There are plenty of places to get your seasonal food fix

Mark Laba
Province

It’s beginning to cost a lot like Christmas. So, as you deck the halls with boughs of holly and wreaths of shmaltz herring, put out your manger scene and hook up your electronic reindeer that double as a home-defense alarm system (“Back away from the baby Jesus or you will be incinerated”), it’s probably a good time to think about getting your turkey fix with all the fixings. Or ham. Or artfully moulded tofu posing as gobbler meat.

Not to mention tripping out on tryptophan and wandering the streets in your stretch pants, mistletoe stuck to the soles of your shoes.

A few more glasses of rum-spiked eggnog under your loosened belt and you’ll be kissing the neighbour’s dog.

So, maybe getting out to one of these spots is an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure or, in the case of turkey, a pound of prevention and just forget the whole ounce thing altogether.

PAN PACIFIC

When you’ve got a place with five pointy things on the roof, you’re bound to do things big. Although it makes for a dangerous landing spot for Santa and his hoofed team. He’d be better off taking the Hummer and using the valet parking.

Nonetheless, the various Pan Pacific dining venues are offering everything from buffets to Christmas brunches and dinners.

There’s the Santa’s Brunch on Sunday, Dec. 17th and Christmas Eve and there’s also a Twelve Days of Christmas Buffet weekdays.

Christmas Eve has the Five Sails Restaurant putting on a fancypants shindig adding a little foie gras to the traditional roast turkey and fixings. The Cascades Lounge and Cafe Pacifica, as well, have a Christmas Eve buffet with turkey, roast duck, lamb loin and more.

Then there’s a Christmas Night dinner at the Five Sails that runs the gamut from pan-seared quail to beef tenderloin along with more traditional fare.

Honestly, the number of events and options is mind-boggling and, in my case, utterly confusing.

Check out the website www.dinepanpacific.com and click on the Special Event listing or call 604-891-2555 for more info or reservations.

HART HOUSE

If any place visually embodies the classic Christmas ambience with a Charles Dickens bent, this Tudor-style mansion on the shores of Deer Lake is the fulfillment of all of Tiny Tim’s dreams. And at such reasonable prices even Bob Cratchit could afford the buffet or dinner here.

So, it makes sense that until Dec. 22nd there’s the famed Dickens Lunch Buffet at $32 per person. Look for the roasted winter-veggie salad with pumpkin-seed dressing, chilled tiger prawns with horseradish cocktail sauce, baked ham with maple syrup and cinnamon glaze, butternut-squash cannelloni and roast turkey and apple bread stuffing.

Christmas Day offers four seatings at $55 per person or $30 for kids 12 and under, with starters like duck rillette, a choice from three entrees featuring roast turkey with chorizo bread stuffing and fixings, grilled beef tenderloin or ling cod with herb risotto. For dessert, New York cheesecake or chocolate Guinness cake will satiate the ghosts of Christmas past and present.

6664 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby, 604-298-4278, website, www.harthouserestaurant.com

FLEURI RESTAURANT AT SUTTON PLACE

Essentially, it’s hotels that stay open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and you can’t go wrong with the offerings from Fleuri.

The Yuletide Luncheon Buffet runs to the 22nd and has some pretty tasty offerings.

Think roast turkey with apple-sage stuffing, slow-roasted ham or an antipasto platter. $30.50 per person, kids 12 and under, $15.50, and there’s also a Christmas Eve Dinner and Christmas Day brunch and dinner along with a Sunday Festive brunch on the 17th, 24th and the 31st.

An amazing array of items on display to tempt all your senses and trigger your inner glutton.

The Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shindigs sport everything from gobbler and all the trimmings to beef tenderloin and butter-poached prawns to lamb chops or sea bass in a creamy leek sauce.

At $71 per person for a five course Christmas Eve dinner; $76 per person for a five-course Christmas Day dinner extravaganza; and a $57 buffet that’ll fatten you up like a Christmas goose.

845 Burrard St., Vancouver, 604-642-2900 or check the website, www.vancouver.suttonplace.com/Holiday_Festivities.htm

GOBBLER ON THE GO

The above-mentioned Pan Pacific and Fleuri Restaurant both offer take-away turkey dinners with all the fixings.

The Fleuri version throws in an 18-lb. bird with apple-sage stuffing, veggies, cranberry sauce, mashed ‘taters and cranberry cheesecake for $300. Feeds 8-13 people. Call 604-682-5511 ext. 5475 to reserve.

The Pan Pacific turkey take-out also involves a big bird, about 18-20 lbs. Comes complete with Okanagan peach and bread stuffing and all the other stuff plus a choice of dessert from Yule logs to eggnog cheesecake. Must be ordered by Dec. 20th as there are limited quantities, so call 604-891-2555 if interested.

