When Is Multi-grain Bread Really Multi-grain?

T&T Supermarket Utane Bread - Multi, Toasted

I have to admit that while a beautifully crisp-crusted French baguette or a wonderfully chewy ciabatta will please me to no end, I really do like soft squishy breads. Especially given the choice between an overly hard crusty bread that'll scrape against the roof of my mouth, and a nice soft one that won't hurt at all when I eat it. I suspect this might in part be a Chinese thing, as I heard once that our palates tend to be softer on average than Caucasian palates. I don't know the causal relationship, or if this is even true. If it is, perhaps our palates are softer because we don't have crusty breads in the cuisine, and everyone else has spent their lives toughening theirs up, and then in turn there is no desire to make crustier breads. Or perhaps it's simply a physiological thing, like the 50% or more of us Asians that lack the alcohol dehygrogenase in our bellies to help metabolize great quantities of alcohol quickly. Anyway, sometimes I go to a T & T Supermarket and buy their very boxy squishy half loaves or full loves of bread. The very regular shape pleases me, and I see no reason for sliced bread to always have that billowy top to it. It's just a matter of baking it in a deeper vessel. Reminds me of Potato Salad Boy, who was particularly taken with the neat and tidy shape of the "cube fries" at the PNE, where they cooked their curly fries so that it wound up looking like a Borg cube. Don't look too hard for these this year, by the way. They mysteriously disappeared a few years ago. Perhaps not everyone is as anal as my friend and I.

Well getting back to the bread, this last trip to T&T, I discovered their "multi-grain." I just enjoyed some of it toasted. The grains they're talking about though, are black sesame seeds throughout and possibly a few sunflower seeds, and the light whole wheat content of the bread itself probably. Doesn't have that annoying "healthy taste" at all! I don't know about you, but to me, when I'm choosing bread at the store, "multi-grain" often reads as "cardboard" and any disappointment that I feel with it is generally balanced out by the thought that "at least it's better for me than the white bread." Not always of course. And I sometimes do enjoy the hearty flavours of those grains. And now a company has even started packaging roasted flax seeds in little packets so that you can add it to your food anytime. I tried one of my free samples from the Eat! Vancouver goody bag, and it's surprisingly tasty as well as convenient as a topping for yoghurt in a packed lunch, for example. I'm not really convinced that this T&T "multi-grain" is better for me than the white bread, but maybe it's better for me than the buttery coconut swirl bread I usually get there, hee hee. But I don't usually eat that with strawberry jam and butter. I don't want to get into a debate about what technically is considered a grain and how much you need to make something certifiably multi-grain. I'll leave that to the real bakers, like Bac'n Girl and her cohorts, to quibble about. I'm happy with my occassional fakey bread from T&T (check out this link for web coupons).

For Crying Out Loud, Not ANOTHER Summer Patio Article!

What could be more overdone in the microcosm of Vancouver food writing than a write-up of patio restaurants at the beginning of summer? Well, I've resisted so far (aren't you proud of me, I didn't succumb even once last summer), but I couldn't hold back any longer. It's now mid-summer, and a restaurant with a patio is exactly what I've been feeling like these days. Don't resist it, soak up the view and be grateful for it. Enjoy the crisp air, comfortable temperature, blue-blue view, cool breeze, and the beautiful light of a summer evening in Vancouver. This post is just one example of a nice summer patio experience. Here's a view of Horseshoe Bay, with a little packet of cloud tucked into the crevices of a mountain.


The View

The restaurant was The Boathouse at Horseshoe Bay (6695 Nelson Ave at Bay St., on the water, 604-921-8188), less than 45 minutes away from downtown Vancouver. I've been there twice, with neither time being my idea to go, but both times coming away very pleased, and feeling quite pampered indeed. While it's not a long drive, it still has the feeling of being whisked away to a special spot. Maybe that's why this location feels somewhat better than the English Bay Boathouse. Then again, it might also be the food and the service.

We shared a portobello mushroom appetizer ($9.49), a single smallish cap topped with dungeness crab and shrimp in a cream sauce which sounds from the menu description alone like it would be good, but it actually exceeded my expectations. It was delicious, and the only improvement I can think of would be to perhaps double the portion, because I could have eaten a plateful of those things. I was so excited by it, that I forgot to take a photo before devouring my half.

