TASTE TEST: Culinary hybrid just OK but it stills looks bound for success

Province

From classic bistro to trattoria, take your pick at Mon Bella Bistoria, where chef Brian Fowke and owner Brad Roark team up to offer French and Italian dishes.

Mon Bella Bistoria
Where: 1809 West 1st Ave., Vancouver
Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-569-2742
Drinks: Fully Licensed
Hours: 5 p.m. – late, Tues. – Sun., Closed Mon.

Like Donnie and Marie’s little bit country, little bit rock ’n’ roll, Mon Bella boasts both Italian and French cuisine and so they call themselves a bistoria, as in bistro and trattoria fused into one. They leave no pizza stone or duck liver unturned in their quest to please all those Eurocentric thinkers who won’t be satisfied until they’ve stuck a snail or a Portobello between their teeth.

Paid a visit with Peaches to this spiffy new place that has all the sleekness of a sea lion groomed for mating season under its highceilinged edifice. Banquette and booth seating, bottles of wine decorating the room as well as climbing the back wall like the vines the vino came from, black-and-whites photos of quaint European scenes and a bar with all the futuristic neo-classical curves that the 21st century can throw its way.

So, all-in-all, not a bad spot, and with the lineage in the kitchen via Chef Brian Fowke, formally of Rare and Metro, and the experience of owner Brad Roark, who was put through the paces at CinCin, Tapastree and Araxi, this culinary hybrid seems earmarked for success.

Alas, it was not to be for me that evening although neither was it a failure. It was just OK. Began with an appetizer of Ravioli di Zucca a Mano ($12), otherwise known as pumpkin and squash ravioli with roasted red pepper and goat cheese. Along with that we tried the house salad with mixed greens, brie croutons and golden beets with a tarragon vinaigrette ($9).

First, let me say about the ravioli that I fail to see the appeal of foam on food. It’s unappetizing, it’s not tasty and it puts me in mind of the unwholesome suds that wash up on the edge of the sea on a hot summer day. So the foam threw me but I’m not put off that easily. Still, the flavour of the pumpkin squash ravioli was severely lacking. None of the earthy sweetness or textural contrasts I usually enjoy, so we moved on to the salad.
Salad was very nice and the golden beets especially tasty and the only failing point was the absence of the brie croutons that Peaches and I were so looking forward to.

For mains, I chose the beef short rib with porcini risotto, Comte cheese and roasted cioppolini onions ($21). Meat was simultaneously as tender and lascivious as the look Sophia Loren gave Anthony Perkins in Desire Under the Elms, the risotto creamy with its fungus undercurrent but somehow the rich sauce pooling around the plate didn’t live up to its visual promise. I was hoping for more of a deep, bittersweet, hefty herbed offering as the deep cherry-red sauce hinted at but again something was missing.

Peaches opted for steak and frites ($25) with a sautéed strip loin, nicely crisped and salted fries, a Provençal-style cooked tomato and red wine shallot compote.

My only complaint was the accompanying geriatric-looking green beans had more wrinkles than Joan Rivers before her latest facelift and botox treatments. Otherwise it was good.

So if you’re looking for classic bistro or trattoria fare from escargots to veal you’ll fine it here. But let’s be frank. During the Second World War, there was no love lost between these two countries as Mussolini played patsy to the Third Reich. Resentment and revenge burns deep and it seems at times the battle is still being waged here on the plates.

Gastown restaurant prides itself on an ambience that is welcoming to every taste

JOANNE SASVARI
Sun

So.Cial chef Romy Prasad with lemon-braised lamb shank with Gorganzola and bacon tomato.

For a chef, it’s a pretty sweet deal when your restaurant has its own butcher shop, is located in trendy Gastown and has owners connected to major sports franchises. Add in a charming historic building, and you’ve got what seems like a surefire recipe for success. You’ve also got a lot to live up to. That’s what Romy Prasad faces as the new chef at So. Cial at Le Magasin. And so far, he’s embraced the challenge.

So. cial, famously owned by former Vancouver Canuck goalie Kirk McLean, former coach Bob McCammon and his wife, Maureen Fleming, opened in 2007 to much fanfare, thanks in large part to a loving renovation of its 1911 location in Gastown’s vintage Le Magasin shopping arcade. It features a casual-fine-dining restaurant upstairs, an oyster bar downstairs and a butcher shop in back where guests can pick up a slab of housemade terrine or a gourmet sandwich to go

Right from the get-go, though, So. Cial was a bit of a puzzle. Was it a tourist joint? A place for the city’s social set to see and be seen? A hipster hangout? A serious foodie destination? All of the above? Or none?

