Seafood Tasting for Two at Blue Water Cafe

One of the better meals I had in Vancouver was at Blue Water Cafe, one of the preeminent seafood restaurants in the city. Located in the industrial-turned-hip Yaletown neighborhood, Blue Water Cafe is housed in a beautifully converted warehouse space that also includes a patio, perfect for summer al fresco dining. The menu includes touches of Asian inspiration, which makes sense, given Vancouver’s large Asian population.

Surprise favorite

My mom and I dined here back in August. We started with the Seafood Tasting for Two, which includes four dishes: dungeness crab and baby shrimp salad served with daikon, scallop ceviche, albacore tuna tartare served on tempura nori, and smoked sockeye salmon terrine served with sides of creme fraiche and hazelnuts. My absolute favorite of the four (and of the entire meal) was the smoked salmon terrine, which surprised me since I’m not a huge fan of smoked salmon in general. But the layers of cream cheese tempered the smoked salmon for me, making this a plate I still think about!

Smoked salmon terrine at Blue Water Cafe

The main event

I had the scallops for my main, and mom ordered a fish special. The scallops were cooked nicely, but I didn’t like the endive that came with the dish. I’d chalk this up to personal preference rather than any deficiency with the cooking, though. Mom liked her fish, but neither main dish was outstanding.

Scallops at Blue Water Cafe

“Cheesecake”

For dessert, we had the Cassis + Yuzu Cheesecake, which is a deconstructed “cheesecake” made with black currant macaron, poached strawberries, and chantilly with nougatine. It wasn’t what we were expecting, but it tasted wonderfully light while also being satisfying. I would order this again.

Cassis + Yuzu Cheesecake at Blue Water Cafe

Overall, I enjoyed my meal here. Some memorable dishes and good service left me with a favorable feeling for Blue Water Cafe. But if I were to return, I’d probably stick to the appetizers and desserts and skip the mains.

I had been working too much. I needed a break. Like, a real break. No laptop, no phone, no email. I needed to disengage and just relax. Mexico sounded like a perfect getaway — warm, full of some of my favorite foods, and not too far away.

Then I came across Maya Tulum, a wellness resort in Tulum, Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula. Situated right on the beautiful white sands of the Caribbean (in fact, all the rooms are more like huts with paths made of sand between all the buildings), Maya Tulum offers daily yoga classes, meditation sessions, spa treatments and healthy food to reset your mind and body. The lack of wifi is purposeful (you can find it in a couple of places if you really need it).

So of course I went. At first I was weary of the wellness mumbo jumbo, thinking I would be eating tasteless food while having to greet everyone with “namaste.” But Maya Tulum Mexico resort isn’t pretentious at all. The service is warm and inviting, and nothing is forced on you. It’s all very chill, which is the point. And the food definitely has flavor.

A path at Maya Tulum

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When my mom approached me with the idea of taking a train ride through Canada, I was skeptical. I suffer from motion sickness pretty badly, and the idea of being on a moving vehicle for multiple days in a row made me weary.

But my fears were quickly put to rest as soon as we boarded the Rocky Mountaineer train in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the company has its own fancy train depot. After being welcomed by a live bagpiper, we boarded the train bound for Jasper in Alberta, with an overnight stop in Kamloops.

The view from inside the Rocky Mountaineer

Mom treated us to GoldLeaf service, which meant we had seats on the upper level of the train car with a see-through dome, perfect for viewing all the beauty Canada has to offer, as well as allowing me to see the horizon so I wouldn’t get ill. There was a ton of leg room, and the ride was super smooth — no sudden stops and starts like on the Metro Expo Line at home in Los Angeles.

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What about the food?

You get two meals on the train, breakfast and lunch, as well as drinks (there’s a full bar on board that includes local beer and wine) and snacks throughout the day — and it’s all included in the price of the journey. You will definitely not leave hungry! Because this was a two-day trip and the downstairs dining room isn’t big enough to seat everyone at once, you eat in shifts. But if you’re eating in the second seating (this switches from day to day, so it’s fair), you get even more snacks to tide you over. The scone with butter and strawberry jam is especially delicious.

