Alternative treats for a sweet Valentine’s Day
1 Comment
Karen Hamilton
February 12, 2011
Flowers and a box of chocolates have their place, but not on Valentine’s Day. To me, a present like that feels like the giver didn’t want to figure out what you actually find romantic. It’s akin to getting a generic gift basket from name-a-bath-shop-here on your birthday.
This is what I’d rather get – and give – to my favourite people with a sweet tooth on Valentine’s Day.
Heart-shaped gelato cake from Bella Gelateria
Haven’t had the time for a public outpouring of adoration for Coal Harbour’s kick-ass gelato stop, but hopefully that will follow on Tiny Bites before summer hits. What you need to know for Valentine’s Day is that heart-shaped gelato cakes, customizable with up to 3 gelato flavours, custom messages or decorations, and ribbon, are available for pick-up as long as you give them at least 24 hours’ notice. 8″ and 10″ are the standard sizes regardless of whether you choose a circle or a square. If you don’t have enough people or willpower to down an 8″ serving, you can opt for these individual-sized gelato cakes instead.
Bella Gelateria
1001 West Cordova Street | Coal Harbour
(604) 569-1010
www.bellagelateria.com
Hazelnut love from Ganache Patisserie
My favourite cake shop has crafted a seasonal cake for Valentine’s Day. The $25 Saint Valentin Noisette Passion 2011 is a hazelnut-in-hazelnut tart that gives me a chocolate thrill just from hearing the description: hazelnut ganache speckled with toasted hazelnut pieces inside a choco-hazelnut shell, topped with dark chocolate mousse containing a passionfruit creme brulee centre. After all that, Ganache decides to ring it with raspberries and pink chocolate hearts, too. I hope none of you are allergic to hazelnuts!
The regular line-up offers plenty to choose from in terms of group and individual servings. You could go with layers of red and white with a Coco Velours Rouge: a red velvet cake with dark chocolate ganache, coconut cream cheese mousseline, and vanilla chantilly (pictured right). Cranberry lovers would love the Chocolat-Canneberge: white chocolate cranberry parfait, milk chocolate mousse, and a praline crunch (centre). Those wanting something lighter might like the bestselling Blanc Frasier better: vanilla cake, vanilla sablé Breton, white chocolate black pepper mousseline, strawberries, and passionfruit meringue (left).
Ganache Patisserie
1262 Homer Street | Yaletown
(604) 899-1098
www.ganacheyaletown.com
3 special afternoon tea services at The Urban Tea Merchant
My favourite tea house is putting on several special tea services during the month of February. The signature service is the Sweetheart Afternoon Tea: $48 per person and inclusive of a $30 tin of tea to take home for cozy evenings together. If the idea of a $96 tea for two is too much for your pocket book, they are also putting on a $16 Tea and Chocolate Fondue service daily between 2-6pm.
Fondue for two is a lot more my style, but I know my tea-indifferent husband wouldn’t go for that either. If only my daughter was old enough to appreciate the $24 Mad Hatter’s Tea: a children’s tea service with nutella sandwiches and PB&J plus other kid-friendly goodies. The roiboos or fruit tisane tea is served in the most precious line of tea glassware! I’d buy a set for my household in a heartbeat if my husband would indulge the spend (a not-so-subtle hint for him for a Valentine’s Day gift for me).
The Urban Tea Merchant
1070 West Georgia Street | Downtown | (604) 692-0071
825 Main St | West Vancouver | (604) 926-3392
www.urbantea.com
Whatever you choose for your Valentine, make it count, and make it delicious!
Categories: Downtown, Food, Restaurants, Yaletown, Yummy Products
Does Yew restaurant + bar have the meatiest Caesar in town?
3 Comments Karen HamiltonFebruary 11, 2011
I certainly think so.
My cocktail Kryptonite is a well made Caesar. I’ve even been known to sustain myself in my nightclub heyday on vodka-soaked green beans (the only remotely edible item the bar had on hand for people who had skipped dinner). However, good Caesars have been hard to come by in this town. They’re either too watery, too fond of the mollusk, or too full of heat – in this way masking the lack of robust flavour in the rest of the drink. A balanced Caesar has been a quest I had long since abandoned, so I was elated to finally find a Caesar of interest. My excitement tripled when I discovered that the magic ingredient was meat!
Where can you find it? Yew restaurant + bar at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Unfortunately, Yew’s Olympic version of the Caesar – a nod to Calgary ’88 with its vodka infusion of chipotle and Oyama’s smoked buffalo jerky, served in a 16oz glass cowboy boot – is only available as part of their Olympic revival menu from February 12-28, 2011. That means that you’ll be seeing me at Yew over the next 2 weeks reliving the glory days of last year’s Olympics in full cowboy cocktail fashion.
See you at the bar.
Yew restaurant + bar
791 West Georgia Street | Downtown Vancouver
(604) 689-9333
www.yewrestaurant.com
Categories: Downtown, Food, Restaurants
My football food locks for Super Bowl XLV deliciousness
1 Comment Karen HamiltonFebruary 5, 2011
T minus 24 hours till Super Bowl XLV! It totally sucks that my team didn’t make it this year, but I will still join fellow embittered football fans this Super Bowl Sunday to watch the remaining teams go head-to-head. At least they are two teams that I would be happy to cheer for: the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers. My money’s on the Packers for fear of the repercussions (they’re the team of the best man at our wedding, whose wrath I do not wish to raise).
