Tag: local

Brownstone Restaurant (Kamloops, BC)

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Two cities could not be more different than Squamish, which we left mere days ago and Kamloops, where we find ourselves now. Squamish was a quiet, compact, college and outdoor sports town, Kamloops a sprawling spaghetti of onramps and railyards. Squamptons prefer their food and drink unfussy while Kamloopers relish the theatre of “a big night out”.

Crystal and I were also hankering for one of those big nights out so we squared some reservations at Brownstone in the heart of what we were told was downtown Kamloops. We stumbled in early for our reservation after scoring a cheap copy of Marquis Moon by Television over at Barnacle Records a few blocks down. It was one of the few businesses we found to be open.

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Backcountry Brewing (Squamish, BC)

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You can feel the peculiar energy as you walk around pretty much anywhere in Squamish. It’s there downtown while your buying groceries and wafts around in Brackendale’s backwoods, you even get it up in Garibaldi Heights. It’s omnipresent, a feeling of electricity that you might attribute to the towering skyline, but it’s not all just mountains so close you could jog to them… It’s right in front of you: It’s a feeling of youthful exuberance!

Everyone here is so damn young! It’s like they politely asked everyone over the age of 60 to leave and sold all the houses to 30-something couples with four kids, no-one over 15% body fat, please. They are everywhere, jogging and mountain biking, opening yoga studios and breweries like Backcountry Brewing.

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Blogging, Bannock and Eventually a 2025 Beer List

Shawn 1 Comment

Looking back, it’s amazing to me that in the early years of this blog I banged out two beer lists a year. Either I was drinking ten times the amount and variety of beer I drink now… possible, or I had far more disposable time to dedicate to writing as I have now.

Scrolling down my mid-2000s ubiquitous right blog sidebar it looks like I can barely get off my ass to do a blog post a year, which is a bit melancholy and also a tad misleading. It’s not for love… Food blogs didn’t die the way I was predicting back when I wrote this and I didn’t slow down due to work. In fact, I have MORE free time now that I’m not in a professional kitchen.

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Horang Restaurant and Bar (Nanaimo, BC)

Shawn 1 Comment

Up until recently Korean restaurants on the North tip of Vancouver Island tend to land in one of two buckets: First and most plentiful are the Korean-owned Japanese-style restaurants that serve sushi, sashimi, noodles and are always identifiable by the addition of kimchi with their agadashi tofu. Second in minority are the Jjigae joints serving homestyle ramen stews that are a revelation when eaten in house and tend to suffer greatly if subjected to door dash.

Created by the same crew that ran a couple aforementioned-style restaurants in the past, Nanaimo’s Horang is proudly Korean (there are lots of double consonants on this menu) but also includes lots of nods to the Japanese-Korean fusion that made fish-pickled cabbage downright trendy when a lot of Canadians still thought tofu and seaweed was exotic. Also, they will slap cheese on anything!

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2022 Sumer/Autumn Beer Roundup

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Interesting times continue! I’ve left the culinary industry and began a new career in retail, started a podcast with my buddy Simon, become and middle-aged homeowner/DIY enthusiast and lately I’ve tried to generally chill out more on my off hours. 

Key to my even keel amidst these chaotic times is to kick back with a brew or two on my off hours. Savouring my beer and taking notes has been a great exercise in mindfulness and has helped me not only expand my palate, but also learn new things about my favourite liquid art form. It’s about time to pass on a couple things I’ve noticed during this last summer/autumn. 

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