“ Our customer base is eclectic — just like the area,” says Prasad, who joined So. Cial in November, replacing original chef Sean Cousins, who is now at C. “ We have business people, artists, fashionistas, hipsters, techies, gamers, students, locals living and working in the area, and tourists. Our ambience is welcoming to everyone.”

Prasad, who was formerly chef at the now-closed Savory Coast and before that executive chef at CinCin for eight years, admits that the restaurant’s multiple components keep him busy, especially as he considers improvements for the new year.

“ We are expanding our deli line to include products from Oyama, as well as expanding our deli offerings to include things like housemade chili and meatloaf,” he says.

“ In the main restaurant, we are changing our menus seasonally and I am looking at adding a tasting menu in the near future. We are also looking at expanding our offerings in the oyster bar to include seafood towers. In addition, we are also starting to offer off-site catering.”

So far, he seems to be doing everything right, in his own unique way.

His cuisine is equally influenced by both the West Coast and the Mediterranean. It’s vibrant and flavourful, and follows the culinary dictum du jour of local, seasonal and organic where possible.

“ My menu is akin to the word So. Cial — if you are out to socialize then you want to be comfortable, at ease and enjoy yourself,” Prasad says. “ It is old school and traditional while at the same time emphasizing regionality and freshness.”

At dinner ( So. cial is also open weekdays for lunch and weekends for brunch), things get started with $ 2 “ little bites” that are not, in fact, so little, like the crispy-but-tender arancini, saffron-and truffle-scented risotto balls filled with tangy pecorino cheese.
After that, it’s hard to resist the charcuterie board, which features whatever is being served at the butcher shop, usually a slice of terrine, some house-cured sausage and a ramekin of potted meat, which is satisfyingly salty and savoury, but unnecessarily heated.

Or, if you prefer to start things off with seafood, Prasad has a deft hand with the denizens of the ocean, and offers fresh oysters, crispy crab cakes and three different kinds of mussels, served, of course, with fries.

He also offers great seafood mains, such as seared salmon, herbcrusted halibut and a heart-warming cioppino, a very West Coast seafood stew of hearty chunks of salmon and plump mussels in fragrant broth, served with toasts topped with Provencal-style rouille.

But since Prasad has his own butcher shop to play with, it’s worth checking out the daily butcher-shop feature.

The night we’re there, it’s a flavourful ribeye steak that arrives perched atop a slab of potatoes au gratin. It’s the priciest dish on the otherwise reasonably priced menu, and while perfectly respectable, doesn’t showcase Prasad’s lighthanded creativity the way, say, the pork tenderloin scaloppini with spaetzle does.

The mostly B. C. wine list perfectly complements the cuisine, and includes interesting and hard-tofind labels, both by glass and bottle.

We’re not so enchanted by the cocktails, which are overly sweet and without the flair we’ve come to expect in Vancouver’s top eateries. The list itself is an odd mix of the quirkily retro and the once-trendy, and is a major missed opportunity, given the gorgeous wooden bar that should be one of the hottest spots in town.

Th at sa id, we may see som e improvements there, since the So. cial team plans to offer live jazz at the bar on weekends.

Another discordant note is that, despite the beautiful room and the careful renovation, a glaring streetlight outside the dining room window casts an unfortunately harsh light on the ambience.

We’d love to see some soft window coverings at night reduce the glare.

Still, So. cial is definitely a place to check out and maybe even to hang out. And if Prasad’s cooking continues the way it’s begun, So. cial could become that rare restaurant that satisfies all appetites.

SHINDIG TIME: 8 ways to tickle your tastebuds

Eye-catching presentations on the menu include blowtorch-seared aburi chicken

Mia Stainsby
Sun

A chef at Miku torches sushi to create Aburi Sushi, which is a specialty of the restaurant. Photograph by : Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun

MIKU JAPANESE RESTAURANT

Overall 3 1/2

Food 3 1/2

Ambience 4

Service 4

$$$

1055 West Hastings St., 604-568-3900. www.mikurestaurant.com. Open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Friday; dinner only on Saturday and Sunday.

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

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In North America, there’s only one response to eating raw chicken and we all know what that is.

