The non-profit enterprise in the Downtown Eastside serves great ‘stick-to-your-ribs type food’

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Chef Johnny Perry at the Potluck Cafe, which serves breakfast and lunch. Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun

Oh boy, if friends saw me now! Standing with a group of people scoring drugs on a street corner in the Downtown Eastside doesn’t offer my best side. But really, I was just standing there, waiting for the light to turn green.

I had intended to go to the Potluck Cafe on Hastings, an oasis of cheer in a jagged environment. It was on a Saturday, and I discovered it was closed, so I went with a colleague during the week.

“I don’t think I’ll come back here for lunch,” she remarked, walking down the gritty street. But after a few bites into her quesadilla and twinkly-fresh salad, she changed her tune. “Hmm, I think I will come back! This is good!” (And it was. I took a bite of both.)

My omelette was so large, it was Dali-esque, drooping over the side of my plate. Its yum factor kept me eating well past my full point. It came with thick slices of multi-grain bread and roasted potatoes. If I’d ordered coffee, it would have been fair trade Saltspring Island brand.

It’s hard to believe Potluck Cafe is a non-profit enterprise, staffed by hard-to-employ citizens of the Downtown Eastside.

It offers catering services, breakfast and lunch as well as 36,000 to 48,000 free meals every year to the needy. As well, it offers job training, and more often than not, jobs. It’s a clean, cheerful spot with sunny yellow walls (sporting Joe Average art and black and white photographs of the neighbourhood).

Customers are a mixed group of suits, local office workers and residents. The chef, Johnny Perry, previously worked at Capers as well as Delta Hotel Whistler. At Potluck, he’s catered functions with up to a thousand guests.

“I actually feel very fortunate to work here,” says Perry. “I make a small

difference. Everybody has a right to eat. That’s what it all boils down to.”

The breakfast menu offers a full slate, including the Big Trucker with the works for $6. Lunch is more about panini, soups, wraps, burgers and an entree special for $6 to $6.50 with dishes like butter chicken, a Reuben sandwich or chicken souvlaki.

“It’s stick-to-your-ribs type food,” says Scott Fitzsimmons, a director of the non-profit organization.

On March 30, Vancouver firefighters take over the cafe. They’re cooking at this year’s annual fundraiser and dishes will be from Pot on The Stove, a cookbook they published to raise funds for B.C. Childrens’ Hospital. The $125-dinner features wines from Wild Horse Canyon and a copy of the cookbook.

POTLUCK CAFE

30 West Hastings St., 604-609-7368, www.potluckcatering.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Try the German draft beer, the schnitzel and spaetzle, and don’t count calories

A.R. Wodell
Sun

Owners Kiran (left) and Sunny (holding house salad) Manihani and chef Michael Rick (holding wiener schnitzel) stand with fellow staff at the Old Bavaria Haus. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun

Despite its location on one of the less fashionable blocks of New Westminster’s Sixth Street, The Old Bavaria Haus is quite obviously a neighbourhood favourite. It’s located in a converted heritage house with a tiny vestibule, two divided dining rooms downstairs and a smaller one upstairs, plus a Biergarten outside for better times of the year.

The folksy decor is just what you’d expect: the chandeliers seem to be recycled wine casks, the walls bear faux carved plaques, and the washrooms through the swinging wooden doors are labelled in Gothic script.

On our recent Saturday visit the place was crammed, with everyone from teens to great grandmothers enjoying a noisy good time. The restaurant’s website promises “first class European cuisine nestled in a century-old home.”

We’d argue that what’s really on tap, besides two good German draft beers, is the relaxed offering of unconditional culinary nostalgia: no high concept, nothing trendy, just solid, homey food, with no one even thinking about calories.

Menu selections include steak, lamb, or chicken, but the focus is on schnitzels. We tend to be rather old school here, preferring just a squirt of lemon juice and perhaps a sage leaf as garnish, but more adventurous appetites can select from at least 13 varieties: toppings ranging from scallops and shrimp to baked Camembert or oysters Rockefeller.

The Old Bavaria offers a few vegetarian options but the menu’s core is traditional favourites. A first course of lentil soup was just what the term “hearty” was coined to describe. The house combination dinner offered three classics: a well-prepared schnitzel, bratwurst, and rouladen (beef rolls stuffed with almost melting onions, a hint of smoky bacon and dill pickle).

A generous plateful was garnished with veggies, a nice dollop of red cabbage, and spaetzle, that characteristic side dish striking a happy medium between noodles and dumplings.

The special, a pork loin cordon bleu, had dried out very slightly but was still delicious (though we’d quibble about a cloying bit of pineapple nestled inside the ham and cheese filling). The accompanying broccoli and cauliflower were crisp and flavourful, nicely complemented by sinfully good pan-fried potatoes and more red cabbage.

There’s a decent wine list, understandably heavy on German whites, but somehow beer seemed the better option — perhaps due to a subliminal message from a coaster bearing the cheery motto “Life is too short to drink cheap beer.”

