Boston

If I were ever to live in the United States, I think Boston would be one of the 3 places I could ever imagine myself living. The other two would be Seattle or New York. Maybe I’ll go to Boston to study at MIT. Wouldn’t that be awesome? I went to Boston this past May 2010 right after I finished handing in my architecture thesis, writing my final exams and as a “yay I’m done with school indefinitely!” trip. Boston was amazing as it somehow, in some way reminded me of Vancouver with its picturesque scenery, beautiful buildings, and its proximity to the sea. I know it’s completely different from Vancouver, but I guess at the time, I was missing somewhere that had a lot of greenery and the ocean. The entire city has an old world charm as New England has a mix of old brick buildings, and tall glass sky scrapers.

The city has a certain vibrance about it as there are so many hidden gems of places to see as well as amazing seafood. They have great bagels. Amazing! They’re different from Montreal bagels as these ones are fat and chewy, and they are basically very similar to New York bagels. The North End by the Big Dig site has a huge selection of Italian restaurants, and there is also this phenomenon that I only witnessed the aftermath of, a street market of some kind selling vegetables and fruit. Crazy. Home to the Boston Red Sox, close to MIT, Harvard, and littered with people living the all American Dream, this city was a beautiful place filled with history as well as redevelopment.

These are all the places and restaurants that I recommend you go to as they are the Best Of Boston restaurants, and you must go to at least a few of them. These eateries range from hole in the walls to fancy shmancy restaurants, so after my recommendations, check out their websites and other reviews to see whether you’d like to go. But really, you should go regardless...

My Favourites: Union Oyster House, Pizzeria Regina, Myers + Chang

Map of Where to Go: Boston Eats

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Where to Shop for Groceries in Vancouver

I use a lot of spices and sometimes specialty ingredients in my cooking, and this is because I like to try and stay as authentic as possible in the resulting taste of the dish.I also believe that it is essential to have the best possible produce to start off with because there is no way that a dish can turn out as delicious if you start off with bad quality ingredients. It’s best to search for fruits and vegetables in season, or at least find places where you can shop according to budget.

My mom is an adventurous shopper and she likes to shop at the source of her ingredients. She goes to the source for fresh tofu, the maker and distributer for hot fresh fish cakes, straight to fish mongers for fresh fish, rice world for bulk rice, and sometimes she goes all the way out to the farm to pick her own strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. She even climbs to the top of mountains to get wild blueberries. She swears that they are a thousand times better than farmed blueberries, and I normally just smile and nod with a mouth full of berries, as I like them either way. (They really are sweeter and tangier though. I won’t tell you where she finds these wild blueberries for fear that you’ll pick them all before she does)

Go to the Where to Shop for Groceries in Vancouver post.

See Shopping for Groceries Part 2 for more pictures on the places I mention plus a few more stores.

New York City

Okay, I'm not going to pretend to know all there is to know about the famed Big Apple and its eats, but I am one of "those" people that claim to love it. As stereotypical as it is, Manhattan is one of my favourite cities to visit, and I hope to possibly reside there at some point for a certain duration, or at least study there. If I never end up doing either of those things, I will most definitely at any given opportunity, be excited to go, just to visit these places I mention in NY.

The bustling city has a great abundance of restaurants, cafe's, bakeries and gourmet food stores, that really, it's almost THE place to go if you want to have the best of every cuisine. Mexican, French, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Italian, you name it they've got the best.

This past December 2009, I had one week between final presentations and exams and a friend of mine who had just visited me in Toronto had moved on to touring NYC. Travelling by himself, on gmail chat on his iPod, he expressed to me that he was a little lonely. So I made a split second decision and booked a seat on a red eye bus to go join him in NY. Although it was my fourth time visiting, this time it was filled with so many more food adventures, as my friend shares my enthusiasm for great food. He had researched a number of places, and having been there before, I had a few places that I liked myself. Combined we had a gigantic feast nearly every meal, and consequently I think I had to loosen my belt. The great thing was, that he also studied architecture so we made the perfect travel companion as we ate and talked nerdy about art deco, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Sanaa as we slurped up delicious pho, ate thin crust pizza and drank great espressos. We didn't eat at fancy shmancy establishments, as I was a student, and he was a budget traveler with more destinations on his list, but we always finished everything to the last grain of rice, the last crumb and sip as these places we went to were amazing.

I hope you get to enjoy these places as much as I did. Let me know if you need any more information on the city, because I would be glad to give you a list of places you have to go see.

My Favourites: Pho Bang, Lombardi's Pizza, Barbuto, Boka, and Momofuku Noodle Bar

Map of Where to Go: Restaurants + Places you HAVE to go to in New York City


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Toronto

I love to travel, and although I haven't been to that many places, I always make sure that I thoroughly research all the best places to eat. Generally I have them researched based on best cuisine, cheap eats, cafe's, popularity, atmosphere, magazine reviews, and awards. I like to do this in advance so I can check out their menu, read ratings, see where it is and how to get there. The only other thing that I do this for when travelling is for the architecture around the city but I usually don't go into that much depth. 

Having lived in Toronto for the past 4 years, I have found some great restaurants to equal and sometimes surpass those in Vancouver. I have lived off of a lot of Ramen, chicken wings, and beer. There are many more restaurants that I have listed than that, so check it out! (Click on the link beside the photo)

My favourites: Pomegranate, Grazie's, and Little India.

Map of Where to Go: What to see and Where to Go in Toronto

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