Kate of Late

Welcome to Vij-couver

From Bollywood-Bhangra dance nights to the ideal spot for garlic pea shoots, Vancouver chefs Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala serve up an insider’s view of their hometown

By Kate Zimmerman

(June 13, 2009 National Post)

VANCOUVER -- Kino Café seethes with romance, yet no tourist would suspect it. Off the beaten path, on eclectic Cambie Street, its humble exterior is enigmatic. But at night, the room is infused with the electrifying sensuality of Spanish flamenco. And as dancers stomp out their passion through swirling flounces, and fast-fingered guitar players lead them on, you’re apt to find Vikram Vij, his wife Meeru Dhalwala, and their daughters Shanik and Nanaki sitting in the audience, entranced.

“If you really want to get a flavour of this neighbourhood, the energy of the Spanish guitar and the dancing and the audience on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, (Kino is) one of our favourite things to do,” Dhalwala advises visitors to the city. “It’s jam-packed. You’ve gotta get there early.”
 




The Vij-Dhalwalas themselves all like to dance; Shanik, 10, and Nanaki, 12, take tap and jazz classes. Their parents hit the floor at Gastown’s Modern Dance Club (604-647-0121, www.modern.ca) and Red Room (398 Richards, 604-687-5007, www.redroomonrichards.com), with Vij especially keen on Bollywood-Bhangra-electronic music nights. The performances at Kino (3456 Cambie, www.kinocafe.ca) are for watching, though; the family enjoys it so much they spend New Year’s Eves there.

This is one of their few excursions together that doesn’t revolve around food -- which makes sense, considering that Vij and Dhalwala are the chef-owners of the chic side-by-side Indian restaurants Vij and Rangoli. They also live in the tasty Main and Cambie Corridor, which features two eatery-stuffed parallel streets -- Cambie and Main -- seven blocks apart, and stretches from Broadway to King Edward. On any given weekend they, and you, may dine on garlic pea shoots, hot and sour soup, and noodles made in-house at Legendary Noodle House (4191 Main, www.legendarynoodle.ca) or lunch on panini or black bean soup with cilantro and lemon at Liberty Bakery (3699 Main). Dhalwala believes lazy afternoons call for beer and Greek mezes at The Main (4210 Main). When brunch is the meal of the day, Vij and Dhalwala recommend you travel west to Cambie’s Dutch Wooden Shoe Café (3292 Cambie). There, giant pancakes get wrapped around all manner of toppings, from Mexican beans to Indonesian nasi goreng.


Both Cambie and Main are fabulous sources of indie boutiques. Dhalwala advocates combing the racks at Hum (3623 Main, www.humclothing.com) and Eugene Choo (3683 Main, www.eugene choo.com); trying on shoes at Umeboshi (3638 Main, www.umeboshishoes.com), which features lines like Tashkent; and sussing out “amazing” consignment items at Front and Company (3772 Main, www.frontandcompany.ca). Meanwhile, on Cambie, she thinks any self-respecting shopper would be captivated by Cocoon (3345 Cambie, www.shopcocoon.com), a collective of local designers of everything from accessories to paper goods.

Fashion may occasionally rear its lovely head, but it’s food that dominates the lives of Vij and Dhalwala. “It doesn’t matter where Vikram and I travel. We can go to Capetown, and we will figure out the food issue — food and wine,” says Dhalwala. “That’s just what gets us going.”


This is clearly not a KD and Delissio family -- and they’re eager to advise visitors who are similarly inclined. Despite the tourist hordes, Granville Island Market (www.granvilleisland.com) remains one of their top stops. There, Shanik and Nanaki nosh on Oyama Sausage Company’s mild pepperoni while Vij orders up enough protein for a week, a carnivorous hurricane of sausages, kielbassa, salami, prosciutto, and patés (www.oyamasausage.ca). While on the island, Dhalwala and the girls sometimes nip into Railspur Alley, where, among the studios full of art, jewelry and hand-painted silk, they gravitate to the house-made leather bags and purses that are the specialty of Hartman Leather (1345 Railspur Alley). 