If you’re after a down-south-style Christmas wingding like something Elvis would’ve chowed down on, check out the Memphis Blues Barbecue House’s 15-lb. smoked free- range turkey at $60.

Locations are 1342 Commercial Dr., Vancouver, 604-215-2599; 1465 West Broadway, Vancouver, 604-738-6806; 1629 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, 604-929-3699; 289 Bernard St., Kelowna, 250-868-3699. Throw in some baked beans and marshmallow salad and it’s Christmas at Graceland.

Max’s Deli at 3105 Oak St., Vancouver, 604-733-4838 is dishing up a $150 feast that’ll feed 10-12 people. There’s a 20-lb. turkey with all the right stuff from mashed ‘taters to stuffing to cranberry sauce. Nothing fancy but very tasty.

Hon’s adds a little Chinese influence to your festive season with a $198 special with roast turkey and six side dishes to choose from. It’s like Christmas in Beijing. Check local listings for a Hon’s near you.

Finally, if you’re like me and the whole notion of Yule logs and Jell-O salad moulds, glazed ham rolls and eggnog bowls leaves you out in the cold, rejoice in Kaplan’s Star Deli Hannukah offerings.

Delicious chopped liver, chicken soup with matzoh balls, kreplach, roast turkey and potato latkes. Gives me the strength of Judah and the Maccabees and the energy to spin the dreidel into the wee hours of the morning. Located at 5775 Oak St., 604-263-2625

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

Most stick to the traditional favourites when it comes to cooking for members of their family and friends

Mia Stainsby
Sun

On Dec. 25, in most restaurants, not a creature will stir, not even a mouse. It’s the one day chefs will be home, cooking not for strangers but for people they know. There’ll be none of that duck confit or foie gras or noisettes of anything because they will, it seems, cling to tradition — even if it’s not.

Angus An didn’t celebrate Christmas as a child but, as an adult, he’s a turkey and Brussels sprouts man all the way. (See today’s restaurant section for a review of his exciting new restaurant, Gastropod.)

Like a lot of ambitious young chefs, An travelled and cooked abroad before opening his restaurant. Last Christmas, he and his wife Kate were in Dublin with friends from London. Their Christmas past reveals something about a chef’s Christmas — their dinners come in size XL.

The Dublin dinner included turkey with bread stuffing as well as a lamb roast, roasted Brussels sprouts, Yorkshire pudding, mushroom risotto, parsnips with maple syrup (“A kind of heads up that I’m Canadian,” he says) and green salad, with rice pudding for dessert.

The meal lasted from 3 to 9 p.m. “To be honest, I felt like there should have been more food. It was a whole-day feast,” says An, whose restaurant is high-end and refined. “It was about comfort. The guys cooked and the girls looked.”

Growing up, his Taiwanese mother tried cooking turkey twice after moving to Canada but used the Chinese method of curing, which drew out the moisture.

“Man, that turkey was dry,” he recalls. After that, they did Christmas like many other Asians in Vancouver — in restaurants, over a communal hot pot meal, he says. But once he left home, he went hot turkey.

– – –

The celebrated Rob Feenie, of Lumiere restaurant, hesitates before divulging what he’ll be having for dessert this Christmas. “Cracked glass!” he says, bursting out laughing.

That, of course, is three colours of Jell-O, bound by whipped cream over a graham wafer crust.

“I know this is awful to say, but I love it.” he says. “It was great when I was a kid. I still love it!”

But he does have time for truffles and foie gras on Christmas Eve. He and his family spend the evening with his friend Michel Jacob’s family. Jacob, owner/chef of Le Crocodile, usually cooks a sumptuous French meal starting with foie gras and brioche. This year, Feenie takes over that meal.

In previous years, he’s gone to Palm Springs for Christmas, but this year he’ll spend it with family over a traditional Christmas dinner of “Mum’s turkey, Mum’s stuffing, Mum’s mashed potatoes, Mum’s baked yams and Mum’s Brussels sprouts.” And, oh right, his mum’s cracked glass.

In Palm Springs, he cooked poultry, but not necessarily turkey. “Once, I took a pheasant through customs to Palm Springs. I’d poached it with black truffles and vacuum packed it, and reheated it once I got there.”

– – –

Dennis Green, chef at the high-end Bishop’s restaurant, nails the essence of a North American Christmas dinner.

“Everybody likes the ritual. That’s what makes it Christmas,” he says. “We stick to the rules — turkey, gravy, traditional stuffing with herbs from the garden, brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, mashed potatoes. I’m happy to give in to tradition.”

