Dine Out Vancouver comes to us much further into the year this time around, most likely to avoid overlap with the craziness of the Olympics. Good to see that many participating restaurants are taking advantage of this late start with menus that trumpet springtime is here!. Also pleased that more cross-promotion is in place this year, with hotel packages catering to Dine Out enthusiasts and food tours, cooking classes, and wine seminars wanting to tag team with your dinner plans.

I’ve created my 2010 Dine Out Vancouver shortlist with quite specific criteria: restaurants I’ve never been to that are cooking trout on nights that we have a babysitter. Since I don’t expect you to share these conditions with me, below are my 2009 Dine Out Vancouver tips rejigged along with new advice to account for some of the changes to the program this year.

Try something new

The incredible Dine Out dinners I’ve had in the past always tempt me to revisit those restaurants responsible for such fond memories, but to date, I’ve committed to picking places I’ve never been to for each new round.

If you have downtown Vancouver tunnel vision like I often do, consider going to a restaurant in Burnaby or Richmond instead. You could even go further afield for the parallel (but not co-produced) Dine In Whistler event. I’d make a beeline for Araxi and Bearfoot Bistro if I had the means to drive out there for it!

If you see this event as an easier way to explore the restaurant scene, not as a sale for your tried-and-true places, you may wind up with a new favourite eatery as a result.

Do lunch

Dine Out Vancouver used to be a right steal when it started, with meals as low as $15 and menus capped at $25. Since its inception, we’ve seen the addition of a $35 tier — now $38 — and the use of the Special Notes field to denote add-ons like wine pairings and even fine print like automatic gratuities. These do add up…and now a couple out for a Dine Out evening could easily spend over $100, wondering where the so-called deal has gone.

If your wallet or your spending sensibilities can’t handle the burgeoning price of Dine Out Vancouver dinners, try a Dine Out Vancouver lunch instead! Nearly a third of participating restaurants are offering it.

There isn’t a way to search for this option on the Tourism Vancouver website so I’ve decided to do the grunt work for you. You’re welcome.

• Amarcord
• Ashiana Tandoori Restaurant
• Bistro 101 at the Pacific Institute for Culinary Arts (PICA)
• Blarney Stone
• C Restaurant
• Cardero’s
• cassis bistro
• Ciao Bella
• Cru
• Darby’s Pub
• db bistro moderne
• Diva at the Met
• Don Francesco
• Elixir
• Fogg n’ Sudds Robson
• Goldfish Pacific Kitchen
• Gramercy Grill
• Hamilton Street Grill
• Harold’s Bistro & Bar
• Hell’s Kitchen
• Hermitage
• Herons
• hidden
• Kerkis Greek Taverna
• Kirin
• Las Margaritas
• Le Gavroche
• Maurya
• Medley’s Restaurant
• Moustache Cafe
• nu
• O’Doul’s
• Plato Estiatorio
• Raincity Grill
• Reflect social dining + lounge
• Rocky Mountain Flatbread
• Salt Tasting Room
• Sanafir
• Seasons in the Park
• Seawall bar & grill
• Society Dining Lounge
• STONEGRILL Restaurant
• Chongqing
• Thai Spice
• The Fish House in Stanley Park
• The Point Restaurant & Tapas
• The Sandbar
• The Teahouse
• Westward Ho! at the University Golf Club
• Wild Rice
• Yokohama Teppanyaki

You do still have to call these restaurants if you’d like to know how much their Dine Out lunches cost as well as what’s on the menu for it, but I’m betting that it’ll be more affordable than its dinner counterpart.

Put your ear to the ground

Not sure where to go? Hold off on making a reservation and wait for initial feedback.  I typically seek out the opinion of food writers with similar palates, search for reviews of Dine Outs past, and listen to the rants or raves of loved ones returning from their experience.

Now that Twitter is the haunt of many a food lover, you could also lurk the feeds of your favourite restaurant addicts or check in on whatever event hashtag wins out (#dov2010 is probably your best bet).

One downside to this strategy is that the hottest restaurants will be fully booked by the time you decide to go there. If you were already thinking of dining at the likes of Chambar, West, Boneta, db bistro, and Market, don’t think: just book now. West is already sold out and tables at Boneta are going fast.

