AlexHopmann.com

Kat and I took a trip to Vancouver this weekend. We had been planning on flying down
to Napa but the Napa forecast was for thunderstorms which put a damper on the whole thing
(since they are aren’t especially good for flying OR for nice wine-tasting parties).

Last year we had a similar change of plans and just went to Portland for the weekend instead. This
year we headed the other direction and headed up to Vancouver.

One note- I’d love to be pasting some of these reviews on Judy’s Book but
they don’t appear to cover anything in Canada. I’ll have to chat with folks back in the office about that this week,
although I do understand that there is probably a pretty high entry cost into any new geography for them.

Friday night after a long drive we went straight to Vij’s. We were a little stressed that we wouldn’t make it
in time before they closed but everything worked out. We checked in and had a nice glass of wine and some snacks
as usual while waiting. I just don’t understand why more restaurants can’t do half as good of a job of taking care
of their guests that are waiting for a table. The meal was wonderful as usual- we had short ribs with cinnamon, an Indian crepe with navy beans, venison
medallions,
and their signature lamb popsicles with fenugreek cream sauce. I also managed to pick up an extra canister of their
roasted fenugreek leaves which they normally sell in the shop next door. At this time of night the next-door place was
closed but the proprietor got me a can anyway. This has been my secret ingredient recently in a lamb marinade I make for the grill so
I was pretty eager to get some more.

Saturday morning we
went to the Granville island public market for lunch and a little shopping. Maybe some
Vancouver residents think the opposite but this feels much cooler to me than the
Seattle public market. Lot’s of interesting food stalls, not quite as much
straight tourist junk and several shops offering stuff that is really hard to
get in the US including some leaves used for Thai curries, etc. We had a good
donut but the secret was to get an absolutely fresh one- the other ones we tried
were just ok. We also had a bagel from Siegels- these were only ok again but we
found out later that their main branch is in town. We also sampled a soup from
“The Stock Exchange” and some pies from “A La Mode”. The soup was pretty good
but I found the pies disappointing- especially the raspberry/rhubarb which just
didn’t taste right for some reason.

After lunch we headed to the movie theatre to see the Da Vinci Code. I
thought it was pretty good- when I read the book I felt it was written to be a
better movie than novel in the first place and the movie didn’t disappoint
(although neither did it join the pantheon of the greatest movies).

For dinner Saturday we went to Lumiere where we sat at the “tasting bar”
which is actually a set of tables outside the main dining room (although they do
have a few seats at the actual bar that are open for walk-up guests). I thought
Lumiere was great- we started with a hamachi salad which included some crab and
greens. We then had some squash ravioli with truffle butter sauce. I’ve often
found squash ravioli to be a fairly boring dish put on the menu so there is
something for the vegetarians, but these were great- intense and flavorful. The
third starter we had was the duck broth with dumplings. This was a stand-out for
the whole evening- worth the trip just for this one dish. The duck broth was
just so flavorful. For our main courses we had veal cheeks, foie gras two ways
and some potato puree and two-color asparagus. These were all very good,
although it was another example of dishes that were bigger than they needed too
be and that were also outclassed by the appetizers. The appetizers were just
more interesting and memorable. We finished with a tapioca pudding and a
chocolate fondant and a glass of Gehning Brothers 2003 Riesling ice-wine which
was really excellent. Some of the ice-wines are over sweet without the right
balance but this one had a great acid and tropical fruit flavors.

Its also worth noting that the wait-staff was great. Good wait-staff can’t
make up for bad food but at an already good place makes it extra special. They
were attentive, helped us deal with our small table and made some great
recommendations for the next day. This is where we heard about the main branch
for Siegel’s bagels and Caffe Artigiano. The next morning we started off
checking out Artigiano where they made a great “Spanish Latte” which included a
little sweetened condensed milk, some great coffee and clearly skilled
barista’s. After that we headed to the main Siegel’s branch which was I thought
better than the bagels in the market. And finally as we headed out of town we
stopped for our real lunch at Sun Sui Wah which is probably the most well known
dim sum place in the Vancouver area.

We stayed at the hotel Listel. The Listel is somewhat less expensive than my
favorite place The Opus, and its in a pretty good location and I thought the
service was very good. Their “thing” is that they feature lots of art including
art from a local gallery in most of the rooms on the floor we were staying on.
This made it better than your typical generic business hotel, but it still
wasn’t as stylish or cool as I expected. There was one big problem with it
though- the shower was not very nice to start with and the water temperature
sucked. It was just way too cold. To be fair, we didn’t complain about this
until on our way out so we didn’t give them enough chance to fix the problem.

The trip back across the border was a pain as usual. I really need to check
out the Nexus pass thing since that line just
zooms by the rest of us. There was this annoying guy ahead of us in line who
kept shutting his car off every time he stopped and then had to restart it again
to move forward. Cars from the other lane kept scooting in front of him and
every time (dozens!) he started his car we could smell the stick behind him. I
have to assume he thought he was somehow saving fuel or reducing polution
without realizing that starting a conventional engine (as opposed to a hybrid)
causes a ton more pollution than just leaving it running for a couple of
minutes.

One other quick note- many of my friends and I have done lots of food photography over the
years (check out tastingmenu.com for some of the best).
Getting good photos in the low light conditions of a restaurant is always a big problem. But if you
use the flash the result is often washed out and even worse. Lately I just figured out a track of using
the flash but putting a napkin over it- the resulting lower level of diffuse light works just great and
while you need to be a little careful to not annoy other diners too much it isn’t as bad as the full flash.

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