We Need More Napkins

I’m sure I’ve made such a big deal about how much I love Thai food over the years that I might as well get it tattooed at this point. Authentic Thai cuisine is just the best; I really don’t think any other culinary style better balances the salty, sour, bitter and sweet, and does so with such bold and adventurous flavours. While savage floods kept me from visiting in 2011, I swear I’ll make it there some day soon, and when I do I’m gonna find some old ladies to teach me EVERYTHING.

I’ve eaten all sorts of great Thai in restaurants and my own kitchen, but I’ve never had upscale Thai before, and what better city to find it than my beloved Vancouver. We had some visiting company recently and so for our Main Event Dinner we chose Maenam, Chef Angus An’s Kitsilano hot spot.

It may be a little off-putting when you first walk in to find that most of the servers and diners in the restaurant are white - which is never the best sign in a city with as sizeable and food-obsessed as Vancouver’s Asian population - but don’t let it be a deterrent. This isn’t the secret grimy noodle house with the best $2 dumplings in town, this is haute cuisine drawing from Thailand’s amazing flavour palate.

There couldn’t be a much better way to start a meal than this gin/ginger/grapefruit cocktail and an order of crisp fried oysters with a spicy nahm jim sauce. The cocktail, from Maenam’s small but impressive list, was bright and tart and not-too-sweet, and the fried oysters were a great way to introduce the palate to many of the flavours of the night by way of a familiar and comfortable fry.

Jungle curry with mixed vegetables and tender beef. A nice rich curry with good heat, but certainly the most ordinary dish of the evening.

This is the 8-spice fish, a tender piece of lingcod caramelized in a sweet and spicy tamarind sauce. This was amazing, with perfect accents from the crispy basil leaves and garlic. As you can see the portion sizes are not traditional Thai family-style mounds of food, but pack an amazing amount of flavour, focused and tight.

This was a brilliant squid salad with fresh herbs and mango. Really bright, acidic and delicious, covering every base and having just the right piece of fried tentacle on top.

The final dish was a huge surprise, and it was the evening’s feature dish of sauteed spinach and pork belly. Really savoury with great balance, and the bits of belly were cooked perfectly, which is important. Pork belly that isn’t crispy and rendered is just a pile of fat, which isn’t even appetizing in a guilty way. This was appetizing in every way.

Maenam has a Royal Thai 9-course tasting menu that they offer as well. I’ll let you know how that goes soon…

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When Ashley was going to school at McGill, back when our relationship was young and tumultuous, she lived for a year in Little Italy. She fell in love with the coffee and the culture and of course all the food at her doorstep, despite being so student-poor at the time that she didn’t even own a spoon (literally.) I visited in 2007 and she took me for the first time to Pizzeria Napoletana, a traditional Italian family spot that ALWAYS has a line-up outside and boasts some of the best food in the neighbourhood. When my band visited Montreal on tour in 2010 we went back, and just this past weekend I got to make my third visit in a decade. It’s the best.

Like I said, there is always a line in front of this place, but with the dépaneur across the street and the restaurant’s lack of corkage fees you can at least drink wine, and on a nice night the wait is actually rather pleasant. Inside, the restaurant is as gloriously tacky as one would hope and expect, with a giant plastic tree serving as tent pole for the bustling circus of noisy eating families and the thick men serving tables. They’ve added a bunch of flatscreens since I was last there, which is a drag, but maybe they’re there to keep the kids occupied. Who knows. TV’s in restaurants are the worst. Anyway…

There were four of us sitting for dinner, weary from a weekend of partying and hungry from an hour spent waiting for a table. It was a family affair, which is what Pizzeria Napoletana was made for.

We started with an antipasti platter and a green salad with artichokes and olives. The platter was great, with an amazing spicy salami being the major highlight. Nothing gets the appetite going for a meal like this quite like some cured meats and salty delicacies like olives and anchovies, especially when paired with good wine (which is a luxury that BYOB affords a table in spades.)

Even though this photo looks like a miscarriage, it’s actually the most delicious cannelloni, stuffed with meat and topped with thick-cut prosciutto and baked mozzarella. Cannelloni is really one of my favourite traditional pasta dishes, as it really strikes the right balance and proportion of noodle, meat, cheese and sauce. I love the fresh, bright tomato sauce at Napoletana, despite what some Italian purists may say.*

*I KNOW YOU’RE READING THIS, KELLY.

