Ho Yummy

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…

Today’s post is going to be extra long because:
(1) I have not been posting as regularly these days and I’m feeling guilty
(2) I happened to eat at Water St. Cafe twice during a 3-week span so I thought it would be better to post about both visits at once

The first dinner was a gals’ night out with Tricia and Juanita.  It’s always fun to meet up at a new place for dinner.  I’ve never been to Water St. Cafe before but both Tricia and Juanita had and were happy to go back.  It also didn’t hurt that we had an Entertainment Book coupon that gave us a free entree. 

After we ordered, we were presented with some fresh bread.  There were two different kinds and they were both warm, which I enjoyed.  The butter was also easy to spread, which is something too often overlooked by many restaurants.

Tricia and I shared the spinach salad, which came with tomatoes, goat cheese croutons, pancetta, pine nuts, and a red wine vinaigrette.  The crispy elements in this salad went really well with the soft spinach.  I also liked how the vinaigrette was very light and didn’t drench the salad.

Juanita had a Caesar salad to start her meal.  This looked very tasty and Juanita enjoyed it quite a bit.

All three of us chose pasta entrees.  First up was Juanita’s clam pasta in white wind sauce.  This came loaded with clams (some fresh and some canned) and looked delicious.

Tricia picked the spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli.  Although there weren’t as many pieces of ravioli as she would have liked, the ravioli was quite big and it was very tasty.  Even though initial thoughts were that the dish was kind of small, it turned out to be very filling. 

I chose the pesto linguine with chicken.  I found the pesto to have too much oil puddled at the bottom but it tasted great overall.  The linguine came with a lot of chicken chunks, sundried tomatoes, and artichoke hearts.  I only ate half of this and ended up bringing the other half to work the next day.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable meal.  We were too stuffed for dessert but luckily for you, we had dessert at the second Water St Cafe dinner…

Fast forward a few weeks and I was back at Water St Cafe for a Father’s Day dinner with my family.  I’ll highlight some of the dishes we tried as well as dessert. 

We decided to share a couple of appetizers that day and settled on the smoked salmon and the bruschetta.  Although I enjoyed the tomato and basil spread on the bruschetta, I like my bread to be a bit toastier and crunchier.

The smoked salmon was very good.  There wasn’t anything very unique about this dish but it was done well.  The dill cream cheese went great with the salmon and triangle toasts.

Gricked decided to have the potato gnocchi with shrimp, prosciutto, and squash.  If this sounds filling, it really was!  Even after sharing with all of us, he still had about half left over, which he ended up bringing for lunch the next day.  The shrimp and squash made for an interesting combination and this was a very tasty dish.

Most of us were too full for dessert but we decided to share a couple of items anyway.  I decided to have the flourless espresso chocolate tart.  For some reason, I thought this was going to be like a chocolate lava cake but it turned out to be more like a dense truffle tart.  It also came with some preserved cherries, which went pretty well with the tart but created a watery soup in my dish, which I could have done without.  I would have also enjoyed the cherries if they had a stronger flavour.

My grandparents and my mom chose the tiramisu.  It tasted pretty standard and nothing stood out about it though.

The next time I’m at the Water St Cafe, I’ll probably do without the dessert and just stick with a main course.  Their pastas were great but I’ll probably try their non-pasta mains next time just to see how they compare.  I should also note that on my second trip to Water St Cafe, service was extremely slow and they seemed to be quite understaffed despite it being Father’s Day.  I didn’t keep count but it must have taken us at least 20 minutes just to get the bill at the end.

Details:
300 Water Street, Vancouver
Tel: 604-689-2832

Summary:
Food:
Service: (mostly due to the slow service the second time around)
Price: $$

We had a team lunch the other day and as is often the case, I was tasked with picking the restaurant. It had been a while since I was last at Green Basil and after a quick consultation with my teammates, we decided that Green Basil would be the location of our lunch outing. I was first alerted about Green Basil when it opened about a year ago and have always enjoyed its convenient location near Metrotown and its yummy lunch specials.