Enticing plates of Black Forest cake whizzed past us on their way to other tables, but we passed on dessert on this occasion. It was time to let one of a number of patiently waiting parties have our table.

Current owner Sunny Manihani, who worked for several years in Hamburg, took the restaurant over from the now-deceased Helmut Wadler six years ago, and is looking to open another location in Vancouver. The secret of his success?

“You can’t get a proper schnitzel anywhere else around here,” he offers modestly. The restaurant’s take on “basically Bavarian” cuisine has developed slowly over its 33 years in business according to popular demand; Manihani notes that he sticks to the original recipes and, unlike many restaurants with inflated ambitions, “We sell absolutely every item on the menu all the time.”

The Old Bavarian Haus provides exactly what it promises, and does it well. You could call it determinedly old-fashioned, or you could see it as a model of niche marketing.

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THE OLD BAVARIA HAUS

233 Sixth St., New Westminster.

604-524-5824, www.oldbavariahaus.com

Dinner from 4:30 p.m.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Fresh plump mussels, a smoked duck tart, fisherman’s stew and beef bourguignon all went down well

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Valerie and Laurent Devin offer wine and the chef’s lamb shank garam masala with lime and fresh herbs at their new Bistrot Bistro on West Fourth Avenue. Photograph by : Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

Suddenly, Fourth Avenue’s got culinary cred. A triad has moved into its 1900-block. First Gastropod. Then Fuel opened right next door. Now, across the street, triangulating the force field of hot new restaurants, is Bistrot Bistro.

Further upstreet, Bishop’s and Bistro Pastis add even more allure to this restaurant package.

Bistrot Bistro follows Gastropod and Fuel’s clean, modern lines but it’s obvious its budget was tighter. Given the hearty, country-style French food served here, I wondered if it was the right look.

On the lime green wall, four clocks are set to different time zones tracing owners Laurent and Valerie Devin’s trajectory from France to London, Windsor and Vancouver. The walls also hold narrow shelves holding marching armies of votive candles.

It is a relaxed and classic French bistro, the second to open in recent weeks, but Bistrot Bistro doesn’t quite hit a bull’s-eye like Jules, in Gastown. I confess I pounced early — they were in their first week of operation but I hit several rough spots as well as a few delights.

The food follows the style of La Regalade in West Vancouver, serving heapings of food. It arrives in buckets and in Le Creuset style pans and bowls for sharing. Everything’s big, except the table. You don’t get a basket of bread — you must buy an entire baguette. It’s nice and crusty, but takes up precious table real estate. If you want side dishes, like a starch or veggies, you order them separately and they crowd the table as well. When all the food arrived, my dinner plate was cantilevered over the edge. I was wishing for a big, sturdy, communal table.

But I have to say, servers are attentive, confident and welcoming. Laurent heads the kitchen and Valerie is very hands-on in the front of the house. Instead of offering specials, Laurent will be changing the menu regularly, adding and subtracting dishes.

All their wines are available by the glass, half litre, or bottle. They’re able to do that with a very sensitive recorking device called Le Verre de Vin. It recorks the wine at exactly the same pressure as in a full bottle and there’s just enough air so as not to kill the wine, says Laurent. “When they sold the first one in Whistler, they had problems. It was because of the barometric pressure difference from Vancouver.”

Bistrot Bistro’s menu also suggests wine matches (mostly French and B.C.) with the dishes, a nice touch.

As for the dishes I tried, I loved the fresh, plump mussels in a tarragon cream broth; a smoked duck tart with caramelized onion and black olives harmonized in flavour and textures. A fisherman’s stew pot came with a yummy broth and nice fresh fish and the beef bourguignon was better than the one I had at Jules (although the best are at La Regalade and Bacchus Bistro in Langley).

The brussels sprouts have apparently won over some fans — its cabbagey flavour has been masked with wine vinegar, shallots and a lardon.

But a rather limp pomme sarladaise (thinly sliced potatoes sauteed in goose or duck fat) glistened with fat. I preferred the pomme frites they offered one evening. And hanger steak was bathed in too much shallot cognac sauce, spoiling it for me.

Chicken in blue cheese cream sauce looked overwhelmingly beige but the meat was moist and flavourful. A charcuterie plate, featuring a chicken liver terrine, duck and pistachio pate, pork rilette and prosciutto did not sing. I would have been happy with just the duck pate.

For dessert, the apple tart came highly recommended by staff. Why, I don’t know. I preferred the somewhat oversweet but velvety chocolate mousse (which, by the way, is bottomless as long as you finish each portion). The chou pastry for the profiteroles was dry, a real detraction.

Bistrot Bistro, I think, is the straggler of the threesome on the 1900 block but there’s potential for damn good rustic French food with some hard tweaking.

