Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > Mexico
Despite what some people think, not everyone likes sandwiches. I, for one, think they’re kind of a boring necessity. That opinion has changed somewhat, however, now that Las Tortas has come on the scene.
According to their website, a torta is more like a hamburger anyways, and comes served on a soft bun called a telera with tomato, cabbage, pickled onions, jalapenos, guacamole, and refried beans. With that as a starting point you can choose from 11 different kinds, from schnitzel to Mayan style chicken breast.
To order, you pick up a bag and a marker, note your choices and then use that as transport for your lunch. It’s an efficient system that also saves some trouble on pick up orders and picnics.
The pierna sandwich checkbox has seen the most action from me. Pork thigh roasted with Mexican spices is mopped up nicely in the soft bread, although I’m quite fond of chorizo sausage and Oaxaca cheese too.
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Las Tortas
3353 Cambie Street, Vancouver
Categories: Americas · Mexican · Vancouver52
Tagged: 52 in Vancouver, degan beley, ethniceats.ca, Mexican, sandwich, Vancouver52
February 8, 2010 · 1 Comment
Today I was admonished that one should never order pasta in restaurants and while I see the sense of that economically, I can guarantee that there is better pasta in some of the restaurants around town than you’ll ever get in most people’s restaurants. Take Campagnolo for instance. They only have 3 pastas on the menu, but done perfectly in the Northern Italian regional style. Simple, rustic and hearty, they are: tagliarini with pork ragu, basil and pecorino; ravioli with potato, sage and brodo, and arlecchino with fennel sausage, kale and green onion.
The tagliarini is my favorite and goes quite well with a negroni, as you can see from the picture.
What to have with your pasta? The crispy ceci pictured top is one of my favorite things to eat in this city, hands down and once we had fried pig’s feet in pesto that was sumptuous in the extreme. The pizza is also delicious here.
Also see my review of Campagnolo on Foodists, and a post on pasta in Vancouver.
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Campagnolo
1020 Main Street, Vancouver
Categories: Italian
Tagged: ceci, degan beley, dining, ethniceats.ca, Italian, pasta, Vancouver
February 4, 2010 · 1 Comment
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > Mexico
The first time I went to Mexico wasn’t to a resort, it was to a little town called La Colorada in Sonora. There were no umbrellas in drinks, but there were steaks the size of plates and tequila and tacos. With some local help we went in search of tacos one night, driving down a street that may have been busy during the day but at night was dark and empty save for a small cart and a group of savvy taco-eaters. Full of anticipation, we placed our orders for lengua, carnitas and asada and sat on the still-warm curb trying not to drip salsa on our sneakers.
More than any other Mexican restaurant in Vancouver, La Taqueria reminds me of that experience. On an empty block of Hastings, it feels like a taqueria has been transported straight from Mexico, complete with bottle cap decor and turquoise laminate counter. Except that this “pinche taco shop” as they call it (pinche is slang for Kitchen boy) serves up pastor with braised Chilliwack pork and Pemberton meadows beef tongue lengua.
They are $2.50 ($2 for veggie) per taco or $$9.50 for four, so I had the tongue, carnitas - pork confit with pickled red onions, pollo con mole – maple hills chicken in three chili mole, and rajas con crema – roasted poblano peppers with creamed corn, sour cream and Mexican cheese. They’re flour tortillas, served with the above ingredients plus cilantro and onion. Lengua was my favorite, although the tang of pickled onion against the meaty pork flavours in the carnitas is hard not to rave about as well. Chicken mole was ok but I regret the poblano choice. Creamed corn and cheese is just not what I expect out of a taco even though it was executed well. I should have had the cachete instead (braised Chilliwack pork cheeks) but I need to have something to save for next time, along with the fish tacos and the special that changes weekly.
Doña Cata has been held the taqueria title for a while now and it’s well worth a trip there as well, but I’m so glad we’re finally getting some more decent Mexican restaurants in town. A third option is Salsa and Agave.
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La Taqueria
322 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Categories: Americas · Mexican · Vancouver52
Tagged: 52 in Vancouver, degan beley, dine out, dining, ethniceats.ca, Mexican, project, taco, tacos, taqueria, Vancouver, Vancouver 52
What’s Robbie Burns day without haggis? If you can’t have haggis, you at least need whisky. I’m a traditionalist, so I like to do both if I can and I wrote about the whisky yesterday. Robbie Burns Day is January 25th, and it’s a strange sort of holiday – the birthday of the national poet – that is celebrated primarily by (surprise!) eating haggis and drinking whisky.
