When traveling, I love finding unique restaurants to stop into. This usually means that I eat a lot of good food while on vacation!
On our last morning in Whistler, @raised2b and I decided to go out for a breakfast feast.
For those who don't know, Whistler is a lovely mountain village and ski resort nestled in the Pacific Coastal Range in Canada. I won't dig too much into telling you about the town of Whistler in this post. If you want to learn more about the village - check out my post - Travel Adventures # 2 - A Cozy Weekend in the Mountain Village of Whistler. In that post, I take you for a walk through the village and into some of the cool shops!
Welcome to Elements Urban Tapas Bar
Truthfully, I would not have pegged this place as a great breakfast spot just by walking past it. Elements has a slightly upscale, modern vibe to it. The kind of place where I think the food will either be really good, or just overpriced and mediocre.
Not many places can successfully transition from a high end wine bar at night to a hearty breakfast joint in the morning, but this place did not disappoint.
They have a consistently rotating menu and source many of their ingredients locally. I feel like this is a buzz word in the industry these days, and so I'm always impressed when a restaurant actually calls out a large list of local vendors, farmers and fishermen they work with to source their ingredients.
But first, coffee.
I can respect a breakfast spot that starts pouring the coffee almost as soon as you walk in. It makes me feel like they have their priorities straight.
For me, I can wake up and function relatively well without coffee, but it really does give me a little boost to get the day started. Part of this is probably physiological, and not entirely controlled by the caffeine itself.
Now, I can be a bit of a coffee snob, and sometimes I am less than impressed with the coffee served at restaurants. I am happy to report that I had a great coffee experience at Elements!
They served a dark roast coffee that had been freshly ground and brewed with a french press. I believe the beans were from a local roastery as well, but I did not catch the name. The level of attention given to the coffee was a great sign that our food would be equally amazing.
Potatoes, Bacon, and Eggs... Oh My!
I usually don't like to order a "Traditional" breakfast plate when going out to eat, because I feel like I can just as easily prepare a plate full of bacon, eggs and potatoes at home. Elements threw me a curve ball though because the traditional breakfast didn't just come with home fries or hash browns.
They had a potatoe tartelt served with a chive sour cream.
This, I had to try!
Every item on the plate was well prepared and the flavors all complimented each other nicely. The bread was fresh out the oven and served with homemade strawberry jam.
I am actually looking for someone I can buy from weekly. It's not only great to support a small, local business - but I like feeling connected to the source of my food. I haven’t had had much luck finding anyone yet, but I’m working on it!
The bacon was perfectly crispy, yet still a bit tender. I was pleasantly surprised at how much bacon they gave me too. Most restaurants will give 3-4 pieces, but I feel as though I had at least 5 or 6 on my plate. (No complaints here)
Now you might be wondering what that strange looking shot glass is doing on my plate...
Melon Shooters are the New Orange Slices
Most breakfast joints will serve an orange slice on the plate. This serves as both a garnish and a sweet end to a salty meal. Elements decided to up their fruit game and challenge the status quo.
How brilliant is that? This is a relatively easy and inexpensive way for them to wow their guests. They can simply take a melon baller and then the fill the shot glasses with a bit of smoothie. The melon ball tasted sweet and fresh, and the smoothie was a nice mix of different berries.
I'm actually surprised I haven't seen someone do this before. I hope whoever thought of that idea got a serious raise! Sometimes it's the small, thoughtful details that really make a restaurant stand out.
French Toast the Size of your Face
I'm a sucker for good french toast and Elements had an interesting twist on the classic. They offered stuffed french toast options that were baked to order.
We ordered the nutella and banana option. Once you cut through the outer french bread layer, a warm chocolaty filling comes rushing out.
The dish came with a side of real maple syrup, although you didn't really need it with the all of the yummy filling!
We could only get through half of one and so we took the other half to go. Just to illustrate how large this dish really was - look at how half of it fills up an entire to-go box!
I don't think I have ever seen french toast this big before. Needless to say, we did not leave hungry.
I really enjoyed the innovative twist that Elements brought to a classic breakfast experience. It can be tricky to find the right balance of traditional dishes and innovative twists.
Thanks for reading through my post! When you are out traveling - do you nerd out on yelp to find cool spots to eat, or do you just roll with the punches and see what you find?
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Always Hitting You With The Good Stuff!
