Author Archives: degan

Havana

Posted on February 26, 2011 | 1 Comment

havana
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Caribbean > Cuba

I’ve written about Havana a couple of times, both drinking and eating. It’s been around for awhile and has become something of a Commercial Drive establishment, although I had given up on it for anything other than Caribbean style cocktails.

Havana

And I like the decor. The scratched out walls and the mural and the Cuban photos make the umbrella drinks go down a little easier, so I gave it another try. And this time around the Cuban sandwich was delicious.

Roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, Dijon mustard, and pickles on super soft Cubana bread, it was flavourful and tasty. I had the soup to accompany it, a spicy chicken and orzo dish that was flavourful and balanced and makes me want to get back for the chicken and chorizo penne and huevos rancheros.

brooke and april fell in love at havana
But it’s still doubtful that I’ll ever be hungry enough to ever try the Es Una Locura – the sheer madness. Two beef patties, bacon, chorizo, back bacon, avocado, Dijon mustard, spicy mayo, lettuce, tomato, pickles, red onions, cheddar cheese, Swiss cheese, sauteed peppers and mushrooms on a ciabatta bun. OK, that’s not very Cuban. It’s still not overly authentic but it’ll do in a pinch.

Havana Cafe on Urbanspoon
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Havana
1212 Commercial Drive, Vancouver

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Posted in Americas, Cuban

Solly’s Challah/Challa/Chollah

Posted on February 24, 2011 | 2 Comments

urban solly's
Vancouver World Tour > Middle East > Israel

I wrote this for a Museum of Vancouver exhibit (on ethnic bread) that never came to be, but I thought I may as well include it in the Vancouver World Tour.

Walking into Solly’s Bagelry and Deli on a rainy day is tantamount to pressing the Comfort Overdrive button on some kind of sensory device. Filled throughout the day with the smells of baking bread (first challah and rye loaves, then regular rounds of bagels) as well as matzo ball soup, it smells like you expect your grandmother’s house should, even if your grandmother isn’t Jewish. It’s busy in a cozy, friendly way and the windows steam up when it’s wet out – for increased comfort. It’s the kind of New York style deli that makes you want to linger and eat the paper while you linger over lunch – a bagel sandwich or pastrami on rye with pickles and soup. Various counters and cases display all sorts of Jewish nosh including knishes, rugelach, cinnamon buns, chocolate babkas, latkes, and bagels and schmear galore. The ubiquitous pot of matzo ball soup simmers on the stove.

challah bread

Challah is very similar to brioche, glazed with egg to make it shine and so soft to sink your teeth into. But unlike French egg bread, it can also come covered in sesame seeds or poppy seeds for extra decoration and flavour. At Solly’s the challah is available in sesame, poppy and plain, but also in multiple sizes (including one enormous wedding-size, about a metre long) and in French toast format. Sweet egg bread cooked in egg with syrup on top? That’s a decadent tradition I can get behind.

wedding challah

Tradition-wise, the Oxford Companion to Food tells us that, “two loaves are served at each of the three Sabbath meals, as a remembrance of the double portion of manna which fell for the Israelites in the wilderness to provide food both for the sixth day and for the succeeding Sabbath day.” While they were wandering in the desert for forty years after leaving Egypt, manna fell from the heavens as a gift from God. It didn’t fall on the Sabbath or holidays, thought, so an extra loaf fell the day before. This manna was apparently sweet to the taste – as is the challah – and being braided represents two loaves in one.

broken open

Within this realm of comfort, Challah is perhaps less recognized than say, matzo or knishes, but it is nonetheless a traditional, culturally important bread. It’s a braided egg bread sweetened with honey and, plucked off the shelves relatively soon after baking, can be a delicate, pillowy-soft treat.

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Solly’s Bagelry and Deli
2873 W Broadway, Vancouver
368 W 7th Ave., Vancouver
189 E 28th Ave., Vancouver

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Posted in Israel, Jewish, Middle East, Vancouver52

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Omnitsky Kosher Deli

Posted on February 22, 2011 | 2 Comments


Vancouver World Tour > Middle East > Israel

I had brought salad for lunch – salad and celery – but my day turned sideways and I turned to some comfort food. Maybe not  mac ‘n’ cheese, the comfort food of my childhood, but matzo ball soup will certainly do in a pinch.

I’ve been meaning to check out Omnitsky Kosher Deli for months but it was too late or it was Sunday or some other (not very good reason) and so when I finally got there last week, I didn’t really know what to make of it. It’s a deli, with a couple of seats in the front and a sandwich counter plus shelving in the back. It’s kosher, obviously.