He prefers a comfort dessert, like a hazelnut spice cake, which he serves with dried fruit and late-harvest riesling compote — a light and elegant alternative to Christmas pudding or fruit cake.

Having a happy bunch of people at Christmas, he says, is more important than a display of cooking prowess. He kickstarts the season in early December by baking cookies with his sons, Tyler, 12, and Darcy, 15, usually gingerbread and shortbread.

– – –

To Sean Heather, the man who can’t stop opening restaurants (Irish Heather, Salty Tongue, Salt — Pepper opens very soon and, just recently, he opened The Lucky Diner, formerly The Diner), Christmas food is about stoking good memories and adding more to the bank.

“I’ve seldom had a bad Christmas, so it’s about remembering good times. It’s about spending time together and following traditions and passing them to my children,” says Heather. “If they [were] traditions like stealing cars, I wouldn’t want them to learn it, but this is good stuff, so yeah, why not!”

He starts the day as if his family were starving, cooking a full Irish breakfast of black pudding, white pudding, Irish rashers, pork sausage, stewed mushrooms, eggs and toast.

As an appy before the main event, Heather cooks up a Dublin-spiced beef brisket, which he serves with a chutney and Wheaton bread.

The main meal (for 18 family members this year) is a feast of Belfast ham brined, smoked, covered in honey and studded with cloves and mustard, turkey with sausage stuffing, Brussel sprouts and his mom’s Christmas cake with marzipan and royal icing.

“My kids will eat the legs off a chair. They’re great eaters,” he says.

Incidentally, his restaurant Irish Heather stays open from noon to 6 p.m., serving turkey and ham to Christmas orphans in the neighbourhood. It’s not advertised and it’s one of the few restaurants — other than hotel restaurants — you’ll find open on Christmas.

– – –

For catering queen Susan Mendelson, of Lazy Gourmet, December centres around Hanukkah, which occurs Dec. 15 to 22 this year.

“It’s eight days of eating and visiting,” says Mendelson. On the 22nd, she will host a dinner for about 50, a “small” party by her standards.

“Because Hanukkah is a festival of the miracle of one night’s oil lasting eight nights, we eat a lot of greasy foods,” she laughs. For her, the symbolism translates to latkes with apple sauce, sour cream and roasted red pepper puree. One year, she made a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts dash to Delta to fill the oil quota. “We bought a whole bunch of boxes of it. Oh my god, it was fabulous.”

She’ll also make something with fish and a brisket. “I don’t want anyone to know, though, how I tenderize the brisket with a tin of Coke.”

– – –

Running a restaurant and catering business helps with a chef’s big dinners. Some confessed to having staff help.

“I get some help now from the chefs at the restaurant,” says Heather. “In fact, they do a sizable chunk of it. The other thing is, I bring bus trays home. I put all the dirty dishes on them and take them to the restaurant to wash them in the industrial washer.”

He adds: “It helps when you have a restaurant.” Or two or three or four, in his case.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

Mia Stainsby
Sun

We called on the experts to pull us through hosting Christmas dinner. Here are a few pointers from some of Vancouver’s best and brightest.

DENNIS GREEN

Bishop’s Restaurant

– Cut down on turkey roasting time by cutting out the thigh bone. You can’t be a klutz, though, as you need a small, sharp knife and some skill. “Sever at the knee and hip and pull out,” he instructs. The bird won’t lose its svelte shape, especially if you fill the cavity with stuffing. It will cut roasting time on a 20-pound bird by 21/2 to three hours, he says.

– Peel and prep vegetables ahead of time for cooking at the last minute. Make mashed yams or potatoes the day before in a casserole dish and reheat in microwave before dinner.

– Rest the turkey 30 to 45 minutes after cooking, in which time you can make gravy. Use red wine or port as well as stock. Instead of wrestling with a big roasting pan on your stove top, bring the gravy to a simmer in a 350 F oven. “Don’t worry about lumps at the beginning. A fine sieve does miracles,” Green says.

ROB FEENIE

Lumiere, Feenie’s

– Brine the bird! “The great thing about brining is it helps with people’s biggest worry — overcooking the turkey breast. It saves you,” says Feenie. Brines, which keep the bird moist, are made with salt, sugar, water and if you wish, herbs and spices and recipes can easily be found in cookbooks and web recipes. If you want to get really fancy, you can add vegetables and cook a “brine stock” (which must be cooled) for even more flavour. Feenie’s trick is to add a twenty-sixer of Jack Daniels for a peaty flavour.

– Use some white wine or even a little red wine in the gravy.

– If cooking for a small group, you don’t have to cook a whole bird. Do two turkey breasts or some turkey legs and don’t forget to brine. You can make stuffing separately or insert underneath the tenderloin of the breast. If you want flavour, tuck a strip of bacon in as well. You can even stuff the leg — get the butcher to debone it and use the space for the stuffing.

