Brick-walled eatery is barbellshaped. If I were a server, I’d wear rollerblades

Mia Stainsby
Sun

The name of this place, Plan B, immediately makes you wonder — so what happened to Plan A?

Owner Glenn Cormier doesn’t see Plan B as second rate at all, at all, at all. He went with the name when he didn’t score the first venue he’d wanted. When the Homer Street building came up — aha! Plan B.

“To me, Plan B often turns out to be the better way to go, in hindsight,” Cormier says. “It’s often the best choice. I’ve always seen it as positive. But I’m told Plan B is also the name of a morning after pill.”

I’m reminded of an interesting item on the Plan B menu, which gives a sense of chef Ryan Zuvich’s imaginative cooking. It’s a tempura egg yolk, an accompaniment to duck confit and beluga lentil. He takes an egg yolk, freezes it, then dips it in tempura batter and deepfries it to the point where the yolk is still runny. He perches it atop the duck and when you cut into the egg, it oozes over the duck, like a sauce.

Or, so it was supposed to but my egg was over-cooked and thus, did not ooze. But being an egg person, I like the egg yolk sauce idea a lot.

Zuvich was previously chef de cuisine at Bin 942, which Cormier says is “a bit of a thorn in his side” as everyone expects Bin food. “Ryan really wants to step out from the shadow of Gord Martin.”

Well, I don’t know. What’s wrong with being compared to Gord Martin?

Plan B’s menu features sharing dishes, the way of Yaletown social bees. They cost $9 to $19 and like Bin food, it can be seductive; it’s certainly not shy and often comes with added value.

Smoked ham hock and green pea soup, for example, comes with a small croque monsieur. A dramatically presented Alaskan black cod is paired with maple butternut squash ravioli, black trumpet mushroom salad, and beurre blanc.

A tower of beef striploin tournedos, green bean potato tian, beef and buttermilk onion rings and Madeira glaze worked, even though I find skyscraper food annoying as it must come tumbling down.

A lamb rack with celeriac purée, roast sweet potato and eggplant featured juicy lamb; a decorative cumin sugar globe seemed like an unnecessary intrusion on the plate. Pan-fried oysters are teamed with butter-poached lobster (lots of lobster, albeit slightly rubbery).

I tried a couple of desserts — grapefruit terrine set with champagne and coriander (tiny cubes of it), served with honey goat cheese gelato (tasty); the lemon tart was a nice balance of creamy and tart.

The tapas dishes add up to more than a few bites. Our server suggested a couple of dishes each and we felt she was under-selling but for moderate appetites, it would have been just fine.

The brick-walled room is barbell- shaped, starting with a small collection of tables, then cinches into a pencil-thin runway bar and opens up to another dining area at the back. In effect, it runs from Homer to Hamilton Streets like a train and it’s hard to work up a cohesive vibe as the sections are isolated. And if I were a server, I’d wear rollerblades.

– – –

PLAN B LOUNGE AND EATERY

Overall: 3 1/2

Food: 3 1/2

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $$

1144 Homer St., 604-609-7001, www.planblounge.com

Open Monday to Saturday, from 5 p.m.

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

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

REVIEW – Chefs work magic with vegetables and staff know their stuff at this refined spot

Mia Stainsby
Sun

If there’s anything to lament about living in a great restaurant city, it’s this: You can get so focused on keeping up with the brand new places, others are left in the dust of your gastro travels.

After years of neglect, I returned to Raincity Grill recently; chefs had come and gone, nations had risen and fallen in the interim.

What I like about Raincity is its focus on food and service. It’s not part of the stampede to be hip and, in fact, it looks its age. At 15, many restaurants are approaching retirement but Raincity has aged gracefully. No extreme makeover. No nip, no tuck. Instead, it’s an intelligent, comfortable fit for the ‘mature’ diner interested in a quiet, lovely dinner out. Impeccable food, leadership in running a green restaurant and experienced service are its hallmarks.

Quelle surprise when I ask how a dish is prepared or what wine might go with what. The answer’s right there, with confidence, not (as often happens) a promise to “check with the kitchen,” then forgetting to get back to you. Servers oughtta know that a diner who asks a lot of questions might very well be a food critic.

On one visit, a waiter (Mark Taylor, I’m told, who’s been there since the restaurant opened) knew how certain textures were achieved, how flavours were manipulated, and the origin of the wheat for the flour that went into the delicious bread (Vancouver Island). That, I’d call seasoned service.