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I enjoyed all the food on board — lunch comes with wine, too! — but dessert was a bit lacking in execution (dry cake, hard crumble topping). My favorite dishes were the egg souffle for breakfast served with potatoes and sausage, and the salmon for lunch served with risotto (not really, but still tasty) vegetables and a mustard vinaigrette.

Would I do this again?

Mom and I took a Rocky Mountaineer train twice on this trip: once from Vancouver to Jasper, then back from Banff to Vancouver (with some sightseeing by coach in the middle). The first and last legs of these trips were exactly the same, so I’m not sure I would want to do that again, but we bookended our trip with stays in Vancouver, so it made sense this time. We saw so many beautiful things — lakes, rivers, waterfalls, mountains, wildlife — even though the air wasn’t clear due to wildfires in British Columbia (this was in August earlier this year).

I would recommend this trip to anyone wanting to see western Canada while taking it easy in the lap of luxury. Mom was very pleased. In fact, there were a lot of older people on these trips, for exactly this reason, I suspect. But I’d say we younger folks could use a luxurious relaxing experience like this, too.

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One of downtown Los Angeles’ best low-key spots for a drink and a bite to eat is Barcito, an Argentinean-style tapas restaurant and bar.

Located in the South Park neighborhood, Barcito has been my go-to after-work hang for the past couple of years, taking over the short-lived ChocoChicken space on 12th Street. It’s easy and convenient — gratuity is included in the menu prices, and it’s within walking distance of a Metro stop. And drinks on the happy hour menu, called aperitivo hour here, come with snacks.

Food + beverage

My favorite dish at Barcito is hands-down the provoleta, grilled Argentinean provolone cheese served warm with toasted bread and a grilled half lemon. This provolone is mild in flavor and crumbly, unlike its Italian cousin. Squeeze the lemon juice over the cheese, cut off a slice of warm cheese, spread it over the toasted French bread and enjoy. So simple, so satisfying.

Provoleta

As for drinks, I’m partial to the Paloma on tap. Barcito’s version is spicy with the addition of habanero to the requisite tequila and grapefruit.

Paloma

During aperitivo hour, Barcito offers a cocktail, beer and a shot, or a glass of wine for $9, which includes a snack trio (nuts, olives and chips) and gratuity. Stick to the beer + shot or glass of wine for maximum value here. Also, happy hour is offered every day of the week, which should be attractive to all the people living in the nearby new apartment and condo buildings.

Barcito recently started offering breakfast and lunch, so I’m going to have stop by soon to check it out. Stay tuned!

Brunch at Punch Bowl Social Denver

ShopEatSleep contributor Eros David has moved to Denver, expanding our coverage. Stay tuned for more from Colorado!

As the original location of the nationwide watering hole playground, Punch Bowl Social Denver took over an old Big Lots building and made it a destination for craft cocktails and scratch kitchen entrees. On the corner of 1st Ave and Broadway in the historic Baker district, the place is hard to miss with big windows and a giant neon sign.

After teaming up with Top Chef’s Hugh Acheson to revamp the menu from standard bar fare to their own take on Southern-influenced entrees and side dishes, I dropped in to check out their brunch.

The food

For starters, it might be worth grabbing a table here just for Punch Bowl Social’s biscuits. That might be blasphemous to say with Denver Biscuit Company just a few blocks down the road, but PBS really did biscuits justice here. Served with a house-made jam, the buttery-not-oily biscuits are accented with a unique strawberry jam highlighted by hints of ginger, sambal and orange zest.

Biscuit at Punch Bowl Social

The always-popular chicken and waffles is a satisfying choice at PBS. The chicken is fried with no complaints as to the technique and even has a little kick toward the end of your bites. They tell me there are no special spices on the chicken, just garlic salt and iodized salt, so it might be more sodium than anything else. It’s a solidly executed dish that won’t disappoint, but it’s not my favorite version of chicken and waffles. (That distinction goes to Black Swan in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn).

Chicken and waffles

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I’ve been to large chain spas and luxury hotel spas, but sometimes a smaller, more intimate-feeling spa is just what the doctor ordered. That’s where Larchmont Sanctuary Spa comes in.

