A wonderful holiday

It has become my practice (the last four times at least) to review our holiday after we return home. Some of the review is factual - how many miles, how many cities etc and some of it is a brief review of the whole experience. I think I can sum it up in a few words:

I am amazed that something as complex as planning this holiday worked so well with everything turning out so positively. I know I can be accused of being somewhat retentive in doing the planning to the amount of detail I do, but it liberates me to take full part in the holiday, rather than worrying about any of the details. Still, even though it did work out so well, there is always the lingering doubt that something won't work out. Well, thanks be to God, everything was planned, and everything worked out as we hoped. Most of all I'm amazed that Drew puts up with all my knit-picking detail and nagging to make sure things are done, way before they need to be. He is a very tolerant fella.

Highlights

There are two highlights that are very close to each other when I review this holiday. The first is completing the visits to all ten of the Canadian Provinces. I feel so glad we have achieved this . The second is our trip to the Icefields Parkway - with those amazing views and a chance to walk on the Athabasca Glacier - it was amazing. There were lots of other pleasant memories, finding Winnie the Pooh's home, visiting Abbotsford, so, so many amazing sights. All in all it has been a great holiday full of fun and laughter. 

Food

We have eaten well this holiday. I mentioned in response to a comment from my sister that I think Lark, in Seattle, was my favourite meal but Woolsey Creek Bistro, in Revelstoke, came a close second and Tommy's Not Here in Sudbury and Peasant Cookery in Winnipeg would be competing for third. 

That being said almost all the meals were good - The Salmon n'Bannock for its innovativeness and links to First Nation culture. The four fish places (Maddies and the Landing in Marblehead; Ocean's Edge in Belfast and Vancouver Fish) were excellent at fresh, well cooked, fish and shellfish. 

I have great memories of the Texan (Ottawa), the Mexican (Banff) and the Thai (Regina) too. That's the great thing about food, it can be very different but equally good.

Drew says we didn't have enough Pizza and burgers in our holiday this year, so I must try and correct that for future holidays.

Travel

It is amazing to think that over the last three weeks (well 15 days of the period) we have travelled 4,164 Miles in the Car - I drove 2280 miles (55%) and Drew 1884 (45%). In time terms we were 83h 31m in the car. 50h 43m with me at the wheel (61%) and 32h 47m with Drew driving (39%).

But even though there has been a lot of driving there has also been quite a bit of walking, more than in previous holidays. We have managed an average of 10,889 steps a day that is 228,665 steps which is roughly equivalent to 108.27 miles in total for the holiday. Our longest walk being in Vancouver and our second in Winnipeg.

Our longest day's drive was 432 miles between Thunder Bay to Winnipeg (second longest was 363 between Winnipeg and Regina and third was 361 on the Icefields Parkway from Banff to Jasper and back). In time terms the longest in car day was the Icefields Parkway (7hr 53m), second was Thunder Bay to Winnipeg (7h 46m) and third was Revelstoke to Vancouver (6h 49m). 

The car kept an account of our petrol consumption over the period and we managed 44.5 mpg (in US Gallon) which is the equivalent to 53.44 mile per gallon (using the Imperial i.e. UK Gallon). Not a bad amount for such a big car - evidence of the benefits of hybrids. Petrol prices ranged from 72p per litre to 90p a litre in Canada and 48p per litre in the USA (this compares favorably to £1.259 per litre on our return to the UK). 

It has been a great trip.

<<Co-Pilot's Note:

My App

You will know, dear readers, that Mr B (aka the Pilot) can be ‘a touch’ retentive (some would say a damn menace!!!). This is demonstrated in a number of ways!! 

On our first voyages to these parts he insisted on having a paper sheet that detailed a) time of departure / arrival b) driver c) location d) end time e) start distance f) end distance. You stopped to take a photo of a lovely looking tree, the details had to entered into the sheet. 21 days of non-stop data entry. Cries of ‘I’m on holidays’ went unheeded/ignored. All in attempt to know that a person did 54.3453% of the distance vs 45.3223 of the time. Is it, dear readers, any wonder I am in the state I am???