Compare against the regular menu

Don’t assume that all Dine Out participants are offering you a deal.  Some are cheaper than their set menus imply, especially those that offer $18 menus for normally communal fare. Unless you are really smitten by their Dine Out lineup, you would do better to sample these restaurants on a regular day rather than competing with the crowds during Dine Out. [I am also puzzled by the continued presence of certain restaurant chains that have been with Dine Out since the outset, but that's all I will say about that.]

Upon closer inspection, you might also discover that restaurants with top tier Dine Out Vancouver offerings have more affordable prix fixe specials during regular service. Some may also have lunch service: a good way to try a restaurant out of your budget free of the crowds that Dine Out brings. And if you had had your heart set on the now sold-out West, West’s lunch may very well be your only option during Dine Out this year!

Select by menu, not by reputation

If you’re like me, you’ve eagerly looked up the menu of a restaurant of high repute at the Tourism Vancouver site only to discover how truly ho-hum its Dine Out edition is.  The uninspired (re: cheap) offerings or plans that read like a workday set lunch turn me off from attempting an otherwise promising restaurant.

Make sure your palate is already salivating on what you’re going to eat or be prepared to have a less than stellar meal at a place that normally has a good reason to draw praise.

Share your Dine Out Vancouver experiences with others

Help your circle narrow down their dining choices by relating what you’ve enjoyed (or detested) in the past.  On my part, I’ll list places of note from our Dine Out Vancouver history.

Pleased by:

• Imperial Chinese Seafood Restaurant
• Hart House
• Fleuri
• West
• Brix
• Raincity Grill
• Aqua Riva
• Provence Marinaside
• Rex Rotisserie & Grill
• Chambar (I’d prefer to go on a regular day and pig out on mussels)

Disappointed by:

• Griffin’s
• Wild Rice
• Coast
• Horizons
• cassis bistro
• Parkside

Feel free to leave me a comment about your past, present, and future with Dine Out Vancouver.

My brother haunts the non-touristy end of Robson Street for its array of Japanese and Korean dining options. A week and a half ago, he happened across the soft open of Ramen Santouka, the newest of the chain of ramen shops originally based out of Hokkaido and starting to make its conquest of North America.

The restaurant decor is peppered with bears – the symbol of Hokkaido, according to my brother

Soft open / grand opening signage and tasty, tasty visual menu

Even if he hadn’t already eaten at Ramen Santouka during his last trip to Hokkaido, the place still would have captured his attention. The storefront, while modest in signage and obscured by a bus stop, has an arresting display in the front window of what one could eat inside its doors. It would have been enough for this curious diner to try it without further recommendation; I imagine the descriptions and visuals would interest a ramen neophyte as well.

My brother stepped inside for his first Vancouver taste of Santouka’s shio ramen. One slurp was enough to sell him on a second visit in the same week – another positive experience which led him to suggest Santouka for lunch the next time he and I hung out. He tried the shoyu ramen and the cha-su don while I wasted no time in ordering the most unusual items on the menu: the kara miso ramen and ikura don. Our picks were conveniently available as ramen/don combos for $11 and $13. Gotta love a place that makes sampling this easy.

Kara miso ramen: spicy tonkotsu broth flavoured with chili oil and miso

Ikura don: rice bowl topped with salmon roe and thin shreds of scrambled egg

Shoyu ramen: tonkotsu base flavoured with soy

Cha-shu don: rice bowl topped with slowly simmered pork

Yum, yum, yum! Easily the best tonkotsu I’ve had in Vancouver. The regular pork in our ramen was already so superb in tenderness, marble, and rich flavour that it’s gotten me drooling in anticipation for the premium pork jowl of the toroniku ramen that I will no doubt order upon my return.

A few observations: 1 slice of pork in my bowl and the default portion size were not enough to appease my normally peckish appetite, and certain items on the menu were not yet available for order. I recommend immediately upgrading your bowl to the large portion and requesting extra pork when you visit. Don’t let the limitations in the current menu stop you from coming down to eat there, as food lovers in the know and Santouka fans happy to see its presence in Vancouver are already causing a formidable line-up during service peak times. Oh, and don’t forget your cash – no debit or credit cards accepted yet.

