Catching up

Dear Michelle,

I write to you from the coffee shop down the street; it is far too hot and steamy in my apartment to do anything, much less concentrate on making words make sense. It feels so much worse after having come back from the lovely temperate northwest coast, where sandals and shorts weren't warm enough come nighttime.


You were busy while I was gone, and everything looks like it was delicious. I sure could use some of that cantaloupe sorbet right now! Mint iced tea and borrowed air conditioning will have to do for the present.

So I've got some catching up to do, and much to share with you. Vancouver was amazing, and probably the most pleasant city I've ever visited. It was like Miami's tall green-glass buildings and beaches (though smaller, and with much colder water) smashed together with Palo-Alto's brutalist architecture of concrete, wood, and round smooth stone, plus the occasional charming Victorian house all nestled between sharp impressive mountains and with water all around. Add to that a lack of pretension, happy, polite people, fountains and public spaces abounding (including the amazing Stanley Park), clean streets, and good food. Really, really good food.


I should start my gastro-narrative in Portland, where it began. We stayed the night there before heading North, and went to a terrific and what ended up being debilitating dinner at Le Pigeon with some friends. Perhaps used to New York portions, we made a mistake that we'd make again and again on our trip; we ordered too much, and couldn't stop eating it. The standout dish was a lamb tongue appetizer, served on a bed of fresh English peas sauteed with onions. I think the others were humoring me when I said we should order it, but everyone tried it and went back for second bites. Of the entrees, the duck and the burger both really stood out.



For breakfast the next day (I promise I won't tell you about every meal, but this was really good), we stopped at Pix Patisserie just down the street from our friend John's place. We liked it so much we had breakfast there on our way back as well. They have an assortment of delicious pastries, incredible macarons, and very good chocolates.

Lunch at Lake City Gyros near Seattle deserves its own post, and it will get one. Dinner that first night, and again before we left, was at various Izakaya places that were all clustered together up on a main street close to Stanley Park. Izakaya is like Japanese tapas, a selection of small dishes with a few more substantial portions thrown in. We had incredible sashimi; the highlight was Albacore tuna belly, creamed with a dash of sauce and accompanied by garlic toast on which to spread it. SO smooth. Another dish worth mentioning was a very simple broth, salmon and rice at Guu With Garlic. I was full at this point, but we finished that salmon.




The Granville Market, just over the bridge on a small island (that might not really be an island), is a large enclosed structure with all sorts of goodies: little shops selling everything from fresh kaffir lime leaves to fish, bread, cheese- you get the idea. I drooled over a charcuterie unlike even the best I've seen here in the states, as along with the things you'd expect it also offered very French products like fine pork liver sausage (more like a pate), blood and tongue sausage, several kinds of headcheese, and other fascinating things. I limited myself to the first two products, and they were delicious. The produce at the market blows that at the NYC farmers market far, far away, both in quality and price (though I imagine that to be true for most of the west coast; it certainly has been in my experience), and we cooked a few meals at the little apartment where we stayed.




We had another I'm-so-full-I-could-die-why-did-I-keep-eating meal at Vij's, an acclaimed Indian place. While it was all so good that my mouth waters now, just thinking about it, the stand-out was the Punjabi Heart Attack and the lamb popsicles (trimmed, separated rack) in cream curry on spinach potatoes (the leftovers heated up well the next night). We were too full for dessert, but I wish I could have tried it.


A late discovery was Japadog, a hot dog stand with a Japanese twist. See the menu below.



Last but not least was the Vietnamese place Phnom Penh in Vancouver's Chinatown; you'll be seeing my attempts to recreate the two dishes they are known for here, once it cools down a little. Those are butterbeef--thinly sliced, very rare beef with a sweet-sour-salty sauce and heaped with chopped cilantro and peanuts; and chicken wings, but not your standard chicken wings. These were SO crisp, SO light, sprinkled with lightly sauteed garlic and served with a very sour lime-garlic sauce. We sat at a large table with two other parties, and everyone was eating those wings.

Have you noticed that most of the places we went served Asian food? I am very fond of it, so this was partly preordained, but the city's large Asian population dominates the local food culture. Perhaps because of this, I also noted, with pleasure, that tea was not overshadowed by coffee, as it so often in here in the states. You know, coffee places usually have tea, and if you're lucky they'll have loose leaf tea, but it always feels like a concession. Here, tea and coffee get equal space on shop awnings, and I found a place that ONLY served matcha-related products. Even New York doesn't have one of those.

Thank you, Vancouver. I'm sure I'll be seeing you again.

PS- non-food photos can be seen in daily installments here.