I was very curious about Raincity’s five-course 100-Mile Tasting Menu ($62) where all ingredients except the salt is local. The canola oil, they admit is from the Prairies. I was impressed with what’s possible. There are suggested wine matches and Garry Oaks, Venturi-Schulze and Averill Creek offer great selections from within the 100-mile radius.

Chef Peter Robertson, who’s done a stage at England‘s Fat Duck (once named the best restaurant in the world) has nothing but solutions to the limitations of local, local, local, both on the tasting and regular menu.

Yes, vegetables aren’t abundant in winter. So what? He gives new meanings to root vegetables. Celeriac, served with Polderside chicken, is hay-baked. First, it’s covered in a pastry shell, then covered in hay, then steam baked. Once cracked out of the pastry shell (which keeps it moist), the celeriac is puréed into a creamy, aromatic side dish.

A whipping cream canister is commandeered to perform magic on vegetables. Mashed potatoes, mixed with mascarpone, put through the canister, transforms the heavy potato into something soft and mousse-like; speaking of mousse, the mushroom mousse served with the Bayne Sound scallops is ethereal. And I’ve never before raved about onions but I love the “onion fondue” served with mushroom tagliatelle on the a la carte menu. That whole pasta dish is wonderful.

The tasting menu dessert is a burnt fireweed honey custard, set in an emptied eggshell. Local honey is recruited for sweetening and, molecular gastronomer at heart, Robertson turns honey and oil into “honey caviar” to serve on the side along with a smear of fromage frais. (Smears, you oughtta know, are showing up a lot on plates lately. It looks like someone’s stepped on it and slipped.)

As it turns out, the à la carte menu is pretty local, too. About 80 per cent of ingredients are from the 100-mile zone. As far as the savouries go, there aren’t many mis-steps. Dishes are rarely overly oily and flavour essences are clean and clear. A butternut squash soup is beautifully creamy; the kitchen cannot shake itself of the grilled Caesar salad that’s been on the menu since Day 1 but I like it; Polderside duck breast with braised black lentils, a collection of perfectly roasted root vegetables and glassy duck jus is delicious.

Desserts, though, don’t have a similar degree of refinement. A molten chocolate cake wasn’t exactly molten and it was over-shadowed by an enormous dollop of squash mousse next to it. Anjou pear mouse with cranberry granita was bland. I did, however, love that honey custard with honey caviar and fromage frais.

As for the wines, the restaurant has won several awards as has sommelier Brent Hayman. He’ll guide you through the wine list, which requires heavy lifting.

– – –

RAINCITY GRILL

Overall: 4

Food: 4 1/2

Ambience: 4

Service: 4

Price: $$$

1193 Denman St., 604-685-7337, www.raincitygrill.com

Open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Friday; brunch and dinner, Saturday and Sunday.

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

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Fresh ingredients, generous portions and good prices

Mark Laba
Province

HACHI SUSHI

Where: 2255 W. 41st Ave.

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-263-1877

There’s art for art’s sake, art for the sake of sofas, art as some kind of psychological therapy and then there’s art that embodies all three. So you can keep your Jackson Pollocks, your Renoirs, Rembrandts and Picassos. Just give me a giant octopus wall mural, part painting, part sculptural 3-D, tentacles hovering menacingly near my head while I scarf down my sushi. This masterpiece embraces both pure art and art that would enhance any interior and on a therapeutic level if you have a fear of giant cephalopods (apparently some people do), you can work through that, too.

Paid a visit with pal Odin Warble, who’s trying to patent his environmentally friendly squid-ink pen.

“But don’t you have to kill the squid to get the ink?” I asked. “Where’s the enviro-friendly part?”

“Yeah, but then you turn them into calamari and it’s all part of the great food chain.”

“I think somebody’s pulling somebody’s chain and I don’t see any food involved.”

“Talking about food chains, look at that giant octopus,” Warble nodded at the wall art. “Looks like what Captain Nemo sees after a 40-ouncer of bourbon.”

We took a seat under its undulating frame and surveyed the room. Pale-wood chairs with an Asian-design motif, Japanese woodblock-style paintings on the wall opposite the octopus, all culminating in a kind of perfunctory but comforting interior with a hint of the nautical.

