Deacons Corner serves up trucker-style meals that are satisfying, filling and likely to expand your waist size

Mia Stainsby
Sun

DEACON’S CORNER

101 Main St., 604-684-1555.

Open 7 to 3, Monday to Friday; 10 to 3 on weekends.

www.deaconscorner.ca

– – –

When I dropped into Deacons Corner one weekend morning, it was sartorial convergence. Every person, to a knee, wore jeans. Tight jeans, droopy jeans, jaunty jeans, mom jeans, low-rise jeans, the works. It’s the universal language of casual, I suppose, and casual you want to be at the corner of Main and Alexander.

When I saw my hefty plate o’ food I panicked about my skinny jeans, and can tell you I did not depart very sveltely with my newly acquired muffin-top waist. I walked beyond the overpass to Crab Park to sit and rest on a grassy knoll.

But skinny jeans do not concern chef Patchen Gallagher. (He’s named after American poet Kenneth Patchen, who, like e.e. Cummings, used words so deliciously.) He makes big honkin‘ breakfasts.

Deacon’s Corner is open for Bunyanesque breakfasts, brunches and lunches. I try not to mention the recession, but here I go again: Deacon’s does have recessionary appeal with its friendly prices (an average $6 to $10 for breakfasts and lunches, fully loaded) and a throwback feel of roadside diners of the ’50s and ’60s. And how perfect is this? Corner Gas star Brent Butt has been in a few times. Now that the sitcom has wrapped, why not Deacon’s Corner, Brent?

Deacon’s Corner even has a Prairie connection — it takes its name from a Saskatchewan cafe run by the grandfather of one of the owners. (Deacon’s owners are the trio from Cobre, the nuevo Latin restaurant in Gastown.) Gallagher’s “crowning achievement,” he says, is the BLT with house-made bacon patties, more bacon belted around the patties (for a crunch) — six rashers in all, besides the L. and T. The breads are all from Swiss Bakery and of good quality.

The menu includes many permutations of bacon/sausa-ge/eggs/omelettes. The Hungry Man comes with a six-ounce sirloin steak, three eggs, hashbrowns and toast — for $13.50. There are pancakes and there’s French toast. I order French toast and find out later from Gallagher that I consumed half a loaf of challah-like bread. “A loaf is eight inches — two orders,” he says. (I revise: It was a challah-top spilling over my jeans, not muffin.)

A warning: His pancakes use three cups of batter. My partner’s Mexican scrambled omelette threatened to drop off the side of the plate. The lunch-y dishes stick to your ribs — meatloaf (“we grind our own meat, pork and beef, with onions ground right into it,” says Gallagher); pulled pork sandwich, Reuben, chicken fried steak, burgers, chili, mac ‘n’ cheese. Some of the dishes pull you down to the southern U.S. — the country gravy has southerners coming back time and again. It’s got bacon fat, onions, sausage, chicken stock and cream. “Best compliment I got was from a guy from down south whose grandmother passed away. After he had our biscuits and gravy, he said whenever he wants to visit his grandma, he can come here,” says Gallagher. “The food has resonance.”

He adds: “No one leaves feeling sick. One guy ordered a burger topped with chili and fried eggs for nine days straight before he finally broke.”

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

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

Takumi hopes to succeed at a location that has not been kind to its predecessors

Mia Stainsby
Sun

TAKUMI JAPANESE RESTAURANT

Overall: 4

Food: 4

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $$

5775 Marine Dr., West Vancouver, 604-921-9701.

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

– – –

It’s hard to tell the good from the bad when sushi joints grow like weeds in these parts. Takumi Japanese restaurant has been open for a year and a half and as far as I could tell, it was another dandelion.

Well, turns out it’s a gem. The only drawback — location, location, location. The real estate mantra holds in the dining world, too. Except for Eagle Harbour, Horseshoe Bay and Caulfeild neighbourhoods in West Vancouver, Takumi is a destination location. Other restaurants didn’t survive in this pretty Whistler-style building across from Thunderbird Marina — the last to go down to defeat was La Regalade Cote Mer, an offshoot of the very popular La Regalade bistro and it had everything going for it.

This one is run by the Akaike family — Tadashi, Cathy, son Takumi and daughter Yuri; they ran another Takumi in Burnaby for 16 years until the building was demolished. Tadashi Akaiki directs the food, but son Takumi is firmly on board. He was sent to Japan to “learn the traditional and spiritual” part of cooking traditional Japanese food as mom Cathy says. He learned about seafood by shopping at the mother of all fish markets — Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. Dad Akaiki, who you’ll see at the sushi bar, insists on buying much of the seafood from Tsukiji where the fanatic Japanese standards for quality, freshness, handling and cutting prevail.