You walk around the displays of chips to the meat counter where there is a sandwich board and deli meats. I was freezing, so I stammered out an order for soup – and received an order of standard daily chicken matzo ball soup -  and made my way through ordering a half sandwich of Montreal smoked meat on caraway rye bread with homemade spicy mustard. First meat (Montreal smoked meat was the favorite), then bread (choice of rye, caraway rye, or wheat), then mustard (regular, grainy, spicy, and the only real choice in my opinion – spicy homemade).

I can’t even tell you how good it was and how kind everyone was, giving me tips on what to order and passing me the paper when they were done with a section. I loved the soft bread and they weren’t kidding about how spicy the mustard was – it was delicious. The whole experience was nourishing and comforting in many ways.

Omnitsky kosher deli

I wandered back into the deli to buy some spicy mustard and (also spicy!) hummus and to check out the ENTIRE SHELF of herring and it was impressive. I almost picked up some knishes, but my freezer is only so big and it still has a quarter of a lamb in it (not kosher). Sigh.

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Omnitsky Kosher Deli
5866 Cambie Street, Vancouver

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Posted in Israel, Vancouver52

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East is East

Posted on February 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

feast
Vancouver World Tour > Middle East > Arabic fusion

As we head east, East is East seemed like a logical place to start. Fusion food, they combine the flavours of the silk road from Turkey to China. The Silk Road Feast we ordered mixed dhal lentil soup, roti, Afghan boulani (roti stuffed with potato, green onion and herbs), tabouleh (parley and mint salad), with lamb kebab patties and “thai tofu” (tofu, red pepper, chilis, lime leaves and ginger in a sour mango green curry) presented on a tin thali plate.

Despite not usually being a fan of fusion foods (especially that span entire continents), I liked it. The lamb kebabs were flavourful and moist and the the the tang of the tofu curry was interesting and delightful. Not only did my meat-loving fiance pick it from the menu and order it, he loved it. That’s saying something.

tibetan mantu

Washed down with cups of sweet and spicy chai, we also sampled the Tibetan mantu. It surprised me. I’ve only had Chinese mantu, with thick dough but these were dumplings stuffed with green onions and chives with skin thin like a pot-sticker.  and covered over with dehydrated yogurt, chickpeas and alfalfa sprouts. It was kind of a mess and after a couple of bites the dehydrated yogurt flavour got to be too much.

East is East

The room itself is a fusion of Kitsilano hippie chic – polished wood tables and stump stools – with Eastern-styled paper lanterns and wall hangings. It’s cosy and easy to hang out and sip tea for a while.

This turned out to be a good thing, at least on the day we were there, because a child birthday party arrived and no one ever came back to our table.  Maybe laid back has been adopted as a service model or maybe the dessert isn’t actually that good.

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East is East
3239 W. Broadway, Vancouver
and
4413 Main Street (Main and 28th), Vancouver

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Posted in Arabic, Middle East, Turkey, Vancouver52

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Nuba

Posted on February 9, 2011 | 3 Comments

Najib's Special
Vancouver World Tour > Middle East > Lebanon

Nuba was the very first restaurant I wrote about on Ethnic Eats and it was one of my go-to recommendations for healthy ethnic food when the Vancouver Sun interviewed me last year. So it was an obvious choice for a Middle Eastern pick. I’m a fan.

Nuba spread

In the time since, they’ve expanded to two “cafe” locations and their loungey downstairs restaurant in Gastown which was packed when we tried to get a mid-week 7 PM reservation. Turns out Vancouverites were hungry for something more than donair and falafel stands.

One of my favorite vegetable dishes – maybe even in the city – is “Najib’s Special”. Roasted cauliflower with sea salt and lemon and served with tahini combines the sweet, salt, tart and tangy flavours into utter deliciousness. I have no idea who Najib is but this is the best cauliflower you’ll ever have.

halumi

Despite my favorite menu item being a vegetable, I hadn’t remembered that such a significant portion of the menu was vegetarian, nor that the menu itself was so limited. It seemed as though the menu was smaller than any of us had remembered and in fact, even the one they have online currently is more varied.

Nuba

But no matter, we stocked up on a variety of appetizer-sized mezze. We had the fattoush salad and the fire-grilled halumi cheese – a gorgeous salty dish that’s easily another fave – and mjadra, which is a perfectly decent lentil spread served with pita. But the chicken shish tawook was so dry as to be inedible and was abandoned in favour of lamb. Both the baked lamb kibbeh sainieh – spiced meatballs – and the grilled lamb popsicles with hummus (unfortunately a special for the evening and not on their regular menu) were so good that we had to order repeats.