The market’s mix of art, crafts, handmade items and local ingredients gets everybody in a good mood, especially when they’re building up to a picnic.

“We’re picnic people,” Dhalwala says.

Once the vittles are assembled, they’ll make their way to one of several scenic spots -- tranquil Third Beach, in downtown’s Stanley Park at Ferguson Point; landscaped, 53-acre Queen Elizabeth Park (Cambie at 29^th to 33^rd), with its thousands of trees, peaceful ponds and gardens and the highest peak in the city at 150 m. above sea level; or West Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park (Beacon Lane, about 30 km from downtown Vancouver), where a short hike takes them to a rocky promontory overlooking crashing waves, with arbutus trees stretching in the sun for company.

“We always try to combine exercise and fun,” says Dhalwala. The most dramatic example of this is when the family tackles Grouse Mountain’s Grouse Grind (www.grousemountain.com), North Vancouver’s notoriously grueling 2.9 km hike, developed by mountaineers. “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster,” as it’s been called, offers a 56 percent (30 degree) slope.

More than 100,000 people attempt the Grind every year, averaging 90 minutes to two hours to complete it. The Vij-Dhalwalas recommend rewarding the workout as they do, with treats from fourth generation German pastry chef Thomas Haas’s tiny, perfect North Vancouver shop (998 Harbourside, www.thomashaas.com).

But back to the picnic food, the gathering of which can provide an entire weekend’s entertainment. Vij and Dhalwala often spend a few hours at one of the local farmers’ markets, which run through mid- to late October. Dhalwala especially likes to poke through the jarred pickles and other homemade condiments, but in the summertime shoppers can find all manner of provenance there, from the exotic -- pale yellow lemon cucumbers -- to the splendiferous -- roasted Agassiz hazelnuts and intensely fragrant Fraser Valley berries. If it’s a Saturday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., they’ll hit the Trout Lake Market (15^th Ave. at Victoria Drive, www.eatlocal.org) in East Vancouver; Sunday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., the Kitsilano Market (10^th Ave. and Larch, www.eatlocal.org) is a beacon. Elsewhere in the city, their picnic food suppliers include Terra Breads (2380 W. 4^th Ave.; 53 West 5^{th Ave.}; Granville Island Market; www.terrabreads.com), whose rustic loaves, including one flatbread dotted with pine nuts and baked grapes, are the gateway to naughty macaroons and bodacious brownies.

“I love the smell of that bakery,” Vij says wistfully, recalling the days when he worked at Bishop’s restaurant on W. 4^th and ate lunch at Terra regularly.


To accompany those loaves, Vij and Dhalwala might make a stop at the international cheese emporium Les Amis du Fromage (1752 W. 2^nd Ave.; 843 E. Hastings; #518 Park Royal South Mall, West Vancouver; www.buycheese.com), or Cambie’s Mount Pleasant Cheese (3432 Cambie, www.mountpleasantcheese.com), which offers hundreds of Canadian artisanal options. Dhalwala champions B.C. products like Salt Spring Island Cheese Company’s surface-ripened Camembert-style goat cheese, called Juliette. It’s available not just at Vancouver cheese shops but in the cheese sections of big supermarkets.

The Vij-Dhalwalas are devoted to regional ingredients, on and off the job -- especially those grown, raised and gathered sustainably. That’s why several times a year they visit 40-hectare, student-driven UBC Farm (6182 South Campus Rd., open Tuesdays-Saturdays in the summer, www.landfood.ubc.ca/ubcfarm). Not only is the site a peach, ripe for picnicking, the farm’s mandate is to explore the latest developments in sustainable agriculture, a subject dear to Dhalwala’s heart. Free-range chickens are one draw there, as is the farm’s market garden (Saturdays 9 a.m-1 p.m., June to October), where artichokes may lurk amongst the other vegetables and herbs. Its terraced medicinal garden is also worth a visit, as is its Cob Arch and Shed, a sand, clay and straw structure based on those commonly built in 15^th-century England.