This dire situation was somewhat remedied when Steve Jobs Esquire (which some minor input from a team of 5,000 software and product engineers) developed the iPad. I having acquired said device developed a spreadsheet capturing said details. 

This appealed to Mr B due to it a) capturing all the data and b) it appealed to his love of a good spreadsheet. This served as a good halfway house. It saved time,  but from my point of view not enough. In a post on a previous blog (Jack has instructed me not to provide a link in order to improve your self sufficiency) I highlighted my intention to develop an app. 

For this trip we have been running both spreadsheet and my app. The initial view is that said app works. It uses GPS as a background service to not only measure the distance being driven but also saves the complete tracks and allows those to be viewed on google maps. It allows time and journey stats to be gathered in real time, complete with charts. It allows the notes to be added for each journey we take, petrol costs to be detailed. If we forget the device we can manually insert the details. It still requires us to entire a journey end point but when we get back I plan on using google to gather the location automatically. It does all of this much more efficiently than Mr B’s little system.

In short, dear readers, I DEMAND THE FINEST BAGELS AND DONUTS IN ALL THE LAND FOR VICTORY IS MINE.!!!!.....!

(he says while awaiting the next ‘what I meant to as ask was….’ From Mr B).>>

I can only complete this post by saying perhaps we are both tolerant of each other!!

Thanks

Thanks to everyone who have made this journey with us, with comments on the blog, on Flickr and on Facebook - they have been a great help and encouragement both for informing the journey and for the reporting of it here on the blog. 

See you all next year.

The Journey Home

So today's post covers Friday and Saturday as we make our way home from the USA.

Though first I thought I'd mention the Westin Lift control, we have started to take it for gratned by now, but it is quite impressive with images of the City and the Hotel changing as you select which part of the hotel you wish to visit: Here is an image of it, taken on our last morning:

The Lift Control in the Westin

Breakfast

So to move on to our day. We woke at 5:00am on Friday morning (5:00am Pacific Time; 1:00pm British Summer Time (BST)).

I wrote the blog post about our day in Vancouver. Then at 6:30am we showered, dressed and packed. 

We left the hotel at 7:00am and walked straight down Stewart St to Pike Place Market and our breakfast in Lovells. We arrived at 7:15am. It is a Friday so what better than starting breakfast in a fish restaurant. 

To make sure I eat a Friday meal I opted for King Lox Salmon & toasted bagel, this was served with cream cheese and a onion and caper salad.

Smoked Salmon Bagel

Drew went for the Market Breakfast with bacon, eggs sunny-side up, hash-browns and white toast. Which, as you can see, was very well presented indeed.

Market Breakfast

As ever we had Orange Juice and Coffee to wash down our breakfast.

We left Lovell's at 7:50am and walked back up Stockton Street to the Westin. 

We spent the next hour preparing for our departure and making sure we had everything ready for the journey. 

Taxi to the Airport 

We left our room at 9:15am and caught the lift to M floor, which is below the Lobby level (like much of Seattle the hotel is on a hill, so half of the hotel has a floor more than the rest) to the Taxi area. 

Taxis are waiting as soon as we come down the lift to the basement floor and we are off to the airport. 

We arrive at the airport at 9:40am!! This is, of course, not possible for a car keeping to the speed limit, but for a taxi going at 80mph in the 60 zone this was easy!!  It was best not to look quite how close to other traffic the driver came, the back of the driver's seat became my friend as I watched that rather than look our the window. Still we arrived perfectly safely. 

Seattle Sea-Tac

Seattle Sea-Tac is a busy airport, with flights provided by 12 different airlines (at least I saw that many, there may have been more). We found the Virgin Desk, in among the Delta area (they codeshare) and we checked in at 9:50am 

As Premium Economy passengers we have a fast lane to security. Normally this process is not so obvious as the premium lane goes in a different direction. This time however we had to walk through the almost empty premium lane past large numbers of queuing passengers in the normal lane. It did make me feel a bit guilty, but I didn't feel tempted to go back and join the queue. We were through all the 'fun' of taking metal off and emptying our pockets by 10:05am, a lot quicker than if we had been in the other queue. 