Centrally located in the always-cute Larchmont Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, the spa is housed in a converted bungalow on Larchmont Boulevard within walking distance of all the shops and restaurants in the area. Because it’s in a house, there’s a backyard where you can get treatments outside — a unique experience perfect for beautiful LA weather.

Larchmont Sancutary Spa, which used to be called Le Petite Retreat before new ownership took over a few years ago, has just about everything you would be looking for in a full-service spa, with the exception of a wet sauna and a communal hot tub. However, there are now new Himalayan salt treatments, including a stone massage, scrub and inhaler available for purchase, and all spa products are now organic and cruelty-free. The spa also has a special ergonomic copper hydrotherapy tub that can be booked as part of a package.

As part of the ongoing improvements, the spa plans to update many of the common areas, including the Relaxation Room and the locker rooms.

“It’s all very exciting, and we can’t wait for everyone to be able to enjoy the new ambiance,” said Scott Buss, co-owner of Larchmont Sanctuary Spa. “We are [also] one of the few spas in Los Angeles with therapists certified in oncology treatments to enable individuals that are going through, or have gone through, cancer treatments to safely enjoy the benefits of a massage or facial.”

My experience

I got a Himalayan stone massage from Vivian, a very nice young woman. Because I have been suffering from neck, shoulder and upper back pain for over a year, I asked for medium to firm pressure, and boy, did Vivian deliver. She used a combination of deep tissue and sports massage, targeting my problem areas and stretching out the muscles that needed it. The salt stones were heated up and used to target those stubborn knots, loosening them up. I felt good afterward for almost a week, which is a big deal when you’ve been dealing with pain almost every day for more than a year.

I would definitely go back to Larchmont Sanctuary Spa, and I’ll probably ask for Vivian again, now that I know her massages are sure to make me feel great. The spa also has super comfy robes and luxe sheets on the massage tables. And being a smaller operation means you get more personal attention, which isn’t always the case at some of the bigger spas. There are reasonably priced memberships, too. So next time you’re going to YogaWorks or getting some Salt & Straw ice cream down the street, stop by and check it out.

Note: This visit to Larchmont Sanctuary Spa was complimentary.

Masters of Taste

The 2nd Annual Masters of Taste, a luxury food and beverage festival, will be held May 7, 2017, on the field of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Masters of Taste will bring together food and beverage from more than 70 restaurants and chefs, confectioners and bakers, bartenders, wineries, craft breweries, pressed juicers, coffee roasters, as well as live entertainment. The list includes:

Bone Kettle and Komodo, Chef Erwin Tjahyadi (Pasadena and Los Angeles)
CAST at the Viceroy Santa Monica, Chef Larry Monaco (Santa Monica)
Celestino, Chef Calogero Drago (Pasadena)
Church & State and Spring, Chef Tony Esnault (Downtown Los Angeles)
HACHÉ LA, Chef Michael “Mick” Schepers (Silver Lake)
Hamasaku, Chef Yoya Takahashi (Los Angeles)
Hyperion Public, Chef Paddy Aubrey (Silver Lake and Studio City)
Little Beast, Chef Jose Perez (Eagle Rock)
Magnolia House, Chef Evan Colter (Pasadena)
Mama Lion, Chef Michael Hung (Koreatown)
Mexikosher, Chef Katsuji Tanabi (Los Angeles)
Milk & Honey, Chef Lulu Cai (Hollywood)
Miro, Chef Gavin Mills (Downtown Los Angeles)
Momed, Chef Alex Sarkissian (Beverly Hills and Atwater Village)
SpireWorks, Chef Kuniko Yagi (Westwood Village and Eagle Rock)
Redbird, Chef Neal Fraser (Downtown Los Angeles)
The Raymond 1886, Chef Tim Guiltinan (Pasadena)
True Food Kitchen, Chef Phil Noresetter (Pasadena)
Venice Whaler, Chef Nick Liberato (Venice)

Masters of Taste, which is for those 21 years old and older only, will take place Sunday, May 7. A VIP Power Hour will be held from 3-4 p.m. and general admission from 4-7 p.m.

Tickets cost $105 for general admission and $185 for VIP. But use code SES17, specifically for ShopEatSleep readers, and get 15% off the ticket price. Buy tickets today!

