granville island food

What's the best place to spend a rainy Sunday in Vancouver?  Granville Island.  Actually, it's a pretty great place to spend a sunny Sunday, or really any day for that matter.  So, that's exactly where Hubby and I spent part of our weekend.

To me, one of the best parts of Granville Island is the food.  Sure, Hubby and I, with our matching black umbrellas, explored the maze of little artisanal shops, but the best part was the alllll the food.


For lunch, we chose the Public Market.  There are many great restaurants on Granville Island, but for this day, we preferred to have something quick and delicious.  It was a good choice.  I had perogies and Hubby satisfied his craving for a burger and fries.  As the market was especially crowed, we ended up sharing our table with a couple who was vacationing from Minnesota.  We sat, while munching our our lunch, and chatted about our beautiful city and the Canucks.  Double win.

After lunch, we stopped at one of the deli vendors to stock up on some delicious meat and cheese.  We chose ham prosciutto, red wine salami, and French brie.  We also visited one of the bakeries and picked up a fresh-baked sourdough loaf.  This was tonight's dinner.  Throw some veggies in there and you've got the perfect weeknight dinner (or weekend lunch), if you ask me.  Simple, fresh, and oh so tasty.  "German lunch" is what we refer to them around these parts. 

Here's my review of our selections:

Ham Prosciutto
We had the butcher slice it very thinly; it was so thin that it was almost transparent.  The thing that I loved about it the most was the fact that it wasn't overly salty, as I've found with most of the prosciuttos that I've had before.  It was buttery and delicate, but still let the flavour of the ham shine through.

Red Wine Salami
This was Hubby's favourite.  Although, I have to admit that I couldn't taste any of the "red wine" flavour, I still found it really enjoyable.  It was the boldest flavour on our plate, and it complemented the mild brie nicely.  It was a little peppery, but not overpowering, just the right amount.

French Brie
This was probably one of the most amazing cheeses that I've ever eaten.  The reason?  It tasted like butter.  It was so creamy that it suck to the plate and you could spread it over the bread just like butter.  I'm not a fan of "strong" cheeses, I'm much happier with the milder varieties of cheese, so I think that's why I enjoyed this one so much.

PS:  If you're interested, we bought our meat and cheese from the Oyama Sausage Co. and our bread from La Baguette et L'Echalote Bakery.

PPS: As the butcher was slicing our meat, Hubby leaned over and whispered in my ear "Look beside you".  I looked to my right and saw a little baby boy, all snuggled up in a carrier.  Clearly I'm not the only one with babies on the brain.