Granville Island and the Magical Duck Island (Throwback post)

Granville Island, Vancouver

Granville Island is worth a visit while in Vancouver, especially if you want to buy any of the local arts and crafts.  The island is home to various studios and shops covering a broad range of specialities.

Granville Island, Vancouver



It is also a good place for food and drink, as there is a great little wine shop here, and a fairly well stocked food market.  It also has the excellent Edible Canada bar and restaurant and the Granville Island Brewing Company.  The latter is not licensed to sell alcohol, only to let you buy a few small tasters, but it is a good opportunity to try out those in the range that you don't often see in the bars

Granville Island, Vancouver

Our other alcohol tasting on Granville Island was in the form of sake, at the Artisan Sake Maker.  Not what we had expected to find here, but then we hadn't realised that Vancouver had such a big Asian population.  Masa Shiroki set up his sake winery in January 2007, fermenting his own rice and bottling it by hand.  Rather than sticking to the usual Japanese process of making one batch per year, he makes small batches throughout the seasons, to create different tastes that will go with the more varied North American foods, and so is better suited to the local market.
 



He uses premium Junmai rice, originally imported from Japan, but now grown by him in British Columbia. The quality of the sake depends on how much the grains of rice are polished down.  The more that is taken off the outside, the better the sake.

Magical Duck Island, Vancouver

We did a tasting of a few different styles, with lots of helpful information from the woman serving us.  We liked them very much, and would certainly recommend giving them a go.

Granville Island, Vancouver

We also ventured out to the Richmond Park night market. The market bit was rubbish in our opinion, as it was just a lot of mass produced that, but it did have a lot of food stalls, some of which were quite interesting.



Magical Duck Island, Vancouver

Nic started practising for Asia, with the Bakudanyaki, an interesting, but apparently enjoyable mix of seafood, cabbage a rice cake.



Magical Duck Island, Vancouver

I opted to try the Dragon's Beard Candy, a kind of filled candyfloss. Not as adventurous admittedly, but it was fascinating to watch them make it.




Magical Duck Island, Vancouver

The other notable thing about the market was the array of ducks around. They were doing this magical duck thing that had been trending around Asia, so they had the big duck, and a selection of smaller painted ones.



Magical Duck Island, Vancouver

There was some kind of gamecard that you could do, which involved getting stamps from different stalls. I guess that's one way to boost sales.



Magical Duck Island, Vancouver

Magical Duck Island, Vancouver