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BISTROT BISTRO

Overall: Rating 3 1/2

Food: Rating 3 1/2

Ambience: Rating 3 1/2

Service: Rating 3 1/2

Price $$

1961 West Fourth Ave., 604-732-0004. (www.bistrot.bistro.com) Open Tuesday to Sunday, 5 p.m. to midnight. Will soon be opening for weekend brunch.

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Mark Laba
Province

1. Steveston Seafood House: Almost as old as the old salts that once walked the Steveston streets, and this hefty jambalaya, chock-full of prawns, chicken, chorizo and scallops, would please their ghosts.

3951 Moncton St., Richmond, 604-271-5252

2. Ouisi Bistro:The flavours of the Big Easy in a bowl at this great New Orleans-style bistro with smoked ham, chorizo, andouille sausage and Gulf of Mexico prawns.

3014 Granville St., Vancouver, 604-732-7550

3. Cactus Club: It’s a chain known for its eye candy and sleek design along with consistent food and, though this jambalaya is a bit of a remix on the traditional version, it’s pretty tasty.

Locations throughout the Lower Mainland. Check local listings.

4. Heritage Grill: Cool place with live jazz in the evenings and a great homemade jambalaya to ease your blues away.

447 Columbia St., New Westminster, 604-759-0819

5. Iguana’s Beach Grill: Another decent jambalaya jamboree with chicken, prawns and chorizo at this scenic seaside eatery.

19485 Marine Dr., White Rock, 604-538-2891

© The Vancouver Province 2007

And you won’t be able to stop eating the Pink Godzilla roll

Mark Laba
Province

Chef Yoshiyuki Aoki and Hideko Aoki with a selection of tasty treats from their West Broadway restaurant. Photograph by : Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

Sushi Aoki

Where: 1888 West Broadway., Vancouver

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-731-5577

Drinks: Beer and wine

Hours: Mon.-Fri., lunch, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner, 5-9 p.m., Sat, 5 p.m.-9 p.m., closed Sun.

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When I was nine years old, my world was shaken one Saturday afternoon as I watched Mothra battle Godzilla, only to be zapped by Godzilla’s atomic ray. A Mothra egg survived, hatching two larvae that shot out a cocoon with the efficiency of spray-on cheese, wrapping Godzilla and sending him to the bottom of the sea. My impressionable mind was dealt a lethal blow. The good citizens of Tokyo, nevertheless, were relieved. I wished for a world where peace might reign and misunderstood monsters might live with humans in harmony.

Well, that world may never be but Godzilla can still find understanding, albeit on a plate. It was the Pink Godzilla Roll that attracted me, along with my old pal Norbert Noodnick, an out-of-work ventriloquist who used to work the circuit with Shmendrick the Magnificent, to this restaurant. His dummy, Mr. Smots, apparently fondled a cruise-ship passenger’s bottom and Norbert was escorted off at the next port. Oddly, Mr. Smots was allowed to finish the trip.

“Leave the dummy at home,” I told him.

“But then who’s going to foot the bill?”

“I will.”

“Oh, you meant the other dummy. OK.”

The restaurant was as pink as the promised Pink Godzilla with perfunctory wooden seating and an automatic electronic door-greeter that welcomes you in Japanese with the soft lilt of a female robot.

We started right in, laying molar to the monster, and what a mutant sushi roll the Pink Godzilla ($7.25) was to behold! It required a toothpick to hold it together. Perched atop a disc of spicy tuna and chicken teriyaki, wrapped by light tempura-crusted seaweed, sat a slice of kiwi capped by a strawberry. The whole shlimazel was finished with doodles of mayo and pools of spicy sauce. The experience was like having your tastebuds bounced around in a pachinko machine. Sweet, spicy, fruity and meaty all at once, the behemoth contained atomic rays of flavour, deadly in the sense that you can’t stop eating this creation.

Next up, because the days have been gray and I needed to put a little spry in my step even if I do have fallen arches, was the Sunshine Roll ($4.50). A smoked-salmon circle corrals scallop, egg, cucumber, seaweed and fish roe for a slightly restrained flavour with just the right smoked-fish kick.

“Wanna see me make the sushi talk?” Norbert offered.

“I think it speaks for itself.”

That was certainly the case with the next offering. The Mediterranean Roll ($5.50) is truly an odd duck with sun-dried tomato, avocado, pine nuts and, strangest of all, sauerkraut. Words escape me describing this one. Just think confused German and Italian tourists lost in Tokyo. Somehow, though, the concoction worked.

We also sampled the spicy scallop gunkan ($2.50 each), which is an elongated nori-wrapped sushi that was excellent. The menu here is huge with every type of sushi and sashimi to donburi bowls to savoury appetizers like grilled mackerel or oyster shooters for the brave of belly. Bento boxes with teriyaki or chicken karaage with sushi and sashimi options are a great deal.

On the way out I spotted Japanese hay-fever masks for sale for a buck. Bought one and slapped it over Norbert’s mouth. When you can’t see if the lips are moving or not is really the only way to silence a ventriloquist.

© The Vancouver Province 2007