– To zoot up brussels sprouts, braise in stock after blanching. “The best combination is brussels sprouts and bacon. There are so many cool bacons out there. Or good Oyama sausage. Add chili flakes and bread crumbs for a little more interesting flavour,” says Feenie.

ANGUS AN

Gastropod

– An revisits his past for turkey leftovers ideas. He makes Chinese noodles with julienned turkey meat, vegetables, bean sprouts and thinned sesame paste. “It’s like a salad,” he says. A legacy from his days in Montreal, he loves cold turkey sandwiches on rustic french bread with gravy and cheese curd for a poutine-like creation. “In London, I knew a couple of guys who put french fries in there, too.”

– To give the turkey a flavour boost, slip some tarragon butter under the breast skin. “Make a tarragon compound butter, open up the skin and smother it on the breast.”

SEAN HEATHER

Irish Heather, Salt, Salty Tongue, Lucky Diner and soon,Pepper

– Since he cooks both a ham and a turkey, Heather often doesn’t cook a whole turkey. “I do the breast with stuffing inside. I use sausage meat, herbs, mushrooms and dried apricots for moisture and flavour. There’s no waste and it cooks faster.”

SUSAN MENDELSON

Lazy Gourmet

– Buffets make for lighter work and “People can eat what they want and you don’t miss out on conversation,” she says.

– To appease dieters, have lots of salads. Dress salads lightly and have extra on the side. Have grated cheese on the side as some guests might be lactose intolerant.

– Use the freshest, most wonderful ingredients so you can make simple dishes that taste delicious.

– Print out the menu for the buffet table. “People love to know what’s in the dish and what it’s called.”

– Do as much ahead as possible. “Set the table ahead of time. You’re wrong if you think it takes 15, 20 minutes.”

– Make mint tea, or add fresh mint to black tea at the end of the meal. “It’s a beautifully refreshing end.”

– – –

Bishop’s chef Dennis Green suggests this comfort dessert to end a traditional Christmas meal. With late-harvest wine in the compote and rum in the cake, it’s no ordinary comfort dish.

For the dried fruit, he suggests using cherries, apricots or figs or a combination of them. The compote can be made the day before to develop flavour and even the cakes can be made the day before and warmed up in a microwave oven. Individual little cakes look better but you if want less fuss, you can make it in an 8-inch square pan.

HAZELNUT SPICE CAKE WITH DRIED FRUIT AND LATE-HARVEST RIESLING COMPOTE

Compote

1 cup dried fruit

1 cup late-harvest Riesling or other late-harvest wine

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup honey

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

Cake

1/2 cup hazelnuts

11/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pinch of nutmeg

Pinch of cinnamon

Pinch of cardamom

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup dark rum

Compote: Roughly slice large dried fruits such as apricots or figs. Leave cherries whole.

Place wine, water, honey, cinnamon and star anise in a saucepan on medium heat. Once the mixture simmers, add dried fruit. Cover with a lid, then simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, leave covered and let cool. Remove and discard cinnamon and star anise. Refrigerate until needed, up to 7 days.

Cake: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour six 1/2-cup ramekins.

Place hazelnuts on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until fragrant and golden. Transfer to a clean tea towel, then rub them gently to remove the skins. Let cool.

Combine hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom in a food processor. Pulse until the nuts are finely ground.

Cream butter and sugar in electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Lightly mix in buttermilk and rum. Add the dry ingredients and mix batter well.

Pour batter into the ramekins. Bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cakes come out clean.

To serve: Dip the bottom of the ramekins in hot water. Run a knife around the edge of the cakes, then gently unmould them. Place a warm cake on each plate and spoon some compote on top. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Makes 6 servings.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

Angus An’s dishes balance lovely food that blurs the lines between European and North American cuisine, with just a dash of Asian

Mia Stainsby
Sun

To my ear, Gastropod isn’t the most elegant of sounds. As for my stomach, ahhh, that’s another thing.

It loves Gastropod. I speak of Gastropod restaurant — not of other gastropods such as snails and slugs and other such things.

Chef/owner Angus An walks a high wire, balancing lovely food with affordability. Note, please, the $42.50 three-course prix fixe is a bargain, considering the smooth, sophisticated moves from the kitchen.

Gastropod, like many of the top restaurants in town (Lumiere, West, Rare, C) invested in sous vide equipment to handle the most important of jobs: cooking proteins and even vegetables, coddling and nudging them into the tenderest of moods.

Some say sous vide is a fancy name for boil-in-a-bag, but not true. Temperature control and timing is everything and the dishes go through many trial runs.