One telltale sign of quality in a sushi for me is uni, which I adore even though it’s an orange blob of goo. I never liked it until I had some at Tsukiji market in Tokyo. We bought a box and had it with champagne and potato chips (oops, did I lose your respect?) back at a friends’ home in Tokyo. At Takumi, the uni is just as good, and it’s from Tsukiji. When asked about principles of buying local, Cathy says her husband is stubborn about quality and staying true to Japanese ingredients even if it costs more.

The nori and rice are high grade and raises up the quality of sushi. One flaw, however, was the Japanese tai nigiri which was fresh but chewy. Along with sushi dishes, there are appetizers and hot mains like grilled dishes, rice bowls, noodles and deep-fried dishes like kaki fry (breaded fried oysters). I tried steamed clams in Japanese rice wine and enjoyed them.

“Everything is perfect,” Cathy says. “We just need more customers.”

The neighbourhood and former fans of their Burnaby restaurant are keeping them busy enough for now.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

Kasey Wilson
Sun

Old world wine regions may have tradition on their side, but British Columbia offers sheer romance and drama — and balanced whites and reds — for both wine tasters and wine travellers.

Here’s a sample: the Okanagan Valley and Saltspring Island offer two diverse yet equally indulgent wine destinations for you to uncork your inner sommelier.

With more than 100 wineries and the pristine 130-kilometre-long blue-green Okanagan Lake, B.C.’s sunny Okanagan Valley ranks among the most scenic wine regions in the world. Less than an hour by air, or a four-hour drive, east of Vancouver, the Okanagan Valley‘s wineries produce a bounty of award-winning sips. Their pinot blanc, pinot gris, pinot noir, syrah, chardonnay, merlot, malbec, gewürztraminer, rieslings and icewines all consistently garner gold medal standings on the international stage.

Start your tour in Kelowna at the B.C. Wine Museum, situated in the Laurel Packinghouse (kelownamuseums.ca), where the boutique stocks B.C. labels, including some rare vintages. Be sure to check the British Columbia Wine Institute website (winebc.com) for wine country maps; visit the architecturally-stunning Mission Hill Family Estate (missionhillwinery.com) for their educational tours; CedarCreek Estate Winery (cedarcreek.bc.ca) for champion pinot noir; Quails’ Gate (quailsgate.com) where the tasting room boasts state-of-the-art spittoons; and Gray Monk Estate Winery (graymonk.com) for its pinot gris and spotting site for Ogopogo, Lake Okanagan’s legendary “lake demon.”

In the South Okanagan, don’t miss the Naramata estate of La Frenz (lafrenzwinery.com) where you’ll sip award-winning wines in a tasting room that looks like an Aussie farm building. And at Red Rooster (redroosterwinery.com), once you’ve toured the tasting room, take time to visit the mezzanine gallery featuring local artists. Both Lake Breeze (lakebreeze.ca) and Hillside Estate Winery & Bistro (hillsideestate.com) show off their wines at their popular eateries and at Elephant Island Orchard Wines (elephantislandwine.com), you’ll sample B.C.’s finest fruit wines.

Continue your travels south with a visit to Burrowing Owl Estate Winery (burrowingowlwine.ca) — their reds, pinot gris and chardonnays are iconic wines in Canada. At the eastern edge of Osoyoos, in desert country near the U.S. border, the Osoyoos Indian Band owns and operates NK’MIP (pronounced In-ka-meep) Cellars — the first aboriginal winery in North America (nkmip.com). Wines worthy of a sip line the shelves, while the tasting room — filled with First Nations art — also provides a visual feast.

Speaking of sustenance, wherever good wine is made, you’ll find innovative chefs pairing menus with vintages, resulting in some of the finest dining in the region. A perfect interlude to a day of wine tasting is to stop at the open-air Terrace at Mission Hill, named one of the world’s top winery restaurants by Travel + Leisure magazine. Start with Chef Michael Allemeier’s heirloom tomato gazpacho, paired with sauvignon blanc and a charcuterie sharing plate matched with a reserve shiraz. (Pick up a jar of Allemeier’s decadent preserved Oculus cherries at the gift shop to savour at home.) On the Naramata Bench, sample the selections at The Bistro at Hillside Estate Winery, a destination boasting stunning views from the restaurant or patio. For dinner, order the rack of lamb and a glass of their medal-garnering Mosaic Bordeaux blend.

After a day’s exploration, settle in for vineyard accommodation in the South Okanagan. Two of the most spectacular spots to stay in the Valley are at Burrowing Owl Estate Winery and Hester Creek (hestercreek.com). The intimate 11-room guesthouse at Burrowing Owl Estate Winery has spacious air-conditioned rooms with private balconies, and on the grounds you’ll find a 25-metre swimming pool and a hot tub, and even an award-winning restaurant.