Finally, the pizza! The first is topped with olives, anchovies, pesto, onion, feta and sliced tomato; the second boasts a simpler profile of prosciutto, tomato concassee and arugula. Both were really delicious, with a perfectly crispy crust and just the right balance of fresh, savoury toppings. I love true deep dish, but proper wood-fired Neopolitan pizza is the apex.

Well worth the wait, every time. Bellissimo!

Visiting a city as passionate about food culture as Toronto for only a few days is a daunting task. You have to try to make each meal count, and any misfire is a wasted opportunity for something amazing and distinct. This is a city with two Little Italy’s and two Chinatowns, and a “Little _____ ” neighbourhood for seemingly every country on the planet. There’s a lot to work through, and if you’re like me, you’re always trying to get the best, most authentic and most regionally unique experience possible.

Lucky for me I stayed recently with a close friend since the days before the internet, who moved to the big city from Regina years ago and has since become one of its biggest fans and a great ambassador for visiting pals. She’s also worked in restaurants for years - as you do in Toronto between acting gigs - so she knows her food. We ate well for a few days, and The Federal on Dundas was a real highlight.

The rustic, boutiquey downtown spot looks like a lot of modern urban eateries, with the wood and the iron and the cool light fixtures. The menu surprised however, boasting refined white-person comfort plates (as has become all the rage in hipster dive bars and downtown brunch-type spots.) The Federal does it better than quite possibly I’ve ever had it, and so while the dishes aren’t native to the area at all, perhaps the quality is. Like, everyone is doing this concept, OF COURSE there’s a spot in Toronto that does it the best. It’s why the rest of us all love AND hate the city.

A devilled egg is a great way to start a meal. It’s got those soft textures, and big punch of flavour and with several more courses on the way, there’s plenty of opportunity to exorcise your breath of foul egginess. This was a great one - not as great as the one I had in Austin last year with black caviar on top, but really great nonetheless, not being at all shy of grainy mustard and smoky paprika.

Ah, sweet lady Mac ‘n’ Cheese. It’s almost become a tragic dish these days. Nothing promises “comfort” quite like it, yet as it becomes ubiquitous on restaurant menus both trashy and fancy, it’s increasingly difficult to get a really good one. A lot of that has to do with the fact that it doesn’t hold well at all, making it difficult to prep and serve in a restaurant. A batch of mac ‘n’ cheese that rests for 15 minutes in the pot almost immediately dries up and loses that ooey-gooeyness that makes the dish so special. As well, restaurants go out of their way to try to make theirs “distinct,” meaning they usually try a bunch of awkwardly combined ingredients and serving techniques that get in the way of what we’re all really just after: cheese, in all of its decadent, slutty glory.

Anyways, that’s all a big preamble to say that this was probably the best Mac ‘n’ Cheese I’ve ever had in my life, excluding perhaps my mostly fondly remembered bowls from the mid-to-late 1980’s. Topped with crispy bacon (and not jerking around with anything “fancier” than that), the cheese sauce was rich and creamy and the cheese itself caramelized and crisped ever-so-slightly all around the dish, adding this whole other dimension of deliciousness like the browned top of a pizza. I was really going in expecting the ordinary and my eyes nearly popped out of my skull. A tough dish to share, to say the least.

The ceviche was a nice way to cut through all the richness on the table, seasoned perfectly and jumping off the plate with fresh, bright flavours. Living on the coast, this was the only time over the course of my weekend visit that I indulged my snooty palate in some land-locked seafood, and it was worth it.

Note: I don’t know if the warm tortillas were house-made, but if so The Federal gets bonus points.

So when I saw the Federal Dog on the menu for only $6 I was expecting a really fancy-pants take on the classic, like a single bite of house-made sausage on kale sauerkraut with mustard foam or something, but instead what came out was a big gnarly hot dog. Awesome. We devoured this thing. It was topped with uhh… crispy bits and tasty sauce.*

*Gimme a break, part of visiting a big city also entails drinking all day.

Finally, the only slightly disappointing dish of the night, the Chicken and Waffles, which is also starting to see a menu resurgence similar to Mac ‘n’ Cheese or Poutine-Topped-With-Some-Variety-Of-Braised-Meat a few years ago. The chicken was perfectly crisp and the fresh mint on the plate was a really bright and playful touch, but the waffle was a little on the stale side. Given how rapid-fire all the dishes came out to the table, I would have been happy waiting a few minutes for a fresh one, but oh well. One A- on an otherwise stellar report card still deserves a spot on the fridge for months.