An calls his food modern European. Lines have blurred so much between Europe and North American cuisine that I’ll say, ‘sure, why not.’ It’s certainly not the Asian-influenced Pacific Northwest cuisine (although there are cameo appearances by edamame, panko and wasabi).

The food looks simple but it’s actually not. An manipulates flavours, textures and techniques quite seamlessly without leaving a trace of the labour involved. He has worked at Toque, a top-dog Montreal restaurant, and apprenticed at JoJo, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten property, which is to say, under one of the best chefs in New York.

He sought out a position at Nahm, a one-Michelin-star Thai restaurant in London, to learn the acrobatics of balancing flavours Thai cooks do so well.

It shows in dishes like the playful Oysters with Horseradish Snow, balancing the sea saltiness with a shallot reduction, sweet sauterne jelly and a hit of horseradish-yogurt milk “snow.” It’s lovely.

Tuna Mille-Feuille is a striped rectangle of paper-thin tuna (sliced at the point between frozen and thawed), alternating with sheets of marinated daikon and confit of red pepper with yuzu (citrus) dressing.

A creamy, earthy risotto is topped with a sparkly fennel salad; prawn cannelloni holds a secret — the pasta noodle itself is made of pureed prawns, then stuffed with prawns. I’m no fan of wispy foam sauces but his actually has flavour and some body.

Salmon is gently lulled in a sous vide bath, then takes a dive into hot oil with a tempura treatment; it’s served with a very sexy wasabi sabayon — how else to describe this silky smooth accompaniment with a flirty growl. Braised beef ribs (not sous vide) might jolt you awake — the dark-as-sin sauce has been spiked with espresso and it’s served with glazed chestnuts, chanterelles, burdock and cipollini onions.

Cylinders of lamb loin are ultra tender and served with cumin-infused sauce and stingy bits of polenta and squash. The sous vide duck breast is very bistro — duck confit is tucked inside a ribbon of lasagne noodle and a confit of oyster mushrooms, garlic sauce and Chinese broccoli complete the dish.

Desserts, so often afterthoughts, were mostly great — the cheesecake, amazingly light; the walnut tart had a crust I liked for a change; chocolate fondant is really a chocolate cake with the molten middle. One dessert didn’t make the grade — the rustic apple tart’s crust required the jaws of life to get through.

The room is cleanly minimalist and could use a little soul with art or more focus on music. An’s good-value international wine list is compact and user friendly, listing wine progressing from light to full-bodied wines.

Robert Belcham opens Fuel right next door to Gastropod sometime in January. He was former co-chef at Nu restaurant, named the best new Canadian restaurant by Enroute magazine this year. This block will suddenly be unbearably hip.

– – –

GASTROPOD

Overall: 4

Food: 4

Ambience: 4

Service: 4

Price: $$

1938 West Fourth Ave., 604-730-5579. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 5:30 to 11p.m. Will open for lunch in late January.

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

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

A highlight of the meat binge was the cevapcici, due to its brisk salute to fine seasoning. The Greek salad squealed in vegetarian protest.

Tara Lee
Sun

Admittedly, Balkan food rarely comes to mind when I’m deciding where to dine for the night. Vancouver has a plethora of food options but Balkan cuisine is sadly under-represented. As a result, I wasn’t sure what to expect when we walked through the doors of Balkan House on a dreary Monday night.

My sister and I felt like we had been transported out of Vancouver to Belgrade as we tentatively looked askance at the hostess who had almost magically materialized from the kitchen. She ushered us into a room of exuberant Eastern European ditties, dark wood panelling, and sombre leather booth seating tall tinged with weary notes of Old World charm.

I was curious to learn more about Balkan food since this meal would be my first visit to one of the lone purveyors of a proud culinary tradition. Owner Vidomir Tucukovic, who also runs an establishment in Germany, explains that his Balkan kitchen produces food “that is similar to Greek and German food — shishkebabs, rice, several kinds of schnitzels.”

Their cuisine is strangely familiar for those diners who have never journeyed to the Danube river region. My sister spied kalamari on the menu and was immediately at ease. When our server wordlessly placed this first dish in front of us, we quickly forked the battered tentacles and prepared ourselves for the mammoth piece de resistance: the Balkan platter for two.

Suddenly, our server stood framed in the kitchen doorway carrying a huge platter of mounded meat, with two shishkebabs speared into half onion garnishes. The Greek salad at the table squealed in vegetarian protest.

Six different kinds of meat were plated alongside token servings of scalloped potatoes and rice. We counted the meat together: bacon, sausage, veal and pork meat patties (pljeskavica), chicken and pork shishkebabs, smoked pork neck (dimljena vjesalica), and finally, uncased ground veal and pork sausage (cevapcici).