The posh Villa at Hester Creek is reminiscent of Tuscany, with private patios surrounded by incomparable panoramic views of vineyards and orchards. Manager Lee Ann Openshaw is a talented cook, so expect the breakfast to be exemplary.

At the eastern edge of Osoyoos, on a spectacular bench overlooking the shores of Osoyoos Lake, you’ll find the Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort & Spa (spiritridge.ca), created in partnership with the Osoyoos Indian Band as part of the greater resort destination of NK’MIP. Here, you’ll find 226 desert-themed villas and suites and a wine-country inspired restaurant — Passa Tempo — a spa and outdoor pools.

Not to be left out of the wine scene is Saltspring Island.

Winemaking is relatively new on Saltspring with two wineries, Garry Oaks Winery (garryoakswinery.com) and Salt Spring Vineyards (saltspringvineyards.com) producing their first vintages in 2001 and 2002. At Garry Oaks, you’ll want to taste their pinot gris, pinot noir, Prism and Zeta.

The charming Salt Spring Vineyards produces 10 wines: picks by Wine Access, Canada‘s national wine magazine, included their Karma sparkling wine, blanc de noir and pinot gris in 2008. You can also stay in the romantic

on-site B&B combining luxury with the seductive setting of a working vineyard; breakfast features produce and fruit from their garden, locally roasted coffee and organic eggs from a neighbour’s farm. And let’s face it — it’s the perfect place to raise a glass.

Order your free Touring Guide to British Columbia‘s Wineries, with information on winery touring in the Okanagan Valley, Gulf Islands, Vancouver Island and the Fraser Valley, at www.HelloBC.com/foodwine.

For more information on other British Columbia destinations and travel information, call 1-800 HELLO BC or visit www.HelloBC.com/foodandwine.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

It may be located in an airport hotel, but Globe@YVY has a lot going for it

Michelle Hopkins
Sun

GLOBE@YVR

Fairmont Vancouver Airport

Richmond

Reservations: 604-248-3281

Website: www.fairmont.ca/Vancouverairport/guestservices/restaurants/globeyvr. htm

HOURS OF OPERATION:

Breakfast: 6 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Breakfast Buffet: 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Mondays to Fridays, 6 a.m. to noon Saturdays and Sundays

Lunch: 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Dinner: 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m

– – –

My partner was heading to Egypt for three weeks. The night before his departure, I wanted to enjoy a memorable dinner in a restaurant that offered unparallel cuisine, stunning views and amazing service, yet also offered a relaxing atmosphere. A tall order, you might think.

Not if you have ever set foot in the Globe@YVR in the Fairmont Vancouver Airport hotel. I had been there a few years ago and remembered just how fabulous it was.

On a chilly but clear Monday evening, we were instantly warmed by the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace that takes centrestage in this contemporary and oh so chic restaurant.

Considering the economy, I was somewhat surprised to see how busy it was. It’s not just businessmen, travellers or hotel guests who eat there; it attracts Vancouverites who enjoy exceptional cuisine and stellar service. In fact, a family of four from Vancouver seated opposite us told us it’s one of their favourite fine dining establishments in the Lower Mainland.

Our server, Myra Mahoney, greeted us warmly and soon came back to offer a few suggestions and a basket of freshly baked bread. A word of caution: The artisan breads are so delicious, you might just fill up on them.

I started with the soup of the day, a mouthwatering apple and parsnip purée with Brie crouton garnish. Dennis went for the restaurant’s signature seared, diver-caught scallops with parsnip purée and citrus vinaigrette (one of many designated Ocean Wise seafood choices available).

For our main courses, I had the Quebec maple-glazed fillet of chinook salmon, accompanied by crushed potatoes with grainy mustard and shallot with a maple jus drizzle. Dennis enjoyed the tender northern B.C. rack of lamb with herb anise.

The restaurant creates imaginative plates with names that tantalize the taste buds before they even arrive on your table. Mahoney says the tenderloin and any of the seafood specials are favourites among loyal clientele.

A bottle of Napa Valley Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon complemented each dish quite nicely.

The restaurant recently brought on board executive chef Kamal Silva. The award-winning chef — who led the Fairmont culinary team at the prestigious 2007 Emirates International Salon Culinaire Competition to 17 wins, including Chef of the Year — came from the Fairmont Dubai, where he introduced a number of signature dishes. The Sri Lankan-born Silva is now putting his stamp on the prestigious Globe@YVR menu. Silva prides himself on sourcing some of the freshest locally grown and caught fare he and his team can find.