Next we had to take a shuttle to South Satellite from which Virgin Atlantic flies. Luckily the Airport Lounge we have booked is also in South Satellite, so we could settle in for our three hours of internet and snacks before boarding.  

Snacks in the Lounge

While here I completed two more blog posts (Helping Captain Jack to send his one and the Vancouver to Seattle one) and load up the last our of photos onto Flickr. 

It is a lovely airy lounge with lots of food, but given the time of day (10:30am - 1:00pm (or 9:00pm at destination time!!), and being fed on the plane we just had crisps, pop-corn and Drew manages a few 'small' cakes.

Virgin Atlantic

We board on time at gate S9, the gate next to the lounge, which is very convenient. We leave the gate 3 minutes before time and are in the air soon afterwards. 

It seems as comfortable as ever in Premium Economy. The flying time is due to be eight hours and 15 minutes tonight, less than the 9 and a half suggested on the booking. 

I like watching the journey on the video screen. Tonight, we leave Seattle and travel over parts of Canada we visited in the week. We flew over Everett (see Wednesday) and Merritt and Kamloops (see Monday) before heading further north past Vernon and Revelstoke (Sunday evening/Monday morning.)

Then it was over the Rockies (see last Friday) and further north over northern Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba above Hudson Bay and then over Greenland, then the Atlantic. 

Dinner is served at 3:30pm (11:30) we begin with a lovely fresh feta salad, there is a tangy vinaigrette to pour over it and as it is still Friday I have the mushroom teriyaki. Drew also chooses this option. 

Dinner in Premium Economy

Drew has both tarts and I have his bread roll. It was a very nice meal, just enough to sit on the stomach while I dose for the next part of the flight. 

By the time dinner is over we only have 6.5 hours of flight left. (12:15am BST) I sleep until 2:15pm. Then I read for two hours and then rested my eyes again from 4.00am until 4:45am when breakfast was served. 

The breakfast was only fruit, orange juice and coffee, I normally like something more substantial first thing! There was also gunk in a pot (yoghurt) and crumbs (Granola) but that isn't my kind of food. So, breakfast was far less satisfying than I had hoped. 

A very light breakfast

We fly in over Scotland (Tobermory) and down beside Liverpool to London. Landing at 6.45am - a good night's flight. 

While I slept and read Drew watched films: Ready Player One, Rampage, Jaws and Fahrenheit 451. 

The captain welcomed us back to London on a fine autumnal morning (it is still August!!) and we were into Heathrow Terminal 3.

Heathrow

We walk to passport control which takes about 20 mins - it is now 7:05am. We queue for the electronic passport control and are through by 7:15pm. We have collected our bags at 7:20am - quicker than on some previous returns. 

We walk to the Heathrow Coach Station and we visit the Caffe Nero in the bus station. I have a Bacon and Egg roll and Drew a Mozzarella and Tomato Panini. We both have coffee.

Home 

Bacon and Egg Roll (front) + Mozzarella and Tomato Panini

We board the pre-booked 201 to Cardiff at 9:10 and head for home. The bus left on time and was quite quiet. 

We had a very pleasant and uneventful journey. So, we arrived in Cardiff at 12.30pm. 

Here things didn't go quite to plan. We walked toward the bus stop to catch the 132, but it became the road was closed off. We soon became aware that the Pride parade was between us and the changed bus stop location in Greyfriars Road. Instead of the 12.42pm we caught the 1:03pm and get home at 1:35pm 20.5 hours since we left the hotel in Seattle 'this Morning'.

But we are safely back home after a superb holiday, and who can ask more than that.

Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints

Chief Seattle, a chief of the Suquamish Tribe who welcomed the arrival of the white settlers, and for whom this town was named said: "Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints."