Phnom Penh is the dope shit. It’s in Vancouver’s Chinatown and is a mighty mash of Vietnamese and Cambodian cuisine, totally packed all day with a mostly-Asian crowd getting down with some authentic Southeast flavours. The restaurant frequently tops Vancouver food lists and the reputation isn’t for naught; it’s a banger in a city full of Asian bangers.

And heads up, if you’re in town and want to give it a try, show up early. There’s a permanent line at the door.

Oddly enough, the chicken wings are Phnom Penh’s biggest draw. When the restaurant was first recommended to me I was told to get the wings, which I didn’t take too seriously. Like, why am I gonna go to Vancouver’s top southeast Asian joint and order something perfected by sleazy suburban white-dude pubs? On our first trip here we skipped them, and as we walked out we noticed that nearly every table in the whole restaurant had wings on them. A valuable lesson: when a place is recommended for a celebrated specialty, order it, stupid.

Turns out these wings are amazing. Normally I like wings dripping with sauce all down my arms then dunked in more sauce, but these are fried so crisp and salty and delicious, and garnished with crunchy garlic and cilantro that sauce doesn’t even cross the mind. There is some seasoned lemon juice on the side to give wings some acidic punch, which I’d dip into every third or fourth wing. These are what hangover dreams are made of.

Another recommendation (which is important for a couple of crackers to have, going in to a menu with a million items on it) was the Butter Beef, which doesn’t taste like its name sounds at all. Which is a good thing. Instead of being rich and heavy it’s incredibly light, with seared rare slices of beef topped with cilantro, crisp garlic and a very bright soy-based sauce (presumably with some butter in it.) We ordered this when our in-laws were in town and they were turned off by the raw beef, but if you’re not squeamish about that sort of thing this dish is incredible.

Note: It’s really bizarre to see a man as passionate about hunting and butchering animals as my father-in-law get turned off by some raw meat. He was like, appalled.

Another popular dish is the filet of beef, stewed in a thick, dark sauce and topped with a sunny side up egg. When we ordered it our egg was inedibly crisp on the bottom, but the beef was still really tasty, especially when hit some fish sauce and chili oil.

There are some curried frog legs on Chef’s Special menu, barised in a rich yellow curry and garnished (as always) with cilantro. Ours came out a little under-seasoned, but with a little shot of soy these things came alive (not LITERALLY, like that scene in E.T. That would be terrifying.) I like frog legs, they’re like fishy chicken wings.

And finally, to my great delight there is Banh Xeo on the menu! For my storied love of the authentic Vietnamese savoury pancake see my post straight from the source in 2011: http://weneedmorenapkins.tumblr.com/post/12714977701/banh-xeo-ho-chi-minh-city. Phnom Penh gets it just right and it hits all the flavour points of great Vietnamese food: fresh and crisp and salty and sour. I don’t know why it’s such a rarity on North American Vietnamese menus given how ubiquitous it is over there, but that just makes it an even more special treat when you find it here.

If you’re one of those Christy types, Easter is a big gluttonous celebration of your Bible’s big twist ending, and it’s also the end of fasting and restraint over Lent. I grew up Catholic but Easter never meant much more to me than chocolate eggs and slushy streets and the time I got the Achtung Baby cassette in my surprise basket. Easter still isn’t a highly regarded holiday in my tiny family - not one worth traveling for, anyway -  but this year my wife and I shared it with my Aunt who lives near the US border in White Rock. She called for a shellfish feast, and as soon as you tack the word “feast” onto something, there’s really no going back…

Now when you think about it, the Easter colours make a lot more sense at Xmas and vice versa - Xmas is the little baby Jesus holiday, so the pastel colours of suburban nurseries would be most appropriate, while Easter has the blood and the palms. I guess it’s too late to change it now, and the flowers are nice.

Okay, the food. There was some lump Dungeness crab meat that I made into some crab cakes, and then a whole pile of legs that were steamed so that they could serve as a conduit for garlic butter. The cakes couldn’t be deep-fried, but they were really heavy on the crab meat so it didn’t matter, they were delicious. In my not-so-humble opinion crab is the tastiest creature to come from the water, and perhaps second tastiest in the whole galaxy behind only hallowed lamb. I probably ate half the legs.

