New Restaurant Friday: Wild Wing

This was where we decided to take our New Restaurant Friday this week. Originally on my meal plan for this week we were going to try somewhere else, but after much deliberation and Thursday night hubby mentioning wings no less than three times we changed our minds!

Boy were we glad we did! Wild Wing located on Granville St in Vancouver is a cute little joint located between Nelson and Smithe. When you walk in it is set up very much like a Hooters for those of you that have been to one; roomy booths, a bar, and lots of televisions.

We were seated right away, which surprised me since there was a hockey game...or maybe that is why we were seated right away. Our waitress was great, very attentive.

When you look at the menu you are offered wings three ways: traditional (breaded), naked, or boneless. We chose traditional.

This is what we had:

 Garlic Parm, Sweet brunette which is a combo of the two flavors we got, and Honey BBQ. I only tried one and it was the sweet brunette really tasty. Great combo of the two flavors.

This was my meal, coconut shrimp and caesar salad. The shrimp were as good as any from back home in Florida. Crispy, not greasy and the dip was fantastic, really complimented them. The salad was tossed in the garlic parm dressing, 'twas perfect! 

These two goobers enjoying their wings. The teenager was acting a fool as any good teenager does when out to wings with her parents! 

At the end we got these tasty little candies:

Wild wing is great for groups and families. The booths were large, it wasn't quiet, and the food is for the fingers! Make sure you go check it out!

New Restaurant Friday: Pizzaria Ludica

Hello! This weekend we did our regularly scheduled New Restaurant Friday. We tried a restaurant I had found thanks to a FB "suggested pages" ad! Normally I ignore those things but it was marketed as a "board game restaurant". There is nothing more the teenager & I love more than board games...the husband, well, he's in games for a living so he's always up for a fun new experience that involves games.

We ate at Pizzeria Ludica. I'm a terrible blogger & didn't take a picture of a logo, or the outside because. well, I'm terrible.

I made a reservation on their website. Super easy and fast, and we were guaranteed a table this way.

This place was very welcoming when we walked in. Lots of long tables, great for groups. The entire back wall was games.

Teenager selecting a game. They had everything there from super easy family games like mousetrap & yahtzee to more complicated, intricate games like Settlers of Catan.

She chose Munchkin. It was one she had been wanting to try so it was the perfect time!

Hubby had to actually look something up as the game in the restaurant had no tokens so we wanted to make sure we could play without the tokens! We could, it was no problem.

At one point I was a half-breed halfling elf! There are treasure cards & battle cards. You never know what you will get and if it will be a blessing or a curse-quite literally!

So this picture looks super sweet right?! He's "helping" her through a battle, great father/daughter time...right after this he got to choose two cards from her & won the whole game! We have to get more savvy when playing games with this guy...you would think after 15 years I would have figured it out...

So, the game was super fun but the food was amazing as well. My expectations were pretty low because many times at restaurants like this you go for the atmosphere, not the food. Here though, you can rest assured you will go for atmosphere & food!

Four cheese calzone! For a dollar you can turn any of their pizza's into a calzone...my fave!

This was the meat pizza. The crust was delicious, very fresh. The meat on it was ham, pepperoni, and bacon. A perfect combo for my meat lover husband! He is still talking about it two days later.

Since it was New Restaurant Friday we could not pass up dessert. This is a nutella pizza. It had nutella, walnuts, and a caramel drizzle, and was sprinkled with cocoa powder. It was amazing. 

Then we each got an Americano. Very good espresso and they served with fresh cream.

This was a fantastic experience and I cannot rave about them enough! Great place for groups, families, or just to shake up the regular ole date night. They are just steps off the Chinatown Skytrain station in Vancouver, BC. Very convenient location for any one using transit!

New Restaurant Friday: Moderne Burger, Vancouver, BC

For our New Restaurant "Friday", which seems to be occurring more and more on Saturday these days was at a place called Moderne Burger, in Kitsilano area of Vancouver, BC. My 14 year old actually found this place when browsing Bored In Vancouver! This was her first time choosing our restaurant for New Restaurant Friday and it was a total success, she was so proud of herself!