This isn’t tastebud-tsunami sushi, but it’s fresh and generous and some of the creations are truly inspiring. A daily special known obliquely as the CK Roll ($4.95) was built of prawn, crab and tobiko, wrapped in seaweed and light tempura batter before being deep-fried. Each ingredient somehow retained its flavour after its burbling bath in hot oil and sat upright like attentive little dumplings, prawn tails sticking out like little buoys in a tempura sea.

I was also impressed with the barbecued eel-pressed sushi ($7.95), the rice packed firmly and the eel flesh succulent, smoky and sweet. Eel is one of those creatures that if I think too much about their slithering bodies, I lose my appetite pretty quickly, but you could’ve slapped me silly with this eel flesh and I wouldn’t have lost a beat chewing.

We also sampled the House Special Roll ($5 for half a roll, $9.95 for a whole) with tuna, salmon, ebi, crab cake, cucumber and lettuce, which is a formidable lineup but it all worked harmoniously although I ran amok with the wasabi and got a kick in the culinary groin, so to speak.

It would’ve been unpatriotic of us not to try the Vancouver Roll ($5.50 for half a roll, $10.50 for a whole), which is essentially a California Roll wearing a toupée of smoked salmon. It was OK, as was the Prawn Dynamite Roll ($3.75), which I surmised to be savoury the way Odin Warble was going at the thing like a woodchuck in an Ikea factory.

The menu is as vast as the sea between here and Japan, but look for some of the great daily specials, like the sashimi plate for $9.95. Prices are truly cheap and the assorted sushi combos offer both great value and selection.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Fresh slabs of fish for refreshing prices.

RATINGS: Food: B+; Service: B; Atmosphere: B

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Restaurant has transplanted itself from Cambie Street to Kitsilano. Its new location is airy, roomy, modern and inviting

Mia Stainsby
Sun

The allure of the original Tomato Cafe, when it was on Cambie Street, was that it was like a launching pad to another time and place — Pleasantville, circa 1955, perhaps.

It had this funky, retro diner appeal and was comfortingly old-fashioned, a perfect setting for breakfast or brunch. Dinners went mostly organic and it fit the neighbourhood gestalt.

But the restaurant made a break for it last June with the Canada Line chewing up Cambie. Lunches had been affected; dinner, not so much. So, when Mark James — owner of the new Bayswater Street space –approached, offering his old Fiasco restaurant space, Tomato decided to uproot and transplant.

So, how did a move to Kitsilano translate with new neighbours, new demographics and no history there? It’s definitely busy, especially for weekend brunches. The evenings, too, attract a wide demographic, including families. I prefer the character of the old Cambie Street diner, but I’m a sucker for places with character. The new location is airy, roomy, modern and inviting with a cleaner, leaner feel. Bright red splashes of paint allude to its name.

(At the old location, Dadeo New Orleans Diner and Bar is serving Cajun and Creole food and I’m sad to say, the charm has utterly vanished.)

Christian Gaudrault still owns the Tomato (original owner Diane Clement sold it years ago) and James Campbell changes up the menu seasonally. It’s bistro-style fare featuring fresh, quality ingredients. The bouillabaise has long been a customer favourite and despite the name of the restaurant, Campbell goes easy on tomatoes and it’s for the good in this dish. The broth is tinged with saffron and just enough tomatoes to put a blush in the colour.

Generally, Campbell does a good job. Scallops hadn’t been cooked beyond the point of no return — it still jiggled. Almond and sage-crusted lamb sirloin with fig jus was juicy and tasty. A shaved beet and arugula salad was perkily fresh but not so, the crabcakes which were somewhat mushy. A roasted chicken breast didn’t thrill — the chicken didn’t sing with flavour. Arctic char with tomato, garlic and anchovy fettucine, a special one evening, featured very nice fish but it was overburdened with too much frying oil. Wines are mid-range and a mixed bag from around the world.

The comfort desserts are satisfying. A cherry galette was a burst of slightly sour cherries; white chocolate creme brulée was velvety and rich; but the lemon meringue tart could have been slightly more lemony.

And for brunch, I’ve noted the eggs have great flavour — which is something to crow about and judging by the busy weekends, many do.