For a moment, we were speechless, and then in unison, we picked up our well-sharpened knives and ravaged our food. A highlight of the meat binge was the cevapcici, due to its brisk salute to fine seasoning. The potatoes, however, were a tad heavy on the salt.

Our meat pilgrimage temporarily came to a halt as a couple of men at the opposite table tried to win our hearts with their ancestral roots. “Your first time eating Balkan food? We’re from Yugoslavia. We like our meat — no rice!” they said.

Our response, after a mutual giggle: “Yes, we’ve noticed.”

Unfortunately, neither of us became Yugoslavian brides that night but we did end up with an astonishing amount of leftovers as we made our escape into the drizzle of Edmonds Street. A serving of baklava beseeched us to stay but we were far too satiated to heed its call.

– – –

BALKAN HOUSE

7530 Edmonds St., Burnaby,

604-524-0404

Open daily 11a.m. to 2 p.m. and

4 p.m. to 10 p.m.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

Bosa Foods is stocked with everything from sandwiches to cakes, cookies, muffins and meals to make festivities easier

Mia Stainsby
Sun

December can be cruel, filling up your time with things that must get done and emptying out your wallet on gifts that must be bought and parties that must be thrown.

Here’s one way to cheat this whirling dervish of a month. Go to Bosa Foods, not the one at 562 Victoria Dr. which is still alive and well, but the brand spanking new building just west of Boundary Road.

It opened in October and is umpteen times bigger than the first. It’s great for Christmas shopping, as well as a lunch stop and, if you want, dinner to take home, from the prepared foods area. You’ll find basic panini for $3 and grilled panini for $5 to $6.

There are baked goods including cakes, cookies, muffins, and meals to go — pasta dishes, which run from $3 to $7. Entree dishes, combinations of pasta and meat, would be about $7. Family-sized take-aways are $23 and will feed eight to 10 people comfortably.

You can stock up on Christmassy panetonne and nougat, and this just in: amaretti soffici, or soft amaretti. Also new to their shelves is pandoro, an Italian Christmas cake with cream fillings like tira misu and chocolate.

A kitchen section holds dishes and cooking gear you can check out as gift ideas, including a panini grill and ravioli maker.

It’s definitely worth a trip. Bosa Foods is open Monday to Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and to 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

– – –

BOSA FOODS

1465 Kootenay St., 604-253-5578.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

Rekados filipino cuisine: Vancouver gets its first come-hither Filipino restaurant for the budget-minded in clean, modern surroundings

Mia Stainsby
Sun

There’s nothing shy about Filipino food. It stamps its feet for attention. It can be a melody of sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours but it can also, without a knowing hand, be muddled and off-kilter.

In terms of making a mark in this restaurant city Filipino cuisine has just been but a blip on the radar. Rekados is the first come-hither Filipino restaurant, a place where owners, Charlie and Pinky Dizon and Larry Elima, created a budget-minded but clean, modern space for physical appeal.

“It’s been my dream to introduce the Filipino culture and food to Vancouver when I moved here. Our Filipino guests are telling us this is finally a place they can be proud of,” says Elima. “They invited their non-Filipino friends. It’s heartwarming. People are asking about our culture. I’ve been working so many years in this industry and I’ve never been able to say to my friends, let’s go for Filipino food.” And this is something I didn’t know — the Filipino community, he says, is the third largest minority group in Vancouver.

The staff are as friendly as can be; if you tell Larry, who works in the front that you liked your meal, he lights up, barely able to contain his excitement.

I ask a female server what she’d recommend. “It depends on what you are craving today,” she replies, and proceeds to describe some of the dishes.

In the kitchen, chef Charlie Dizon translates Filipino cuisine into designer presentations. It helps that he worked in a high-end French restaurant in Manila. He moved to Vancouver 10 years ago and has previously worked at Monk McQueen’s and Wild Rice as well as the Arbutus Club.

The cuisine reveals the country’s history of trade with China and colonization by the Spanish. Adobo, a very common dish is made with pork and/or chicken, braised in a sauce of soy, garlic, vinegar and peppercorns and sometimes, coconut milk. Here, the kitchen grills the pork and chicken separately, and presents the dish on a long and narrow plate.

Dizon’s tokwa ‘t tokwa (deep-fried tofu) is a delicious treatment of this bland food. It’s shock-fried in hot oil and served quite elegantly with a bright soy-chili sauce.

