Tannis Ling and chef Joel Watanabe with some Congee at Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie. Photo taken on January 8, 2014., in Vancouver, B.C. (Steve Bosch / PNG staff photo)
Mia Stainsby
Vancouver Sun
In an industry famous for crash and burns, it’s enlightening to snoop into the minds of successful restaurateurs and chefs in Vancouver. What do they see for 2014 and what are their resolutions and goals?
You can be sure they’re not resting on laurels. They’re noting trends, fickle customer behaviours and charting plans to keep moving along, improving and standing out.
It’s an industry where attention deficit disorder could work to their advantage. It’s not that Vikram Vij has been diagnosed but he can’t relax. When he does, he loses momentum, he says. Thus, not only is he one of the judges in Food Network Canada’s Chopped Canada (which premiered this month), he juggles several outstanding businesses. That includes two of the best Indian restaurants in the city (Vij’s and Rangoli), a production facility producing Vij’s Indian foods for retail, a new restaurant in South Surrey, My Shanti, set to open at the end of February, a larger, new Vij’s restaurant on Cambie St., building “dream he’s had since Day One” at the current Vij’s location and his partnership in the food truck, Vij’s Railway Express. Are we keeping up? He does not take credit, however, for Shanik, a Vij’s-like restaurant in Seattle. “That’s Meeru’s baby,” he says, referring to wife Meeru Dhalwala, who helms the food in all the restaurants.
Vikram Vij
From his vantage point, he sees chefs zeroing in on regions within a cuisine, whether it be Indian or Italian or Chinese or Malaysian. Affluence and travel have exposed urbanites to all corners of the world and they’re hungry to experience more of the world. “It’s like doing West Coast cuisine instead of Canadian. I also think chefs want to pay homage to where they or their grandparents may have come from,” says Vij.
Abhishek Roy, chef/owner of Atithi Indian restaurant (a charmer), Vij says, is planning to tweak his menu towards Bengali cuisine. “He knows the spices and can take it to a new level,” says Vij, of Roy’s evolving menu.
2014 is a watershed year for Vij personally. “I don’t want to come across as arrogant but when I opened Vij’s 20 years ago, I said to myself that by the time I’m 50, I would have five projects under my belt, one for each decade of my life.” He turns 50 in December. By then, he will have achieved that and he’s not counting the food truck because he’s in a partnership.
“From ages 50 to 60, I’m going to fine tune my projects so they’re perfect and then I’ll enjoy the fruits of whatever I’ve done. But this is my biggest year.”
A more modest goal is to add delicious non-alcoholic cocktails to Vij’s drinks list. “People are becoming more conscious of drinking habits. I want the non-alcohol cocktails to show ingenuity, maybe fruit jams topped with bubbly water. It’s got to be delicious.”
Fable Kitchen owner/chef Trevor Bird went into 2014 with a breakfast trend he expects to explode. In the U.S. and some Latin American countries, it’s the acai berry bowl, which is like an acai (a-sai-yee) sorbet topped with granola, fruit and honey. On vacation in Hawaii over Christmas, he had an acai berry bowl seven days in a row for breakfast. “We had to wait a half-hour in a lineup for it,” he says. “It’s crazy how many people are eating it.”
It’s like an ultra thick smoothie with frozen berries, frozen bananas topped with more berries, honey, granola and it’s eaten with a spoon. He’s put it on his brunch menu, subbing blueberries for acai since frozen acai berries and calling it the Fable Bowl.
He’s also jumped aboard a trend that’s set for takeoff — the rooftop restaurant garden. He’s grown some vegetables on his rooftop, mostly to show his cooks the taste of really fresh produce but he’s moved on this year to start making his own honey on the same rooftop.
He sees the “rampaging demand” gluten free, vegan dishes growing along with people’s food sensitivities. “There’ll be more customization of menus and maybe build-your-own menus,” he says.
He predicts price increases on menus. “We have the best and cheapest food (compared to world cities),” says Bird. “Vancouver diners are always demanding cheap, good food but in the U.S., tasting menus start at around $100. However, he won’t be raising prices at his restaurant.
Family-style dining, where groups share a big order or platter, will be popular, he says. “We do family style orders like pork done five ways, whole ducks, fish done two ways and sharing apply platters. When there’s a gothic meat dish on the table, it’s good for conversation. It’s like holy sh–, this is awesome.”
He’s also planning on going steady with a farmer or two. “I’d like to streamline relationships and get farmers growing for me and maybe partnering with a farmer,” he says.
Since we are post-recession, he’d like to see more creative upscale restaurants return. “We had West and Lumiere and then the recession happened and we went to comfort and cheaper prices. “
That said, comfort food is here to stay but he’d like to see it re-imagined and taken further. And vegetables, he says, are entering their glory days. “We no longer have to be protein-centric like when I went to cooking school. The onset of new vegetarian restaurants will push chefs more,” he says.
David Gunawan, chef and owner of Farmer’s Apprentice, says it’s not just about ambience and food anymore, that top-tier international restaurants like Noma, Faviken, Coi, Relae, Atala, In De Wulf and Manresa want “poetic stories and narratives guiding their restaurants.”
