Today I’m sharing my experience at the recent and inaugural Scavenger Hunt presented by Vancouver Foodster. I do have to say it was a good walk and it helped me digest the food in between stops. It also introduced me to places I would have never found on my own.
Please note I was invited to this event, my tickets were comped. I was not paid nor expected to write a review and all opinions are my own.
Our first stop is to Xoxolat to pick up our first clue. I love this space and I can’t wait to get back in here to check out some of their chocolates.
We started off at Marquis Wine where we tried a variety of different wines and a taste and smell station.
Our first wine was a sparkling wine from the Okanagan – Haywire The Bub. It was paired with slices of green apple, which was complimentary of course to it’s crisp taste.
The next wine is Nec-Otium, a Pinot Grigio from Italy. It was paired with star fruit. I’m a big fan of Pinot Grigio, and this was very enjoyable.
There was one more wine that was being offered with blackberries to taste, however I’m allergic to red wine (or intolerant anyway) so I had to skip on it.
After, we decided to walk all the way down to the waterfront – Bella Gelateria. We were treated with a scoop of our favourite flavour, I went with Salted Hazelnut and Diana went with Yuzu. There is never a weak link at Bella Gelateria, and if you haven’t had the pleasure of having the gelato, I recommend you do at least once!
Our next location was at De Dutch right at the Convention Centre. It’s a little tucked away past Tap & Barrel on the lower level, but it’s a nice space. They are all super friendly there and have been in the space for a couple years now.
We had our choice of savoury (bacon, cheese) or sweet (banana, strawberry and whip cream) on a crepe.
Both were simple and delicious, I can’t say I could choose which one was my favourite of the two.
The next stop is Soirette, this cute, boutique macaron shop. They were serving three different types of teas and also two types of macarons that are new to their menu: Kumquat-Zuzu and Guava-Coconut. The two macarons were nice, not too sweet and perfectly fruity. Very interesting combination of flavours thoug
The next stop was Seventeen89 Restaurant which is closer to Davie on Denman. It’s tucked in the small mall there, so you might just miss it. We sampled a tuna cone and unfiltered Belgium beer. We were told that they have live jazz playing on certain days and if you arrive before 6, there is no cover. Great neighbourhood spot that I’m sure will be busy once the summer rolls around.
After walking all the way to Denman, Diana and I decided to take the bus back down to Yaletown to do our last three stops: Milestones, Parlour and Chasers Fresh Juice.
We started off at Milestones where they were showcasing new items on their brunch menu. The item: Breakfast Tostada which is usually served with poached eggs, chorizo and fresh cut tomatoes. Our bite sized portion was delicious and crispy, very south western and big on flavour without being too overpowering.
The Parlour is our second to last stop. I love the Parlour. They play great music, the service is great – completely not pretentious and a great place to grab your not-so-typical pizzas. My favourite pizza has got to be the Goldmember (caramelized onion, mushroom duxelle, yukon gold potato, truffle oil and gruyere).
Finally, our last stop is at Chasers Juice. Have they been here a while? I wish I went down this road more often. We got to play with their juicer, which was so entertaining to watch the oranges feed in and get the juiced squeezed out of them. This is literally everything that goes into one of their juices – just straight up fruit.
The event was great, every location had a great handle of what was going on and managed to work with the volume of people coming and going. To be honest, I forgot a bit about the tasks we had to do at every location because I was focusing more on the food and only two or three places reminded me to participate in it – but other than that, this was a great way to experience places you wouldn’t normally frequent – and was also great exercise.