– – – TOMATO FRESH FOOD CAFE

Overall: 3 1/2

Food: 3 1/2

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price $/$$

2486 Bayswater St., 604-874-6020, www.tomatofreshfoodcafe.com

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

 

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Taking tastebuds for a sleigh ride

Mark Laba
Province

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening, banker’s lips are glistening, a beautiful sight, credit limits take flight, shopping in a winter wonderland. But that’s just my cynicism talking and truly Christmas is more than that. It’s also about family dysfunction at holiday functions, roasting chestnuts in a microwave (wear a motorcycle helmet if you try this), reindeer hauling ass before Santa corrals them and makes them pull his fat flesh across the country and, of course, eating until even your

La-Z-Boy recliner groans under your weight. So here’s some picks for Christmas dinner festivities to save you the trouble of cooking.

Memphis Blues Barbecue House

Have yourself an Elvis Christmas and chow down on some of the food that made the King the King. This take-home feast will have you stretching the seams of your sequined pant suit as you enjoy all the usual pulled pork, beef brisket, rib end, and other smoked treats that come with the Elvis or the really massive Priscilla Platter. But they’ll also smoke you a 16-lb free-range turkey for $65.

Enough food to feed a horde of shopping-mall Santas who’ve been gazing into the fluorescent bowels of a food court all day long, stomachs growling.

1342 Commercial Dr., 604-215-2599; 1465 W. Broadway, 604-738-6806; 1629 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, 604-929-3699; 289 Bernard St., Kelowna, 250-868-3699

The William Tell Restaurant

An elegant establishment that makes dining as exciting as having a crossbow fired at your noggin. Well, not really, but the dining is as classic as the story and on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the restaurant is offering a three-themed option culinary experience.

First is The Canadian, with Fraser Valley roasted turkey, apple-and-sage dressing, plus an appetizer, soup and dessert. Or there’s The Westcoast with an ahi-tuna tartar starter, then a mussel-and-saffron velouté, followed by Salmon Wellington, or hit The Swiss with a gruyere-cheese soufflé, chestnut soup and then roasted tenderloin of Angus beef with a wild-mushroom Madeira sauce and spatzli and chocolate terrine for dessert. Priced $44.50, $54.50 and $64.50 respectively, a good deal for such beautifully prepared food.

765 Beatty St., Vancouver, 604-688-3504

Hart House Restaurant

This place oozes Christmas spirit like your Uncle Floyd around the rum-and-eggnog punchbowl. It’s a Dickens setting for the famed Christmas Day dinner with plenty of seatings to squeeze in you and your family. $55 per person gets you a great lineup of selections.

Starters of roasted butternut-squash soup with candied hazelnuts and cinnamon crème fraîche, or organic greens with macerated sour-cherry-and-vanilla vinaigrette. Don’t let the macerating scare you off. Then pick from roasted turkey with fixings, baked pork loin with roast potatoes, brussel sprouts and double-smoked bacon or seared lingcod with some fancy veggie concoctions. End it all with bread pudding and vanilla gelato, or chocolate Guiness cake and then take a walk along the shore of Deer Lake where you can waddle with the geese.

6664 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby, 604-298-4278

Pan Pacific

Go big or go home seems to be the philosophy of this waterfront landmark, and if the five architectural sails jutting into the skyline don’t prove the point, the variety of festivities occurring kind of reinforce this frame of mind. But the big draw is the ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Buffet on Dec. 24 between 5-10 p.m. where they pull out all the stops when it comes to edible temptations. Ranging from baked Lobster Thermador with bay scallops, snow crab and mushrooms, to New York steaks with wild-mushroom sauce, the traditional turkey shindig to vast salad, charcuterie and soup selections. The evening isn’t complete until you run amok through the decadent dessert table. $95 per person, which may seem steep but worth the price for the variety of dishes.

Pan Pacific Hotel, 999 Canada Place, Vancouver, 604-891-2555

Sonoma Grill

Once an Austrian restaurant, the architecture remains the same comforting theme but the menu, like the Napa Valley-inspired name, proves to have some tricks up its culinary sleeve. Nevertheless, you don’t screw with Christmas and the classic Christmas Day dinner here should prove to be most pleasing. Two seatings at 4 and 6:30 p.m. and at $37.95 per person, it’s an offer you can’t refuse. Choose from butternut-squash soup, mixed greens with avocado vinaigrette or a Caesar salad before laying into either roasted prime rib with Yorkshire pudding and garlic mashed ‘taters, roast turkey with all the fixings, Schnitzel Cordon Bleu or pesto penne with roasted seasonal veggies. Finish it off with triple-layer chocolate cake, pumpkin pie or New York cheesecake, enjoy a candy-cane martini and you’ll be decking your belly with boughs of tastes.