Globe@YVR offers a smartly chosen selection of old world and new world wines, including a healthy assortment of Okanagan VQA wines such as Burrowing Owl and the award-winning Inniskillin Dark Horse Vidal ice wine.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, savouring the repast we had just enjoyed. However, Mahoney soon enticed us with the dessert menu.

We indulged by sharing a Molten Chocolate Cake, a delicious rich cake with a liquid centre of buttery nut sauce. Silva told me the restaurant is also known for its Saltspring Island Chevre Cheesecake.

Meanwhile, I can only say the spectacular view of Vancouver‘s North Shore mountains — from the floor-to-ceiling windows — is only surpassed by the innovative Pacific Northwest cuisine.

The sophisticated restaurant seats 165.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

mix of hits and misses results from transformation to more casual dining fare

Mia Stainsby
Sun

L’ALTRO BUCA

1906 Haro St., 604-683-6912. www.altrobuca.ca. Open for dinner daily from 5 p.m.

Overall: 3 1/2

Food: 3 1/2

Ambience: 4

Service: 3 1/2

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

– – –

Parkside was cruising along quite happily until the economy drove off a cliff. That’s the simple explanation why the restaurant went downmarket, transforming itself into L’Altro Buca last month.

The name means the “other” buca. (The first is La Buca on MacDonald Street.) In shorthand Italian, it means hole-in-the-wall — a hyperbole, especially in the case of L’Altro Buca. In looks, it hasn’t changed much from the refined Parkside. The executive chef is Andrey Durbach, who runs both restaurants as well as Pied a Terre, a French bistro, with Chris Stewart, the wine guy.

From the diner’s point of view, what could be more welcome than comfort and affordability in trying circumstances? It’s like huddling in warm clothes in stormy weather.

If there’s a silver lining in this frightful economic situation, it forces restaurateurs to offer good value and, in this competitive market, it has to be great casual food supported by good service. France experienced a boomlet of “baby bistros” after the 1990s recession when three-star Michelin chefs opened up affordable neighbourhood bistros.

The menu at La Buca and L’Altro Buca offers a tight lineup of regional Italian food — six starters, six pastas and seven main courses. That menu changes every couple of months, but the specials, offerings of the chefs, are the daily surprises.

The food on the regular menu, Durbach says, is “colour-inside-the-line” classics. “There’s no Franco-Japanese or Italian fusion. But the guys installed in the restaurants have some leeway, some outlet for expression,” he says.

Starters are $8 to $11.50; pastas (which you can order in half-size), $14.50 to $18.50; and mains, $19.50 to $26.50 — in other words, prices can adjust to the bulge of the wallet.

My experience was mixed. From the regular menu, a blunt-tasting radicchio Caesar did not impress; scallop carpaccio with truffled lemon vinaigrette and a grilled bacon and radish salad worked really well. A couple of appies on special one evening were successful — a rustic meatball dish and crostini with chicken liver/rabbit terrine.

For pastas, I always prefer handmade so I tried the truffled potato gnocchi with hunter-style braised chicken. The gnocchi was lightly handled, but the chicken, while moist, lacked flavour. Bucatini with house-made fennel sausage, tomato sauce, spinach and ricotta needed more oomph, too. The dried bucatini noodles seemed of average quality.

A dry-aged Tuscan-style steak hit the mark; it came with onion rings and an arugula parmesan salad. The best main was a special — four pieces of local sole with smoked salmon agnolotti (with pasta loosely folded, not sealed). The horseradish sauce napping the pasta sounded extreme, but it was muted and only hinted of horseradish.

I wasn’t impressed with the breads — neither the grissini (breadsticks), which arrive gratis, nor the focaccia, which you pay for (I like it spongier).

Desserts are Italian classics. I tried a yummy panna cotta with brandied cherries and a tidy square of tiramisu. The wines are all Italian and priced to go with the meal. Some are sold in eight-ounce quartinos, good for about two glasses of wine.

Not a perfect 10, but L’Altro Buca is still a great neighbourhood spot. It’s wonderfully located on a tree-lined residential street and the patio should be open soon.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

Theresa’s is run as a co-op and delivers great value to its local customers

Mia Stainsby
Sun

THERESA’S

1260 Commercial Dr., 604-676-1868. www.theresaseatery.com. Open 7 days a week. 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday; to 2 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.

– – –

The lesson of recent months is that corporate greed isn’t very pretty. The opposite business model is Theresa’s, a busy little boho cafe on Commercial Drive. It’s stoked by socialist ideals, and profit does not rise to the top like cream — it spreads out horizontally.

Founder Jacob Aginsky decided to run it as a cooperative (remember another one, Isadora’s on Granville Island?) and give great value to local customers. The kitchen (right there, behind the counter) uses healthy, local, organic ingredients and, considering that, the prices are remarkably low — $4 to $8 for all-day breakfast dishes, $5 for lunchier salads and sandwiches ($7.50 for a salad/sandwich combo.)