In Japan, however, chicken sashimi is a delicacy. A friend who lived there ordered it against her partner’s ardent protests and lived to say it tasted just fine, thank you very much. The thing is, the chickens are raised and processed cleanly and certainly not in industrial settings.

That brings me to Miku Japanese restaurant which recently opened downtown. The company that operates Miku is based in Miyakazu, on the island of Kyushu, home to many of these chicken farms. Miku’s parent company, Toro Corporation, operates seven restaurants in Japan and while some may serve chicken sashimi, Miku in Vancouver does not. The closest to it is aburi chicken, flame-seared, just to doneness.

Miku specializes in aburi sushi, meaning the fish is lightly flame-seared on the surface by blowtorch. “We take a stick of charcoal and place it in front of the flame so the gas smell doesn’t transfer to the sushi,” says Tai Hasumi, the general manager. If he stops by your table, talk hockey — he played pro hockey when he lived for a few years in Japan. He also was bar manager at the Nobu Tokyo, which is co-owned by Robert DeNiro.

Hasumi tried chicken sashimi in Japan. “It took me three tries to put it in my mouth but it was fabulous. I can only compare it to seafood. It has the colour and texture of tuna. Perhaps in the future, we’ll do a week of chicken sashimi. These chickens are organic and very pampered. They limit the numbers on the farms,” he says. (Do not try this at home, folks!)

Miku almost lives up to its name (beautiful sky) with soaring ceilings. Before the Shaw Tower went up, the room had a gorgeous view out to the harbour and mountains and now that it’s gone, they hauled nature indoors. There’s black granite (exactly like the stone in my kitchen), white Carrara marble, rough granite and a pebble walkway. Glass “clouds” (which looked more like Arctic ice floes) hover high above and there’s more icy glass on the walls. The effect is dramatic but a little polar.

Miku does some things well and others, not so well. The fish is fresh; they buy locally as much as possible; produce is organic; presentations are really eye-catching (tempura comes on a bed of twigs) and the room seems to be teaming with staff in the open kitchen and on the floor — but that might be just while they are in training mode. But it comes with a price, evident in some of the sticker-shock prices, like the $12 chestnut gelato with rum-infused chestnut cream that barely spoke of chestnut or rum. A small glass of beer was $6.

Dishes are somewhat unique to Vancouver. Although one of the reasons for aburi sushi is to cut down on fat, I really don’t think anyone’s complained about fish oil. In fact, the complaint is the lack thereof in most people’s diets. And frankly, Vancouver is so addicted to raw fish, I’m not sure aburi sushi will fly.

The suzuran (Japanese rose) platter, $28, has 10 sushi pieces, including tuna, shaped into a rose, aburi and oshi sushi (flat, pressed). The tora oshi sushi plate looks like sushi petits fours; tuna and salmon are sandwiched between sushi rice with toppings like crab, eel, fish roe, scallop and tuna.

Inari “with modern touch” ($9) goes one better than regular inari (sushi rice in marinated tofu pouches). The “modern touch” is the tasty toppings on each of three inari on the plate. The aburi chicken with garlic soy sauce ($16) has a tell-tale touch of flamed smokiness. Agedashi tofu in ponzu sauce, topped with spicy yam was delicately constructed and beautifully presented. In Miku’s efforts to play to the local market, they offer several udon pastas. I say leave the pasta to the Italians. Udon is too soft for pasta and the one we tried with spicy beef, jalapeno, garlic and pepperocino pepper ($18) didn’t invite a revisit.

There are two pastry chefs (one who trained in Kyoto and another, from Poland). While the chestnut gelato didn’t score points with me, another, the “chocolate parade” was really expensive ($20), but delicious. It was really three desserts — a delicious chocolate tart, a white chocolate mousse and chocolate gelato.

The chefs will also do omakase (Japanese tasting menu) for $60, $80 and $120. Should you be served a raw whole prawn in any of your dishes, the server will ask if you’d like the kitchen to deep-fry the head for you. Hasumi says when his Caucasian server suggests it, diners are more willing to give it a go. He’s like the passport to exotic Japanese fare.

All in all, Miku acts high-end and looks high-end but falters here and there in delivering silken high-end fare.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Chef’s love of food shows in side-by-side Burnaby restaurants

Alfie Lau
Sun

John Chow says he’s always loved Italian food. At Amorosa, he serves it for a North American audience. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun

John Chow is the first person to admit it appears strange that he runs both Italian and Greek restaurants in the Edmonds area of Burnaby.