When you see it from the street it is all lit up with a neon sign out front, at night hard to miss. When you walk in it is a classic diner experience. Mint coloured booths, a counter with stools lining the food prep area, and a lots of cute pin-up style diner art.

Everyone was super nice from the minute we walked in to the restaurant. Our waitress even gave us a tip since we were all getting shakes, burgers, and fries for my daughter & I to just split the fries. Glad we took her up on the tip because it was a lot of food. I still have half a shake in the freezer and half a burger in the fridge!

Here are some photos from our meal:

Amazing chocolate shake!

Strawberry shake the husband enjoyed!

My platter...the kiddo had already taken about half the fries! o_O Unreal, right?!

Regular steakburger with two types of cheese. The beautiful part about Moderne is there are no additives to their beef and everything is made fresh in house!

Bacon cheeseburger & fries. 

We cleaned house! It was so tasty!

Moderne is a place we will go back to time and again. Affordable food, good for the whole family. Can't wait until our next visit.

New Restaurant Friday: Rain City Grill-Vancouver, BC

Happy Monday all!!! I am getting a late start today. This weekend the hubby and I were busy, busy on date nights and just spending time together and with the teenager so I wasn't on the computer too much...which honestly was fine I was feeling like I needed a technology hiatus!

Anyway...I wanted to give this review it's own post because as you all know we typically do "New Restaurant Friday" where we pick a new restaurant somewhere in town and see if we can have a new favourite! The past couple of weeks we have actually been going back to some favourites so we haven't been trying anything new. But, since I am doing the 21 Day Sugar Detox, I was looking for something a little more paleo friendly. This definitely was! Here is some info about it:

Rain City Grill is located in Vancouver, BC. It is about a 20 minutes walk from us. It is in what is called the "West End" neighbourhood, where as we live in the "Coal Harbour" neighbourhood. This place was much nicer than I had anticipated. We went at 5pm when they opened for dinner and were extremely casually dressed (jeans, t-shirts, nice shoes...decent, but had I known we probably would have dress up a bit more). Also, make sure to make a reservation. I was also a bit ticked that we weren't offered the "Dine Out" menu, I didn't realize it was available until after we had placed our order and heard the hostess ask someone if they also wanted the "Dine Out" menu. Since we had a child with us it would have been nice to get a prix fixe price.

Everything was very good and we even go to try something new-Cornish Hen! We were a bit disappointed thought because we checked out their menu online and they are listed as having a Wagyu Beef Burger, but apparently they hadn't had that since the summer. So I think I should take the time to mention their menu does change weekly as it is a "farm to table" restaurant so all the food is local.

So, here we go. We started off with some bread. It was quite delicious. They brought butter that was very soft (this is a pet peeve of my husband when we go to a restaurant and get cold butter that can't be spread so they got about a million points here in his book) and some sea salt.

I started with the butternut squash soup.

It said on the menu it came with a walnut and apple cookie. It was just crumbles of a cookie in the bowl so that was a bit disappointing as I was looking forward how that would taste! It also came with some apple panna cotta, which was amazing. It was all quite delicious and not terribly sweet like many places tend to make butternut squash soup. 

For my main I had the salmon. It was quite delicious and cooked very well. The mushrooms it came with were delicious, and it had a little sauce with kale underneath. The little squares on top are cauliflower puree hash-browns! I didn't realize it until my very picky husband said they tasted "vegetable-y" lol It was very delicious I still have half of it in the fridge to munch on for lunch.

This is the teenager's plate. I will say she was quite disappointed by the serving size. Being american and used to eating at such places as Chili's and Red Robin the fact this didn't take up even half her plate was a bit surprising to her. But, she ate most everything. She loved the Cornish Hen. She said it just tasted like chicken, but was tinier. It came with some tasty fingerling potatoes.