Chief Seattle

As we walked through Seattle today we didn't leave many footprints in the concrete, but we got lots of pleasant memories of this delightful City to take with us.

So below I share some of these memories.

Breakfast

I slept until 7.00am and a comfy sleep it was too. The latest time I have slept until during the holiday. From the bed I had a  lovely view to sit and watch as the town comes to life below us. 

I make coffee for Drew and I, given we are in Seattle, it is, of course, Starbucks coffee here where it all began. 

We shower and dress and at 8:45 leave the hotel and walk down to Pike Place Market. Unlike the Comfort and Best Western hotels where we have stayed for most of the holiday, there is no buffet breakfast at the Westin, so our first stop at Pike Place Market is to the Sound View Cafe, with its lovely views over Puget Sound. We watch the large and slow boats plow across the harbour as we enjoy our breakfast. 

Puget Sound

I went for steak-hash and eggs. A steak-mince hash with eggs (over hard) and sourdough toast. The potatoes in the hash were very well cooked, somewhere between roast and sauteed potatoes with a lovely amount of peppers and onions cooked through with them. 

Haydn's Steak Hash and Eggs

Drew went with the Joe's Special. Which was scrambled eggs, turkey sausage and ciabatta toast. He found it very tasty.

Drew's Breakfast - Joe's Special

We both had orange juice and coffee with our breakfasts.

Around Seattle

This morning the bay is cloudy, on a positive note the sea winds are pushing the smoke out of the city, so the air seems so much clearer. On a less positive note it is bringing in a rain shower, but this remains light and stops after thirty minutes. 

Pike Place Market

After breakfast we walk through Pike Place Market taking in all the sounds, sights and smells of this amazing place. The range of fruit, fish, shellfish and flowers are just amazing. To have so much delight in such close quarters is just astounding. These photos are only a small sample of all of those I took - which can be viewed on Flickr.

Vegetables in Pike Place Market

A range of Pastas - Pike Place Market

Huge Crab Legs - Pike Place Market

Fish - Pike Place Market

Belltown Cottage Park

We walk away from the Market and come to a number of side streets where there are level crossing signs. Indeed as we walked along they began flashing and the level crossing closed and two, long, trains passed below. Completely blocking the traffic on the surrounding streets.

Trains Crossing - Creating a Traffic Jam

We continued to walk along Elliott Avenue until we came to a very unexpected sight - a small garden fitted in behind some small old fashioned cottages. This is Belltown Cottage Park with its well kept flowerbeds and decorated routes through the park. It is great to see such a relaxing area in a built up town like Seattle.

Belltown Cottages Park with the modern buildings behind

We stopped for a Coffee in Starbucks opposite the Park and, as we are two mean to pay for wi-fi in the hotel, I upload photos from yesterday's journey and last night's lovely meal, and caught up with emails.

Olympic Sculpture Park

The next place we came across along the route was the Olympic Sculpture Park part of the Seattle Art Museum. The area was open and attractive, but it was sometimes difficult to distinguish the unusual art from other features - like a row of chairs. 

Art

Chairs

Art

Though with all the sense of a free movement of art, it was a surprise to come to the gate and find a 'you must do nothing' sign:

This Art needs lots of rules!!

Space Needle

We walked up the hill from the park to the Space Needle, though there was still too much cloud to make sense of getting to the top of the Needle, especially as we had been up on a very clear day Nine years ago. 

Space Needle

Around the Space Needle are a wide range of other things. Including the Museum of Pop Culture by Drew's favourite architect - Frank Gehry. Drew became a fan of Gehry due to his interest in the New York building in New York when we visited there last.

Impressive design in the Museum of Pop Culture

International Fountain

Behind the Museum is the International Fountain. The fountain was designed in 1962 for the World Fair held in Seattle. It was reviewed and revised into its present form in 1995.

International Fountain

The water spurting from the fountain reacts to the music and the children (and some parents) get a bit (or quite a lot) wet as the music plays and the water changes direction. 

