Category Archives: Adventures in Dining

Tasty Bug Tacos

Posted on October 30, 2010 by | 1 Comment

chapuline taco
In honor of Halloween, Kim set up a zombie brain-eating expedition to Al-Watan but Matt and I were in Mexico and missed out. However, La Fonda in Cabo San Lucas, they had a couple of “exotic” Oaxacan treats that begged to be tried and suit the season as well; fried maguey worms, ants and chapulines (grasshoppers) cooked up in onions and chilies and served with fresh guacamole and tortillas.
DSC_0144
We went for the grasshoppers. I *hate* grasshoppers and crickets but they seemed to be the best size of the three, a decision I’m not regretting despite the bothersome trait of grasshopper legs to get stuck in the teeth.
matt eating a grasshopper taco
And they were good! The healthy dose of guacamole certainly helped, but they were flavourful and crunchy and tasty and we cleaned the plate.
cabeza flautas
Lest you think our bravado ended at appetizers, Matt ordered cabeza flautas and I had the huitlacoche-stuffed chicken. A flauta is a small, rolled and fried tortilla and cabeza is the rich meat from the head of a cow, roasted in its entirety on a grill. Huitlacoche translates as “corn smut” but is basically a kind of fungus that changes corn kernels into a type of mushroom. This dish was also very rich and saucy (although somehow the chicken meat managed to be dry) and after our enormous lunch and the grasshopper tacos we couldn’t finish it, but the room was beautiful hacienda style and kudos to the chef for trying to combine traditional ingredients and recipes with some inventiveness.
bar
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La Fonda
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

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Posted in Adventures in Dining, Americas

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Kakurenbo: Hide and Seek

Posted on September 27, 2010 by | 1 Comment

horse sashimi

It seems unfair to write about a place that no longer exists, but I went to Kakurenbo on my birthday right after meeting the most amazing man ever and sooooo… it didn’t get written about. And now it’s closed. Aptly named after the Japanese for “hide and seek,” I was first told about it during the Olympics and only months later it was gone.

curry spring rolls

Beautiful wood interior beams and sculptures decorated the place and made it look just like a Japanese inn – with a sake bar out front. The warm light and wood made it feel utterly cozy and comforting and then came the food.

rice

Horse sashimi, curry spring rolls with chili sauce, salmon tataki with ponzu sauce, hot stone rice bowls and more, each lulling you in with the traditional and then opening your eyes with a little twist.

salmon tataki

Yes, I said horse. Sashimi. Raw horse. I wrote a while back that people sometimes have an aversion to eating domestic animals or animals that are kept as pets in their part of the world. For some reason that doesn’t bother me. I certainly wouldn’t eat my pet, but I had a horse as a child and there was no stopping me from trying this Japanese version of beef tartare.

I also said this was very shortly after meeting Matt, but he was a good sport and dug in with the rest of us, so I am definitely going to keep him. And in fact it was not all that challenging. Like carpaccio with a side of soy sauce.I will definitely be having it again if I can find somewhere that serves it.

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Posted in Adventures in Dining, Japanese

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Durian Adventures

Posted on September 21, 2010 by | 11 Comments

IMG_8865
Ah durian, that infamous, odorous fruit. I can’t just leave well enough alone, can I?

The first time I tried durian, I got some of the frozen, processed durian-in-a-box from T&T Supermarket. It was a whim – I had heard about the horrific, cloying odor but also about the near cult-like addiction South Asians seem to have to the fruit and as I was on the way to meet my friend at the Irish Heather, I figured we could fortify ourselves with whiskey first. How bad could it be?

Durian

Schott’s Miscellany of Food and Drink describes it as “a tropical fruit notorious for its taste and smell, either or both of which may provoke reactions ranging from revulsion to adulation” whereas my Oxford Companion to Food writes that, “comparisons have been made with civet cat, sewage, stale vomit, onions and cheese; while one disaffected visitor to Indonesia declared that the eating of the flesh was not much different from having to consume used surgical swabs.”

