Pop Opera the latest call-up to Donnelly’s Big League roster

Malcolm Parry
Sun

NINE CHEERS: Donnelly Hospitality Management founder-president Jeff Donnelly dreamed of becoming another Charlie Gehringer or Jackie Robinson. A second baseman in the Big Leagues, that is, and a pro athlete like his father, Brian Donnelly, who played defensive back for the 1971-74 B.C. Lions. But a signpost to the Langley-born, Surrey-raised 33-year-old’s real career was clear 20 years ago, long before he played two years of junior-college baseball in Mount Vernon, Wash. (he has dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship), hoping it would net him a scholarship to a major varsity. That’s when he spent after-school hours “picking up condoms and needles and cleaning up puke” from the bar of Vancouver’s then-Mr. Sport hotel, which his dad part-owned.

Until last week, Donnelly held 50- to 60-per-cent interests in five Vancouver nightclubs and four pubs that gross a reported $24 million annually. Then, those interests passed to the newly incorporated Donnelly Investments Ltd. in which Donnelly holds 70 per cent and three silent partners the remainder. Donnelly Hospitality Management Ltd. operates the nine facilities.

Last week, too, Donnelly opened his most glamorous property. That’s the 5,500-square-foot, 230-seat Pop Opera nightclub, located beside the downtown Birks store. He pays “in the mid-30s” per square foot for the premises, which cost a reported $1.8 million to acquire and renovate. Located smack-dab in the central business district, and somewhat remote from other nightspots, Pop Opera had earlier incarnations as the 1996 Hard Rock Cafe, Luce and — reflecting its West Hastings Street address — Dan Blaquiere’s Club 686.

Two other downtown joints should soon join Donnelly’s other club properties — Bar None, the Granville Room, the Modern, Republic — and the Bimini’s Tap House, Calling, Lamplighter and Library Square pubs. One will be a 65-seat lounge, he said. The other, a 375-seat club and attached 350-seat restaurant, should cost close to $5 million and be located in a new building by 2011. He “would love” to operate in the Hotel Georgia when Delta Land Development president Bruce Langereis completes a $300-million redevelopment of that iconic property.

He also wants a “dive bar,” like those once common in U.S. cities, where street-window liquor bottles had tags around their necks reading, say: “Single 55c, Double 80c.” He almost acquired one in Manhattan‘s Chelsea district recently, and regularly takes business partners and senior staff to inspect locales in that city, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, London, Tokyo and — later this year — Berlin.

“I’m in London three or four times a year, and that is the epicentre of nightlife,” said Donnelly, who designs all his own properties. “But we are comparable [in Vancouver], and we do things better than they do in L.A. We’re more professional — our door work, how we pour drinks, how we design our clubs. Our bars are open until 3 a.m. And, in places like Boneta, Chambar, George and the Cascade Room, we have a really cool cocktail culture.”

There’s uncool culture, too. Donnelly learned that when a fatal shooting put the kibosh on Loft Six, a second-floor Gastown club he and Bimini co-owner Steve Jennings opened at a cost of close to $400,000 in 2001. More stringent security was in place by 2003, when he spent a reported $750,000 converting the nearby Cherry Bay into the Modern dance club. Then, in 2007, he leased Gastown’s Lamplighter pub from Dominion Hotel owners Eric Cohen and Tom Gautreau, and spent what may total $1 million renovating the 270-seat premises. Last week, city hall approved his application for a 40-seat patio on the hotel’s Abbott Street side.

Donnelly’s biggest at-bat was the 300-seat, 5,800-square-foot Republic that cost a reported $2.5 million. Running to 3 a.m. seven nights a week, Republic shares the city’s-busiest-club status with Granville Entertainment’s nearby Roxy cabaret, which will mark its 20th anniversary this month. Republic partially fills the role envisaged for Granville Entertainment principal Blaine Culling’s stillborn Pravda, which was to house a pub, club and restaurant in a new, three-floor Granville Street building. Republic’s new-built premises are owned by the area-landlord Bonnis family.

Another Culling property, the old Foghorn’s, turned out to be Donnelly’s springboard to the bigs. He paid $40,000 for it in 2001, renamed it the Granville Room, acquired a now-defunct pub licence and planned a $250,000 renovation (and $350,000 more since). Opposing the plan, his dad called a $117,000 loan he’d made to aid acquisition of neighbourhood-pub-pioneer Peter Uram’s Bimini’s Tap House two years earlier. Donnelly recruited partners Jennings, Steve Ogden and club-scene veteran Murray Kryski, all of whom still invest in his projects. The Granville Room never became a pub, but has minted money ever since. It also put Kryski onside to help him acquire 80 per cent of Bar None for “about a million,” and the remainder six months later.

Donnelly no longer plays second base. But he’s still showing that job’s range, pivoting skill and right-and-left quickness on the business diamond.

SHE SAW LONDON: Self-styled “pantie queen” Kathleen Staples has hung ‘em up. After 14 years, she’s sold her wholesale and retail operations for an undisclosed sum to general manager Lana Diaz, and jokes that she’s “looking for a job as a receptionist or an exceptionalist.”

It’s been quite a ride. In the manner of then-common flower sellers, Staples began by offering late-night restaurant diners not long-stemmed roses but knitted-silk lingerie. Sales of the China-made garments for men and women rocketed when she gave their otherwise-ordinary colours such catchy names as Silver Screen, Fade To Black and Sugar-Frosted Grape.

Carried by The Bay, other retailers, and via her own West Vancouver store and www.staplesonline.com website, Staples sold three million pairs of women’s panties alone. Held as she liked to display them, that number would stretch from here to Winnipeg. Let’s guess Diaz is now targeting St. John’s, N.L.