Haggis is a traditional Scotch dish that is made froma sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, ground up and stuffed into the lining of a sheep’s stomach with oatmeal and spices. If people know what haggis is, they tend to think it’s disgusting and so I’ve had to come to its defense several times this week, but I love it. You can do a lot better with a Costco hotdog if you’re looking for something in the disgusting department. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve had haggis, so when Ben told me he had bought a good one at Jackson Meats (2214 West 4th Ave.) I went straight out to get my own.
They have two types; traditional Scotch haggis and one made in-house from their own recipe with more flavour and spices. I got the Jackson variant and served it with “neeps and tatties” and a couple of glasses of Talisker.
This is the recipe I used for neeps and tatties, from Chow.com, although my grandmother would argue that you must use turnips.
INGREDIENTS
- 3 pounds potatoes (about 6 medium sized)
- 3 pounds rutabaga (if it is 3 1/2 pounds or 2 1/2 pounds, it’s fine)
- 2 teaspoons salt plus more to taste
- 1 cup hot milk
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground (if possible) pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated if possible), or to taste
- I tablespoon chopped parsley, optional
INSTRUCTIONS
- Peel and cut rutabaga and potatoes into two inch pieces and put into separate saucepans. Cover with water. Add 1 teaspoon salt to each pan. Cook until tender, remove from heat and drain. Leave in pan. Rutabaga will take about 30 minutes, and potatoes will take less time (about 5 minutes less). Both are done when they are not firm when you jab them with a fork.
- Heat the milk. Mash the drained potatoes in the pan. Add all the hot milk and mash potatoes some more (adding the milk before the butter makes the potatoes smoother). Add 2 tablespoons butter. Mash some more. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Mash drained rutabaga in the pot in which they were cooked. Add 2 tablespoons butter and mash some more.
- Combine mashed rutabaga and potatoes; add pepper, and nutmeg. Mash some more. Taste and add more salt if necessary. If you wish, garnish with chopped parsley.
If you want to get ceremonious, you can always recite Burn’s Address to a Haggis before you eat.
Categories: European · recipe
Tagged: "neeps and tatties", "Robbie Burns Day", degan, degan beley, ethniceats.ca, haggis, holiday, meat, neeps, oatmealm potato, offal, recipe, scotch, tatties, tradtion, whiskey, whisky
I’ve been on a bit of a dumpling kick lately. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love xiaolongbao, or “soup dumplings” but since I’ve got a car it’s made roaming the golden city (Richmond) a whole lot easier.
Xiaolongbao are a magic kind of Shanghainese style dumpling made by cooling meaty gelatin and wrapping it around the pork filling inside the dumpling, becoming “soup” when the dumpling is cooked. They can be a bit tricky to eat without burning your tongue, but the risk is well worth it.
Dinesty has a great many dumplings on the coffee-book quality menu – a whole page, in fact. The xiaolongbao were ordered immediately, along with some pan-fried ones, and as man cannot live on dumplings alone, we also ordered the highly recommended ancient boil fish, pan-fried squid, and hand-cut noodles with seafood and pork.
And then we ordered dumplings for dessert. I told you I was on a kick.
The ancient boil fish soup (what a name!) was spicy and flavourful, but in a way that washed out the meat of the fish. All you got a hit of oil and pepper and the flavouring was pretty interesting, but I would have liked it to be a bit more balanced and I wouldn’t order it again. The noodles were better, offering chunks of seafood between the ropes of noodles, and the pan-fried squid was better still. As for the dumplings, they held together well and were nicely flavoured and are the menu item I’d go back for. I preferred the xialongbao to the pan-fried and the red bean dessert dumplings, but then I always do.
Here you can see the dumpling makers at work, preparing for the next day:
dumpling making from Degan Beley on Vimeo.
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Dinesty
160-8111 Ackroyd Road, Richmond
Categories: Asian · Chinese
Tagged: Chinese, dim sum, dining, dumpling, review, richmond, squid, Vancouver, video, xiaolongbao, xlb, yam cha
I don’t have a whole lot to say about Pho Van other than it wins the award hands down for best decor. Most pho places have tables and chairs and that’s about it, but here is so much neon you might mistake it for a vegas casino or a nightclub. And in case you’re not impressed with disco lights, there is also a huge aquarium and TV with teary Asian chanteuses in sparkly prom dresses to keep you entertained. Don’t let the ho-hum expression on the guy in the photo fool you – this place is happening.
The pho is decent but not outstanding. I’ve had the both the “white people beef noodle” and the pho dac biet as well as spring rolls and they’re fine, I’d just rather go to Le Do if I’m driving across town.
