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Posted Sep 25, 2009, 10:03 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 678
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New York Times article on Vancouver cuisine
I came across this article, have fun reading! I like the article, and the reader comments are interesting too! Looks like this writer is in BC for three weeks.
http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes....ver/#more-1441
Article by Matt Gross, The Frugal Traveler
Quote:
Asian Cuisine as Diverse as Vancouver
From the outside, the Argo Cafe does not look like an Asian fusion restaurant — or really much of a restaurant at all. Situated ina light industrial section of Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, it seems to date from another era. Cartoon versions of a white-capped chef and a pink-uniformed waitress decorate its cinderblock facade, and arced lettering promises “Hamburgers, Soup, Sandwiches, and more!”
It’s the “more!” that’s intriguing. Inside, a mix of young creative types and construction workers in reflective vests fill the diner’s booths and counter — you’ll have to wait a few minutes for a table. In the meantime, you can look over the menus posted on the walls. Among the usual burgers and omelettes are some oddities: spicy lamb noodles, wasabi-and-sesame-crusted tuna salad, snapper and prawns in coconut curry sauce. And — perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not — they’re not bad and not expensive. Nothing on the menu exceeded 11 Canadian dollars that day, or $10 at 1.10 Canadian dollars to the U.S. dollar.
Outside of Argo Cafe.Now, some might not call this Asian fusion. After all, the Argo (1836 Ontario Street; 604-876-3620), which started life 50 or 60 years ago as a Greek diner, doesn’t really try to meld Eastern and Western culinary traditions; they simply exist side by side. But that’s Vancouver, a famously diverse city, where people with roots in India, China, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, England, France and, of course, the Pacific Northwest have lived together long enough that no one is surprised at the subtly weird interminglings that result.
“Mixing things just becomes part of everyday life,” said Todd Wong, a Vancouver arts advocate who during Chinese New Year hosts the annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner, where Scottish haggis finds its way into dim sum dumplings. “It’s not ‘Why are they doing this?’ It’s ‘Why not?’ ”
It’s an admirable attitude, and one that is producing some delicious and affordable cuisines. Over four days, I pursued this accidental (incidental?) fusion style around Vancouver, and the quest led me down some strange and tasty paths.
Frequently, these paths involved hot dogs. Salty, spicy, filling and cheap, hot dogs call out for toppings. They are the perfect guinea pig, so to speak, for gastronomic experimentation.
JapaDog is easily the most successful of the mad sausage scientists. Since opening in 2005, it’s expanded to three locations around Vancouver (see www.japadog.com), and celebrities from Anthony Bourdain to Ice Cube have feasted on its hot dogs, topped with traditional Japanese ingredients. On the afternoon I visited the branch at Burrard and Haro Streets in shiny downtown Vancouver, in front of the Sutton Place Hotel, the line for hot dogs was six people deep — a few first-timers, but many regulars with favorite orders.
I sampled two of JapaDog’s specialties. The Okonomi (6.25 dollars) takes its name from okonomiyaki, a cabbage and pork pancake that is popular in Osaka, which is topped with mayonnaise, a thick, sweet, Worcestershire-based sauce and bonito flakes. The tube-steak version is a clever adaptation, using high-quality kurobuta pork in the dog, fried cabbage on top, along with the sauces (the fattiness of the mayonnaise pairs well with that of the meat) and the flakes, which waved in the warm late-summer breeze.
The Oroshi hot dog.But the Oroshi (4.75 Canadian dollars) is, to my mind, even better: bratwurst with grated daikon, chopped scallions and a squirt of soy sauce. There’s something almost creamy about the sausage, and the daikon’s radishy bite balances the sausage’s spice. If I hadn’t just eaten an Okonomi, I would’ve finished this one, too.
JapaDog, however, is not the only hot dog innovator. On the other side of False Creek, in front of the Future Shop electronics store, stands Aree’s Dawg House (1740 West Broadway), a large cart that has won a Golden Plate award for best hot dog from the Georgia Straight, Vancouver’s main alternative weekly. Aree’s ads proudly proclaim it uses no nitrites, filler or MSG, but what’s truly important are the meats and toppings, and Aree’s has them in abundant supply, from lamb sausage and black olives to brats and a roasted-cranberry-chipotle barbecue sauce.
The Asian angle there is small — a single offering — but excellent. It’s a huge pork sausage marinated in Thai chili sauce, giving it a powerful burn with an undercurrent of sweetness, and you can cross an additional border with a supposedly Malaysian-style spicy corn-and-onion relish. The dogs aren’t cheap (mine was 8 dollars), but they’re filling and good. Even the buns are ambitious: thick, fresh and bready.
Actually, I could’ve used one of those buns at Vij’s Rangoli (1488 West 11th Avenue; 604-736-5711; www.vijsrangoli.ca), the cheaper, more casual sibling of Vij’s, an upscale restaurant that has redefined Indian dining in Vancouver with dishes like grilled sablefish in mango reduction and lamb popsicles in fenugreek cream curry. At Vij’s Rangoli, I ordered the pulled pork (13 dollars), which was a juicy pile of meat with mildly subcontinental spices. It came with a nicely cooling sour cream chutney and chapatis, the griddled whole wheat flatbread that is a favorite of mine but isn’t quite up to handling the pork.
