Cook It! Vancouver strikes a happy note for any food lover
International travel has become a major part of my life over the last few years and many readers have told me that they enjoy hearing about the culinary experiences that I have whilst abroad. For those who find them frustrating, I apologise – but I do feel that reporting back on what happens in the places that I visit has a value and it certainly puts into perspective the great food that we have back here. Yes, not all that is abroad is good.
Vancouver did however prove to be rather amazing and nowhere more so than at The Parker, where we were filming the newest episode of my TV show International Chef Exchange. Chef Steve Xou is a chef of great skill and charm, too, and I was lucky enough to be there for the press launch of their Dine Out Vancouver Festival menu. Dine Out Vancouver is a huge deal and hundreds of venues participate and offer bargain set menus for the event. The Parker is a vegetarian restaurant and a foodie destination in the city, and the dishes I tasted were superb, a welcome relief as a few days later they were playing host to our exchange chef, Matty Bowling, who was representing Terre à Terre.
Being on the north Pacific coast, Vancouver is a great place to eat fish – and I ate a lot. I had a simply delcious clam chowder at the Vancouver Fish Company of Granville Island which was topped with crisp bacon wrapped bacon – I know, how indulgent is that? It was great, by the way. This I followed with a selection of oysters. Oysters are popular in Vancouver and come in many varieties, so I had to eat rather a lot to do them justice.
I could watch the chefs at Miku preparing truly incredible dishes
With an Asian population of around 50% of the total, Vancouver has many eastern delights to sample. In particular Japanese. On my first day I headed down to the waterfront at Canada Place to a very smart restaruant called Miku. Miku is elegant and very popular but luckily the manager Ben found me a seat at the counter where I could watch the chefs preparing truly incredible dishes, some of which are singed at the last moment by a torch playing across a fat stick of charcoal. I ordered a platter of mixed delights that had me grinning, and a bowl of the finest miso soup I have ever eaten. With a pot of green tea, the total plus service and tax came to a very acceptable $37, and with the Canadian dollar being weak against Sterling it proved to be rather a bargain, a pattern that followed for the week.
That night, after the launch of the Wine Festival, I ate great barbecued meats and drank crazy cocktails at Buck Stop with my old mate Ms B, now a Vancouver resident, before retiring to my hotel, the excellent Best Western on Granville and Drake.
My day out at Granville Island, which is not an island at all, was packed with delights; distilleries, sake makers, chocolates, including a fig dipped in bitter chocolate and stuffed with blue cheese, and a market packed with amazing looking fruits and vegetables too. It was a foodie paradise and I wished that I had space for more, but I did not.
Later in the week we filmed at Hapa Izakaya, again at Canada Place. This was a different kind of Japanese cusine and very busy with local business people. I loved it, but in particular the dish served in a terracotta pot that was screaming hot. Our waiter stirred the contents together at our table and told us to leave it for five minutes, after which a crust had formed around the rice and meats and veg, and it was delicious, really moreish.
No report on Vancouver would be complete without a trip to Joe Fortes. A city favourite, we hit it for Happy Hour, and how lucky were we – Happy Hour includes ‘buck a shuck’, oyster for a dollar a go. We also had oysters Rockerfeller, truffle chips, beef carpaccio and so much more, and all at Happy Hour prices. It looked great and the maitre d’Frenchy was a real character, larger than life and a very fine and kind host who, like all of Vancouver, made me very welcome. For foodies, Vancouver scores very high indeed.
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