Admittedly, we went through the Americas section a while ago but I was feeling like it was missing a key cuisine – Cajun/creole – so we stopped in at Ouisi Bistro for lunch today.

I’ve been many times before but hadn’t really experienced the “Cajun” part of it. My Ethnic Food Lover’s Companion tells me that Cajun cuisine is a mixture of French, Spanish, African, Mexican and Native American cultures and comes from Nova Scotian farmers who moved south. This is where your jambalayas, po’boys and crayfish come in. Creole, on the other hand, is similar in flavour but more formal and that the original Creoles were French and later Spanish nationals born in Louisiana.

But anyways, on to the food!

We started with gator bites, because how can you not eat alligator when given the chance? It was my first experience and I liked it! But at Ouisi it’s served with a healthy dose of “cajun tartar” (a spciy mayonnaise sauce with horseradish) and under all that flavour it really does taste like stringy chicken.

For lunch we both had chicken sandwiches – Matt had the Ouisi po’boy – blackened chicken breast on a baguette with Cajun tartar – and I had the 14^th Street Eats sandwich which was chicken breast with pesto and asiago cheese.  It was good but boy was it messy! Lots of sauce all over the place.

Speaking of sauce, I waved away the ketchup in favour of the sauces on the table – Frank’s Hot Sauce and what I thought was a sweet relish, Matouk’s Calypso sauce. It looked so friendly and yellow, with a jazz musician on the label. Except that I had a few fries and then my mouth was on fire and not from the Frank’s. When I took another look I noticed the “hot! hot! hot!” down the side of the bottle and Matt pointed out that the main ingredient was aged, pickled scotch bonnet peppers.

It originates in Trinidad and Tobago and it’s not available in Vancouver – Ouisi imports it specially – but they do sell it in the restaurant for around $6. Unfortunately for us they were out but I think we’ll need to go back for it. Delish!

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Ouisi Bistro
3014 Granville Street, Vancouver

Vancouver World Tour > Americas > Latin America, Chile

Panaderia Latina Bakery has been on my “to visit” list for a year at least but it’s out of the way enough that I forget about it constantly and I don’t have a sweet tooth so I never know what to expect from bakeries. Luckily a couple of weeks ago I had a wedding dress fitting literally a block away from Panaderia (it means ‘bakery’ in Spanish, so I’m tempted to leave out the rest of the name) and they had a selection of savoury empanadas.

Matt and I shared a carne empanada, huge and full of juicy beef filling but that’s not what catches your eye when you walk in. The display case is full of pastries, all kinds of sugary goodness piled up around the piece de resistance – neon pink vanilla cake. Not my thing at all but I was sorely tempted to gift it to a small child.

Instead we ordered a dulce de leche dessert. Dulce de leche is a thick caramel sauce or filling popular in Latin America. I can take it in small doses (before the sugar overpowers me) and it’s a flavour I enjoy. Unfortunately this pastry was comprised of a ball of hard (ish) dulce de leche sandwiched between 2 crackers. It was perhaps my fault for requesting something “not too sweet” but the contrast between the sugary middle and the almost tasteless outsides of this dessert was jarring. They have a dulce de leche empanada that might have suited better.

They also have a selection of Chilean sandwiches – and a small seating area – so I’m going to try and get back for a proper lunch – just as soon as I don’t have to fit into the dress!

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Panaderia Latina Bakery
4906 Joyce Street

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.

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.

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.

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Havana
1212 Commercial Drive, Vancouver

That turned out not to be the case. Cabo is a Corona town. Literally, the area around the marina is coded “the Corona Zone” and everything in it caters to Americans.

I don’t know how to summarize my feelings on this kind of travel without going sideways on a rant, but let me just say that travel to me is exploring other cultures. I do not consider America to be an ‘other’ culture.

My first meal was a carne asada that Salsa and Agave in Vancouver would have put to shame. I considered it lucky we planned to spend so much time underwater. Also that we had a lot of readily accessible tequila.

But slowly a few gems started to reveal themselves. We ate breakfast at Cafe Canela every day, including on the last day when I had the most delicious dish, huevos divorciados:

Huevos Divorciados (Divorced Eggs) is “two fried eggs separated by a column of chilaquiles (although sometimes, refried beans with tortilla chips are substituted). Typically, one egg is covered in salsa roja, while the other is covered in salsa verde, giving them distinctly different and complementary flavors”. Chilaquiles are fried tortilla chips and the whole thing is just so good. I’m going to make it at home soon.

