Foodie Fridays is back on the blog! Today we have another amazing foodie – not only does she write for her own blog, she lends her writing talent and taste to VancityBuzz and Vancouver View Magazine and Dinner Reviews. You’ll see her  covering many events throughout the city and supporting many great chefs throughout her blog. This woman has impeccable taste and is one of my favourite bloggers to follow. This week we feature the lovely Grace Cheung.

Name: Grace Cheung

Blog:  www.gracecheung604.com

Specializes In: Mostly Vancouver eats but also posts from travels, namely Portland, Seattle, Miami, Toronto, Hawaii, so far!

Her Most Recent Discoveries: KiBo in Yaletown, Pok Pok and the Food Truck Scene in Portland, Portage Bay Cafe in Seattle

One Thing She Will Never Eat: Anything with Rabbit – I have one as a pet and it’s just too close to home.

Tell us About Yourself:  I work full time in marketing for a financial firm, with very little creativity allowed due to compliance and regulatory constraints. I craved a more creative outlet, so I started my blog. Initially, it was a fairly unfocused blog that detailed my daily musings. One day, I was having lunch with some friends and one of them started taking pictures of the food and taking notes. When I realized that they were planning on documenting the meal, I thought to myself “I should do that!” That was about 2.5 years ago, and I’ve never looked back.

The Next Place She’d Like to Visit Next: I would love to go to back to Hong Kong, and also visit other parts of Asia to try some of the more exotic things I didn’t appreciate when I lived there growing up.

The Best Meal She’s Ever Had Outside of Vancouver: Many years ago, on a trip to Paris, I dined at Alaine Ducasse at the Plaza Athenee Hotel. The Chef’s Tasting Menu was exquisite with multiple courses and the servers were great. I think we had about 5 servers to our table. One was a sommelier, one would take your order, one would serve your cheese course, and so on. I remember there being a “pre-dessert” as well as a dessert cart, complete with housemade marshmallows, and a cheese cart which introduced me to my favourite cheese of all time, Epoisse, it’s stinky and gooey. And at the end of the meal, the present you with the label from your wine of the evening as a keepsake, as well as a copy of the tasting menu. Oh, and one last thing, they send you home with a loaf of freshly baked bread for breakfast tomorrow. But this doesn’t come cheap, the price of the tasting menu currently is 380 euros, per person, and that’s before your wine. So yes, a once in a lifetime experience, I just regret not being a food blogger at the time, though I think I do have pictures, somewhere.

Grace’s Top 5 Places Under $10 in The City:

1) Joe Fortes Blue Plate Specials Thursdays for Shrimp Linguine! (weekday lunch for $9.95)

2) Q4 Restaurant – Brunch – Pancetta and Portabello Frittata (weekend brunch for $9)

3) Meat and Bread – Porchetta Sandwich with Salsa Verde ($8)

4) Suika – Tokyo Oxtail Ramen ($9.80)

5) Au Petit Cafe – Banh Mi Dac Bet – French Bread Sub with Homemade Ham, Meatballs, veggies and hot peppers ($5)