For the main dish, my dining companion had the salmon (about $23.99). The prawns that came with this were yummy. Everything was cooked perfectly. The service was friendly and efficient, and the restaurant has a nice, casual feel on the patio.


The Salmon

I had the "house smoked wild Alaskan sablefish ($24.99) in a roasted shallot citrus cream sauce." The sauce was very rich and delicious, and of course the sablefish was wonderful (as sablefish has a tendency to be). Yah, any restaurant that uses yummy grilled fresh prawns as a GARNISH is okay by me. No flaccid parsley afterthought here!


The Sablefish

For dessert, a very competent tiramisu and coffee to cap it all off.


The Tiramisu

I had a wonderful dinner, but I can't tease out whether the restaurant is really that good, or if my experience was distorted by my delight in the beautiful weather, my general good mood and well-being, and the very good company...but then again, who cares? I'll continue to associate this restaurant with good things, (unless they do something to screw it up later), and that's just fine by me. I wonder what it's like to go there in the winter...

Lost in Translation?

A Dish That Caught My Eye, In the Window of a Denman St. Korean Restaurant

Adventures in Ice Cream Making - Lycheelicious!

It's ice cream experimenting season again! Just tried some of my first batch of lychee ice cream, and it's good! I made it in my hand-crank Donvier machine that I liberated from the basement of my parents' house where the poor appliance was banished to shortly after I gave it to them years ago as a gift. Be free, little ice cream maker! In the tradition of Ben and Jerry, I need a more fanciful name than "Lychee Ice Cream." So far, I've got "Lycheelicious!"

Being an ice cream flavour developer is another one of those jobs I fantasize about, like being a restaurant reviewer. Don't get me wrong - I'm loving my actual job right now, and feel like I'm living a bit of a fantasy job myself, and know that a lot of people would envy me. But tasting ice cream all day? How cool is that? This one Daily Planet television story that I saw years ago about a Ben and Jerry Developer/Taster really had an impact on me. So, I finally got around to trying to make a lychee ice cream, after having been inspired months ago by having some at Yuji's Japanese Tapas. I didn't want a sorbet, though I'm sure an icy lychee sorbet would be wonderfully refreshing. I wanted to make a thick, rich, heavy cream concoction, and I was inspired by this Martin Yan recipe that I found on the internet. I modified the recipe to my preferences, and thought I would share this with you. First of all, I wasn't after an ice cream with chunks of lychee in it. Also, based on my success with rum raisin last year, where I learned that straining the custardy milky mixture with a fine mesh sieve is important because it removes the little solid eggy bits (probably from the chalazae, the proteinaceous strands that hold the yolk in place in an egg), I decided to strain the whole mixture. This wound up being a very useful step, as I noticed a lot of brownish fibers from the lychee puree were also strained out. Finally, I added a splash of Soho Lychee Liqueur because I had it around, and I figured it would add flavour, as well as adding some alcohol content which helps ice cream from freezing too hard. Also, I've started the experimenting with canned lychees, to see how it would turn out, but they're actually in season now, so the next step is to use fresh ones. I'm not sure that this is entirely necessary though, because I did get fairly good flavour with the canned, and it's almost a shame to mush up a pile of beautiful fresh lychees, instead of eating them whole. It would likely result in a brighter flavoured ice cream though. Here's the recipe the way I did it today:


Lycheelicious! Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
¾ cup sugar
2 egg yolks, beaten
1½ cups canned seedless lychees, drained & pureed in a blender (one 530 ml can)
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
Splash of Lychee Liqueur to taste (optional)

1. Combine the cream, milk and sugar in a saucepan or double boiler; heat until warm and the sugar is completely dissolved. Add 1 cup of the cream mixture to the yolks while whisking lightly. Gradually pour the egg mixture back into the cream mixture while continuing to whisk lightly.

2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the back of your spoon is thinly coated, about 8 minutes. Do not allow to boil or the ice cream custard mixture will curdle.

3. Puree the lychees well in a blender, add the lemon juice.

4. Combine the lychee mixture to the custard mixture. Add a splash of Soho Lychee Liqueur to taste. I probably added two tablespoons.

5. Strain the mixture with a fine mesh sieve into a bowl to chill in the fridge. You can chill overnight, or if you're impatient like me, create a ice bath in a larger bowl for the small bowl to sit in, and place the whole thing in the fridge until cool, or for as long as you can wait.

