Vancouver, BC and Seattle!

There's really no excuse for not posting my vacation pics until now... except that I'm still enjoying relaxing and catching up on things back at home!

I don't think I've ever taken a vacation this long- I took a 8 1/2 day trip and now have 3 days to return to work mode.  This is luxurious.  I'm feeling very thankful today.

Here's a few pictures from my trip.  Mostly food, but a few family and friend pictures are included.

Like this one...The reason for this whole trip!  My niece Hannah!  She's pretty much the cutest baby in the world (don't you dare argue with me).

This is a little dessert I picked up at Central Market in Dallas.  My stepmom and I spent 1? 2? 3? hours wandering around and picking up food for a dinner party.  This is an amazing raw mini pie filled with chocolate mint coconut oil.  Yep, that's right.  It was RICH!  It's made by Hail Merry in Dallas.
Not too many more pictures of food from Dallas/Garland.  I must have forgotten to take pictures, except when I was with my niece!

On to Canada.  This is my friend Sarah who lives in Vancouver, BC modeling the ketchup flavored chips sold there.  They're MSG-laden and bright red.  But I do admit they are really good!  And Sarah looks so darn cute in this picture, even if she doesn't like the chips too much.
This is Sarah and I taking a little boat ride.  Fun!
Now the food:

As soon as I got off the plane, we stopped at a little falafel place to get wraps and baklava.  I can't remember the name of it, though!  (Sarah, maybe you can leave a comment with the name?)  It was seriously good- how can you beat falafel with avocado?

That night we headed out to Rahya, a combo yoga studio and organic/local foods restaurant.  This is exactly how I'd want my dream restaurant to be: really high quality housemade foods, relaxing atmosphere...except with a bit faster service.

We started with the raw nori rolls filled with sunflower-hempseed pate.  
Next was my favorite: the Handmade gnocchi wih local mushrroms and pea shoots.  Wonderfully tender and seasoned perfectly!
We really could have been full off of the appetizers, but we ordered entrees, too!

This is the organic Mediterranean fusilli with kalamata olives, capers, sundried tomatoes, pine nuts, and greens.  Very tasty, but also a bit too much like something I'd make at home.
This is the black peppercorn crusted tempeh fillet with grainy mustard-sunflower cream potato salad, red wine jus, and beets with greens.  Super good!  Every item on this plate was a winner.  The tempeh was spicy and crunchy, the potatoes were creamy and rich, and the beets were refreshing and earthy.

I was so full at this point that I really could have skipped dessert...but we had already ordered before we filled up!  We had the lemon bar and the warm fruit crumble with housemade organic BC blueberry sorbet.  I don't think I've EVER left half of my dessert uneaten before, but I had to!
The next morninng we checked out the Lululemon outlet (!) and then went to a power yoga class at Yaletown yoga.  Seriously good way to work up an appetite!

We had lunch at Bo Kong, an all vegan Asian restaurant.  This is the Ginger Fried Rice with asparagus.  Not super impressive, but it went well with the...
Fried yuba rolls in black bean sauce!  Yum!

[I don't know why this is underlined, and it's making me really mad]

That night we took the bus to Seattle.  We arrived pretty late and were relieved to find that Cyber Dogs was close to the hotel, open until midnight and has rockin' vegan hot dogs!

I had the Brave German Dog with sauerkraut and onions.  Yum!

The next day was jam packed with everything we could possibly do in Seattle!  Of course, it all started with some donuts.
We had chocolate peanut butter, French toast, double chocolate, strawberry jam filled, Don King (chocolate and coconut)and bunny tracks (raspberry and coconut).  All were delicious.  But I felt a little sick after eating more donuts in 30 minutes than I had in the last 6 years.

So we waited a little while and had a late lunch at Hillside Quickie. We couldn't resist starting with a piece of this pizza from the display case.  It had heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, and a super creamy cheeze sauce!  

 This was Sarah's burger!  I can't remember the name, but it had avocado, cheeze sauce, tempeh, tofu, veggies, and I'm sure more.

This was my seitan wrap with coleslaw inside.  It was exactly what I needed at that moment!  Crunchy and fresh veggies with greasy seitan- Yum

Later on that evening we stopped at Pizza Pi for the calzone sampler.  Each one was filled with a different pizza topping and there was a creamy garlic dipping sauce that was pretty much like mayonaise (fine by me!).  Of course we also stopped by Sidecar for Pigs' Peace to pick up some soy curlz, a new Queen Bee wallet for me, some chocolates, Cheesely and Sheese!

After this super long day, we headed over to Teapot Vegetarian House for a late dinner.  I'd been dreaming about all their amazing dishes since I saw the extensive menu online.  But after this long (and filling) day, I really wanted some soup!

Sarah had the corn chowder, which is really more like "egg" drop soup than a western corn chowder.  It was amazingly good!
I had the hot and sour soup.  I wasn't wild about the flavor of the soup at first, but it grew on me.  I probably wouldn't order it again, but I did like that it had daylily buds in it.  I'm a bit of a daylily fan.
The real star of this meal was the Rose Drummettes: housemade tofu and gluten "chicken" wrapped around sugar cane and fried.  Served with rose dipping sauce.  Sarah promised that however high my hopes were for these- The drummettes would surpass them.  She was right.

I think this is the longest post I've ever done- or at least the most pictures!  Hope you enjoyed my food travels.  I know I did!