Vancouver Good

I had a fabulous Saturday morning this past weekend. It started off with a lavender latte and La Santé breakfast at the always excellent and line-up crazy Cafe Medina (show up when they open at 9am to avoid line-ups).

It was a beautiful day and I had a friend visiting from Ottawa, so we decided to drive into Deep Cove for a change of scenery. Deep Cove is a sleepy community surrounded with beautiful water and mountain views. We rolled into the village and took a lazy walk by the water and surrounding neighbourhood, eventually heading to Gallant Street, the main strip of Deep Cove where we found some amazing shops and sweets:

Room 6 - I have to say, it’s rare these days that I come across a store packed with so many amazing things! Room 6′s tagline is “special things for nice people” and do they deliver. I think we spent over 30 minutes in the small shop, which is full of housewares, toys, jewelry, clothes, accessories, and more. Here’s my list of lovely things spotted:

• Stationary from Main Street’s Regional Assembly of Text and beautiful wood cut cards from Night Owl Paper Goods
• The most beautiful wood mirrors and hand mirrors from local artist Alex Henderson of Henderson Dry Goods
• An addictive-smelling maple syrup candle in a maple syrup tin
• Identity brand t-shirts, which are excellent printed tees of Canadian symbols. For example this awesome zamboni tee. I bought my husband a Canadian Geese Identity tee years ago and haven’t seen the brand since, so I was very excited to see the tees here.
• Gorgeous wood jewelry from local artist Billy Would Designs
• Cute & crafty soft animals made by hand from Tiny Warbler Designs
• For the kids: the awesome “sockodile” kit and the crazy Monster Factory toys
• Decadent chocolates from local chocolate shop CocoaNymph

Yes, I know this is a long list. It could have been longer. If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping, this would be a good one-stop place. It’s a great mix of unique and local items that are thoughtfully chosen. I’ll be back!

La La’s Home Decor: A couple doors down from Room 6 is La La’s, another store carrying nice gifts, housewares, and accessories. I was particularly drawn to their selection of headpieces. I slipped a few fun ones on and was tempted to buy one for my next afternoon tea event.

Honey’s Doughnuts and Goodies: My dad raves about this place and it’s quite famous for having some of the best doughnuts in Vancouver. They make a cake style doughnut, and they came in honey, maple, and chocolate the morning I visited. We split a maple and a honey doughnut and they were…okay. I found them quite dense, more cake-like than a doughnut, and a tad too heavy. The honey dip at Lee’s on Granville Island is still the best in town.

Our Deep Cove morning complete, we headed back to Vancouver and to Main Street’s Regional Assembly of Text shop after being inspired by their wares at Room 6. But that’s another post.