Best of all? All proceeds from Masters of Taste will directly benefit Union Station Homeless Services. Last year, the event raised more than $435,000 for Union Station Homeless Services, and this year Masters of Taste hopes to reach  $560,000!

The Salon is located upstairs at The Federal Bar (5303 Lankershim Boulevard) on the north side of the NoHo Arts District in North Hollywood. Walk past the art school kids you’re going to park by, skip the crowd at the main bar downstairs, and tell the host you want to go up to The Salon for some honest-to-goodness handcrafted cocktails. Go through an Employees Only door, up a flight of stairs and you’ll find the entrance to The Salon, a cocktail hideaway tucked into the second floor. Opening up quietly at the end of 2016, but four years in the making, Damian Windsor (The Roger Room, Warwick) created a drink menu that’s both accessible and finely tuned with a focus on classic and craft cocktails.

Crafty cocktails

You have drinks like the Montgomery Martini, which is just a really good martini. But you also have the popular Horse’s Neck that features Lairds Applejack, ginger beer, Angostura and citrus oil. If your friends are just getting out of plastic bottles and into cocktails, chances are they’re enamoured with those mules in copper cups. The Horse’s Neck will be familiar and is the drink you’ll indoctrinate them into The Salon with. Be careful, though, because you most likely won’t be able to get away with just one round of these.

Horse’s Neck

Maybe your friends just graduated from Jameson blackouts and now they only drink Old Fashioneds. The Fransisco San [sic] is right up their alley. Taking inspiration from Japanese whisky and San Francisco (as the name implies, despite the curious spelling), this cocktail features Suntory Whisky Toki, Punt e Mes and D.O.M. Benedictine. It’s a bright take on a whisky drink that goes down easy while still remaining respectable enough for Bill Murray to toast while wearing eyeliner.

Fransisco San

Double dazzle

Fortune Favors the Bold is ironically probably the least bold cocktail on the menu. Double Cross vodka, Carpano Antica Formula, Manzanilla sherry, Cointreau and Spanish Queen olives combine into a smooth but powerful, not delicate, taste. The vodka, vermouth, sherry and triple sec serve to heighten the Spanish Queen olives, making them more than just an accent. What this drinks holds back in adventure, it gives you in unrestrained flavor.

Fortune Favors the Bold

When you’re ready to commit to a new cocktail experience, go ahead and do yourself the favor of ordering up a Tequila Por Mi Amante. While the pickled watermelon dazzles your tastebuds, the Pueblo Viejo tequila blanco and Chamberyzette dry vermouth await your commitment. The watermelon cubes are more than a garnish; this is closer to a pairing in a glass. Salty, fruity, refreshing, boozy. This is what I started my night with, and it set the bar high. I could most likely drink more rounds of Horse’s Neck on any given night, but the Tequila Por Mi Amante was my favorite.

Tequila Por Mi Amante

Welcome to The Valley

The Salon has limited operating hours, generally Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 8 p.m. until late, but it would be wise to call and check ahead as there are sometimes performances (comedy, music) in adjacent showrooms. The walls upstairs are not very soundproof, so activity in the other room would be definitely noticed. Nevertheless, The Salon is a welcome addition of handcrafted cocktails in an intimate atmosphere that you frankly don’t always find in The Valley.

Cotz mineral sunscreen. From Cotz Skin Care.

Living in sunny Southern California, it’s a must to wear sunscreen daily. And since this stuff is going on your face, you want to ensure it’s good for you, right?

Check out Cotz mineral sunscreen, which uses zinc oxide and titanium dioxide to protect skin from harmful UVA and UVB rays. While I still love Jan Marini face sunscreen, Cotz is great because it’s tinted with a non-greasy, matte finish, making it ideal for everyday wear.

And even though Cotz mineral sunscreen is tinted, the pigment is darker coming out of the tube than when it goes on your face. It also feels really thick on your fingers, but it goes on smooth and light.

