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.

Mission Taco

On our recent trip to San Francisco, well the States in general, I always steer toward Mexican food. Okay fine, I always steer toward Mexican food but I'd heard quite a lot about the Mission District in San Francisco and particularly how good the Mexican food is there, so you know, I had to check it out...for the blog and such (looks side to side). Through recommendations from friends and Yelp, we Uber-ed down to La Taqueria.

Stupidly we got there at noon on a weekday - the lineup was snaking around the inside perimeter of the place. Oh well, more time for us to get the lay of the land and figure out how much food we could stuff into our belly (side note: American portion sizes scare me so I was quite cautious and equally sad that I couldn't try everything....my daily struggle). As we eyed everyone's meals and stalked potential perches, we finally agreed on the chips and salsa, carnitas taco, the chorizo taco and the carne asada burrito.

First things first, I couldn't stop eating the chips; I ate them pre-taco, pre-burrito, mid-taco, mid-burrito and post-taco, post-burrito. Enough said. First up, the chorizo taco. (Note: All tacos are held up by two tortillas - winning already!) The chorizo was piled sky high and the subtle flavour was a great balance with the pico de gallo; this one was my favourite. Taco #2, the carnitas was a "super" taco, which means that on top of the regular toppings, it had sour cream, cheese and avocado. This wasn't bad but I think the "super" part drowned the flavour of the meat a bit but sadly this was our own doing (womp, womp).

On to the burrito, which I'm sure weighed as much as a baby! What's special about the way La Taqueria does their burrito is that there is no rice. Why someone would want carbs in carbs is beyond my understanding and the rice just fills you up and makes you sleepy, which pretty much is the end of your day. Anyway, I digress. The beef, refried beans and avocado were perfectly proportioned that nothing overpowered each other and it wasn't greasy at all. So much so that the aluminium foil it came wrapped in was clean as a whistle when we were done with it! Huzzah!

It was a perfectly refreshing lunch that was filling and light on the wallet without the bloating sensation. Couldn't ask for anything more.

From Quebec City to Calgary

Our last night in Quebec City was spent at L'affaire est ketchup, a tiny fabulous restaurant outside of the old city and we struck up a conversation with the two diners at the next table. One of them happened to be John Robarts, Operation Manager for the Creative Restaurants chain and we held on to his contact info in the off-chance that we might visit Calgary someday. Well, that day arrived and off we went to the mountains! With 5 restaurants to choose from, we were spoiled for choice; after a conversation with John and a quick scan of the menu, we zeroed in on Posto Pizzeria & Bar. The space is contemporary and warm with an open kitchen (love, love, love). I don't say this quite often, but everything on the menu sounded delicious from the goose prosciutto to the turducken meatballs - argh, I wish we had a bigger party or, better yet, I wish I had a bigger stomach! After a few drinks, we narrowed down the list to one pasta and two pizzas. The first pizza was significantly meat heavy with sausage, salami, smoked pancetta and calabrese.

Not being a huge fan of meat-heavy pizzas, this was surprisingly not as salty but, unfortunately, a bit basic and I couldn't distinguish all the meat from each other. Thankfully, the next one was outstanding. I present, the chicken, almond pesto, goat cheese and red pepper pizza.

I loved this one; it was so flavourful and the smokiness of the wood-burning oven with the chicken was just stellar. It was light and tangy and took me back to summer. Finally, for the pasta, we chose the black pepper linguine with mussels, leeks, tomato, proscuitto and chilli.

Mamma mia! This one's got a kick to it that will linger on your lips. Thankfully, the chilli doesn't overpower the delicate mussels and adds a little extra bite to the broth. One thing I wish we had on the table was some bread, so I could soak up all that extra goodness on the bottom of the bowl. If it was socially acceptable to drink from the bowl, I would have been on it!

I didn't think Calgary had a food scene on arriving there, but Posto definitely made be a believer. See you soon Calgary!

Strong Taco Game

I LOVE MEXICAN FOOD! Enough to go to a restaurant that doesn't take reservations and the wait is about 2 hours long? Ummm...no. So we strategically picked a Saturday afternoon on a long weekend during an off-peak lunch hour and prayed we could get into Grand Electric right away. The taco gods were with us! Got in and seated in no time! On offer were 7 tacos (they ran out of the beef cheek [cue sad music]), so we got the baja fish, spicy arbol chicken, pork belly, and chorizo and queso. 

