Located on Mainland Street in Yaletown, PHAT specializes in a variety of soups and sandwiches with a Jewish-Montreal focus. From a variety of bagels, smoked meat sandwiches and matzo ball soup, PHAT had dozens of different items on the wall-mounted menus that all looked delicious.

Barb and I both ordered smoked meat sandwiched on dark rye. Piled high with smoked meat and (mine) with a zesty hot mustard. Barb, of course, refuses to have mustard on anything that she eats which I can’t understand one bit given her German background but what can you do.

Coming up real soon is our Eastern Canada vacation and and we will be ending our trip in Montreal where we will no doubt be having smoked meat sandwiches on several occasions. If the smoked meat that we have in Montreal are as good as the ones at PHAT, then I’m sure that we’re going to be doing quite well.

Baden

---

PHAT
1055 Mainland St., Vancouver
604-684-6239

---

Thomas Haas Patisserie and Cappuccino Bar is one of those rare places that we have gone to in the Vancouver area where we can honestly say that the product is as good as anything that we have had anywhere in Europe. Keep in mind that we’re pretty ruthless in this kind of assessment and don’t just throw around this kind of statement willy nilly but there just no arguing on this fact – Thomas Haas serves up the real goods.

If you were only to read the Thomas Haas web site you might get the impression that they were primarily focused on chocolate. This is definitely a major focus in their store but at the time of the morning that the four of us went we were baked goods and coffee were flying across the counter and very little chocolate. Well, of course I had a pain au chocolate (really just chocolate filled croissants in a rectangle shape) with my regular croissant but that’s just not the same as ordering real chocolate of course.

The croissants that Thomas Haas makes are a perfect creation and as I said were the equal of ones that we’ve had in Paris. Having that perfect combination of flaky and chewy texture, it was as good as it gets to accompany the latte as a breakfast meal. All of this gets to the discussion about the leisurely part of our story.

The cat definitely seems to be out of the bag when it comes to Thomas Haas as it looked like most of North Vancouver was there along with us that Saturday morning. It was about 4 people deep that the counter to place your order and everyone behind the counter seemed to be running at full speed. It appears that Thomas Haas is a victim of their own success and should really look at moving into a much larger locations some time soon.

This minor issue aside, the Thomas Haas store has got to make it to your “must visit” list if you are in North Vancouver. The wait will be worth it.

Baden

---

Thomas Haas Patisserie and Cappuccino Bar
Unit 128, 998 Harbourside Drive, North Vancouver
604-924-1847

---

Les Amis Du Fromage (translation: “the friends of cheese”) is a cheese shop in Kitsilano that advertises to carry between 300-500 different types of cheeses. Most of the huge selection of cheese that they carry are behind glass cases and as a result there is not the powerful cheese smell that we had experienced in the last cheese shop that we had walked into (in Paris) called La Fromagerie 31 (see Barb and Baden’s Excellent Paris Adventure – Part 3) where virtually all of the cheese is out in the open, unwrapped and deliciously pungent. Realistically though, this probably could never be done here in Vancouver as you have to have a steady stream of customers all day long buying large quantities of cheese in order to keep it out unwrapped. This would definitely work in France where eating all types of cheese seems to be their birthright.

One of the things that we are immediately looking for when we are shopping for cheese is to find cheese made from raw (or unpasteurized) milk. Raw milk has far more of the essential bacteria left in the milk that the pasteurization process kills off by heating it up. Pasteurization is done for food safety reasons but the end result is that much of the flavour is killed off along with the bacteria. Barb and I first experienced raw milk cheese in France and was immediately blown away by the significantly richer flavour that it had. It was after this experience that we became obsessed with buying raw milk cheese wherever we could.

One of the best parts of shopping at Les Amis Du Fromage is that the people let you try a small bite of the cheese that you might be interested in so that you can taste what you’re getting before you buy it. This probably won’t happen for every type of cheese but we were able to try out two of the three cheese before we bought them. Of the two that we tasted, it was the Brie de Meaux that impressed us the most. Quite frankly, most Brie cheese that you buy in stores is pretty tasteless and it isn’t as apparent how bad the regular stuff is until you taste a good raw milk cheese like the Brie de Meaux that we bought. I’m not overstating it by saying that this was one of the best cheeses that we have ever tasted.