I tried a very nice curry with tiger prawns and a coconut milk-based sauce. Grilled eggplant was served on a narrow plate with shrimp paste sauce, tomatoes and onions. Bihon, thin rice noodles with veggies, shrimp and Chinese chorizo received gentle treatment with no sign of clumpage. Another noodle dish palabok with “luglog” noodles, shrimp, pork, egg and cracklings was not as refined. A half roasted chicken with lemongrass marinade (it comes whole as well), coupled with another dish would be more than you’d need for a meal.

Prices are ridiculously easy to swallow. Appy size dishes are $2.75 (for steamed Chinese pork buns, which looked delicious), to $4.95 to $6.95 for the flashed-fried squid. Main dishes are $7.95 to $11.95. Actually, there’s a $29.95 banana leaf mixed grill with whole tilapia, barbecued chicken, beef shortribs and eggplant, served on a banana leaf.

The crispy pata (slow roasted pork hocks), Elima says, is a popular dish. “It’s slow roasted for four hours and quickly deep-fried at service. It’s crispy outside and inside, it’s so tender.”

And quelle surprise — desserts are worth a try too. The warm toffee cake with a banana springroll, butterscotch sauce and vanilla bean ice cream wouldn’t be out of place in a haute dining room and neither would the chocolate trio of flourless chocolate cake, ganache and “Antonio pueo” hot chocolate. There is a small selection of affordable wines, with an eye to working with complex flavours.

When I was leaving after one visit, Elima saw us off with most heartfelt of thank-yous. Hands waving, eyes bright and a smile writ large upon his face: “Thank you! Thank you! Come again!” he cried as we left.

REKADOS FILIPINO

CUISINE

4063 Main St., 604-873-3133. Open seven days a week, lunch and dinner.

Overall RATING 3 1/2

Food RATING 3 1/2

Ambience RATING 3

Service RATING 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 2006

 

‘It’s a little bit dangerous if not done right,’ says The William Tell’s Philip Doebeli

Joanne Sasvari
Sun

Something about this dark and chilly time of year makes us yearn for drinks that are not just hot, but flaming.

Maybe it’s a nod to that scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where George Bailey and his guardian angel enter Nick’s bar and Clarence orders “a flaming rum punch” from the disbelieving barman. Hardly anybody makes flaming rum punch any more — in fact, they didn’t even make it in 1946 when the movie was released.

So, instead, there’s the Cafe Diablo.

“It’s something that my father started. He saw it in Switzerland at the casino in Bern,” says Philippe Doebeli, who took over The William Tell Restaurant from the legendary Erwin Doebeli when he retired.

“It’s not like you light a coffee on fire. It’s more than that,” he says, adding, “It’s a little bit dangerous if not done right.”

The Cafe Diablo is not just a drink, but a performance.

“There is no recipe written down for this. When my father retired, he passed it on to me,” says Doebeli, who is the only person on staff authorized to make the signature drink.

“What is in it is sugar, cloves, orange liqueur, brandy, then an orange rind and a lemon rind, the whole rind cut in a spiral. And cinnamon. And coffee, of course.”

At the restaurant, Doebeli prepares the Cafe Diablo to order on a tableside cart.

“You have the cauldron, which you get very hot,” he explains. “You start off with overproof brandy, which is mainly for firing. You pour that into the bowl and it vaporizes.”

Then he blows the brandy vapour into a lit candle and — whoosh! — it ignites. (This is the most dangerous part. “If you don’t watch it, it can blow towards the guest,” he says. “Don’t try it at home. Diablo is very much something to be done by a pro.”)

Quickly he adds the cloves and sugar, which immediately caramelizes. He then places the orange and lemon rinds in the cauldron, followed by the orange liqueur.

“Then you work it,” he says. “It takes some artistry.”

He presses the rinds firmly in the bowl to release their aromatic oils, and swirls them around to blend the citrusy essence with the sugar.

Next he sprinkles in the cinnamon, creating a shower of sparks as it meets the flames.

Finally, Doebeli adds brandy, coffee and a touch more overproof brandy to really get the fire going.

Then he lifts a ladle of the burning liquid high into the air and pours it into the coffee glasses from aloft, creating a dramatic, flaming arc.

“It’s a show,” Doebeli says modestly.

“I do like it a lot. More than anything I think it symbolizes our restaurant — laid back, classic dining and showmanship.”

Needless to say, the Cafe Diablo is not an everyday drink. It’s something for a special occasion, perhaps some dark and chilly night when you’ve got your own guardian angel in tow.

The William Tell Restaurant is at 765 Beatty St., 604-688-3504, www.thewilliamtellrestaurant.com.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

Mia Stainsby
Sun

I’m still thinking about that darn Nutty Gypsy. So yummy! It’s not a person, but a thing — a delicious milkshake to be more precise. I had it with my lunch at East Is East on Main Street and loved the luscious mix of nuts, chocolate, cardamom, cinnamon, yogurt and milk. I should confess, it was my husband’s shake but I borrowed it for a very long time.