Profit margins might be slim considering increases in costs of organics, but the restaurant makes it back in volume and the buzz that comes with the thrum. Sometimes, if a customer hogs a seat too long, staff might come by and ask: “You gonna take a walk soon?” Aginsky says they’re always funny about it and only one patron thought they were being rude in the 21/2 years they’ve been open.

“I’m as proud of this place as any of the albums I’ve done,” says Aginsky, who’s also an in-demand pianist for about a dozen bands.

“It’s about incentivizing people. They have extra reason to put their all into the place,” he says. His wife, by the way, runs Eastside Yoga Studio in the neighbourhood, also based on the co-op model.

The homestyle food comes in large portions on mismatched plates on mismatched tables; dishes are named after local streets. The popular gluten-free orange and ginger pancakes started off as ho cakes, pancakes from the deep south in the U.S., typically fried in bacon grease. “It comes with a defibrillator,” says Aginsky who’d tried them on his travels. His version, however, isn’t larded up.

French toast (made with multi-grain bread from a local bakery) is stuffed with cream cheese and strawberry reduction. “It’s kind of like having cheesecake,” he says. The coffee is fair trade, organic, and bought from the coffee roaster next door.

No one in the co-op is a trained chef, although Aginsky went to cooking school in Vancouver until he had to drop out to go on tour. He notes that musicians talk about food constantly, perhaps because they’re on the road. “In my experience, every single musician is obsessed with food and finances,” he says.

Aginsky’s other obsession is quiz games. When he spent time in New York (playing at the Blue Note), he loved to go to “quiz nights.” Piqued that he couldn’t find an equivalent here, he started one at Theresa’s. (At 6 p.m. the first Wednesday of every month.)

Teams have to answer questions like “What grows faster? A mountain or toenails?” (Toenails.) Winning teams get free breakfasts.

“The business,” he says, “supports my principles but it’s proof that you can run something successful in a capitalist context with socialist ideals.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

Au Petit Chavignol’s offerings are impressively varied and constantly changing

Mia Stainsby
Sun

AU PETIT CHAVIGNOL

845 East Hastings St.

604-255-4218.

www.aupetitchavignol.com.

Open Thursday to Monday, 5 p.m. to midnight.

Overall: 4

Food: 4

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $$

Sun Restaurant Critic. [email protected]. Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

– – –

If you like cheese, you’ll be thrilled. But if you’re allergic to it, as one of my colleagues is, then you might not be. Still, since he lives in Strathcona, Au Petit Chavignol will still be one of his haunts. It’s the first sophisticated foodie venue to venture into the ‘hood.

Like Campagnolo and Two Chefs And A Table before it, the cheese and wine bistro takes elan to edgy streets. In fact, the owners Alice and Allison Spurrell (mother and daughter) and Joe Chaput (married to the daughter) had to undergo criminal checks before they could get the show on the road in the neighbourhood.

“All they [the police] found out was that maybe we were boring,” Alice laughs about it now. (She wasn’t laughing at the time.)

The family owns Les Amis du Fromage cheese shops in Vancouver and West Vancouver, a destination for cheese lovers. To me, Au Petit Chavignol is all about the synergy between wine and cheese. I’ll throw bread in there, too, because together they’re a holy trinity — they complete me, they enrich me, fill some hollow at the pit of my soul.

The heart of the menu is tasting cheeses, divided into cow, goat, sheep and mixed milk cheeses. Mix and match cheeses yourself or choose from a flight, matched with a flight of wines. Cheese offerings will constantly change and patrons can look forward to adopting new ones into their lives. Prices are $4 a piece, $10 for three and $16 for five. When I visited there was only one cheese from B.C. on the list — it would be nice to see more to promote local cheesemakers.

Since I visited Au Petit Chavignol, my list of cheeses I cannot live without has grown. Brillat Savarin and La Sauvagine were my all-time favourites (both soft and triple creamy).

Now, I’m thinking Boschetto Tartufo might knock them both out of the ball park. It’s a Tuscan beauty, a mix of cow and sheep’s milk infused with white truffles. The truffle flavour lingered seductively for some time afterward in my mouth. So-o-o delicious. Brebiou (Pyrenees), Tomme Corsu Vecchiu (Corsican), Taupiniere (Perigord) and Bleu de Laqueuille (Auvergne) will visit my cheeseboard, too.

You can order condiments to go with the cheeses. For magic, try the Tupelo honeycomb with a hard cheese. Cherries in Marc de Bandol sounded great, but tasted too strongly of cognac.