This is a promising ramen find for me. As for my brother – who isn’t wild about Kintaro and who prefers the likes of Motomachi – he has found a new favourite in Santouka. He’s even posted photos and rave one-line reviews of his Santouka meals on his Facebook profile without telling his friends where to find the place. Tease.

Chow Times and La Petite Vancouver can give you more detailed accounts of this newcomer to Vancouver’s ramen scene, so read about their dining experiences if you aren’t already en route to Ramen Santouka.

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

]]> http://tinybites.ca/2010/02/22/a-trio-of-baby-friendly-lunch-spots-during-the-vancouver-2010-olympic-winter-games/feed/ 1 http://tinybites.ca/2010/02/09/twelfth-annual-gung-haggis-fat-choy-dinner-at-floata/ http://tinybites.ca/2010/02/09/twelfth-annual-gung-haggis-fat-choy-dinner-at-floata/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:00:53 +0000 Bruce Nguyen http://tinybites.ca/?p=4372 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.

Ocean Wise is a Vancouver Aquarium conservation program that identifies sustainable seafood choices for restaurants and suppliers and makes it easy for diners and consumers to make ethical choices. Just look for the Ocean Wise icon on menus. They’ve been at it for 5 years without any funding (the Vancouver Aquarium is footing the bill) and have gotten almost 300 partners onto the program in that time. This year they also achieved national reach accross Canada.

Our dinearound started at the aquarium where we raised a glass to all that they’ve accomplished before being whisked away to surprise dinner destinations dependent on the colour of pre-assigned ribbons.

Like a bus full of kids on a field trip we shouted out possibilities each time the bus turned a corner: “Nook! L’Altro Buca!” as we spun through the West End, then “Grouse Mountain!” as we headed over the Lion’s Gate bridge. When we stopped in front of the Edge Bistro (3135 Edgemont Blvd.) in Edgemont Village, we all discovered a delightful locale new to all of us.

The Edge

At the Edge we had plump BC mussels in a coconut curry broth followed by a decadent pecan-encrusted salmon stuffed with shrimp and Dungeness crab. Chef Robert Clark of C Restaurant was dining with our group and explained that BC mussels have a much higher meat-to-shell ratio than PEI mussels – a helpful fact we lamented as we became more and more full over the course of the evening. We washed these dishes down with a Pacific Breeze chardonnay from New Westminister and their smoky, spicy Killer Cab then it was back on the bus to head to stop #2.

Hotel Vancouver

We were more familiar with this property but no less surprised when the bus pulled up in front of the Hotel Vancouver. Here we were seated at the back bar of Griffins and served gorgeously plated bites starting with the beet-cured salmon crêpe pictured above, paired with the fresh apple Nk’Mip Riesling. Next was a mini niçoise salad with quail egg, caviar, green bean, tuna sashimi and olive tapenade. Paired with the Quail’s Gate gewürztraminer, this dish was fresh and clever and perfectly executed.

As for hot dishes, there was a smoked sablefish with crisp pancetta and greens accompanied by a Hugues le Juste pinot noir and a seared Arctic char on apple beignet with Granville Island Lager foam and apple-sherry vinegar reduction.

A custom cocktail from the bar, “The Torch” (red pepper, grapefruit, and ruby vodka) finished it all off nicely.

C Restaurant

But no, we weren’t done yet: there was still the finale at C Restaurant. As Chef Robert Clark didn’t like the idea of being the first guests to the party, we nipped into Nu for a cocktail from the carousel bar.

At C, we had another taste of Ocean Wise seafood in the form of a huge Baynes Sound (Denman Island) scallop and Denman Island herring with various forms of pea shoots. The wine for this dish was a beautiful 1998 Selbach-Oster, Reisling, Zeltinger Sonnenuhr that was just the right acidity to balance the oil of the fish.

