To celebrate the launch of The New Granville Island Market Cookbook, join authors Judie Glick and Carol Jensson for an “Eat and Greet” at The Blue Parrot in the Market on Granville Island. This free and casual event takes place on Thursday May 10th from 7pm to 9pm.  Food and refreshments will be provided and books will be for sale for $25.

Edible Canada at the Market on Granville Island is a full service 150-seat bistro, focusing on new Canadian cuisine. Unpretentious, welcoming and accessible, Edible Canada features menu items sourced from across Canada. I have recently heard a lot of buzz about the local and sustainable menu at the Edible Canada Bistro and decided to check it out for brunch.

Menus are ever-changing following the seasons and what Edible Canada chefs find in the Granville Island Public Market on a day-to-day basis.  When I went last weekend, I had the Yarrow Meadows Duck Confit Hash ($15).  The shredded duck was mixed into small, diced hashbrowns, which is unusual from the big chunks of potatoes I’m used to.  Because of the small cubes of potatoes, I found that they were extremely flavourful as the sauce marinated the hashbrowns. I may have tasted a bit of sweetness in there, so there was a playful salty and sweet contrast on the pallet.  If you’re going to order this dish, make sure you LOVE mushrooms because there sure were a lot of different varieties in hash.

My friend had the Wild Mushroom Benny ($11) which he thought was a well-balanced meal – creamy hollandaise on bright white poached eggs.

I initially thought the portions were a bit small, but we were both quite satisfied after our meals.  If you’re on a budget, there are definitely breakfast and brunch menu items in the $10 range – such as the brioche Grilled Cheese with brie, cheddar, olive jam and okangan apple ($10) and the Edible Canada Breakfast with free range eggs, pork & apple sausage and crispy duck fat fried hashbrowns ($12). It’s only if you get into the seafood items for brunch where it gets slightly more pricy – for example the East Coast Lobster Mac & Cheese ($19)

For those of you looking for an additional kick to your morning meal, try the  Maple Caesar, a truly Canadian experience – the maple leaf prevails on the Canadian flag, while the Caesar drink recipe originated from Calgary.

For those of you in a rush there is a  take out window for tasty bites and Salt Spring Coffee to go.  In addition to weekend brunch, Edible Canada is open daily for lunch and dinner.

EAT! Vancouver is Canada’s largest consumer food, beverage and cooking festival taking place at BC Place Stadium, Vancouver, BC on June 1 – 3, 2012. The food show features hundreds of food, beverage and kitchen goods exhibitors along with wineries, breweries, restaurants, cooking demonstrations, wine and cheese seminars, cookbook authors, and chef competitions.  For its tenth anniversary, EAT! Vancouver will be returning to its former home at the newly renovated BC Place Stadium on June 1-3, 2012.

While at EAT! Vancouver, you will enjoy shopping in the marketplace of over 250 exhibit booths. Producers, manufacturers, retailers and food artisans will showcase a wide assortment of unique products for eating, drinking, cooking, entertaining, and outfitting a kitchen. Exhibits will include everything from gourmet foods to kitchen accessories.

Come for lunch and stay for dinner at EAT! Vancouver’s Bite of Vancouver restaurant pavilion. The chefs of favourite Lower Mainland restaurants will serve up appetizer portions of their signature recipes. For a nominal charge of $1 to $4 per item you will be able to savour the flavours of numerous eateries.

Also, new for this year is the Pop-Up Culinary Centre, where guests can sign up for one-hour cooking classes taught by instructors from the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts.

For you Food Network buffs out there, appearances on the Food Network Celebrity Stage include:

• Chef Rob Feenie - Vancouver’s own Iron Chef America winner and Cactus Club Restaurants Food Concept Architect
• Chef Bob Blumer - Host of World’s Weirdest Restaurants and Glutton for Punishment
• David Rocco – Host of David Rocco’s Dolce Vita
• Annabelle Waugh – Food director for Canadian Living Magazine and winner of Season One of Food Network Canada’s Top Chef Canada
• Chef Dale MacKay – from Ensemble Restaurant & Bar and eTap

Admission prices are as follows: $9 for Students (13 to 16) and $14 for adults (after the $2 discount for purchasing your ticket online here). Hope to see you there!