Spending just a few minutes here is wonderful fun and really relaxing. So we sat and enjoyed for 30 minutes or so. Even we got wet as a light mist reaches the benches beyond the fountains compound where we are sitting. 

Drew in front of the Fountain

Back to the Westin

From the fountain we walk back past the Opera House and the Ballet Theatre and along to Fifth Avenue. 

At the crossroads between Fifth Avenue, Cedar Street and Denny Way - called Five Points - is the Statue of Chief Seattle. 

Chief Seattle

We walk along Fifth Avenue and find another Starbucks for more uploading and blog post writing. This Starbucks is attached to the City University here in Seattle, so it was fun to hear staff trying to persuade students why they should study here rather than anywhere else. Nice that I don't have to do that, so important a part of my early University career, any longer.

As we left Starbucks we could see our hotel in the distance:

Westin Hotel Seattle

So we walked back to the hotel, getting to our room just after 3:30pm. 

Afternoon

Having been out walking for seven hours I spent the afternoon cpoying photos across to the PC, reading and relaxing while Drew went for another run on the wonder machines at the Fitness Centre in the Westin.

Dinner

We leave the hotel at 7:20pm and head for dinner. We had a booking for 8:00pm and arrived at 7:45pm.

This took us to another new part of town - our route was as follows:

Westin to Lark

Our destination tonight was a lovely restaurant that I had read about online called Lark. 

Lark

The restaurant is in a modern setting just on the edge of Seattle University's campus. Even though it was busy, each table is far enough apart to make it feel very intimate. 

We began with lovely, warm, bread served with butter and lardo, this tasted lovely spread on the bread.

Wonderfully crusty bread

For starters I had seared foie gras served with a duck crackling cornbread, ruby port duck jus, brown butter figs. The liver was cooked perfectly, with the one edge seared and crisp, but with the rest soft and juicy. A delicious taste experience.

Foie Gras

Drew opted to start with the Montana wagyu steak tartare which had capers, cornichons, aioli and crackers with it. He made his usual joke about it being 'a little undercooked'. The dish was very well seasoned. So Drew became quite extactic about it. With its strong flavoured, nicely textured meat. 

Steak Tartare

At Lark the Italian tradition of a antipasta, pasta and mains is maintained. So we were offered an 'Il Secundo' (second) course. From this I choose the Octopus a la plancha with Bomba rice, Piquillo peppers, smoked jowl. The rich sauce, which I had seen crafted by hand in the kitchen just beside us, was delightful. It carried the strength of the octopus and added a whole new exciting flavour making it hard for me to decide if I liked the sauce or the octopus more. Though I think it was the combination of both that made it so perfect. 

Pulpo

Drew opted for paccheri pasta which was served with a lamb and pork ragu, green garlic, dandelion and Parmigiano-Reggiano.  The shape of the pasta allowed the ragu to flow over and through it, making it easy to eat. The seasoning of the dish was again superb, the ragu was rich, more pork flavoured than lamb flavoured, but very good. He will be looking out for dishes like this when he goes to an italian elsewhere. 

Paccheri and Ragu

For mains (or thirds if you prefer) I had the Pork Belly this was crisp on the top and juicy below. It came with charred corn, mushroom, padron peppers, tomato aioli, chili vinaigrette and pepitas. While I love my meat the vegetables and sauce came as a great counterpoint to it, and were truly excellent in flavour and texture.

Pork Belly

Drew's main was Crispy Duck Leg served with pozole verde, hominy, green chickpeas, spring onion and crispy radish. Drew would have liked a bit more crispiness in his duck. The meat was perfectly cooked and soft, but the skin was not as crisp as he would have liked. The sauce had a spiciness with it, making it feel warming and comfortable. The vegetables were crisp and delightful.

Crispy Duck Leg

  
Even though we had eaten very well we thought we would ask to see the dessert menu and were both grateful that we did.

Drew ordered the blackberry sorbet with raspberry granita, shiso and matcha rice pudding. Drew loved the sharpness of the sorbet. Often berry sorbets are too sweet, but these were not. The rice pudding had good bite but was overall soft and comforting, just as rice puddings should be. Drew is not sure about the use of matcha in a rice pudding. It would have tasted nice enough without the introduction of the tea flavour.  

A delicious dessert

I, to my delight, discovered the restaurant offered a selection of Cheese. I chose: Dinah’s Cheese, Vashon, WA - a silky, luscious rich cow’s cheese (nearest me on the photo); Garrotxa, Catalonia – an earthy, strong, aromatic goat’s cheese (to the left of the picture) and Forme d’Ambert, Auvergne, France – a rich, salty, blue cow’s cheese (to the right). Each were excellent, with my preference being for the strong, tasty French blue.

Cheese - A perfect end to the meal

We left Lark at 10:00pm, after a delicious well paced meal and got back to the hotel at 10:30pm and to be by 11:00pm at the end of a lovely, lovely day.

Farewell Canada - Hello again USA

So it was time to leave Canada after a wonderful 17 days and head back to the USA for the last few days and the flight home. Still we were looking forward to a return visit to Seattle were we had spent two nights (three days) in 2009.

Today's Route

Today's journey is shorter than usual - a gentle tootle from North Vancouver to Seattle. But first let's talk about Breakfast.

North Vancouver to Seattle

Breakfast

I woke this morning at 4.15am and began drafting a blog post. Drew woke at 5:00am and I made Coffee for us both. 

I completed the blog post about Saturday, a short and easy one. Then we headed to breakfast at 7.00am. We thought we would be clever and go early to breakfast to avoid the crowds we had faced yesterday. This didn't work out as 30 members of the Trinidad karate team were staying in our hotel for a competion here. They were all young, fit and hungrey, so had arrived at breakfast as it opened at 6.30am and filled the breakfast room. 

We got our breakfast and sat outside and eat it in the atrium of the hotel.

Sausage Meat and Eggs

As this was the last Comfort Inn we would be staying in I made the effort of asking what the unidentifiable meat we had been eating was. The lady assured me it was Pork in the patty, though it didn't taste like any pork I knew, it was tasty all the same.

Drew managed two Danish with this morning's breakfast

Drew's Danish

After breakfast we went back to the room, and I began the blog post about Sunday. We don't want to leave to early and get caught up in the Vancouver rush-hour.

Washing the Hire Car and Heading for the Border

We left the hotel at 9.30am and visited a Car Wash. Captain Jack has given a full account of this here. Though it is worth pointing out that the wash was - $10.40, Captain Jack doesn't account for tax as he doesn't believe it applies to a Pirate.

We left Mr Wash at 9:45am and arrived at the US Border at 10.40am. There was, as there always is these days, a queue at the border, but by 11.22am we got to the border guard and by 11.26am we had been waved past the border and were back in the USA.

Blaine, Washington

The Road to Seattle

We travelled straight down the I5 from the border at Blaine, Washington State towards Seattle.

I5 - South

We stopped at Everett Mall, just outside of Everett for a Starbucks, a snack and for petrol, so the car was full on its return in Seattle. 

Our snack in Starbucks was a Chicken sausage biscuit for me and a Double Chocolate Brownie for Drew. We both had Venti Americano coffees.

Chicken Sausage Biscuit 

From Everett we went back onto the I5, an accident further down the route caused us a 30 minute delay. The traffic was slow moving but not stopped all the way into Downtown. 

We turned off the Interstate at junction 165b for Union Street, then it was return turn onto 7th avenue, right on to Pike and left onto 8th Avenue. The Google Map didn't say drive up six floors of a multi-story car park, but that's what we did to get to Hertz. We parked in a Hertz bay and a staff member turned up, takes down our details and we hand over the keys and say goodbye to the car which has been almost our home for the last 17 days. 

Our faithful car - clean, but for new kill today

We walk the four blocks to our hotel, The Westin, Seattle, arriving at 4.05pm by 4.11pm we had checked in and were up in our room which is in the South Tower on the 23rd floor in room 56. 