And then finally – finally! – it was time for dessert – Salt Spring Island Goat Cheese and Vanilla Mousse with stone fruit preserved and spiced liquid marshmallow. It was a not overly sweet dessert which allowed for a pairing of not one but two dessert wines; Forbidden Fruit’s “iced apple dessert wine” and Vista d’oro’s delicious fortified port style wine with walnut brandy. It was a sweet end to an entirely sweet evening.

Finishing up there was time to thank our gracious hosts and congratulate them again on making Ocean Wise what it is today. We also had an opportunity to compare notes with the other buses and their dining experiences. In addition to the restaurants listed here, Aria, Burrard Bridge Marine Bar and Grill, the District, Fraiche, Revel Room, Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company, Tapenade Bistro, and Zen participated. It was great to see the range of restaurants with sustainable Ocean Wise choices available, from high end hotels to casual neighbourhood spots. Check out the complete list of restaurants and partners and show your support.

This is the third post in a three-part travel series called Bruce eats New York, where Tiny Bites contributor Bruce Nguyen chronicles his ‘New York virgin’ dining experiences during the summer of 2009.

1. Fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar
2. Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?)
3. From cheesecake to yogurt and everything in between

New York is home to some of the most upscale restaurants in the world but it can also be done on a budget. After all, the foods that bear the city’s name include the bagel, the pizza, and the cheesecake. Speaking of which, let me first state that the advertised “World’s largest cheesecake” really wasn’t all that large.

Below is a selection of tasting notes from the rest of the trip.

Ippudo

Ramen – very tender slices of pork. Noodles were well textured and not overdone. The decadence of eating ramen with what is more ladle than a spoon has to be experienced. Still, it was the pork belly cutlets which really shone. And that’s saying a lot.

Friends appreciated the ramen here more than at that at Momofuku Noodle Bar.

Ippudo
65 4th Avenue | East Village, New York
(212) 388-0088

Cafe Fiorello

Cafe Fiorello was recommended by the same trusted hotel concierge that recommended Ippudo, so our a group of twelve met there with promises of some of the best pizza in town.

Meal post-mortem: preference still leans towards properly prepared Chicago style deep dish pizza. Maybe I just need to try a non-white-tablecloth pizzeria. Their sangria, however, is pretty amazing. Can’t put my finger on what made it stand out…cinnamon and something else that I couldn’t identify.

Cafe Fiorello
1900 Broadway | Upper West Side, New York
(212) 595-5330

Pinkberry

Pinkberry, where the frozen yogurt craze first gained popularity. The plain yogurt itself didn’t have that slightly sour tang I’ve become accustomed to. The toppings I tried (blackberries, mochi, coconut, manga) were all fresh tasting with the mochi winning much praise.

Yes, I realize the picture below is not what I just described above. Blame my horrible photography patience when food is involved.

Pinkberry
330 W 58th St | Columbus Circle, New York
(212) 397-0412

Katz’s Deli

My experience with deli meats are of the cold cut variety. It may have been the glitz of being in New York with some of my closest friends combined with the lack of sleep, but that late-night pastrami seemed like tender cuts of heaven served between two slices of bread.

Katz’s Deli
205 E Houston St | Lower East Side, New York
(212) 254-2246

And there you have it: my effort to eat my way though a weekend in the Big Apple. Throughout this series, I’ve made mention of the eateries that were memorable. The full photo gallery below contains pictures from lesser pit stops, including the not-so-large-world’s-largest-cheesecake.

As 2009 winds down to a close, I’d like to share the most memorable stories, experiences, and images of our threesome’s year in food.

Key Moments

What a time of transition. A new business, new contributors, and a new life to welcome into the world. 2010 is gonna be huge.

• An introduction to Tiny Bites Consulting
• On eating for two
• Introducing Team Tiny Bites

Dining Out

These are just a few of the places that Bruce, Degan, and I adored in 2009.

