Check out a guest post I wrote for the Vancouver Observer. It’s a compilation of some of my favourite places to eat in around Vancouver. I was recently approached by the folks at VO to see if I’d be interested in writing some guest posts for them occasionally. I really hope I can keep this up so if you have any feedback or additional ideas for future posts, please let me know! Click here to read my post.

Today’s guest post comes from Bart Janssen, the Regional Meat Coordinator for Whole Foods Market. I was approached by the Whole Foods team to see if I’d be interested in having them submit a post on how to pick a good turkey, given the Thanksgiving season quickly approaching. I have to admit that I’ve never cooked a turkey myself, always relying on my mom and other family members, who are remarkably good at making a delicious turkey. However, for those of you who are inclined to making a turkey for Thanksgiving, hopefully you will find this post a good start.
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Every year in early fall, the questioning begins – “what’s the secret to a Thanksgiving turkey?” As a butcher and meat coordinator who deals with securing thousands of birds for four Vancouver grocery stores, customers seem to think I hold the answer to one of life’s greatest mysteries. Truth be told, there is no one great secret. The answer to a perfect Thanksgiving turkey is simply in the quality of the bird itself.

You’ll want to look for fresh, farm-raised birds. It may take an extra few minutes at the meat counter, but I find it’s worthwhile to ask where your turkey came from, how long ago it arrived at the store, and what it ate. Under my watch at Whole Foods, we make sure all of our turkeys are raised with high standards. That means no antibiotics, ever, and no animal byproducts in the feed. There are plenty of options for high-quality turkeys locally. In BC, two of our favourites offered at Whole Foods Market are the organic turkeys from Ladybug Manor and the specialty turkeys from JD Farms. Both farms raise their birds right here in the Fraser Valley.

Of course, you also have to consider price. For those looking to keep costs down, a quality, frozen bird or chilled, brined turkey are both generally on the lower end of the price spectrum. Organic birds do tend to have slightly higher costs. (Personally, I’m willing to throw down a little more to get a bird that really wows my dinner guests.)

While all of these turkey options can be overwhelming, my advice is to keep it simple. And when that doesn’t work, you can always refer to this guide to help you land on that perfect Thanksgiving bird.

Oh, and if you REALLY want the cooking tips? Here’s how to cook the perfect turkey. When it comes to preparation, you really can’t go wrong when it comes to boosting flavour. I love a dry rub with BBQ or Indian seasoning, but brining it with traditional salt or a maple herb brine are also great alternatives.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

A reminder that the annual EAT! Vancouver convention is taking place this weekend. Jenkins and I were invited to attend as media attendees so even though we had other plans this weekend already, we were able to squeeze in a visit on Friday evening. It turned out to be fairly smart on our part because while everyone was busy watching the Canucks game, we were able to check out all the exhibits without having to fight with the usual crowds.

We made a couple of rounds through all the exhibits and returned to some of our favourite places for a repeat visit, sometimes to pick up some extra goodies. As is the case with EAT! Vancouver, Jenkins and I ended up being pretty full just by sampling all the food that the exhibitors were offering.

A few notable places to check out…I liked the Island Farms booth because they were giving out some pretty generous sized servings of ice cream. We had a choice of flavours and I ended up choosing the Moose Tracks, which had some cookie crumbs and chocolate peanut butter cups. I ended up getting some espresso from the Bosa Foods booth and I poured it into my ice cream to make some impromptu affogato. It was delicious

As usual, Bosa Foods had an impressive display. I didn’t want to make any impulse purchases though so I think I’ll just visit their permanent store location in East Vancouver in a couple of weeks.

We also got to visit the Boylan Soda booth where we had the chance to sample their full line of sodas and iced teas.

Another nice find was the Peanut Butter & Co booth. I stopped because I had just run out of peanut butter this morning so I thought I could pick some up here. In addition to the regular smooth and crunchy peanut butter options, they had additional flavours including Mighty Maple, which had crunchy maple bits in it and the Dark Chocolate Dreams, which almost tasted like Nutella but not as sweet. I picked up one of each plus a crunch peanut butter version for $10.

I do find EAT! Vancouver to be a bit hit and miss sometimes but you do sometimes find some interesting food items and good deals there. Many of the items can only be found in limited locations or specialty food stores so this is a good place to check out for some pretty unique things you may not find normally. Feel free to list any other finds in the comments section!

Details:
Vancouver Convention Centre: 1055 Canada Place (Exhibit Hall B & C)
Saturday, Jun 11: 10AM – 9PM
Sunday, Jun 12: 10AM – 5PM

gigi’s note: thanks Samantha for your update about the Bubble World stamp cards. I stopped collecting stamps from there quite a while ago when I stopped going there on a regular basis. Still, it’s too bad that these will no longer be available at BW!