The Westin is the place we stayed when we visited Seattle in 2009, The views across the City are busy and charming, we treated ourselves to a little luxury at the end of the trip by staying here. 

Running Man

Drew decided to go for a run in the fitness centre here. He came back talking about the advanced facilities of the machines. I'll hand over to him for a while:

<<Co-pilot's note:

I, dear readers, am a simple kind of person as well you may know. The scurrying machines here are anything but simple. They have USB ports, so you can download your data (heart rates and wot nots), but they also have huge screens on them, where you can watch videos on Netflix or BBC World. Now, dear readers, as much as I value the efforts of Mr Clive Myree as a news reader, having him gurn at me 6k into a 10k scurry is not my idea of fun and so they were out (we don’t do Netflix).

Instead I did my scurry whilst listening to the Who on my headphones and watching videos of runs around ‘National Parks’ around the world. They have had somebody go running, or possibly walking whist holding a camera in front of them, so for the first 4K of scurrying I was talking in from a first-person perspective the sights of Sequoia National Park, complete with hikers coming in the opposite direction.

It’s all very odd dear readers, very odd indeed. My natural reaction when I see a dirty great big bolder in front of me is to take evasive action (a lesson I learnt the hard way when I ran into a Gate and broke my little nose). And so that’s I was doing,  boulders = avoid. Seems perfectly rational until a microsecond later you realise you are one a treadmill. 

In short, the lunatic who decided to put that feature in to the scurrying machines should also have included a damn trip hazard warning!!!. I tell you dear readers, it is not easy being me 😀. If I go scurrying later Mr Myree will have an extra viewer.>>

While Drew was running I transferred the photos of today to the PC and updated our accounts spreadsheet and other information while taking in the views. 

Dinner

At 6.45pm we left to walk to our restaurant for the night. This was the lovely Tamarind Tree in Vietnam Town. 

We arrived to find the restaurant packed, mainly with Vietnamese people, but we had reserved, so were seated soon after arrival. The restaurant is a lovely setting with small trees in the building including next to me as I write this note. 

Drew decided to try one of their exotic cordials, which was Lime with sugar cane over ice water (Đá chanh), the sharp lime and the sweet sugar worked well for Drew, who had another before the meal was over.

We opted for the menu that Drew had spotted when we first identifed this place. It was simply called: Seven Courses of Beef

We began with Gỏi Bò - Beef Salad of shredded Cabbage, Carrot, and Green Herbs with House Dressing. This was tasty with a chilli warmth. Even eating noodles with chopsticks, something I've been doing for years, didn't faze Drew who was committed to make the most of this meal.

Our second course was Bò Nhúng Dấm - Beef Vinegar - Thin Slices Of Beef And Vinegar Broth. The vinegar was sharp and pungent, we cooked our own meat in it, as well as some of the lovely vegetables that formed the Green Vegetables, Herbs, Pickles, Rice Noodles and Roasted Peanuts. We may never know if that was what we were supposed to do, but it worked for us, and in such a full resteraunt, nobody else noticed or suggested we were doing it wrong. The rice paper was on the side and we had a bowl of warm water in which this was placed to cook.

The next four items came together:
Bò Nướng - Grilled Marinated Beef Slices Rolled With Vietnamese Bacon.
Chả Đùm - Steamed Ground Beef Marinated With Spices, Egg, And Vegetables
Bò Lá-Lốt - Grilled Marinated Ground Beef Wrapped In La-Lot Leaves; 
Bò Mở Chày - Fatty Beef - Grilled Marinated Ground Beef Wrapped In A Thin Sheet Of Fat.

(From left to right in the photo below). Each had a different texture and flavour. Drew preferred the Bò Nướng while my favorite was the Chả Đùm, but they were all very nice indeed.

The meal was brought to a fitting crescendo by the Cháo Bò Beef Rice Soup - Rice Soup made with Ground Beef Broth Topped with coriander, spring onions and pepper.


We had finished the whole meal by 8.50pm and walked back to the Hotel. Arriving at 9:30pm.