• Are you too cool for Qoola?
• Chinatown double feature: Phnom Penh and New Town Bakery
• Filipino Restaurant Series: Pinpin
• Visual Bites: Medina Cafe
• One fish, half a poutine at Red Fish, Blue Fish
• Visual Bites: Tamarind Hill
• Three things I’ll miss about Fuel Restaurant
• Diamond Girl
• A Refined Look at the Cocktail List
• Patio favourites in Victoria
• Bon eats at Baan Thai

Events Around Town

As a newly occupied parent, I’m sure that I’ll have to bow out of and/or delegate many of the events that we had enjoyed in 2009. This list is mostly for me to dwell in nostalgia as I tend to my little one in 2010.

• A play-by-play of the 2009 Culinary Tourism Society BC Conference
• An anthology of the 2009 Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival
• A pictorial of the 2009 BC Restaurant Hall of Fame gala
• Wolfgang Blass: the other man who turned me on… to wine
• A Tasting With Bill Hardy
• Blogathon 2009 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society
• Foodists BBQ BootCamp
• Recap and tasting notes of the 2009 Gastown Blues and Chili Festival
• Wines of Chile supertasting
• Celebrating Oktoberfest with La Brasserie
• Treat yourself to the last days of the 2009 West Coast Chocolate Festival
• Cornucopia: the sessions
• Live coverage of Shark Truth’s inaugural fundraiser at Wild Rice Restaurant

Home Cooking

We sure did a lot of cooking this year!

• Football-friendly recipes for Super Bowl XLIII
• Recipes for a romantic Valentine’s Day at home
• Foodists fun with Wanda and the Butchers of Gastown
• On being a Yaletown Hobby Chef for a Social Bites dinner
• Family pho recipe revealed
• Rouxbe Cooking School Series: fun with pho, part 1 of 2
• Birthday cakes of immortality
• On the making of an edible Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
• My mother-in-law’s Christmas Eve tourtière recipe

Culinary Travel

I’m not going to be able to do nearly as much jetsetting in 2010 as our trio did in 2009. Here are the highlights of where we’ve been.

• Bites of Asia Series: dining along the edge of a volcano (Philippines)
• Celebrating Chinese New Year around the Pacific Rim (Macau / Hong Kong)
• A tale of two Daniel Boulud cities (Las Vegas, NV)
• Tiny Bites does the Langley Circle Farm Tour circuit (Langley, BC)
• A taste of Victoria with Coast Hotels & Resorts (Victoria, BC)
• High Tea Series: The Empress Hotel (Victoria, BC)
• Battle of Chicago deep dish pizzerias (Chicago, IL)
• Bruce eats New York: Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?) (New York City, NY)
• Bruce eats New York: fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar (New York City, NY)

Favourite Visuals

With so much going on this past year, it was difficult to write about everything we experienced. Consequently, these became hidden gems in my Flickr photostream. Here they are again for your viewing pleasure.

• Bites of Asia
  • Sentro 1771
  • Bohol Bee Farm
• Day tripping in Chilliwack
• A lesson in chocolate with the Dirty Apron Cooking School
• Harvest Picking Party at Township 7
• A Thanksgiving Wine Tour in the Okanagan
  • Sumac Ridge
  • Local Lounge
  • Spirit Ridge
  • Le Vieux Pin
• Pie Day
• A Night with Theo Chocolate
• Foodists’ Decadent Dinner Potluck

Favourite Discoveries

These people, events, and treats helped make 2009 an even yummier year.  Please check them out.

• Anita’s Organic
• Foodists
• Shark Truth
• Social Bites
• Sustainable Sushi
• Theo Chocolate
• Xoxolat

This is the second post in a three-part travel series called Bruce eats New York, where Tiny Bites contributor Bruce Nguyen chronicles his ‘New York virgin’ dining experiences during the summer of 2009.

1. Fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar
2. Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?)
3. From cheesecake to yogurt and everything in between

Growing up, my family was never very adventurous in our culinary tastes. For each new city we’d visit, while we would try to dine on the local cuisine, by the end of the trip we would invariably end up eating at a local Vietnamese restaurant. The quality would vary, but at least my parents would be darned sure of their opinion. No “that’s was an interesting dish” remarks for us!

Once I was old enough and mobile enough to have non-family travel plans, experiencing new flavour combinations and arrangements would be the new norm. But every now and then, especially on a hectic or stressful day, a restaurant sign with Vietnamese writing would draw me in like a sailor to a lighthouse.