Chow has run Amorosa Pasta House for 16 years and when the space next door came free three years ago, he took it over and opened Santali Souvlaki House. Chow splits his time between both places, with manager Allen Ching chipping in as well.

“I’ve always loved Italian food,” Chow said. “I don’t know why, but I’ve always really loved the Mediterranean foods. When we got the space for Santali, I wanted to have a Greek menu . . . but I think I’ll always really love Italian food.”

Chow, who last visited Italy in 2000, admits that Amorosa serves Italian food for a North American audience, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t brought some ideas back from his trips.

“We use real pepperoni and everything is cooked with olive oil,” said Chow. “We’ve added chili peppers to some dishes and we’ve added some seafood dishes because I love seafood.”

On a recent weekday, several co-workers decided to see what Amorosa was all about.

There aren’t many appetizers to choose from — probably because Chow knows that the main dishes will be more than filling enough — so we started with some calamari ($7.95), Stracciatella alla Romana soup ($4.25) and the small Caprese salad ($6.95).

There was nothing small about the tomato and bocconcini salad drizzled with red wine vinaigrette. Four of us had more than enough between us, with the bocconcini packing just enough of a bite to go well with the vinaigrette.

The soup featured egg swirls, parmesan cheese and parsley in a chicken broth.

And it’s hard to complain about the calamari, which Chow makes sure can feed an army. Crispy and not too oily, the calamari is an appetizer that is hard to beat.

We were noticing a trend at Amorosa: The prices are affordable and the portions are huge. Nothing would change when our mains came.

Pasta lovers can have no complaints at Amorosa because there are 28 different pasta dishes to choose from. And with 10 different pasta shapes to choose from, you can literally have something different every time you come to Amorosa.

Our marathoner went with the Arcobaleno, which is green peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and chicken broth sautéed in olive oil, and added a twist by having it served with spinach cheese tortellini. The tortellini was not only visually pleasing, it melded well with the tomatoes and mushrooms.

His wife went with the Genovese, which is chicken, mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes in a creamy tomato sauce, served with rotini. The chicken chunks were plentiful and the portion so large she could finish only half of it, with the other half being a great lunch the next day.

Our vegetarian didn’t want to gamble by mistakenly ordering a dish with meat in it, so for $13.95, he made his own large pasta, from a choice of 10 pasta shapes, five sauces and any two of 12 toppings. He went with the spaghetti in a creamy tomato sauce with zucchini and sun-dried tomatoes, which he hungrily downed, leaving nary a morsel for the next day’s meal.

I went with the cartoccio ($13.95), which was a seafood delight of clams, squid, prawns and shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce and baked with mozzarella cheese.

The cartoccio came baked in its own aluminum foil wrap. I had linguine as my pasta — never a bad choice when paired with seafood — and couldn’t get over how many clams, prawns and squid Chow can pack into one dish.

Simply delectable, a sentiment echoed by the chef himself.

“That’s my favourite dish,” Chow said. “I love seafood and it’s a great dish.”

Hard to believe we had any room left for the tiramisu ($5.50) and the crème caramel ($3.95), but there can be no more refreshing way to finish a meal.

“I think the secret to the success here is we have the best quality, quantity, price and service,” Chow said. “As a chef, I love it when people compliment us on our food and we see them coming back. It makes me feel good and tells me we’re doing the right things.”

Amorosa Pasta House is located at 7874 Edmonds St. and is open seven days a week for dinner starting at 4:30 p.m.

It’s also open for lunch Tuesday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Reservations are recommended. Call 604-525-3343 for more information.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

TRANQUILITY: But a wide array of tasty dishes tickled my complexes

Province

Bon Tsang (left) and Vieny Phan show off dishes. — SAM LEUNG — THE PROVINCE

When I crave pho I usually look for a disco ball. And neon and chrome and a wide screen TV showing Sylvester Stallone in Rambo. So when I heard of this place that supposedly broke the mould when it comes to your typical Vietnamese pho environment and experience I was on it like a famished foodie on a salad roll. Which by the way is really tasty at this place.

Met up with my old cerebral nemesis Dr. Orval Haltiwanger, once my psychoanalyst until he tried to have me committed just for admitting I’d had a dream involving Raquel Welch, a platypus and a can of aerosol cheese product. But I didn’t hold that against him or the straitjacket he gave me for Christmas once that he personalized with a Bedazzler, spelling out my name with rhinestones on the front. It’s the thought that counts.