4. Freeze in an electric or manual ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. My manual Donvier suggests 20 minutes of turning. Then transfer to an airtight container, and allow it to harden up in the freezer, probably at least an hour and a half.

Makes 4 servings (about 1 litre)

In Case of Downtown Chocolate Emergency...

Maybe you get a massive chocolate craving "that time of the month" or maybe you're just a chocolate fiend in general, but sometimes, you might just find yourself desperately requiring a massive dose of chocolate to quiet the chocolate demons in your head. Or is that just me? Anyhow, here are a couple of options downtown.


All You Can Eat Chocolate Fondue at Capstone Tea House on Robson St.

First, Capstone Teahouse (1429 Robson St., just off Broughton St. 604-608-2866) not only has a variety of bubble teas and hot pots of non-bubble tea, they also have this all-you-can-eat chocolate fondue for $5.95 a person. It's nice and simple, and they will come around and ask you if you'd like more, and are quite happy to plunk down another platterful of little fruit chunks, pretzels, gummy bears, and mini marshmallows down in front of you, should you care to take their "all-you-can-eat" to heart. A couple of nice features of this place include a long counter at the windows equipped with plenty of power outlets for those laptoppy types, and some very attractive spoons and cup and saucer sets. Wow, a casual full-service dessert place that doesn't suck - much needed in the downtown core, in my opinion. They've recently started doing ice cream balls too, that you can add on to your chocolate fondue to dunk. Their hot black sesame bubble tea with pearls is shown in the background of the photo. It's yummy, and the sweetener sugar syrup is served on the side in a cute little glass flask so that you can sweeten it to your taste. It's a good thing my spoon-stealing friend doesn't live in Vancouver. Even I'm a little tempted with these babies. (I'll take a close-up photo next time and post it). There is a Denman St. locoation that I haven't had a chance to try, but it seems to look a little more cramped in there, from the window.


The Chocoholic Buffet at The Sutton Place Hotel's Fleuri Restaurant

If you're looking to really treat someone or yourself (hopefully both) to a decadent chocolate fix, maybe The Sutton Place Hotel's Chocoholic Buffet in their Fleuri Restaurant ($24 per person) might be to your liking. We arrived for the 6:00 - 8:30 pm seating (rather than 8:30 to 10 pm), and I think we were the first ones to dive in to the perfectly arranged buffet. Crime Lab Boy likened it to the joy of walking through fresh snow. The staff are pretty talented at making that buffet look fresh and inviting throughout the night though, so don't worry about timing. We made reservations ahead of time, and I would recommend that. The Chocoholic Buffet is offered Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. There wasn't any one dessert that really knocked my socks off. They're all pretty good, but I think it's really all about the decadence of the entire experience. The service was great, and they always seem to be able to make dining there feel like a special occassion. I went for one of the crepes too, made just for me by the crepe station person, and topped with some gelato from the freezer behind her. You might think that the excitement of all that chocolate in a buffet setting might somehow overpower the evening so that everything winds up being all about the chocolate, but I found that the buffet and coffees allowed for a very nice, leisurely evening of conversation and connection. In fact, for me, I think the consumption of chocolate greased the wheels of the conversation machine, much like the way that talking over glasses of red wine can. Remember not to overdo it, or you'll pay for it. Or, as with the wine, overdo it with gusto, and be prepared for the consequences, which might be worth it, for that brief luxurious moment of excess. Or not. That night, I hovered successfully in my little chocolate window of not too much, but enough to really enjoy it and get that delicious buzz. Oh, don't you get that food high too?

A Close Up Look at one of the Fleuri offerings.

Fortune House in Metrotown

Just a quick note about the Fortune House Seafood Restaurant (Metropolis Mall, near the skytrain exit, 604-438-8686) Mother's Day dinner that my family had last month. We had a set dinner for six for $198 (for the five of us), on probably the busiest day of the year for Chinese restaurants.

Incidentally, I would guess that Valentine's Day is probably the busiest day for non-Chinese upper end restaurants, which may illustrate some interesting cultural difference in priorities. This is a very specifically Chinese-Canadian phenomenon, as they are both Western holidays but perhaps Mother's Day is more strongly adopted by Chinese Canadians as a result of the deference to elders that is part of the Chinese culture. I'm really just speculating here. I don't think my Dad has ever taken my Mom out to dinner for Valentine's but maybe everyone else in the Chinese Canadian community does. The communal dining in Chinese restaurants aren't the best for a dinner for two anyhow.