So it’s understandable why, on hearing that I dined at two Vietnamese restaurants during my short stint in New York, people ask if I was homesick or under duress. Believe it or not, neither of these restaurants were my choice but the choice of my dining companions.

I just didn’t complain when they made their suggestions.

Republic

Republic has the byline of “Vietnamese Sandwich Shop” but carries a ranging menu including twists on the standard beef noodle soup (pho). We tried a dish with a seafood base, one with a duck base, and a spicy beef variety, the last being the only traditional Vietnamese noodle soup – Bun Bo Hue.

We also shared a standard Vietnamese submarine sandwich, complete with three types of cold cuts, pate, pickled veggies and cilantro. The pate was not very noticeable and I would have liked a touch more. The sandwich came with a papaya salad pre-seasoned with fish sauce. It was good if not jaw-dropping. What was jaw-dropping, however, was the price. $10 USD for the same quality and quantity of what you can get in Vancouver for $6 CDN – $3 or less if you only want the sandwich.

One thing I must comment on the menu is the inclusion of “Iced Thai Coffee”. With a restaurant byline of “Vietnamese Sandwich Shop” why the insistance on calling it an iced Thai coffee? I tasted coffee, condensed milk, and ice. To me, that’s an iced Vietnamese coffee.

In the end, while I can’t in good faith recommend their sandwiches because of the price, I can recommend their noodle soup. The duck was excellent and the spicy beef and seafood varieties were very good, all of which are beyond the typical fare you’ll find in any Vietnamese restaurant in Vancouver.

Republic
37 Union Sq W | Gramercy/Flatiron, New York
(212) 627-7168

Viet Cafe

Wasn’t much a fan of the veggie spring rolls. They were good but were nonetheless rather standard fare. The pork spring rolls, however, were memorable. Using deep fried rice paper as the wrap gives it a paradoxically crunchy yet chewy outer layer.

The chicken pho was clean tasting without any hints of MSG or added oil. If you’re a fan of ‘dirty’ pho, this particular dish may not be for you. I was a fan.

Viet Cafe
345 Greenwich Street | Tribeca, New York
(212) 431-5888

It doesn’t happen that frequently for me. I get easily excited over food, and remembering any one pleasant experience gets difficult if you taste great dishes every single week. But a jaunt to the North Shore this weekend  gave me the opportunity I needed to relive one particularly satiating lunch at a Malaysian restaurant in Upper Lonsdale – a place that my brother and I have been unable to forget since our first visit there this past September.

Tamarind Hill opened in early September in the restaurant-heavy block of Lonsdale and 15th. When traffic on the Lions Gate is negligible, it’s a 5-10 minute drive away from Park Royal and less than 20 minutes away from my home in Yaletown.

I’ve only ever been to the place for its lunch service…and at under $8 an entree, oh, what an affordable and delectable lunch it is!

Here’s a quick run-through of the first time that we lunched at Tamarind Hill.

I love fresh coconut juice when I can get it. Here, a young coconut carries the typical $5 price tag, outfitted with straw for the juice and a long spoon to carve out the meat from the hull.

We started with the $6.50 lamb murtabak. The plushness of this Malaysian-style roti with its spicy curry dip won me over while my brother was wowed by the side of gado gado: a salad of bean sprouts, tofu, green beans, potatoes, and cucumber drenched in a piquant peanut sauce.

My brother, being a big fan of fried rice, ordered the $7 Nasi Goreng, which was sizeable enough to overwhelm the two of us with its carb, beef, shrimp, egg, tomato, onion and green bean medley.

My choice was the $7 Malaysian curry laksa. While the staff at Tamarind Hill tell me that the coconut-based Singapore laksa is the more popular order, it is this bowl, dear readers, whose flavour profile has left an imprint on my gastronomic system that will not be soon erased.

It’s therefore no wonder that my brother and I had no other restaurant in our sights this Friday when we found ourselves in Lonsdale once more. We didn’t veer very far from our original choices – unusual for two people that are fond of exploring menus, but not surprising considering our initial lunch rapture.