While the family is on the UBC campus, they sometimes drop by UBC’s spectacular Museum of Anthropology (6393 N.W. Marine Dr., www.moa.ubc.ca), one of B.C. architect Arthur Erickson’s gems. Dhalwala says she grew up near Washington, D.C. knowing nothing about North American Aboriginal people; she had her eyes opened at MOA. The museum specializes in the culture of indigenous peoples, especially those of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Among the better-known Canadians exhibited in the permanent collection is Haida artist Bill Reid, whose laminated yellow cedar sculpture, The Raven and the First Men, dominates the Rotunda. Dhalwala always checks in at MOA’s great shop, full of original art, baskets, masks and jewelry, as well as the museum’s own line of giftware, designed by Northwest Coast artists.

Once a year, the family heads north on the Sea to Sky Highway to Pemberton, 155 km (a 2-1/2 hour drive) from Vancouver, spending a night or two at Pemberton Valley Lodge (1490 Portage Valley Rd., www.pembertonvalleylodge.com). Weather permitting, they’ll take a detour to one of the many local swimming holes, but they’ll definitely spend a couple of hours per day at the 55-acre North Arm Farm (1888 Sea to Sky Highway 99, www.northarmfarm.com), admiring the scenery, prowling through its cooler for produce, or picking fruit like the strawberries and currants growing now, raspberries and gooseberries in July. Honey, preserves, pies and baked goods like butter tarts and cinnamon buns are always worth a look in the farm’s bakery.

Back home in Vancouver, Vij and Dhalwala’s evenings out without the kids also centre on food. For one thing, says Vij, “This city definitely offers one of the best dining values that you can ever get.” 


Dhalwala thinks it’s a waste to spend hours glued to one seat, however, with the proliferation of great restaurants in Vancouver. Adding to the mass of talented local chefs in informal venues, international superstar Jean-Georges Vongerichten opened a much-ballyhooed restaurant in the Shangri-La Hotel here recently, and Daniel Boulud has made his mark on tony Lumiere.

So she suggests that out-of-towners in particular “restaurant-hop.” Dive into a glass of wine and maybe a few raw oysters on the patio at, for example, English Bay’s Raincity Grill (1193 Denman, www.raincitygrill.com), chase those with cheese and charcuterie at Gastown’s buzzed-about Salt Tasting Room (Blood Alley, www.salttastingroom.com) or unpretentious Chill Winston (3 Alexander, chillwinston.com), and then hoist a pair of chopsticks at Cambie’s ultra-casual sushi joint, Shiro (3096 Cambie) or a glass of grappa and a vanilla, citrus, and hazelnut Panna Cotta at the Italian Campagnolo (1020 Main, www.campagnolorestaurant.com), in Chinatown. 

“Vancouver is still so small, and the cab fares aren’t that much,” Dhalwala says. “If you’re only here for two nights, hop.”


Getting to the meat of the matter

IF, for the hell of it, you really want to make a red-blooded guy squirm, take him to a vegetarian restaurant. For him, even reading the menu is torture.

My dad was one of those resolute carnivores. I once took my parents to the café at the Vancouver Art Gallery -- my mum and I thought it was lovely. Dad took a solitary look at the colourful array of fresh salads, quiches and smoked salmon delights and muttered bitterly, “I hate these places, with their pussy willow sandwiches.”

I expected the same sort of reaction recently, when Stanley and his fellow hardcore flesh-ingester Roscoe tagged along on a lunch date I’d made with our herbivorous friend Jeannette at a vegetarian restaurant.

You could practically watch the men’s nervous ticks develop as, with ashen faces, they read the menu and found options like “Beatnuts,” described as “raw beet, garlic, lemon, nut, seed & goat cheese paté topped with dill and served with cucumbers.” “Wow,” you could see them thinking.  “‘Served with cucumbers’ -- party on.”

