We saw some travel brochures saying that DeDutch has the “Best Breakfast in Kelowna” and decided to try that for breakfast instead of the ho-hum fare that the hotel dishes out for free. There were a few DeDutch’s in Vancouver but we have never eaten in them before.

Despite that name DeDutch is a BC company with franchises around BC only. Their specialty is a dutch pancake called Pannekoek.

Knowing how large the servings are we ordered three different types to share. We simply had to try their Pannekoek and opted for their Farmers (Boer’s) Pannekoek. This huge plate costs $14.49.

Pannekoek is similar to the traditional pancake and is slightly thicker then crepe. The dish consists of Hash Browns, Ham, Bacon, Bratwurst, and Hollandaise Sauce.

It also included two eggs done which way you prefer and of course the pannekoek itself.

Their Dutch Toast looked so inviting from a neighboring table that we also ordered this. This is a traditional French Toast sprinkled with Cinnamon and Sugar. It is also served with steaming hot “Cinnamony” Apples. Absolutely yummy especialy when it’s drowned in maple syrup. Cost? $8.79.

The third dish is “DeDutch DeBakon and Egg”. We always love bacon and eggs — can’t go wrong, right? The dish consists of two eggs, toast, “DeBakon”, Hash Browns and salad. Major yum! $8.69.

What’s breakfast without coffee, right?

The total tab came up to $46 including tips. Hmmm … pretty expensive don’t you think? Still it was really good and we enjoyed it very much. I agree this is the “Best Breakfast in Kelowna”.

The highlight of our trip to Kelowna is picking cherries. On the first day we were there we went to a cherry farm on Westbank. We had been to this farm before but were pleasantly surprised at the abundance newly ripe cherries on the trees.

Picking cherries is simple. You need to pick it with the stems on. This will keep the cherries fresh longer. The man in charge of the farm showed us how best to pick cherries — basically, you push the stem up and snap off the stem.

The cherries in the Westbank farm is free of pesticides but is a bit small compared to larger ones we see in the stores. They a bit soft and not crunchy.

You really need to climb ladders to get to the better fruit. The lower ones were gone very fast. We need to make sure that the ladder is stable. In all, we picked about 11 lbs of cherries from the Westbank farm. Each lb costs $1.25.

On the second day, we drive south of Kelowna to the end of Lakeshore Rd. There are a few popular farms there. These u-pick farms are more organized and the cherries were a class better than the ones in Westbank — they are bigger and crunchier. However, this farm uses pesticides.

The cherries in this farm is a bit more expensive at $1.50 per pound. We picked more this time — 15 pounds. Ha ha ha … it was so easy to pick but not we have to figure out how to eat all 26 pounds of cherries! :-)

There was this family we saw who picked 82 lbs! So, 26 lbs is not so bad after all, right?

Suanne is looking a recipes to make use of the cherries. She’ll blog about it the next few days. At the meantime, do you have any idea what we can do with so much cherries?

Here is a few shots around Kelowna we took. We had a good time just walking along the park and seawall.

“The Sails” is the centre point of Kelowna.

The seawall walk is very well maintained and very beautiful. Green on one side and blue water on the other.

We also saw some upscale apartments along the lake. Instead of a cars parked in front of the apartments, they have boats instead.

We also went up Knox Mountain which overlooked the entire Kelowna valley. It was a beautiful sight as we just sat and waited till the sun goes down.

By the time we got near Kelowna, it was already noon. We took a few stops along the way to enjoy the scenery. Below is our first glimpse of the Okanagan Lake. The Okanagan is a longish and deep lake stretching north south for 120 kms. The area is famous for their fruit production and tourism.

The drive into Kelowna will pass through the West Bank on the western side of the lake.

We decided to get something to eat in a park by the lake. It was a great day to be out in the sun. We went and got a bucket of KFC fried chicken in Westbank.

The 15 pcs buckets costs $24 which also includes family sized fries and gravy.

The fries were crunchy on the outside. It was not bad but frankly we prefer McD’s fries better.