There were shrimp, half of which were beer-battered and fried, the other half braised in garlic butter. I’m a total junkie for fried shrimp and cocktail sauce, and if there were such a thing as past lives (which there isn’t, DUH) I would have lived on the Gulf of Mexico and eaten them four times a week. I also tried frying some oysters but they fell apart and were gross.

Scallops! Not always my favourite sea creature, but when seared perfectly like these morsels and served with a spicy mayonnaise, I’m swooning.

Note: Don’t you hate how restaurants think they can just squirt an ingredient from one bottle into a bowl of mayo and call it aioli? I even first typed “aioli” above before changing it. It’s time to take mayonnaise back, and not be afraid of the word any more. If mayonnaise weren’t awesome, people wouldn’t eat it every fucking day.

Finally, the lobster. We figured, since we’d already come this far, we might as well go all the way and just butter-poach the tails, which I’d never done before. It’s interesting, the butter gets heated to just a bit warmer than lukewarm, and the tails sit in it, slowly absorbing all the flavour (read: fat). The meat comes out so moist and rich and… well, buttery. Awesome.

I wish I had time-lapse of myself getting fatter by the minute.

And this is the mess we left behind. A very fine effort indeed. The butter coma and Game of Thrones premiere that followed left a foggy cloud that we rode through the night. And on the next day, I rose again.

My wife and I took her visiting parents out for dinner last night, and we picked Forage, thinking it looked like a pretty accessible selection from Vancouver’s farm-to-table share-plate dining scene. These are, after all, hardy folk who’ve never really spent a lot of time in upscale restaurants (on my side of the family, special occasions are marked by dining out, on this side of the family they’re marked by steaks the size of your head. So is every Sunday too, actually. It’s pretty awesome.)

Forage is in league with Wildebeest, with a particular affection for locally sourced and seasonal ingredients, and a style that is very contemporary but rustic and country as well. The price point is really fair, and one of my favourite parts about this style of dining is that you can really spend as much or as little as you want depending on how many dishes keep coming to the table.

Note: I’m grateful we scouted the much-fussed-about Pidgin first and never brought them there - it’s much pricier, half of the Asian-fusion menu doesn’t really work, and it’s located on the diciest corner in the whole of metro Vancouver. Riding the bus to get there, I was as close to being mugged as I’ve been in the city. Getting out of the restaurant there are police waiting outside to help you get a cab. Not exactly sexy times.

The first snack to come to the table - and it got there so fast I was practically still ordering - was the crackling and popcorn. I fucking love popcorn. I go to movies I don’t really care about just to eat it. And this was popcorn with pig fat! Holy shit.

I think if I ever get some real success in my life and I finally go the full Dan Aykroyd, I’m going to have 30-pound tubs of this sitting in my washroom next to my gold bidet while my Colombian housekeeper pleads “Meester Luhwig, Meester Luhwig, no mas on de popcorn…” and there I’ll be, sweaty and drunk, hurling insults back at her while I inhale the popcorn and look at old photos of myself and say “YOU COULDN’T DO WHAT I DO ESMERELDA” and she screams back “You know my name Manuela! I HAVE YOU BABY!”

But I digress…

This was a nice little Charcuterie board, with a chicken liver parfait at the centre and few different cured meats (I missed their descriptions, probably lost in popcorn fantasies of the rich and bloated.) The house-made IPA mustard and pickles were a really nice touch.

Now this was the first point of the meal when the Old School may have stepped in the way of my inlaws really loving the dining experience. These are squash perogies with a birch syrup vinegar reduction and scallion creme fraiche. They were absolutely delicious, but a little on the “weird” side for a family that ABSOLUTELY DISMISSES my mere SUGGESTION that we could include some cheddar perogies at Christmas instead of just the plain potato ones. Regardless, I loved the dish.

My favourite of the night, a bison tongue ravioli with jus, crispy parsnip and chantrelles. Big earthy flavours delivered in a perfect homemade noodle, very comfortable and still a bit exotic (too exotic for Ashley’s mom, who couldn’t stop thinking about the big gross beef tongues you see at the grocery store.)

The night’s special, fresh-caught halibut with fiddleheads and a rich hollandaise-style sauce. This was really delicious, with the fish cooked absolutely perfectly, all buttery and flaky like good halibut should be. The white stuff was an olive oil powder, which definitely would have been scoffed at by a judge on a cooking contest show, but regardless this was unanimously the rest of the table’s favourite dish of the night.

