Rain couldn’t keep us away from enjoying Vancouver Foodster’s Yaletown edition of Tasting Plates. If you’ve never been to one of Richard’s events, they’re a great way to discover culinary gems in the Greater Vancouver Area. Each event focuses on a neighbourhood and this time we found ourselves in trendy Yaletown.

I met my bestie Josh Rimer at Rocanini Coffee on Beatty Street where we picked up our cards and a quick pick-me-up of Cortado – espresso mixed with warm milk. Josh decided to broadcast the entire experience on his PocketLive stream, you can watch it here.

Now that we were properly caffeinated, we headed down to Straight Outta Brooklyn Pizza on Robson. This pizza place prides itself on serving authentic, NYC style thin crust pizza by the slice. I’ve had it a few times and I really enjoy their Margherita pizza – tomato sauce, fresh basil and mozzarella.

We didn’t have time to lose, so after our pizza we headed down to House Special – a new Vietnamese restaurant that has everyone raving. Our tasting plates included pulled pork marinated in peanut sauce and served on Banh Tieu, shredded chicken Pomelo salad on a crunchy Shrimp Chip, and Kabocha Wuntun on a creamy Curry. Josh has been here at few times and really likes the food. I liked the $5 drink specials!

A few doors down we found our next destination – the new Kuma Izakaya.  Chef Hyun Woo Kim is bringing French flair to traditional Korean and Japanese dishes, and he really went all out for our tasting dishes, starting with Tiger Prawn Tempura.

followed by a tomato salad in a tangy dressing,

…. and finishing off with a Ahuri Salmon Roll

We routed our journey to make sure we got all the savory spots first, so after our feast at Kuma Izakaya we were ready for a palate cleanser. Off we went to Mainland St. to Chaser’s Fresh Juice Bar for a jar of their Green Juice and a gluten-free cookie.

Believe it or not, we still had two dessert places to get to, starting with Lime & Moon Pie Co. We sampled some organic chocolate and banana cream pie and a sugar pumpkin pie.

Lastly, we finished our culinary feast at On Yogurt for some rolled “ice fried” gelato. I loved the raspberry!
I really don’t know how we ate it all – check out Josh’s broadcast here. The next #TastingPlatesYVR event will take place on November 23rd. Go to VancouverFoodster.com for more details.