More Than Just a Pretty Space

So this modern bakery and I have always had bad timing. First, a friend told me about this bakery and I thought I knew where it was, but I ended up at another bakery. Second time around, we got there just in time for the doors to close on us for the day. You would think the third time would be a charm? Well...kinda.

We ended up at Small Victory bakery after our first day out for Vancouver Design Week(end). It was rammed! I kid you not; if I ordered something and left without paying, I'm pretty sure no one would have noticed. But, of course, I paid guys!!! And you should too!!

We were quite lucky to commandeer some bar stools as we waited for our cappuccinos and dessert. First off, design wise, it is a stunning space. Marble countertops juxtapositioned with wooden beams, it was modern yet inviting. Oh and check out their geometric serving boards. Cool, eh? And they fit into one another like honeycombs. Fun!

Ordering was pretty uneventful: I saw the coconut cake and it was mine, along with the cruffin (which I had heard so much about). Let's start by saying a lot of people don't do coconut cake well - either too much icing, too dense, not enough coconut flavour or a weird coconut oil flavour (bleh!). Thank goodness, these guys know where it's at! Lovely moist cake with a thick layer of coconut cream and toasted coconut flakes on top. I pretty much ate this all by myself because it wasn't too sweet and was a perfect accompaniment to the cappuccino. Speaking of which, I'm a tea girl, but I drink enough cappuccinos (Thanks Al!) to know a good one from something you chuck down the drain.

The cruffin, unfortunately, was a let down. Part croissant, part muffin, I thought it would be closer to a Kouign-amman but it was a croissant shaped like a muffin. Pfffft. Filled with vanilla creme and berries, it sure was pretty but pretty doesn't cut it for me. Speaking of cutting, I tried to; it wasn't flaky, more spongy. I don't get the fascination.

Note to all, this bakery doesn't have wifi. I say, put your phones down, grab the coconut cake with a cappuccino, settle down with a book or just have a convo with your bestie (sans phones of course) - that's a small victory to me!

Foodie Capital of British Columbia?

I've been in Vancouver for about a month and change, and the food scene so far hasn't rocked my world. It has lightly nudged me and caressed my soul but Victoria was the one who brought me down to my knees. Hail great island of deliciousness!

An hour after stepping off the ferry and dumping our luggage, we were in line at Red Fish, Blue Fish: Victoria's equivalent to Vancouver's Go Fish. But after 15 min of standing still, we abandoned that idea and moved on to The Drake Eatery for some brewskies, cause you know, sunny day and all. Unfortunately, the menu here was sparse so we just split a bratwurst and moved on. Just as we turned the corner, there stood a knight in shining armour in the form of Ayo Eat.

I mean, look how cute! It literally is a takeout window with three stools in the corner of a courtyard and manned by one person, Ali Syahbana (Bana), who has cooked for the Dalai Lama and was also head of Asian cuisine at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Prague! Random, but awesome for us! We plopped on the stools waiting for the rendang and the chicken satays. Bana was super hospitable, asking us a few times if we wanted some water and how much spice we could handle. It was such a warm, personal experience. Fuzziness aside, let's talk about the food.

Let me take a moment to contain my drool. The beef curry was on point - spicy and coconuty - sitting next to white rice and accompanied by some righteous spicy potato chips, prawn crackers and a dollop of pickle. I honestly felt like I was on a beach after devouring this. The chicken satay was delightful and slathered with salty sweet peanut sauce. It usually comes with rice and pickle, but Bana let us have just only the satay skewers for a cheaper price. With our bellies more than happy, we explored on.

But wait! We need something sweet - introducing La Roux Patisserie. I wish I took a photo of this bakery - from its black and white checkered flooring to the flowery chairs, it was so pretty, so...very...well...French! They also have blankets if you want to sit outside. LOVE! I was pretty stuffed from lunch, so I decided to share the bread pudding.

Now, I love bread pudding as much as the next person, but this one was alright. Granted, it was made using their house-baked croissants but I felt a splash of orange liquer would have made it come alive. Points for the staff heating it up though! It was actually quite serendipitous that we landed here, since one of the staff pointed us toward our dinner destination aka Ferris' Grill.

It was quite a chilly night strolling down to Ferris, so boy was I glad when we walked into this cozy, brick-walled space. It oozed comfort, which is exactly what we needed after a day of sightseeing. The menu is quite extensive, so I would suggest perusing their website before you get there. They have a full-page spread dedicated to oysters! WHHHAAAT! As someone from Ontario, this was quite exciting; so obvi we got some oysters, the pan-fried oysters to be exact.

These were not just any oysters, they were papa oysters from Baynes Sound! I've never seen oysters so big in my life! Swimming in butter, garlic and lemon, they were perfection. So meaty and juicy...mmmmm. I didn't quite understand the herbed garlic toast pairing until we were done with the oysters and there was a pool of that garlic/lemon sauce left behind. Fighting over the bread, we almost cleaned the plate; if only there was more bread. Hmmmm. I swear our server and I had a telepathic connection because, like lightening, he came over asking if we wanted more bread. Yes, please! Oh, it would be very remiss of me not to give props to the wine recommended by our server - a pinot blanc from Nk'mip (ink-a-meep) Cellars in the Okanagan. It's the first Aboriginal-owned winery in North America. Yay! The pinot blanc was a perfect accompaniment to our meal; crisp and balanced with underlying citrus notes. Damn good!

