Here at ILiveInEastVan.com, we love food. Whether it’s making it, eating it, or some variation thereof. In the last few months alone we’ve taken a Pie Making Workshop at The Pie Shoppe, an Appetizer Cooking Class with Caren McSherry at Gourmet Warehouse and most recently a Chocolate Making Workshop at The Soap Dispensary. We have found a lot more friends and family favouring edible items as gifts whether food, spirits or accessories that compliment cooking, baking or creating delish refreshments at home. With that in mind, we have set out some gift suggestions for the foodie in your life:
We’ve recently had the pleasure of putting our hands on a copy of The East Van Foodie just released mere weeks ago. This beautiful hard cover book is the work of Brad Hill and Chris Dagenais and is part cookbook, but at the same time features great stories about many of the amazing foodie spots in East Van. You will find smoking tips from the folks at The Acorn, the recipe for Pulled Pork Pancakes from The Red Wagon Café and the recipe for Vegan Tinga Tacos from Sal Y Limon. Did you know that Fets Whiskey Kitchen has the largest whiskey collection in Canada and the world’s largest collection of Scotch Malt Whiskey? This is just one of many interesting tidbits you will find in this book. We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the stunning photography that accompanies each foodie spot featured. We think this is a great gift for the foodie in your life. The book retails for $44.95 and is available at Chapters Indigo as well as long list of East Van spots including Havana Restaurant, Earnest Ice Cream, Cabrito’s Tapas, Odd Society Spirts, Bomber Brewing, Biercraft, Red Wagon Café, The Cascade Room, Pizza Farina, The Union, ChiCha Restaurant to name but a few. To see the full list of where it’s available, visit The East Van Foodie online.
Craft Beer
No way we could just skip over craft beer as a gift for the beer lover. So many great breweries to choose from each with their own unique offering, but pretty much all offer growlers, many gift packs with glasses such as our friends at Dogwood Brewing which includes a growler fill in the cost of the gift pack. If you prefer to give the gift of a brewery tour, our friends at Vancouver Brewery Tours have that covered.
Do you have someone with a sweet tooth in your life? We wouldn’t pass up an amazing box of French macarons from French Made Baking. Located in Mount Pleasant, French Made Baking has 13 to 18 flavours on hand every day which now include some holiday flavours such as peppermint dark chocolate, eggnog cream, orange gingerbread and black forest. They offer beautiful gift boxes in two sizes, one with 6 macarons for $11.00 or a box of 12 macarons for $24.00. These make a perfect hostess gift, stocking stuffer or thank you.
Whether you are looking for stocking stuffers for the cook or baker in your life, or for someone that just loves to eat food, you have lots to choose from at Gourmet Warehouse. The choices can in fact be overwhelming if you don’t know what you have in mind. If that’s you, Gourmet Warehouse has great gift baskets that they will make and send for you. Prices range from $50 – $175 and can be ordered online and delivered right to the person’s home. We have personally sent The Crates featured in the wooden boxes to rave reviews.
If you are looking for local spirits to give, we are pretty fond of Odd Society Spirits which has a great selection with their East Van Vodka, Wallflower Gin, Cassis, Bittersweet Vermouth and Oaken Wallflower Gin. During the holidays, we love to serve the cassis with prosecco, an easy cocktail when entertaining.
Do you have someone that is into the art of making cocktails? Then you may wish to pop into Sips Cocktail Emporium in Mount Pleasant. They have everything on hand for making the perfect cocktail save for the alcohol. Whether it’s tumblers, glasses, bitters, syrups, cocktail shakers, books with recipes, they have you covered. You can visit them in person at 339 East Broadway, but you can also visit them online at GoodSips.ca.
Japanese Knives
So we’ve learnt quite by accident that when it comes to quality knives in the kitchen, there is great demand and a culture around this art form. This is evidenced by the arrival of two great stores in East Van offering high quality knives. One being, KnifeWear at 4215 Main Street and Ai & Om Knives at 129 East Pender Street in Chinatown. If you are buying a gift for someone that loves to cook, either of these spots will help you find that perfect knife that will last a lifetime.
Now if you have a chocolate lover in your life, you may wish to check out Lisa Lou’s Chocolate Bar at 1007 Main Street. We hear they have some amazing hot chocolates with flavours such as Salted Caramel, Peppermint, Chai, Dark & Mayan Elixir. We are these would make the perfect stocking stuffer or hostess gift. We’d be happy with any one of these flavours.
So if you are looking for cool stocking stuffers, what about artisan ice cream. Yes we know ice cream melts, but thankfully Earnest Ice Cream has gift cards in $5 and $25 denominations. Something we’d love to find in our stocking. Just pop into either one of their two locations whether Fraser Street or Quebec Street. 
These are just a few suggestions, there are of course so many more. If you wish to give the gift of experience as it relates to food, we invite you to check out our recent feature ‘Giving The Gift of Experience’ which features foodie tours and much more.
As it’s Friday, we are hankering for cocktails and we are lucky to have some great spots in East Van for just that. One of our fav spots for drinking them that we don’t get to as often as we’d like is 
m and the hosts are happy to share how they became distillers and what they are working on now. From what I gather, they love to experiment. Tours run regularly at 4:00 pm. Friday, Saturdays and Sundays. Tasting Room hours are Thursday to Sunday from 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm. If you want to learn a bit more about the great minds behind this operation, check this recent write up in
y also have a very nice wine selection and great service. To learn more about their delicious dishes, check out the most recent review in the 
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