Nuba

Another option to ordering piece-meal would be to get the platter which seems to come with one of everything you’d want to try.

Photos by Matt Walters.

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Nuba
207-B West Hastings Street, Vancouver (+ various)

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Posted in Lebanese, Middle East, Vancouver52

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Vancouver World Tour: Africa

Posted on February 2, 2011 | 3 Comments

African cuisine is a diverse as the countryside; iron-rich injera and Indian-influenced dishes on the East coast to couscous and tagines in the North, South African cured biltong and okra and yams in the West. Vancouver doesn’t have all that many African restaurants – the preponderance of which are Ethiopian/East African – but I tried to cover them all. Unfortunately, after months of trying to get to Lagos Corner Nigerian, they were closed. I’m going to keep trying and I’ll add it in when I finally get there, but blog-wise I want to move on to the next region: the Middle East.

See below for African reviews or if you have a favourite Middle Eastern restaurant in Vancouver, please tell me about it.

Africa:

South African: African Breese Imports

Ethiopia: Fassil

Tunisian: Carthage Cafe

East African: Simba’s Grill

Nigerian: Lagos Corner Nigerian Restaurant, 7546 Edmonds Street

 

Please also see Harambe and Red Sea Cafe. I’ve tried several dishes at Nyala but found the food and service to be not worth reporting on.

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Jambo Grill & Good Morning Paan

Posted on December 7, 2010 | 1 Comment

potato puffs
Vancouver World Tour > Africa > Uganda.

With all the busyness of trying to get everything done before having knee surgery, I was finding it hard to get to any of the farther afield African restaurants on my list, but I was looking forward to Jambo Grill & Good Morning Paan. Jambo is a Swahili word meaning ‘hello’ and paan is an Indian dish, a betel leaf filled with sweets and nuts and with all the multi-ethnic welcoming, I was expecting deliciousness.

Like Simba’s the menu here is a mix of Indian and East African. The menu explains:

The dishes at Jambo Grill and Khoja style, which is quite different from other Indian style dishes. Khoja’s followers of the Ismaili Branch of Shia sect of Islam, our forefathers in India, were converted to Islam by the Dais from Iran. Thus, there is a strong Persian and Gujarati influence evident in our cooking…Around the 1920′s the Khoja settled in large numbers in East Africa before immigrating to Canada in the 1970′s. Certain African style dishes such as Cassava and Tilapia Fish are influences from that continent. Also cooking on the grill (Sigdi) was very common in East Africa.

I was seated with four menus, presumably to cover off this range of cuisines and when I had finally settled on the bateda wada – spiced mashed potatoes battered and fried – and the mishkaki, spiced and grilled steak, I waited. I was a long way from work for lunch, so somewhat worried about time, but it seemed impossible to catch the waitress’ eye. She was busy with another table, then busy wandering around the restaurant, then just missing. Finally I ordered.

The potato balls, when they arrived, were dry but luckily there was an array of sauces on the table; ambli tamarind sauce, pili pili hot sauce and moto moto chili sauce, that got slathered on everything.

meat and potatoes

I read a magazine then got up to go to the bathroom. When I got back to my table, my steak was sitting there, getting cold. I was disappointed that she hadn’t bothered to put it under a heat lamp for a few minutes until I got back, but there was no telling her that – she was MIA for the rest of the meal, save for a surly water refill. When I wanted to pay, I had to get up and stand at the cash register. Luckily? It was the owner who came to help but when he inquired about the experience and I told him about the terrible service, he hauled the waitress over and reprimanded her in front of me. Her indignant, “what?!” shouted in the restaurant mirrored the shock and incredulity on mine.

Service aside, the flavours are interesting and complex. I like the combination of tamarind and fennel seed with chilies, especially in beef, but everything was so dry.  Simba’s has similar fare and is a much better experience, in my opinion.

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Jambo Grill & Good Morning Paan
3219 Kingsway, Vancouver

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Transylvanian Flavour

Posted on December 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

mititei - skinless sausages
Vancouver World Tour > Europe> Romania/Transylvania

“Hug A Romanian” day came up in my office on Dec. 1st, so we took our resident Romanian out to Transylvanian Flavour for some delicacies. He thoughtfully brought us some Romanian straw hats to wear and as another coworker remarked, the whole restaurant must have been full of Romanians because no one even did a double-take.

tripe soup
Turns out that, like in many parts of the world, tripe soup is common comfort food. Here it’s called ciorba de burta and comes with sour cream, rolls and serrano chili pepper. Unfortunately, it’s a meal in itself and I also wanted sausages, so I had the borscht instead.

