Veg Eats Vancouver: The Acorn

It was mine and Kirk's sixth wedding anniversary last week. Now that we're parents, we don't get to have romantic weekends at B&Bs anymore, but we did have my Mum babysit so we could go out for a nice dinner.

I've been wanting to try The Acorn since it opened. Finally, a nice vegetarian restaurant in Vancouver! Don't get me wrong, I like The Naam and Foundation, but I'm not a hippie or a hipster, and bad service is not really my thing. And it's nice to have somewhere vegetarian to go for a special occasion.

So anyway, they don't take reservations and we went early. I don't like waiting for a table, and luckily we got one right away.

Now, I had a cold, so I can't reliably comment on flavours, but I'm going to anyway. Take my comments with a grain of salt, as it were. Also, sorry about the crappy iPhone photos. I should have used my flash, but I have it turned off so I'm not blinding Odin with it all the time.

We shared a potato and parsnip croquette appetizer. I found it a little bland, and I said as much to Kirk. He pointed out the pieces of sharp cheese in the sauce. I hadn't gotten any cheese on my portion, and I think if I had it would have made all the difference in the world. With the appetizer I had a glass of the Kettle Valley Gewurztraminer, and I didn't like it. Normally I'm a Gewurztraminer fan, but I found it a little musky for my taste. The server recommended the Pentage Reisling, which was better, though very fruity. It could have been my snotty nose ruining the wine, though.

They didn't clear our plates after the appetizer, and we had to use the same cutlery for our entrees. I wasn't impressed by that, and it seemed inconsistent with the rest of the service, which was pretty attentive.

I chose the beer battered halloumi entree. It came with a zucchini pancake, smashed peas and a yogourt sauce. It was honestly one of the best things I've ever eaten. The halloumi was salty and somehow light, for fried cheese anyway. The pancake was all zucchini, not a bunch of filler, and the peas were delicious and a little minty. It seemed to me like a spring dish, rather than autumn, but I enjoyed it very much.

Kirk had the king oyster mushroom medallions with spelt and a peppercorn sauce. He said it was really good, although other than the peppercorn sauce, it seemed like something we would make at home. If he could choose again, he would have gotten the halloumi too.

I ordered the pumpkin semifreddo dessert. It was good, but not spectacular. It tasted really nice, and was surprisingly light, but was frozen a bit too hard and was difficult to cut into with the big, clunky spoon they gave me. The plate wasn't chilled, so it melted a bit on the bottom and I ended up chasing it around on the plate.

Overall, I enjoyed The Acorn, and I would definitely go back given the opportunity.

Baby Food

I started feeding Odin solid foods a few weeks ago, and it's been quite the adventure for both of us.

Even just knowing where to start is confusing. There is way too much information out there. Purees, baby led weaning, cereals or no cereals, fruits or no fruits, juice or no juice, water or no water, the connection between starting solids and skin troubles, and just as we were starting out all the news articles about iron and breast fed babies... It seems like everyone has an opinion. I decided to keep it simple. I asked our GP, and she said 5.5 months is a fine time to start as long as he's showing interest. She said to stay away from sweetened juices and water and to make sure I don't wait too long to try iron-rich foods like meat or tofu. I did a little research and found a nice, simple chart of what foods are fine when from Wholesome Baby Food that made sense to me. Then we went for it.

We started off with mashed yams at Thanksgiving dinner. Not a big hit. He wasn't sure what to think, really. Then I tried avocado. He didn't like it straight up, but loved it thinned out with a bit of breast milk. Same with carrots.

adventures in yams

So far he's tried apples, avocados, pears, carrots, peas, butternut squash, yams, oatmeal and rice, all purees, some homemade, some prepared. No bad reactions, not even gas or constipation. Rice cereal is by far his favourite. He likes jarred peas better than oatmeal. What a weirdo.

avocado - yuck!

Overall, this whole solid food thing has been fun so far. I love watching his reactions to new things. It does make me a little sad too. He's growing up so quickly!

rice cereal is serious business

Rawwwwr!

Happy Hallowe'en from the cutest monster ever!

He's too little to trick-or-treat and it's pouring rain outside, so he's just dressed up to hang around the house. But costumes are fun no matter what!

In the meantime...

I have a couple of restaurant reviews that I need to write up for you guys, but in the meantime, here are some recent photos of my 6-month-old cutie...

Veg Eats Vancouver: Lucky's Doughnuts

Just a quick post to sing the praises of Lucky's Doughnuts, a new-ish doughnut place inside 49th Parallel Coffee on Main St. This place has been all over the blogosphere (did I just use that word?) and I finally got to try it out. I had the Salted Caramel Old Fashioned, and oh my god, it may just be the best thing I've ever eaten. It's definitely the best doughnut I've ever had.

It's so nice that there are artisan doughnut shops opening up (and let's not forget Lee's on Granvile Island), especially since our national doughnut chain, which shall remain unnamed, reheats frozen doughnuts rather than making them fresh. I once heard that Canadians eat more doughnuts per capita than any other people in the world. I don't know if that's true, but I know frozen doughnuts should be a crime.

Diet be damned! I will eat at Lucky's Doughnuts again!