His plan, however, is to be more biodynamic and even more local and connected to farmers than he already is. “We’re searching for more heirloom seeds to grow and I’ll be installing a live tank to ensure freshness of my seafood,” he says.
Acorn vegetarian restaurant chef/owner Brian Skinner leaves stir-fries, vegetarian burgers and lasagnas dying in the dust and has set the highest bar yet for vegetarian cuisine with refined vegetarian dishes (like ricotta gnocchi with coffee scented celeriac purée and hazelnuts).
Brian Skinner of Acorn.
He’d love more competition. “I’d like to see more health-focused high-end dining. There are lots of restaurants on the U.S. West Coast that don’t use butter or cream at all, instead, cook with unprocessed local oils and heart-healthy coconut fat. Well prepared high-end food doesn’t need foie gras, duck fat and cream to be delicious.”
Also on his 2014 wish list is a non-GM food push. “This year started well with Richmond banning the production of genetically modified plants and crops, joining other communities around B.C.,” he says.
As a chef, he wants to intensify the farm-to-table way of cooking. “I’d love to create more ingredient-driven dishes. My focus has been to source great produce locally but with specific dishes in mind. I’d love to ask farmers what they are most excited about, take the most interesting produce and build a dish around that,” he says. “It would encourage me to considered ingredients I may not have, otherwise. I’d let the ingredient inspire me.”
Tanis Ling, of Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie and a mover and shaker behind the resuscitated Vancouver Chinatown Night Market, echoes Vij’s prediction that cuisines will go more regional. She sees it in Chinese cuisine with restaurants branching into Hunanese, Shanghainese. However, she also sees Asian restaurants going fustian. “Korean, Filipino, Chinese, Vietnamese — there’s easy access to ingredients now,” she says.
It’s more wishful thinking than prediction, but Ling hopes the farm to table menus will become so normal, it’s no longer a marketing feature as it seems on some menus. “It shouldn’t be a trend. When we opened four years ago, it was difficult but now there’s an abundance of local resources.”
Her goal for Bao Bei this year is to take the intimidation out of some traditional Chinese dishes for her non-Chinese customers. “I’ve been obsessing about it for year,” she says. She’s talking salted duck eggs, thousand-year-old eggs, fermented tofu, pork or duck blood cake and pork floss. (The latter is a dried pork with the texture of cotton candy, also known as pork sung or rousing). “I’m dying to experiment with making these things ourselves or at least find a local producer. There is one guy in the city making his own thousand year old eggs; I’ve tasted them and they’re rich and creamy, not like the store bought kind at all. I’m waiting for him to perfect his recipe,” Ling says.
She’d also like to nail the restaurant’s congee dish. “We’re limited because of the limitations of the small kitchen but we want to perfect it,” she says. And, she hopes to start a blog, “highlighting what we’re interested in and writing about anything food related and fun.”
Bao Bei congee
2014 promises to be a year where the small, local farmers gets lots of love and begin to call the shots as to what goes on the menu. Adding to the dizzying love of local, let’s hope to see more rooftop gardens. In New York City, at least six restaurants harvest crops as well as eggs from chicken coops and honey from beehives from their rooves. Roberta’s, a crazy-popular N.Y. pizzeria runs a selfie garden blog, showing what’s growing and what’s fresh.
The restaurant industry is a big-hearted one, joining in on numerous fundraisers and giving back to the community. I’m really impressed with a trend of do-good restaurants gaining momentum, especially as the condos and bourgeoisie push into the Downtown Eastside. I’m talking about the likes of the non-profit East of Main, which funds a theatre program for neighbourhood kids, Lost + Found, which is a base for fundraising for needy children in India, Save on Meats with community projects and East Van Roasters, a non-profit café with coffee and chocolate that trains and employs women in the Downtown Eastside.
Smart operators like Bao Bei’s Ling know when to leave well enough alone. She’s not implementing drastic changes to a her popular little restaurant except to tweak the congee into amazing-ness and give sex appeal to some traditional Chinese dishes. She’s taking the words of a customer to heart: “Bao Bei is like a little jukebox.” You can’t beat that.
FABLE’S BERRY BOWL: RECIPE
Trevor Bird, chef/owner of Fable, duly noted the acai berry bowl craze on his travels in the U.S. and got hooked himself. Now he serves a similar healthy dish on his brunch menu. A tough Vita Mix blender does the best and smoothest job but a regular blender will do the job. Instead of frozen acai berries, he uses local frozen blueberries, which, like acai, are incredibly nutritious.
1 cup (250 mL) frozen blueberries
1 frozen banana
1/4 cup (60 mL)almond milk
4 mint leaves mint
1 cup (250 mL) granola
Slice bananas, berries for topping
4 Tbsp (60 mL) liquid honey
Blend blueberries, banana, almond milk and mint until it has a sorbet-like texture. Divide into two bowls. Sprinkle granola, fresh fruits or berries on top and drizzle with 2 tablespoons (30 mL) honey in each bowl.
Makes 2 servings
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