We had a lot of fish tacos, which I discovered I don’t actually like that much. The ones above were at El Caballero at Cabo Pulmo, a dive site, but Matt reports that the best ones were at Tacos Gardenias. I can report that the ones I had: chicarron (pork rind), nopalito (cactus), carnitas (shredded pork) and shredded beef (pictured at the top) were also excellent. Yes, I ate 4 tacos in one sitting. Leave me alone, they were delicious.

Probably the best restaurant we found in Cabo was Mi Casa, recommended to us by our dive master. Here was a carne asada worth its salsa, BBQ’d short rib in sauce, huge glasses of tequila and an afternoon nap waiting to happen.

La Mesa Poblano proved to be another after-diving find.

I had the mole combo; chicken mole, tortilla with salsa and machaca (dried beef strips) and cheese, cucumber, avocado and refried beans. I also had a clericot to drink.

Matt had 3 al pastor (marinated pork) tacos and beer and I’m pretty sure we had another afternoon nap.

Edith’s was not particularly delicious, but it did have a beautiful bar under a palapa roof, and a fine tequila selection:

La Fonda was similarly beautiful and it had chapulines.

Just when we were starting to despair again, we headed up the peninsula to La Paz to go diving with whale sharks. We were buoyed up by the fact that this town actually looked like Mexico (well, more like Mexico anyways) and people spoke Spanish and there might actually be good Mexican food here. But my face drooped and then drooped some more when we were referred to a sports bar, an Italian place and finally a steak and seafood joint.

We took matters into our own hands and just started walking out of down until we reached Super Burro – casual taqueria chain that translates as “super donkey”.  It was so good! It reminded me of Tacos Guaymas in the U.S. except you could smell the smoke from the BBQ out back at this one. Just look how happy Matt is and he hadn’t even started eating yet.

It was a fantastic trip. Can’t say we’ll be back but I’m definitely glad we went.

More photos of food here and the whole trip is here.

One can go on and on about the authentic Mexican restaurants but sometimes people just want Mexican food with an American flavour, also known as Tex-Mex. Also known as cheese.

Tex-Mex is a style of fusion cuisine, combining the flavours of California and Texas with Mexico. It is characterized by heavy cheese on almost everything, loads of sour cream and guacamole. It’s the kind of cuisine that causes first time visitors to Mexico to do a double-take at their near dairy free-fish tacos or chicken mole and wonder what’s going on.

I love cheese, don’t get me wrong. but in Vancouver I most often end up at Doña Cata or La Taqueria with their homemade sauces weighing down juicy tortillas but one weekend after diving, Matt and I were starving and cold and the thought of bulging, cheesy burritos was very comforting. In Vancouver, the best place for these, in my estimation, is at the Topanga Cafe.

Two cervezas, chips and salsa, a tamale and an enchilada later and we were sated. Under the cheese and sour cream layers, the tamale had shredded chicken (my favorite) in the corn dough coating and was quite tasty while the enchilada had chunks of white breast meat wrapped in a tortilla. I pretty much hate white breast meat and even under the dairy blankets, this one was dry. Luckily I had ordered the combo, so between the Corona and the refried beans covered in cheese, I was very happy. All the same, next time I’ll get the beef, or make sure the chicken is shredded.

And with that, we’re off to Mexico, where we will have many more cervezas and hopefully some excellent ethnic eats as well.

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Topanga Cafe
2904 West 4th Ave, Vancouver

Peanut Soup

Ingredients:
1 cup raw shelled peanuts
1 1/2 lb soup bones
1/2 cup fine chopped onions
1 small turnip (shredded)
one stalk fine chopped celery
1/4 cup fine chopped parsley
2 or 3 large carrots peeled and cut into 2 or 3″ sticks
1/2 teaspoon cumin
2 cloves minced garlic
Salt and pepper, to taste
Two potatoes peeled and quartered
2/3 to 1 cup rice

Put the peanuts in a small pot with water that covers them. Let them boil for 2 minutes, then cool off a little but not too cool because you squeeze the peeling off them and if it’s too cold it’s harder.

Put the mix in a blender with enough water to cover the peanuts, or “maybe a little more”. Liquefy the peanuts and set aside.Put about 3 quarts of water in a large pot. “make sure at least 1/2 of the pot is empty”. Bring the water to a boil.

Add one and one half pound of soup bones, preferably bones with a good amount of meat (you can cut the meat off when it’s done and serve the soup with meat).

Boil the meat for 10 minutes, then add onions, turnip, celery, parsley, carrots, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper and the liquefied peanuts. Be on top of this because this soup wants to boil over. Do not cover. Stir often.

Cook for maybe 20 minutes.

Add potatoes and rice. The amount of rice you add will determine how thick the soup ends up. The exact thickness is a bit of an art.

Cook for 15-20 minutes until the rice is done.

