Shop recently moved to Gastown and still features yummy treats
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Kandice Simonson, assistant manager of Canadian Maple Delights, holds a tray of pastries and baked goods. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
CANADIAN MAPLE DELIGHTS
385 Water St., 604-682-6175. wwwcanadianmapledelights.com.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone.
As a belated happy 400th birthday to Quebec, I give you Canadian Maple Delight. There are three of them in the country — in Quebec City, Montreal and Vancouver. Why leapfrog from its home province, Quebec, to Vancouver without touching down in Toronto? Because the shop and cafe is all about maple syrup and goodies made with it. A big market for that are Japanese tourists who happen to also like Vancouver.
“They love maple syrup,” says Alida Bregant, manager and chef of the Vancouver branch.
More than 80 per cent of the world’s production is in Canada and of that, 75 per cent is from Quebec. I know Ontario produces some because when my sister visits from Muskoka, she brings a big whisky bottle filled with locally tapped maple syrup. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I. also produce small amounts.
Canadian Maple Syrup used to be on Hornby Street and it used to serve savouries as well as sweets. The shop/cafe recently relocated to tourist central in Gastown and no longer does savouries. But it still offers a lovely bunch of baking and gelato, all involving maple syrup. Since it’s near my office, I’ve stopped in rather too often for the maple cinnamon danish with roasted pecans. Bregant makes the baked goods as well as the French-style pastries and gelato. Everything in the store is made with the company’s organic maple syrup.
In the bakery case, alongside the yummy danish, are cookies, brownies, squares, tarts and mousse desserts. The gelato is made with a recipe from Italy, Bregant says.
There are a few tables in the front where you can enjoy the “maple delights” with maple beverages — ice maple latté, ice maple mocha, maple lemon tea, Grand Marnier maple coffee, for example.
And you’ll find good-quality maple syrup in elegant bottles. The syrup, Bregant says, is organic and kosher. It’s pricier than the “pancake syrup” you find at a supermarket, but remember, it takes about 40 litres of sap to make a litre of maple syrup.