The little park by the lake was great. The scenery was beautiful with the bluish lake in the background. We took our time and was in no hurry to get to the hotel.

After the lunch, we drove over the floating bridge across the Okanagan Lake from Westbank to Kelowna. The bridge is pretty congested and is due to be replaced by 2008.

It takes about 4 hours in all to get from Vancouver to Kelowna. I think it’s about 400 km in all. We took Highway 5, which is better known as the Coquihalla Highway. This is the more scenic route as it climbs up very rugged and spectacular scenery.

Along the route, there are a lot of creeks and rivers. We stopped by one of them for a few minutes.

There are hundred of miles of greenery along the route. I am always amazed with the sheer size of the forests in British Columbia. BC is beautiful because of the abundance of nature.

For the past few years, the mountain pine beetle has infested much of the forests. It is a major concern in BC because there is no effective way to contain the infestation. The only effective way to contain the beetles is to have a prolonged freeze of -40C to kill them off. Winter never gets that cold in this part of BC.

You can see that the infestation has taken root with the forest turning flaming red. This is the beginning of the end of the tree and within a couple of years, they will completely die and turn the scenery greyish.

The Coquihalla Highway is the only road that is tolled in British Columbia. The rate for a passenger car is $10. Many cars stops at the toll plaza for a kidney break and to stretch their legs.

We just gotta blog about food. Here is the little bucket of snacks that we brought along.

We want to share with everyone a popular Malaysian snack called Ground Peanut Cookies. We bought this from the Big Crazy grocery store in Richmond. Each pack of 12 “cookies” costs about $2.

Although the English word translates to Ground Peanut Cookies, I think it’s more apt to describe this as a candy. This is a sweet snack with the outside crunchy with a crumbly insides.

Every summer we always had plans for vacation away from Vancouver. However, this year, it’s difficult to get a week or two off on a stretch. So we decided instead to take a day off here and there and make a long weekend for s short trip nearby.

Last weekend we decided to make a short trip to Kelowna. It’s cherries season at this time of the year. This is the start of the series of our blog on our Kelowna Trip. Hope you enjoy it.

We started off from home early — at 6:30am — because the road trip itself will take about 4 hours non-stop. So, we decided to go out for breakfast. About the only restaurant opened at such time is the #9 Restaurant (a.k.a. Kau Kee in Cantonese) in the Lansdowne Mall in Richmond.

The #9 Restaurant is opened 24 hours and they have a steady stream of customers, even at 2am in the morning. However, when we were there at 6:30am, there were only about 3 tables of customers. The #9 Restaurant is a Cantonese restaurant but they not only make traditional chinese food but they do also serve western-style food like spaghetti, fries, sandwiches, etc.

Arkensen ordered the breakfast meal consisting of scrambled eggs, toasts, bacon strips and hash browns. The dish costs $5.20.

Cantonese / Hongkong restaurants are famous for their milk tea (lai-char). It’s a creamy and rich black tea served with evaporated milk. Most people like it sweet and add granulated sugar. Not ordering this with chinese breakfast is like not ordering Coke with a Big Mac.

We also had a mid-sized plate of soy sauce fried noodles. Just plain noodles with no meat or garnishing at all. They are thin, stringy not mushy at all — just the way we like it. Surprisingly, it was really tasty even without other ingredients.

We also ordered congee — mixed meat porridge. I had thought that mixed meat means “jee jap”, but it turns out the mixed meat is shredded meat. The bowl was big.

The porridge had a lot of century eggs. Century eggs is one of those chinese food that a lot of non-chinese don’t understand. Century eggs are preserved in clay, ash, rice straw, salt and lime for several months until they turn darkish. When I was young my mum told me that century eggs are made by soaking eggs in hourse urine for a long time — that is not true.

The rice rolls are simple rice rolls served only with soya sauce and sesame seeds. It was piping hot when it was served.

The total tab came up to $19 including tips and taxes. We were really stuffed and were ready for the 4 hours drive to Kelowna. We’ll blog about out trip next.