Charcuterie also partners nicely with cheese and there are offerings of cured meats, a paté, terrine and duck rillettes. There are also some salads and hot dishes: raclette, fondu, mac and cheese, pommes frites, tartiflette Savoyarde (sliced potatoes dotted with lardons, Roblochon cheese and creme fraiche) and a croque monsieur and croque madame. They’re simple, traditional dishes from France. The pommes frites were excellent. The mac and cheese was loosely constructed (I like a little cohesion), but tasty.

Desserts, too, are comfort style. The bag of chocolate cookies, just baked and deeply chocolate, is an excellent way to finish your cheese fest. Apple galette is nicely handled, but a caramel tart had a tough crust and a too-runny filling.

Next door to Au Petit Chavignol , there’s a brand new Les Amis du Fromage cheese shop. It’s closed in the evening when the Au Petit is open, but if you are blown away by a cheese, you can buy it in the restaurant. Au Petit is a perfect place to have a secret love affair with cheese.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Carnegie Kitchen delivers tasty, inexpensive meals for those who are down on their luck or looking for some companionship

Mia Stainsby
Sun

It’s like the miracle of five loaves and two fish feeding the multitudes. Robert Bonner would not be eating roast or pork dinners on his own but on week-ends, he’s at Carnegie Kitchen, chowing down on his favourite meals for less than he’s able to make them himself.

Bonner has been involved in one way or another with the Carnegie Centre since 1989, eating there and volunteering — most recently on a poverty and homeless action group.

“He’s our hero,” winks a woman across the table from him. “And he’s famous, too,” she says alluding to his cover-guy status on a fundraising calendar for the Downtown Eastside called Hope in Shadows.

In the centre’s kitchen (all stainless and commercially equipped), volunteers work in shifts alongside staff cooks preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacks in between. It never stops. They go at it 365 days a year. One volunteer is making sandwiches as fast as she can and they keep selling all day. Another is chopping herbs. She wanted to do volunteer work and learned about the kitchen online. Alvin, who seems to have parted ways with his front teeth, is vigorously washing pots and pans. “It’s the busiest section in the kitchen,” he says. “Dishwashing is not one of the bigger things volunteers like doing. It makes me feel good about coming down here and being useful.”

One might assume the larder would be stocked with economical ingredients such as canned and frozen vegetables Jell-O desserts. Not so. The cooks buy organic as much as possible and nutrition is key. Kitchen coordinator Catriona Moore, who’s been on staff some 20 years, bakes 14 loaves of bread daily — healthy and gorgeous round rustic loaves that could be sold in an artisan bakery.

The cook on duty, “Jacquie,” says the staff chefs “have total artistic licence, which is rare in kitchens.” She reels off examples of supper dishes their clientele might sit down to: chicken Marbella, osso bucco, lamb shanks.

I visit on a Tuesday, known to regulars as “burger day,” a day when line-ups are particularly long. I sit down for a quick burger for my lunch and the patty is all meat; the lettuce and tomato slice are fresh and the meal comes with a yam-and-potato salad. Moments earlier, Jacquie was zesting orange rind into the dressing for it.

“After 20 years, it’s rock solid,” Moore says, of burger popularity. Chicken drumsticks, cooked various ways, with rice is the other huge crowd-pleaser.

For lunch, they have a meat and vegetarian entree, as well as sandwiches, two soups and Moore‘s baking (cookies, cakes, buns, muffins, tarts, squares). Dinner entrees come with a nice chunk of freshly baked bread and dessert.

The inner strength of some of the hard-luck clientele never ceases to amaze Moore. “You can’t repress the human spirit. People will carry on,” she’s learned. “They keep trying under what we would consider to be unbearably bad odds. There’s a strong sense of community and caring for other people and there’s a great return on that.”

Grace Morgan, 67, has crumbled crackers into her split pea and smoked ham soup until it’s looking quite solid. “It’s a lot better than I could make,” she says. She lives five blocks away and one doesn’t want to prod too much as she’s having a very pleasant lunch. “If not for this place, I would not still be alive,” she says. “It’s meant everything to me. I owe it my life. They made it a home for me. I found friends here, people to care about.” She eats at the Carnegie Kitchen “as much as I can” and it fits her old-age and disability pension budget. “You don’t have to worry about fixing your own meals. You sit at a table with someone in a similar lifestyle and have nutritious food for health’s sake.”

Dell Cootes, 75, lived in the area until recently and did mission work at a church. She still feels emotionally connected to the neighbourhood and eats at the Carnegie Kitchen once a month, relishing in particular, the veggie burger with salad. “At my age, I have to eat veggies,” she laughs. Although she’s learned to keep away from certain streets in the neighbourhood and walks “as if I owned the world and not show fear,” she’s found there are more do-gooders in the Downtown Eastside than anywhere else in the city.