Well, back on topic, I've never been that big a fan of Fortune House, and this meal was no exception. Usually I'm just slightly disappointed in the food quality, being a Chinese food veteran, and knowing how good the dishes can be. This time it was the service, but it's not the typical complaint for service on a busy night. This time, the food came out too FAST. Rather than most of the dishes coming out separately, as should be the case for a set banquet menu for an upper end Chinese restaurant, our dishes came out all at once. Okay, I get it, you want to move the tables, and fit in as many seatings as possible. But bringing out the hot soup at the same time as the lobster meant that you have to choose which one of these things you want to eat hot. Both dishes suffer immensely when eaten cold, as I discovered that night. I could tell that the lobster dish (pieces are first deep fried, then tossed in a garlicky, onion and green onion sauce) was probably very well executed when it came out of the kitchen, but it lost so much when it cooled down. The menu was a nice collection of dishes, and their sweet touch of presenting each mom with a carnation and a little gift picture frame at the end of the dinner was great, but being rushed through the dinner really almost ruined the experience. The food was still good, despite having to eat it cold, but it's just a shame because it would have been great if it had been served properly. We had a cold plate of thinly sliced meats and jellyfish (not the best I've ever had, but quite acceptable), shark fin soup (I'm having trouble convincing my family that we should boycott this dish to be environmentally responsible), lobster, a great mushroom and pea sprouts dish that was like eating sliced abalone with oyster sauce (the highlight of the meal), fish with vegetables, free range chicken, fish and shrimp fried rice, and sweet bean soup for dessert. The cooking seems to have improved here since the last time I was there, from what I can tell. Now it's just a matter of timing.

Afro Canadian Restaurant

There's something wonderfully comforting about the Afro Canadian Restaurant (324 Cambie St. between Hastings and Cordova, 604-682-2646). Sitting quietly in a gritty corner of Gastown, and tended by a warm, friendly owner, it's a great choice for a quick dinner before a movie at Tinseltown, especially for anyone who wants to find out if their date isn't too prissy for the Downtown East Side, for sharing food, or for eating with their hands. Crime Lab Boy and I enjoyed two meat selections served together on the same platter, the jerk chicken (chicken sauteed in spicy sauce then stewed in a red pepper, garlic and onion sauce, $8) and the East African lamb (fried boneless pieces of lamb in Ethiopian style clarified and spiced butter with onions and green peppers, $9). It came garnished with tomatoes and lettuce, and served on rice and injera bread, the fluffy, soft white flat bread of Ethiopian cuisine, that you tear off to pick up the stews with your hands. The food was tasty and satisfying and the atmosphere relaxed. It's a great quiet spot for chatting leisurely while picking away at the communal platter of hearty food. While we ate on this sunny summer evening, the familiar Vancouver smell of pot wafted by briefly from the open door, the music in the background was something pleasant and upbeat, and generally everyone in the restaurant (us, the staff, and one other table) seemed to be in good spirits and radiating a positive vibe. This might be a good spot for vegetarians too. They have lots of vegetable selections, including combinations like the Taste of Africa ($7) which is red lentils, mixed vegetables, and green vegetables served on the injera. Or try three meats for two people for $17.

To give you a little perspective, as much as I love Afro Canadian Restaurant, I might rate Nyala in Kitsilano slightly higher on food alone, but it certainly beats out Addis Cafe on Commercial Drive, based on my one visit there (I remember the meat was dried out and on the bland side at Addis). Both the chicken and the lamb were tender and flavourful at Afro Canadian, and I thoroughly enjoyed the food on my two visits there. I have yet to try Harambe on Commercial Drive. I still have fond memories of the food at Queen Sheeba, an Ethiopian restaurant in Kits that closed down years ago. I think it was there that I first encountered Ethiopian cuisine, and it appealed to me instantly. The injera soaks up all the fatty, delicious juices from the dishes, and there's always too much food. There's a wonderful intimacy to the meal, using your hands to eat off the same platter with your dinner companion(s). There's a bit of primal appeal to eating without utensils and separate plates, and it has the same sort of effect as gathering around a campfire together. It strikes me that it's a perfect meal to bond with people you really like. I've been lucky enough to have done just that many times, with different groups and individuals, and have never broken injera with anyone I didn't like. Maybe that's why Afro Canadian Restaurant has such a pleasant and upbeat vibe - maybe the style of food itself doesn't allow for anything else.