Roland Tanglao's Weblog

In the Lower Mainland we are fortunate to be surrounded by rich agricultural land that produces food for our area as well as across Canada. Circle Farm Tours highlight some of the great food producers in the Fraser River area. The tours are self-guided and focus on a small region such as Abbotsford, Langley, Mission.

This past weekend I checked out the Agassiz-Harrison Mills Circle Farm Tour and made a few stops.

The Back Porch: Pottery meets freshly roasted coffee. The coffee is roasted in small batches in a 1919 Flame Roaster. I picked up some dark roast Columbian coffee. The barn houses some fabulous (and reasonably priced) antiques. Also picked up some tulip bulbs produced by A&B Tulips of the Valley.

The Farm House Natural Cheeses: handmade artisan cheeses made from their own dairy cow and goat milk. The range of different cheese "styles" and types is impressive for a small cheese producer. I picked up a luscious round of Florette goat cheese (bloomy rind that is slightly gooey yet firm in the centre) and a piece of their Alpine Gold, a washed rind cheese similar to Oka.

Limbert Mountain Farm: idyllic farm that specializes in organic herbs and herb products. They offer light lunches, delightful baked goods and afternoon tea. Definitely a spot to revisit in the summer for a guided herb walk and lunch.

On the way to Agassiz, I also popped into the Fort Winery in Fort Langley and picked up a bottle of fruit wine. Their line of unique fruit wines capture the best of locally produced fruit.

Roland and I live in a townhouse community with some great food lovers. A few years ago we started having progressive dinners. Tonight's theme was small plates.

Heather and Andrew's (Spanish tapas):
-sauteed prawns and scallops with roasted pumpkin puree and spicy sauce
-Spanish beet salad
-olive bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dipping

Barb and Roland's (local, seasonal):
-roasted kabocha and pear soup with homemade cracker sticks
-a "deconstructed" streudel filled with wild mushroom and duck confit ragout accompanied with salad of pea shoots and celeriac in truffle honey vinaigrette
-homemade focaccia

Sharon and Alex's (desserts galore):
-tiramisu
-gingerbread biscotti
-brie with pistachio honey drizzle

Of course our meal was accompanied by lots of great wine, sherry and dessert wine.

Ken's Chinese Restaurant (1097 Kingsway, 604 873-6338) is a bright, cozy Hong Kong style eatery which means among many other yummy things Hong Kong-style Milk Tea and Hong Kong versions of "western food" (which I don't care for but the Hong Kongers seem to love; to each his own!) and lots of families of Hong Kong Chinese heritage enjoying cheap, cheerful and tasty meals.

Last Saturday for dinner, took advantage of their $25 special: 1/4 HaineseHainese-like chicken (or roast duck, Jr. likes chicken so we didn't try the duck), slow simmered soup, two dishes (we picked pork with Taro and mushrooms with Chinese mustard greens (the kid is obsessed with mushrooms)) and one of my favourites red bean soup for dessert, enough to feed two adults and a kid for two meals!

The verdict was three thumbs up; the kid loves Chinese restaurants and we loved the fatty pork with the taro. We only erred in ordering two dishes with same kind of sauce. This restaurant is very close to where we live, so we'll be back!

Check out some photos of what we had below:

Mushrooms with Mustard Greens

Pork with Taro

Hainese-like Chicken

Hong Kong-style Milk Tea with Ice aka Dong Lai Cha

I am quite fond of many many things British and look back at my time in London in the 90s happily. So I love chatting with British people like Claire Clark, pastry chef to the Queen and now Head Pastry Chef at The French Laundry (our most popular story) and author of of Indulge 100 Perfect Desserts (a big "Vielen Dank" to Amanda of Whitecap Books for arranging this!).

Check out our videoblog below (original MP4 version for those who are "Flash challenged") as we discuss the secrets of baking, desert island desserts, Barb's amazing Chocolate Ganache cake, banoffee pie and much more. (Recorded at Mink Chocolate Cafe, October 29, 2007)

                                                                                   

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Sorry about our two month summer pause! We highly recommend San Marzano tomatoes from Klippers Organic Acres (250-499-2050)  which you can get at Vancouver farmers markets like the West End one where we picked up ours. It is that time of the year when you can with a minimum of fuss combine their fab tomatoes with fresh home made pasta with mint from your garden and yummy pecorino from Les Amis du Fromage or elsewhere and you have a fantastic seasonal treat.

Near Gassy Jack in Gastown, very close to the Salty Tongue, Blake's and Bryght is recently opened Kashbah Bazaar and Cafe (north west corner of water and Carrall). Yummy Turkish coffee ($2.50) and Morrocan cafe food. Watch for the bistro Le Marrakech bistro from the same team to open soon at 52 Alexander. Check it out and let us know what you think!

The bistro will soon to be on the web at www.lemarrakech.ca

Whitecap Books invited VanEats to the book signing at Marquis Wine Cellars last Saturday for Heidi Noble's Menus from an Orchard Table. I was able to do a brief video blog with Heidi. She's a gracious and warm chef and wine maker. And the recipes from the book are delicious. Quince was on hand and they prepared a selection of food from the book e.g. a Venison Carpaccio with beet parsley and onion salad; a fine texture and flavour mix (page 178 of the book).

I was also able to meet photographer, mixologist and restaurant consultant Chris Mason Stearns who did the colour photographs for the book (he uses a Canon digital SLR too and we chatted about Lightroom) and Heidi's brother, Craig Noble, who did the book's black and white photographs and is shooting a documentary called Tableland on sustainable food production (can't wait to see it!).

Bottom line: The book is lovely. Great philosophy, great recipes and beautiful photographed. Recommended. Even better. Get out to the Okanagan and experience the food in its natural setting!

Watch the Video

This sounds great. Would have loved to have tried out the Longwood Dunkelweizen!. Someday I'll make it The Whip (209 East 6th at Main, 604 874-4687) for this

From The Whip's Events page
QUOTE

Every Sunday we feature the best cask ale's from B.C's finest Breweries for 4.95/pint. Come check out our line-up:

MAY 6th Larry Caza OLD YALE IPA

MAY 13th Harley Smith LONGWOOD Dunkelweissen

MAY 20th Conrad Gmoser STEAMWORKS TBA

MAY 27th V. Lambourne GIBCO IPA

JUN 3rd A. Tessier SWANS BREWPUB TBA

JUN 10th Rob SPINNAKERS BREWPUB TBA

JUN 17th Gary Lohin CENTRAL CITY TBA

JUN 24th D. Franche BIG RIDGE TBA

JULY 1st Specialty Bottled Beer Selection TBA

JULY 8th Ron Bradley TIN WHISTLE TBA

JULY 15th Ben Van Hee R&B TBA

JULY 22nd Iain Hill YALETOWN TBA

JULY 29th Dave Varga TAYLOR'S CROSSING TBA

END QUOTE

We only had time to make a brief trip to Eat Vancouver this year; it was short but sweet. We managed to have a brief chat with John Bishop (he's a friend of dear friends and we've been lucky to hang out with him a couple of times over the years) about his new cook book, Fresh (which we of course snapped up!), Mama Margaret (she designed our fab honyemoon trip to Italy), Jo Wilson (part of the "tribe" of Vancouver Lindy Hop dancers and fantastic person as well as phenomenal dancer) of Granville Magazine, and Anne Garber (a great writer, kindred spirit and beautiful person) of Evalu8 and the Canadian Food Museum.