Hakkasan

From Hakkasan

Hakkasan came from the dissolution of the partnership at Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine. One of the original business partners took the sous-chef with her and opened this restaurant with nearly the exact same concept - homestyle Chinese food served in a western fine dining context. The concept even extends to the odd location: a industrial and warehousing district close to the Ikea in Richmond.

The menu is very similar...right down to the garlic lobster and the use of whelk.




Hakkasan serves homestyle Hakka food. This cuisine is the food of the diasporic Han tribe from the middle of China. The Han migrated to the southern regions of China (Fujian, Gunagdong) and over time, this cuisine evolved.

This food is rustic and "homestyle" and I find it incongruent with the high-style concept that Hakkasan is proposing. However, I often have to remind myself that other cuisines have had this kind of elevation - the French, for example, have been serving homestyle food at high-end restuarants for a couple of hundred years. I don't bat an eye when I am charged $30 for a plateful of ratatouille, for example.

Chinese food to me is about value...and to me Hakkasan does not provide that value. I hold Chinese food to a higher "bang-for-the-buck" standard than pretty much all other cuisine. That is why I walked away disappointed after my trip to Hakkasan in Richmond. The food was fantastic, the service was great, but the prices....oy!



The best dish of the evening was the homestyle braised pork hock. This dish was braised in a "red-braise" style and had lots of delicious, buttery, melting fat.



All in all...the meal was delicious....but overpriced.

Dolce Amore

From Dolce Amore

Vancouver is blessed with some great gelato and lucky for me, some of the best is served right in my neighbourhood. Commercial Drive has long been the center of all things Italian in this city - so it shouldn't be a surprise that a great gelateria is located right here.

Dolce Amore is owned and run by the coffee roasting Grippo family. The gelato has a great creamy texture and intense, concentrated flavour. Today I had the green apple - tart and just a hint of sweetness. The scent of apple bursts through after the first bite.

Sweet Chili Cafe - Homestyle Indonesian in Vancouver

Located in the old Dona Cata location on Victoria Drive (near Kingsway), this new family run restaurant serves authentic home-style Indonesian food. Of dishes we ordered, my favourite was the Beef Rendang - the spicing was nuanced, and the beef was meltingly tender. It could have had more chili heat. We ordered it "hot" but it was "mild" to my tastes.



Other dishes worth ordering are the Laksa Ayam (which could have been hotter as well), the black rice pudding, and the tofu salad. Using the Beef Randang as my litmus-test - I can safely assume that their curries and stews will also be flavourful and authentic - albeit toned down for Western tastes. Their Roti Canai was a bit dense...lacking the requisite lightness and flakeyness.

The pricing is decent. They have "Rice Tables" - really more like combos than true rijstafels - starting from $7.50 to $8.25. Compared to Seri Malaysia on Hastings St - the servings are smaller and the prices are higher. Also, Seri Malaysia serves much more pungent and more authentic tasting dishes, in my opinion. Sweet Chile Cafe definitely pulled some punches on the spicing....still good, but could have had more of the dried and fermented seafood notes.

I do have one other quibble: They serve all their dishes on plastic plates and use plastic utensils. It cheapens the experience and it isn't very eco-friendly. I gave them my disapproval verbally...hopefully, they will stop using disposable settings.

Osake - Vancouver's own Artisinal Sake Maker

I love sake...especially the good stuff. I just thought I'd share some photos from my most recent visit to Osake - the sake studio on Railspur Ave at Granville Island.



After brokering and supplying Japanese breweries and sake makers with brewing equipment exported from Canada, Masa Shiroki decided to give sake making a shot himself. He finally opened this studio early last year after some bureaucratic hoop-jumping involving inflexible and antiquated liquor and food service laws.

He has three types of sake:

• Junmai Nama Nigori - an unfiltered (cloudy), fruity number
• Junmai Nama - a clear (filtered) sake which reminds me of a riesling
• Junmai Nama Genshu - a high test clear sake - at 18% alcohol

Like most aficionados, I prefer good sake served cold. You can sample Osake's offerings here at the studio where they do flights and at various Japanese establishments all over town - namely Kingyo, Blue Water Cafe, and Tojo's.

The Asian Food Court at Richmond Public Market

From Richmond Publ...

The two best Asian food courts in the Greater Vancouver Area are in Crystal Mall and at the Richmond Public Market. Crystal Mall's Food Court is much more accessible to the gastrotourist by transit (just a few Skytrain stops to Metrotown Station from downtown)....however, RPM's Food Court probably has a more varied selection of obscure regional Chinese fare.

In North America, this type of food - usually street food - is probably best served from a food court stall where the financial overhead makes it possible to survive. Some of these stalls have been here for years. Had they been full-service restuarants (and despite the apetite for Asian foods here in Vancouver), they would have closed down in short order.


The most famous of all North American Asian Food Courts is the Main St Asian Food Courts in Flushing (Queens), New York, where a huge population of Chinese Mainlanders have immigrated.





I recommend trying the Malaysian (for the curry combos), Xi'an, Tian Jing (for the steamed bao) Xin Jiang (Islamic Chinese streetfood), and Sichuan Stalls.

The Xin Jiang stall, in particular, serves delicious, cheap cumin lamb skewers.






It's a real treat to order one small dish from a selection of stalls. The prices are incredibly cheap.