20598 Fraser Hwy., Langley, 604-534-2104

La Belle Auberge

This place is as classy as Charles Boyer’s cufflinks. I’m not even sure what that means but its sounds French, which is good enough for me. A 100-year-old Victorian house is the setting for this fantastic Christmas Day feast starting with assorted canapés to get the tastebuds fired up. Then it’s lobster bisque and then various entrée options, like braised beef shortrib with tomato confit, traditional turkey dinner, roasted bison loin with green peppercorn sauce or a Pacific seafood medley with a little Pernod and fine herbs for inspiration. Priced in the $49-$54 range depending on what you pick, all dishes are served with fresh veggies and finished with Parisienne chocolate mousse with frozen orange parfait.

4856 48th Ave., Ladner, 604-946-7717

Raincity Grill

This always elegant joint with its great showcase of locally sourced ingredients is putting on a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner for $59 per person. Start with tempura Fanny Bay oysters and then an appetizer selection with entries like butternut-squash soup with Dungeness crab and Agassiz hazelnut, rillette and parfait of Fraser Valley duck or seared Bayne Sound scallop with a leg of Polderside chicken. Mains include grilled shoulder of lamb, beef striploin with sautéed spinach and mushroom ragout or seared Pacific wild salmon with applewood-smoked bacon sauce. Desserts are inspiring from the Fireweed honey crème brulée to molten-chocolate pudding to apple tarte tatin.

1193 Denman St., Vancouver, 604-685-7337

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Cactus Club founder Scott Morison wants to encourage young investors on staff

Michael Kane
Sun

When he was building the Cactus Club Cafe chain, restaurateur Scott Morison confesses he was “very great at being greedy. I woke up every morning and it was like, ‘What can I do for me.’ “

Today he’s still opening new restaurants — the latest is Pinkys, the first steakhouse in Yaletown — but he wakes up each day more interested in creating success for other people.

“It’s a different money model that I call the ’10, 20, 30 plan’,” Morison said in an interview. “In 10 years, I want to create 10 millionaires, in 20 years 20 millionaires, and in 30 years, 30 millionaires.”

If all goes to plan, those millionaires will be young people in his business who have the heart and drive to succeed as co-owners of his restaurants.

In the case of Pinkys, which officially opens on Monday, general manager Todd Hann has one year to buy 50 per cent of the operation at cost. If the concept succeeds, Hann may find he can borrow the money from the bank on the strength of the restaurant’s cash flow.

But what hope is there for a steakhouse called Pinkys? Morison’s colleagues insist they love the name, which is derived from a traditional steakhouse called The Pink Pony in Old Scottsdale, Ariz.

Some believe Pinkys will appeal to women who may be turned off by the high-priced, big, dark room format of the traditional steakhouse. With its modest footprint of less than 3,000 square feet, prices to match a range of pocketbooks, and a casual, comfortable design by 27-year-old Jillian Harris, fuelled by upbeat lighting and music, Pinkys is not your classic carnivore castle.

Others say the name Pinkys evokes images of a roguish rum runner from the Prohibition era. You just know a guy like that would want steak on the side.

Morison confesses to second thoughts about the name at one stage when he suggested Morison’s Steakhouse would sound more masculine. “But the staff rebelled and it got very personal. All these people that I barely knew said, ‘No, you’re calling it Pinkys because we love that name.’ “

Morison didn’t get to be a wealthy entrepreneur without listening to his staff, although he recalls that by 2003, after 15 years of building Cactus Club, he no longer recognized his staff and was weary of watching multiple locations morph into cookie-cutter big -box restaurants.

Around the time he married his long-time girlfriend, Elizabeth, he realized he hadn’t been growing as a person, sold his shares to his long-time partners and mentors at Earls Restaurants, and walked away.

About nine months later he opened Browns, an anti-big box casual restaurant on Lonsdale in North Vancouver where he could see the front door from anywhere in the house.

“I call it the white-eye concept,” said Morison, 42. “When the manager stands in the room he should be able to see the whites of everyone’s eyes — customers, staff, kitchen, everyone.”

In addition to occupying less than half the floor space of an Earls or Cactus Club, Browns launched the idea of a chain where each outlet is tailored to its community and reflects the individuality of its owner-manager.