VAULTS TEMPO: Swiss bankers never blow their own — and especially their clients’ — horns. But the Yamaha Tyros II electronic keyboard appears to be different, especially for Adrian Hartmann, 65, who joined Zurich‘s Foreign Commerce Bank after plans to be a Swissair airline pilot fizzled.

“Music was always my second half,” said Hartmann, who likely upset 1960s bosses by playing his Gibson and Chet Atkins guitar in the country-and-western style. Not that earning $1,000 for a New Year’s Eve gig mightn’t have changed their views.

“Now, music has become my primary half,” said Hartmann — [email protected] — who was transferred to Toronto in 1978, and moved to Vancouver two years later for the chance to begin private asset management. Five years with a Cayman Islands-based money-management firm followed. In 1985, the FCB asked him to open a representative office in Vancouver, and he and wife Hedy have been here ever since.

She’s the dance-and-fitness instructor he met aboard a Lake Zurich cruise vessel in 1965, when he played for her staging of a fashion show.

She’s also the subject of A Woman Like You on Hartmann’s CD, Adrian: How I Sing & Play, Vol. 2. Many of the other 16 titles are Elvis Presley covers. But there’s another original, My Vancouver, Hartmann hopes may be a welcoming anthem for the 2010 Olympics. The song somewhat echoes late B.C. minstrel Evan Kemp’s cowboy-two-step style, albeit without the yodelling you’d think might come naturally to the Swiss.

“I hate yodelling,” Hartmann said, hitting the keys of his $5,400 instrument and breaking into a most unbankerly Don’t Be Cruel.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Yaletown: Plus, wide selection offers chance to update your ‘tequila stories’

Mark Laba
Province

Manager Emi Numez with Camarones Enchipotlados and Ceviche de Pescado. SAM LEUNG – THE PROVINCE

TEQUILA KITCHEN

Where: 1043 Mainland St., Vancouver

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards. Call 604-681-2120.

Drinks: Beer, wine and tequila.

Hours: Mon.-Thurs., 5 p.m.-11 p.m., Fri., 4 p.m.-11 p.m., Sat., 10 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun., 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m.

– – –

There are two things most people I meet have in common. They all have a secret stash of condiment packs that they’ve scoured from fast-food establishments –enough, say, to keep every citizen of a small Eastern European nation rolling in ketchup, mustard and vinegar for at least a year — and everyone has a tequila story. My tequila experiences ended many moons ago when I disappeared and was found three days later wandering the Coquihalla Highway clad only in underpants, a sock puppet on each hand and a pair of deer antlers duct-taped to my head. Blackouts like that come only once in a lifetime, but they take work and persistence and the ability to shoot back tequila until you’re as blind as a cactus. I realized I was no longer up to the task. Let the younger generation pick up the slack I thought.

But tequila, or the devil’s sweat as I like to call it, has gotten a bad rap and the fact is good tequila can be sipped moderately and enjoyed without finding yourself waking up next to an inflatable sex doll in a trailer park. As evidenced at this relatively new Yaletown establishment with its earth-tone brick walls, cozy semi-circular plush booth seats mirrored by a semi-circle of open kitchen jutting out into the room and an overall casually chic sensibility. Plus, a tequila list that offers up the cream of the agave crop.

Peaches and I took a seat on the patio alongside the revamped shipping-dock promenade. The intriguing part of the menu here is the botanos, which in Spanish means small sharing plates that you fight over.

We began with the wonderful homemade guacamole, made to order so you can request a spice level, which is a new thing to me since I always believed guacamole was supposed to have the mild-mannered personality of say, a life-insurance salesman. This was an excellent green goop, a little flick of lime hiding in each bite and the hot chili sauce on the side carried all the thrills of almost stepping on a rattlesnake.

Cooled down with that Tijuana classic, a Caesar salad ($7), that was good enough to keep the creator of the thing, Mr. Cardini, from rolling around in his grave. Along with that we sampled a small side of tortilla soup ($3) that proved to be a rich reddish brown mire of tomato and dry chilies with thin pieces of tortilla, avocado, cheese and cream lurking in its murk. There were great layers of flavour in this stuff and I’ve got to say that on the slurpability scale this soup rates a seven or eight.

Next up on our botanos journey was Tostadas de Atún ($10). Two fair-sized crispy tortillas smeared with chipotle mayo were the foundation for thinly sliced raw tuna, red onion, avocado, cilantro and citrus dressing. Very good although I found the chipotle concoction a touch too sweet.

Finished with the queso con chorizo ($9) and two small pulled-pork tacos ($7). The first, consisting of melted cheese and house-made chorizo, and baked until slightly browned, got no complaints from me. Meat and gooey cheese — these are two of the basic building blocks of all human life. As for the latter, let’s just say this is one place that the shredded pig meat can comfortably call home.

It’s an inventive menu when it comes to Mexican food, revamped for the modern urban grazer without turning its back on tradition because, in the end, tradition and tequila are very much alike — both waiting to jump out from behind a cactus and bite you in the ass if you don’t show them some respect.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Reinventing Mexican cuisine and tequila dreams.

RATINGS: Food: A- Service: A Atmosphere: B+

– – –

5 GREAT PLACES FOR CLASSIC COCKTAILS

1 THE CASCADE ROOM: Named for Vancouver‘s original “beer without peer,” this cool, comfortable room hasn’t forgotten its roots with cocktails from a time when logger barons ruled the earth.