But still I thought they must be overreacting and I unwrapped the package without much fanfare, getting the fruit almost to my mouth before a full-body gagging motion overtook me and my body bent in half. How and why I put it in my mouth after that, is just evidence of my utter stubbornness and nothing I said or did after that could convince my friend to try it. I threw the package out, brushed my teeth, took the trash out of the house and – when I noticed that garbage day had just passed – prayed that we would not get evicted.
The next attempt was at Phnom Penh, one of my favorite restaurants, and in whom I trust wholly to serve me delicious things. It came served with condensed milk and was so much better than the first attempt that I ate it with relish, although one of my dining companions described the smell as a combination of gasoline and semen.

durian

With increased attempts, the gag reflex is tamed and I acquired something of a taste for the “acquired taste” in its various forms…durian ice cream, for instance, is lovely. But I had still not tried pure, fresh durian and while we can’t get fresh durian here (because it’s not allowed on planes!), whole, frozen durians are available and I sneakily grabbed one the last time we were at T&T. Getting it home (without dropping it, ripping the bag on the spikes, poking ourselves in the legs, etc.) was one thing but as it thawed over the next day it became very clear we had no strategy for eating it.

How to Eat a Durian was not all that helpful, but the advice that “vomiting… is common but considered bad form,” insured that we would not be sampling the “corpse fruit” in our house.

matt vs durian
And that is how my fiancé and I ended up sneaking out under the cover of darkness to eat a durian in a park bench near our house.
“Are you scared?” I asked him. This was a question that needed no response. If frozen processed durian was bad, fresh meat must necessarily be worse by orders of magnitude.

And yet it wasn’t. When we got it open there was certainly a smell but not an overwhelmingly bad one. I did spit out the first mouthful because the stringy, clumpy texture was a little much to deal with after home-made ikura but it was certainly tolerable. Matt tweeted, “So…. Durian isn’t bad at all – even tasty! The texture, on the other hand – kind of like partially-congealed snot.”

And so we’ve leveled up in the realm of durian. At least until we get to Southeast Asia.

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Posted in Adventures in Dining, Indonesian, Singaporean

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Amchur

Posted on September 17, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Amchur

Today my coworker brought over a handful of Indian treats. I thought it was more jalebi, a red candied dough that I’ve had a number of times before and, in fact, the day before from the same coworker. But instead it was dried mango in amchur, dried and powdered unripe mango. It’s such a rare taste, like citrusy, sweet white pepper.

Have you tried it? Have you had it in any other formats?

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Posted in Adventures in Dining, Indian

Exploring Richmond’s Alexandra Road

Posted on August 24, 2010 by | 2 Comments

cattle cafe
I’ve wanted to check out Alexandra Street, also known as “Wai Sek Kai” or food street for quite some time now, but with 200 + Asian restaurants and no guide, I always felt a little bit intimidated. Enter Tourism Richmond and suddenly the street made sense. Myself and a handful of other hungry food writers followed happily as we ate our way through the three block feeding trough.

The first stop was Well Tea bubble tea and Taiwanese restaurant, popular with students and young people. The choices were unlike anything I had had before; grenadine yeast juice, and caramel milk tea with tapioca noodles instead of pearls! I later found out that by “yeast” they meant yogurt which brings things a little closer to home but I had already ordered an Earl Grey milk tea with kanten, a type of agar that is lower in calories than the traditional tapioca.

Winter Melon cake

Next we stopped in at Kam Do Bakery where we sampled a winter melon pastry (their signature treat) and an egg custard tart. Not having much of a sweet tooth, I would eat the winter melon pastry (also inexplicably called “old wife” pastry) again and again. It is a subtly sweet and gelled custard wrapped in a flakey pastry with the result being just rich and pleasing without being too rich or too sweet or too oily. Yum.