And finally we have cured Keta salmon with stinging nettle soup, gnocchi, bacon and creme fraiche. I personally loved the combination of the grassy soup with the saltiness of the salmon skin and bacon and the warm richness of the gnocchi. The stinging nettle was a little off-putting for some of the others, especially given how rampantly it grows out at the family cottage.

Dynamite meal, and Forage gets a solid recommendation. Just be wary when bringing… conservative diners.

So, “Diva at the Met” is kind of a silly name for a restaurant.

I just wanted to get that one nit-picky criticism out the way, because the rest of this post is going to be embarrassingly gushing because THIS WAS THE BEST GODDAMN MEAL IN THE UNIVERSE.

My mom was visiting the coast from the snowy hellscape we call home, so we made reservations at Diva based off something my wife had read on one of those “best bites in Vancouver”-type blogs. Then a week before she arrived Diva’s Chef Hamid Salimian appeared on the cover of the Straight’s “Golden Plates” issue, voted by industry peers as the best chef at the most underrated restaurant in town. So yeah, we were excited about our pick.

That excitement reached Game of Thrones-premiere fever pitch when we sat down and were told that since it was recently the Persian New Year, the Iranian-born Chef’s tasting menu was Persian-inspired, an annual tradition that is the regarded as Salimian’s finest work. So this was to be a truly amazing meal, and better yet, the stout Chef himself was working the line, finishing every plate.

The meal started with not one but four amuse bouches, or “snacks” as they were introduced. They were, in the order pictured above: Joojeh Kabab (a crisp chicken skin chip with spicy yogurt), Maghaz (a light fried wafer topped with lamb brain), Kashk e Bademjan (an airy profiterole with an extremely savoury eggplant “caviar” in the centre) and Sekanjabin Kaho (pressed and chilled romaine hearts with an herb slush).

Four bites, four radically different and incredibly bold and surprising flavours. As Gordon Ramsay says on his food shows when referring to apples or loaves of bread or the dump he just took in the Fox executive restroom: “Stunning.” I was ready to devour the world (and more expensive cocktails. And expensive wine.)

Zeytoon Parvade

Our first “official” course, this dish was EXPLOSIVE: at the bottom was a puree of sorrel, very bright and green and fresh, topped with beef tartare, olive and a crumble of cracked wheat. As our server explained, the beef is not meant to be the star of the dish, but rather the olive, which really did take top billing in this incredibly savoury and balanced dish. It’s also perhaps the best example of a dish with very ordinary sounding ingredients that was totally audacious in flavour, which perfectly sums up the whole meal.

Halva

This is a sheet of chilled foie gras over a sweet and tart blend of preserved fig, raisin and little crispy bits. Another very bold dish that used some traditional sweet Persian ingredients and elevated them to outer space levels and perfect balance with “science.”

Ash-Reshteh

This is was perhaps the least popular dish of the meal, but that’s like saying this was my least favourite blowjob of the last five, you know? This is a thick soup with certainly the most earthy, authentic flavours of the night. Mint, sour whey and other legumes highlighted the dish.

Koofteh

At my old restaurant we had a lamb kofta on the menu for a while, and it was tasty but fairly traditional; this is Chef Salimian’s take. The koofteh (or kofta or whichever else, depending on what corner of the Kasbah you’re rocking) was pressed lamb, accompanied by crisp pork jowl and a saffron broth. Holy shit. The bit of pork jowl was probably the bite of the night, and the crispy frizzy cloud on top? Razor thin strips of beef, given the texture of fried vermicelli. Why? BECAUSE HE’S A FREAKIN GENIUS, THAT’S WHY.

Gheymeh

The final savoury course of the night, and as usual this was the big meat-and-potatoes finale, which of course did not disappoint. It boasted lamb two ways (loin and belly) and potato two ways (pave and crispy twirl), with a root veg puree and stone dry lime foam. As rustic AND elegant as a dish can get. Bravo.

Meyer Lemon Mousse

AND THEN THIS DESSERT! So like, we’re all just floating on a cloud of meal heaven when this lemon mousse appears, shaped and coloured EXACTLY like a real lemon, accompanied by a cardamom lemon compote, chick pea crumble and pistachio flower. Such and amazing way to end an amazing meal.

I got to shake the Chef’s hand at the end, and the man was so incredibly humble it was like his last great mindfuck. He graciously hoped we enjoyed tasting the food of his home and thanked us for coming. If my heart wasn’t two sizes too small, I may have cried. Instead I went home and drank more. FIVE STARS.

