Tiny Bites - a Vancouver food blog

Kitsilano dinner hopping with Social Bites

11 Comments Karen HamiltonNovember 29, 2008

5:30pm at the Hamilton household

Already another opportunity to take my netbook for another mobile blogging spin.  This time, it’s a 3-part dinner experience via Social Bites, a unique way to dine about the kitchens of Vancouver.

We are just about to jump into the car towards the home of the first hobby chefs of our evening, Alexis and Matt. They’ll be treating us to a creamy corn and crab chowder, followed by tapas-style spare ribs and rosemary and garlic mashed potatoes.

Follow along as I give you the scoop on location, and check out our personalized Social Bites Kitsilano Agenda (PDF) until the next update goes live.

6pm at Alexis and Matt’s

Nicely settled at our first pit stop with our hosts and their dog, Rusty, who was wary of us at first but is now getting friendly with my camera. Matt is on the patio basting the ribs while Alex keeps us company in the dining room.

6:30pm

Guests Trudy and Tina arrived with a bottle of Quail’s Gate gewürztraminer, and a peek at the grill outside indicated that dinner was ready to go.

The corn and crab chowder was first on our plate. A twist of lime and all six of us were digging in. Corn nibs were whole and juicily sweet, and the Dungeness crab imparted a sweetness of its own. My husband noted a slight creaminess that he enjoyed; I was too busy cleaning my bowl.

The pork back ribs were next, marinated for a few hours with a dry rub of ginger, mustard, allspice, and basted on the grill with a sweet Thai chili glaze.  An interesting combination of brown sugarness on the first chew that transitions into a mild kick of heat.  We all eventually abandoned the knife and fork for our bare hands, but Alex and Matt had finger bowls on hand when we were through.  Overall a great first experience!

7pm, after a fab first course

We are now departing for the next hobby chef meal at Katerina and Marianne’s, who will treat us to Greek lemon chicken, authentic tsatsiki, and lemon-infused, oven-roasted potatoes. My mouth is already watering…

Back in about an hour.

8pm at Katerina and Marianne’s

Back from a quick stop to the liquor store on MacDonald to equip ourselves with a bottle of red that we had unwittingly forgotten to procure when our evening began. We chatted in the living room with our second hobby chefs and familiar faces Karen G. and Brent, who complimented the vegetarian lasagna they had from the Mystery hobby chef, who happens to be Annika Reinhardt, Ms. Social Bites herself.

In a heartbeat, we were seated with individual servings of tsatsiki showcased modernly in the center of the table.  Hosts Katerina and Marianne presented four giant servings of lemon chicken breast and roast potatoes amongst much oohing and aahing.  We dolloped generous amounts of tsatsiki over our dishes and attacked our second dinner with fervour.  The potatoes were the highlight for me, with crunchy bits providing textural contrast to the soft, melty, starchy bits that melted in my mouth.

In 30 minutes, we’re off to CocoaNymph to join up with the rest of the Social Bites attendees, with story swapping, single origin chocolates, and musical performances ahead. I hope they have Wifi…if so, I will continue with this sort of live blog posting and attempt to upload all the photos I’ve taken thus far.

Stay tuned.

9:30pm at CocoaNymph

Here we all are, 22 strong, gathered as a single group in a cozy chocolatier’s shop with pots of green tea and Ethical Bean coffee scattered about.   The majority of us have finished casting our ballots for the hobby chefs of the night, while Brian set the mood at a baby grand the colour of white truffle.

Annika welcomed the assembly and introduced Rachel Sawatzky, our CocoaNymph host, who is taking the group for a tour of chocolates handmade by Rachel and/or her assistant, Nina.  Rachel’s shop is just a year old, and for this evening and any holiday pre-ordering, the attendees are being offered a 10% discount on anything in the store.

Bullet points on Rachel’s cocoa tasting:

• 3 tastings: 2 single origin chocolates and a South American blend
• Tasting process: check for temper (snap), shine, smell, and taste
• Taste chocolates in increasing order of strength (%), where the % indicates the amount of total cocoa extracted from the bean press
• Indian Ocean (64%): citrus, fruity, candied, sweet, sugary, light in body, more acidic
• South American blend (70%): smooth, mellow, like a Brazilian coffee. The majority preferred this one, and one participant suggested that it was because it tasted the most like the chocolate North Americans would be used to
• Venezuela (72%): “Mmm….tastes like Hugo Chavez” –Brent
• The rarest cocoa beans are from Cuba and Madagascar, which are great enjoyed as single origin but not usually used in a blend
• The bean press creates two major outputs: cocoa butter and cocoa mass
• Truffle tasting of the Illa, which was featured by Vancouver Magazine as one of the 101 things to eat before you die (#96, in fact).  Tasting notes:  salty first burst with a smooth transformation into caramel and ganache
• 14 other truffle flavours are available with another 8 coming out soon
• Rachel shared her story about how she ended up in the chocolate business, which started in medical school and resulted in a first batch of 3000 chocolates from an investment of $100

As Annika hides to tally the results for the Hobby Chef Award, the rest of us break to sample more truffles and mingle.  Back soon, if my battery allows.

10:15pm, after the ballots were tallied

Congratulations to Alexis and Matt, who won tonight’s Hobby Chef Award, including Social Bites passes for future excursions and a prize pack from indishpensable.  The scores were quite close, with the pair winning by a margin of two points.  I would certainly come back to their abode for more of those fantastic ribs if ever an invitation were to come our way.

Kudos to the rest of the hobby chefs (Annika, Katerina and Marianne, and Matt and Mark) for putting on such a close race and opening their homes and recipes up for our judgement.  Special thanks to Nancy of Le Petit Spa for providing a space for Annika to serve her meal.

Diners also did not walk away empty-handed.  Each of us were gifted with a keychain with a balloon whisk trinket (nice touch, Annika) fitted with a member’s discount card for specialty food store, Meinhardt. We also collectively gave back to the community, with half the proceeds going towards the Vancouver Food Bank (more than 50% if Annika is able to cover her costs).

11:30pm, back home and preparing for bed

Sigh…what a wonderful evening.  The concerns that I had about timing and travel between locations were for naught.  Annika laid out a precise schedule and everyone made a concerted effort to keep to it.   It was a novel way to meet new people through food and conversation, and I hope that these new connections enjoyed themselves as much as we did. When the next Social Bites event hits Yaletown (likely late January – mid February), you never know…we may just open up our Yaletown apartment as part of the next wave of hobby chefs.

Update, November 30th: Annika has confirmed the next Social Bites dinner excursion for Saturday, February 7, 2009.  Yaletown is the most likely location but that is not yet set in stone.

Feedback time!

While I take the next few days to properly upload all the images from this event, I want to hear from you, whether you be attendee, hobby chef, or Tiny Bites reader.  What did you like about this event?  What could be improved for the next Social Bites occasion?  What news or photos can you share about the hobby chefs we didn’t visit?  What would you like to know about that hasn’t been covered here?

Tell me what you’re thinking by posting a comment or emailing me at karen[at]tinybites[dot]ca.

Categories: Events, Food

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