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I went to my favourite local Bubble World on Granville Street in Marpole last night to find that the chain is no longer issuing stamps or stamp cards. This rewards program was very popular with me and my siblings, and we were always motivated to fill up our stamp cards where a purchase of 10 drinks led to a free one.

There is currently a grace period until March 2010 whereby the number of stamps you have on your card will result in discounts as follows:

1-3 stamps = $1.00 off your drink
4-6 stamps = $2.00 off your drink
7-9 stamps = $3.00 off your drink
10 stamps = $3.75 off your drink (as usual).

I was very disappointed to see that the program has been discontinued as I love the Pearl Milk Tea at Bubble World! I believe it was a couple of years ago when the prices were raised, and compared to other popular Bubble Tea cafes, Bubble World is actually a bit more expensive. I suppose they made a decision to phase the cards out, rather than pass on another cost increase. Unfortunately, I believe that their most loyal customers are the ones who will be impacted the most.

What do you think? Will Bubble World experience a drop in customers as a result of this change? Will bubble drinkers choose to visit Competitors who are cheaper and continue to offer stamp card rewards?

I recently received the following email from Andrea:

I was just wondering, what would your top 5 restaurants you’d dine in if you had visitors coming in from out of town? Either the most unique or staple restaurants.

Here were my recommendations to her:
1. Dim Sum – Sun Sui Wah (Main St or Richmond)
2. Japanese Izakaya – Hapa Izakaya
3. Fancy French – Le Crocodile (this is my favourite restaurant but probably not “typical” of Vancouver-style cuisine. :p If you are looking for another good French bistro, I would also suggest Cru, Pied a Terre, or Les Faux Bourgeois)
4. West Coast – Yew at Four Seasons (If you go in September, the Passport menu is featuring Italy!)
5. Brunch – Cafe Medina (or if you’d prefer dinner, try Chambar next door. Make sure you have a Belgian waffle though b/c they are fantastic!)

As you can see, my answer was a bit convoluted…there are so many restaurants worth trying in Vancouver that it is hard to narrow it down to just 5!

What would your top 5 restaurant recommendations be? Hopefully, there will be some in this list that will help Andrea in entertaining her guests.

UPDATE May 11, 2009: I’ve just discovered that the prawn tasting plates were available only on Saturday May 9 although the cooking demonstrations at Granville Island will still be taking place for 1 more day on May 16. Sorry for the confusion!

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Grick alerted me earlier this week that the 3rd annual Spot Prawn Festival was happening this weekend down by False Creek Fisherman’s Wharf. Spot prawns are a local BC specialty and best of all, are a sustainable option for us prawn lovers. This weekend marks the opening weekend of the eight week festival and featured prawn tastings from local celebrity chefs, live cooking demonstrations, and of course, spot prawns available for sale at $12/lb (sold after 1pm when the boats return).

Jenkins and I coordinated to meet his parents at Granville Island since they wanted to check out the prawn tastings as well. We walked over to Fisherman’s Wharf around 1:30PM, where we were presented with a huge line-up of people waiting for the prawn tastings. The line was daunting, but I was determined to get what I came for.

The tastings are available only on May 9, 10, and 16 and run from 12PM to 3PM so we were a bit concerned that everything was sold out by the time our turn came up. However, we were reassured by a voice over a loudspeaker that there were plenty of prawns to go around. Whew!

The prawn tastings cost $10 and you get your choice of 5 prawn samples out of the 10 that are available from a variety of local chefs. By the time it was our turn to make our selections, there were only 6 choices left so we did not have much of a choice. I was mostly disappointed because I wanted to try the sample from Tojo’s but they were cleaning up by the time it was my turn! My recommendation to you is to get there earlier than we did if you want to choose from the full selection.

My first selection was a crispy prawn head with a dab of mayo that was speared onto the poached prawn and a cube of watermelon. It seemed like an odd combination of flavours but I decided to give it a try. I’m not sure what was the best way to eat this but I started with the crunchy prawn head. The creamy mayo added just enough moisture to the crispy prawn head which had a really nice roasted flavour to it. I then finished it off with the poached prawn and the watermelon, which provided a nice texture contrast to the crispy head. I believed things were off to a good start.

The next one I had was either from the Pear Tree or Bishop’s. Because they were sharing a table, I was not sure which one I was sampling. They had quite a few burners going and it smelled so good that I knew I would have to give this a try.

The spot prawns were cooked in a kale broth and came with some gnocchi and greens. The flavour of the spot prawn really came through in this dish and contrasted with the woodsy flavour of the greens and the gnocchi. Both Jenkins and I agreed this was one of the best ones that we had that day (pictured below at the bottom of the plate).

My next choice was a nettle veloute with a spot prawn relish from Diva at the Met.