I went to Seattle last weekend to catch up with friends in the band Sleeping Giant as they played a hardcore show in an evangelical Russian church that was broadcast live to 38 different countries around the world. WHAT, WHY IS THAT WEIRD?

It was a great time and Seattle is a vibrant city, especially if you catch it on a rare sunny day in March. We got to town late and botched our lunch plans, so when we finally got out of the church after 9pm I was more bound and determined than ever not to blow dinner. We took a cab to Old Ballard and the restaurant at the top of my list: The Walrus and The Carpenter.

This place is crammed and all the rage, so instead of making reservations you have to put your name on a wait list and the hostess will call you when your table is ready. My wife, cinematographer pal Mike and I showed up at 9:30 and the place was still packed. We were told that we couldn’t be guaranteed a table since the wait list was full, even though a lot of the names on the list were from hours before. We were already around the corner ordering pizza when I got a call for a table 15 minutes later, and we faked an emergency and raced back.

It’s a tiny little place, about the size of your parents’ garage, decorated in rustically-decaying white and modest steel. The kitchen takes up half the space, but because a good portion of the dishes are raw, the room isn’t suffocated by kitchen smells. The small plates menu changes daily, which is another luxury of the limited capacity. When we sat down the music was twee, but by the time the first course arrived old people were leaving and hardass hip-hop cranked.

This was the best meal of 2013 so far…

Oysters here come fresh and fried. I’m not normally the biggest fan of fried oysters - there’s something a little creepy about the mushy fishiness in between all that crunchy batter - but these were done just right, with the oysters holding all their buoyancy while still being crispy and greasy and satisfying in those guilty ways. On the fresh side there’s more than half a dozen varieties, ordered on the menu by natural saltiness. Ours were as good as fresh oysters get, which are really about as good as any mouthful of food on earth. We also ordered some fresh clams, which were okay but a little gritty.

The salad we ordered was lightly dressed but driven entirely by the fresh mint and cilantro, which played off the earthier greens and roots to make for an elegantly balanced palate cleanser.

Next was the smoked trout, served cold over a salad of lentils, walnuts and creme fraiche, topped with a pickled onion ring. Now, smoked trout can get a little fishy if not prepared perfectly, so it was a really smart move to bring it back down to earth with the lentils and nuts.

This is a clam tartare with cucumber and potato crisps. Reeeeally bright, fresh flavours that paired beautifully with the acidity and sharpness of the other ingredients.

The grilled sardines were a major highlight, exemplifying what most dishes at W&C do best, balancing sharp, salty fishiness with bright fresh herbs and bold flavour profiles. Sardines are a magical little fish, so full of natural oiliness and saltiness, halfway between an anchovy and a snapper.

Steak tartare. Oh, what a symphony this motherfucker was. A really great steak tartare offers a texture like minced raw fish - buttery and delicate, showcasing the natural balance of flavours of the meat. The egg yolk just added an extra element of richness, and the crunch of the toast made for such a perfect harmony of textures. This dish was a standout on a lineup of straight all-stars.

This is what your table looks like when the meal is done. The dishes comes fast and furious, one after another so that you have all the different flavours to bounce between. It’s dizzying. Drinks are reasonably priced - our wine was under $40, my pint of beer was $5, and their bourbon selection kept us there until well after the plates were cleared. We had a Russian church service to purge ourselves of, you know? Typical Saturday stuff.

If you’re in East Van and are looking for a great brunch in a neighbourhood cafe with a very earnest Earth First vibe and a staff comprised (seemingly exclusively) of hip lesbians, then Rhyzome is your joint.

The brunch menu is a nice mix of familiar and prog-hippie, like this miso tofu scrambler. Using silken tofu gives the curds a scrambled egg-like texture, and the golden miso mixed with sauteed zucchini and red peppers makes for a very savoury dish. Instead of toast, all the dishes are served with a really buttery corn bread, which is a delicious addition.

The benedict is topped with smoked salmon (Vancouver, remember?) and a rich hollandaise. It’s great as long as the eggs are adequately soft-poached, and having a bit of salad on the side makes you feel better about eating 1200 calories for breakfast.

