Entries categorized as ‘Americas’
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas / Caribbean> Jamaica
When I walked into Jamaica Pizza Jerk at lunchtime, there was only one other table occupied, but warm smiles greeted me all around the vibe was happy and mellow. I’m sure that the Bob Marley concert playing on the television did much to add to the ambiance, as did the colourful Caribbean decor…Even though Jerk Chicken must surely be the national dish, I was after the curry goat. Curry Goat is only available on Tuesdays and Fridays at Jamaican Pizza Jerk, so I ordered the chicken and even though I am not actually a chicken connoisseur, I was thrilled with this dish. Dark meat was very tender being so close to the bone and cooked to perfection. The sauce was thinner than I expected, but rich and flavorful. Rice cooked in coconut milk and spices and a tangy homemade coleslaw accompanied the meat.
Instead of goat, we also ordered cow’s foot. It came with a warning (that it was not to everyone’s taste), and a raised eyebrow but I was determined. When it appeared in front of me, smelling meaty and yes, a little bit barnyard-y, I was still confident in my ordering decision, but at some point midway I realized that I was eating much more rice and hot sauce than the strange, gelatinously textured hoof and I had to concede that maybe yes, this was not particularly to my taste. Luckily there was plenty of Red Stripe to wash it down.
Later I went back and had the goat. It’s toughish, as goat is, but the flavour of the curry is delicious and hot and I could eat it again and again, except I would still want to have the jerk chicken some of the times. And I still need to try the ackee and saltfish. Sigh, one of these days.
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Jamaica Pizza Jerk
2707 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
Categories: Americas · Caribbean · Jamaican
Tagged: Commercial Drive, Vancouver, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, dining, dine out, Vancouver52, 52 in Vancouver, Caribbean, Jamaica, jerk
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > Brazil
A tour of South American restaurants wouldn’t be complete without what is (to my knowledge) the only Brazilian eatery in town, Samba Brazilian Steakhouse. They serve churrascaria de rodizio, Brazilian-style BBQ, in all you can eat meat dinner, complete with costumed waiters and salsa dancers. It’s gimmicky to say the least, but it can be a fun experience. Clearly meat-focused, you have your choice of steak, pork, chicken, ostrich, chicken hearts – and more – proffered at regular intervals on the end of a long serving skewer. There is also a ‘salad’ bar of veggies, prawns, fish, etc.
And then there are the drinks, any number of which come with an umbrella and of which you will no doubt need several of to get past the tourists and teenagers. It can be argued that all restaurants are trying to create an experience for the diner but with ‘theme restaurants’ the experience is what sells the food. If you’re in the mood for a pre-packaged party and a whole lotta meat, Samba may just have what you’re looking for.
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Samba
1122 Alberni Street, Vancouver
Categories: Americas · Brazil · Latin · Vancouver52
Tagged: Vancouver, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, meat, bbq, dining, dine out, Vancouver52, 52 in Vancouver, Brazil
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas / Peru
I heard about Mochikas Peruvian Cafe the other day and while I’m always on the lookout for new lunch spots,it was particularly timely while I explore Vancouver’s scant few South American restaurants. Nestled cozily inside an auto detailing shop (so you can get your car cleaned while you eat!), it can be a bit hard to spot but no less busy because of it. When we walked in for weekday lunch, a family of Latinos were sharing a 2 L bottle of bubble-gum yellow Inca Kola along with their plates of chicken and rice.
Their weekend menu is posted online and looks a little more comprehensive but lunch features empanadas (beef or chicken), duck or chicken wraps with spices and rice, mini butifarras (a ham sandwich on a soft roll) and assorted lunch specials of pollo a la brasa (chicken served with french fries or rice, Peruvian hot sauce, & fresh green salad with cilantro/garlic dressing).
We couldn’t find room for the pollo a la brasa (or the stomach for Inca Kola) but we ordered one of everything else. The empanadas came out first with a side of homemade hot sauce, fresh and picante and delicious. Admittedly, I was starving, so I probably would have scarfed instant noodles as fast as that pocket of pastry and meat disappeared, but they were fragrant and did a great job of tying me over until the duck wrap and sandwiches arrived. The wrap was flavourful and would make a great grab-and-go lunch but the butifarras are what I’d go back for. White bread and ham is not normally something I’d find remarkable, but in this Peruvian version, the flavours come together for a tasty lunch.