For our mains, I couldn't leave without trying the bouillabaisse. I was craving something soup-like all day but nothing would prepare me for this. I'm pretty sure the chef threw in every type of seafood imaginable in this dish - there were salmon, clams, oysters, scallops and prawns - and those were the ones I could identify! The spicy tomato stew enhanced by the roasted pepper rouille (a Provencal sauce made from red chillies, garlic, saffron and bread crumbs) gave it this wonderfully creamy texture that was to die for. One of the best bouillabaisses I have had! Main #2 was the jambalaya.

Similar to the bouillabaisse, this was jam packed with seafood (clams, mussels, shrimp, oysters), chorizo and chicken. Go big or go home I suppose. No kidding, this dish was big, like a mountain big. I was shocked that we ate all of it - standing O for us, thank you very much! It had a kick of spice and big bold flavours. There was much debate on whose main was better, but since this is my blog, the bouillabaisse wins hands down. This was one of those rare times where we didn't do dessert but, you know what, I was okay with it. The food was that good!

Thank you Victoria; you have piqued my interest. Till we meet again.

My Ramen Education

I eat a lot. Thai, Italian, Indian, Mexican - doesn't matter, I'll eat it. Ramen, on the other hand, scares me. It comes with a soup spoon and chopsticks, which in my case is like dancing with two left feet. I don't eat it very elegantly and, most of the time, I don't even know what I'm eating. Then comes the broth - tonkotsu, miso, shio, shoyu and curry - which causes me anxiety since I have no idea what they all mean and what their flavour profiles should be. I have decided that that ends here. "I ain't scared of no ramen!" - is what I hope to tell myself by the end of the year. What better place to re-start my ramen journey than Vancouver! Yes, yes, Japan would be better but baby steps here.

I tried to pick a place that wasn't too busy, but that had good reviews. On a Friday night, that wasn't happening so we just popped into Danbo Ramen on Robson Street. This place apparently serves Fukuoka-style ramen, which I learned is a city on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Me thinks I need a geography lesson as well. Sigh. On to the menu!

Okay, so Danbo Ramen is all about customizing your ramen (noodle thickness and firmness, thickness of broth, amount of lard, spice level and toppings). Oh god, I am sweating profusely. I just want someone to pick for me!!!! I tried to let the waitress guide me and settled on the Classic Rekka Ramen (tonkotsu pork broth) with classic thin noodles, standard firmness, standard broth and a little lard, topped with a soft-boiled egg. Aaaaand..... breathe! Rekka ramen is a bit spicy as shichimi togarashi powder is added to the dish. What is that you ask? Tell you I will young Padawan. It is a powder made from chillies, dried orange peel, peppercorns, sesame seeds, dried ginger and seaweed.

We also got some gyoza because gyoza is life! Actually, the gyoza was just okay. Sorry.

After about 15 minutes, it was game time. I was determined to coordinate my soup sipping and noodle slurping with minimum embarrassment even though I felt everyone was staring at me. Okay, here goes.

First the broth: whoa, flavourtown. Spicy for sure but just the right amount with almost a creamy consistency. The noodles were super thin and on the firmer side; I read somewhere that they serve a smaller portion of the noodles in each bowl because the noodles lose their elasticity in the hot broth so you can order an additional serving of noodles. Let me tell you this, I was stuffed after devouring this. I definitely wanted more of the tender braised pork belly and that perfectly cooked egg, but I'm glad I didn't cave. I would have had to unbutton my pants (no shame in that), but I had high-wasted panties on so perhaps the people next to me would have cared. TMI? C'mon, we are all friends here!

Oh I almost forgot, my dinner date had the Miso Chashu-men, which comes with extra pieces of the pork belly. The broth was significantly less spicy, more salty, lighter and earthier than my broth. I liked them both for different reasons, but today, the spicy broth won.

Bottom line, I survived. My slurping skills still need to improve and that will only get better the more ramen I eat. Vancouver, I see your ramen game is strong. Challenge accepted.

A Pretty Bad Start

We recently moved from Toronto (what up!) to Vancouver to try something different and to enjoy the breathtaking scenery. Since we've been stuffing our faces with Asian cuisine for a few weeks, we decided to take a break. We had walked past Per Se Social Corner a few times and the vibe seemed chill, and so one night we walked in for dinner. 

Red flag: If you can walk into a restaurant for dinner on a Saturday night at 7 pm without a lineup/reservation, just walk yourself back out. Ally, such a rookie mistake, you should know better *sigh*.

The menu is a 2-part(er) - Water + Flour pizzeria (Italian dishes including pizza) and Rosalinda (Spanish dishes including tapas) - so we got the saffron chicken on paella, the addiction pizza and the arancini.

The arancini stuffed with "prawns" and red peppers arrived first. The prawns must have been real fresh since they crawled out of the balls before we could sink our teeth in them. Nevertheless, good arancini with or without the prawns.

The paella was up next that looked a bit...well.. sparse. The chicken was meh but the rice was particularly bad - it was goopy and a bit burnt. My feeling is that the wrong rice was used or whoever was cooking it had no idea what they were doing. The whole dish tasted like rice doused with Campbell's tomato soup and I like Campbell's tomato soup! This was hands down, the worst paella I have ever had.

Pizza was up next. The stone pizza oven was staring at me the whole time since it was right in my direct line of sight so I felt quite optimistic about it. The addiction pizza was topped with beef, caramelized onions, goat cheese and fior di latte. The optimism died there. This was sweet...SWEET! If I wanted a dessert pizza, I would have asked for it. There was no balance of flavours here, no thought process, nothing. Since we had already had dessert (I guess our waiter thought so as well since he never returned), I couldn't wait to leave.

Vancouverites, I subjected my taste buds to this monstrosity so you don't have to. You'll are welcome.