First off you notice how subdued and tranquil the room feels with its low lighting, bamboo-screened entranceway, faux-finished stucco walls and tasteful wood furnishings. It ain’t the Ritz but at least it’s not lit up like the Las Vegas strip.

Pho is certainly a good way to go here but the menu is actually surprisingly extensive in Vietnamese home-cooked offerings so you won’t feel boxed in by the usual rare beef, beef ball, beef brisket, beef tendon and beef tripe bobbing about in noodles and broth.

The grilled lemongrass chicken is excellent as is the satay beef skewers (both $5.50) with thinly sliced beef curled around lightly cooked but still crispy pieces of celery plus the usual fresh greens and cucumber as a palate refresher.

There are so many choices and combination options on the menu I was having a hard time deciding what to order.

“You know, this inability to decide is really a manifestation of your deep-seated fear of being mistaken for a shrimp at an all-you-caneat buffet at a convention of funeral directors from Muncie, Ind. I call it the crustacean complex and it’s very serious,” Dr. Haltiwanger informed me. “Tell me again about this dream with Raquel Welch, the platypus and this canned cheese. I’m not sure I got all the details the first time.”

I shook my head no and scooped the last stuffed boneless chicken wing appetizer ($6.50) onto my plate while he pondered my fate. Truly a wondrous start with the poultry appendage filled with vermicelli, ground pork, carrots, something fungus-like and who knows what else.

Next was grilled minced pork and prawn supreme with vermicelli ($7.50), an intriguing dish wherein the shrimp is ground to a pastelike consistency and wrapped around a stalk of sugar cane and during cooking the sweetness seeps into the mixture. I think of it as the Vietnamese version of a hot dog on a stick since the shrimp has the same spongy texture as a wiener and you can one-hand this sucker while driving, channel surfing, playing tennis or skeet shooting. Dr. Haltiwanger might have something to say about my description of this dish but sometimes a prawn supreme is just a prawn supreme no matter what you may think.

Also tried a salad roll, fat shrimp and that strange Vietnamese ham visible beneath the roll’s translucent rice skin wrapping like some alien creature whose innards can be seen pulsating. Nevertheless, very tasty, especially with the sweet zing of the nuoc cham fish sauce for dipping.

Finished with some Vietnamese coffee while Dr. Haltiwanger ticked off my complexes and neuroses with meerschaum pipe-calloused fingers. “And forget about your crustacean complex,” he finally summed up. “I saw the way you attacked that shrimp on a stick. Obviously what you have is a bad case of prawn envy.”

It’s a spread rich in luxurious, deeply satisfying delights

Mark Laba
Province

Chef de cuisine Jason Toth and executive chef and owner Abdel Elatouabi with prawn and chickpea fritters and Couscous Royale. Photograph by : Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

Review

Le Marrakech

Where: 52 Alexander St.

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-688-3714

Drinks: Fully licensed

Hours: Mon.-Thurs., 5 p.m.-11 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 5 p.m.–midnight, closed Sundays

W hat do organ grinder monkeys, Shriners and Moroccans have in common? They all look good in a fez of course. The Shriners and the monkeys also fit well into teeny-weeny cars although how the Shriners do it still remains one of the great mysteries of life. And, for the record, the monkeys are terrible drivers.

But that’s beside the point. It’s my long-harboured envy of their fez-wearing abilities that laid the cornerstone for my latest dining adventure. For I too have a fez, dusty and forgotten in the back of my closet, a souvenir from a more frivolous time when it adorned my melon-shaped noggin occasionally during a drunken soiree. But age and responsibility along with my wife have banished my fez from human sight. Well no more, I declared as Peaches and I were on our way to this Moroccan bistro on the edge of Gastown. I would wear it proudly and jauntily at this restaurant where it would truly be appreciated. Peaches nonchalantly knocked it off my well-coiffed comb-over and simply said, “Over my dead body.”

So fez-less I stepped into this den of all things Moroccan, a veritable casbah of North African ornamentation with rich brocaded textiles and pillows, traditional hand-craved Moroccan seats, which are really fancy, low-sitting stools with no backs (the only unfortunate part), equally ornate tiled tables, metal wall sconces casting shadows of intrigue and a reddish-gold glow infused throughout the place. It really is a world away from the everyday supported by some exotically-named martinis.

