Since late July, The Restaurant Guy, Gal, and Kid have been exploring Alaska by way of boat, train, and hiking shoes. It’s our first time to visit the 49th state and our first time to come face to face with (and actually stand on) a glacier. As luck would have it, we had Santa Barbara weather most of the time and not a drop of rain. We are now on the second leg of our trip, exploring western Canada.
One of our favorite restaurants in Alaska was the Alaska King Crab Company in Ketchikan, a small fishing town overflowing with salmon and other sea creatures. The eatery’s seafood is all fresh and caught locally. If you order salmon for dinner at the AKCC, it was quite possibly swimming that morning. If you live in Ketchikan, salmon is essentially free. When you are feeling hungry for the popular fish you just need to grab your net, walk to the nearest stream, and load up.
In Canada our first stop is in Vancouver. We are staying in the downtown area next to the popular Gastown district. As luck would have it, we stumbled across an eatery that was unbelievably good. It’s in Gastown and called the Water Street Cafe, in business since 1988. Both the food and service were outstanding. One of our appetizers was shrimp cocktail and each shrimp was twice the size of any I have had at a restaurant before. My entree was steak and lobster which was done to perfection. The restaurant is right across the street from a famous local landmark called the Steam Clock. It’s powered entirely by steam and it plays Westminster Chimes every quarter hour via steam powered horns. Other discoveries include Moma sushi in Gastown (your classic hole-in-the-wall with amazing food) and the hugely popular Public Market on Granville Island.
Photos by The Restaurant Guy
I had a housemate at UCSB from Ketchikan, and of course he came from a family of fisherman. When we moved into our place on Del Playa, he brought this huge freezer that we parked on the deck, and he got regular shipments of shrimp, halibut, salmon and venison (they hunted too), anything they caught really, from his family in Ketchikan. He also knew every recipe in the book, and I guarantee you no other group of IV kids ate like we did that year. We all pitched in making rice, potatoes, salad, or veggies, we ate like kings that year, it was amazing.