Our usual Super Bowl ritual involves preparing a feast fit for the game, which is more often than not tailored to the teams that are playing. Since I’ve already done my due diligence about generic plus pro-Steelers football fare when I wrote about the big game in 2009, I will simply recap those details for you here so to pay more attention on how you could represent the Packers at your Super Bowl party.
Go Packers! Cheesehead food and drink
Photo credit: Bjorn Hanson (Creative Commons)
What you can make to celebrate Green Bay will likely involve cheese. Cheese made in Wisconsin, to be precise. Ideally, cheese that looks like the wedge above. If you can fashion it into a hat on your head, give yourself bonus points. You could probably make a drinking game out of it: take a swig every time you spot a close-up of a Packers fan in this head gear.
Speaking of drinks…Wisconsin is home to many a good brewery but the best are difficult to get in Vancouver. If you are really dying to get a beer of appropriate origin, you could always default to MGD.
Solids
- Fried cheese curds (The Nibble)
- Green Bay Packers bratwurst and cheddar pizza (Examiner.com)
- Bratwurst: serve with perogies for a Packers-Steelers dish duo (The Bratwurst Pages)
- Resource: Wisconsin Cheese (Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board)
Liquids
- Any WI beer from the Miller group (Milwaukee), which includes the award-winning selections from Hamm’s Brewery.
- Resource: Wisconsin breweries (Wikipedia)
- Resource: Search Twitter for #superbowlbeer suggestions
Go Steelers! Pro-Pittsburgh food and drink
Last time Pittsburgh was in the running, we created Ben Roethlis-Burger sliders that appeased our guests and all the meat-loving deities that exist in our universe. We’ll probably repeat these again to represent the Steelers as cooking this is probably easier than finding Iron City in town!
Want something you can just heat and serve? Apparently the perogy is much heralded in Pennsylvania.
Solids
- The Ben Roethlis-Burger, with bacon weave upgrade (BBQ Addicts)
- BBQ Chipped Chop Ham Sandwiches (Accidental Hedonist)
- Perogies (serve with bratwurst for a Steelers-Packers mash-up)
Liquids
- Iron City (Pittsburgh)
- Resource: Beers of Pittsburgh (Beer Expedition)
- Resource: Pennsylvania breweries (Wikipedia)
- Resource: Search Twitter for #superbowlbeer suggestions
Other football-friendly eats
If you don’t care to pick sides or just want to have stuff to eat that washes down nicely with a cold brew, consider these options. Warning: not for the faint of stomach, and definitely not for vegetarians.
- Bacon bourbon popcorn – Sarah Sprague had me at ‘bacon’. She had my husband at ‘popcorn’. With over a kilo of Chilliwack organic popping corn in our pantry, it would be a travesty to not attempt this recipe as soon as freaking possible.
- Our rendition of Spicy Oven-Baked Chicken Wings (adapted from Fearless in the Kitchen: Innovative Recipes for the Uninhibited Cook by Christine Cushing)
- Memphis Blues Super Bowl Party Pak - Don’t have a grill or the time? Feed 8 people with a slew of barbecued meats, chili and wings. Order ahead for this $95 eat-in /take-out special.
Enjoy the game around town
If the bar scene is more your style, check out what some of Vancouver’s pubs and restaurants are offering for sustenance on February 6, 2011. Know of others showing the game in the city? Drop me a comment here.
- Red Card – Settle in as early as 1pm to get your fill of $5 Kronenbourgh lagers and sample the game specials: hot wings galore and Super Bowl chili with the requisite cornbread on the side.
- Library Square Public House – or choose the Donnelly Group pub nearest to you. Come in after 3:30pm.
- Kingston Taphouse – 11am marks the start of Kingston’s Super Bowl specials. Buy a $10 ticket to assure you a seat, a Prime Rib Burger and some Granville Island Beer. You might even win a trip for 2 to Vegas.
- Memphis Blues’ Super Bowl All-You-Can-Eat Party – If you haven’t called them to book your table yet, get on the phone right now. $20 gets you unlimited mini-ribs and fries, and buckets of Rocky Mountain Pilsner will be going for $10.
Other Super Bowl XLV resources
These additional sites may help you with the planning of this year’s Super Bowl shenanigans. Of note is the article with Southern recipes – a nod to the fact that the game’s being played this year at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.
- Southern style cookin’ for Super Bowl (Vancouver Sun)
- Great beer for the Super Bowl (Washington Times)
- Super Bowl 2011 Craft Beer Poll: Wisconsin vs. Pennsylvania (Drinkcraftbeer.com)
- Packers Super Bowl Menu: Cheese, Beer, and More Cheese (The Stir)
- Planning a Steelers Super Bowl Party (About.com Pittsburgh)
- Green Bay sausages vs. Pittsburgh pierogies: a Super Bowl debate (Pittsburgh Business Times)
- The Ultimate Football Foodie Super Bowl Recipe Guide for Steelers-Packers Party 2011 (SarahSprague.com)
- Super Bowl Challenge: My Local Beer Quest (the Epi-Log on Epicurious.com)
What will you eat and drink on Super Bowl Sunday? Send me your tips and/or your favourite Super Bowl recipes.
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Articles by Karen Hamilton
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