The baja fish was a fried filet drizzled with crema under shredded cabbage and radish; it was a delicious balance of warm and crunchy (fish) and light and refreshing (accompaniments). A great start! The least messy and, one of my favourites, was the chorizo and queso. I always found queso pretty salty so I was a bit worried, but, hot damn!, this was bursting with mad flavour. The smokiness of the chorizo definitely balanced the cheese - one more, por favor! Swinging onto the other side of the spectrum, the spicy arbol chicken - my least favourite. Nothing wrong with it, per se, but didn't have that wow factor that the other tacos did. Caution to those who can't handle spice, this taco means business. Lastly (for this round at least), the pork belly. Cubed pork along with some type of mango and turnip relish, made for a perfect summertime nosh.

Round 2 consisted of our favourites - the pork belly, chorizo and queso and, a new addition, the roast pork. Not a fan of roast anything, I reluctantly tried it. Okay, Grand Electric, you win. It was tender, moist, sweet, pickly and now I'm running out of adjectives.

Tacos, aside. Let's talk about the magnificence that is the mission wings. DO NOT MISS OUT ON THESE! They serve the entire wing including the tip, which is doused with crema, hot sauce and sesame seeds. Perfect crisp on these, no skimp on the meat and not half as messy as I thought they would be. Even then, I would probably lick my fingers. Yep, they are that good.

Devouring this entire meal, I kept reminiscing to our time at Big Star (in Chicago). Guess what? I learned that the chef here did a brief stint at the windy city establishment. They sure taught him well. You do what you do Grand Electric, because you sure do it well.

Hipsterville

Bam! You are bombarded with plaid shirts, black-rimmed glasses, tattoos, communal tables - the typical hipster hangout (you would think); what doesn't cross your mind is refined, finessed, flavourful plates. Let me rewind back and tell you how we decided to venture to the west side. We acquired a beautiful Italian bottle of wine (Eubea Roinos) from Charlie's Burgers that was yearning for some steak. Thankfully, Charlie's Burgers recommended a couple of menu items from various restaurants and we salivated when we saw the Côte de Boeuf description. And so there we were - sitting at a private table at the back, by the kitchen, eagerly waiting the delightfulness that would grace our mouths. We were warned that it would be about a half hour to 40 minutes until our beef arrived but we knew it was a lot of food, so we happily sipped our wine and waited.

Since we were right by the kitchen, the fried chicken caught our eye. Yes, I know, lots of food coming....but but fried chicken! It was in the sharing section of the menu so we assumed (and was confirmed by the wait staff) that it is a 10-piece meal with sides. We really didn't want 10 pieces of chicken or to take the rest home, so we asked if we could sample 2 pieces instead, and they could charge us for it. You all know that I don't go to a resto twice and we conveyed that to the wait staff, but all we got was a flat no. He didn't check with anyone; just a straight no. Douchebag. Fuck your fried chicken. A little annoyed, but the steak calmed me down a bit. Look at this beauty!

Medium rare, cooked to perfection, a little fatty and perfectly seasoned. Believe it or not, we actually had leftovers! The meat was accompanied by the creamiest mashed potatoes and a broccolini that had a nice spice to it.

As we were chowing down, we saw one of the chefs make this ridiculously big doughnut dessert and I had to resist the temptation of just picking up a fork and walking to it. Thankfully they also served it as a smaller version. Hurray! Otherwise, there would have been more swearing in this blog post. Lo and behold! The "donut". The editor in me just wants to scratch that spelling of the menu. Ugh. Anyhoo, what is it? Fried dough, ice cream, chocolate sauce, strawberries, pineapples, whipped cream and, of course, a cherry on top. All calories, all deliciousness, just can't go wrong. Oh and the larger version has 2 doughnuts and is twice the size. You just have to see it to believe it.

I must say, I was surprised by how flavourful everything was. After P&L burger, I didn't have much hope. I'm glad to say I was wrong.