Discovering West 10th Foods

My friend, the talent behind spark, took me on a discovery of West 10th today. Tucked at the furthest western point of the city, I would not have expected to find what I did. Here is a summary of the day.

T Room Bakery & Kitchenware - 4445 W. 10th, Vancouver, BC - troombakery.com

A tea room, a dessert place, a kitchenware store, all under one roof.

The friendly employees were very passionate about their baking quality; so passionate that I was convinced to carry home an Austrian Sacher Cake (the chocolatey one in the top left hand corner in photo).

A favourite of one of those passionate employees are the Peanut Butter Crunchy Rolls (right side in photo). 

I picked up one for the road - filled with what felt like light fresh peanut butter and peanut chunks that is wrapped with delicious chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt. Only $1.95!

The Butcher - 4529 W. 10th, Vancouver, BC - thebutcher.ca

The first thing that catches your eye at this butcher are the sausages. Endless options of unique sausages such as lamb merguez, bison creole, dijon beef, lamb and mint, to name a few.

They also carry grass fed local meat that some are now sleeping deeply in my freezer. My guide commented on their peameal bacon (back bacon, brined and coated in fine cornmeal) saying that she has never seen it in BC before.

In addition to meats, game and deli, they also have a small, but very unique selection of cheeses. What stuck to mind was a mango and ginger Stilton and a Frero Jacque, a Quebec yellow cheese. 

Salivating on all those options, I settled for a Dutch Cantenaar cheese which is supposed to be low fat and low sodium, yet tasty cheese. I cannot wait to try it.

Seafood is also packed in this small neat butcher store. What caught my eye is a small package of something marinated called fresh poke. It was explained to us that this is a Hawaiian specialty of tuna chunks marinated in all sorts of things I could not keep track off.

And if you are not overwhelmed enough with options, you can always go for the South African beef jerky.  





Pane Formaggio - 4532 W. 10th, Vancouver, BC - pane-e-formaggio.com 

Another neat discovery - a tiny store packed with cheeses, baked goods - savory and sweet, crackers, oils, breads and so on.

A pleasant young man was offering a bunch of salt spring island cheeses to taste. I fell in love with a cheese called white grace (even though it is a yellow cheese). It is supposed to be an English peasant cheese and is made from raw milk.

Pane Formaggio also make their own crackers (they call them crisps), even granola. 

But my favourite discovery here was their pignoli cookies - small round cookies made with almond paste and covered with pine nuts. Deliciously sweet - we only shared one between the two of us.



Cafe Katzenjammer - 4441 W. 10th, Vancouver, BC

By now we were really hungry from all this food we discovered, so time for a late brunch. And there was Cafe Katzenjammer.

German food and a name that could be interpreted as something to do with cats (which is probably not the case), how could I restrain.

I ordered potato pancakes which were really good. Shredded potatoes fried into a pancake, covered with fried eggs, hollandaise sauce, and served with fruit, German ham, sour cream, and applesauce.

Thank you spark lady for the tour.

www.spark-project.blogspot.com