Finally, they made their sensible, roughage-rich choices. “I’ll have the Intifada,” Roscoe quipped -- then settled for lentil soup. Stanley got some sprout-laden potion thick with lotus root. They ate it all and hardly even cried. What brave soldiers!

But braver still, you must admit, and even more surprising for it, are our two female Governors General, lately trading growls over hunks of bloody meat. Who knew Adrienne and Michaelle had it in them? They both seemed like devout lettuce-munchers to me.

Every Canadian should be familiar with this story. Reportedly, our current G.-G., in front of a crowd in Rankin Inlet, helped skin a seal and then snacked on its raw heart. Michaelle Jean’s move was hailed as a gesture of support for the north’s beleaguered seal hunters, whose livelihood has been threatened by the European Parliament’s ban on the trade of seal products within the E.U.

Past G.-G. Adrienne Clarkson didn’t appreciate the fuss made over G.-G. Michaelle. “I’ve eaten raw food here since 1971,” she snapped to reporters covering an Arctic gathering her husband, John Raulston Saul, was hosting. “It’s nothing new to me, okay?”

“I have a lovely seal skin coat ….” she added, defiantly one-upping her successor.

If the two G-Gs were hip-hop stars, we might have expected their boasts to escalate entertainingly, becoming ever more raunchy and ludicrous. But no such luck. These ladies are much more subtle.

That, perhaps, is why G.-G. Adrienne chose an underhanded slight last month to launch an attack on the popular G.-G. Michaelle. The latter had revealed some  public confusion about whether B.C.’s Coastal Mountains were actually the Rockies. This apparently prompted G.-G. Adrienne to assert that candidates for their mutual post should be required to pass a Canadian knowledge quiz. After all, heaven forbid that any question to a Governor General be answered with a courteous, “I’m afraid I don’t know. Can I direct you to the Canadian Encyclopedia?”

A former TV show host, G.-G. Adrienne suggested that televised hearings be held to uncover whether a contestant -- I mean, prospective Governor General -- knew where to find the Mackenzie River. (Of course, many Canadians didn’t know the Mackenzie River was lost.) I suppose the title of this particular show would be So You Think You Can be Governor General of Canada?

According to G.-G. Adrienne, other relevant topics on  which a vice-regal should be well-versed are the conscription crisis of 1917 and the 120-year-old Manitoba Schools Question.

Potential Governors General should also be grilled on their knowledge of Canadian artists, according to G.-G. Adrienne. I guess the Queen’s representative should always, at the drop of a hat, be able to trot out a nuanced appreciation of Avril Lavigne’s oeuvre and how it compares to that of Trooper. Or maybe Her Excellency meant that it is perpetually de rigueur to casually rhyme off the names of the Group of Seven over afternoon tea. In that situation, she appeared to imply, poor G.-G. Michaelle might very well start with “the Seven Dwarves” and end with “7-11.”

Here’s the thing: G.-G. Adrienne knows it all, due to her career as a journalist -- the ideal breeding ground for know-it-alls. That job took her across Canada. Later, her G.-G. post flew her not only all over the country, but to cultural hotspots around the world, sometimes in the company of hunky poets and sinewy choreographers.

Meanwhile, accused ignoramus G.-G. Michaelle, also a journalist, was born in Haiti and later adopted a child there, but mainly worked in Quebec. There she presumably drank a lot of beer, ate plenty of feves au lard and never gave a second’s thought to the conscription crisis.

She has even admitted as much, stating when she started the job that she had plenty to learn about Canada, and adding recently in a Globe and Mail interview, “I think it would be very pretentious on my part to believe I could have arrived in this role declaring that I knew Canada in its entirety and by heart. Canada is a country worth discovering.”

Naturally a person that humble would dive into a hunk of raw blubber, especially if she were getting it for free. We must never forget, though, that whatever G.-G. Michaelle may have done, or may still do, G.-G. Adrienne did it first.