Cotz products range from 30 SPF to 58 SPF. The one I’ve been using, Cotz Face for Natural Skin Tones, has 40 SPF. Cotz mineral sunscreens differ from chemical sunscreens by creating a physical barrier reflecting harmful UV rays. When you slather on a chemical sunscreen, your skin absorbs laboratory-made carbon compounds that absorb UV rays and release their energy in ways that don’t harm the skin. Read about some of the debate between using chemical and mineral sunscreens.

Cotz mineral sunscreen is perfect for Angelenos commuting to and from work, whether it’s in the car (those UV rays are getting you through the window) or while walking to and from the Metro, like I do. I’ve also worn it to the beach, and it holds up just as well in lots of direct sunlight for an extended period of time. It’s my new favorite face sunscreen.

Note: Cotz mineral sunscreen was provided complementary in a gift bag given out at an Organic Spa Magazine event held at the Beverly Wilshire hotel.

I recently visited Florida for the first time since I was a child. I have to admit that I wasn’t very excited about it; I mean, I live in Los Angeles, so I don’t need to go to Florida to find a beach (and then there’s the humidity…). But I have to say that visiting Anna Maria Island in mid April was actually pretty darn nice.

We stayed in a rented house just a couple of blocks away from where Bradenton Beach meets Holmes Beach. The beach wasn’t crowded, had clean, white sand, and clear blue water.

Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island

We took a boat tour of Sarasota Bay with Capt. Kathe. Actually, since our group was so large, we needed two boats, so I was on a boat helmed by Capt. Kathe’s daughter, Capt. Katie Scarlett (I assume Kathe is a fan of “Gone With the Wind”). Katie Scarlett is easy-going and fun, and she took us from Cortez around the bay so we could see dolphins, some of which even played in the wake of our boat. We didn’t see any manatees, though it’s supposedly possible. We also made a stop at Beer Can Island, which is beautiful, despite its name.

So this happened today. #dolphins #nbd #florida #imonaboat

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Dolphin action #dolphins #florida #video

A video posted by Hon. Rory Owen Delaney (@mbdfilms) on Apr 18, 2016 at 11:23am PDT

Capt. Kathe docks at Star Fish Company Market & Restaurant. If you’d like to eat there after your tour — and you should — Kathe and co. will call in your order while you’re on the boat so you don’t have to wait in the huge line that forms at lunchtime. I had the fried grouper sandwich with cheese grits on the side. The grits are really, really cheesy, so maybe go for the fries if you’re not inclined to that kind of fish-and-cheese combo.

Fried grouper sandwich and cheese grits at Star Fish Company

My husband and I also went parasailing, something I’ve always wanted to do. There are lots of parasailing companies on Anna Maria Island, but we went with Bradenton Beach Parasailing. We got 15 minutes up in the air, which came with photos, a higher height than the 10-minute flight and a dip in the ocean, for $89 per person (the 10-minute option is $69 per person). Those 15 minutes go by fast, so I can’t imagine how quick the 10-minute flight would be!

Going up!

Parasailing

We had lunch one day at the City Pier Restaurant located at the end of the Anna Maria Island City Pier. While the food wasn’t necessarily anything special, the fish was cooked nicely, and the ambiance — which includes a view of the ocean while listening to a live musician — was spot-on. The blackened grouper on top of a Greek salad hit the spot. (You’ll find grouper on just about every menu in this area.)

Blackened grouper on Greek salad at City Pier Restaurant

For my mother-in-law’s birthday, we had dinner at Beach Bistro. We started with a sunset cocktail hour, then moved inside for our meal.

Sunset cocktail hour at Beach Bistro

We opted for the three-course $65 tasting menu (there’s an optional “exotics” course available for an extra $25 that includes your choice of tenderloin rillette, seared foie gras, seared scallops or “Lobstercargots”). I had the oyster mushroom farro, bouillabaisse and Prailine Alexandra, a house-made praline with vanilla bean ice cream and Frangelico. I heard a lot of good things about Beach Bistro from other visitors to Anna Maria Island, but in the end, I thought the meal was nice but not necessarily a standout.

Oyster mushroom farro at Beach Bistro

Bouillabaisse at Beach Bistro

Praline Alexandra at Beach Bistro

This trip to Florida changed my mind about the state — well, as long as I’m staying on an island or beach (wink, wink).