Vancouver, British Columbia

This is the view out my window today:

A bit less than a week ago, this was the view out my window:

Last weekend (and into early this week), I was in Vancouver, BC attending the Project Management Institute (PMI) Global Congress. I'm a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), so this conference was a opportunity to certified and have a chance to gain new learning in the Project Management field. It was a great conference overall with some really fantastic keynote speakers. We also had the following "entertainment" at the awards banquet Saturday night:

Just wow. All I can say. 

In addition to attending the conference, we of course had to eat! Having been to Vancouver a few times before, I had never really found any places to eat that I really liked. This time around, we did our research and didn't have a bad meal once! 

Saturday night we ate at a great sushi restaurant on West Broadway called Tojo's. Oh.em.gee. I'm not usually a huge sushi fan, but I do like rolls and I could eat edamame all day. I ordered the Northern Light Roll (Wild prawn tempura, avocado and seasonal fruit rolled in a cucumber crepe) and it was amazing! I also tried a bit of the tuna belly sashimi from my friend Katie and it was also SO-GOOD! 

Sunday night, we went to a little wine bar in Gastown called Salt Tasting Room. Tiny and down a slightly dark creepy alley, but once inside it was fantastic. Cheese, meat, condiments and wine. That's about it. But everything is beautifully paired with everything else so you get a fantastic little meal. 

With the wine bar's pairings being rather small, it was really a perfect pre-dinner kind of location. So we went down the street to a sister restaurant to Salt called the Irish Heather. Great little pub with really yummy food. I went with a Guinness and originally ordered a steak and Guinness pie, but their over went on the fritz so I ended up with a cider braised pork chop with Brussels sprouts. YUM!

My other little favorite place was a little bakery, Villaggio Cafe right along my running route (I am proud to say I ran all 4 days I was in Vancouver! Loved being able to run along the waterfront to Stanley Park!). We happened to hit it two mornings in a row right as they brought their muffins and scones out of the over. SO GOOD!