MMV Giveaway: Modern Mix Vancouver is giving away a pair of tickets to EAT! Vancouver.  To enter, leave a comment below telling us your favourite thing to EAT!  A random winner will be chosen from the comments below. Be sure to leave your email address so we can contact you if you’re a winner. Contest ends Sunday, May 20th (11:59pm PST).  

For additional entries, you can do the following things;

• For a second entry: Follow @ModernMixVan on Twitter and tweet “I want to win a pair of tickets to @Eat_Vancouver from @ModernMixVan. http://bit.ly/Ic7VUu. RT to enter!”
• For a third entry: Like” the Modern Mix Vancouver Page on Facebook and write on the wall: “I want to win a pair of tickets to EAT! Vancouver from Modern Mix Vancouver: http://bit.ly/Ic7VUu”

At Ayoub’s Dried Fruits and Nuts, you can literally go nuts, over nuts!  When I first stumbled across this brightly lit shop on Denman Street, I felt like I was in a glorified version of the bulk food section of IGA.  At least 50 round bins textured with middle Eastern detailing, like oversized chalices or trophies, held a variety of roasted nuts and dried fruit mixtures. Along the side of the shop, a vast selection Persian sweets and spices are lined up neatly on shelves.

At Ayoub’s, you can go nuts over dry-roasted hazelnuts, roasted peanuts with a hint of salt and spice and crunchy pistachios.   Not only are nuts delicious, they also have health benefits.  The “good fat” in nuts helps regulate brain function, build muscle and keep you feeling great.  If you’re an athlete, a nutty snack can give you a competitive edge because nuts are an excellent source of energy and perfect before and after a workout.

So who is Ayoub anyway?  Ayoub Hosseini is a professional chef with literally 20-plus years of experience and expertise in the fruit and nut business. For Ayoub, it’s more than just a job. It’s a way of life – a passion that’s been driving him to perfect all of his recipes and methods since he first learned his craft back in the early 1980’s.

The notion behind his dried fruits and nuts shop is based on a simple concept: to select only the highest quality raw ingredients from trusted suppliers around the world, and combine those quality ingredients with a variety of sophisticated flavours and textures, resulting in a snack food sensation that’s healthy, satisfying and “nut”ritious.  According to Ayoub, the key to great tasting roasted nuts is to eat them right after they come out of the roaster.  Ayoub hand-roasts all of his products on site at the store.

In addition to nuts, you can also purchase a variety of unique, delicious and healthy dried seeds including, Chubby Pumpkins and Wonderful Watermelons. Chewy and delicious, these seeds are a mainstay of a healthy diet and are very high in fibre.

Meanwhile, for Ayoub’s dried fruit, they remain “wonderfully moist and chewy” because “dried fruit should not be dried-out fruit”.  Ayoub features a wide variety of family-recipe dried fruits and nuts.  A must try is Ayoub’s Dried Fruit Mix which features kiwis, plums, mangos, figs, dates, lemons, oranges, apples, bananas and persimmon fruit.

Lastly, in addition to nuts, seeds and dried-fruit, you can purchase a range of specialty Middle Eastern treats from Ayoub’s. Turkish coffees, candy, tea and chocolate are just a few of the many specialties available.  These are great as a sweet treat for yourself, or as a gift.

As you can see, there is an incredibly wide selection of snacks available at Ayoub’s.  For the bulk items, you pay by the gram, so you can mix and match at an affordable price and find your favourite.

Ayoub’s Dried Fruits and Nuts has two retail locations – in the Downtown Vancouver West End at 986 Denman Street and also in North Vancouver at 1332 Lonsdale Avenue.

]]> http://modernmixvancouver.com/index.php/2012/04/15/go-nuts-with-ayoubs-dried-fruits-nuts-on-denman-street/feed/ 0 http://modernmixvancouver.com/index.php/2012/04/12/cafeteria-2702-main-street/ http://modernmixvancouver.com/index.php/2012/04/12/cafeteria-2702-main-street/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2012 04:42:29 +0000 vanessa http://modernmixvancouver.com/?p=7481

By Joanna Lee, Modern Mix Vancouver writer

Cafeteria (2702 Main Street x East 11th Ave.) is a cozy, neighbourhood restaurant from industry duo Andrey Durbach and Chris Stewart (think La Buca and Pied-a-Terre), offering comfort food in a nostalgic setting.  Located in the hipster community of Main Street, Cafeteria is a 30-seater restaurant which settled into the former space of Ping’s Cafe in June 2010.  The room is fairly narrow and basic - exposed brick and vaulted ceilings with a wine rack-topped bar and glassy zinc table tops –  yet the it is lively and stylish at the same time.  The restaurant has already worked up a good reputation, as evident by the frequent line-ups and waits.

