Vancouver: The Original Guu on Thurlow

Last time I came to Vancouver, I didn't get to check out any of the Guu family of restaurants, so this time, made sure that was a stop.

There's several Guu in Vancouver, but each location is somewhat unique.  We decided to go to the original, an izakaya, and where it all started.  Why izakaya?  There's plenty in LA!  Well, I like visiting izakayas in different cities if I can because izakayas are generally much more casual, menu reflects local ingredients, menu changes often, and it's just a good way to relax with friends after traveling.  Beer + food!

Guu

838 Thurlow Street 

West End, Downtown

Vancouver, BC V6E 1W2 

guu-izakaya.com

Outside.  Of course, being an izakaya, it's not a big place and it was packed!  It's located near a popular street (Robson) so it is located at a good spot in terms of location.  Ended up waiting over an hour since we had a large group (Alice's friends).

Open style kitchen.  Place wasn't that big so we were separated into two tables.

Menu.  Ordered half the menu for three haha.

Specials that night.  Ordered a good amount from this menu too haha.

Of course, gotta get beer at an izakaya.

First up, Kabocha Croquette!  Sorta like a Japanese version of the Scottish Egg.

Mashed pumpkin squash with boiled egg croquette.

Kakuni.  One of the softest and tastiest pork belly I've ever had.  Sorry for the bad picture but I was really excited when this came hahah.  Who can resist that shiny looking pork belly.

Salmon Yukke.  Yukke means tartar but it is pretty much a soy marinated poke.  British Columbia salmon!  They also give you a quail egg on the side to mix it in for that tartar element.

Salmon on the shrimp cracker.

One of the specials, Gyoza Eggrolls.  Instead of stuffing gyoza fillings into dumpling skins, they used egg roll skins.

Tastes just like gyoza, except muuuuch crunchier.

Takoyaki.  Octopus ball.

Karubi.  Japanese version of the Korean kalbi.  On the sweeter side.

Grilled Smoked Salmon Neck from the special menu.  Fish collar is one of my favorite part of the fish.  A bit tough from the smoking but it is packed with flavor.

Gyu Tan.  Grilled beef tongue.  I'm... still not a fan haha.

Kaarage!  Fried chicken!

Tontoro.  Grilled pork jowl.  Don't know where they get their pork but it's awesome.

Love the texture of this cut of pork.  Fatty but with some tendon for that bite.

Shrimp Wonton Dan Dan Noodles.  It was sorta funny cause when we ordered it, the waitress was like "Very spicy!!" and kept on insisting that only order if we can eat spicy foods.  Calvin, Alice, and I ate it like it is nothing haha.  The peanut sauce part of it probably lessened the spiciness.  A few of the other staff stopped by and asked if it was spicy too.  Pretty legit for Japanese dan dan noodles!

The shrimp wontons.  There's even some preserved mustard green!  Impressed.

Was it worth the long wait?  Yes.  I get why Vancouver loves Guu.  It's a izakaya with tasty food, and the atmosphere is exactly how an izakaya should be: loud, busy, and a little smoky!  Next time, Guu Garlic for sure!

Vancouver: Salt Tasting Room

We wanted to find a place to relax a bit since we didn't know what else to do.  Saw that Salt Tasting Room had a high review on Yelp, so decided to check it out.  Took us awhile to find the place though since it listed an alley as its address, and it really is located in an alley!

Salt Tasting Room

45 Blood Alley Square 

Downtown, Gastown

Vancouver, BC V6B 1A4

salttastingroom.com

Blood Alley.  It is literally located in an alley.

Not much of a sign either o we couldn't find it from the street when we looked it.

Glass of red that I got.  I think it was a sangiovese.

So it turns out this place is a meat & cheese spot only!  Good thing we all like that stuff.

We decided to get 1 meat plate with 3 condiments and 1 cheese plate with 3 condiments as well.  Since we didn't know what to get, we had our server decide for us.

Meat plate with Smoked Beef, Hot Capicola, and Argentinian.  I liked how they write on the side what they served us!

Smoked beef and mustard.  You can use the condiments with any of the meats.  They just placed it like that to make it look better.  The smoked beef sorta looked like tongue haha.

Hot Capicola and basque olives.  Really good capicola.

Argentinian and piparra peppers.  Probably my favorite meat and condiment from that plate.  The Argentinian is very similar to salami.

Our cheese plate!

Local BC chevre and cipollini onions.  Chevre is a spreadable goat cheese.  It was my first time trying cheese from Canada!  Onions were marinated with balsamic so that was very tasty.

La riopelle and quince paste.  Another spreadable cheese.  

Lincolnshire Poacher and cornichons.  Cheese is from UK!

Baguettes for the cheese.

For lunch, they actually have a few items, so we decided to try the grilled cheese combo.

Forgot what cheeses were in there since they change constantly.  Not as oily and I like how they use the panini press.

Salad with pine nuts.  Very light cream dressing.

Butternut squash soup.  I was hoping for tomato soup or something more acidic since it goes well with grilled cheese, but this was good too.  Very smooth.

We ended up sitting there for over an hour just relaxing and sorta planning what to do next.  Since it was pretty empty (afternoon), we had the whole place to ourselves, and it was pretty nice just to be warm, hang out, and eat some great meats and cheeses!

Vancouver: Meat & Bread and Revolver Brew Bar in Gastown

Didn't think I would be going to back to Vancouver that soon after going 2 years ago, but Calvin was able to book hotels using their award stays so we decided to make a snowboarding trip out of it, with two days in Vancouver and two days in Whistler!

Of course, first stop this time around, was the popular Meat & Bread, made even more famous by being featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Drives on Food Network!  Luckily our hotel was only a 10 minute walk to this part of Vancouver, which is on the border of downtown and Gastown, a super hipster neighborhood.

Meat & Bread

370 Cambie St 

Downtown

Vancouver, BC V6B 2N4 

meatandbread.ca

Meat & Bread!  Of course, from the name, you can tell that it is a sandwich shop haha.  In fact, people say that they are responsible for the sudden sandwich renaissance in Vancouver, and now there are many more of these artisanal sandwich shops.

They are known for their Porchetta, as well as their Meatball.  I was deciding between the two when one of the girls that worked there told us that Porchetta was gonna be off the menu for the rest of 2012 and it was the last day to get it!  Made my decision much easier.

Meat & Bread is about freshly preparing your sandwich.  For the Porchetta, it is a roasted pork with pork skin still on so that it crisps up!  They carve up the pork, chop up the pork skin, and make the sandwich right in front of you.

Mixing the carved pork and the pork skin together.

The Porchetta sandwich!  See?  Very hipster, serving on a wooden board.

Close up of the pork and the ciabatta bread.

Very simple sandwich: roasted pork, crispy pork skin, and salsa verde.  I really dig the whole pork skin thing since there are bites where you get that crunch with that tender pork and it's just music.  Seriously.

Delicious crispy & crunchy pork skin!  I think I can eat a whole sandwich with just the skin.  I wish they sold that.

Parts of my pork were a little dry so it would've been nice to have more of that salsa verde, but this mustard was what really made the sandwich great.  Definitely a must for every bite.

Definitely a very unique sandwich and I can see why so many people rave about it.  They also have Fentiman's Curiosity Cola here!  It is brewed botanically, so it actually has 0.5% of alcohol :P  Had it a few times at Wurstkuche in LA.  I call it hipster coke.

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Afterwards, we wanted to walk around Gastown but none of us wanted to get raped by the AT&T international charges, so we stopped by a cafe to use their free wi-fi, and it turns out to be Revolver Brew Bar, a popular coffee shop in Gastown.  Also very hipster.

Revolver Brew Bar

325 Cambie Street 

Gastown

Vancouver, BC V6B 1H7 

revolvercoffee.ca

The "brew bar" where the magic happens.

Booths and the wall decor, a map of the world with nails.

Single pour coffee.  Very popular nowadays.

I still like my Espresso Macchiato!  A lot creamier than others, but very good.

Alice's cafe latte.  Also very good.  Somewhat of a small cup though haha.

 Calvin pouring his Oolong Tea.


Very light in color.  Much more floral than other oolong I've tried.

View from the counter seats.  Good place to people watch.  Good day for coffee too.

View from the outside and their logo.

Since it was cold and raining, we decided to find another spot where we can sit down and maybe grab a few more bites before we head back to the hotel and prep for dinner.  Yup, day 1, always eat as much as you can.