Lisaopolis.com » nanaimo

Festival of Trees 2008

Lisa — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:44:20 +0000

This year I decorated a tree for the Vancouver Island University (VIU) Festival of Trees. The festival raises money for the local university (VIU) which I attended. Here are some images from decorating day. Enjoy.

Below: My tree (far left: A Paws Christmas), with it’s neighbors, Candyland, and A Clown’s Christmas

Other trees from the festival, and some of their unique decorations (Below).

Fall in Nanaimo

Lisa — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:42:07 +0000

The weather on Vancouver Island, is cool, crisp, and sunny. The trees are various shades of red, brown, and gold. Here is a little taste of what I see when I go outside these days. Enjoy.

Dinner at the Grapevine Trattoria

Lisa — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:04:21 +0000

Yesterday, after taking some lovely fall photos with a friend, we decided to go out for dinner. My friend suggested we get pizza some where. Since pizza is one of my favorite foods, I agreed. We decided to go to the Grapevine Trattoria.

The Grapevine Trattoria is a lovely small restaurant located in the heart of downtown Nanaimo.

I ordered the Italian flat bread pizza. I am normally not a huge fan of flat bread pizza (I tend to prefer fluffy crust pizza). However this pizza was quite good. The only thing that could be improved on with this pizza, is not putting whole cloves of garlic on it! I like garlic, but eating clove after clove is a little too much.

Below is an image of the pizza.

After the dinner we ordered dessert. I ordered the almond apricot torte. The menu described this dessert as a sponge cake with apricot puree sauce, butter cream icing, served with whipping cream. I enjoyed this dessert immensely. I loved that it was not too sweet. The many different ingredients created a variety of different textures in the dessert that were very pleasing to taste. I would highly recommend ordering this dessert.

Below is an image of this torte.

Dessert at Jakeob’s Ice Cream Parlour

Lisa — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:25:49 +0000

I was craving some gourmet ice cream, so I called up a friend and we went out for ice cream. We went to Jakeob’s Ice Cream Parlour, located in downtown Nanaimo adjacent to New York Style Pizza.

I ordered a two scoop waffle cone, with two different flavors; mint chocolate chip, and moose tracks. Overall I found the ice cream way to sweet. The portion size was very large (the biggest scoops I have ever seen). The waffle cone was very good though.

The price is fairly average for an ice cream parlour $4.50 for a two scoop waffle cone.

The atmosphere at Jakeob’s Ice Cream Parlour is upbeat, with brightly painted walls and random decorative objects through out.

I would go to this Parlour again, but I would probably try the gelato instead of getting ice cream next time. It is an okay place to go for ice cream in Nanaimo, but there are better places in this city.

Below are a couple images from this place.

Lunch at The Grapevine Trattoria

Lisa — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:42:30 +0000

Yesterday I decided around 2 pm that it was time for lunch. I called up a friend and we went out to a small local restaurant that neither of us that ever been too. The restaurant we picked was called; The Grapevine Trattoria.

This Italian eatery has a lovely ambience. It is elegant, but at the same time not too fancy.

Below is an image of inside the restaurant.

The lunch menu was full of many tempting meal ideas. After some deep contemplation I decided to order the cannelloni.

All pasta dishes are served with a green salad and bread sticks.

The green salad was amazing. The house vinaigrette dressing was unlike any I had tasted before. It was a good size portion that arrived just after we ordered our lunches.

The breadsticks were divine. They were served hot out of the oven. They had plenty of cheese on them as well as many herbs and spices. They were the perfect accompaniment to the cannelloni I ordered which had a lot of sauce with it.

Below is an image of my main course.

After lunch we decided to order dessert. We ordered the dessert cannelloni. It consisted of a pastry on the outside and pecans with a mocha filling on the outside. It was served with whipping cream and a bit of chocolate sauce dribbled on top. I loved every bite of this wonderful dessert.

Below is an image of the dessert.

This is one restaurant I will be dining in again, soon…