Breka (Homer and Davie)

I had had a good experience with Breka on Fraser before they branched out into Downtown Vancouver. Huge selection, great prices. Breka on Davie is still cheaper than having cake in a restaurant, but the selection is small compared to their Fraser Street location.

Selection size isn't necessarily a deal-breaker so long as you have great goods. Sadly I tried four of their items on Monday morning and only one was decently done. Which isn't to say the others were terrible, but rather they were in the limbo zone of disappointing to passable, either in taste, price, or both.

Banana Colada Latte ($4.55 for large)

Did not taste like banana or banana colada or anything really special. Don't buy this hoping for a banana colada experience. Buy this hoping for a slightly different latte experience. Price is okay unless you were hoping for banana colada.

Veggie Roll

Looked like unidentified dark veggies (some leafy stuff and olives?) in puff pastry. Tasted mostly like puff pastry. Not really a lot of filling here.
Didn't look bad in the counter, but what shows up after they heat it up (in a panini press?) looks very different.

Flattened. And with grill marks. Definitely heated through!
Oily. Am I allowed to say this twice? It's puff pasty, so if you think about it, you had to expect a half portion of the roll to soak about half your napkin.

Served with a slab of pickle, and you'll need it for the oiliness.
Pass on this one for the low amount of filling and the oiliness of puff pastry.

Strawberry Hannukah Sufganiyah (plural: sufganiyot)

Looks like a donut. And guess what? It is a donut. Don't buy this hoping it's something special, because it's not.
Strangely, tasted flour-y. Off-putting and made it inferior to regular donuts.
One glob of jam on top, various flavours available.
The jam on top shows about 1/4 of the total amount of filling used, concentrated at the centre of the donut. If you're hoping for a more extensively filled donut, look at whatever other donuts they have.
$1.75, if I remember correctly. Ouch. I still remember years ago when Tim Hortons donuts became pricey at 60 cents. Sigh.

Apple Danish

The one item that was rather nice.
Came out of the oven looking beautifully golden and glazed. Edge crust was crunchy without being fall-apart flaky. No need to sweep flakes and crumbs off my lap after eating this.
Apple filling not too gooey--no mess cutting or eating this one.
Not too sweet either. This will either be a disappointment or a pleasant surprise. For me it was the latter.

Cakes looked great. Stick with cakes and bread at Breka.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en...

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin...

Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

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