Torrejas (tor RAY has)

Ingredients:
2 cups rice (“leftover rice doesn’t work”)
1 large carrot, shredded
5 or 6 green onions
1/2 cup shredded cheese (any good melting cheese. We use cheddar)
1 egg
Salt and pepper, to taste
1-1 1/2 teaspoon crushed oregano
Flour, as needed.

Cook rice and set aside. In a bowl beat one egg and add 2/3 cup of water.

Add salt and pepper and flour until the mixture is slightly thicker than waffle batter (pretty thick). Set aside

Mix the veggies and cheese into the rice while the rice is still fairly hot. Then mix the batter with the rice concoction. The batter/rice/veggie mix should be very thick and sticky.

Heat oil in a pan 1/4 inch deep.

Spoon the torreja batter into the oil using a tablespoon or soup spoon and smash it down a little. Brown them on both sides. Maggie makes them about 3 inches in diameter. They will look like thick cookies. You can cook them crispy or chewy. I prefer chewy. Maggie puts them on their side in a cake pan with paper towels in the bottom when they’re done…You’ll have a bunch.

We eat them with fresh cooked beets and put salsa on them. Maggie also eats them with baked potato.

Variations:

Instead of rice you can use the same amount of quinoa OR one head of chopped leaf type lettuce. if you use lettuce you will have to add a bit more flour when you mix because the lettuce has water in it. Lettuce torrejas are my fave but we usually eat rice because it’s a lot of work and the work is multiplied when you make different types for the same meal.

Photo Credit: ecstaticist.

Well, I’ve made a bit of a dent in my project to review Vancouver restaurants in a world tour kind of format. The Americas are a big place (comprising North America, South America, Central America and for our purposes the Caribbean as well) with a lot of unsettled history and so regional cuisines and dishes are still constantly evolving.

For example, many of the culinary trends we associate with Europe originated in the New World; “consider the list of foods unknown to Europeans until the sixteenth century; tomatoes, coriander, chilies, cocoa, avocados, bananas, beans, pine nuts, pecans, peanuts, squash and tobacco. What the Europeans did bring was significant – rice and wheat, olives, beef, mutton, goat, pork, almonds, cinnamon and nutmeg, raisin and wine grapes, and Seville oranges and limes.”

With Canada being part of the Americas, this should have been a pretty easy category to fill up, but North American food isn’t typically considered ethnic, except possibly with regards to Cajun/Creole and Southwestern cuisines. As for the rest of the Americas, Vancouver is not overrun with South American or even Mexican restaurants, but here is a sampling of the best.

The Americas (and Caribbean):

1. (French) Canadian: Frenchies

2. American: Modern Burger

3. American round2: Memphis Blues

4. Mexico: La Taqueria

5. Mexico round2: Las Tortas

6. El Salvador: El Rinconcito

7. Central America: El Caracol

8. Peru/Colombia: El Inka Latin Deli

9. South America: Cobre

10. Peru: Mochikas Peruvian Cafe

11. Brazil: Samba

12. Jamaican: Jamaican Pizza Jerk

13. Jamaican: Calabash

14. Cuban: Havana

Please also see the Reef, a Tale of 2 Jerks,  and more Havana.

Around Vancouver in 52 Restaurants > Caribbean > Jamaica

Conveniently when I was working my way through Vancouver’s Caribbean restaurants (and hoping I wasn’t going to have to make the trek to Calypso in Surrey or Kingston 11 in North Van), Calabash Bistro opened a block and a half away from me. Yes, sometimes sheer laziness pays off. And also conveniently, they were open one night when I was sweaty and cranky from unpacking boxes and more than happy to plunk a couple of cold ones down in front of me.

I ordered the Ackee and Saltfish, a dish that has intrigued me for some time, simply because of the sheer foreignness of it. What is an ackee? What is a saltfish? All I knew was that it is the national dish of Jamaica. As it turns out, an ackee is a fruit that is so poisonous raw that it can kill if eaten before it ripens. So it needs to be boiled before eating it and it can only be exported in cans. Saltfish is not that interesting. It is, as you might think, another name for salted cod. At Calabash, it’s sauteed with cilantro, spices, peppers and tomatoes and served with rice, peas and fresh greens. It was enough to make me forget the pile of boxes waiting at home for me and slide a little farther into my chair, still clutching the Red Stripe.

They make their own sauces in house, including curry, jerk and Jamaican ketchup. I tried the jerk sauce on a side of fries and was thoroughly convinced to come back for the jerk chicken. Hot and spicy with a world of flavour to back it up, it filled the balance between the beer and the dinner and the hot, muggy evening. Their menu is small…only a handful of dinner items, but you could stop in several times and not get tired of the variety of flavours.

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Calabash Bistro
428 Carrall Street, Vancouver

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