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Mochikas Peruvian Cafe
1696 West 5th Avenue at Pine Street
(inside Platinum Touch Auto Spa)
Categories: Americas · Vancouver52
Tagged: 52 in Vancouver, beef, chicken, degan beley, dine out, dining, duck, empanada, ethniceats.ca, Peru, peruvian, pork, Vancouver, Vancouver52
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > Latin Fusion
I was going to write about Baru Cafe next, for a South America fusion feel, but it’s been 2 months since I wrote about Peru and I was at Cobre for an event during the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival (itself a long time ago) so here we go with that one.
I don’t love Cobre (or Baru either, for that matter). South America is a big place and it seems like a chef that tries to take on “a style of cooking that blends the passion of Argentina, with the exuberance of Cuba, the sultriness of Brazil and the joy of Mexico” is up for an impossible task. To top it off, I don’t like the way they deconstruct ceviche and spread the fish across the plate, and I think their most recommended item – chicken taquitos - is greasier and heavier than it needs to be.
But for the wine fest, they pulled out all the stops and created a five course menu paired with Argentine Familia Zuccardi wine.
There was pan roasted sablefish with serrano ham wrapped in melon which was tasty, if not particularly Latin. This was followed by a prawn ceviche in coconut milk with mango and fruit pieces mixed in. These were paired with the Zuccardi Serie A Chardonnay Viognier and the Santa Julia Organica Torrontes wines. The ceviche was interesting – and I was happy to note, not deconstructed – and reminiscent of Brazil or humid coastlines.
For the next course, the wines were the Santa Julia Magna (the best blend each year) that in 2008 brought out notes of chocolate, black fruit and dirt and the Q Malbec, which was sweeter and redolent of cherry and plum. Both brought out the richness of the Yarrow Meadows duck breast and chicaron – the skin removed and re-fried. This turned out to be my favourite dish of the evening.
The next wines were even better – a 2006 Zuccardi Q Tempranillo and a 2006 Zuccardi Zeta – positioning black fruit and spice in the first against more cherry in the latter but the pork tenderloin didn’t stand up the the flavour as well as it could have. Fortunately, there was goat milk panna cotta and a Malamado Viognier. Literally translated as “bad lover”, it’s a play on words meant to invoke the tango and its sad, romantic stories and finishing the evening with bitter-sweetness.
The duck (as well as the wild prawn ceviche) is available on their regular menu, so you don’t have to wait for next year’s wine fest.
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Cobre
52 Powell Street, Vancouver
Categories: Americas · Latin
Tagged: 52 in Vancouver, degan beley, dine out, dining, ethniceats.ca, fusion, Latin, project, Vancouver52
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > Peru/Colombia
They say that if you go to dinner with food bloggers, you can be sure to be eating cold food. I don’t know about that, but when I was late for a dinner with fellow food bloggers Kim, Elaine, Annie, Mijune, Jessica, I just headed for the table with all the cameras on it. They were gathering El Inka Latin Deli in Burnaby to sample some Peruvian/Colombian fare and the timing fit in perfectly with my project of reviewing restaurants in a “world tour” kind of format.
There was fried cassava, tamales with olive and chicken and BBQ beef heart to start, with a mouth-puckering pickled hot sauce that I put on everything. Kim, who lived in Panama for a lot of his life, did the ordering and I was grateful to him for pulling out the specialties. The first courses were devoured and then came fried seafood, sausage and pork rind and a fried whole tilapia fish on fried plantain with coconut rice. Latin food is heavy in starches and fried foods and this dinner was no different although a token salad of lettuce, tomato and avocado did serve as a bit of a palate cleanser.