The husband had a rib eye. It wasn't overly expensive for a local steak. Places such as Coast & Black & Blue charge much, much more and theirs are not local to my knowledge. He got a delicious sauce over it and it came with fingerling potatoes. They were delicious. But, being picky he didn't care for them and instead opted for french fries. They came in a super cute tiny looking fry basket. I forgot to get a picture unfortunately.

We really enjoyed the restaurant. I can't say the wait staff was very friendly. They were helpful, but not very friendly. They also didn't seem to pay a whole lot of attention. I ordered a drink and then the husband and daughter ordered cokes and I asked the waiter to put Grenadine in their soda's and somehow my drink came with grenadine. I know they were going to be busy that evening and we didn't have a reservation but in that case they should have just said they couldn't seat us, where as it almost seemed like we were more of a bother. It was a bit frustrating. I do hope to go back and try their brunch or lunch menu and hopefully get a better feel of the place.

If you have been to Vancouver or live here and have a suggestion of a place we should try please fill me in!!!

What a Weekend!

Originally this weekend was supposed to be composed of nothing but being at home, relaxing, hubby catching up on some video game playing and me and the kiddo just going whatever instead this is what ensued....

Friday: 
What was supposed to happen: Nothing. I had a dentist appt, just a quiet evening. We thought about going to a music festival but were kind of iffy on it.
What actually happened: The kiddo's friend is going to Serbia for the rest of the summer so she invited my daughter and one other kid to spend the night, first they decided to come here and swim for about two hours. Then, hubby texted me and ask if I wanted to start new restaurant Friday since we did a new restaurant last Friday, so it would make a fun date night. So we headed over the Flying Pig in Yaletown. It was a really nice set up. It's very loud and the tables are a bit longer than you'd expect so don't go there if you are looking to cuddle up and get some romance in. You have to speak loud and be ready to be with people. This is what I had for dinner along with a glass of Riesling:

This was what we had as an appetizer. Bone Marrow Cheezy Bread. Seriously,  they bring you some just plain bread when you sit down, don't eat it. Immediately order this. It is AMAZING! I really could have just eaten this for dinner.

I had the BBQ Salmon. I'd never had BBQ Sauce on Salmon before but it was DELICIOUS! It came with prawn and Parmesan Risotto. The flavour combinations here were so complimentary to one another. I didn't want to stop eating, but had to force myself much like with the bread above for the last course....brace yourself it is amazing....

Vanilla cake with chocolate ganache.  I could hardly take but a few bites. It was very thick and creamy with the ganache. If you have several people to share with this is the way to go. Hubby get creme brulee so it was just little ol' me left to tackle this thing. I took a few bites then brought the rest home. After our 3 mile walk home I decided to eat a little more then the kiddo devoured most of it in the afternoon on Saturday and I ate it for dessert Saturday as well. It went the long haul providing some delicious chocolate satisfaction.

Saturday:

What was supposed to happen: Farmer's market, my last dentist appointment, lay around and do nothing the rest of the day. 

What actually happened: I woke up way to early (6:45) and lazed around until one of my friends said that all before 7 am she'd watched a movie and worked out. So, I got my butt up and slugged 8 ounces of water, did this warm up by blogilate, jump rope hiit by fitness blender, 100 burpee burn out, and the call me maybe squat challenge.  I love doing the 100 burpee burnout and one of blogilates pop challenges on Saturday's because they are fast, high calorie burning workouts that I can get over with quickly and enjoy my Saturday. I usually do them coupled with a run but I wasn't really feeling that this morning so I added in the jump rope HIIT. That was fantastic. If you don't have a jump rope, suck at jumping rope, or it's not practical for you to jump rope inside (like for me in my high rise just not practical) so I just mimicked jumping rope and found I was able to jump quite a bit more because I wasn't getting the rope stuck on myself. So after that I quick showered and ran up to the farmer's market. This is what I got:

Tons of goodies here. We go through a lot of eggs in a week and this was the first week for the local eggs so I got two dozen. Can't wait to show y'all what I have planned for those this upcoming week! Then, some local Raclette for the husband. A zucchini. I immediately wished I'd bought a second, but oh well there's always next Saturday. Then something new-garlic scraps. Apparently these make the world's most amazing garlic butter...I guess I'll find out! Some raspberries (not all farm's are ready with raspberries yet so this was a treat!), some strawberries, and some mushrooms. I wasn't too interested in the salad greens they had. It was mostly kale and I'm not a huge kale fan unfortunately. So, got home and put those goodies away then I went to the dentist, slept for two hours after that and then we caught the ferry to Granville Island. This is an amazing place to check out, especially if you are a visitor. There are tons of shops on the island, a lot of unique places you won't find anywhere else. They also have a giant market. During the summer it can be a little overwhelming. I know when I shopped there regularly last summer you had to be prepared to walk between people and get bumped around and whatnot.  

The ferry leaving David Lam Park to head over to Granville Island.

Approaching Granville Island. Weather didn't look to hot did it???

The marina next to Granville Island.

Fresh fish at the Granville Island Market.

More fishes!!!

Look at the coloring on this mackerel. Isn't it beautiful, it's almost iridescent. Makes we wish I had my dslr so I could have gotten really good pictures!

Octopus!! I'd never get adventurous enough to buy it, but I guess some do!

I love how these bottles looked, they were so pretty!

Gluten free vegan flax rolls! One of the few places around here that has something that looks appetizing for gluten free vegans!

 This one just cracked me up, guess they wanted to make sure you knew this one wasn't too pleasant smelling!

Inside the market there are food vendors where you can pick up a meal to eat right there. I love A La Mode. We ate there last year...they have a fantastic chicken pot pie! We got apple cinnamon sticky buns for hubby & the kiddo at another vendor (same one as the flax rolls), there is also a candy shop, a local meat place, a honey place (with multiple flavours of honey sticks), a donut place, some cheese vendors (hubby of course picked up some raclette and curds!), and a few fruit and veggie vendors. I don't typically frequents those, though because I get the impression they are not local as they had things like banana's and dragon fruit. Also I saw they had a place that makes dole whip. A must get next time I go! I thought I'd never find those anywhere but Disney! 

Saturday night: We had dinner at a cute little poutine place. I had some fries and a steamer dog. Not the best for me, but oh well. It was great time with the family and everyone enjoyed the meal so that's what mattered. Then once the sun set here-which is very late, usually not until well after 10 pm we went as a family down on the seawall to check out the Super Moon:

Sunday

What was supposed to happen: The kiddo rides carpool with her friend to cheer while I lay around and relax with the hubby.

What actually happened: So, the kiddo was told about a flyer training at her cheer gym so I was up and had her to the gym at 10am for a flyer training. I stuck around there as there was a marathon going on and I didn't want to get caught in the traffic. I treated her to lunch at Subway. I wanted to take her to a place next door called The Crab Shop since she loves shellfish but she said "it looks awfully...uh, fishy, can we please have Subway", so, I obliged. 

I was hoping we'd be able to walk there, but given the fabulous Vancouver weather it was raining and I didn't bring umbrella's so we drove. We did enjoy a nice long meal as she had two hours in between. I wanted to take her to walk around, but again because of the rain we didn't but there are some awesome things you'll find in this little ware house area there are several factory stores for clothing shops, an indoor play place, and a place where you can bring your own bottles and fill up on beer to take home. I wish they had a wine place like that! Next time it's sunny I'll have to take pictures and do a feature on the places in that area as if you aren't a local you would never know they are there!

Also, back behind her cheer place is a long set of rail road tracks. I once saw a train backing up on these tracks...bizarre!

Back it up...back it up...

I actually did manage to cook this weekend. I made two things my mother in law's spaghetti and cheesy garlic barbari for hubby and bruschetta chicken (recipe to come) with garlic barbari for the kiddo and I. I served it with a nice little relish of just cucumbers for hubby and cucumbers and onion for me and the kiddo! 