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Pho Van
3370 Fraser Street, Vancouver
Categories: Asian · Vietnamese
Tagged: beef, brisket, east vancouver, neon, noodle, pho, soup, spring rolls, Vancouver
January 27, 2010 · 1 Comment
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > U.S.A
I’m having a bit of trouble reviewing “American” restaurants on an ethnic food blog but the definition of ethnic is “pertaining to or characteristic of a people…sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.” Food-wise, I think it’s safe to say that America has culinary characteristics (even if Canada does not) so I’m including it in this project, even though I haven’t before on this site.
What’s more American than a burgers? BBQ. I’m fortunate enough to know so many BBQ aficionados that if I have a hankering for a plate full of savory, sweet meat, I hardly ever get it at a restaurant. Not that there’s an overwhelming number of BBQ joints in Vancouver to choose from – just Migz, Dix and Memphis Blues – but the other day I found myself on Commercial Drive with some hungry boys so we got ourselves some bar-b-que.
Good BBQ takes a lot of time. That’s why it’s hard for restaurants to do it well. Who’s going to pay staff to baby a rack of ribs all night? That said, Memphis Blues’ meat is pretty decent.
The Memphis Feast (or the Elvis Platter if you’re really hungry) is a great bet. A sampler of everything on the menu, it’s pulled pork, brisket, ribs, chicken, sausage, corn bread, beans, slaw and potato salad for $39. It’s tender, flavourful and greasy. As they say on their website, “This is messy food, folks – dive in, and eat with your hands.” Great idea.
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Memphis Blues
1342 Commercial Drive (+ various locations), Vancouver
Categories: Americas · Vancouver52
Tagged: 52 in Vancouver, America, bar-b-que, barbeque, bbq, beans, brisket, chicken, cornbread, degan beley, dine out, dining, ethniceats.ca, fries, meat, pulled pork, ribs, sausage, slaw, usa, Vancouver52
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > U.S.A.
Nothing says “American” like a burger and fries, and in Vancouver that means Moderne Burger. Juicy ground steak with the usual fixings; lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo and house sauce and topped with an olive for panache. Fries are hand-cut and salty, greasy, good. I like a vanilla milkshake with it because how can you not when it’s made in an old school machine and comes in a glass and a half? This is the kind of food that makes you nostalgic for the time you’re having.
Photo: Xavier Encinas
It takes a while for the food (and especially the milkshakes) to come, but it’s worth it and the portions are big enough to sate any hunger you worked up in the meantime.
I have to admit I’m not much of a burger person, but when it comes down to it, I’m partial to the White Spot. For something fancier, you could try the $28 DB Bistro Moderne burger (no relation to Moderne Burger despite the name and being a block away from each other); top sirloin, filled with braised short ribs and black truffle. Swoon.
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Moderne Burger
2507 West Broadway, Vancouver
Categories: Americas · Vancouver52
Tagged: 52 in Vancouver, America, American, burger, degan beley, dine out, diner, dining, ethniceats.ca, french fries, fries, hamburger, milkshake, shake, Vancouver, Vancouver52
Thinking about Canadian cuisine and it’s focus on region rather than law or politics got me thinking. We don’t have a national dish that stretches from sea to sea, but we may have a cocktail. The Caesar was invented in Calgary in 1969 and has generally thought to be a Canadian favorite. Now after 40 years, Mott’s Clamato is working hard to make it official.
The original version was made with tomato juice and mashed clams (ew) but now is now made with Clamato and very similar to a Bloody Mary. Chowtimes had the idea (via twitter) that I could post recipes of national dishes along with my world tour project and while that’s way too ambitious for me to do on a regular basis, I can’t resist posting the recipe to one of my favorite hangover breakfasts.
Ingredients:
Ice
1 1/2 oz Vodka, chilled
Clamato (I like spicy, but there are many varieties out now)
Hot sauce (to your taste, but start with 3 dashes. I like lots)*
2 dashes Worchestershire sauce
Celery salt
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Lime
Pickled asparagus or celery stalk.
It’s not traditional, but I like to put a bit of horseradish in mine too.
Moisten the rim the glass with the lime wedge and then rim with celery salt. Fill the glass with 2-3 ice cubes and add the remaining ingredients. Stir well to mix in the horseradish. Garnish with asparagus or celery.
*Traditionally Tabasco, but I have several hot sauces and I like to mix it up a bit.
Categories: Americas
Tagged: caesar, canad, clamato, cocktail, degan beley, drink, ethniceats.ca, recipe
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Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants
