Food

When a plan comes together

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Through the pandemic a group of our friends started a zoom-hosted wine club where one of us would pick two wines, a few recipes that would pair well, and then we’d get together to eat and drink and stare at the little electronic rectangles of our respective likenesses on our screens as we caught up and laughed. Laughed a lot. During a few of those get togethers, we chatted (as one is apt to do) about doing a real-life wine tasting trip when it was safe to do so again. Fast forward to this May when those wine-soaked plans turned real and landed us in Vancouver to attend the Vancouver International Wine Festival.

My wife and I built a fun and relaxed Vancouver itinerary around the large wine tasting we we all going to. For me, any trip to Vancouver needs to start with a hike around Stanley Park.

Stanley Park in Vancouver
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A long overdue visit, part 2

/ Greg / 1 Comment

After a wonderful visit with my mom and dad in northern New Brunswick, we pointed our car south, marvelled at the fact there was a pandemic-related random selection border checkpoint on the way into Nova Scotia, and a few hours later arrived in a city that means a great deal to both of us.

Halifax. Home sweet home.

This part of our Atlantic Canadian tour was about visiting family and also taking a couple of days to reconnect with some of our favourite things.

Halifax
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A staycation in five parts

/ Greg / Leave a comment

This past October, I took a needed week off of work, but due to rising pandemic case counts, my travel options were severely limited. I’m normally the type of person who wouldn’t dream of spending a handful of vacation days in my own city. I’ve always felt that a proper vacation needs a hotel and a plane ticket (or at worst, a very, very long road trip). 2020 threw up a lot of constraints for planning a proper week off, so I embraced the idea of a staycation to shake me out of the doldrums of what was a year of too much sameness for my restless spirit. So here’s my Saskatoon (and extended area) staycation in five parts.

Part 1 – An afternoon of mural exploration

I drove downtown, parked the car, and armed with nothing more than a list of interesting murals on my phone, wandered around my city as I might do when visiting a new place. This simple act made for a lovely afternoon and helped me see parts of Saskatoon through a fresh lens. I spent most of my afternoon wandering around the Riversdale neighbourhood where there is a wealth of vibrant public art in the form of murals. Here’s a small selection of what I explored.

Downtown Saskatoon murals
Downtown Saskatoon murals
Downtown Saskatoon murals
Downtown Saskatoon murals
Downtown Saskatoon murals
Downtown Saskatoon murals
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Vancouver for the holidays

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Almost eight months later, I have a vivid, yet simple memory. My wife and I were in the Calgary airport on Christmas night enroute to Vancouver for a short vacation. We were happy to be getting away to a favourite city for a few days and to be able to exchange our Saskatoon parkas for lighter rain jackets as we escaped from a prairie winter. My memory now of that night, through a prism of a pandemic that has grounded my traveling in 2020, is just of the simple, unadulterated happiness I get from traveling. As we sat waiting for our flight on to Vancouver, sharing a snack to tide us over before a very late night McDonalds run after we landed, I remember feeling at peace. And I wonder when I’ll be able to enjoy sitting in an airport again.

More than just sitting in an airport, I’m looking forward to eating and drinking in public establishments around the world again. On Boxing Day morning, as soon as it opened, I wandered into La Taqueria Pinche Taco Shop, one of a number of “must visit” places every time I’m in Vancouver.

La Taqueria Pinche Taco Shop

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The happiest place on earth

/ Greg / 1 Comment

At some point in the spring of 2019 I watched an episode of the Netflix series “Street Food” centered on Osaka and the story of Toyo and his izakaya. I was transfixed by all of the food featured on that show, but the memory of Toyo’s tiny, open air bar stuck in my mind. I immediately wanted to visit it. Fast forward to June, and when I was planning my big trip for the year, the izakaya, Toyo himself, and the amazing food wouldn’t leave my mind. I ended up buying plane tickets to Japan and planned to fly home out of Osaka so I could visit Izakaya Toyo.

Sometimes the ideas of things surpass their reality. But not in this case. On my last day in Osaka, knowing how popular this little bar is, I walked past more than an hour before opening and gave Toyo a wave that he returned before returning to preparing his humble restaurant.

Izakaya Toyo

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The reason for the trip

/ Greg / 1 Comment

I had a decision to make – where to go on a two week solo trip in October? As I sat in an airport in June waiting for a delayed flight home, I started piecing together possible trips and scouting airfares. While I kept looking at a wide variety of locations – Chile, Ireland, Spain, Belgium – I kept coming back to Japan. Although those other locations strongly appealed to me, I ended up selecting Japan for two main reasons. First, it scared me a bit (in a good way). And secondly, and most importantly, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the food I could try. When I finally bought my airline ticket, this trip was already on its way to being a two-week long foodie adventure in the making.

Over the trip, I ate ridiculously well. Some I’ve written about already, like a higher-end sushi experience in Tokyo. For as much as I enjoy a fancy meal, I’m also a sucker for a more approachable feast, and on my first full day in Tokyo I made a beeline to a recommended conveyor belt sushi place. The idea of delicious sushi passing before me was perfect as I was jetlagged and starving, and over the course of an hour I put away a hefty amount of delicious sushi. It was a good start to my eating adventures.

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My Tokyo omakase experience

/ Greg / 2 Comments

While I was in the process of planning my trip to Japan, the most common question I received was along the lines of “Are you planning any big sushi meals?” My answer to that was always a resounding yes, and while I was in Japan, I did indeed enjoy quite a bit of sushi over my two weeks there. One thing I spent an inordinate amount of time researching for my trip was where to have one blowout omakase experience. I wanted something very high quality, but not super formal or regimented. I wanted something where I would feel welcomed as a foreigner, but where I’d be dining with mostly locals.

I hit the jackpot. Sushi Saisho in the Ginza neighbourhood of Tokyo ticked all those boxes. And it did, mostly because of the sushi master himself, Saisho.

Sushi Saisho

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A change of plans

/ Greg / 2 Comments

When my wife was unexpectedly able to join me on my trip to Chicago, it turned a baseball trip into a restaurant exploration trip pretty quickly. My original plans called for a lot of ballpark food and craft beer, but I was thrilled to spin those plans on a dime and make each evening about heading out on the town in search of deliciousness.

With the last minute nature of our new plans, we used points to get my wife into Chicago flying a different route and airline than was I. When we parted ways at the Saskatoon airport, she didn’t yet have a seat assignment, so we weren’t sure if we’d actually meet up in Chicago. In light of that, we kept our dinner plans simple – at Fisk & Co, a hotel bar in the loop, for some seafood and (surprise, surprise) craft beer for me. It ended up being a great choice. She did make it into Chicago, and our first order of business was crushing some oysters. Delicious!

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