Golden Phoenix: Our "Go To" Dim Sum place

From Golden Phoenix

Golden Phoenix is a just a few minutes from our house. The dim sum here is fresh and creative....and as a bonus....they still serve much of it from carts. A rare beast these days. Carts are slowly disappearing in favour of order cards.




My daughter's favourite dish is deep fried spicy squid. We always order that for her. This one has a nice crunch and heat. The dish is also dim sum size so she can eat the whole thing.




Many of their dishes are not on the menu. Reserve some space and wait for one of the cart or tray ladies to come out with something new.

Golden Phoenix
2425 Nanaimo, Vancouver

Tel: (604) 253-6183

Obsession: Dan Dan Mian, Part Two

These are my three favorite Dan Dan Noodles in the Greater Vancouver Area:

The fiery hot "Chengdu" Dan Dan at Szechwan Restaurant in Richmond. Authentic tasting - earthy-toasty from the cooked dried chili, blazing hot, lots of ma la and not a hint of sweetness.





The thick, dark, toasted sesame rendition from The Place Restaurant. This could actually be my real favorite of the bunch. It is similar but less sweet to the dish they used to serve at Lin's.




The Dan Dan at Northern Delicacy at Aberdeen Center in Richmond. The soup is a thin, but flavourful sesame-based broth. The black sesame seeds impart a nice nutty-sweet tone to the dish

Random Image - Fries on Jericho Beach

Happy Canada Day

I'm not nationalistic at all (or at least I try to pretend I'm not), but I'm glad to be a Canadian.

Authentic Sichuan Restaurant Found!

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I don't know how this place eluded my radar for so long....but I'm glad I finally found it. It is tucked away in a non-descript strip mall on Saba Road which is next to the Richmond Public Market. I guess I never drive down this road or else I would have spotted it.

I have long complained that the GVA does not have a good Sihcuan food scene. Sure you can get a few exemplary Sichuan dishes from certain pan-regional Chinese restaurants (Peaceful, The Place) and at some Food Court stalls at Crystal Mall and at the Richmond Public Market, but I have yet to see a true Sichuan restaurant here. I have been to many of the more well known and purported authentic places like Golden Szechuan (a Richmond heavyweight) and Ba Guo Bu Yi (a hole in the wall on Park Rd, also in Richmond)...but upon repeat visits, I found them all lacking.

Near my home is Szechuan Chongqing, a restaurant my parents and I have dined in for decades. We have been eating there since they were in their original location on Victoria Drive at Broadway. Here, I fell in love with Chinese food....specifically, its particular kind of Sichuan cuisine. Just ot be clear, I don't consider restaurants like Szechuan Chongqing a authentic Sichuan restuarant. These types of places (there are a number of them in the GVA), I consider "Nixon-era Szechuan."

In 1972 Richard Nixon went to China and raised North American awareness of all things Chinese. Shortly after his visit, hundreds of "Szechaun" and "Hunan" restaurants opened up all over the US and Canada. For the most part, this ersatz Sichuan food was a revelation to most North Americans. They didn't think Chinese food could taste this way. The cuisine that evolved out of this era has persisted and continues to inform much of Sichuan and Hunan cooking till today.

But I digress...



On Saba road is Szechwan Restuarant (note that third spelling of Sichuan). The place is clearly a premium restaurant with some old-school Chinese decorsuch as lacquered tables and chairs, nice ceramic table settings, etc. Upon sitting down at my table, I perused the menu and I was impressed with the breadth and depth of the items. I have never seen some of these dishes outside of Sichuan province. The dishes were not cheap - they are charging premium prices (similar to Kirin and that ilk)

I chatted up the manager. He confirmed that they have an true Sichuan chef. Most of their cooks are also from the Sichuan province.

Sadly, I was alone and I was only able to try a couple of dishes. I chose two of my litmus-tests: Dan Dan Mian, and Sichuan Wonton in Chili sauce. I ordered them both at "medium" heat knowing how hot Sichuan food can be.



When my dishes came, I was overjoyed. The Dan Dan Mian tasted like the ones back in Chengdu. The earthy-toasted flavour of the Chilies dominated this dish. It did not taste like any of the Dan Dan Mian I have had here in Vancouver. I have had a true Dan Dan Mian only once before in North America - at a long forgotten restaurant in Los Angeles many years ago. Even at medium heat, it was blazing hot. The Wonton had the same ferocity of chili heat. I finished my meal with a complimentary sweet fermented rice wine with Goji berries.



I am dying to come back. I will bring a few friends so I can be guaranteed to try some of my other favorite Sichuan dishes.

Lime Restaurant

From Lime on Comme...

I returned to Lime for the first time in months. I dined a bunch of times in a flurry when they first opened and I had been meaning to go back.

My wife and I ordered the sashimi (stunning, amazing, fresh, expertly cut), lobster salad, some izakaya-esque kitchen dishes (an avocado rice crispy croquette), zarusoba which uses their own housemade, handcut 100% buckwheat soba noodles (they are the only place in Vancouver that makes their own soba, AFAIK), fresh oysters, and some cocktails.

The service from both the chefs and our waitress was excellent. We paid no cover charge (they often charge this when they have performers).

Lime is easily in the same league as the top sushi places in town, IMO...this night it became my favourite destination sushi in Vancouver. Lime is not inexpensive - you pay top dollar to dine here...but it is definitely worth it. Make sure to sit at the raw bar to catch the chefs in action - it is a sight to behold.

Lime - Japanese Cuisine

1130, Commercial Dr.

Vancouver BC