2616 Main St., Vancouver, 604-709-8650

2 GRUB: Great retro-style drinks in this spiffy and sparse room that warms up immediately when you set your lips to sipping a Casablanca or Great Gatsby.

4328 Main St., Vancouver, 604-876-8671

3 GEORGE: Ultra-swank factor abounds in this lounge where mixology borders on alchemy and the classics aren’t neglected in these trying modern times.

1137 Hamilton St., Vancouver, 604-628-5555

4 NU: A room that feels both retro and contemporary all in the same breath. Then, classic cocktails with some of the finest ingredients are bound to leave you breathless.

1661 Granville St., Vancouver, 604-646-4668

5 BONETA: A happening joint that balances style with comfort — and they take their cocktails seriously. Great classic entries like The Alfonso, The El Diablo from Trader Vic’s and The Vancouver, which first saw light in 1954 at the Sylvia Hotel.

1 W. Cordova St., Vancouver, 604-684-1844

– – –

FOOD FLASH

I’m giving you all plenty of notice to this Sept. 6 event so no one can complain about missing out on such a great food and wine shindig. Namely the first annual Wine & Culinary Extravaganza hosted by the Fraser Valley Wineries Association at Highpoint Equestrian Estate Community in Langley (200 Street at 8th Avenue) between 2-5 p.m. With wineries like Domain de Chaberton, Township 7, Sanduz and River’s Bend represented, along with fantastic food from local restaurants and culinary wizards, plus live entertainment, this celebration of all things Fraser Valley, at only $50 a pop, is sure to be a great soiree. Check the website www.fvwa.ca for tickets and more info.

THE LUNCH BOX

Azia

Selling Point: Sleek and modern Asian-style interior that sets up a nice counterbalance to the Old World recipes. And if you’re hitting The Scotiabank Theatre for a matinee, it’s not a bad spot to stop in and suck up some food first.

What to Eat: Check out appetizers like the wok-flash fried salt and chili calamari or the Szechuan BBQ spareribs. There are also some interesting noodle dishes like Ants Climbing Up a Tree (I’ll leave this a mystery) and Singapore-style fried vermicelli. Plus entrees like Mongolian beef, Malaysian chicken curry, grilled wild salmon with miso-sake sauce, Peking braised short ribs, Singapore chili prawns and braised long green beans in a spicy minced meat sauce. The only way to eat veggies.

EDIBLE CITY

CARDERO BOTTEGA

Lowdown: Calling itself a New York-style deli, this place lives up to its billing with a great array of specialty groceries and some of the most amazing take-out sandwiches you’ll ever taste.

What to Eat: I’d say just keep going back until you’ve tried every sandwich on the list. Check out the fantastic porchetta with provolone and lemon pepper mayo, the Caliente with hot capicolla, spicy eggplant, hot peppers and havarti, the Fat Tony with prosciutto cotto, prosciutto salami, provolone and marinated peppers, the Lafayette with garlic roast beef, balsamic onions, havarti and Creole mustard or the great New Orleans muffuletta, all served on a Portuguese bun. And all only $6.30.

1016 Cardero St., Vancouver, 604-689-0450

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Good food, great service, everyday prices spell success

Mia Stainsby
Sun

TRATTORIA ITALIAN KITCHEN.

1850 West Fourth Ave., 604-732-1441.

www.trattoriakitchen.ca.

Open for lunch and dinner, 7 days a week.

No reservations.

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone.

– – –

In the first few weeks, Trattoria Italian Kitchen buzzed like an apiary, with people on the street waiting for a table. Inside, it was even more hive-like. It takes something special, beyond the no-reservations policy, to cause this kind of kerfuffle in a restaurant.

At the Trat, the fourth (and not last) of the Glowbal group of restaurants, it comes down to good food, great service and everyday prices for yummy, yummy food.

On my first visit, I thought I’d been outed. The attentiveness! The friendly staff! The eagerness to please! The jovial chatter! It was abnormal.

I soon saw it wasn’t just me. Everyone was treated equally well.

People waiting for a table, both indoors and on the street, were offered nibblies and were chatted up by one or other of the senior staff.

Emad Yacoub, head of the Glowbal empire (Glowbal, Coast, Sanafir, Italian Kitchen), is smart. Some of the managers are allowed to invest in his restaurants, so what’s good for the restaurant is good for them.

And while some of the buzz is the rush to check out the sexy newbie in the neighbourhood, this place will be a thriving neighbourhood trat for some time to come. And, you know, it’s not just locals that it attracts. I can see myself coming from a distance after being struck by a craving for the Kobe beef meatballs (baseball size, $2.50 a pop) or the papparadelle with lamb sausage ($13).

As I said, the food is a big part of the success. Chef Jeremy Atkins rose up through the ranks of the Glowbal restaurants. He’s delivering great quality for the prices.

Glowbal’s got the advantage of buying in volume and getting a price break. I expected the kitchen would focus on pizzas and pastas (thumbs up on both) and that the entree-style dishes would be so-so. Well, not so. My half-chicken ($13) was juicy and flavourful. A forno-roasted whole trout stuffed with anise, lemon and herbs ($14) was rustically prepared and spot-on.

Note, however, that there isn’t much in the way of side dishes on the menu — they’re $6 apiece, if you want, but the cost of a meal is still very reasonable.