The Chilaquiles is possibly the highlight of the whole menu. Fresh corn tortilla topped with spicy scrambled eggs, pico de gallo, salsa verde and queso fresco. It’s so perfectly spiced and flavoured that even I love this plate, and I’m not normally a Mexican-for-breakfast type of guy.

One fun thing to do is to order the vegan banana pancakes with a side of bacon. That gets either a bemused smile or snippy retort depending on your server.

Note: I gotta say, for a place with so many vegan specialties, Rhyzome’s bacon is really, really good.

And finally, you can also get bacon and eggs.

*Cough*

I should probably stop ending the tour here.

Okay, so I can’t pretend to be an expert of Vancouver’s vast Chinese/dim sum dining scene - that would take decades, not mere months. But my first trip to King’s on a warm Sunday in February was a great reminder that this city does it on a whole other level.

King’s has all the tropes of a truly authentic experience: the bright, sort-of-grimy restaurant is totally crowded (and lined up out the door), packed with loud Chinese families and frantic servers flapping about and politely throwing food down on tables.

The menu is a bit daunting (a la carte dim sum is a bit more accessible to first-time diners/honkeys), but with all of the items priced between $2-4, you can’t really go wrong. Ashley and I absolutely gorged and our bill was $23.

The crispy squid that came first set the bar impossibly high. This was all that fried seafood should be: salty, crunchy, a little greasy while the squid remained perfectly tender. We could have just eaten a bucket of this and called it a day.

The Rolls

The spring rolls were tasty, but it’s the steamed rice rolls filled with shrimp that I absolutely LOVE. There’s something about the slippery, almost-slimy texture of the noodle that I adore slurping up, and it serves as a beautiful conduit for the steamed shrimp and salty soy sauce. These rolls were the whole reason I got out of bed that morning and demanded sim sum for brunch!

The Dumplings

I love dumplings. The balance between the sweet, chewy dough and the salty, tender meat is such a thing of beauty. We had three varieties: the rolled shrimp and green onion, the more traditional steamed shrimp, and the savoury pork. Dipped into a little mix of hot and soy sauces, it doesn’t get much better. Gotta love this town.

Note: After the second helping Ashley admitted she didn’t really “care” about dumplings, so I said I was going to DUMP-ling her! Yeah, she wasn’t impressed either.

I had my first film premiere last weekend, so we got down all sultan-like the night before with my dad, who was visiting the coast for the event. After giving him a very Vancouvery day (a hike in the park, sushi for lunch, going batshit crazy getting stuck in traffic) we brought some delicacies home from Granville Island, and for a few fleeting moments ate like we judges in a charcuterie contest on Top Chef: Pacific Northwest.

Behold! The platter of the gods, in all it’s sinful glory.

Let me take you on a tour: the chorizo sausage is from the fine folks at Oyama Sausage Co., a small outfit that is essentially the only reason to visit Granville Island if you’re not a tourist. This one was moderately spicy but heavier on the red wine and sweet roasted pepper notes, and was perfect after a quick crisping in the frying pan, which left it oozing amber oils all over the platter.

There was also some fresh smoked salmon ‘CAUSE WE LIVE VANCOUVER, DUH.

In the cheese department we find a creamy camembert-style goat cheese that was really rich and perfectly bitter. There was also some pepperjack (which may not be “artisan” but sure went well with the chorizo) and some of those feta-stuffed jalapenos that we just can’t resist no matter how hard we try (and no matter how badly they burn later…)

As part of our Field Guide to Vancouver we took my dad to noodle around Kitsilano a bit, and came across Ayoub’s Dried Fruits and Nuts, a small shop with elegantly displayed, hand-crafted delights. As soon as we got a sample of the lime, saffron and chili cashews - served warm right out of the oven - we were over the moon and snatched up a bag, throwing in some pistachios to boot. I had to be like a disciplined Zen monk resisting the urge (and my wife’s pleading) to plow through the whole bag before we even made it home.

Now, the duck. Oyama also specializes in pates, so we picked up this duck and black truffle variety. There aren’t really words for flavour like this, just physical gestures of agonizing delight accompanied by grunts and ecstatic sighs.

We also got a confit leg of duck, because, well, we’re not made of STONE, alright? It’s really handy that Oyama has these prepared, and you can even buy small tubs of duck fat from them direct.

Note: If a tub of duck fat sounds gross to you, you’re reading the wrong blog.

I like these Liberty School wines a lot, and this 08 Syrah is particularly robust and suited for this kind of aggressively decadent eating. This was a good night.