And the food is just as transporting as the atmosphere thanks to owners Leo Fouad and Abdel Elatouabi. Elatouabi was once the executive chef at a five-star hotel in Rabat and most recently ran the now-vanished Bravo Bistro, a Coal Harbour spot I was quite fond of.

Peaches and I began our edible caravan with a bunch of small plates from the mezze listings. Lamb meatballs lolling in a spicy tomato sauce with a sunny-side-up egg hovering on top ($9), which our waiter called “the Moroccan breakfast” was excellent. Meatballs as tender as a lamb bleating for its mother and a sauce with the brooding temperament of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. An order of humus ($7) soothed the spice with a whisper of its lemon and garlic tinged breath.

Next up was Dungeness kebe ($11), a bulgur wheat and potato croquette construction stuffed with chermoula-spiked crabmeat. Chermoula is a Moroccan herb and spice mix but with a fresh infusion of flavour from ingredients like coriander and parsley. A very pleasing dish, subtle and rich and the side salad of pea shoots with lemon pistachio vinaigrette was a nice, light touch.

My only complaint would be the cost considering there are only two, small croquettes but that’s perhaps the price you pay when you want to play with the heavily armoured crustaceans.

We finished with mussels in a spicy chermoula sauce ($16) and a main dish of braised short ribs atop saffron couscous ($24). The generous portion of bivalves were as big and plump as the biceps on Spongebob Squarepants and my only thought was the sauce could’ve used a bit more punch. I ordered some house cut fries ($5) and these thin-cut ‘taters were excellent sprinkled with sparkling nuggets of sea salt.

The braised short rib wore a luxurious coat of caramelized onion and raisins with hints of spicing harmonizing sweet with savoury and the beef was a textbook example of perfect braising. Winter veggies in all their root-like glory created a tasty and textural perimeter around the dune of couscous. Mint tea concluded the ceremonies.

It’s a menu that’s steeped in exoticness from the lamb shank tagine to golden beet salad tossed in rose water and pomegranate vinaigrette and though I may remain fez-less in Vancouver I was certainly well on the road to Morocco minus Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and the surly camel.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

A sultan’s feast complete with weekend belly-dancing.

RATINGS: Food: A- Service: A Atmosphere: A

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In my exuberance to play political pundit last week, I included the Jolly Alderman in my Top Five list of places to ponder the civic election results. But as reader Iris Ivanoff pointed out, the place has been closed for over a year and, in her words “is nothing but an empty hole.” Now I know why it was so cold and dank and the service was so bad when I went there for a drink a few weeks back.

Menya

Selling Point: A veritable pork-a-rama of ramen soup goodness and flavour in this stylishly sparse and tiny noodle shop.

What To Eat: Try the Nagahama Ramen, named for a street full of ramen stalls in the Nagahama district of Fukuoka, the capital city of Kyushu Island where pork-based tonkotsu broth has its origins. Don’t forget to order a seasoned boiled egg added to the mix. Also check out the home-made pan-fried pork and vegetable gyoza, a great deal at $4.80 for eight. There’s also the Nagasaki Chanpon, a ramen concoction with mixed veggies, meat and seafood or you can order the Ramen Noodle Set that gets you ramen, gyoza and Takikomi rice ball cooked with kelp, veggies and deep-fried tofu.

401 W. Broadway, 604-873-3277

Panne Rizo Cafe

Lowdown: There are those who walk among us who take the no- gluten, no-wheat route when it comes to their food. I personally shuddered at the thought until I tasted the stuff at this bakery/deli/café. I’m not exactly a convert but these rice-based breads ain’t too bad.

What To Eat: Try the turkey and cheese grilled panini on rosemary and scallion focaccia — the focaccia is amazingly dairy and wheat-free and yet still tasty. Go figure. There’s also a very nice tuna and sun-dried tomato sandwich with cheese and spinach, a very savoury chicken pie or macaroni with extra old cheddar and parmesan cheese. Plus a choice of two daily homemade soups and some spiffy desserts that may be wheat free but certainly don’t lack for sugar.