Cafeteria’s menu is not cuisine-specific but is super casual, changing on a daily basis, and includes inventive offerings of beer, wine and cocktails displayed on old fashioned cafeteria-style letter boards. One can view the previous day’s menu on their Facebook page to get a sense of Cafeteria’s menu for the current day.

There is usually some kind of salad and soup on the menu and dishes are generally less than $25.  Some of the featured main courses in the past include Veal Cordon Bleu ($18.50), Bangers & Mash ($17), Duck Breast & Ginger Rice ($19.00), Chicken Schnitzel ($17.50) and Lamb Tagine ($23.50).One can order a la carte or there is also the option of 3 courses for $36.  With delicious food, good value and pleasant service,Cafeteria is an amazing little find that is worth multiple visits.

Cafeteria is open seven days a week from 5:00pm until late and takes reservations with seats reserved for walk-in diners.

Just announced today, The Donnelly Group (The Academic, The Bimini, The Calling, Cinema, The Lamplighter, Metropole, etc.) has committed to purchasing products from restaurateur Mark Brand’s Save on Meats for all Donnelly Pub Group menus, in an effort to support Save on Meat’s program to provide healthy meals for residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Mark Brand reopened the iconic Save On Meats building last year in June 2011 with an ambitious business plan and underlying social mandate. One branch of this mandate is their partnership with the Atira Women’s Resource Society to collaborate on a meal program providing healthy and delicious hot lunches to residents of Single Room Occupancy and Single Room Accommodation in the Downtown Eastside. The focus of this meal program is on providing both nutritious and enjoyable food items in order to give people at risk a healthier and happier mealtime.

With the goal to increase the size of the program and to improve the quality of meals being provided, Mark Brand was in need of more partners to help with funding. The Donnelly Group, a local hospitality company dedicated to supporting local causes, was happy to get involved. In May 2010, Jeff Donnelly, CEO and President of the Donnelly Group, re-launched the Metropole Community Pub, which donates 25% of profits to organizations in the Downtown Eastside and supports numerous charities through the Donnelly Fund. The partnership between Save On Meats and the Donnelly Group was a natural fit and in line with the charitable goals of both organizations.

By sourcing products from Save On Meats for the Donnelly Pub Group menu, the Donnelly Group is helping to subsidize the meal program through the development of exceptional menu items that are locally and ethically sourced. The Donnelly Group is currently sourcing products for all burgers, sliders and sausages on the pub menus from Save on Meats. This helps to subsidize a meal program that now feeds 480 people a day, with 1400 pounds of nutritious food being distributed every week.

Cioppino’s Mediterranean Grill in Yaletown is one of Vancouver’s most critcally-acclaimed restaurants and widely recognized as one of the city’s best Mediterranean restaurants. Since its opening in 1999, Cioppino’s and sister restaurant next door, Enoteca, is a favourite of oenophiles, foodies and celebrities including Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, Al Pacino, and Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo.

Known for its award-winning wine list and creative take on traditional Mediterranean dishes, Chef/Owner Giuseppe “Pino” Posteraro’s upscale restaurant offers deceptively simple pastas, pan-seared fish and hearty grilled meats. Chef Pino emphasizes cucina naturale, or natural cooking, which showcases the organic and natural flavour of ingredients by using simple preparations and light sauces. His cooking is influenced by his world travels and extensive culinary experience in Europe, Asia and North America. Food is prepared precisely and to perfection and service is equally impressive, with highly attentive and professional staff.

Pino’s pasta dishes are well known for their “lightness” as the pasta itself is made in-house from traditional recipes. Both lunch and dinner menus feature a wide variety of large and small meat and seafood dishes which focus on the seasonal availability of fish, game, fruits and vegetables. Cioppino’s wine cellar is one of the largest in the city, which would also explain its appeal to celebrities. It was most recently recognized with the highest award, winning Platinum at the 2012 Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival. Zagat also rated its food 28 points for World’s Top Restaurants for 2012, calling it “extraordinary to perfection.”

Cioppino’s cherry wood and terracotta interior creates a cozy and intimate setting for diners and its private rooms are perfect for special occasions and large parties while Enoteca provides a more casual dining experience with a pale wood interior. Wine rooms of varying sizes such as the Dom Perignon OEnotheque and the Champagne Library are available for private events and functions. Both restaurants feature open kitchens, full-service dining rooms, and large patios are also available.