“There’s so much pain on Skid Row and you just do a little bit. You are doing a lot if you remember people’s names and treat them with dignity.”

At Carnegie Kitchen, she feels she gets the healthiest meals at the best prices along with a chance to talk to people. “I’m on pension, so I look for all the bargains. I’m amazingly tight with money.”

Not all are needy. Others like Laila Biergans has a heart-felt connection to the centre. She used to volunteer, teaching ESL and working as a counsellor there. She eats at the Carnegie Kitchen every other day. “I know a lot of people here, I like the atmosphere; I like the Downtown Eastside,” says Biergans, a counsellor working with adolescents with drug and alcohol issues. “My favourite is the Thursday evening fish dinners. Sometimes I’ll stop and pick up sandwiches before I go to a movie. I’m on my way to see a Che Guevara movie after lunch today.”

Over the years, Moore has seen a parade of characters both in the kitchen and dining room. One memorable character with a passion for music visited once a day and ate three meals at once. “He was absolutely brilliant, but socially inept. He’d have two trays of food and then sit down and polish it off. He was thin and we thought of him as the snake man with an enormously full belly.”

While there are soup kitchens for the under-privileged and other low-low-cost cafes, like Potluck Cafe on East Hastings (run by the disadvantaged and open to the public) and Gathering Place on Helmcken (geared more towards youth), the Carnegie Kitchen is attuned to the heartbeat of the Downtown Eastside and brings meal-time grace into many lives — about 200 a day.

The feedback is extremely positive, Moore says, but her customers are plain-talking and honest of opinion. “If they don’t like something, they tell you right away. They don’t mince words. And that absolutely is good. We need to know.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

North Van’s Ethical Kitchen serves up organic, wholesome food made from scratch

Mia Stainsby
Sun

ETHICAL KITCHEN

1600 McKay Rd., North Vancouver (across from Indigo Books)

604-988-6280

www.ethicalkitchenbc.com

Open Tuesday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

– – –

The name: Ethical Kitchen. The ambience: a lighter shade of The Naam. The staff: wholesome young women with fresh faces. Food: 99-per-cent organic. First impression: It’s a vegetarian haven, a Birkenstock collective.

So what a surprise — I had the most delicious, juicy burger here. The beef stew was crammed with very good beef. I could have had an equally meaty, juicy sausage on a bun.

When you put together the bits and pieces of information posted on the cooler display, you realize Ethical Kitchen is an unexpected mix of healthy and sustainable and lots of meat.

The owner, Barbara Schellenberg (the one with baby Tessa swaddled on her chest), comes about the meat thing naturally. Her parents are ranchers near Williams Lake, producing grass-fed, organic beef and lamb and organic pork and poultry. She started out marketing their meats (under the label Pasture to Plate) to Vancouver stores, but she longed for more people contact. At Ethical Kitchen she sells the meat from a walk-in freezer, but the dining area is more like a farm kitchen. A small menu of healthy dishes (her background also involves herbal medicine and body work) will delight carnivores who want wholesome, made-from-scratch food.

The burger ($13) came on a fresh-made sourdough bun (I saw the next batch proofing in bowls). Inside the bun, yummy condiments; it came with a crisp red and green coleslaw. A grilled fruit and Vancouver Island brie sandwich would have been excellent but for the bun, which in this case was too tough for the delicate filling, smooshing it into a mess.

Ethical Kitchen is open for breakfast, too, serving up waffles, flourless apple pancakes and bacon and eggs — it’s organic everything, nitrate-free bacon, orchard-run eggs, bio-dynamically grown potatoes, Jerseyland raw milk cheese.

Other dishes include: chicken coconut stew; sausage on a bun with a salad; sandwiches (beef, pork, chicken); gnocchi with tomato beef sauce; beef goulash; and a hearty salad plate.

Schellenberg’s mission is to return to the diet of a century ago.

“It’s something that worked. This isn’t a fad; it’s what traditional cultures do all over the world. It involves fermented vegetables, bone broths and organic foods from the local area,” she says.

She offers many fermented foods, good for digestion and anti-oxidant qualities — kombucha tea, kimchee, sauerkraut, house-made ginger beer and something called beet kvass, “a great blood builder,” she proclaims.

Even the house-made sourdough bread has fermented starter dough. Her stocks are simmered for three days until the bones break down and the minerals are all leached out. Hazelnut oil is expensive, but it’s local so she uses it.

Her walk-in freezer helps to keep food miles low. She freezes local fruits and vegetables in season. “I froze 3,000 pounds of tomatoes and a couple thousand pounds of fruit last summer,” she says. Even the kiwi is local.

