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@Mohican, joyyy, Teachertalk- Thank you all for the advice. Just shows how helpful and supportive the SE community is (as always)!

erm...sorry, that first "spammy" post must've been mine
i feel pretty foolish now- at the time i didn't realize how much it sounded like spam. i suppose i was just...over-enthousiastic? i honestly just wanted to know what everyone thought!

Prepackaged muesli (the kind people usually eat like cereal, with milk) tastes like cardboard and raisins to me.
I much prefer the bircher muesli I once tried while on vacation- I make at home pretty often in the hotter months. I mix up a bowl on the weekend and it usually lasts me through the week. The recipe is more of a "guideline" so there's a lot of room for tweaking:
-Soak 1 cup rolled oats in water for about 10 minutes (pour water into the bowl of oats just until the top layer of oats are wet).
-Meanwhile, mix 1 cup yogurt, 1-2 grated apples, 1 chopped banana, or whatever fruits you have lying around.
-Mix in the soaked oats, some nuts (I go for chopped almonds- but since I don't have the patience to chop then, I stick them in a bag and whack them with a rolling pin), and raisins or chopped dates.
-Add honey to taste.

I recently went to China and loaded up on Pocky. Naturally I couldn't read the writing on the boxes, so I had to rely on pictures and other such cues to figure out the flavors:
Dark chocolate almond crush is my favorite- the added crunch of the almonds makes them so much more interesting. And the extra coating of chocolate doesn't hurt.
But I'd love to try that salty cookie crush...
Chocolate mousse is just like chocolate but with an extra-thick chocolate coating.
Milk tea almond crush (I thought it was milk chocolate when I got it- I guess I didn't notice the cup of tea on the front of the box...) was surprising...kind of subtlely fruity like earl grey tea.
Banana (with a chocolate stick) was just bad. Too much icky artificial banana flavor.
Inside Out Tiramisu Pocky (like Toppo) reminded me of Pirouline.
Coffee...tasted like coffee. Just how you'd expect.

Wow thanks for all the responses/suggestions!
To all who asked, they were black truffles, so I suppose that could be it.
Plus I live in Dubai (they'd have to ship everything here and despite premium prices, you don't seem to get the same quality-for-money as you do elsewhere), so I imagine they were not "smuggled from the ground to your plate" @simon!

@leannabowles- it's specified as non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening, which doesn't have evil trans fats!

Their zucchini bread is good, but compared to their other pastries, it just doesn't stack up for me- I'd go for the lemon-fennel muffin or the zuccherino any day.

Gastown has a lot of nice cafes, restaurants, etc.- Finch's, So.cial, Smarth Mouth, Medina, The Greedy Pig,
Chau has good Asian
Cactus Club is an upscale Canadian chain sort of like the Cheesecake Factory.
La Casa Gelato
Be sure to check out Granville Island Public Market.
I haven't been, but I read that the following are all great restaurants: Araxi (in Whistler), Vij's (contemporary Indian), Cin Cin (Robson St.), Guu with Garlic (Japanese- 1698 Robson, 375 Water St.), Tenhachi (Japanese- 1125 West 12th), Raincity Grill (1193 Denman), Blue Water Cafe & Raw Bar (seafood- 1095 Hamilton St.), Brix, Le Crocodile (Fench), Luiere (French), Hapa Izakaya (Japanese)

The restaurants in Old Town Square are super-touristy and not that great. You should try trdelniks though- they're baked dough cylinders rolled in cinnamon sugar (yeasty, sweet goodness!) that you can find everywhere- there's a place in Old Town Square itself.
Sweets: Au Gourmand (pastry shop on Dlouha), Gourmand au Chocolat (chocolate place with ice cream and other desserts on Dlouha), Bakeshop (bakery at Kozí 1, 110 00)
Vegetarian: Maitra and Lehka Hlava (sister restaurants, quite good international food, cool/chill dining area)
Little Quarter is nice, Petrin Hill is filled with fruit orchards- pluck some pears or plums right off the tree!

ripe mango with vanilla ice cream. or fresh fruit tart with a nice buttery crust.
mmm..but all these pies and cobblers and crumbles are starting to sound really good!

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. What a startling contrast this is.

-While I'm eating breakfast, I think about what I'll have for lunch. While I'm eating lunch, I think about what I'll have for dinner. While I'm having dinner, I think about what I'll have dessert. While I'm having dessert, I think about having more dessert.
-My "Food" bookmarks folder has more subfolders and pages than I can even begin to count. It's like a library.
-After reading all the latest posts on SE, I refresh the page impatiently, waiting for more to show up so that I don't have to go do homework.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who is CRAZY about food. Now if only I were friends with someone like one of you... I would be so excited-we could talk for hours about food.