The Greedy Pig + Hulk Fists

What: The Greedy Pig
Where: Gastown, Vancouver

When it was decided several months ago that Vancouver would be my next place of residence, the only thing I knew about it was that an old friend of mine from Pittsfield, Chris, lived here.

Neither Dave nor I had seen Chris in about 5 years (when he moved away from western Massachusetts), so we were excited to catch up with him soon after we arrived in Vancouver.

As it turns out, Chris is the head chef at The Greedy Pig - a bar/restaurant in the Gastown neighborhood of downtown Vancouver. We made a point to head there within just a couple of days of arriving in our new city, making our way on foot across the Burrard Bridge and straight through the center of downtown till we reached the cobblestoned streets of Gastown.

We located The Greedy Pig by the large hog sign out front, and Chris came out from the kitchen to exchange a few hugs and hellos and duuuuude it's been way too longs.

Once he shuffled back into the kitchen Dave and I posted up at a corner high-top table by the front window, ordered some food, and people-watched - Dave kindly tolerating my musings about how truly astonishing it is to see Canadian dollar bills come out of an ATM.

For dinner we each had a small side salad of mixed greens, topped with gorgeous bright red tomatoes and dressed in homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette. You could taste the local freshness of it all - I actually raved to the waitress about how delicious my salad was. She probably doesn't often hear rave reviews about their little side salads... but then again maybe she does, because it really was damn good.

Next we split a grilled cheese on sourdough that contained four different types of cheese: brie, Swiss, mozzarella, and double smoked cheddar. Nom. Nom.

It was around this time that my eyes ventured upward to the top of the liquor shelves that flanked the bar. To my delight I discovered that atop each shelf was perched a green Hulk fist:

.   you wouldn't like me when i'm... eating grilled cheese at the greedy pig  . 

Juxtaposed against the historic room and the top shelf liquor - the fists were an interesting touch and they definitely made me laugh.

Also, this happened once in 2007:

.  bump it  .

... So that's funny, too. And yes, that's a lei.

We got to spend a few more minutes chatting with Chris before we left to head back home, so I was able to tell him to his face that his grilled cheese was incredibly edible. I'm sure we'll be back to The Greedy Pig sooner or later!

I'm going to try to bring my camera with me more often when we're heading out to restaurants, so I can take pics of the food/menus/atmosphere, etc. I also hope to spend much more time in Gastown, because it's got quite a lot of character and reminds me a bit of Boston.

.   walk to the greedy pig in downtown vancouver   .

Our walk to and from The Greedy Pig ended up being about 5 miles round trip, which Google.ca defaults to telling me is just over 8 km. In other news, "Google.ca" can take their km and shove it.