Canada in October- Gluttony in Whistler
We ate very well during our weekend in Whistler. The cold snowy weather meant one thing, heavy, hearty meals. I can feel myself gaining weight just thinking about all that we ate!
Friday night, we kicked off our Whistler trip with dinner at the Bavarian restaurant.
The Bavarian in Whistler
he location of the restaurant was very tricky to find. We had a brochure with a mini map and the address, but along with our phone GPS, it was still a challenge. It's not located in the main village, but tucked away on a side street and not easily visible. Having skipped lunch during the drive, we were very eager to eat and showed up an hour before they officially opened. Our love for fondue kept us going as we killed time for an hour.
As anyone who has eaten Fondue knows, this is a very leisurely meal. We kicked it off with two giant German beers.
Our giant German beers.
The restaurant was hosting a big October Fest event on the following evening, but we came in on a very quiet Friday night. We were told that this is the busiest restaurant in town and must have lucked out with the quiet night that we picked.
The first course was cheese. The cheese course is Dan's absolute favorite and my least favorite. Unfortunately, I have to report that the cheese course was probably the worst that we have ever eaten. It was gloppy and Dan nearly choked twice. I hate comparing a local place to a chain, but The Melting Pot did every single course much better. This being said, Fondue is like chocolate. Even bad chocolate, is still chocolate! We finished off the entire pan and picked at the scrapings.
Cheese scrapings.
The main course was various meats with sauces. The sauces were really yummy and added a lot of flavor to the meat- beef, chicken, pork and scallops.
Sweet and savory meat dipping sauces.
A boiling pot of broth to cook the meat course.
By the time the chocolate dessert, my favorite course, came we were stuffed and fairly drunk. We had a few more giant German beers and a glass of champagne. We stretched out dinner by having the restaurateur, Angela, join us for drinks and she introduced us to several locals, including a fantastic photographer named Joern Rohde. We left the restaurant over six hours after we started, drunk with full tummies and new friends.
After such a heavy dinner, we had planned on having a light breakfast. Plans are made to be changed. We went to the Hot Buns Bakery in the village and ate the biggest cinnamon rolls known to man!
This picture was such a great illustration of the roll being bigger than my head, that i needed to post it, even if i feel self conscious with zero make-up and frizzy morning hair!
The mini apples make this a heathy meal, right?
Hot Buns Bakery was a cute little coffee-house. If I lived locally, I can imagine that it would be a place that I would frequent. It even had a British theme going on for Dan.
We grazed all day and ended up stumped for dinner. Originally, we thought to go back to The Bavarian for the Octoberfest event, but we had such a packed day, that we decided to find something in the Village and call it an early night. We ended up at The Brewhouse, which at the time was an easy option, but it really was like a bunch of chain restaurants that we have in Los Angeles.
It was crowded, but we were seated immediately and they had a huge beer selection. I am not a picky eater at all, but I found the menu to be limiting. It had a lot of basic items gone fancy and over priced. Example, it was hard to find a pizza with basic toppings. Also, a lot of the items didn't come with veggies on the side. I struggled to find an item that sounded appealing. I ended up with the fancy mac and cheese dish.
Good, but i'm not sure that it was worth sixteen dollars, before factoring in tax and the exchange rate.
I couldn't have a meal that was just pasta smothered in cheese, so I ordered the veggie plate to share with Dan.
Our fancy veggie skillet.
The vegetables were good, but not worth the roughly fifteen dollars (before factoring in the exchange rate) that we paid for them.
Dan did enjoy his main course, fish n' chips served on newspaper, of course.
Dan's Fish N' Chips
We left the Brewhouse feeling like we had been to a generic restaurant with okay, yet over-priced fare. I wish that we had taken the time to find a local gem instead. Luckily, we did just that with dessert.
I love cows and as soon as I saw that Whistler Village had an ice cream shop named Cows, I knew that it was my destiny to buy a cone.
I LOVE COWS!!!
Local ice cream shops are always the best and Cows was no exception. Dan was too full for a cone (how is that possible???) but I had a little room left in my baby toe, so I had a scoop. It was a chocolate concoction with chunks of fudge. Oh my goodness, heavenly.
We snuck in right before closing, so I didn't get to poke around at the cute merch in the shop, but I did snap a few signage pictures.
Our final meal in Whistler, was breakfast at The Village Eatery on a cold Sunday morning. I'm not a big fan of waffles or pancakes, but there is something about visiting mountain resorts that makes me crave Belgian Waffles. The Little Eatery advertised Belgian Waffles and we were there.
Waffles on a cold morning in Whistler.
My biggest impressions of The Little Eatery are the cozy atmosphere, it feels like you're eating in someone's home and the great coffee. The waffles were good, the best part was the fresh fruit and whipped topping.
Oddly enough, I did not use maple syrup on the waffle. I consumed absolutely no maple products while on this trip to Canada and I only went to Tim Horton's twice. I didn't even see a Timmy's in Whistler. Canadian Travel stereotypes smashed!