It’s a great dish, but with a real bun, and maybe some ultratart pickles for contrast, it would be a star. Next time I’ll get it to go, and build the sandwich at home myself.
The pursuit of low-key Asian fusion also provided lessons in the history of globalization, particularly at the Cafe Gloucester (3338 Cambie Street; 604-873-3338), another packed lunch spot. The Gloucester is a Hong Kong-style cafe, a place for a bowl of noodle soup, maybe, but also for some of the odder dishes that emerged in the former British colony. Like borscht, which was brought to Hong Kong by White Russians who’d fled the Bolsheviks after 1917 and became a standard offering at places like the Queens Cafe.
At the Gloucester, it’s mellow, not tart, loaded with cabbage and turnip, and a good lead-in to another Hong Kong cafe classic: deep-fried pork chops on rice, covered in tomato sauce and baked with a little yellow cheese. It’s hardly upscale, but it’s deeply satisfying. With tip and (free) hot tea, that big lunch cost 18 dollars, but it left me wondering: How long until a Gloucester clone opens in Moscow, bringing borscht around the world and back home?
Dinner at Ping’s Cafe.A different kind of circuitousness was on offer at Ping’s Cafe (2702 Main Street; 604-873-2702; www.pingscafe.ca), a yoshoku-ya on a restaurant-packed strip not far from the Argo. Yoshoku is Japanese-style Western food, but to many Westerners it’s unrecognizable. Hamburgers lose their buns, get doused in demi-glace and become “hambagoo.” Spaghetti is cooked, cooled, stir-fried with vegetables and ketchup and is dubbed “Napolitan.” Unless you grew up with it, it can be a little weird and very foreign.
This history behind yoshoku is fascinating, as Norimitsu Onishi writes in this Times article from 2008. It was born, he writes, “during Japan’s Meiji Restoration, the period that followed this isolationist country’s forced opening by America’s so-called Black Ships in 1854. Japanese were dispatched to Europe and America to learn about Western laws, weapons and industry. They also brought back the cuisine. Shocked to discover how much shorter they were than Westerners, Japanese determined that they would catch up not only economically and militarily but also physically, by eating their food.”
Ping’s takes this Easternized Western food and re-Westernizes it — elegantly and affordably (nothing costs more than 18 dollars). First of all, it’s the most modern-looking of all these restaurants: Two sets of banquettes line a small white box of a room, with scores of paper-cone lights dangling from the ceiling. The frosted-glass front window not only seals off the outside world but glows like a big, square moon.
In this hermetically sealed space, there’s some fine experimentation going on. Edamame (5 dollars) get dressed in lemon juice and olive oil — a West Coast twist on an often ho-hum staple. Calamari (6 dollars) are fried just right, and are served with a wasabi-spiked tzatziki. The already good hand-cut fries come two ways: streaked with mayonnaise, yoshoku sauce (like okonomiyaki sauce) and seaweed (5 dollars), or as a variation on poutine (7 dollars). Unlike traditional poutine, these take an Indian bent, substituting paneer for cheese curds and vegetable curry for gravy.
Following the culinary influences there is a dizzying process: from West to East to a West that’s already been transformed by its own encounters with the East. Honestly, all that really matters is that it tastes good.
But it also helps to know that Ping’s was once, a couple of decades ago, a Chinese-Canadian restaurant, the kind of greasy, not very exciting place you’d probably avoid. But according to my dinner companions, Alec and Karen Tsang, for a few years of that time, the children of the original owners of Ping’s would take over the restaurant in the evening, rechristening it Ping’s at Night and serving innovative, often vegetarian food in a room lit by black lights. It was a secret then, and an awesome one. The present-day Ping’s Cafe is related only by accident — the new owners found the old awning and decided to keep the name — but unknowingly carries on its tradition of creativity.
A scoop at Amato Gelato Cafe.Finally, even dessert is absorbing Asian tastes. Vancouver is a gelato town, with three producers dominating the Italian ice-cream market, and all three have incorporated Asian and tropical flavors, like black sesame, red bean and mangosteen. But for me, the ultimate adaptation is durian, the most wretched-smelling fruit in the world (hotels, buses and airlines in Southeast Asia regularly ban it). Many people hate durian, or are afraid even to taste it, and to them I say: try the durian gelato at Amato Gelato Cafe (78 East First Avenue; 604-879-9011; www.amatogelato.com), around the corner from the Argo.
In this form, the durian’s stink is muted, and the fruit’s natural creaminess only amplifies the smoothness of the gelato — like a tropical fruit custard. It’s just what you’d want on a sultry night in Borneo, or on the Sicilian coast, or possibly, maybe, even on a sunny afternoon in a light industrial area of Vancouver.
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I haven't even heard of some of these places. I will be looking for opportunities to try these out.
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. I have no idea whether they'll reopen . . . that kind of thing can be devastating for a small dining operation.
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