1939 Cornwall Ave., Vancouver, 604-736-0885

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Crafty chameleon changes for circumstances

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Owner Brad Roark and chef Lauren Campbell at Mon Bella. Photograph by : Jenelle Schneider, Vancouver Sun

MON BELLA

Overall 3 1/2

Food 3 1/2

Ambience 3 1/2

Service 3 1/2

1809 West First Ave

604-569-2741

www.monbella.com

Open for Lunch, Tuesday to Friday; Dinner, Tuesday to Sunday

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

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Like a chameleon, food can morph to suit circumstances. Take Mon Bella’s menu. It began in September as a “sharing plates” menu but customers, perhaps in want of comfort, wanted meals with a capital M. Or, perhaps, it was just the demographics of this Kitsilano neighbourhood — more settled folks than the downtown singles who dine out to socialize.

And so now, the restaurant bills itself as a bistoria — a wordplay on bistro and trattoria — capitalizing on a comfort, French and Italian style with wholesome meals.

As it turned out, I had meals from both chapters in the short life of this restaurant and I have to say, I actually liked my “sharing plates” meal. Jay Brault was the chef back then and he came from Tapastree where he worked with Mon Bella owner Brad Roark.

Salt cod fritters with garlic aioli were delicious. Mussels with white wine and tomato garlic broth were fresh-tasting. Steak (striploin?) with peppercorn sauce was fine, although the ravioli filled with pulled pork was tough and pretty much inedible. (Not sure if that’s his fault. The next chef was already installed when I visited.) Desserts were the usual suspects — creme brulee, tiramisu, lemon tart.

On the next visit, I walked in on the debut of the new menu, under Lauren Campbell, who was formerly the sous chef. Her c.v. includes Bekta restaurant, one of Ottawa‘s best.

I started with a nimbly constructed tartlette aux cepes (dishes are expressed in French and Italian — that’s mushroom tart in French). The puff pastry stood tall and delicate and kind of exploded into pastry shards under my fork, a good thing. Arancini all’Arrabbiata (deep-fried risotto balls stuffed with prosciutto, fontina over tomato sauce) were perfect orbs; they needed just a little more seasoning. Marmite de Fleton Provencale (halibut cheeks stewed in a tomato sauce) was a generous serving and I do love halibut cheeks. It was slightly overcooked, however. Tagliatelle alla Bolognese with poached egg and truffle oil was hearty and ahhhh, comforting. However, the noodle was bucatini (house-made I’m told but it looked more like dried noodles); the combination of poached egg and truffle oil was great, especially when the egg yolk is broken to mix into the dish. I think, though, I should have tried what the bucatini was really meant for — a pasta dish with fennel, sardines, saltanas, pine nuts, saffron and breadcrumbs — a taste of Sardinia.

Desserts have an interesting newcomer. The zuccotto, an Italian dessert that’s said to mimic the Duomo’s cupola, thus, it’s dome-shaped. It has an outside layer of cake (liquored up in Amaretto). The belly of the dome is usually filled with whipped cream mixed with chopped nuts and fruit but this one had coffee chocolate ice cream. The dome was topped with a quenelle of mascarpone cheese.

Wines are a pleasant surprise. Servers seem to know what’s what and we were very happy with recommendations from the largely French and Italian wines. Roark keeps the wine list moving and he says he owes a lot to the sommelier he worked with at Tapastree.

Roark’s girlfriend Michelle Vella is the eye behind the great photographs of France and Italy on the walls. When the TV screen at the bar isn’t trained on the Canucks, it’s a gallery of 400 of her photos.

And about the blank chalkboards at the entrance — they need some chalk; if there aren’t specials to write up, even a “hi, how you doin‘?” would be better than the “couldn’t be bothered” message of an empty slate.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Long-awaited restaurant opens after 15-month delay and manages to deliver both delights and surprises

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Potato crusted cod is on the menu at Voya restaurant.

VOYA

Overall 4

Food 4

Ambience 4

Service 5

$$$

Loden Hotel, 1177 Melville St., 604-669-5060. www.lodenvancouver.com Open for breakfast, lunch dinner, 7 days a week.

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

– – –

Marc-Andre Choquette’s name might not set off instant recognition bells but local foodies know. Back in the old-Lumiere days, he was the executive chef, Rob Feenie’s trusted right-hand guy.

He tagged with Feenie during 2005 Iron Chef America and they became the only Canadian team to win the prime-time competition.

“For the first 10 minutes I felt frozen in time but then the adrenalin kicked in,” he remembers. “By the end of 15 minutes, the two sinks beside me had a mountain of pots and pans.” You could, by rights, call him a sous-Iron Chef.