The veloute was very creamy and to me, almost had a light pesto-type flavour to it. The prawn was barely cooked, if even, and despite the rich creaminess of the veloute, had a great flavour to it. I noted to Jenkins that it would have been nice if we had some crusty bread to soak up the remaining veloute in our cups but I ended up just drinking the rest from my cup.

Chef Robert Belcham from Fuel Restaurant recently won the 2009 Chef of the Year award from Vancouver Magazine so I knew I had to give his spot prawn boil a try. Luckily for me, he picked out one of the biggest prawns from the pile for me along with some peas and sausage pieces. The simple flavours of the boil really highlighted the natural sweetness of the spot prawns, which I was pretty sure were still alive and kicking less than 2 hours ago.

My final choice was a spot prawn cocktail with a grapefruit and truffle salad from Elixir restaurant. The tangy grapefruit really contrasted with the sweet prawns but my favourite part was the tangy lemon granite which acted as a dressing for the salad. It was almost like a fancy lemon slushee and it made the salad really refreshing.

Despite the long line-up, I was really glad I had an opportunity to do the prawn tasting. I felt like $10 was not too bad for the opportunity to have fresh spot prawns prepared in such different ways. There was also a wine tasting booth at the festival, which allowed us to try a variety of wines with our prawn selections.

After our light “lunch”, we headed back to Granville Island where we checked out a cooking demonstration by Chef François Gagnon. We were able to snag a table so we were able to sit as we watched him prepare spot prawns with tortellini in a prociutto and prawn broth.

Best of all, at the end of the demonstration, we were able to try his dish out. I would have to say that next to our prawn sampling from Pear Tree/Bin 941, this was one of the best samplings we had all day and it was free! The tortellini was cooked just right and went really well with the prawn that was cooked only by having the broth poured over it. I couldn’t taste the prociutto too much but the prawn flavour was very strong and also had fresh garbanzo beans in it. I was really glad I was able to snag a sample of this before they ran out.

There are 2 days left (May 10 and 16) for the prawn tastings and cooking demonstrations so I recommend you head down to False Creek if you have time! You can also buy fresh spot prawns by the wharf for $12/lb after 1PM for the next 8 weeks, which is when the boats usually return. Jenkins overheard one of the chefs explaining that they are best eaten 2 hours after they are brought in although it should still be ok up to 12 hours later.

Details:

Location: False Creek Fisherman’s Wharf and Granville Island

Prawn Tastings – $10/plate available May 10 and 16 from 12PM-3PM May 9 although they start to sell out of some choices by around 2PM. There are 10 choices in all but you are only allowed 5 picks.

Cooking Demonstrations – May 10 and 16 at 11AM, 1PM, and 3PM at Granville Island Public Market. Get there early if you want to grab a seat or a good view. Free samplings are available afterwards.

The Spot Prawn Festival is hosted by the BC Chefs’ Table Society.

Rory brought to my attention an interesting article at Reuters.com the other day. Due to the poor economy and the fact that it’s hitting Londoners extra hard, a London restaurant has implemented a “pay what you want” policy for the month of February. At The Little Bay restaurant in Central London, business has been hit extra hard due to its reliance on diners in the high-paced financial district of the city. So in an effort to draw in more customers as well as to help Londoners affected by the credit crunch, meals at The Little Bay are essentially priced at zero. Diners can choose to pay whatever they want, from a penny to something more.

Now one has got to wonder what the going rate for plates at this restaurant is now that they have this new pricing policy in fact. Surprisingly, the owners report that they are sometimes receiving 20% more than the menu price for some dishes. Even though Vancouver hasn’t been hit as hard by any means as other parts of the world by the recession and the credit crunch, I’d be interested to see how this pay-what-you-want would work here. If I were to go to such a restaurant, I would still feel somewhat obligated to pay at least what the menu price lists the dish as, unless service or food quality was severely lacking.

How much do you think you would pay at a restaurant with this kind of “promotion”?

Read the full article here: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5124N120090203

Unless you’ve been living under a culinary rock, you’re probably aware that today is the first day of Dine Out Vancouver 2009. New for this year is a slight increase in the 3-course set menu prices to $18, $28, and $38. I always try to go to at least 1 or 2 dine outs each year but over the years, I find that the quality and service of the offerings has deteriorated somewhat. Now, instead of booking as many restaurants as possible, I try to look for the hidden gems that still keep the original spirit of  Dine Out alive. I also tend to avoid the $38 menu restaurants because I feel that at that price, I can just go for the regular menu and get something of almost equal value and I also have more choice.

This year, I’m going to try out Pastis Bistro and maybe Pinkys Steakhouse in Yaletown. They’re both $28 menu offerings and I’ll be sure to report back on how they go.

What restaurants are you going to try at Dine Out this year? Any pleasant surprises that turned out to be better than you expected?