Ethical Kitchen doesn’t preclude sweets. I fell into the hypnotic power of the bakery display. Jitterbugs will please the kid in you — they’re three-dimensional bug-shaped hazelnut chocolate espresso cakes dipped in dark chocolate. The muffins have a nice crisped top and a substantial feel.

Schellenberg has more plans up her sleeve. An edible hedge, for one. “We’re trying to grow as much food as possible — native plants, saskatoon berries, wild strawberries, huckleberries and we’re starting to grow our own micro-greens. And we’re hoping to do a roof-top garden and grow as much as we can on site. And we’re also planning to have a farmers’ market in the summer.” Instead of just marvelling at her energy, I’m thinking I should load up on kvass and kombucha.

She says the best compliment she’s received was when a customer walked in and told her it was like he’d “walked into some lady’s kitchen.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

Market Cafe makes a casual, but equally satisfying, alternative to its plusher cohort

Mia Stainsby
Sun

MARKET CAFE

1115 Alberni St., 604-695-1115

Open for lunch and dinner daily.

Overall: ****

Food: ****

Ambience: ****

Service: *****

Price: $/$$

Sun Restaurant Critic. [email protected]. Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

– – –

Be it blizzard, biblical rain or scorched earth, if you’re trapped in a building and it happens to be the Shangri-La hotel complex on West Georgia, how fortunate. If you like to eat, you’ll have a ball.

At street level, there’s the posh Urban Fare gourmet grocery store with cafeteria hot and cold offerings and a chocolate boutique and Ki, an Asian fusian restaurant is under construction.

In the hotel area, there’s the hotel’s Lobby Lounge (basic meals) but when you ascend to the next level (in more ways than one), you’re on Jean-Georges Vongerichten turf.

There’s his Market Bar with snacky foods and a raw bar (and where I recently spotted former city councillor Jim Green). The main dining room, Market by Jean-Georges, will induce instant amnesia even to an Armageddon outside. The food and service will do that.

Now if you take a wrong turn, you end up at Market Cafe, a casual take on Vongerichten food. The under-publicized cafe is over-shadowed by the hugely popular Market dining room. The cafe lacks the plushness of the dining room but the service is as polished as next door and the wine list is the same. Sommelier Robert Stelmachuk makes detours from the dining room, brining his big personality and even bigger knowledge of wine with him.

The menu is more pizza and burgers with some highlights from the appetizer menu in the dining room and if you’re downtown, it’s a chic spot for a casual lunch or dinner. The most expensive dishes are $14. Except for a couple of niggling details, the quality is top notch both in ingredients and cookery.

Let’s start with the thin-crust pizzas. I tried a hit and a miss in that category. Well, perhaps not entirely a miss. The tuna carpaccio and wasabi cream topping was actually gorgeous with a poof of julienned daikon and shiso but I think it would have been better on its own without the pizza crust (although my partner liked it just as it was). The tuna is too soft and delicate against the crust for me.

The black truffle and fontina cheese pizza, however, redeemed this category. So-o good, so redolent with black truffle. My partner ordered it and my excuses to try more degenerated from lame to pathetic.

One evening, a little boy sitting at the next table ordered the cream tomato soup to go with his burger. He looked alarmed when an empty white bowl with a crostini shard across the top was delivered to him. He was visibly relieved not to have to deal with a problem when a second server slid in and poured the soup from another receptacle.

The beef burger comes with two sirloin patties. “They cook quicker and lose less moisture than a single thick patty,” explains restaurant chef David Foot. The perfect fries came with three dips. Foot is proud of the tuna burger with the premium ahi, mixed with shallots and brushed with sesame oil and soy sauce. It’s cut and chopped daily and cooked to rare, medium or well done. Typical of Vongerichten, Asian flavours creep in — bonito mayo, yuzu pickles, shiso leaves.

The beef tartar is freshly ground daily; instead of toast points, it comes with tempura-battered onions which stay crisp to the last bite. I had to ask how. “We mix a fresh batter every 45 minutes,” says Foot. “After that, the baking powder and rice flour in it breaks down.”

The cafe shares the same dessert menu as the dining room — my chance to try the pavlova I’d missed. It’s a spherical meringue jobbie with passion fruit sorbet tucked in the hollow innard. A marvel, but frankly, I would have preferred to find whipped cream and fruit inside. The sphere sat upon a shallow base of whipped cream but I sat with sad ‘more please’ eyes.

The banana cake has a picture-perfect chorus line of caramelized banana slices marching across the top and the caramel ice cream is delicious. The cake, though, could have been more delicate and banana-ey.

I’m certainly not complaining — I’m writing about a casual restaurant, for gosh sakes. And considering that, it’s excellent value.

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