Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Last Friday I went to pick up Al after work and we took a walk in Gas Town while waiting for Ken to join us for dinner. I don’t usually walk along Water Street and shop there but this time I managed to find something interesting which might have me coming back.

John Fluevog Shoes Store

As we were walking back towards the skytrain station, a sentence from a store window caught my eye “A walk in the park soothes the Soul.” So I looked in the window and saw this:

See that back drop in there? I was interested in finding out what it was. The store clerk was nice and told me I could take pictures inside the store. It turned out this is the John Fluevog Shoes store (as you can tell from the title on the mural). What strike me as interesting aside from the mural is the way the store is laid out. The shoes are displayed on very low tables as well as what looks like a log split in half (see one of the pictures). I’ve never seen Fluevog shoes before but I liked a lot of the designs. I’m definitely coming back later on for some shoe shopping.

One more interesting fact about the store is that the space actually was never there before. The store was built on an ally way. You can see the side of the two buildings, with their windows, inside the store. They had used a glass roof to let sunlight which makes the store very bright and welcoming. The design studio is located on the 2nd floor near the back. The sales clerk told me they actually design the shoes right there. Very cool.

saltlik - A Rare Steakhouse

For dinner, we decided to check out this restaurant we passed by a few weeks ago called saltlik. The menu looked reasonably priced so we head in with hungry stomachs. Al ordered a beef soup and crab cakes ($13), I had a double bacon cheese burger with skinny fries ($15) and Ken got steak with truffle infused sauce ($21). I’m not a big fan of burgers, but those skinny fries were calling my name! The twins also ordered some martinis for $7 each. I’d highly recommend the Smiling Geisha. It’s very refreshing with the cucumber juice. Of course I can’t miss dessert. I ordered a lemon tart which was bigger than I had imagined it to be. The meringue was very well made, slightly crispy on the outside but gooey on the inside. For the price and the quality of the food, I’d pick saltlik over Keg or Earls. Here are some of the pictures.

More pictures from saltlik in my Picasa album.

Misc Pictures

On our way to saltlik, we ran into a bunch of bikers which were riding in downtown for the closing of the Bike to Work week. Here are some pictures I managed to take while some sped by us (click to enlarge):