuban restaurant and decided to dine there.

Apparently Cuba Libre is a popular high end Cuban restaurant, with several locations mostly on the Eastern part of US.  The only Cuban food I've had is Versailles in LA so definitely excited to check it out.

Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar

10 S 2nd St 

Old City

Philadelphia, PA 19106

cubalibrerestaurant.com

Cuba Libre.

Bar area.  

Cool decor to make you feel like you are in Cuba!

Buttered toasts with mango butter!

I decided to go with a classic and ordered the Lechón Asado.  Definitely a lot more fancy than Versaille's.  Slow roasted marinated pulled pork, classic sour orange mojo with vigorón slaw, amarillo chile smashed yuca and black bean broth.

Mojo is the garlic sauce and a must for this dish.  The vigorón slaw is a cabbage salad with pork rinds.  Very nice and refreshing and since it is a bit acidic, helped with the heaviness of the pork!  At first I thought the mashed yuca was sweet potato because it was very similar.

Also got to try a bit of the Seafood Paella.  Comes with shrimp, clams, mussels, Mahi fillet, squid and baby octopus, and completed with saffron “Bomba” short grain rice and the roasted piquillo pepper salad.

I love the flavor of saffron so this dish was a win for me.  A little more wet than your Spanish paella, but never anything wrong with fresh seafood!

I gotta say, not bad for first day!  Even better that it is all paid for :] 

Vancouver: Kintaro Ramen & More Poutine!

I love ramen.  I am addicted to ramen.  Just so happens Calvin & Alice both like it too, so we decided to make a little trek to West End for Kinarto Ramen, often rated as the best ramen spot in Vancouver.  It's located on Denman and that little area has a few other popular ones, including the huge ramen chain, Santouka!

I was expecting a long wait since it was lunch time and the weather was perfect for noodles, but luckily, we only waited about 20 minutes, and got seated at the huge communal table right next to the window.

Kintaro Ramen

788 Denman St

West End

Vancouver, BC V6G 2L5

Kintaro Ramen.

Not a big place at all.  A big communal table for about 8-10 people or so, the counter, and some twosome tables along the wall.

Part of their menu.  Like Shinshengumi in LA, you can choose the heaviness of your broth.

I decided to go all out and got the Spicy Miso BBQ Pork Ramen, with fatty pork and rich broth.  Normally, their ramen comes with two slices of chasu, but if you get the BBQ pork ramen, you get more!  The menu recommends a medium broth with the spicy miso, but I felt like clogging up my heart a bit that day.

Went with the spicy miso as my soup base since it comes with this ball of fresh ground garlic!  You can tell from the fat marbling on my chasu that yes, it is the fatty pork.

Alice's Spicy Miso Ramen.  This is the regular portion with medium broth and two pieces of leaner pork.  The broth is really top notch. 

Calvin's Cheese Ramen.  A must for cheese lovers.  Definitely interesting, although a bit odd for me! You get their light broth and a piece of cheese to sit on top of the chasu slices. There's no option in terms of the strength of the broth so you can taste the cheese. The server said it was very popular with the ladies for some reason.  Maybe he was trying to say something to Calvin haha.

The cheese!  Don't know what type it is or maybe it is two different types?

Really glad I got to try Kintaro Ramen and it actually cracks the top 5 ramen spots I've been to!  The feel of the whole place is authenticity and it's easy to tell why it's been rated and featured as one of the best.

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Afterwards, we decided to work our way back by walking on Robson and I came upon Bubble World Tea House!  I am addicted to milk tea as well, and I actually like to drink something like milk tea after a heavy meal.  Didn't have my phone with me to check how it was rated, but I was fine with it as long as it was better than Lollicup or Quickly.

Bubble World Robson 

1325 Robson St 

West End

Vancouver, BC V6E 1C6

Outside.  It was completely empty inside and the guy wasn't even at the counter so I got a little bit worried.

Ended up getting a safe choice, Milk Green Tea, with half sugar.  It was actually pretty good and did satisfy my craving.  Very milky.  Sorta expensive though.  Actually everything's expensive in Canada.

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Right before our flight, Amanda came out and met up with us, and she took us to a poutinery, Belgian Fries for more poutine since options are limited back home :P  I miss poutine..

Belgian Fries

1885 Commercial Drive 

Grandview-Woodlands, The Drive

Vancouver, BC V5N 4A6

Belgian Fries, "Best Poutine in BC"

We decided to go crazy with our last poutine in Vancouver and got a poutine with gravy, bacon, and a fried egg!  The fries are thicker than some of the others I've been to.

Egg!  I live how the yolk is still runny.  Too bad I focused on the wrong thing with my camera :[

Nothing wrong with more bacon.  

The gravy is really good here.  Flavorful and thick.

The perfect way to end a trip in Vancouver: poutine!  I really don't know why it hasn't caught on in the States, considering how everybody love fries.  Again, thanks to Amanda for coming out and then taking us to Belgian Fries!

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.