With lots of great sunshine this week, local strawberries are now ready! I have many wonderful memories of heading to Richmond farms as a kid to pick local strawberries and wanted to share this experience with my little niece, who’s turning 3 years old this summer.

In this world of multi-million dollar condo developments in the Lower Mainland, there seems to be only one farm in Richmond providing the U-Pick Strawberry experience – W & A Farms at 17771 Westminster Highway.  The farm has ample parking and was already quite busy when we arrived at 10am. It was also very hot in the open sun so don’t forget your hat and sunscreen!

Strawberries cost $2 per pound, and you are encouraged to bring your own containers.  You can purchase containers there for $1 each, and they also have cold water for sale.  The price on these berries is comparable to those at supermarkets during high season.  However, the experience was rewarding and educational for us, and the strawberries tasted great!

There’s something to be said about picking something fresh off the vine and popping it into your mouth shortly after.  The strawberries were soft, ripened on the vine, and bright red and juicy inside and out.  There is certainly a difference from, for example, fruits shipped from California and ripened in a refrigerated truck or warehouse.

Our local bounty yielded 12 pounds which cost us a total of $24.  They estimate the weight of your buckets, or you can get them weighed before getting your hands dirty.  Make sure to not get carried away!  In hindsight we bought more than we could eat.  And eat we did!  They were fresh, juicy, and delicious.  We washed them up and made strawberry smoothies, and we’ll likely freeze some for future use. They also make a really nice surprise treat for friends and family members.

There was nothing on the signage indicating these were organic, but I did not notice any “pesticide-y” tastes.  One other note is that these strawberries are generally small to medium in size. There are the occasional larger ones but it appears that the Farm’s own berry pickers begin their work at the crack of dawn and are near the end of the field when the farm opens up to the public.  I am curious as to what the prime, larger local strawberries retail for, so I will keep my eyes open next time I’m at the market.

We are fortunate that we can take advantage of such a yummy local harvest. Take advantage while you can!  I think buying local produce provides fresher food, supports our communities, and reduces our carbon footprint.

The Strawberry Growers Association has more information on farms in Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley on their website http://www.bcstrawberries.com/FarmList.php

Details:
W & A Farms
17771 Westminster Highway, Richmond
Tel: 604-278-5667

Over a nice meal at Sakura Bistro the other night, gigi and I mulled over the idea of interviewing Mia Stainsby of the Vancouver Sun to get her thoughts on being a Restaurant Critic and Food Writer over the years.  We figured that she must have had many interesting experiences and of course, share our love for ho yummy food!  She graciously agreed to answer some questions for us, and a couple of them made me chuckle.  I really enjoy Mia Stainsby’s articles in the Vancouver Sun and always look out for them. See my Q&A with her:

Q. During Christmas you wrote a great article about must-haves in your kitchen. Any new and exciting gadgets or items you’ve stumbled upon since?
A. Ice shaver, from Fujiya…very simple, inexpensive device. You freeze a block of juice or whatever, in the plastic container; when frozen, place it in the shaver and whirl the handle. It makes a soft, fluffy, frozen treat that can be low-cal if it’s say, fruit juice, and it satisfies my evening cravings for ‘just something’. At Gastropod, the chef uses it on a oysters on half shell dish.

Q. Can you tell us about your favourite dining experience and what made it so special?
A. Hmmmm. Maybe last summer, a dinner at Le Guirlande et Julie under the arches of Place des Vosges in Paris. A favourite spot, a beautiful night, made more intense because it was our last evening in the city. That’s a fave for now, anyway.

Q. When dining at restaurants, we sometimes take photos of our meals.  This seems to bring on suspicions that we are reviewers and can occasionally result in “different” service.  We know that the Vancouver Sun conducts interviews after the fact to protect anonymity, but do you have a memorable experience being recognized in a restaurant? If so, how did this affect your meal?
A. One that stands out from long ago… they didn’t know who I was, only that I was writing notes under the table. From then on, I was escorted to washroom and watched nervously and then escorted out to street as I got up to leave. I certainly didn’t feel like an ordinary diner, let’s say.

Q. What’s your favourite dish you like to cook at home?
A. Right now, it’s paparadelle pasta with my little machine. I hang the noodles to dry everywhere, on backs of chairs, on railings. I liked it with beef bourguignon in the cold weather. I think I’ll be moving on to grilled pizzas very shortly, though. I guess, too, I was into Caesar salads recently because my husband ever-so-cautiously asked if we could stop having Caesar salads the other day. I made up a huge swak of dressing with a Rebar recipe, using roasted garlic and it hadda be used.

Q. Can you tell us about the first time you recognized the impact of your reviews on a restaurant or chef?
A. When a friend of an owner threatened to break my knees. But I still say it’s not my (or anyone’s reviews) that make or break restaurants — they do that on their very own.
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, Mia!  I don’t know about you readers out there, but I am curious about this ice shaver…