I loved the antipasto misto. It’s a $28 platter for sharing, and my share would have been enough for a meal. It was an uber-plate filled with roasted asparagus and mushrooms, Kobe meatballs, eggplant parmigiana, osso bucco croquette, forno-roasted clams, caprese salad, tiger prawns, and calamari with spicy tomato fonduta. Atkins uses dried pasta, but I would have sworn it was housemade. He divulged his pasta cooking technique: “You can’t cook too much at a time. If it says cook for 12 minutes, we cook it for six. And cool it properly, on a sheet tray with oil. And don’t rinse the starch off. It’s important! And you’ve got to let the noodles cook in the sauce for 30-ish seconds.”

Hey, I thought. Forget about about making my own pasta and drying the noodles all over my kitchen and dining room. I’m going back to dried De Cecco.

And the chicken isn’t organic or free-range, although it measures up, flavour-wise. He takes it off the breastbone and dries it on a sheet tray for 12 hours, “seasoning very aggressively with lemon zest and rosemary,” he says. Thus, the crispy skin. The wine list, with well-chosen Italian selections, is strong for a casual restaurant.

Yacoub says the next two operations will be a “sporty lounge” where Coast currently sits. And Coast will move to Alberni Street, next to Italian Kitchen. Beside Coast, a lounge called O.

And that’s it, as far as his expansionist moves go. “I promised my wife I’m going to stop,” he says.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Chinese restaurants often the best source

Stephanie Yuen
Sun

Shun Feng Sea-food Restaurant general manager Wallace Yuen with some of the featured dishes. Shown are steamed live B.C. prawns, served with soy sauce, braised beef ribs with chef’s special sauce, deep fried dumplings filled with shrimps and gooseliver, and baked buns with almond filling. Photograph by : Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun

SHUN FENG SEAFOOD RESTAURANT

1425 – 4380 No. 3 Road, Parker Place, Richmond.

604-304-6088

Opens daily for lunch and dinner

Major credit cards

Price: $

– – –

When my family decides to go out for a seafood dinner, we often choose a Chinese restaurant. And no, it has little to do with the fact that we are Chinese, but a lot to do with live seafood; the many varieties we can enjoy in one meal and most importantly, our budget.

We recently celebrated a birthday at Shun Feng Seafood Restaurant located inside Parker Place Mall in Richmond. The 10-course dinner included B.C. seafood such as geoduck, sea-cucumber, spot prawns, two whole Dungeness crabs and ling cod; plus other meat and vegetables dishes; and dessert; came to around $40 each. To us, that is an affordable price tag.

Chinese restaurants have long shifted away from the boring traditional red and gold dragon décor but are using brighter and warmer colour schemes and contemporary features. Shun Feng’s open style dining room and clean design is a good example of that. What also impressed us was the attentive but not overwhelming service. The only complaint we had was the untimely delivery of the food to our table, the kitchen must be operating in a high speed mode that evening.

Chinese call geoduck “The elephant trunk clam;” a name that perfectly describes this funny looking sea animal. We consume the whole clam but the shell; the “head” we throw in to the stock pot; the trunk, or body, we either eat raw with wasabi and soy like sashimi or we stir-fry it.

The meat of sea-cucumber is the body part which looks spongy and has gelatinous fluffy rice like texture when cooked. The muscle is soft and crunchy and is actually the wall linings inside of the sea-cucumber body. Both the geoduck and the sea- cucumber muscles can be rubbery if not done right.

Shun Feng chose juliennes of geoduck and sea-cucumber muscle stir-fried with Chinese chives and bean sprouts as the hot appetizer. The chef did a wonderful job here by not overcooking the meat. “I stir-fry the vegetables first, then put some oil in the wok and heat it up till its red hot. The meat must be stir-fried quickly to keep them tender and juicy. Then I return the vegetables to the wok,” executive chef Kit Poon explained.

The Dungeness crabs were wok- fried with chili black bean sauce, known as “harbour style” fried crab, a well-known recipe from the boat people in Hong Kong. The crabs were drenched with such lingering spicy flavour that they were literally finger-licking good.

The fish was my least desired dish of the evening, probably because it arrived after the ravishing Flambe drunken spot prawns which was cooked table side. The prawns were dunked in Chinese wine, removed, seasoned and pan-fried. Just like crepes Suzette, liquor was added in and ignited, creating the amazing flambe effect. This “show” dish obviously took everyone’s full attention and the robust flavour prawns mesmerized our palates too.

The vegetable we opted was baby choy sum. They were so young and tender that if the chef left them in the wok three seconds longer, they would be too soggy already. Lucky for us, his timing was perfect.

Though we brought our own birthday cake, the kitchen sent out a complimentary birthday dessert — steamed sweet buns stuffed with red bean paste in the shape of a Chinese peach, symbolizing best wishes. Steamed Chinese buns are white in colour, they are aromatic and cuddly soft when hot, and is definitely a great way to end a birthday dinner.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Gohan sushi chef Takeo Ishii holds a freshly made ‘deep south roll’ at the Gohan Japanese restaurant in Burnaby. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun

GOHAN

1815 Rosser Ave., Burnaby, B.C. 604-205-5212. www.members.shaw.ca/ gohan1815rosser/index.html

– – –

Back in 1971, Tatsuya Abe found himself in Winnipeg as a 19-year-old from Japan, tender as a peashoot, and without much English or an income. About the only thing he could do was respond to a “help wanted” sign for a chef in a Japanese restaurant.

“I didn’t have experience so what I did was take a cooking course in the college and started working for the restaurant,” says Tatsuya, whose last name is pronounced a-beh. “I think the restaurant is still there.”

And Abe is an enabler of those with a weakness for Japanese food. Five years ago, he opened Gohan, an airy neighbourhood spot across from Brentwood Mall with glass walls on one side and aggressive crimson on the other.