One of the favourite types of cheese that Barb and I enjoy is a nice soft goat’s cheese (or fromage de chèvre in French). We bought a goat cheese (raw milk of course ) which was flavoured with figs called Coeur Gourmand. The smell from this cheese, even unwrapped, is fantastic and I can’t wait to try some of this today.The third cheese that we bought was a hard sheep cheese from the Pyrenees region of France called Ossau Iraty. This one we were also able to try out in advance and also had a remarkable rich flavour that we are anxious to eat today. We bought a nice baguette along with our cheese yesterday and intend to enjoy today for lunch.

If you in any way someone who likes their cheese and has not had raw milk cheese before, you really need to try this out and discover what we have learned. Les Amis Du Fromage is one of several stores in Vancouver where we have bought raw milk cheese. Once you have tried this you’ll be hooked forever.

Baden

---

Les Amis Du Fromage
1752 West 2nd Avenue, Vancouver or #518 Park Royal South, West Vancouver
(604) 732-4218

---

Before I go on sounding too biased, I have to say that I have had the opportunity to eat at some good restaurants in Langley and of course one of my all time favourite places is the Mozart Bakery and Cafe which is located in Langley.

But as it turns out I was looking to find a nice place for us to have dinner in Langley a few weeks ago. Our friends Paul and Marj who were in town and were staying at a hotel in Langley. My selection for a restaurant for us to go to was primarily driven by the proximity to their hotel but it so happens that I had already eaten before at the Sonoma Grill and knew it to be a good restaurant.

It being a Tuesday night, the restaurant was pretty empty and we had good, attentive service even though we were fairly leisurely in enjoying our evening. I started my meal with a chorizo crab chowder and had a pesto sable fish main course. The sable fish course was particularly good.

The Sonoma Grill was undoubtedly not the only place to eat well in Langley. In this particular case, the evening was more enjoyable because of the friends that we dined with more than anything else but I can recommend the Sonoma Grill without hesitation.

Baden

---

Sonoma Grill
20598 Fraser Hwy, Langley
604-534-2104

---

Mozart has a complete case dedicated to pastries and baked goods so choosing something is surprisingly harder to do than might be imagined. On one of my visits I picked up a box of coronettis which are the cone-shaped pastries filled with cream. I’ll defer any descriptions of the wonderful taste and texture of the coronettis to the above picture which pretty much sums up how it tasted.

In addition to the individual pastries that we’ve always enjoyed from the Mozart Bakery and Cafe, I’ve often gone there to pickup a cake to bring home a dessert when we’ve had company over for dinner. One such example of this was a delicious Ginger Peach Cobbler which I brought home about a week ago.

While I go to Mozart for lunch regularly (it’s a few minutes away from where I work), it is an ongoing challenge to leave without a small box of pastries under my arm. Something that doesn’t happen too often.

Baden

Wally’s is one of those places that seems like it’s stuck in a time warp and hasn’t changed in any measurable way in those decades that I’ve been going there. Certainly the menu hasn’t changed and the interior of Wally’s has the same harsh florescent lighting and faded pictures of the burgers that they offer.

However, none of these things matter and if anything, only add to the charm of Wally’s. It’s the great food that brings everyone back again and again.

One of the staples that Wally’s offers of course if their Chuck Wagon burger. Made up of two burger patties tucked under a perfectly toasted fresh oval-shaped bun, it just doesn’t get any better than this.

Everyone who has been to Wally’s is familiar with the faded newspaper article that they had on their wall (probably from the 70′s) with the headline “There’s no guile in Wally’s”. A pretty strange headline by any measure, this newspaper clipping was sadly no longer on the wall on our visit today and only the faded area of the wall to reminded of this old standby.

When you’re in the mood for a unique burger experience and want to try something other than the regular place that you might usually go to, check out Wally’s Burgers and be prepared to begin your own decades long experience.

Baden

---

Wally’s Burgers
2703 Kingsway, Vancouver
604-434-2930

---