borscht remains
Borscht is one of my favorite vegetarian soups, brightly coloured and hearty and this one didn’t seem to be any different than the Ukrainian versions I’ve had in the past. The perogies, on the other hand, were very different. I didn’t order them – I was torn between the kiftele (meatballs) and mititei (skinless sausages). Mămăligă was on the menu but having made it myself, I finally settled on the sausages with some encouragement from my coworker and the waitress. Deliciously juicy, they are flavoured with coriander and paprika and come with a side of mustard for dipping. And they are rich! So the plate of fries was a good balance.

perogies
The perogies were also a lot richer than I am accustomed to. Filled with yam, Friulani and Gouda cheese, then drizzled with sour cream, roasted red pepper sauce and bacon, it seemed like it might also need a plate of starch to go with.

Unfortunately there wasn’t time for the Romanian donuts, so we might just have to check back in.

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Transylvanian Flavour
2120 Broadway, Vancouver

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Ramen Week: Kintaro Ramen

Posted on November 19, 2010 | 4 Comments

ramen kitchen
Kintaro was the last one on the list. Although it has arguably the best reputation, it also has the longest lineup and the thought of standing outside in the rain seems to have more sway than the thought of hot soup. Turns out, if you go right at noon on a Tuesday, not only is there no line, but there are even tables available! The couple coming in behind us was so startled they checked twice to make sure it was the right place.
miso ramen
While Motomachi and Santouka and even Menya have decorated with warm wood, Kintaro is all about the ramen. The bowls and big and decorated in the ramen tradition but the kitchen is utilitarian; scratched paint, cold metal counters and uncomfortable chairs mean that the ramen is so good they don’t have to dress up the decor.

The menu features the usual assortment of ramen options – shoyu, shio, miso, etc. and and cheese! (according to the menu, “Ladies just lo-o-o-ve it!!”) but then there is a choice between rich, medium and light soup broth and lean or fatty BBQ pork. I had the Miso ramen with medium broth and fatty pork and Matt had Shio with lean pork (also with medium broth).

The fatty pork turned out to be a stroke of genius. Warming up in the broth, the fat melted into the broth and gave it the illusion of being thicker and creamier. The noodles were perfect, the broth was perfect. Unlike Santouka, which made me swoon, this is every day, excellent ramen. It’s not hard to see how students live off of it.

Wikipedia defines Miso ramen as:

a relative newcomer, having reached national prominence around 1965. This uniquely Japanese ramen, which was developed in Hokkaidō, features a broth that combines copious amounts of miso and is blended with oily chicken or fish broth – and sometimes with tonkatsu or lard – to create a thick, nutty, slightly sweet and very hearty soup. Miso ramen broth tends to have a robust, tangy flavor, so it stands up to a variety flavorful toppings…The noodles are typically thick, curly, and slightly chewy.

whereas Shio ramen:

is probably the oldest of the four [types]…is the lightest ramen, a pale, clear, yellowish broth made with plenty of salt and any combination of chicken, vegetables, fish, and seaweed. Occasionally pork bones are also used, but they are not boiled as long as they are for tonkotsu ramen, so the soup remains light and clear. Noodle texture and thickness varies among shio ramen, but they are usually straight rather than curly.

I still don’t have a favorite type. Different days call for different soups, and sometimes even shops. Luckily we have some good ones.
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Kintaro Ramen
788 Denman Street, Vancouver

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Ramen Week: Motomachi Shokudo

Posted on November 18, 2010 | 1 Comment

ramen
After force-feeding him ramen for a week, by the time we were finished at Motomachi Shokudo, we had determined that Matt doesn’t like ramen. Or that he sometimes likes ramen.

Not that Motomachi isn’t excellent ramen, it is. It’s just that there are many types of ramen and some ingredient in some of them doesn’t make him happy. More research is clearly needed.

Motomachi is a beautiful room. Cozy with lots of wood stools and counters and a big common table in the middle of the room. I spent some time staring at it while we waited outside, peering through the window like smokers. I watched a six year old eat an entire bowl of ramen, slurping away slowly and I have no idea where she put it all. It did make me notice though, that there are many children in ramen shops and not many (like none) child-sizes. Japanese kids must be made of rubber.

motomachi shokudo

Finally it was our turn and we warmed our hands over big steaming bowls of miso ramen and then I ate mine while Matt pondered what the offensive ingredient might be and ate the oddly shaped “fingers” of gyoza.  The soup was  was hearty and comforting, especially with the addition of burnt onion  but the pork was a little dry and the broth was a little thin. I’d go back but it wouldn’t be my first choice with Santouka so close.

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Motomachi Shokudo
740 Denman Street, Vancouver

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