Gohan, which means “meal” in Japanese, is busy at lunch; around dinner, takeout seems to take over. For lunch there are combo specials as well as the regular menu. One can dine quite frugally here.

Abe’s 36 years in North America (including a stretch of time cooking in Hawaii) have influenced his cooking. There are insertions like chicken loco moco, a version of the Hawaiian rice dish with meat or fish or even egg atop rice with a gravy-like sauce. Abe created kushi katsu, which are chicken and pineapple skewers. He does gyoza with salmon. Tuna tataki takes a bit of a detour — it’s lightly seared, topped with roasted garlic drizzled in a thick, reduced balsamic-like sauce. A seafood spring roll with crab, salmon and avocado comes with a fresh papaya sauce — and the three large pieces fill you up.

Tokyo meat pie is pork and rice wrapped in phyllo, then deep fried. I was impressed with his agedashi, a delicate tofu dish sitting in a delicious broth, topped with fresh grated daikon. It’s one of the most popular dishes, Abe says.

The dynamite roll sushi we tried was fresh, with lively flavours.

Gohan isn’t easy to spot, tucked on the ground floor of a condo complex. “I used to live next door. I had two little kids and I didn’t want to be far away,” is his reply to people asking why he didn’t open on a busier street, West Broadway perhaps. If you live in the area and don’t know of it, it’s time you did!

But don’t go between July 27 and Aug. 4. Gohan will be closed for vacation time. Otherwise, it’s open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Saturday.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Bite into them and be forever bitten by their flavours

Mark Laba
Province

General manager David Kipis (left) and executive chef Jeremy Atkins find a bottle that goes well with the carne and pesce platter, which includes grilled tiger prawns, scallopini, grilled lamb chop, roasted trout and baby arugula salad. Photograph by : Nick Procaylo, The Province

Jefferson Starship may have built a city on rock ‘n’ roll but this restaurant conglomerate is building an empire on meatballs. Well, almost. The Glowbal Group, which conceived of and owns and operates Glowbal, Afterglow, Sanafir, Coast and Italian Kitchen, has a new addition to its culinary dynasty with Italian Kitchen’s offspring in the form of this trattoria. Now granted, Coast specializes in seafood and Sanafir follows the old Spice Route but Glowbal and Italian Kitchen both have the phenomenal Kobe meatballs on the menu. And the question inevitably on the lips of those who have had the experience is, “Have you tried the meatballs yet?”

Peaches and I are no neophytes when it comes to these succulent orbs of beef and once smitten you’re forever bitten by their alluring flavour. You could almost say there’s a hint of licentiousness to their rotund personalities, like how sneaking a peek at Sophia Loren’s cleavage leaves you with a lifetime’s worth of fantasy.

The room itself is lasciviously decked out with a deconstructed Botticelli’s Venus on the Half-Shell and Michaelangelo’s David setting the tone. There’s a long open kitchen with all the pyrotechnics of gas-stove flare-ups and an amazing array of seating options, whether you plunk down at the communal table, hunker at the bar, opt for the more traditional dining-room setting or grab a banquette table. Peaches and I sat at the back surrounded by red reflective walls that seem part sci-fi, part boogie fever, with just a hint of debauchery. Fitting, as I dropped into the conversation of the two elderly guys with their wives next to us. While sharing the magnificent antipasto platter (eggplant parmigiana, Kobe meatballs, tiger prawns, osso bucco crochette, forno roasted clams, calamari with spicy tomato fonduta, Caprese salad and more), the two men discussed one guy’s visit to the Mustang Ranch in Nevada. Paid a visit just out of curiosity and the bouncer didn’t take too kindly to non-paying gawkers. I fell into that category myself as I gawked at the amazing array of appetizers on their platter.

The pizzas are terrific and also make for a great starter. Peaches and I tried the lamb sausage and chanterelle mushroom creation with peppered goat cheese and an egg baked into the middle ($12). Excellent crust to hold the blobs of goat curd and the sausage was superb.

Also sampled the Panzanella salad ($10), an Italian bread salad with heirloom tomatoes, grapes, celery, arugula, burrata cheese, which is an extra-creamy mozzarella, and chunks of Tuscan bread, the whole schlimazel drizzled with a Chianti vinaigrette. Served up warm, the ingredients release a different mesh of flavours at this temperature, like night blooming flowers on the Mediterranean.

Main event was spaghetti with Kobe meatballs in a spicy basil-flecked tomato sauce with garlic confit and ricotta, and the Veal Scaloppine with bresaola, fontina cheese and white wine (both $14). The meatballs need no further explanation and the veal was delightful in the way only eating baby animals can be, the salty cured beef known as bresaola imbedded as small discs in the three veal medallions and adding a smoky sweet tinge to the proceedings.

Pizzas, pastas and sharing platters are the best way to reap the ravishing rewards of this place, along with a bottle or two from their wonderful wine menu and a tiramisu to split the seams of your Hugo Boss pants.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

La dolce vita Vancouver.

RATINGS: Food: A Service: A Atmosphere: A

Review

Trattoria Italian Kitchen

Where: 1850 W. 4th Ave., Vancouver

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-732-1441

Drinks: Fully licensed.

Hours: Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.–midnight, Sat.-Sun., 10:30 a.m.–midnight

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Peaceful, yes, with creative cuisine to liven anyone’s tastebuds

Mark Laba
Province

Charlie Huang, owner of the Peaceful Restaurant with some of the Northern Chinese-style dishes that will intrigue and satisfy.

PEACEFUL RESTAURANT

Where: 532 West Broadway, Vancouver

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-879-9878

Drinks: Unlicensed.

Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. every day

– – –

Peace seems to be that unattainable quality of living that we search for all of our days. Even in death it’s never a sure bet, which leads us to engrave “Rest in Peace” on our headstones to send us on our hopefully merry way into the afterlife or onto the compost heap depending on your beliefs or lack thereof. Peace in the Middle East has almost become the punch line to some kind of existential joke and peace just about anywhere is as fleeting as a shadow cast by a butterfly’s wings in a hurricane.

But it’s good to know that there’s still hope, even if it dwells for those few tranquil moments when you’re putting food in your mouth. Some Chinese restaurants don’t beat around the bush and just call it as they see it when it comes to naming their establishment. Hence there are Enjoy Garden, Fantastic Restaurant, Good Deal Restaurant, Happy Date Restaurant, Success Seafood and even Super Happiness. Add to that list Peaceful Restaurant specializing in cuisine from Northern China and some intriguing twists on Mandarin-style cooking.

Peaches and I stepped into their spanking new digs with its non-descript but pleasant décor and a long glassed-in open kitchen running the partial length of the room. It makes for great viewing when the cooks get to whipping up their wonderful homemade noodles. It’s kind of the Cirque du Soleil of noodle-making.

Ironically I’m not the most adventurous eater when it comes to some Asian foods, even though I’m a reviewer by trade. Beef tendons, chitterlings (pig intestines), tripe or duck beaks don’t sit that well with me or my belly.

But this menu with its eclectic mix of dishes creates enough intrigue to beg return visits.

Northern Chinese cooking presents a tantalizing array of flavours you may not associate with Chinese cuisine including cumin- or cilantro-scented lamb, curried chicken or a dish known as Cat’s Ear stir fry which is a kind of Chinese gnocchi. This restaurant does it up big time and the amount of dishes from hot pots to hand-dragged noodle creations is mind-boggling along with the critters thrown into the mix.

Previous dining adventures here have always been inspiring and, on this particular visit, Peaches and I, on our server’s advice, tried the beef rolls ($6.50). Thinly sliced five-spiced beef rolled in a green-onion flatbread with hoisin sauce proved to be outstanding. Szechuan dishes are also well-represented and we took the plunge with Szechuan Thousand Chili Chicken ($11.95), which sounds like a slow torture method for poultry. You will die the death of a thousand chili chickens or something to that effect. They’re not kidding when the say a thousand chilies. The fumes alone had me choking and the sight of all those red, slightly-charred chili peppers looked like a vision of hell if you were a chicken. For good measure, they also threw in a bunch of garlic. Very tasty although I think the chilies sucked up all the sauce trying to douse their own fire.

Playing it safer we sampled good old beef with broccoli, also liberally flecked with garlic ($9.95) and also went to work vacuuming up Shanghai noodles ($8.95). Both very good.

So check out the spicy salt-dusted tofu or the hot-and-sour potato, the pork claypot with homemade meatballs lolling about with napa cabbage, yam vermicelli, tiger lily buds, shiitake mushrooms and crispy tofu, the rice wine cod or the black-tea smoked duck.

Peacefulness abounds unless you accidentally suck back one of those chilies.

5 GREAT PLACES FOR CHEAP MEXICAN RESTAURANTS

1. Doña Cata Mexican Foods: From the amazing lineup of homemade salsas that cover every flavour to the terrific homecooking you simply can’t go wrong. 5438 Victoria Dr., Vancouver, 604-436-2232

2. Salsa & Agave Mexican Grill: Humble little joint that belies the excellence of the cooking. I suggest trying the Carne Tampiquena, a great combo plate that includes thin-cut grilled top sirloin and a chicken enchilada with green tomatillo sauce. 1223 Pacific Blvd., Vancouver, 604-408-4228

3. El Pulgarcito: Like an outdoor taqueria moved inside with checkered plastic table coverings and a bottle of hot sauce to keep the excellent Mexican and Salvadorian food company. 2522 E. Hastings St., Vancouver, 604-258-7922

4. Burrito Del Rey: Mexican home-cooking at amazingly cheap prices at this casual order-at-the-counter type of hole-in-the-wall eatery. 4140 Hastings St., Burnaby, 778-319-7761

5. La Conquistadora: OK, it’s in Whalley next to a motorcycle shop, but step into this family-run Mexican and Salvadorian restaurant and the home-cooking will transport you to sunnier climes. 10609 King George Hwy., Surrey, 604-588-2291

Got a suggestion for Mark?

E-mail [email protected]

CHEAP EATS: DANNY’S DOGS & SHAKES

Selling point: This little shack on the seawall serves the cheapest thing you’ll ever find in Coal Harbour to eat and the dogs and milkshakes are truly delicious.

What to eat: Not a lot of choice here. It’s an excellent all-beef hotdog for $2.50 or two for $4 with a decent bunch of condiments to dress your wiener properly. The ice cream and milkshake flavour listings are extensive with entries like black cherry, espresso flake, cookies ‘n’ cream, chocolate peanut-butter cup, vanilla bean, New York Cherry Cheesecake or Triple Tornado to name a few.

Located on the Coal Harbour Seawall by the Coal Harbour Community Centre, 480 Broughton St., Vancouver

EDIBLE CITY: BURGOO

Lowdown: A longtime stalwart on the Point Grey dining scene offering its hearty stews, soups, sandwiches and more, Burgoo branched out to the North Shore and has now opened a new location on Main Street complete with a patio, a new summer menu and drinks guaranteed to make your brain glow and pulsate.