This time, my brother selected a full serving of gado gado as our starter and stuck with the nasi goreng as his main. I didn’t need to glance at the menu, knowing full well that I would re-acquaint myself with that delicious curry laksa. It was with much reluctance that I doled out a cupful of said soup for my brother to sample…I suspect the emotion was on par with my brother’s separation anxiety from the bit of his nasi goreng meant for my share plate.

So folks, if you find yourself in North Vancouver with an appetite for something from Southeast Asia, consider lunch at Tamarind Hill. It’s my #1 pick in Lonsdale after only two visits (and honestly, after even the first one).

Are you never in the vicinity of the North Shore? Don’t fret – this Lonsdale location is the second Tamarind Hill in the Lower Mainland. Drive over to the original New Westminster establishment to have what I expect to be an equivalent dining experience. Make sure to come back and tell me what you think of that place, too.

Tamarind Hill
1440 Lonsdale Avenue | Lonsdale
(604) 990-0111

]]> http://tinybites.ca/2009/11/22/visual-bites-tamarind-hill/feed/ 1 http://tinybites.ca/2009/11/17/bruce-eats-new-york-fried-chicken-overload-at-momofuku-noodle-bar/ http://tinybites.ca/2009/11/17/bruce-eats-new-york-fried-chicken-overload-at-momofuku-noodle-bar/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:00:39 +0000 Bruce Nguyen http://tinybites.ca/?p=4032

This is the first post in a three-part travel series called Bruce eats New York, where Tiny Bites contributor Bruce Nguyen chronicles his ‘New York virgin’ dining experiences during the summer of 2009.

1. Fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar
2. Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?)
3. From cheesecake to yogurt and everything in between

Momofuku Noodle Bar landed on our radar because of a celebrity chef, but what drew us in was promise of fried chicken. For my first ever meal in New York, expectations were high and we decided to stick with comfort food.

The reservation process, however, nearly scared us off. In order to have fried chicken at Momofuku Noodle Bar, you need:

1. Four to eight people in your party (no more, no less)
2. A registered account on their website
3. Availability within a small number of pre-defined timeslots available each day.

It’s clear who the alpha dog is in this restaurant-diner relationship. Most restaurants I’ve been to are trying to attract more customers, not create further barriers to entry!

Then again, if we consider the pedigree of Momofuku Noodle Bar, it doesn’t seem that bizarre. This is the first restaurant of New York resident rockstar chef David Chang. Chang’s restaurant lineup includes Momofuku Ko, where reservations are taken exactly six days in advance, online only, on a first-come, first-served basis. No leeway is given to social status or income, which is a blessing since I constantly find myself lacking in both.

As we waited for the restaurant to open, a line started to form outside. It became clear through conversation with other expectant diners that we were the only ones with fried chicken reservations that day. Our reserved table was easy to spot as soon as the doors opened: it was the only one with a protective paper covering. Makes it easier to clear and clean the table, I’m sure. And believe you me, there was plenty of carnage to clean up after this meal.

Our chicken arrived accompanied by mu shu pancakes (think steamed soft taco shells), a selection of house made sauces, and a basket full of a greens including long peppers, red ball radishes, and shiso leaves. Even if the chicken were mediocre, I would still be raving about the accoutrements.

Thankfully, mediocrity wasn’t an issue. We were presented both Southern-styled and Korean-styled fried chicken. That’s two whole chickens for those of you following at home. The former had a buttermilk flavour that penetrated deep into the meat while the latter, triple-fried, had a light, crispy skin. Combining all these ingredients into a soft taco was comfort food at its best.

I enjoyed the southern-styled buttermilk fried chicken more, but overall our group was split… both figuratively and literally. Once we were through, all that was left marking this heroic battle between man and bird were grease stains and burstingly satisfied tummies.

After a meal like this, our only disappointment was that we didn’t have a second stomach to keep on eating! After all, for a place with ‘noodle bar’ in the name, we didn’t actually get to try the noodles. Later on in the trip we did end up trying noodle dishes at various New York restaurants, but that’s a story for another day.

Momofuku Noodle Bar
171 1st Ave | East Village, New York
(212) 777-7773