Since he left Lumiere a couple of years ago, he’s been a man in waiting. Last month, his waiting was over and Voya at Loden Vancouver, one of the much-anticipated restaurants, finally opened after a 15-month delay. In the past year, Choquette had been working in various kitchens of the parent company, Kors Hotel Group.

The food is described as “globally inspired West Coast cuisine” and the menu does borrow from here and there but the thrust is European. I was delighted (drumettes of sesame crusted frog legs with a barbecue sauce). I was wowed (ethereally light baked gnocchi with ricotta and eggplant, tomato sauce; sablefish so delicately cook the flesh was pluckable). I wanted more (of the yummy papparadelle that came with a tender hazelnut crusted lamb with aromatic jus). I was pleasantly surprised (barbecued eel and duck liver with pickled shimeji mushroom — who would have thunk?). I was seduced (two lovely amuse bouches and mignardise of mini chocolates, cookies and gelees after desserts). But I was also let down (an unimpressive dense, citrus-soy glazed salmon with Chinese greens and cashews).

I loved one of the desserts I tried, a dome of chocolate-enrobed nougat parfait with a lemony centre with sabayon ice cream next to it. It was worth the waddle I’d acquired by meal’s end.

Choquette is one of the city’s finest and while the cooking is elevated and haute, all of the elements of each dish weren’t consistently remarkable.

The room is comfortably glamourous. It’s modern with retro references and the warmth is amped up with dark wood (the floor looks like tile but it’s a darkly stained wood), buttery brown leather booths.

The senior staff are friendly, intelligent, good-humoured and knowledgeable.

When I was ransacking my purse for reading glasses — voila! A pair appeared at our table. Water glasses were topped off, crumbs were cleaned, questions were answered and napkins refolded whenever we left the table, all smoothly and capably.

Even if you’re not a fan of cocktails, you should give it a go here because Jay Jones is a master. I loved the Benedictine, bourbon, bitters and fresh orange juice drink I felt compelled to siphon from my husband’s glass. And the Voya lounge, by the way, is open to 2 a.m. Thursday to Saturday, should you be looking for a nightcap one evening.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

‘You can pretend it’s just pork’

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Wonton King owner Olivia Lau with Szechuan chicken, manager Erik Hui with smoked cod and deep-fried bean curd. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun

WONTON KING

620 S.E. Marine Dr., 604-321-4433

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What can you expect of a non-descript restaurant in a tired old strip mall? That was my thinking when I walked into Wonton King.

We were greeted warmly and seated with a flourish. Clean white tablecloths covered the tables and servers patiently navigated us around the lengthy menu.

When our first dish arrived, I looked forward to the rest of the meal. We’d ordered a wonton soup, since it’s the namesake, and it proved to be very good. The broth was delicate and the noodle had a tasty filling. Manager Erik Hui says a lot of wonton hasn’t got enough pork in it. “If you ask me, real wonton is half meat and half shrimp. A lot of places put too much shrimp. Ours is half and half,” he says. Staff make it by hand.

Wonton King has been operating for 20 years in the same location and has only changed hands between siblings since it opened. Hui says many of the staff have been there for more than 10 years. He’s been there 18. “Everybody knows what they have to do,” he says.

The menu offers about a hundred items but the kitchen seems to be in control. A half soy duck ($14) was tidily arranged on the plate and a very generous serving at that. Shrimp and scrambled eggs ($16) was a beautifully prepared dish with fluffy-soft eggs and tender shrimp cooked to the right point. Singapore vermicelli noodles ($9.50) suggested a deft hand — the noodles weren’t matted or tangled. A portobello mushroom and broccoli dish ($12) featured bright green broccoli with a bit of snap; once again, a very generous serving.

Hui says there’s a menu with dishes that are popular only with the Chinese, one that in winter, will feature a snake dish. “It makes you hot in the winter,” he says. “Canadians are scared of it.” He suggested I try it sometime. “You can pretend it’s just pork,” he said. Not a good suggestion. I’m the type that screams at the sight of a slithery snake and gets warnings from my partner if there’s a photo of a snake in the paper or magazine.

A lot of Indian guests come for the spicy Szechuan dishes, like the spicy green beans, which can be vegetarian or not (the not contains minced pork and dried shrimp). He says the smoked black cod and spicy deep-fried oysters are popular dishes. “Crispy and really spicy,” he says of the oysters.

Wonton King is open for lunch and dinner daily except for Tuesday.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008