What to eat: Check out the summer salads or fresh veggie-and-dip plates; also a great chicken Caesar clubhouse or a monthly quiche and in the stew department look for the classic mac ‘n’ cheese, the ratatouille, a Thai-inspired coconut curry, or the zarzuela, a Spanish dish with seafood, plus smoked ham and veggies. And desserts like sticky toffee pudding, summer fruit crumble are great finales.

3096 Main St., Vancouver, 604-873-1441

© The Vancouver Province 2008

The revamped Gastown room’s mesmerizing decor sets the mood for casual after-work or apres-club snacking

Mia Sta
Sun

Recently, Revel Room joined the Gastown revival of vamping up musty old rooms and blowing life into them. Photograph by : Steve Bosch/Vancouver Sun

REVEL

Overall: 3

Food: 3

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $$

238 Abbott St., 604-687-4088, www.revelroom.ca

Open Monday to Saturday, 3:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.

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

– – –

I’m too much of a sleepyhead to survive too many late nights out on the town, but on occasion I do find myself wandering the streets looking for a welcoming room with drinks and snacks. It’s hit and miss in some neighbourhoods, and mostly misses at that. But in Gastown, I’ve found cheerful spots that aren’t nightclubs or bars, like Chill Winston, for example.

Recently, Revel Room joined the Gastown revival of vamping up musty old rooms and blowing life into them. Revel has weird opening hours but there’s a rationale. It opens at 3:30 p.m. and stays open to 2 a.m. The late afternoon opening is great for locals who want to escape a stuffy office for a meeting, and in the small hours, a lot of restaurant industry types decompress there as, I suppose, would the apres nightclub bunch.

Revel has that cookie-cutter Gastown look and feel — bricks, timbers, a scruffy handsomeness. No ghosts, however. It’s split into two levels, the main and a mezzanine, and feels nocturnal even during the day thanks to the dark walls and low lights. (I would have welcomed headlamps to read the menu.) I was mesmerized by the metal art upstairs. The two-dimensional works by Roderick Quinn were actually done by computer. Hundreds of tiny stick-out tabs are angled to create hologram-like images of clouds that move as you walk past. Anyway, I spent way too much time analyzing the art to the detriment of dinner conversation.

The menu is a sharing menu with dishes costing $7 to $18. Chef Michael Pacey was most recently the sous chef at Rex Grill but has also worked at Earl’s, Century Grill (gone belly up), Carderos and the Pan Pacific. It’s an eclectic menu with Asian, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavours mixed in with down-home Americana.

Our meal on a second visit was much more satisfying than the first; I can’t tell you whether that was because of the dishes I ordered or I’d hit an off-night for the kitchen that first time. The dishes I enjoyed were manila clams with spicy sausage, fennel in a white wine broth with grilled bread. It was yummy. Moroccan lamb meatballs surrounded harissa sauce with a lightly poached free-range egg, waiting to be mixed into the sauce. Enticing. I gobbled up hawker-style chicken and prawn satay on sugar cane skewer and the green papaya salad that came with it was delicious.

A coho salmon filet with tomato ginger relish was cooked longer than I like but it was a generous serving for $13. With other dishes, I felt I had impaired taste buds. Shrimp and jalapeno fritters lacked shrimpiness. Chinatown fried rice verged on soggy and the curried pork tasted of neither curry nor pork.

Desserts had flaws. Once again, I wanted more flavour. If I closed my eyes, the chocolate paté would have tasted more like butter than chocolate, and while the vanilla-infused cheesecake was moist and velvety, I tasted no vanilla — I think the server had more vanilla in her fragrance.

And a note on the elegant, albeit dim, lighting — one of the three owners works in the movie industry as a lighting technician. That huge light bulb hanging from the ceiling was from a set and it puts out 10,000 watts. Instead cranking it up to 10 kilowatts of brightness, they just have it glowing like a toaster’s innard.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Let them rustle you up some truly awe-inspiring dishes . . . with punch

Mark Laba
Province

At Grub, the menu offers a variety of thin-crust pizzas, but the best choices can be found on the blackboard, with its scrawl of fresh offerings every day. Photograph by : Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

Review

Grub

Where: 4328 Main St., Vancouver

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-876-8671

Drinks: Fully licensed.

Hours: Tues.-Sun., 5 p.m.-late; closed Mon.

It’s hard for a man without a 10-gallon hat, spurs on his heels and sagebrush in his moustache to actually say, “I’m gonna rustle up some grub.” Well, I think it’s high time to bring the tradition back, although maybe with a five-gallon instead of a 10-gallon hat, so as not to look so conspicuous. In my case all my 10-gallon (or should I say 3.785 litre) hats were left at the hat check at Al’s Possum Shack and Discotheque and I’d lost the stubs so all I had for grub-rustling was my Arrow Mach II poly-synthetic blend shirt. Which fitted the bill just fine when I stepped through the door of this new eatery, where the hip, minimal design and modular ’70s curvaceous plastic chairs matched the sleekness of the Mach II’s styling. I was like an otter in water once I fished the mothballs out of the breast pocket.

Pale wood tables, a bright-yellow bench seat running the length of one wall and unusual wallpaper with a pattern of small repeating doodles that reminded me of the hallucinations I once had when I accidentally OD’d on Neo Citran evoke both a contemporary and retro-modern design. The doodles appeared to incorporate a microwave oven, a cow and other things I couldn’t make out.

As eclectic as the surroundings, the menu is a perfect balance between comfort and creativity and the cocktail list positively old-fashioned as are the alcohol-injected punch bowls you can order for your table, guaranteed to enliven any gathering.