Overall it was nice to have a bit of a spontaneous weekend! Now we are going into the last week of school and down to two full weeks before our summer vacation to Florida! I am so excited to see my nieces and nephews, to meet one of my nieces and see my brother whom I haven't seen in almost 3 years! 

What are you looking forward to this summer?

What I Ate Wednesday/WODs #4

Happy Wednesday!!!

Over here we've been battling a cold. So a good majority of our meals consist of having a cup of lemon water with honey, cinnamon, and cayenne to try and get rid of this horrible cold. It wouldn't be so bad, but I go to bed thinking I'll feel better the next morning and usually I feel absolutely horrible! I'm hoping with the sun that is supposed to come in tomorrow it will bring some good feeling vibe with it or something. 

Anyway, enough whining! On to the workout's first today. Last week I was bound & determined to do every workout, in the order I am supposed to without whining. I DID IT! Personal goal of mine so that was pretty exciting. Here's what the workouts consisted of:

Wednesday: Max Cardio Conditioning and Cardio Abs. I also took a nice long walk around the neighborhood my daughter's gym is in. Saw a train on the tracks that I thought were just abandoned, it lost it's cargo & had to back up! I had no idea trains could back up?! Anyway, the workout was killer I woke up Thursday with sore ribs from the hard work during the abs. 

Thursday: Max Recovery. I was so glad too, I was very sore. But, this was a great workout. My hip even cooperated so I was able to do all the hip openers all the way through.

Friday: Max Interval Circuit. Legs. Were. Dying. I also did a ton of walking this day between getting the kid to school, then home, then taking her belongings for her weekend trip to her friends house, then home. It was a lot of walking.

Saturday: Core Cardio & Balance. This is a nice easy 35 minute workout. I got up early before the husband & knocked it out. It was fab!

Sunday: Rest Day. I woke up & was starting to get sick. :( So, I took it easy, took a hot detox bath, did a little stretching & walking and that was about it.

Monday: Max Interval Plyo. Even though I was sick I worked  as hard as I could without stressing my body too much so it could still heal. 

Tuesday: I decided to take today as my rest day. I am still feeling pretty awful and by 11 am had taken two naps so I decided just to work on the blog, drink my lemon water, and let myself heal. I also took a hot detox bath. 

Today: I'm moving everything down a day so today I'll do Max Cardio Conditioning & Cardio Abs. This is my last week of Insanity so I am super excited to finish up strong & move on to another round of P90X.

So, as you can see I am super excited to get back to lifting weights. I have a couple of goals for this summer round of P90X which I will address when I show off my June workout calendar. Anyway, on to the FOOD!  You can read here about our experience at Eat! Vancouver this past weekend, but that's obviously not all I ate....

French Toast!! I don't make this often but my daughter was leaving for a long weekend so I made her nutella/banana/cinnamon french toast & decided to have a piece with her. I didn't want anything so decadent & I have issues with eating chocolate in the morning lol so I opted for this! It was amazing!

Saturday morning breakfast for the Mr. & I. Homemade dough, ricotta, mozzarella, eggs, bacon, and a bit more mozzarella just for good measure. ;)

I don't want soda often but lately I've been craving all things ginger so I decided to grab a gingerale after Eat! Vancouver to enjoy the evening.

This was dinner last night since I wasn't feeling well. I'd been wanting to try a Thai place up the street called Pink Elephant. The kiddo & I split the leftovers for lunch & there's still a little in there for breakfast or lunch tomorrow!

Lunch one day. Egg salad sandwich with baby greens, cashews, oranges, and pickle.

Mmmmm cereal with raisins & bananas!

Post-workout snack one day. Almond butter sandwich with greek yogurt with a drizzle of maple syrup, blueberries, and flaxmeal. 

After the kiddo's band concert last Thursday we went to a local pizza place she loves. They got pizza & I got a massive Caesar Salad. It was amazing.

So, that sums up my week in food & fitness! Making better food choices all the time!!! 

What was your favorite food this last week? Mine was probably the lobster & raclette my hubby made after Eat Vancouver last Saturday!