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Old Posted Jun 1, 2009, 11:36 PM
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Vancouver quickly becoming a feast of food stores for the well-heeled

Upscale food shopping a guilty pleasure

Vancouver quickly becoming a feast of food stores for the well-heeled

By Ian Haysom, Times ColonistMay 30, 2009



They had a story in the Vancouver Sun this week saying that what may be the world's most expensive coffee at $500 a pound will soon be available at the three swishy Urban Fare supermarkets in Vancouver.

Doi Chang civet coffee, from Indonesia, is -- for those of you not in the gourmet know -- coffee that has passed through the digestive tract of the wild civet, which looks something like a wild cat or lemur.

The civets eat coffee berries but the beans pass through the body undigested. The beans are washed and the resulting coffee -- at around $12 a pop for a home-brewed cup -- is supposed to taste nutty and leafy and earthy and exotic.

I hope it smells nice. Though, to be honest, the whole thing has a king's-new-clothes ring about it. As Dave Barry, the humourist, once wrote, "escargot" is French for "fat crawling bag of phlegm."

It came as no surprise to me that Urban Fare would be importing poo-poo coffee. Big, gourmet, fancy-dancy, upscale food stores offering exotic goods are now de rigueur in Vancouver. There are Urban Fares in Yaletown, at Coal Harbour and, most recently, on the ground floor of the Shangri La Hotel downtown.

There are now two huge Whole Foods Markets in the Lower Mainland, the original at Park Royal shopping centre in West Vancouver and a brand new store just off Broadway in Vancouver.

Meinhardts, the smaller gourmet food store on Granville, now has a larger version on Arbutus, next to the Ridge theatre. Linda Meinhardt started a store called, cutely, Delectables and was co-owner of a little-known store called The Bread Garden.

These are just the tip of a very big gourmet food iceberg. There's a huge appetite, it seems, even in the middle of a recession, for upscale food. These are the Holt Renfrews of the food chain.

But they're pricier than the norm. A colleague, who is in shopping heaven because a huge Thrifty Foods has opened in Port Moody in her neighbourhood, calls Whole Foods "whole paycheque." She goes to Whole Foods "very occasionally, as a big treat. I feel like I'm shopping in Beverly Hills and that the paparazzi will meet me at the door. But I can easily drop a hundred bucks on a basket of food. Give me Thrifty's."

I popped into the new Whole Foods on Friday night with my daughter, and it's massive gourmet heaven. One thing you notice immediately: Everyone shopping there seems to be very well-dressed. One woman at the bakery counter looked as though she'd put on her best togs and lipstick just for this expedition. Everyone looks lean. This, presumably, is because they can't afford to buy much food.

The bakery -- called Capers (Whole Foods, an American chain, bought out Capers markets and still operates some stores in Vancouver) -- is outstanding, a combination of rustic loaves, interesting muffins and scones and delectable chocolate treats. If you don't like the local stuff, you can get croissants imported from France.

There's a huge buffet of hot and cold foods. My daughter and I bought to-go boxes for about $10 apiece -- we picked very light food -- and we ate a dinner on Spanish Banks looking at the sun set over English Bay. Dinner for $20 and one of the best views in the world ... not too shabby.

All the new gourmet supermarkets stress natural, local and organic food. And, it must be said, much of the fare is mouth-watering and high quality. But I still remember how Urban Fare imported square watermelons and sold them for $99 apiece and brought in loaves of bread from France and sold slices for about $5. I have a friend who calls this obscene, in a world where people are dying from hunger. Heading to these swanky supermarkets, in that light, is very much a guilty pleasure.

That said, whenever I go to London I will pop into the food halls at either Harrods or Fortnum and Mason, or to my favourite market -- Borough Market in Southwark -- because they're an epicurean adventure. And they've made them more accessible for us hoi polloi. You can even buy cheese and pickle sandwiches alongside the caviar and champagne at Harrods.

There are myriad gourmet and imported food markets on Vancouver Island, from McLean's in Nanaimo to Plenty and the Market on Yates in Victoria, but nothing on the scale of what is happening in Vancouver. That's because you need a whole bunch of well-heeled people living in a whole bunch of upscale condos to support them.

People who can afford poo-poo coffee. Food, glorious food? Maybe.

Ian Haysom is news director of Global News in British Columbia. He divides his week between Central Saanich and Vancouver.

ihaysom@globaltv.ca

http://www.timescolonist.com/Health/...553/story.html
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