For only $6.95, you can get a lunch special, which includes a spring roll, a small (and I mean small!) salad, soup, rice, and your choice of entree. There are quite a few eligible entrees to choose from, including curries and a variety or meat and vegetarian dishes.

Almost everyone in our party decided to go with the lunch special. Before the entrees came, we were presented with a plate of spring rolls.  As you can see, the size of the salad is pretty meagre but I really enjoyed the slightly tangy dressing on the salad.  The spring roll was a bit greasy on the outside but was very crispy.

I’m not sure what the name of this soup was but it was hot and slightly tangy.  It came with some carrot and cabbage pieces as well.

I really enjoy the green curry with chicken at Green Basil.  Green curry is one of my favourite items to order at any Thai restaurant but what I like about the dish here is that it’s very spicy but has a slightly sweet taste to it as well.  There were quite a few pieces of chicken with my dish and a lot of curry for me to drizzle all over my rice.  I also liked how the vegetables in this dish were not overcooked and provided a nice crunch.

Christina sat next to me so I was able to snap a picture of her lunch special as well.  :)  She had the black bean chicken, which came with a lot of veggies as well.  This is a good alternative for someone who is not in the mood for a spicy dish.  Christina also noted that this dish had just the right amount of sauce to go with her rice without having everything swimming in sauce.

This was quite an enjoyable lunch.  At $6.95, it’s pretty comparable to what you can get in the cafeteria at our building and this definitely beats cafeteria food any day. 

Details:
4623 Kingsway, Burnaby
Tel: 604-439-1919

Summary:
Food:
Service:
Price: $

I’m a bit late to hop on this “breaking news” so I’m sure most people have heard about the salmonella outbreak in tomatoes in the US. I first saw this in the paper yesterday but it didn’t occur to me to blog about it until now. Well, that and Keith suggested I should.

source: globeandmail.com

So far, the outbreak seems to be limited to the US, but several Canadian restaurants have pulled tomatoes from their menus as a precautionary measure. Restaurants include MacDoanld’s, Milestones, and KFC.

Just in case you haven’t heard about this tomato panic yet and can’t live without tomatoes, health officials say that grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and tomatoes that are sold on vines should be ok for consumptions.

I have a fondness for tomatoes and often munch on them for a snack so I’m glad not all tomatoes are affected by the outbreak. What are YOU doing to feed your tomato fix?

My family celebrated Mother’s Day a little early this year and we decided to go to Trafalgar’s Bistro. I actually tried to book this dinner through OpenTable.com but it showed the restaurant as full. For some reason, this has happened to me each time I try to make reservations at Trafalgar’s so I always end up calling in. The only thing that really bugs me about this is that I’m unable to collect points for my reservation.

There was a set menu available that day, which had three courses, including dessert from Sweet Obsessions bakery next door. For each course, you can choose from a small menu of 2-3 options so it does provide a bit of variety. At $39 for the set menu, it is quite a good deal.

I went for the set menu and started with steamed mussels in rosemary, ginger, and white wine. The accompanying crispy crackers provided a nice crunch. The mussels were a bit small but tasted very fresh. The rosemary and ginger went very well together and the ginger really gave the mussels a slightly spicy taste.

For my main course, I had a wild mushroom fettuccine with asparagus and a grilled duck breast. The pasta was a bit oily towards the end but I really liked the abundance of wild mushrooms in this dish. The duck was pan-fried nicely and cooked to a nice medium. This dish was extremely tasty and very filling. The asparagus also provided a nice crunch.

For dessert, I was in a chocolaty mood so I chose the triple chocolate mousse. It had layers of dark, milk, and white chocolate. Sometimes, mousse can be a bit rich but this triple chocolate mousse was light yet flavourful. The three chocolates go very well together and it didn’t take me very long to polish off my plate.

Yet another enjoyable meal at Trafalgar’s. It’s a great place to go with your family and also with friends. They do tend to book up quite quickly though so if you are going with a larger group (more than 4), be sure to make reservations early.

Details:
2603 W.16th Ave., Vancouver
Tel: 604-739-0555

Summary:
Food:
Service:
Price: $$$