The key to this place is the daily fresh sheet, which is the real mainstay of the menu. Dishes change daily and the blackboard scrawls offer up meat, fish and veggie options. Nevertheless, there is one stable menu that offers a variety of thin-crust pizzas, a few salads, a charcuterie plate with meats and cheeses and a sharing plate of excellent bread, hummus and an olive tapenade. But the fresh sheet is where it’s at.

Peaches and I began with the incredible Grub Chopped Salad ($9), a permanent resident here, so have no fear of availability. It’s salads like this that make a nation great. No frou-frou Eurotrash shrubbery that’ll wilt if you look at it the wrong way — just good hefty romaine, cabbage, crispy bacon, rosemary-dusted ham, avocado, Roquefort cheese and devilled egg.

For mains, I picked jerk marlin with a tropical fruit salad, homemade coconut corn bread and candied yams ($16). Magnificent with a jerk spicing that had a slow-building heat, it’s like a tropical sunrise that takes its time to unleash its subtle powers. Paired with the sweetness of the yams and the cool bites of mango and pineapple, it was like my tastebuds were shooting the breeze in a hammock strung between palm trees on a secluded beach.

Peaches opted for the unbelievably good cumin-crusted rack of lamb with a wonderfully creamy mushroom and roasted red pepper risotto ($16). Lamb was perfectly cooked to that pinkish hue that all lamb lovers covet and the addition of a kumquat reduction for dipping lent a sweetness to the savoury meat.

A homemade dessert called a Boston Mini ($7) built from sponge cake layered with vanilla bean custard and topped with strawberries and chocolate sauce was a great finale. I would’ve like the sponge cake a touch lighter and the chocolate sauce warmer, but why quibble with such trivial matters when this is awe-inspiring grub-rustling for the 21st century.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Cooking finesse without being fussy, and creative without losing the comfort factor.

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

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Ling Zheng and her staff create the food they want to cook for friends and family

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Server Andrew Beatty with cumin chili-crusted rack of lamb and a bowl of Prohibition Punch at Grub restaurant . Photograph by : Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun

– GRUB

Overall: 4

Food: 4

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $$

4328 Main St., 604-876-8671

Open for dinner, Tuesday to Sunday

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

– – –

This busy ribbon of urban life is reclaiming its name. On the food front, Main Street is busting out with some of the nicest little places and good value ones at that.

Grub is the latest to slip into that category. No. Correction. It offers great value. The food is devilishly tempting, you leave well-fed and, at the end of dinner, your bill will surprise you. (In a good way.)

When I mention the generous portions to owner/chef Ling Zheng on the phone, she makes me laugh. “It’s a Chinese thing. I’m so afraid people won’t be full. I’m sick and tired of going to places and getting home and having to order take-out. I’m amazed, though, at how much people eat. They’ll go through three courses and that’s just how it should be.”

Well, lemme tell you, I was full, Ling. Very full as I left, tail wagging, doggy bag in hand. My six-foot-tall husband was, too.

Grub has been open for a month or so. The music’s great — indie rock, mostly. The cow print wallpaper along one wall looks like nursery room sweetness, but a closer look tips it into adult whimsy. The Calder-like mobile was made by friends of her father. At some point during your meal, you’ll see a server ferrying a punch in a bowl to a table. Grub has resurrected old-fashioned punch, but Zheng had to resort to urban archeology to find punch bowls with hanging cups. She finally found a whole bunch in a box, languishing in the back room of a Salvation Army store. They didn’t have the hanging half-handles she wished for, but still, they’re punch cups.

When I first walked into Grub, the menu got me all excited. The name Grub fits — the food is bistro-style spun out with flair. Entrées are well under $20 and I’d recommend sharing an antipasto plate to start ($13 to $15). Zheng and her cooks in the kitchen are quick-change artists; entrées are here, then gone so fast they’re written on erasable chalkboard (which, by the way, is hard to read from some angles). The printed menu features sharing appetizers and pizzas. I wanted to try everything, but settled on a dish that seemed to have “everything.” The seafood sharing platter is a big plate of salmon gravlax, seafood ceviche (squid and clams) and smoke trout brandade. I just loved the latter. My entrée, Alaska cod with roasted yam, had a bright contrast of mango, strawberry and celery salad (and lots of it). My husband dug into his ancho pepper rubbed pork shoulder with eggplant and chickpea stew with gusto. A fruit cobbler nearly burnt my mouth, but upon cooling was a pleasant, mom-made kind of dessert.

On a return visit, we dug into the colourful vegetarian platter with ratatouille, pickled red cabbage, pickled curry cauliflower, marinated mushrooms, hummus, vegetarian paté, bocconcini and olives. It was a really good mix of flavours and textures. (Thanks to a couple of vegetarian cooks, there’s always vegetarian and vegan options on the chalkboard.)

Duck confit was fall-apart tender and served with sausage and “been” ragout; a thin-crust pizza with sopressata (dry-cured sausage), lamb sausage, rapini, garlic and crushed chili, for $12, was rustic and once, again, generous, filling up the plate. For dessert, a lemon brulée tart.

The kitchen’s hoping not to repeat dishes as they keep switching up the chalkboard.

Other dishes have included: braised pork shoulder with anise, rock sugar, lemon grass with mango and sweet potato stew (Zheng’s mother’s specialty); butternut squash ricotta frittata with spinach dumplings and roasted red pepper sauce; empanada with roasted mushrooms, olives and goat cheese; and roasted eggplant and tomato stew with soft polenta (vegan).

“We’re creating a place and food we like to cook for our friends and family,” Zheng says. “My staff and I think and talk about what we want to eat.” As it turns out, it’s what I want to eat, too.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008