Currently there are four Browns with two more opening in late February and early March, about the time a second Pinkys is scheduled to open in Kitsilano.

Morison, meanwhile, owns the brands while enjoying “fresh adventures” designing and opening new locations, developing menus and choosing wines, working with staff, looking after customers, and once again growing as a person.

SCOTT MORISON’S CULINARY CAREER

1979 — 14-year-old dishwasher at Husky’s Car and Truck Stop in Winnipeg.

1981 — Two-year culinary program at B.C. Institute of Technology.

1986 — Leaves Earls Restaurants where he has been working as a server and manager to open Cucamongas on West Broadway with business partner Richard Jaffray.

1988 — Sells Cucamongas and partners with Earls to launch the first Cactus Club Cafe on Pemberton Avenue in North Vancouver. He and Jaffray provide the “sweat equity.”

2003 — Sells stake in Cactus Club after helping it grow into a 15-restaurant chain in B.C. with two more outlets in Calgary.

2004 — Opens first “mid-size format” Browns restaurant on North Vancouver‘s Lonsdale Avenue with operating partner Derek Archer.

2007 — Opens first Pinkys Steakhouse and Cocktail Lounge in Yaletown.

 

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Restaurant has charm, is inviting and places importance in the details, which makes up for some of the misses in the kitchen

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Look way up to the ceiling for a Lilliputian moment. The light fixtures are cone-shaped coils of incense made for giants.

These fixtures at Okra Asian Bistro, I learn, are made with temple incense, offerings to larger-than-life Buddhas. “I won’t light them,” laughs Okra owner Joe Kwan, imagining nothing but smoked food at his restaurant.

Judging by the large wooden Buddha sculpture in the window, the emphatic incense, Kwan’s gracious manner and gentle music that tends toward Moby, Sting and Enya, Okra does have hints of templedom. But that is not to say the menu is Buddhist-based vegetarian — it abounds in meat, poultry and seafood.

Chinese/Malaysian restaurant called Okra has only an appetizer dedicated to its name and it isn’t cooked within an inch of its life as it often is. The kitchen marinates it in Asian spices then grills it with garlic butter, retaining a pleasant crunch.

Kwan’s been in the restaurant business for some 20 years — the Vancouver years were spent as manager of Landmark Hotpot House, Tropika and Banana Leaf restaurants. At Okra, the pan-Asian food is Westernized, notably in presentation and in the single servings.

Okra is yet another sign of the upwardly mobile Lonsdale landscape, a spin-off from the developing waterfront. Restaurants that feel more downtown than suburban are feeling their way onto the strip. Deuce, a couple of blocks away, also brought a dash of downtown cool to the neighbourhood with its stripped-down modern look and tapas cuisine.

Although Okra’s menu has the traditional appetizers and entrées, all the dishes can be shared. And prices are inviting, with entrées hovering around the $10 mark although portions are smaller than usual. The most expensive — Alaskan king crab legs — are $20. In the kitchen, one of the cooks has worked at Banana Leaf and brings a Malaysian flair to the menu.

Of the dishes I tried, I was most taken with one called Golden Tofu. I know, I know what you’re thinking, but this dish has the heft of a meat dish. The chef starts with a block of tofu, scoops a semi-circle off the top, deep-fries it to golden and fills the indentation with a spicy mix of shredded cucumber and bean sprouts.

Kung pao chicken delivered lots of flavour; mango and basil tiger prawns featured large, moist prawns; Hokkien fried rice noodles were a loosely and neatly-tossed mound, not a dense tangle.

I wasn’t, however, enthralled with an overly sour stir-fried ginger beef; the spicy seafood soup, with prawns, mussels and clams was a challenge — it was screaming hot, made even hotter by incendiary bits of chili. Being a green mango salad fan, I happily ordered the dish but was disappointed to find a surfeit of green peppers muscling out the mango.

Desserts didn’t electrify but were competently prepared. Deep-fried bananas were served with fruit and chocolate syrup. A coconut pandan leaf crepe with coconut filling didn’t enthrall. I noticed a decent selection of beers and some good-value wines by the bottle.

Okra has charm, it’s very inviting and places importance in the details like the live orchids and take-home bags closed with an origami fold. It makes up for some of the misses in the kitchen.

– – –

OKRA ASIAN BISTRO

1440 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, 604-990-0330

Overall: 3 1/2

Food: 3

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $/$$

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

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Garden Terrace and the Chartwell make way for gorgeous space that is very Vancouver

Joanne Sasvari
Sun

Let’s see, what shall it be?