Part of the Thai House Restaurant Group, Pink Elephant Thai, the baby of the family, will be celebrating its first anniversary this month.  Did you know, that over the course of one year, the busy restaurant used 8,352,000 ml of coconut milk, 20,000 kg of rice, 800 pounds of basil leaves, and 9,880,000 grams of curry paste?!

I went last week for dinner and noticed that they were playing the Canucks game on multiple screens.  I can see why Pink Elephant Thai is a great alternative hotspot to catch the game on the big screen, while enjoying authentic Thai food, cocktails or Singha beer (a popular beer in Thailand).  To cheer on the Canucks, Pink Elephant Thai is offering $5 appetizers and $3 local beers on all Canucks game nights. For those who want to escape the hockey game but still enjoy some Thai favorites, Pink Elephant’s upstairs dining room is tucked away from the sports action.

In the main portion of the restaurant, Pink Elephant Thai features a popular communal table running the length of the restaurant, as well as oversized booths, and a chef’s table to catch all the kitchen action. Overall, the look is ultra sleek with gleaming white, cool grey, polished black, and lots of the restaurant’s bright, signature pink.

Pink Elephant Thai’s menu offers both New World and Traditional set dinner menus for parties of two to six, as well options for shared appetizer platters. In my party of two, we ordered a la carte and shared Thai Spring Rolls ($9) and the Yum Woon San ($10) salad, which is a traditional Thai salad with minced pork and tiger prawns mixed with vermicelli noodles, and flavoured with various Thai spices.  Because the springrolls are deep-fried, crispy and oily, I requested a side of fresh lettuce, which I wrapped my spring rolls in.  I loved the combination of cool, crisp lettuce, contrasting against the hot crunch of the spring rolls – try it out, it’s a totally different spring roll experience.  As for the salad, I was pleasantly surprised that the glass noodle salad was served warm.  For the main course, we shared a Green Curry Chicken ($12) with a side of jasmine rice ($3).

The next time I visit Pink Elephant Thai, I would like to try the Pad Thai (a classic Thai noodle dish), which is on special for $9 on every Monday night.

Pink Elephant Thai is located at 1152 Alberni Street and open seven days a week, from 11:30am through 10:30pm. It’s open late for special parties and on weekends, always serving lunch, dinner, cocktails, plus everything in between.

Every January for 18 years, Liberty Wine Merchants hosts a fundraising event to start the bar high for the new year. Liberty is once again recruiting British Columbia’s finest food and beverage purveyors for Taste BC: a fundraiser for the BC Children’s Hospital’s Oak Tree Clinic.

BC Children’s Hospital’s Oak Tree Clinic provides specialized HIV care for infected women, pregnant women, partners, children and youth, and support services for affected families.  This event has raised a collective total of $186,336.00 since 1995 to benefit the Oak Tree Clinic.

Modern Mix Vancouver was there in 2009 and had enjoyed going from booth to booth, learning about new wines, sampling food pairings and bidding on silent auction items.    This year’s 18th annual celebration of local food and drink takes place January 24, 2012 (4:30-7:30 p.m.) at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Vancouver. Guests will taste, sip and experience BC’s finest wine, beer and spirits accompanied by tasty fare from local restaurants. Along with excellent food and drink, attractions include live music, door prizes, and a silent auction that rivals any other. Silent auction items include luxury items, local experience packages, destination packages and delicious products made by British Columbia’s own.

Tickets are $49.99 and available at Liberty Wine Merchant stores.

MMV Giveaway:  Modern Mix Vancouver is giving away a pair of will-call tickets to Taste BC.  Leave a comment below telling us your favourite wine and a random winner will be chosen from the comments below.  Be sure to leave your email address so we can contact you if you’re a winner.  Contests ends Sunday January 22nd.  

For additional entries, you can do the following things;

• For a second entry: Follow @ModernMixVan on Twitter and tweet “I want to win a pair of tickets to @taste_BC from @ModernMixVan http://bit.ly/ylLWkc RT to enter!”
• For a third entry: “Like” the Modern Mix Vancouver Page on Facebook and post on the wall “I want to win a pair of tickets to Taste BC from Modern Mix Vancouver! http://bit.ly/ylLWkc”