East Is East arose out of the success of its larger counterpart on West Broadway. When the Main Street location opened in June, the menu featured mostly wraps with flavours of the Silk Road, covering Asia, Tibet, India, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. The health-minded kitchen uses organic ingredients as much as possible and follows ayurvedic principles. To accompany the wraps, there are fresh juice mixes, shakes and lassi.

As of this week, the menu expands to include the “Eastern Plates” that are offered in the other location.

These meals include a choice of two entrees, which come with two kinds of rice, roti, salad and mango pickles, tummy fillers all, for $15.

In keeping with ayurvedic ways of balancing Earth’s natural elements, seating is made from driftwood with the energy of the water and lights are covered with teak bark and glow like fire.

While calm is part of ayurvedic life, some of us are in a big hurry. And for the scurriers, there is a take-out window where you can order from the street, weather permitting.

The dining area is small and narrow, but there’s space reserved for evening entertainment — Afghani, Persian and Indian music. And during the day, there are Bollywood music videos, which somehow strikes me as un-ayurvedic. But I’m no expert.

East is East is open for lunch and dinner, daily.

— –

– EAST IS EAST

4413 Main St., 604-879-2020

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

Kids can play, parents can digest. What a nice picture

Mark Laba
Province

ROCKY MOUNTAIN PIZZA PIE HIGH

Where: Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co., 1876 West 1st Ave.

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-730-0321

Drinks: Beer and wine

Hours: Lunch, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., dinner from 5 p.m. every day

– – –

Some kids dream of being firemen, some kids dream of being astronauts, some kids dream of being money launderers for large off-shore Mob betting enterprises. But me, I dreamed of making pizzas. Ever since I saw our local pizza guy Gino throw that dough up into the air I thought, gee, that looks easier than brain surgery. I might not make as much moolah, I figured, but doctors don’t get to eat the fruits of their labour unless they’re Dr. Hannibal Lector.

Well lo and behold, from the wilds of Canmore, Alta., came this pizza enterprise. The words flatbread and Rocky Mountains seem contradictory and Alberta is certainly a far cry from Italy but damn if this pizza isn’t incredibly tasty. And on a kid note, this place was packed full of them. As more eateries glom onto the kid-friendly concept with play areas for the wee ones, more and more families are enjoying a night out where they can actually digest food and not eat at the speed of light. So kudos to this place with a kiddie zone, including plastic pizzas that they can serve up to their pals, imaginary or otherwise. We took our little guy and he seemed quite content although there were a few tense tug-of-war moments between toy-coveting toddlers. And Sunday and Monday are family nights where the kids are invited into the kitchen for a hands-on pizza experience.

The rest of the joint is decked out in simple wood furnishings, red walls and photos of local humble heroes from the community.

We started with an herbed avocado salad ($7.25), a mess of organic greens buckshot with small bits of cucumber, tomatoes, orange, shaved almonds and finished with an avocado vinaigrette. I removed the toupee of sprouts it was wearing but some folks might enjoy such a thing. Either way, it was all it promised to be — fresh, crispy and refreshing.

We sampled three different pizzas, one being a basic mozzarella-and-tomato-sauce shindig ($6.75) from the kid’s menu. If even something this basic tastes great, you know the best is yet to come. So it was with great pleasure that we sunk our molars into the Country Harvest studded with artichokes, garlic, onion, seared spinach leaves, marinated cherry tomatoes, green peppers, nut-free pesto and rich goat cheese. It’s a helluva lineup, but it all comes together beautifully on this thin-crust, clay-oven baked phenomenon. The cherry tomatoes literally pop in the mouth with sweet flavour and the house tomato sauce is delicious.

Next, the Bradner Farm with free-range rosemary and lemon-scented clucker meat, red onion, pesto and oven-roasted red bell peppers. Again, it’s the great crust and the fresh, organic ingredients that make these pizzas outstanding.

A return visit is imminent because the Spicy Pepperoni and The Yukon with fire-roasted peppers, mushrooms, beef tenderloin, asiago cheese, red onion, pesto and Yukon gold potatoes are calling my name. Regular size pizzas are priced between $17-$19.75 and the large are between $21-$25, except the Yukon which is an extravagant $34.95. Some may feel the pizza is pricey here but when you’re moving on up from the 99-cent slice and finally grabbing a piece of the pie, then the few extra bucks are worth it — although you might have to dip into your kid’s college fund.

THE BOTTOM LINE

If the world were flat it should look like this.

Grade: Food: B+; Service: B; Atmosphere: B+

© The Vancouver Province 2006