Cafe Crepe on Granville at 12th Avenue, Vancouver

Updated: 17th Dec 2014; This restaurant is closed according to Urbanspoon.com.

It was one of those days that Polly and I cant decide where to go for our cake meet. The outstanding list of places to visit does not appeal to Polly. So, she suggested to go back to Sweet Obsession on West 16th Vancouver as it’s one of the better cake places in town. While driving along Granville St, we remembered that we has always wanted to visit Cafe Crepe on Granville at 12th Avenue. So, we changed our plan to go to Cafe Crepe.

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There are plenty street parking along Granville St. Cafe Crepe is pretty easy to find with it’s striking red and black awning. It was pretty quiet as it’s still very early in the morning, just before 10am.

After we were seated and placed our orders, I took out my camera and took some shots our drinks and crepe. Just after I took a shot of the first crepe, a gentleman (not sure if he is the owner or one of the staff ) approached me and told me that it’s the company policy not allowing photography in the cafe. I respect his request and did not take any more photographs. So, here I am, trying to describe the food we had without a photograph. I find it a bit hard as pictures are the heart of chowtimes and pictures speak louder than words.

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The above was what we ordered. Polly had the Chai Latte. My regular coffee came in a very small cup, like those use for espresso. Luckily, the coffee has free refills.

We ordered a savory and a sweet crepe to share. I remembered I read about a review on Cafe Crepe by Doesnt Tazte Like Chicken who gave a thumbs up for their Tuna crepe. So, we went for the Tuna, Swiss Cheese, Egg and Mayonnaise Crepe. It was indeed pretty good. I’m kind of puzzled by the fact that Christina of Does’nt Tazte Like Chicken was able to take pictures of her food in the same franchise store. Don’t they have the same policy?

The sweet crepe we ordered was Mixed Fresh Cut Fruit with Apple Sauce and Cinnamon. It was after a few bites that Polly noticed that there was a strand of hair in the crepe. The waitress apologized for the unwanted hair and replaced the crepe with a fresh one. Hmm, that was not a pleasant experience for us. Anyway, the Mixed Fresh Cut Fruit crepe was just so, so; dominate by apple sauce. Next time, we’ll go for the more conventional chocolate and banana crepe.

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Qoola on Denman, Vancouver

Updated: 22nd Dec 2014; This restaurant is closed according to Urbanspoon.com.

ChowtimesNoWord32x32This post is written based on a complementary meal from Qoola.

A week ago, Suanne and I received an invitation to checkout a new frozen yogurt place called Qoola. Since we were going to be in downtown anyway for the Taste BC event on the same night, we decided to pop over. I know it is kind of weird … we were going for yogurt, waffle and crepes immediately after wine and cheese, sushi, burger … all on the same night.

So, Suanne, Angie and I took a short drive to the western end of Denman to where Qoola is. Qoola is actually located at the old location of Cupcakes (1116 Denman).

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We were met up front by Warrick who is the man behind the entire idea of Qoola. Warrick came across to us as a bright, energetic young man with great passion in what he does.

Qoola had been opened for just one month so everything is spanking clean. We love the bright greenish interior. Qoola is green … more greener than what we expected and we soon realized how seriously green they are.

We had a crash course, to say the least … much of which went swosh over my head. Too much data and too technical for me after all the wine from Taste BC.

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Not really a person who knows what is what, we left the choice to Warrick and his partners. The only thing we asked is that they surprise us. First came their Green Tea Yogurt with blueberry and marionberry sauce. It was good and we like it.

I don’t care much for frozen yogurt. The only time I had frozen yogurt of note is Red Mango which we had in Bellevue,WA. I was told that many frozen yogurt places uses powdered yogurt which contains only about 1 million bacteria. However, Qoola uses only fresh yogurt despite its limited shelf life of a couple of weeks only. Fresh yogurt has 400 times more bacteria than powdered yogurt.

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The next surprise is the Original yogurt with apples, cinnamon flakes and caramel sauce. We love this more than the earlier one. I like especially the fresh looking and crunchy apple chunks. (more…)

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Gypsy Rose Crepe Cafe in Vancouver

Polly and I had wanted to try something other than cake. When we drove down Granville St, we always noticed a Crepe Shop and had wanted to try it but never got to do it. A few weeks ago, I saw a small write up in the newspaper about a Crepe Cafe and it said that it’s one of the best crepe shop in town. So, Polly and I decided to try out this Gypsy Rose Crepe Cafe.

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Gypsy Rose Crepe Cafe is located at 2017 West 4th Ave, Vancouver. This is a family operated cafe.

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Once you step into the cafe, you are greeted with a wall of pictures of gypsies. Perhaps, the inspiration of the shop name came from the decor or the name of the shop inspires the owners to decorate the shop with gypsies’ pictures.

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There are over 50 varieties of sweet and savory crepes to choose from. They also serve specialty coffee and sandwiches from fresh ingredients. Polly and I decided to order one sweet and one savory crepe to share.

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It was kind of difficult for us to choose one out of so many crepes available. The owner told us that they changed their menu according to customers’ preference. (more…)

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