Perhaps a flight of vodka at the raw bar. Or maybe one of the 150 wines available by the glass. Or how about a handcrafted cocktail and some divine nibbles to go with it?

As food and beverage director Marco Ciraulo says of the Four Seasons’ new restaurant-bar-lounge, Yew: “It’s not necessarily the typical hotel lounge where you sit and sip your tea.”

Six months ago, even the Four Seasons’ most loyal customers would have had to admit that the old Garden Terrace was past its prime. So the hotel began a massive renovation designed to create a whole new concept in drinking and dining.

This week, Yew Restaurant & Bar opened its doors, and one thing is immediately clear — this is a great place to go for a drink.

Gone is the ladylike but cavernous Garden Terrace. Gone is the cosy but tiny lounge off to the side. And gone, too, is the old-fashioned Chartwell.

In their place is a gorgeous, soaring space with spare lines and rich, natural materials.

A huge fireplace separates the lounge and restaurant. And what a lounge it is — sexy banquettes and a wine cellar where the old lounge used to be, along with high-top tables, a graceful granite-and-alder bar and, across the room, the sleek raw bar.

It’s all very “international big city” — but also very Vancouver.

“It was very important for me to have a very urban lifestyle here, but with a West Coast influence,” Ciraulo says.

Yew looks great, but even more important is the skill behind the bar.

“The idea was to have a lot of hand-crafted cocktails done with love,” Ciraulo says. “We took a lot of the classic drinks and gave them a little twist and modified that to our style. Some of the drinks are shaken, some are stirred, some are rolled and some are muddled, so we have every style.”

The bar staff have been training for weeks, says restaurant manager Jeff Hanson, adding that their energy, enthusiasm and knowledge of cocktail culture are as important as their mixing skills.

And, he adds, “One thing that’s really going to surprise people is, first of all, we’re not the expensive place.”

After all, they want people to visit Yew every day, not just on special occasions.

“We don’t want to be pretentious, we don’t want to be complicated, but at the same time we don’t want to be simple,” Ciraulo says. “We want to be Yew Restaurant.”

– Yew Restaurant & Bar is located at the Four Seasons Hotel, 791 West Georgia St., 604-692-4939, www.fourseasons.com/vancouver.

– – –

RECIPES

Here are two cocktails from Yew Restaurant & Bar.

Navan Fizz

3/4 oz Navan vanilla liqueur

1/4 oz cream sherry

1/2 oz fresh sweet and sour mix (see note )

1/2 oz applesauce

Dash pasteurized egg white

Champagne

Rim a chilled cocktail glass with cinnamon sugar. Pour all ingredients except champagne into a cocktail shaker and shake well. Gently add a little champagne to shaker and strain into cocktail glass — this will keep the drink from foaming over, but will preserve the bubbles. Top with more champagne. Garnish with an orange twist. Serves 1.

Note: To make sweet and sour mix, combine 1 part heavy sugar syrup (3 parts sugar, 2 parts water, boiled until thick and allowed to cool) with 1 part lemon juice.

Cafe A La Pistachio

1 oz Mount Gay rum

1 oz Kahlua coffee liqueur

1 oz heavy cream (butterfat content of 36 to 40 per cent)

1/2 oz Amoretti pistachio syrup (available in Italian markets)

Rim a chilled cocktail glass with finely chopped pistachios. Drizzle chocolate syrup down insides of glass to create an attractive pattern. Pour rum, Kahlua, cream and syrup into a cocktail shaker and shake well. Pour into glass. Serves 1.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Cambie Street shop is small and friendly enough to tailor some offerings to customers’ cravings

Mia Stainsby
Sun

One cannot wish damaged legs and torn ligaments upon anyone, let alone a sweet and talented woman, but if it were not for a calamitous ski accident, Kaeko Kanno wouldn’t have set up this delectable little shop on Cambie Street.

She wouldn’t have brought blueberry tarragon tarts, poached pear frangipane cakes, Earl Grey chocolate mousse, blueberry ricotta mousse or any of her artfully made delicious pastries to the masses. She would have been working as a pastry chef for some large hotel delighting the palates at weddings and conventions and hotel diners.

Kanno last worked at Senses Bakery before it closed down for the Georgia Hotel redevelopment. Senses, under the consulting sensibilities of Thomas Haas, was where downtowners went for amazing pastries, chocolates and baking.

