Granville Island & Spaghetti Factory!

This past weekend was Thanksgiving which meant a 3 day weekend! And it also meant the last public holiday I get off from work until Christmas so we really wanted to make this weekend count!

So we packed in as much as we possibly could and it was awesome! On Friday night we headed to Granville Island as I've been wanting to check it out for a while. It has a large public food market amongst other things. Whilst it was fun to browse around, it didn't quite live up to the hype for me and I think London's food markets are better...but I did enjoy seeing all the pumpkins....

and all the different kinds of squash you get here, there are around 10 different varieties and since butternut is one of our fave veg we have been experimenting with them all!

And gourds...

Their flower stalls were also eye catching...

Calla Lilie's in very variety...

And even white Protea's which I never even knew existed! (Protea is the national flower of South Africa)

I'm also a little bit in love with the pumpkin tree flowers they sell here!

Their fruits looked so inviting...

and I loved their cherry mounds!

I couldn't resist taking a peek at their sweet treats which included super cute lemon meringue pies

lemon meringue and coconut cream pie as big as your head! I am definitely coming back one day for a slice of that!

and of course some cupcakes! I was loving the look of the peanut butter filled choc cupcakes at the bottom, but when you see the size of the meal we ate after this you will see why I didn't try one of these!

Of course it was blue skies as always, I'm beginning to think grey rainy days are just a myth here! (note: I started writing this blog post earlier in the week, the grey rainy days have since come!) and so we snapped some shots down by the water.

I love this cute water bus that takes people from the mainland across to the island.

After looking at all that food we had built up quite an appetite so in By's mind there was only one option...dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory.  A few years ago I asked By where the best meal was that he had ever eaten and he told me it was at Spaghetti Factory in Banff when he was 15.  I asked him what was so great about it and he told me they served spaghetti with their ribs! So a few days ago when we were strolling through Gastown we were pretty excited to stumble upon one! and By requested we eat there that night...

We stopped to check out the old steam clock on the way.  It is apparently one of Vancouver's most famous landmarks! I love the whole feel of Gastown, it's the oldest part of downtown and has quaint cobbled streets and those cool lamp post lights you can see in the pic below!

The Old Spaghetti Factory was even better than By had remembered!

because we got brought this complimentary warm loaf of bread with garlic butter and free salads! We love a freebie! especially ones as tasty as these!

Of course By had to go with the same meal that had wowed him so much over 10 years ago and it didn't disappoint! In fact it was so huge we ended up not even being able to finish our mains, I guess that's what you get for stuffing your face with a loaf of bread just before!

I had an amazing chicken parmesan thing, with of course, a side of spaghetti! 

and then we even got free ice cream, which I had to politely decline because seriously I had been defeated! (see why we didn't try out any sweet treats at Granville Island?!)

By opted for 'spumoni' flavour since we'd never heard of it before! it's a layered italian ice cream and the one he got consisted of vanilla, chocolate and pistachio.  I got to sample some too and we were very impressed with our free dessert! 

All in all it was the perfect start to a super fun weekend which by the looks of things needs to continue in a different post before I bore everyone to death with a picture overload! So stay tuned for mountain roadtrips, thanksgiving and a bike ride around Stanley Park!

 

We snapped this as we left, it's the revolving restaurant downtown! I've heard the food isn't amazing there, but we may just have to check it out one time for the novelty factor and of course the view!