A trio of baby-friendly lunch spots during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games
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Karen Hamilton
February 22, 2010
Now that our daughter has graced our lives, it’s a lot tougher to dine around with her in tow – especially during the mayhem of the Olympics. I was happy to find a few places within a 15-minute walk of our abode in Yaletown that not only offered special hours and menus during the Winter Games, but allowed me to lunch with a stroller by my side without compromising on quality.
Joe Fortes and its Pacific Kiss Platter
Paula from the BC Shellfish Growers Association (BCSGA) emailed me last week about a BC oyster sampler that Monk McQueens and Joe Fortes were offering for the duration of the Olympics. As I hadn’t applied for accreditation for the Games, I missed the official media tasting. But that was fine with me – at an affordable $25, I was able to make a lunch reservation at Joe Fortes and experience this Pacific Kiss platter as a normal diner.
Armed with a handy trifold showing the map and tasting notes above, I slurped my way across 12 regions of BC oysters, with almost all of them on or neighbouring Vancouver Island. Amongst my favourites were the smaller varieties: the Kusshi, the Pacific Rim Petites, and the Effingham. Clear winner for me was the larger Fanny Bay oyster, pictured below. Guess there is a reason this baby is popular at my other oyster haunt, Rodney’s Oyster House.
Service at Joe Fortes was terrific. The hostesses reserved us a table by the Oyster Bar that allowed room for a stroller and our server gave tasting glasses of the wines we were trying to decide between.
We also witnessed her cater to a table of tourists with a Pacific Kiss platter. She returned to said table with 12 cleansed shells – now souvenirs for their niece’s shell collection. It was funny to note at the time, as I had mentioned to my friend at how tempted I was to take home the aesthetically pleasing exterior of my Chef’s Creek oyster (above).
Joe Fortes Seafood & Chop House
777 Thurlow St | Downtown Vancouver
(604) 669-1940
Alpha’s Olympic lunch combos
My five-year love affair with Alpha is well documented, but one long-standing complaint is that they’re not open for lunch. I literally squealed with delight when they told me at one evening that they were offering lunch service during the Winter Games: 1-4pm Wednesday through Sunday until Feb 28th. We made reservations for lunch the next day, where I just had to order the $20.10 Olympic Combo, featuring three kinds of sushi and sashimi, mackerel, meatball stew, fish cakes, and other goodies. Next time I’ll try the $18 Vancouver Combo: chicken kara-age, breaded ebi mayo, pumpkin croquettes, three kinds of sushi, tuna garlic pepper and more.
Again, the stroller containing the little one was welcome during this less frenzied meal time, and our servers gushed over her newness as we ate.
If you are a fan of Alpha’s dinner menu, you won’t be disappointed at how many of the regular items are still available at lunch time. The only glaring omissions (to the chagrin of my lunch date) are the Grilled Toro Pork and the Miso Teriyaki Beef.
Alpha Global Sushi & Bar
1099 Richards St | Yaletown
(604) 633-0355
Hapa Izakaya’s Olympic lunch menu
Yaletown’s newest izakaya entrant normally has post-5pm service, but they similarly decided to be open for lunch during the Olympics. 11am-2pm Sunday through Thursday, for them.
Unlike the wide selection they have during regular service, Hapa’s lunch menu tallies at six mains. It wasn’t a problem for my dining companion, who had ordered the $12 tekka donburi combo like I had, but if you have a discerning palate you may be disappointed by the limited choice during the day.
If, however, you come equipped with a baby in a carrier or stroller – like I have on several occasions, both lunch and dinner – be assured that your family will not be turned away. Even if a Canada hockey game is on and you have to navigate said stroller to the back booth through a sea of people belting out our national anthem.
One word of warning: don’t come here if you are avoiding restaurants that have added auto gratuities for the Olympics. Hapa Yaletown has an 18% rate. I for one have had consistently attentive service at this location worth at least 18%, so I don’t mind. But you might.
Hapa Izakaya
1193 Hamilton Street | Yaletown
(604) 681-4272
Categories: Downtown, Events, Food, Restaurants, Yaletown
Twelfth annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner at Floata
1 Comment Bruce NguyenFebruary 9, 2010
Mosaic.
Growing up a young immigrant in Canada, ‘mosaic’ was the catch phrase my school teachers would use to define the country’s cultural landscape. Mosaic; by proudly juxtaposing different cultures, my adopted country would create an altogether new composite Canadian identity.
I’m still skeptical on the extent of it all in reality, but what’s clear is with today’s popularity of the california roll, Japadog, and ninja turtles, cultural borrowing and fusion has become rather commonplace. However, I can’t remember when it’s ever been as explicit and downright fun as Gung Haggis Fat Choy.
We even covered the event live on twitter. Missed our live tweets? You can catch up on the conversation here
The event
A portmanteau of the traditional Cantonese new year greeting and that prototypical Scottish sausage, Gung Haggis Fat Choy combines Chinese New Year with Robbie Burns Day to create a new composite celebration of song, poetry readings, and food in order to celebrate the two heritages and raise funds for various charities.
This year marked the event’s twelfth year running and, with over four hundred attendees to this year’s dinner, the costumes, bagpipes, and sing-a-longs were in full swing.
Hosted by “Toddish McWong” and Tricia Collins, the night started with a full bagpipe band, transitioned to poetry readings, both original works and those from Burns, and just kept going from there.
Audience participation was encouraged, with sing-a-longs of “When Asian/Scottish/Chirish Eyes are Smiling” – yes, “Chirish ” – and echoing along with a rap version of Burns’ “Address to the Haggis”.
The menu
The drink list consisted of a variety of Scotch whiskies and Chinese beers. Wines were available too, but understandably none from Scotland or China.
Hosted by Floata Seafood Restaurant, the menu would sound familiar to anybody who has been to a Chinese wedding banquet, with a few key differences of course:
- Appetizer plate of haggis siu mai, BBQ pork, jellyfish, and turnip cakes
- Deep-fried haggis wontons
- Mixed vegetables and winter melon soup
- Haggis lettuce wrap with diced vegetables
- Pan-fried prawns with spicy salt (shell in)
- Peking style gold coined beef
- Buddha’s Feast vegetables with deep fried tofu
- Deep fried crispy chicken
- Vegetarian fried rice
- Coconut or mango rice pudding
The Deep fried haggis wontons being a clear stand-out. In fact, I personally loved all the haggis infused dishes served this night. Yes, I know what haggis is. But I grew up eating chicken feet, tripe, and Hot vit lon / Balut (readers with tender stomachs, do not click that link).
Haggis? No problem, and really very pleasantly savoury.
‘Good food and good fun’ sums up our experiences at this year’s Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner; I’m sure we’ll be back next year.
To learn more about Gung Haggis Fat Choy: The Robbie Burns / Chinese New Year event, visit their website here.
Categories: Chinatown, Events, Food, Restaurants
Le Clos Jordanne showcases New World terroir
2 Comments Degan BeleyFebruary 5, 2010
“Why does the old world have terroir and we just have varietal wines?” Le Clos Jordanne’s winemaker Thomas Bachelder asked at a recent Terminal City Club tasting. “It’s not fair.”
Sampling five wines – all from 2006 but from various vineyards – he walked us through the different regions and vineyards and illustrated how much terroir comes into play even for Canadian regions. Le Clos Jordanne is situated on a 400km limestone bench stretching around the lake and into the USA. It has a landscape perfectly suited to wine and the proprietors recognized this, starting the winery with a terroir experiment.
Le Clos Jordanne is a joint venture between Vincor and Domaine Boisset from Burgundy. The idea was to start a winery completely from scratch in the burgundy tradition and try to capture the characteristics of the Niagara Peninsula area around the village of Jordan.
There are four vineyards: Talon, La Petite, Claystone and Le Clos. Village Reserve comes from all four; La Petite is so small it can only be used for the reserve and the La Petite Pinot Noir. The Claystone and Le Clos grapes contribute to both pinot noir and chardonnay.
This is a careful, deliberate operation. The yields are so low that they have to net the vines or the birds would eat everything. Then the grapes are hand-picked and hand-sorted to eliminate rot. The exacting methods pay off, however. These are top-notch Niagara wines, and they’re now available in BC.
All of the wines we tasted are the same vintage (2006) and the same grapes (pinot noir and chardonnay) in order to better find the characteristic expressions in the wine. Starting off with the Village Reserve Pinot Noir, we tasted blackberry and floral notes. This is almost a perfumey wine with the characteristics of all vineyards mingling happily. In contrast is the Claystone Pinot Noir which comes from the western, “best part” of Claystone. Thomas Bachelder has determined that the tough minerality of this area is most representative of Claystone.
Finally, the Grand Clos Pinot Noir takes the best grapes from all four vineyards and the result is both delicate and bold. Karen of WineBard.ca detects citrus and she’s right: in there with the red fruit is a bit of tangerine. Paired with the pinots were a Fraser Valley duck breast on potato cakes, five spice beef tempura on potato puree and bruschetta that brought out the richness of the wines.
The two whites we tasted, Claystone Chardonnay and Grand Clos Chardonnay, were sipped in conjunction with preserved lemon risotto, seared scallop with sunchoke tureen, and chardonnay-poached lobster with black truffle chip. Again, the differences between the single vineyard and the Grand Clos were evident. Claystone is hard and tight, yet elegant. It has a soft palate and the sweetness of the wine is enhanced by the food. The Grand Clos has a rich, lemony essence to it, slightly mineral and utterly mind-blowing.
I’m not normally a fan of chardonnays but both of these are gorgeous and rich – completely unlike any other American chards. I will be buying both again without a doubt.
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