After a year of rehabilitating her leg, Kanno opened Kreation to gear down, slow her pace and stop lugging industrial-sized tubs of ingredients and equipment around on a daily basis. Lucky Cambie neighbourhood!

Kreation is a family business with husband, kids and friends pitching in. It’s small and friendly enough to tailor to her customers. An Australian, for example, was homesick for Lamington cake (a sponge cake, dipped in chocolate, coated in coconut) so she made some and now, a drove of Australians wend their way there.

Another wanted angel food cake. Ever the tweaker and creator, Kanno made it a green tea chestnut angel food cake. Those who buy her blueberry ricotta mousse cake will be shocked at the dark purple inside the pristine the white ricotta mousse.

Her offerings cover both French and American styles; the latter includes down-home cupcakes, cheesecake and for those with wheat allergies, brownies made with rice flour. Everything’s made in individual portions and cost $3.75 to $5. She does wedding and other cakes, too.

Holiday hours are 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., seven days a week. After Christmas, she’ll go back to the 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and close on Mondays.

– – – KREATION

3357 Cambie St., 604-871-9119, www.kreationartisancake.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Incense and carpets amp up this eatery’s ambience

Mark Laba
Province

It’s a good thing I was just a kid during the ’60s because I would never have made a good hippie. At 10 I watched Flower Power bloom, but Mr. Spock was more my speed. Even if I had been older I think I would’ve failed miserably at the whole thing. Free love is like a free lunch to me — somehow I’d be looking for the hidden cost. Incense still makes my lungs feel like I’ve been working in a New Age coal mine, and getting in touch with my feelings would’ve meant smoking pot and eating a bag of cookies.

Which brings me to East Is East. Why would I even entertain thoughts of entering an eatery that seems to embrace all those aforementioned elements that I find so nerve-wracking? I wear my spirituality on my sleeve and that sleeve is gabardine. The last time I had a religious epiphany was when a nickel slot machine in Las Vegas spit me out $63 into a plastic cup that advertised the casino’s all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet.

But hippie culture has always held fast, like a barnacle to the small crags and crannies of the Vancouver scene, as I once ascertained from the hand-drumming circle on the front lawn of my apartment at three in the morning, the drummers reaching deep to tap at the primal roots of their indigenous suburban roots. And the older breed now discreetly park their SUVs a block away from Banyan Sound before shopping for their whale bleats and Inuit throat-singing CDs that go well with a Napa Valley pinot gris and Cowichan Valley goose-liver parfait back in their split-level faux Santa Fe-style Kits condos.

Which leads me back to this establishment. I went anyway. The interior is quite striking and reminds me of some of the places Peaches and I hung out in in Turkey. Carpets line the walls and floor; the odd tree-stump table is the perfect height when you have to scrunch down on a pillow, though you’ll probably end up eating off your lap; the lighting is dim enough that you can’t see your dining companion’s pimples; there’s incense burning; and all in all, it’s like an opium den gone wild.

“Eastern organic living” is their motto, but I was disappointed not to find any yak butter. Still, the chai was good and hot, albeit insanely spicy, and a sampling of roti rolls was not altogether unpleasant. But at $8.50 each I was amazed at the small size. I sampled the Mughal with roasted masala chicken, the Afghan Nomad with lamb kebab in a garlic onion sauce, and the Bombay Masala with chickpeas and cauliflower. I found the spicing to be rather sweet for all three and the Bombay shindig had a hint of too much something that gave it a pungency as dusky as a dip in the Ganges at sunset near a burning ghat.

A better choice is one of the complete thali plates, which feature a bit of everything from veggie to meat to seafood curries, but price-wise are too steep at 15 to 17 smackers. The Broadway location ( 3243 W. Broadway) is larger, with live music most evenings, and the servers are pleasant, bestowing an ethereal benevolence even as they work the cash register. As for me, I sent my dusty chakras out for dry cleaning ages ago, lost the stub and haven’t been able to claim them since.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Patchouli mixes with Paco Rabanne as New Agers, hippies and hipsters mingle in the lotus position.

RATINGS: Food: B- Service: B- Atmosphere: B

REVIEW

East Is East

Where: 4413 Main St., Vancouver

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-879-2020

Drinks: Exotic milkshakes, lassis, smoothies and chai

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

© The Vancouver Province 2007