Laksa noodles

Alexandra Road is a jumble of all kinds of Asian restaurants sharing space. There are Malaysian, Taiwanese, Thai, both Japanese izakayas (gastropubs, really)  and traditional sushi joints, plus all types of Chinese eateries. At its inception in the late 80′s there were many Hong Kong style cafes, but now that immigrant patterns have changed and many more people are moving here from mainland China, the dining scene is starting to reflect that with Shanghainese and Beijing-style eateries.

Our first sit-down meal was at Cattle Cafe, a comforting Chinese-style diner with dishes like bakes seafood in cream sauce and choose your own noodles / sauce /topping. The photo above is of one of the most delicious laksa’s I’ve had in a while…a Malaysian style spicy soup with vermicelli noodles, brisket and basa fillet.

Some of the dishes were a little bit more adventurous (but no less delicious), like this unagi BBQ eel sandwich with cucumbers and sauce. Kind of like a Chinese grilled cheese sandwich, but then not really like it at all. I’m determined to recreate this for lunch this week.

BBQ Eel Sandwich

The next stop was Nan-chuu by Gyoza King, a dark and sexy Japanese Izakaya where we sampled more strange and wondrous stuffs; chicken skin skewers, gizzard skewers, chicken hearts, salmon nori and more. It was the Hitachino Nest cask ale and the mushroom-bacon yakisoba that made me start planning a repeat visit. The beef tongue (below) was also spectacular, its sweet, rich flavours being complemented on all sides by the beer. beef tongue

Finally we dragged our bellies into Jang Mo Jib, Korean for “mother-in-law” because she is the one running the kitchen while the rest of the family takes care of operations out front. Our guides had already ordered ahead for us and in short order out came soon dae jub see (blood sausage), jok bahl (BBQ pork feet), hae mool pah jun (seafood pancake), tohng gahl bee (BBQ short ribs) as well as some amazing glass noodles and an assortment of picked sweet potatoes and kimchi. 
stacey
Walking back to the skytrain, I started running down the list of strange delicacies we’d sampled…agar, bitter melon, chicken hearts, gizzards and skin, blood sausage, pig’s feet…I am an adventurous eater by most people’s standards and so I had had most of the “exotic” delicacies of the tour before, but I relished the idea of trying them as part of different cuisines and especially to be able to finally have a solid understanding of what Alexandra Road has to offer. Now there are only 197 restaurants to get through!

pig foot

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Alexandra Road is between No. 3 Road and Garden City in the Golden Village area of Richmond.

Well Tea
4811 Hazelbridge Way, Richmond

Kam Do Bakery
1120 – 8391 Alexandra Road, Richmond

Cattle Cafe
1020 – 8580 Alexandra Road, Richmond

Nan Chuu Japanese Izakaya
1160-8391 Alexandra Road

Jang Mo Jib Korean Restaurant
8320 Alexandra Street, Richmond

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Posted in Adventures in Dining, Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean

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Powell Street Festival

Posted on August 5, 2010 by | 2 Comments

okonomiyaki

I leant my car to a friend last weekend, so my fiancé and I spent a significant amount of time wandering around the city, part of which included checking out the Japanese Powell Street Festival. It was a first time for both of us and didn’t disappoint.

menu of deliciousness

Of course the first thing I had to check out was the food. There was a takoyaki, yakitori and of course, sushi, as well as an okonomyaki station and several vendors selling ramen. We weren’t very hungry from the heat, but I couldn’t resist trying the yakimochi, BBQ’d rice cakes that looked for all the world like grilled soap:

mochi

Cooking softens it up considerably and served drizzled in soya sauce and wrapped in nori, it was quite tasty.

And then I saw the SPAM sushi. WTF? Raw SPAM? SPAM with rice? I had to find out.

spam sushi

There were no surprises; slice of grilled SPAM with some teriyaki sauce, sandwiched between pressed rice and wrapped in nori. Wikipedia tells me that this is a popular snack in Hawaii and the large size of the musaba strikes me as similar to the grab-and-go fare that Michi Sushi use to have. I have a bit of a phobia about canned, processed meat but it turned out to be not all that bad…the Japanese version of a ham sandwich maybe.

spam sushi

Aside from the food adventures, we had arrived in time to watch a sumo tournament and walking home provided a whole lot of interesingness in the form of a self-guided historical walking tour through the old Japantown. I really want to spend some more time exploring the area but failing that, I’ll definitely be checking out future festivals.

double happiness

More photos of the event on flickr.

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Posted in Adventures in Dining, Asian, Japanese

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Adventures in Dining: Snake Soup

Posted on March 22, 2010 by | 5 Comments

Snake soup

Dim Sum at Jade Dynasty found us ordering the usual assortment of items; sui mai, har gaw, taro cake, etc. until someone noticed the sign on the wall advertising snake soup. I don’t think there was any doubt in anyone’s mind that we were going to order it, but I for one was wishing it wasn’t 11 in the morning.

It came dressed in ginger and garlic and onion, beautifully decorated with chrysanthemum petals but with all the spices in the soup, it could have been anything. In this case, snake tastes like chicken if the chicken is stewed in ginger and garlic.

The rest of the dim sum was passable, but the xiaolongbao were a bit limp which is what I judge everything by so I likely won’t be back in a hurry.

Jade Dynasty on Urbanspoon
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Jade Dynasty
137 Pender Street, Vancouver

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Adventures in Dining: Periwinkles

Posted on March 16, 2010 by | 3 Comments

2AQperiwinkles

You know those little shells you pick up on the beach, in tide pools? I ate some. Not the shells, that is, but the periwinkles. The unsung heroes festival at Blue Water Cafe & Raw Bar was created to “avoid species that are over-fished, or fished in ways that damage ocean beds or cause unnecessary by-catch, by introducing diners to new experiences and flavours using species found in abundance.” That I have had everything else on the menu before probably says something about my eating habits, but the sea snails and aioli caught my eye and I was determined to try them.

Let me just say that these guys are probably safe from extinction from over-fishing. Not because they don’t taste good (what doesn’t taste good smothered in aioli?) but because they’re so darn hard to eat. You have to pry the meat out of each tiny shell with a little toothpick. I was bored before I got full. Glad I tried them though, and the rest of the Unsung Heroes menu is pretty tasty (and easier to eat) if you get a chance to go next year.

Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar on Urbanspoon

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Blue Water Cafe & Raw Bar
1095 Hamilton Street, Vancouver

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Adventures in Dining: Natto

Posted on January 6, 2010 by | 8 Comments


Photo Credit: Aka Hige

Recently I filled out a foodie quiz and it pegged me as an “adventurous” eater – a handle that made me question both the quiz and other people’s appetites in general. But the truth is, after being a vegetarian for years and years and then switching back, not only will I try anything once, I actively search out new things to try. That’s nothing new around food-lovers, but I think I may now have gotten to the point where I’ve already tried everything that tastes good.

Case in point: tonight I found myself at Zakkushi on Main Street, where the menu is fun (c’mon, eating meat on a stick is always fun) but not overly adventurous. I’ve been to Zakkushi before and have a couple of favorites there (garlic stubs wrapped with pork, please!) but I wasn’t expecting much out of the ordinary Japanese fare. Until I noticed that one of the specials tonight was natto gyoza.

“I’m ordering that,” I said.

“No you’re not,” said my dining companion, who came to that conclusion from once, long ago, having smelled Natto, a Japanese dish of soybeans fermented with bacteria so that they form a sticky, smelly clump. To say it’s an acquired taste may be something of an understatement. Another friend describes it as “flavoured ‘spider eggs’ with a hint of sulfur,” so you see what I’m getting at here.

At Zakkushi, though, they weren’t serving plain old natto. It was inside gyoza with ponzu sauce on the side. I debated a bit as to whether this would still count as having eaten natto and then considered it a small gift, to be accepted with grace, and dove in.

Well that’s not entirely true. I ordered it. As restaurant fate would have it, it arrived last, after we had finished all of our food and all but one swallow of beer. Was water going to get this taste out of my mouth? Did I have gum? “You’re hesitating,” my friend said, so I took a big bite. Thankfully, it didn’t immediately taste nearly as bad as I had been led to believe it would, and I said as much, taking another big bite.

And then the rankness started to seep through. I could feel the crushed beans getting between my teeth and a sort of rotten stench settling onto and into my tongue. How this food is usually eaten for breakfast is beyond me. Talk about morning breath. But apparently the smell is caused by certain enzymes that help cure blood clots, so the bad is not all bad.

And really, with the gyoza wrapper and the ponzu sauce, it was only the soybeans that tasted bad! *ahem.*

I said on twitter, “tonight I ate natto and now I never have to do that ever again” but trying durian for the first time was a worse experience, and now I actually quite enjoy it’s aquired taste, so you never know.

What’s next?

Zakkushi on Urbanspoon
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Zakkushi
4075 Main Street, Vancouver

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Lists

Posted on September 10, 2008 by | 3 Comments

The Gastronome/Omnivore’s 100 has really taken off. I keep seeing it all over the place. And I’ve been slowly checking off things that I’ve managed to consume. Some of them have been delicious and others have really not been worthwhile at all.

So while my sister and I were in New York we decided to come up with our own list:

1. Knish

2. Rollmops

3. Espresso

4. Garlic Mashed potatoes

5. Pomegranate

6. Honeycomb

7. Moose

8.  Prosciutto

9.  Balsamic marinated figs

10. Fresh blackberries

11. Scallops

12. Bresaola

13. Xiao long bao

14. Quinoa

15. A $100 + bottle of red wine.

16. Dulce de Leche

17. Candied Salmon

18. Injera

19. Haggis

20. Salted Cashews

21. Cotton Candy

22. Bubble tea

23. Raw oysters

24. Oolicans

25. Squid ink risotto

26. Joie Noble Blend

27. Poutine

28. Goat

29. Gnudi

30. Foie Gras

31. Taro

32. Tacos from a roadside stand

33. Brie

34. Roasted beets

35. Roasted Garlic

36. Popcorn

37. Peking duck

38. Fried zucchini blossoms

39. Ceviche

40. Creme Brulee

41. Paella

42. Mastica

43. Prickly Pear cactus

44. Heart of palm

45. Lamb Tagine

46. Greek Yogurt with honey

47. Fresh Crab

48. Dragonfruit

49. Ahi tuna sashimi

50. Freshly tapped maple syrup, on snow

Then there are the things that I want to try, compiled from various lists:

1. Scorpion

2. Snake whiskey

3. Kheer

4. Kedgeree

5. Caribou

6. Moose

7. Nettles or Nettle tea

8. Crocodile or Alligator

9. Bagna Cauda

10.  Fugu

11. Sea urchin

12. Umeboshi

13. Kaolin

14. Dirty Gin martini

15. Currywurst

16. Frog legs

17. Brunost

18. Baijiu

19. Lapsang Souchong

20. Horse

21, Lobster Thermador

22. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

23. Moreton Bay bugs

24. Fried dragonfly

25. Kangaroo

26. Cuy

27. Barramundi

28. Australian Meat pie

29. Monkfish liver

30. Amaranth

31. Greengage

32. Blackeyed peas

33. Dandelion

34. Stevia

35. Bitter melon

36. Nutritional Yeast

37. Preserved lemons

38. Semolina

39. Acorn

40. Galangal

41. Criollo chocolate

Tigers & Strawberries has also come up with a vegetarian 100, for those who don’t eat meat. Some interesting things on there as well, although I think the one on Lists of Bests is a little more challenging.

UPDATED Aug. 12, 2009

UPDATED Jan. 2, 2009

UPDATED Oct. 2, 2008

UPDATED August 20, 2010

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