The tamales were quite good and we learned from Kim that they are almost always made with cornmeal here, but in Panama they are actually made by grinding whole corn kernels, which makes for a much smoother finish. I was looking forward to the beef heart and it had some nice flavours in it, but the favorite dish ended up being the picada criolla, a bowl of pork chop, pork sausages, fried plantain, fried cassava and potato, although the fried cassava and red onion relish that seemed to accompany every dish did get a bit tired by the end of the meal. At some point we ordered a chicha morada drink which translates as “purple” something. And so it was. It arrived at our table in a pitcher with the explanation that its colour comes from purple Peruvian. The rest of the flavours in the drink (pineapple, clove and unfortunately a lot of sugar) must have been handed down from Inca mix-masters resulting in a concoction somewhere between Christmas and Kool-Aid. I quite liked it but after dinner we were offered some mazamorra morada – purple corn pudding similar to the drink – that I liked even better.
Some of the dishes weren’t to my taste (the tilapia in particular I could have done without) but mostly the food was prepared well and offered an authentic look at a culture that can be hard to find in places like Baru and Cobre. The Spanish telenovelas playing on the TV just added to the authentic experience.
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El Inka Latin Deli
3826 Sunset Street, Burnaby
Categories: Americas · Latin · Vancouver52
Tagged: Vancouver, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, dining, dine out, Vancouver52, 52 in Vancouver, review, peruvian, colombian
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > Central America
When I posted about El Rinconcito, Kim had a couple more places for me to try, so as soon as the Olympics were over, I headed over to Victoria Drive to check out El Caracol. Admittedly, this one has been on my list for a while (since I first drove past it on my way to Doña Cata) and now that I finally made it in, I’ll be back for sure. Specialties from across Central America dot the menu, from Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras.
I started off with an avocado milkshake, creamy and rich without being sweet. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so I’ll definitely have this again (although next time I might check out what the “oat” flavour is all about). The photos on the menu are deceiving – or at least they were to my tired, end of week eyes – because I ordered the Honduran tacos AND the sopa de mariscos (seafood soup) and it turns out they’re both huge. You’re set for a great, cheap dinner here if you’re starving, but if you’re not a big eater you might want to scale back a bit. The tacos – ground beef, tomato and red onion on a hard corn tortilla – were flavourful and tasty but the soup was a marvel. It had mussels, fish, prawns and a crab leg in a fragrant broth with Mexican rice on the side, as well as a stack of tortillas (although how you’re supposed to wrap soup in a tortilla is beyond me). I was so full I could hardly move, but I was still able to have a last look at the menu and plan for my next visit.
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El Caracol
5190 Victoria Drive, Vancouver
Categories: Americas · Latin · Vancouver52
Tagged: Mexican, Latin, taco, Vancouver, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, dining, dine out, Vancouver52, 52 in Vancouver, Americas, review, el savadorean, honduran
Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Americas > El Salvador
Skipping down the coast to El Salvador, I swap tacos for pupusas. Like a pocket full of love, it’s a tortilla (of sorts) stuffed with refried beans, cheese, chicharrón (pork), or a mixed bag of ingredients, then fried. In Vancouver the place to get them is at El Rinconcito Salvadoreno on Commercial Drive. After 4 PM, they start making them en masse and you just tell them how many you want. That’s all there is to it. They come stacked like pancakes and served with a vinegary coleslaw and hot sauce. If you’re smart you order a cerveza to wash it down too. For years my standby has been two bean and cheese and two pork pupusas (and a beer, of course) but there’s a full menu of Mexican-style dishes. The fish tacos are good and the carne asada is nothing to shake a stick at either.
Travelling through Central America, you’re not going to find a lot of gourmet dishes. What appears so often as to become tiresome is beans and rice, rice and beans, beans and cheese, etc… Always something carby and comforting and inexpensive to make and served up simply. Pupusas feel like that kind of fare to me – deliciously uncomplicated.
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Rinconcito Salvadoreno
2062 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
Categories: Americas · El Salvadoran · Vancouver52
Tagged: cheese, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, dining, dine out, Vancouver52, 52 in Vancouver, pupusa, tortilla, bean
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: Mexican, sandwich, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, Vancouver52, 52 in 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: Mexican, taco, Vancouver, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, dining, dine out, project, 52 in Vancouver, Vancouver 52, tacos, taqueria
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: fries, beans, sausage, chicken, brisket, pulled pork, ethniceats.ca, degan beley, meat, bbq, barbeque, bar-b-que, dining, dine out, Vancouver52, 52 in Vancouver, America, usa, ribs, cornbread, slaw
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Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants
